BANDCAMP ROUNDUP: THE BLACK MORIAH AND SATYRASIS

(Our man BadWolf has made a couple of discoveries through Bandcamp and writes about them below.)

I wish Bandcamp forced artists to offer at least some of every release for download. I’ve stumbled across two short streams—one of a demo, and another of a short song collection—that I want to put on my iPod right fucking now. Sadly, life is not that easy.

The Black Moriah – The Black Moriah Promo

I wonder did they mean The Black Maria? Black Maria is an antiquated slang term for a hearse. Spell check ist not krieg! Perhaps this Dallas black-thrash quintet were just feeling cheeky.

The only reason I listened to The Black Moriah’s promo was because their guitarist, Zawicizuz, was a member of Absu during the recording of that band’s first self-titled album. It’s quite the pedigree: Absu is, for my money, the best black-thrash band currently in circulation, and their first self-titled album was one of their finest releases.

It’s no surprise then that The Black Moriah push a clear-sounding black-thrash attack very similar to Absu’s, albeit without Proscriptor Mcgovern’s amazing drumming. In that sense The Black Moriah is like Pad Thai without the crumbled peanuts on top—tasty and yet missing a little oomph.

As-is, this is still fine material. The Black Moriah often accelerate into hyperdrive and then drop down a gear into the kind of bouncy polka beats that made the last Nachtmystium record so fascinating. As a matter of fact, these guys should hook up with Sanford Parker when it’s LP time.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: It actually is LP time. The Black Moriah have recorded a recently released debut album named Casket Prospects, which can be procured via this link.]

 

Satyrasis – A Foot In Each Grave (Demo)

Satyrasis are a technical/progressive death metal band from Lansing. Their lead guitarist, David Peterman, curates the annual Ogrefest every year, and it is definitely the best underground extreme metal fest I’ve had the privilege of attending.

Satyrasis was not always great. Their debut album, Creation of Failure, was a little ho-hum. It’s been five years since that album’s release, and Peterman and Company have put that time to good use. “A Foot In Each Grave” is amazing.

The song is tagged with “Nocturnus Time Machine,” and Nocturnus is a good signifier: there are atmospheric keyboards underpinning the song, but the song isn’t overpowered by them the way a Dimmu Borgir song usually is. I particularly like the accented theremin about a minute and a half in. As techy and progressive as “A Foot In Each Grave” gets, it sticks with hooky rhythmic structures—more Obscura than Gorguts.

“A Foot in Each Grave” will show up on Satyrasis’s sophomore LP, …Of The Dead, which should drop sometime this year. Having heard some material from the LP in a live setting, I can assure you it will be a high-quality release.