SEEN AND HEARD: NADER SADEK, RAGE NUCLÉAIRE, MEPHORASH, MOONSORROW

With the album collections that Professor D. Grover the XIIIth and Austin Weber recommended earlier today, we’ve thrown a lot of music your way in a short stretch of time.  But does that mean we will stop? No, of course not. We’re like a hyperactive yappy little dog that will not stop trying to hump your leg. So you might as well just sit back and prepare for a sticky leg.

NADER SADEK

Three years ago the extravagantly talented musical and visual artist Nader Sadek delivered an album named In the Flesh, with the help of an eye-popping line-up of guest musicians. Now, Sadek has re-recorded a song from the album named “Mechanic  Idolatry” and re-titled the new work “Re:Mechanic”. This time the recording artists include Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitation), Mike Hrubovcak (Monstrosity), Flo Mounier (Cryptopsy), Rune Eriksen (Mayhem, Aura Noir), Orestis Nalmpantis (Greek band Genna Apo Kolo), and Kelly Conlon (Death, Monstrosity).

But that’s not all. Sadek has also directed a new video for the song that debuted today at DECIBEL. Visit that link to learn more about Sadek’s vision for the video. But to see it without delay, just go past the jump.

The song is a dissonant death metal juggernaut, as pitch black as its subject matter, both thundering and oozing with putrescence. The video, partially filmed in Egypt, is a fascinating and disturbing feast for the eyes that gets its point across.

https://www.facebook.com/naderflesh

 

 

 

 

 

 

RAGE NUCLÉAIRE

Rage Nucléaire are a Canadian band noteworthy for the presence of ex-Cryptopsy vocalist Lord Worm and former Demonical and Vomitous drummer Fredrik Widigs. Their debut album, 2012’s Unrelenting Fucking Hatred (reviewed here), was a blackened grind assault that was staggeringly powerful and a fascinating as well as destructive listen.

Rage Nucléaire now have a second album named Black Storm of Violence that Season of Mist has set for release on July 18, and today various sites around the world premiered a song from the album named “Ritual Murder (and Its Attendant Blessings)”. I’m really digging this song, in part because it doesn’t unfold exactly as I expected. It begins in a fury, all scalding howls, jaw-dropping drum munitions, and dark, razor-wire riffing. But then the song starts to bounce in a kind of folk-dance rhythm (or maybe that’s just me). And back and forth it goes, between high-speed viciousness and a kind of whirling dervish wildness with an exotic melody. Very cool (and very catchy, too).

Black Storm of Violence can be pre-ordered here. And these are a couple of the places where you can stream the song:

Metal Underground

Terrorizer

 

 

MEPHORASH

Mephorash are a black metal band from Uppsala, Sweden, with two albums to their credit, both released by Grom Records — Death Awakens (2011) and Chalice of Thagirion (2012). Last year they added to those works through a split release with Philadelphia’s excellent Ashencult entitled Opus Serpens, and we had the pleasure of premiering the Mephorash track for the split, “Atramentous Ungod Aspect”. That song features guest vocals by Acherontas V. Priest of the occult multinational band Acherontas.

Two days ago Mephorash unveiled a new song named “The Hendecasyllabics Of Death” that I’m really liking. It’s mid-paced and stately, dark and dramatic. The hard-edged riffs thankfully don’t conceal the warm, rumbling tone of the bass, and the atmospheric melody is beautiful as well as bereft. The music builds, becomes sweeping in its grandeur, reaching for epic heights of loss and lament.

In other Mephorash news, the band also recently announced that they will be contributing four songs to a split with Italy’s Ars Macabra, to be released by Odium Records on both CD and 12″ vinyl at the end of 2014 or early 2015. Here’s “The Hendecasyllabics Of Death”.

https://www.facebook.com/Chaliceofthagirion

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LSaZfj3UMQ

 

 

 

MOONSORROW

Last month we broke the news that the Finnish label Blood Music would be releasing “the largest box metal set in history”, and that the band in question was Finland’s fantastic Moonsorrow. The title is Heritage 1995-2008: The Collected Works. The set has been in the works for two years and will include 14 LPs. According to the label, all audio for the set “has been personally prepared for vinyl publication by Moonsorrow founding member/audio guru – Henri Sorvali” and it has been remastered by Troy Glessner, who did the engineering for Blood Music’s Strapping Young Lad box set.

The new layouts for the albums were created by Travis Smith and the front cover of each one features hand-drawn re-creations of the original album art by Reuben Sawyer (Rainbath Visual) — the original art is preserved in the interior of the gatefold.

It’s going to be limited to 400 sets, with the vinyl coming in four versions (100 for each version). As you might expect, acquiring this isn’t going to be an inexpensive proposition: For US and Canadian buyers, the cost will run between $300 and $375 (not including shipping). Even though not many of us may spring for this, it’s still an impressive accomplishment in celebration of the career of a very impressive band, so I thought it was worth noting.

Since that first announcement we reported, Blood Music has been releasing images of the album art and other information about each LP via their Facebook page. Below I’ve collected the images for each album showing both the exterior and interior of the gatefold covers; hover your mouse over them to see what you’re looking at. The set becomes available for pre-order on May 28.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Moonsorrow/23474099648
https://www.facebook.com/BlooodMusic
http://www.blood-music.com