NEW VIDEOS: CHTHONIC, COBALT, AND KATECHON

Here are three new videos I spied this morning. All three are worth your time.

CHTHONIC

This morning, Taiwan’s Chthonic premiered yet another official video (here) for a song from their forthcoming album Bú-Tik. That album will be released by Spinefarm on May 29 in Taiwan and Japan, May 31 in Europe, June 3 in the UK, and June 18 in North America. The new song is “Sail Into the Sunset’s Fire”. According to the band, it tells a tale of pirates in East Asia during the Age Of Exploration (some of whom eventually settled along Taiwan’s western coast) who sought to overthrow both the Ming Empire of China and the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan.

You don’t get much of a sense about the song’s historical roots in the video. It was filmed in an outdoor swimming pool during an unexpected thunderstorm, and those shots are interspersed with comic-strip graphics. The music in the song itself doesn’t have as much of the ethnic flavor that I most enjoy in what Chthonic have done previously — it’s more of a straight-ahead, Scandinavian-styled melodeath romp. But hey, I’m entertained anyway.

Watch the video next.

https://www.facebook.com/chthonictw/

COBALT

From the beginning Cobalt has been a two-man operation — vocalist/guitarist Phil McSorley and drummer/bassist/guitarist Erik Wunder. After a bit of a hiatus, Cobalt have begun a short East Coast tour, and for this adventure they’re joined by session musicians Michael Dimmitt of Mutilation Rites on bass and Josh Lozano of Man’s Gin (another Erik Wunder project) on guitar. Their first tour stop was yesterday (May 23) at Maryland Deathfest. Yeah, MDF has kicked off and I’m feeling kind of sick about being 2000+ miles away.

Fortunately, videographer Frank Huang was there for Cobalt’s performance, filming from right in front of the stage. The song is a combo of “Throat” and “Stomach” from the last album, Gin (2009), and the video and audio quality are good. In the music, there is a calm before the storm, not quite peaceful, a hint of something coming. When the black skies open, it rains fuckin’ hard. This is one hell of a badass jam.

And by the way, according to this interview, Cobalt will start recording a new album after this current tour ends. Fuck yes,

https://www.facebook.com/pages/COBALT/109020659128531

KATECHON

Katechon are a band from Trondheim, Norway. They produced a four-song demo in 2012, and Nuclear War Now! is planning to release their debut album, Man, God, Giant (with the cool cover above by Mari Oselund) on June 6. I wrote about them only 10 days ago when I discovered three tracks from the album streaming at CVLT Nation and two more available on Bandcamp.

https://www.facebook.com/Katechonband
http://katechon.bandcamp.com/album/man-god-giant