SEEN AND HEARD: ETHEREAL, OUROBOROS, IBEX ANGEL ORDER, CODE, DEATH GRIPS

 

I’m really backlogged in listening to new music, and the list of things worth checking out grows on a daily basis. Last night I did manage to sift through part of my collection of enticing links and found this quintet of tracks that I thought were worth throwing your way. Diversity is again the organizing principle.

ETHEREAL

The UK’s Ethereal, about whom we’ve written frequently in the past, have been signed by Candlelight Records, and the first release for their new label will be an album entitled Opus Aethereum (due in February 2015). The very cool cover art for the album is above and was rendered by Tripple Seis Design.

But the first song in this collection isn’t from the new album. It’s a cover of Darkthrone’s “Fucked Up and Ready To Die” from 2003’s Hate Them. Ethereal recorded it for a Darkthrone tribute album named One Cold Night In Norway, which will be released as a free download through Speed Slaughter Productions on December 13. Ethereal recently uploaded their cover to YouTube, and it’s excellent — dark, ravenous, brooding in its atmospherics, heavy as granite yet ghostly in its void-faring journey — and ultimately a swarming assault on the senses.

https://www.facebook.com/EtherealDarknessUK

 

 

 

 

 

 

OUROBOROS

Thanks to a tip from deckard cain, I learned that Australia’s Ouroboros have released an advance track from their new album Emanations, which is coming out next March. The new song is named “The Sleep of Reason” and it features orchestral music by The FilmHarmonic Orchestra of Prague, CZ. The song is something of a departure from what I remember of the band’s last album, with a sinuous Eastern-influenced melody, choral voices accompanying the deep, bestial, harsh vocals, and a powerful, hammering groove. It’s shrouded in occult vapors, but there are reptilian eyes and gleaming fangs coming for you through the mists. Excellent music.

https://www.facebook.com/Ouroborosmusic/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IBEX ANGEL ORDER

Ibex Angel Order are a two-man black metal band, formerly known as Funeral Goat, based in Tilburg, The Netherlands. They’ve recorded a debut album that will be released by Daemon Worship Productions next year, but their first official music stream isn’t taken directly from that album (though an altered version of it will appear on the record). It’s one of two songs that the band recorded before the album recording sessions. The one you’re about to hear is “Origin of Spheres”; the second one, “Abraxas Rises To Be Crowned”, will be included on a forthcoming Daemon Worship sampler.

“Origin of Spheres” begins with an ominous, otherworldly introduction, but soon erupts in a thundering assault of writhing riffs and bone-breaking drum strikes. The vocalist growls and yells in the extremity of passion as the melodic guitar leads conjure emanations of infernal fire and malevolent hunger. The song rips, roars, and ravages, a paean of darkness and doom. Can’t wait to hear the new album!

“Origin of Spheres” is available on Bandcamp via the link below, and includes cover art by Held (Ubertragic Art). Below you’ll find streams of the song on two different players.

 

https://ibexangelorder.bandcamp.com/track/origin-of-spheres
https://www.facebook.com/ibexangelorder
https://www.facebook.com/daemonworship

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CODE

I really enjoyed this London-based band’s last album, 2013’s Augur Nox, and now they’re following that with a new fourth album entitled mut, which will be released by Agonia Records on February 27 in Europe and March 10 in North America. Pre-orders are available HERE.

Today Agonia began streaming the first advance track from the album, a song named “dialogue”. It’s an exception to our usual “rule”, with clean vocals that span an impressive range, and an equally impressive interweaving of exploratory guitar excursions and percussive rhythms. The melody is entrancing, though drenched in melancholy. Perhaps more dark prog-rock than metal, the song is still plenty heavy and thoroughly engrossing.

https://www.facebook.com/codeblackmetal

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEATH GRIPS

Death Grips were unique. I mourn their passing. But they left us with one final album before calling it quits, a double-disc named The Powers That B. The first of the two discs, Niggas On the Moon, was released as a free digital download on June 8, and the second one (Jenny Death) still lies ahead.

Yesterday Death Grips released a music video for “Inanimate Sensation” from the Jenny Death disc. I’m not a connoisseur of hip-hop, but I know heavy shit when I hear it, and “Inanimate Sensation” is heavy shit.

The video is below, and after that I’ve pasted the song’s stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

http://thirdworlds.net

 

 

“INANIMATE SENSATION”

inanimate sensation
vantage perspective from objective it came from
inanimate situation
no relation close liaison
no conversation no social contagion
bother me wanna be comrade intrusive
i remain
inanimate aloof skip
counterfeit
like no can do bitch

my vinyl vibrate higher than you bitch
i represent ain’t meant to pursue which
one of you oh you all wanna ride well i ain’t got room stress
while we continue to make shit tight the loosest

blown out
base

you got a minute
you’re in my way
whats wrong
wrong with who
so whats going on
okay
where you at right now
i’m not with you
inanimate persuasion
strictly still life with all of my occasion
inanimate surge of inspiration
glow like thermonuclear invasion
compared to swapping thoughts regurgitation
i revel in lack of slightest acquaintance
no rancid level after taste inanimate negate opinion
as it unravel like enigmatic onion
layers of interdimensional dominion

blown out
base

yeah bitch
my smoke my butane
my boots my headphones my medicated noose
my deadroom my schwartzwald hat my mac
my macaque skull my lysergic stash
empty streets at night my bike
apartment sink filled with dry ice
condemned tenement brandished rail spike
disturb in flat noir and stale white
grey cloud curled around my bearded compound like boa
one of two thunderbolt we ain’t broke on tour
concrète antique trapdoor twenty-four
spots to get that get right
when i gotta get right some more
type of get right i can’t afford
i covet these things more than any living
i’ve never been

blown out
base

i’m so northern california i call scratch bammer
pure overhander
live show on a banner
axl rose in a blender
slash on satan’s fender
rick james on the cover
running through your lover
like mean mr. mustard
stadium style
for those who came to jock
watch that man salute you
endless nameless lady godivas we snoop to
like eighty-three mermaids in brooklyn zoo
inanimate ghetto box we used to pimp through

blown out
base

inanimate fixation
obsessed with my demo tape collection
inanimate riffs i’m glazin
brag your making music naw you’re makin bacon
skinhead skinhead inna dublin
i like my ipod more than fuckin