SEEN AND HEARD: PSYCROPTIC, KHORS, GORELUST, PREY FOR NOTHING

 

Happy fucking Monday. Here’s a quartet of recommended songs that I discovered over the last 24 hours, which I hope will prove a good way to help you start your new week.

PSYCROPTIC

As previously reported in these pages, Tasmania’s Psycroptic and Prosthetic Records have joined forces to bring about the release of the band’s new self-titled album worldwide next spring (EVP Recordings will be handling the release in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan). To begin paving the way for the album release, tomorrow (November 4) Prosthetic will release a digital single from the new album, a song named “Echoes To Come”. I’ve gotten to hear the song in advance, and I’m really liking it.

The slow, ominous intro portion of the song is quite cool, but it doesn’t take long for the band to put the pedal to the metal — and when they do, what comes is a blast of heavy, jolting grooves infiltrated by swirling and jabbing guitar pyrotechnics and segmented by a chorus with full-throated (and vehement) clean vocals rising over rapidly blasting percussion. Groove really is the main hallmark of the song, which hasn’t always been true of Psycroptic’s music, and it’s a galvanizing ride while it lasts.

I presume that the song will become available for streaming at least by tomorrow and I’ll add the stream here whenever that happens.

https://www.facebook.com/psycroptic

 

 

 

 

KHORS

The Ukrainian pagan/black metal band Khors commemorated their tenth anniversary by releasing a new single in August named “Мій козацький шлях” (My Cossack Way), which is dedicated to those who are fighting on the Ukrainian side of the ongoing conflict with Russia.

I missed the song’s release when it happened and only discovered it when the band released a live video of its performance this morning. The film was made at the Randal Club in Bratislava, Slovakia on October 16, 2014. It’s a sweeping, dramatic piece of music with a melancholy air, mid-paced and solemn — and memorable. The song is now available on iTunes.

https://www.facebook.com/Khorsband

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GORELUST

This Quebec, Canada band released their first demo in 1993, a split in 1994, and a debut album (Reign of Lunacy) in 1995… and then became inactive for almost 20 years. But they have revived themselves and have recorded a new album named We Are the Undead that will be released by PRC Music.

Yesterday the band released a new single for streaming on Soundcloud by the name of “Entering the Kill Fest”. It’s a highly unstable mauling of brutal death metal, and by unstable I mean that it continuously and unpredictably shifts gears while racing at high speed. It’s packed with brute-force grooves to go along with a lot of technical acrobatics, and there’s a flamethrower of a solo in here, too. Very nice.

The band previously released a track named “There Is No God”. Go here to check that out. Here’s “Entering the Kill Fest”:

https://www.facebook.com/gorelustband
https://www.facebook.com/prcmusiccanada

 

 

 

 

 

 

PREY FOR NOTHING

Almost exactly one year ago TheMadIsraeli wrote a feature about this Israeli band, proclaiming them “the best melodic death metal band in recent years you’ve never heard of”. To help spread the word we offered free downloads of the band’s two albums (with their permission).

Prey For Nothing have now completed work on a third album entitled The Reasoning and late last week they released a lyric video for one of the new songs, “The Devil’s Words (From the Angel’s Mouth)”. It’s both searingly harsh and memorably melodic, featuring technically impressive instrumental exuberance (including the warm tones of a bounding bass) and progressive metal inclinations that make the song quite a nice head-trip.

Prey For Nothing previously released a video for their cover of Death’s “Mentally Blind”, which will also appear on the new album, and I’m including that below as well. It’s another very impressive performance — and the video targets extremist Islam for condemnation.

https://www.facebook.com/preyfornothing