SEEN AND HEARD: ÆVANGELIST, OAK PANTHEON, MIASMAL, WITHERED MOON, BULLDOZER

 

Here are a few noteworthy things I spotted and heard yesterday, with some help from my friends. If time permits, I’ll put up a second collection today, because yesterday really brought a cavalcade of things I want to spread around.

ÆVANGELIST

I know there are human beings in Ævangelist, but I still prefer to call them “the Ævangelist entity” because the music sounds like emanations from a dark dimension outside our own by an inhuman being whose shape can’t be mapped. This entity has been churning out music at a an increasingly furious rate. Although the last album, Omen Ex Simulacra emerged from the void only last fall, yesterday brought an announcement by Debemur Morti Productions that a new full-length named Ævangelist III – Writhes in the Murk will become available in September (on CD, vinyl, and digital).

That news would have been enough to stop me in my tracks all by itself, but the announcement was accompanied by the unveiling of the wonderful album cover you see above. It was created by Andrzej Masianis, who also created the painted cover for the last album, which is worth seeing in full rather than in the cropped version that was visible as the album’s front cover. The painting was originally entitled “Exterminating Angel”:

 

 

Here’s the track list for Writhes In Murk:

1. Hosanna
2. The Only Grave
3. Præternigma
4. Disquiet
5. Ælixir
6. Harken to the Flesh
7. Halo of Lamented Glory
8. Writhes in the Murk

https://www.facebook.com/aevangelist.official
https://www.facebook.com/debemurmorti

 

 

 

 

OAK PANTHEON

Three years have passed since the release of Oak Pantheon’s debut EP The Void, which I wrote about here in June 2011, at a time when they were largely unheard of. Last month I reported that the band would be releasing a remixed and remastered physical edition of The Void for the first time, with artwork created for the CD by Norway’s Kim Holm. Yesterday, the CD was made available for pre-order (the release date is July 29), along with an option for pre-order of a digital-only version. Here’s where you can do that (as I already have):

http://oakpantheon.bandcamp.com/album/the-void-2014-remaster

A couple more photos are below.

https://www.facebook.com/DUHHfans
https://www.facebook.com/OakPantheon

 

 

 

 

 

MIASMAL

Miasmal are a Gothenburg death metal band who share members with Agrimonia and Martyrdöd and whose self-titled debut album came out in 2011. In May of this year we had the pleasure of premiering a full stream of their second album, Cursed Redeemer, along with my review. The album is now out on Century Media, and it’s still one of my favorite albums of 2014 (it can be ordered here).

Yesterday Miasmal released a music video for the song “Excelsior”, and if you still haven’t dipped your toes into these churning waters, do so now. These dudes don’t hold back.

https://www.facebook.com/miasmal

 

 

 

 

 

 

WITHERED MOON

I stopped to listen to this next song because I saw a post on Facebook that said Dirk Verbeuren played and recorded drums on the track. He’s quite active as a session drummer, and although his appearance doesn’t necessarily mean a song or album is going to be a good one, it always means the drums will be worth hearing. In this case, the song as a whole is also hot shit.

Withered Moon are from Hamburg, Germany, and only came into existence this year (they joined Facebook on July 6). The new song (“The Well of Creation”) is a single from an album entitled Prophecies: The Call of Winter, which the band are planning to complete and release next year. They are quite up-front in stating that their mission is to express their enthusiasm for Scandinavian melodic death metal — a field so thoroughly plowed that you might well be skeptical (as I was) whether it’s possible to generate any genuine excitement over a new song. But I thought this song was genuinely exciting. What do you think?

https://www.facebook.com/withered.moon.official/

 

 

 

 

Bulldozer photo by Luigi Bossalino

BULLDOZER

As I reported two days ago, the organizers of Maryland Deathfest have announced the first group of confirmed bands for next year’s edition of the festival — more than 30 of them. Not surprisingly, there were names on that list I didn’t recognize. I read several online comment threads involving friends of mine, and one of those new names — Bulldozer — seemed to be generating a lot of enthusiasm. So I decided to investigate. And it turns out I’m not very kvlt after all, because this Italian band have been around since the mid-80s and have been recognized in many quarters as among the progenitors of first-wave black metal.

But that was then and this is now, and so I hunted for something that would give a sense of what the band look and sound like today. I found the following video of the band performing “Ride Hard, Die Fast” at 2012’s Rock Hard festival. It appears on a DVD+CD entitled The NecroSpirit Lives, which was released in 2013 by Scarlet Records. Check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bulldozer/39721039661