SEEN AND HEARD: UNFATHOMABLE RUINATION, RAGNAROK, BEITHIOCH, AND DEATHSTORM

You may have noticed that we’ve had fewer than the usual number of posts on the site over the weekend and again today. This is because your humble editor has (a) been devoting extensive time to other extracurricular activities that involved (i) heavy drinking, and (ii) screaming himself hoarse at an NFL game; and (b) hacking into his mother-in-law’s new computer, while recovering from (a)(i) and (a)(ii), in order to reset a password that she must have mis-typed when doing the initial set-up.

All of this proved to be a significant diversion from the demands of NCS. Things should be at least somewhat back to (ab)normal around here by tomorrow. However, I did want to add one more post today to share a few items I saw and heard over the last 24 hours. Fair warning: the shit I found will peel back the skin from your face like a bloody onion.

UNFATHOMABLE RUINATION

This London-based band is a delicious new find for me. This past spring, they recorded their debut album, Misshapen Congenital Entropy, at 16th Cellar studios in Rome with Stefano Morabito, who has produced albums for bands such as Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hour of Penance, Vomit the Soul, Inherit Disease, and Blasphemer. It will be released on October 1 by Sevared Records, and limited edition pre-orders are now being accepted at this location.

Recently, the band have uploaded two songs for streaming — “Carved Inherent Delusion” and “Edges of Disfigured Atrocity”, which features Konstantin Lühring from Defeated Sanity and Despondency as a guest vocalist. (Giulio Moschini of Hour of Penance also provides guest vokillz on the album.) Both songs are available as “name your price” downloads on Bandcamp. Both songs will also smash your cranium into tiny little fragments and chop up the goo inside like minced garlic.

This is brutal, take-no-prisoners, slamming death metal that manages to layer some mighty grooves (and a few cataclysmic bass drops) into the scorching blasts of snare-heavy percussion and flashing, grinding riffage. The songs include some nasty guitar solos and disgusting guttural vox, too. I fucken love it. Moar please!
 

 

 

The eye-catching cover art is by Phlegeton (Wormed, Human Mincer). Here are band links:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Unfathomable.Ruination.Official
Bandcamp: http://unfathomableruination.bandcamp.com/

RAGNAROK

Ragnarok are a Norwegian black metal band whose origins go back to the mid-90’s. Those of you with sharp memories may remember that we featured their latest official video back in July (here) for the title track to their 2010 album, Collectors of the King. Ragnarok have now finished recording their 7th studio album, Malediction, which Agonia Records has scheduled for release on October 30 in the UK and Europe and on November 6 in North America.

Today, in addition to Agonia making pre-order options available, the band premiered a song from Malediction by the name of “Blood of Saints”. For anyone familiar with the band’s music, it will be familiar: It’s a thrashing, blasting old-school assault, full of venom and viciousness, with variety injected through black ‘n’ roll rhythmic breaks that will get your head banging and a trilling tremolo melody. It’s like snorting sulfur and then taking the edge off with a goblet of blood. Or so I would imagine.
 

 

Here are Ragnarok links:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ragnarokofficial
Website: http://www.ragnarokhorde.com/
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/ragnarokofficial

BEITHIOCH

Beithíoch (Bay-EE-yuckh) is a band from the northwest of Ireland. To date, Beithíoch has produced two albums and an EP, but yet another EP entitled Summoning the Past is being readied for release. It will apparently consist of re-recorded versions of music written in the past, and everything else I know about it consists of one song that has been put up for streaming on Bandcamp.

The song is called “Arm Na Déithe”. It’s a dense, swarming, atmospheric piece, a blanket of melancholy guitar noise and muffled drumming with vocals that are mainly chanted (except for a couple of eruptions that sound like someone with his entrails being pulled out by wolves). The music is hypnotically droning and possesses a kind of stately though disturbing magnificence that I find appealing. Have a listen:

 

Band links:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/beithioch
Bandcamp: http://beithioch.bandcamp.com/

DEATHSTORM

“Best known by his stage name Bong-Ra, Jason Köhnen is a breakcore musician who got his start playing in the stoner/doom band Celestial Season. Although his music is predominantly raggacore, gabba and jungle, he has paid tribute to his metal roots on numerous releases . . . .” And so reads the Metal Archives page on Mr. Köhnen, whose name I didn’t recognize. I saw his name because he provides the music on a joint project between himself and a Japanese vocalist named Maruosa. The name of the project is Deathstorm.

I can’t remember precisely where I saw this band’s name, but I’m pretty sure it was through a Facebook status by Alex (Grind To Death) Layzell. This isn’t new music. Deathstorm released a 7″ EP in 2008 (Bringers of the Apocalypse) and a full-length 12″ album the same year (We Are Deathstorm), and as far as I can tell, that’s it. I’ve started listening to the tracks on the album and don’t know whether to shit or go blind.

I admire it primarily because of how completely fucking unhinged and violent it is. It sounds like a couple of giant chainsaws throat-fucking Optimus Prime in the blast zone of a thermonuclear explosion. Electronic hypergrind doused with napalm. The vocals are just ridiculously off-the-hook, too.

Deathstorm’s releases can be downloaded for a price of $WhateverTheFuckYouFeelLike at Bandcamp.