SEEN AND HEARD: THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, AZURE EMOTE, AND SOREPTION

Yesterday brought many items of news and new music that caught my attention, so many that I’m funneling them your way in a couple of posts this morning, this being the first.

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER

Last night the above image appeared on the Facebook page of The Black Dahlia Murder, with no further explanation. Preceding the appearance of this visual announcement, the gents at Metal Sucks posted some studio photos and a few more details, speculating that the band would have a new album ready by June — which turns out to be a good guess.

Presumably, the above image is simply a flyer of sorts and not the album cover, yet I’m intrigued by the absence of color and by the album’s title — Everblack. Not that I really needed anything further to cause eager anticipation for the band’s next work. That was a given.

Next, we move from a band whose name has become something of a household word in the realms of extreme metal to one I had never heard of before last night — and whose new album I’m now anticipating just as eagerly as new BDM. Check out this arresting album cover:

AZURE EMOTE

Azure Emote is the creation of Mike Hrubovcak, vocalist for bands such as Abraxas, Vile, and Monstrosity, and a metal cover artist as well. Azure Emote created a debut album in 2007 (Chronicles of An Aging Mammal) and then went on hiatus.

However, Hrubovcak has reactivated the band, enlisting not only drummer Mike Heller (Fear Factory, Malignancy, System Divide) and guitarist/bassist Ryan Moll (Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, Total Fucking Destruction) but also a slew of well-known guests, and the result is a sophomore album named The Gravity of Impermanence.

Yesterday, DECIBEL began streaming an advance track from the album, which is how I tumbled to this band. The song is “Puppet Deities”, and it caused my eyes to pop and my mouth to gape.

Consider this partial list of ingredients: cathedral organ and violins; bombastic, unusual melodies; beastly distorted riffing, tremolo grinding, and thundering bass notes; hollow roars, jagged howls, and operatic female vocals; blast beats, double-kicks, and martial snare patterns.

I suppose avant-garde death metal is the best genre description. I found the song utterly fascinating, and the outro alone put a huge grin on my stupified face. I definitely want more of whatever this album brings. And what the album brings (according to Azure Emote’s official site) will include samples from Jack Kevorkian interviews, You Don’t Know Jack (Al Pacino), Monty Python and The Holy Grail, The Walking Dead, The Mist, Black Death, Donnie Darko, and live recordings of pigs being slaughtered. Yup.

For further details, including that long list of guests, check out the DECIBEL write-up. Hrubovcak is in search of a label, and no release date has been announced. Here’s the song:

http://www.facebook.com/azureemote

 

Decibelmagazine’s Cloudcasts on Mixcloud

SOREPTION

Man, it has been a long wait for a new album by Sweden’s Soreption, a band we’ve been following since early days. I wrote here about Soreption’s ass-kicking 2008 EP Illuminate the Excessive. In April 2010, I reviewed their debut album, Deterioration of Minds, which I loved. And then that long wait began.

But the wait is now nearly over. Soreption’s second album Engineering the Void is done and projected for release by Ninetone Records in April.

Yesterday, the band premiered a music video — but not for one of the new songs. The track is “By Venom Entitled”, from em>Deterioration of Minds. And may I say fuck yes? FUCK. YES.

Oh yes, if you want high-speed brutal bludgeoning tech-death in the vein of Hate Eternal, with merciless percussion, spine-snapping riffage, fleet-fingered guitar solos, and vocals that sound like a pack of pissd-off mastiffs, look no further. And if you enjoy videos with nightmarish imagery and lots of blood, Soreption will fix you up there, too.  (Thanks to Utmu and TheMadIsraeli for alerting me to this video.)

http://www.facebook.com/soreption