SEEN AND HEARD: SANNHET, CRYPT SERMON, THE BANNER, ABOMINATOR, GALAR

My memory of what happened a year ago is hazy (my memory of what happened yesterday is hazy, too, but more like partly cloudy instead of overcast with dense fog). But this January seems to have brought an unprecedented tide of new music. Wholly apart from all the new album promos we’ve received since the first of the year, every day has bought new song or video premieres that are worth hearing. It’s as if labels and bands were just waiting for the holidays to end and then opened the floodgates.

I’ve got a list of new music to check out that’s grown absurdly long, and since I haven’t managed to write a round-up in five days, it’s unrealistic to catch up in a single post. So even more so than usual, I chose this collection of songs on a truly random basis. I have a lot more I’d like to throw your way — with luck I can do that this weekend.

SANNHET

Sannhet are from Brooklyn. Their second album, Revisionist, is coming from The Flenser on March 3. Yesterday Stereogum premiered the album’s first advance track, a song named “Lost Crown”.

If you’re not familiar with Sannhet, they’re a purely instrumental band. As you’ll find out from this song, they’re still heavy as hell. Stylistically, “Lost Crown” is an amalgam of black metal, sludge, dissonant post-metal, wrecking balls, and battlefield flares. The sound will flatten you, but it’s also intricate and very interesting.

The album is available for pre-order here.

https://www.facebook.com/sannhet

 

 

 

 

 

CRYPT SERMON

In addition to being way behind on these round-ups, I’m also way behind on reviews. This isn’t really a review, just a synopsis of my reaction to the debut album by Philadelphia’s Crypt Sermon: Holy Shit.

The album’s name is Out of the Garden, it’s being released by Dark Descent on February 24, and two days ago Guitar World premiered the title track. I’m still dumbfounded by the fact that this album is Brooks Wilson’s first outing as a vocalist — his sound is tailor-made for Crypt Sermon’s brand of melodic doom, which both crushes and soars. And he’s not the only person in this band who knows what the fuck they’re doing.

The album can be ordered here. Go to this place to listen to the new song premiere.

https://www.facebook.com/CryptSermon

 

 

 

 

THE BANNER

The Banner are a New Jersey hardcore band who released an album late last year named Greying. I didn’t hear about them until yesterday, thanks to an extremely enthusiastic recommendation on Facebook by Krieg’s Neill Jameson. I’ve only listened to the first two songs on the album — “The Dying of the Light” and “Circle of Salt” — but goddamn, are these two songs pulverizing!

The music is bleak, black, and ferocious. “The Dying of the Light” is mid-paced and utterly brutal, the chords and drum beats coming down like pile-drivers as the vocalist does his best to claw the veins from his throat. It’s a harrowing assault, but there’s an otherworldly atmosphere to the song as well, with eerie dissonant strains of melody floating around the seismic-strength demolition work.

“Circle of Salt” does its work in less time, but it’s just as desolate and hateful — and just as skull-cleaving and alien. It also gives you a taste of what The Banner sound like when they depress the accelerator on their wrecking machine.

Greying is available on Bandcamp, and I just bought it, and I’ve embedded the stream below.

http://goodfightent.bandcamp.com/album/greying
https://www.facebook.com/TheBannerNJ/

 

 

 

 

ABOMINATOR

Australia’s Abominator have been awfully quiet. More than eight years have passed since their last album, The Eternal Conflagration. But at long last they have a new one named Evil Proclaimed that Hells Headbangers is slated to release on March 24. This will be their fifth album overall, in a career that stretches back 20 years.

Yesterday, the label put the new album’s title track on Bandcamp, and it sure did light me up. It’s a blackened death metal blitzkrieg, all militaristic percussion, thundering bass lines, rapid-fire riff morbidity, and a couple of flamethrowing guitar solos. Oh yeah, the vocalist is authentically demonic, too. Hot shit.

The new song can be purchased for $1 on Bandcamp, and the whole album can be pre-ordered there as well:

http://hellsheadbangers.bandcamp.com/track/evil-proclaimed

 

 

 

 

 

GALAR

“Dark Essence Records have announced March 16th as the release date for De gjenlevende, the new album from Norwegian Black-Folk Metallers GALAR. The album, which will be the band’s 3rd full-length, was recorded at the Conclave and Earshot Studio in Bergen with producer and VULTURE INDUSTRIES frontman Bjørnar E. Nilsen handling the recording and mixing, whilst mastering is by by ENSLAVED’s Herbrand Larsen. Artwork for the album is by Robert Høyem of graphic designers Overhaus.”

That’s a quote from a press release I received a week ago. It intrigued me enough that I kept a link to a new song from the album, which premiered at the same time. Finally got around to hearing it today.

The new song is named “Tusen kall til solsang ny”. It’s more than 10 minutes long and doesn’t drag for a second. It mixes scalding black metal vocals and arcing clean ones; furious instrumental rampaging and slow, beautiful passages that glimmer with soulful electric and acoustic soloing; hard-rocking parts and jagged, jabbing parts. And through it all, Galar weave gorgeous melodies that will get their hooks in your beautiful head. What a revelation this song is!

https://www.facebook.com/galarofficial