This is Part 27 of our list of 2013′s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. To see the selections that preceded the three songs I’m announcing today, click here.
We’re getting close to the end of this list, with only two more Parts to go after today. The three songs I’m adding now are an eclectic mix, both as compared to each other and with respect to the individual songs themselves — and that’s the main reason I’m grouping them together.
VULTURE INDUSTRIES
Although I never managed to write a complete review of this Bergen band’s 2013 album The Tower, I did write about every one of the three songs that premiered before the album’s release, so that counts for something I guess. The album is a strange and wondrous creation that sounds like nothing else I heard last year. The first song to premiere remains my favorite — and it’s the one I’m now adding to this list.
“The Tower” is sort of like a blend of melodic death metal, post-rock, and Broadway show-stopper, spun in an avant-garde centrifuge — and Bjørnar Erevik Nilsen’s mainly clean vocals will take you into the clouds. He sings, “It Soars!”, and his voice soars like you won’t believe. He also assumes a variety of other vocal personae in this allegorical song about the materialism of modern life in the Western world.
The lyric video for the song is also a visual feast, which features the wonderful artwork of Costin Chioreanu. Watch and listen next…
https://www.facebook.com/vultureindustries
DUNKELNACHT
When I reviewed this French band’s 2013 album, I wrote: “What Revelatio represents is nothing less than an explosion of creative exuberance, an extravagant combination of diverse styles that defeats easy summarization…. I thought about saying, ‘It’s like a three-way orgy among Belphegor, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and The Black Dahlia Murder,’ but that doesn’t make any sense, does it? Actually, that’s not as ridiculous as it sounds.” Actually, I forgot to throw in references to Dissection and Blut Aus Nord, too.
As in the case of the Vulture Industries album, it’s this very eclecticism that’s a big part of Revelatio’s appeal. Take, for example, the song I’m now adding to our list. “Le Serment des Hypocrites” is heavily groove-oriented and infectious as hell, but it also includes an eerie, atmospheric guitar melody, a spooky solo, and a finish that moves from blast-beat drumming and tremolo thrashing to a swarming guitar melody over jackhammer rhythms. Listen below.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/DunkelNacht/111329075584449
[audio:https://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/06-Le-Serment-des-Hypocrites.mp3|titles=Dunkelnacht – Le Serment des Hypocrites]
OVID’S WITHERING
DGR reviewed the 2013 debut album by this Tampa-based band, Scryers of the Ibis. In that release, they successfully combined elements of death core, death metal, symphonic metal, and black metal. To quote DGR:
“Scryers Of The Ibis is a fucking super-impressive debut by Ovid’s Withering. There’s no other way to put it. The band took older material and made it sound brand new, and the newer songs are just the sheer embodiment of violence throughout. The group have a gargantuan melting plot of influences, and you can recognize so many different elements and strains of them in all of the songs, yet the band still succeed in using them to create a sound that is (almost) entirely their own.”
I think DGR’s favorite song (and certainly mine) is “Murder To Dissect”. It hits very hard — repeatedly, and right in the sternum — and yet the guitar and keyboard performances give it an “epic” aura as well. There may be deathcore scaffolding in here, but the band have built an ornate edifice on that framework which transcends the genre.
http://ovidswithering.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/ovidswithering
Another great selection of tracks. The Vulture Industries video is odd with the anti-capitalist message juxtaposed against band mechandize screens – seems like someone didn’t quite think that through.
I’ve always thought that was ironic, too, but I’ll bet that was the label’s doing. Kind of a tone-deaf maneuver.
Meant to get that Vulture Industries album. My wallet will never be full…
i always forget just how infectious Dunkelnacht is, thanks for the regular reminders
I kind of hate you right now, Islander… All of these songs are killer. I need to buy all 3 of these albums, and probably will, but that Ovid’s Withering track is so good that it angers me. Payday cannot come soon enough. You should get commission from this, sir.
HaHa! It’s good to be hated in this way!
Seriously, man. This list might bankrupt me. I have held off on buying a few albums so far, but that Ovid’s Withering is going to be purchased Friday without a doubt, and the Dunkelnacht, if I could find it in the US.
Ovid’s Withering quickky became one of my favourite new albums from last year after I heard about them first reading DGRs review 🙂 the other two I do not yet know so I’ll get to listening to these asap! 🙂
I love that Vulture Industries album and every time I hear “The Tower” I think he sings “It soars, with it’s magic truck”.
Damn fine album!
HA! Well, that makes two of us who hear “magic truck”. 🙂