SEEN AND HEARD: WATAIN, SQUASH BOWELS, DRAUGR, AND SAIVA

Herein, a selection of four items I came across yesterday that I guarantee will appeal to you. Assuming that your tastes are identical to mine. Otherwise, no guarantees. But have no fear, the bands featured here are so diverse there’s bound to be something that will turn you on.

WATAIN

As we previously reported, this Swedish horde have a new album named The Wild Hunt coming on August 19 in Europe and August 20 in the US via Century Media Records. A two-track single (“All That May Bleed”) will be released on June 21.

Yesterday Watain unveiled the album cover, which you can see above. It’s a painting in oil and mixed materials by the phenomenal Zbigniew M. Bielak, who created (among other things) the artwork for Watain’s last album, Lawless Darkness, as well as the cover for the single.

More info, including the track list, can be found at Watain’s official site (here).

 

SQUASH BOWELS

Selfmadegod Records plans to release this Polish goregrind band’s sixth album, Grindcoholism, on July 2. Yesterday I caught sight of the album cover, which is fuckin’ killer, and also heard the first song stream from the album — “The Second”. I tell you what, this song will run over you like a marauding tank at full throttle. It’s a titanic, down-tuned, palm-muted, skull-crushing brute of a thing, but I’ll tell you this, too: heads will bang.

Grindcoholism can be pre-ordered on CD here. There’s also a currently empty Bandcamp page (here), so I presume this will be available digitally, too. Listen to “the Second”:

 

DRAUGR

Draugr are an Italian band from the Abruzzo region who have been around for a decade but were a new discovery for me yesterday. From what I’ve read since then, their music’s lyrical focus is on the armed resistance of Italian pagan cults to the encroachment of Christianity in the fourth century A.D. — a cause that was ultimately lost.

Draugr’s most recent album is 2011’s De Ferro Italico, and yesterday the band premiered a video for one of its songs, “Legio Linteata”. The video was filmed in the ruins of the ancient Italic town named Alba Fucens at the foot of Monte Velino in the Abruzzo region, and it will get your fists pumping. The melody and the galloping, heroic style of the music will appeal to fans of Scandinavian folk/pagan metal. It thunders and rips, but it has a sing-along infectiousness, and there are even some humppa rhythms in there, too. Very cool.

http://www.draugr.it/
https://www.facebook.com/officialdraugr
https://soundcloud.com/draugrofficial

 

SAIVA

The last two songs were raucous and energetic, albeit in very different ways. But I found this next song just as magnetic despite the fact that it’s much more atmospheric and melancholy. Sadly for those who prefer their music in digital form, the song I heard is one of two tracks on what appears to be a vinyl-only single.

The band’s name is Saiva (I think they’re from Sweden, but I’m not positive) and their debut single’s name is Finnmarkens Folk. It was recently released by the Nordvis label on 7″ vinyl, and orders can be placed at this location. The single includes two songs, and the one that’s now streaming is “En Förliden Tid”. Below, I’m embedding the song on both YouTube and Soundcloud in case there are mobile listeners who can get one but not the other.

The song works its magic through the rise and fall of dramatic tremolo chords, striking drum-and-cymbal work, and a mix of anguished, abrasive vox and harmonized baritone cleans. I should also mention that the song shifts gears into a rocking and rolling gait while the lead guitar chimes like bells. Oh hell, the thrumming bass plays a key role, too. Really, every ingredient works with the others to make this a really excellent piece of music.