SEEN AND HEARD: BLUT AUS NORD, PORTA NIGRA, AND ABSU

The internet is like an ever-flowing stream, and by that I mean downstream of something like this →

One of my jobs here at the NCS metallic island is to sift through all the garbage and toxic waste to find the sparkly little nuggets in the stream that are worth sharing with you. Of course, I only look for the nuggets that are pleasing to my eyes and ears because I’m a selfish bastard. You will either be happy with them or you won’t. Here are the nuggets I came across in my sifting this morning:

BLUT AUS NORD

This morning my NCS comrade Andy Synn sent me a message that the new Blut Aus Nord album had fallen into the hands of certain unnamed bastards, not including us, and that it included a sweet piece of cover art. However, even after my pestering, he would give me no links to anything, which reinforced my ongoing desire to slap him. Therefore, I had to dive into the putrid intestinal fluids of the interhole to learn what I could.

As you can see, I found the album cover to Cosmosophy, which is indeed sweet (it’s a collaboration between French artist Dehn Sora and Metastazis). I also found that the album is available for pre-order HERE (CD, LP, plus shirt), and that pre-orders will begin shipping from Europe on Sept 21. I also found that the official updated release date (though this may be only for NorthAm) is Oct 10.

As you may know, Cosmosophy is the concluding part of the 777 trilogy that began in 2011 with Sect(s) and The Desanctification. I found this description of the new album:

“The denouement. The calm after the storm (but, still, disquiet interrupts the serenity); when the floods have washed away the debris. The circle is closed. Haunting, dreamlike, an altered state has been achieved. All-knowing wisdom prevails. At one with all — omniscient. Soaring, alive with insight, bursting with extra-ordinary energy. Almighty. At the centre of an infinite structure in perpetual deconstruction, “777 – Cosmosophy” represents the instinctive manifestation of human and obsolete conception of Time. Where the light feeds the darkness, where every second is the Eternity and sounds the death knell – the monumental work of the eccentric soul gets lost in a deep echo… and this echo is the sublime Sound of the Universe. A beautiful tragedy; a tragic beauty. Devastatingly restrained, the climactic movement in the monumental “777” trilogy represents the culmination of a rapturous evolutionary process. Arguably BLUT AUS NORD’s most-daring venture yet, the third and final chapter represents both the beginning and the end. Et le Chaos se tut…”

I don’t know precisely what this means. But I have ears with which to hear, and I also found this teaser for the album, which somehow escaped my sifting (or was concealed in the industrial effluent of the interhole) when it appeared last month. The music does indeed sound more restrained as compared to the first two albums in the trilogy — more atmospheric, more beautiful. I definitely want to hear all of it, and soon:

Cosmosophy will be released by Debemur Morti Productions. Much of what I learned about the album I found on their web site. And while there, I discovered the next item in this post.

PORTA NIGRA

I saw that on Sept 8, Debemur Morti announced the signing of a band from Germany named Porta Nigra, which also appears to be the name of an ancient Roman city gate in the German town of Trier. The label will soon be releasing a full-length album from the band named Fin de Siècle, but the first official release, which will appear on Sept 21 and is available for pre-order now, is a 7″ EP called Megalomaniac. It consists of the title track, which will be included on the album, and a second EP-only song, “Nero”.

I’ve heard the song “Megalomaniac” as captured in a new official video, and it has hooked me. The genre could be classified as “post-black metal” or “dark metal”. It blends together clean vocals, choral voices, and high-pitched shrieking; tremolo-picked and acoustic melodies; hard-driving riffs and sweeping atmospherics. No blasting, but a lot of memorable music to like.
 

 

The cover art for the EP, by the way, was created by French artist Valnoir Mortasonge from the afore-mentioned Metastazis.

ABSU

Thanks to DGR, I learned that Capital Chaos has recently uploaded quality video of Absu’s entire set at the 2012 Slaughter By the Water show in Alameda, California, on August 25.

This show, by the way, was performed on board the USS Hornet — a fucking World War II-era aircraft carrier.

This set fuckin’ rips.