DIVERSITY: BRAND NEW SONGS FROM PORTAL, STARKILL, AND BLOODY HAMMERS

I’m feeling like a man of leisure today. Which is to say I got hammered last night at a 12-12-12 bash to celebrate my wife’s birthday and am taking the day off from work in order to have my blood processed through a machine that will remove all the toxins in the hope of being able to function at a level better than slime mold by tomorrow.

And, while waiting for my corpuscles to finish cycling through the tubes, I sifted through NCS e-mails and the tangled pathways of the interhole to find what new metal this day hath brought. And holy shit, it hath brought a bonanza. In this post I’m including three new songs that are stylistically quite different from each other, but I thought they were all really good. So here we go:

PORTAL

I’ve experienced mixed feelings of dread, horror, and glee at the thought of a new album from Australia’s Portal. As previously reported here, it’s called Vexovoid, and Profound Lore is threatening to release it on February 19. Today brought the first song premiere from the album. I wouldn’t have guessed that Pitchfork would be the vehicle for the unveiling. Yes, Pitchfork has a big audience, but if I were PL I’d be worried about the liability risk of so many non-metalheads experiencing irreversible psychic trauma.

The new song is named “Curtain”. It’s the third of the album’s seven tracks. It’s a sonic plague of threshing guitars, booming/blasting drums, bass-level hammer blows, and grotesquely distorted abyssal vox. It’s a moving stormfront of boiling black bestiality, heavy as hell and mercilessly destructive. I fuckin’ love it. Go HERE to listen, and then come back and let us know your reactions.

STARKILL

I know almost nothing about this band. In fact, I only know these two things: (1) Century Media announced today that Starkill are the label’s newest signing; and (2) the band have recorded a song called “Sword, Spear, Blood, Fire” that’s a fuckin’ killer piece of music.

The song will be on an album, but I don’t know the album’s name or when it will be released. I don’t know the location of the band or anything about their history, and I’ve found no social media presence.

The song is a hard-charging fusion of melodic death metal and black metal. Along with the racing guitars, the hooky melody, and a couple of sweet skittering solos, there’s a truckload of vocal variety. I would like more of this please.
 

 

BLOODY HAMMERS

I found out about this North Carolina band, who were named after a Roky Erickson song, via a song premiere today by DECIBEL. The song is named “Black Magic” and it appears on a self-titled album that will get its official label release via Soulseller Records on February 3, 2013. It’s possible I was influenced in my decision to listen to the song by the cover art.

On the one hand, it will be easy enough to say that Bloody Hammers are just the latest band to climb all over the bandwagon of occult-themed, throwback, heavy-rock/stoner/doom bands who’ve been making an especially big mark on new music this year. On the other hand, THOSE FUCKIN’ RIFFS!

Yes, Bloody Hammer bring the big, fat, fuzzed-out riffage, and they also bring a catchy melody, a clean vocalist with some pipes that work pretty fuckin’ well, and psychedelic soloing that feels good.

I’m embedding “Black Magic” below, because despite the DECIBEL “exclusive” premiere, the whole album is streaming on Bandcamp and already available for digital download. Go THERE to hear the whole album (and at that same location you can download “Black Magic” and one other song with a “name your price” option).