SEEN AND HEARD: DECAPITATED, GORMATHON, SINMARA

For your entertainment and edification I bring you a small group of news items and new music that I enjoyed over the last 24 hours. All of them involve especially enticing pieces of album art that you may view as larger images by clicking on them.

DECAPITATED

Thanks to a tip from my friend Vonlughlio, I just saw the news that the sixth album by Poland’s Decapitated will be released by Nuclear Blast and Mystic Production (Poland) on September 26, 2014. It was recorded, as usual, at Hertz Studio in Białystok, Poland, by the Wiesławski brothers. The album cover was created by Polish artist Lukasz Jaszak, who also made the cover of the band’s last album, Carnival Is Forever.

This announcement was accompanied by a statement from Vogg (Waclaw Kieltyka) that the new music is “totally crushing and huge” and that Blood Mantra is “the most heavy and mature album” the band have ever recorded.

Such statements must always be taken with a grain of salt, but even if the album is only “about the same level of crushing and huge” as what Decapitated have delivered in the past, sign me the fuck up.

https://www.facebook.com/decapitated

 

 

GORMATHON

For those who follow us on Facebook, you may recognize the album art above, because I used it as our daily artwork post a couple of days ago. It’s by the extravagantly talented Berlin-based artist Eliran Kantor (who, FYI, I’ll be interviewing soon), and it appears on the cover of a new album named Following the Beast by a Swedish melodic death metal band named Gormathon. The album will be released by Napalm Records during September in Europe and on October 17 in North America.

Eliran Kantor has explained the origin of the artwork as follows:  “The band asked me to paint my version of the legend of Hårga, about how the devil, disguised as a fiddler, deceived the youth of the Hårga village (just outside of Bollnäs, Sweden) to dance until death on a hilltop. This is still mixed-media piece, which always include hand-painting with various materials.” As it happens, Bollnäs is Gormathon’s hometown.

I don’t yet have any new music to share with you, but I’ll be watching for it when it comes.

https://www.facebook.com/GORMATHON

 

 

 

SINMARA

In April I featured a song in one of these round-up posts by an Icelandic band named Sinmara (whose line-up includes members of Wormlust, Slidhr, Svartidauði, and Rebirth of Nefast) from their debut album Aphotic Womb, which features cover art by the talented New Zealand artist Alexander L Brown. The cover is one of three large illustrations and sixteen minor pieces he created for Aphotic Womb. When I wrote that earlier feature, the album was scheduled for release by Terratur Possessions in May, but that didn’t happen. However, according to a new Facebook post by the band, the album is finally ready and will be released in August.

I learned about this update via a message from NCS supporter eiterorm, for which I am thankful — especially because (as he pointed out) the band’s announcement included a link to the new album’s title track. Even better, the title track is available for download as a single on Bandcamp (HERE). I strongly recommend that you listen to it below.  Unless of course you’re easily frightened — because the music is an otherworldly flowering of poisonous thorns, shrouded in a miasma of tremolo chords, serpentine leads, thrumming bass notes, and fantastic drum work that you can feel in your spine. Fantastic song.

www.facebook.com/sinmaraofficial