SHADES OF BLACK: SPHERE, SETH, EXAVERSUM, ZEIT, TRENCHES

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Mar 142021
 

 

I think of this week’s column as falling into two parts that I’ve arranged by design. The first part consists of three segments — advance tracks from three forthcoming album. Although I’d be foolish to claim they are completely similar, I think they do share certain ingredients and feelings that tie them together in ways that make for a very good mini-playlist. In the second part I’ve reviewed two albums (though one of them isn’t out yet) which I also think fit together. They are very different from the tracks in the first part.

SPHERE (France)

The first offering here is an 18-minute song named “Invocation” from the forthcoming second album (entitled π) by the French black metal band Sphere. It features a guest performance by Déhà. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ZEIT – “DRANGSAL”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Aug 262019
 

 

“With frustration in their hearts, green lungs and Sternburg on their lips, ZEIT try to find their way through the great gray – The distress known as city: Inspiration, coercion, freedom and jail. In dark alleys full of delusions, doubtful souls roam, lost in addiction. No hood, no cult – no collective.”

With those words the Leipzig band Zeit introduce their second album, Drangsal (“distress”), which will be released this coming Friday, August 30th. Through a changing amalgam of black metal, sludge, and doom, they’ve created an album that’s relentlessly intense and brutally heavy in more ways than one, delivering music that captures the blighted urban existence described in those introductory words. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BLUT AUS NORD, MARW, ZEIT, THE EMBER THE ASH, TOTENGEFLÜSTER, CONCRETE WINDS

 SHADES OF BLACK  7 Responses »
Aug 112019
 

 

Although you can’t tell from the title of this post, it’s the first part of another two-part installment of this column. I didn’t call this “Part 1” because I dusted off a long-dormant strategy for the second one, which has its own long-dormant Category tag, and I’m using that instead of Part 2. All will become clear when I’m able to finish and post the second segment, hopefully later today but possibly on Monday morning.

Here, I’m beginning with a notable news item and then marching ahead with the music, which includes an EP, a new song and video, and advance tracks from forthcoming releases.

BLUT AUS NORD

Part of the thrill afforded by a new Blut Aus Nord album is the process of discovery, because BAN has rarely followed a straight and steady path from one record to the next, and predicting how their path might twist and turn requires a crystal ball. In the case of their new album, Hallucinogen, Debemur Morti Productions has announced that it “begins a new era,” “ending the cycle of clandestine industrialised dissonance that culminated with previous transmission Deus Salutis Meae and moving skyward into freshly melodic territories of progressive clarity”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SEMPITERNAL DUSK, ZEIT, CULTED, MORTAL INCARNATION, CENTENARY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 182019
 

 

I nearly finished this collection in time to post it yesterday before I had to turn to the job that pays me. The delay turned out to be fortuitous, because in the meantime I found something else I was excited to include. As usual, my aim in this selection is to showcase the variety of extreme metal, and to do some extravagant globe-trotting as well.

SEMPITERNAL DUSK

First up is a track named “Spears of Pestilence” from a new album by Portland’s Sempiternal Dusk, set for release by Dark Descent on September 27th. The album title is Cenotaph of Defectuous Creation, and it features cover art by D. Desecrator. Continue reading »

DOOM AND DEATH: ZEIT, …UNDER A FULL MOON, SHAMBLES, BURIAL STONE, BISMUTH, LEGION OF ANDROMEDA

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Apr 192018
 

 

I’ve been meaning to do this for about a week, and finally found time. I came across all of the following music in the course of surveying new releases for a SEEN AND HEARD round-up here at our putrid site, and thought it would make sense to package them together for extra catastrophe.

The music ranges from catastrophic funeral doom to catastrophic death metal with a heavy doom component, to something doom-centric but less easily describable at the end. I arranged the music in a way that would provide a bit of back-and-forth flow, so your blood doesn’t completely congeal and your heart doesn’t completely slow to a stopping point.

While I was writing this I thought about Andy Synn telling me that he’d come across a metal forum in which NCS was criticized by one or more idiots people for concentrating on “mainstream” metal. Yeah, right. Mainstream this right up your bungholes:

ZEIT

I’ve written frequently about this German band, who’s usual stock-in-trade is an amalgam of sludge and black metal (and some other ingredients). But for their latest EP, null., they decided to give the funeral-doom treatment to two of their previously released songs, and I’ll be damned, it turns out they’re just as strong in this other genre as they are in their main line. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): SUMMONING, WENDING TIDE, ZEIT, OVER THE VOIDS, CALLIGRAM, BLOT & BOD

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Oct 222017
 

 

Welcome to Part 2 of this Sunday’s SHADES OF BLACK column, which I divided into two parts because of its considerable length (Part 1 can be found here). In this second installment you’ll find a mix of advance tracks from forthcoming albums as well as full releases.

SUMMONING

I’ve already written two posts since August about Summoning’s new album and I didn’t even have any music to share, which I suppose is a sign of how hyped I’ve been about the prospect of something new from these Viennese wizards. I guess the third time is the charm, because now there finally is a song I can share. But first, allow me to excerpt a quote from the press announcement by Napalm Records — who will be releasing the album on January 5, 2018: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): KADAVERDISCIPLIN, KAPALA, KATLA, MIDNIGHT, ZEIT

 Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Aug 232017
 

 

Here’s the second part of a column delayed from Sunday. I began it yesterday with a news item and then new music from four bands, and continue it today with new music and a new video from five more. From yesterday through today, these items are organized in alphabetical order by band name.

KADAVERDISCIPLIN

Kadaverdisciplin is a newish band of Swedish black metal slaughterers whose line-up includes a core trio of musicians from Västervik, Sweden (who include members of Zombified and Blodsrit) plus drummer extraordinaire Fredrik Widigs (Marduk, The Ugly). After a couple of digital singles, they have finished a debut album appropriately named Death Supremacy that will be released by Hammerheart Records on October 20. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ZEIT — “KONVERGENZ”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Jun 012017
 

 

I’m approaching the passage of one full year since discovering the band Zeit from Leipzig, Germany, the encounter occasioned by a video filmed in an abandoned coal power station in East Germany. I thought of the video as a modern equivalent of the ruins made famous by Shelley’s famous sonnet about that long-forgotten “King of Kings”, Ozymandias, and I thought of the song as a grim, intensely foreboding, but also pulse-pounding experience.

The song was “Verloren”, drawn from the band’s 2015 EP Gram. It was an impressive outing in more ways than one, a fashioning of black metal with heavy strands of sound interwoven from other genres (principally sludge and doom). Now Zeit are on the brink of releasing their first album, Konvergenz, and we have the pleasure of streaming it for you today. Continue reading »

SLOW OUT OF THE GATE (AND A NEW VIDEO FROM ZEIT)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jun 302016
 

Zeit band
Zeit

 

I just woke up. Over the last couple of days my fucking day job has interfered with my ability to blog as much as usual (and it will do that again today), plus I’ve had some personal stuff to deal with as well. The net result is that we only had two posts yesterday, and I wasn’t able to write anything last night to schedule as our first post for today.

I do have an idea for a post collecting some excellent new abrasive sounds that rose up from the underground and battered my head over the last 24 hours, and we will have a song premiere today as well. But it will take me some time to get those ready.

In the meantime, I wanted to leave something here to entertain you. And I found just what I needed with my first glance of the day at our exploding e-mail in-box. Continue reading »