As explained in my last post, I’ve been diverted from metal over the last three days by activities relating to the old fuckin’ day job. However, I did manage to make a quick slog through the interhole in search of new music and found three diverse items worth sharing. Here they are:
RUDRA
I would venture to say that no one else sounds quite like Rudra. This Singapore band, whose last album I reviewed with lavish praise here, incorporate traditional Indian music, Sanskrit chants and mantras, and themes drawn from Sanskrit literature into a galvanizing combination of black and death metal, calling the result “Vedic Metal”. They’re now on the verge of releasing their seventh album, entitled RTA, through Sonic Blast Media, and today they began streaming the album’s second track, “Heartbreak”.
From its sublime meditative introduction to the jolting main section of the song (which features chants as well as strangling black metal vocals and a serpentine melodic guitar lead), this is an attractive tease for the new album.
RTA is due for release on October 14. Here’s “Heartbreak”:
https://www.facebook.com/RudraBand
OLD SKIN
Old Skin are based in Manchester, England. Their debut five-track EP, Mære, is due for release on October 31 by a triumvirate of labels — Church Of Fuck, Dry Cough, and Skin & Bones. I was offered the chance to hear the entire EP, but (stupidly) haven’t yet done it. Instead, I had to discover what I was missing when Terrorizer premiered a song from the EP today named “Moral/Panic”.
The grinding bass lead at the beginning of this song hooked me immediately, and from there it just gets better. “Moral/Panic” is as heavy as a two-ton sledgehammer and dark as a moonless night. But the melodic guitar work, which both slices and shimmers, turns it into something multi-dimensional — a splicing of post-metal with heavy-booted hardcore that’s very fuckin’ strong. And man, the powerful vocals are downright scary.
You can find Old Skin on Facebook. Here’s “Moral/Panic”:
APHONIC THRENODY
For the third item, I bring you another episode of beauty and the beast.
Aphonic Threnody are a multinational funeral doom project composed of members of other bands from the UK, Hungary, and Italy (GallowGod, DeaMarica, Urna, Pantheist, and Leecher). Their debut album First Funeral is being released on CD this month by Avantgarde Music. Today I happened upon a post on the label’s Facebook page that included a link to a song on Soundcloud, and I gave it a shot. Sure am glad I did.
“Hollow” entwines ethereal melodies with anvil-heavy doom riffs, pulverizing percussion, and harrowing vocal power. It hints at cosmic mysteries while swallowing the listener whole in a volcanic pit of despair. Stupendous!
After hearing the song, I discovered that the album is available on Bandcamp, and so I’m including a stream of all the music below, along with “Hollow”. I’ve also learned that the band are recording a second album entitled When Death Comes that will include guest appearances by Greg Chandler (Esoteric) and Mike Meacham (Loss). I already want it.
http://aphonicthrenody.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aphonic-Threnody/527080693991442
15 Responses to “SEEN AND HEARD: RUDRA, OLD SKIN, APHONIC THRENODY”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Oh man…when I saw the name Old Skin, I was pumped…I thought it was the Blackened Death band from Seattle putting out their first EP (https://soundcloud.com/oldskin). I think we’re running out of band names, too many young bands are repeating themselves
I’ll have to give this one a spin when I get a chance and see how they sound
Yeah, different Old Skin. I’ve heard about the one here in Seattle (includes dudes from Anhedonist and Vassafor), but haven’t heard them play yet and didn’t know they had music up on Soundcloud. Definitely going to listen to those.
Its actually the same guy….D.F….he plays bass for Anhedonist, Vassafor’s live shows and Old Skin.
Definitely worth checking out, I liked their demo enough to put it on my “Best Of So Far…” list this year
I used Rudra for a presentation on modern music of the Indian subcontinent a few years ago. Still love them. Also, why didn’t you come visit me while you were in SoCal, Islander? This hurts my feelings.
It will hurt your feelings even more when I tell you that I’ve been at a secret location near San Diego. 🙂
But I’ve had no free time, day or night.
NO EXCUSE. Three projects and something like five college essays I need done by the end of the month hasn’t stopped me from pretending I have free time. Just kidding though, I hope you enjoyed (or missed) the torrential downpour of rain we had on Wednesday.
I got to San Diego at about 5:00 that day, and I wanted to turn around and go back. Damn, that was a deluge! But since then . . . awesome.
That was the first rain in years where I was ok with San Diegans customarily losing it. It seriously gets pitiful how much San Diegans freak out and whenever there’s anything coming from the sky. We pretty much shut down at a drizzle. Personally I prefer the 60s and foggy weather we get in the winter under the marine layer. I constantly ponder living in Seattle in the future, if only to escape the Santa Ana winds and the havoc* they wreak on my sinuses and eyes – I end up looking as high as a kite in one eye.
*I almost wrote “havok” here. I need some help.
At the increased risk of boring the crap out of other people reading this, I’ll note that my cab driver from the airport to my hotel had lived in Seattle for 8 years before moving to San Diego, and he was laughing it up about the inability of San Diegans to drive in the rain. On the other hand, he loves living there. Except when it rains.
As far as I’ve ascertained, part of the mission statement of this site is to serve people with too much time on their hands, so I assume they have time to read about the weather (or lack thereof) in San Diego.
I hope you’re right. 🙂
Old Skin is seriously cool, i’d like to hear more of this
I must be in a doom mood these days, Aphonic Threnody is music to my ears. Actually, that is literally the case 😉
Some kind of switch has definitely flipped in my head over the last year, because I am eating up this kind of doom. I am going to become doom-obese if I keep eating it.
Just throw it up again afterwards 😉
Actually, if you throw it up, while recording the audio for that shit, you’ll have a vocal track for some seriously unearthly sounds!