SEEN AND HEARD: ÄRA KRÂ AND NECROBLATION

 

I’ve got a fairly large collection of new songs that I want to recommend, but I unfortunately don’t have the time to write about all of them now. Rather than just throw up my hands and surrender, I decided I’ll at least mention two of them now. To be more accurate, I’m recommending one and Grant Skelton is recommending the second. Me first…

ÄRA KRÂ

Almost exactly four years have passed since I last wrote about Berlin’s Ära Krâ, reviewing their powerful debut album Ferne Tage, and then interviewing the band not long after that. Until yesterday they hadn’t released anything new since then, but yesterday they did — a song named “Strang und Schwert”. It’s the first release from a forthcoming self-titled EP, and I sure like it. It begins in intense fashion, a black metal flash flood of basting drums and swarming riffs with howling hardcore-styled vocals. And then it changes dramatically…

…with a piano interlude, a Chopin piece recorded by the father of one of the band’s members. The band then build from that back to a final storming finale. And both pieces of music actually seem to work well together — there is a unifying sense of melancholy in both parts of this recording, despite the dramatic differences that otherwise exist between them. And as I remember from Ferne Tag, that ability to blend the intense and the beautiful together is one of this band’s talents.

https://aerakra.bandcamp.com/album/ferne-tage
https://www.facebook.com/aerakra

 

 

 

NECROBLATION

(Grant Skelton wrote the following introduction to a new song by Necroblation.)

I first heard of Lausanne, Switzerland’s Necroblation in 2013. The band’s debut offering, Ablation Of Death, was one of my favorite death metal albums of that year. The album title is a play on the band’s name, and the word “ablate” means “to remove surgically.”

On June 12, Necroblation are releasing their sophomore effort entitled Stab Your Self. The album features artwork by Pär Olofsson, who needs no introduction. The list of bands he hasn’t done artwork for is likely a short one. Impaled heads, ritual human sacrifice, zombies (of course), and a soul being extricated from its mortal coil: I’d say that over-qualifies this painting for a metal album cover!

“Gehenna”, a new track from Necroblation’s upcoming album, is streaming below via Bandcamp. Expect enough blast beats to obliterate your dwelling into a crater. The change in the song’s pace at the 2:30 mark gave me a compulsion to engage in circular headbanging… unfortunately I don’t have the hair for that. The production quality sounds authentic; like a band actually playing the notes you hear rather than a studio-engineered science project. Drums, vocals, bass. and guitar are all audible in the mix.

As a side note, the album’s first track (after the intro, that is) has a title of “Cut My Foreskin.” That alone demands a listen.

Stream “Gehenna” on Bandcamp below.

https://www.facebook.com/necroblation

 

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