This is a good news, bad news story. The good news is that while I was driving home last night after seeing Bell Witch and Lycus perform in Seattle, I had the pleasure of seeing a beautiful vista in the sky above me, so beautiful that I had to pull over and take this photo with my phone. The bad news is that it was 2:30 a.m. when it happened.
Just in case it’s not clear, that’s waaaaay past my fucking bedtime. So I slept in this morning, and now I’m late getting together a post for this Saturday. I’m also a bit foggy in the head, but not so foggy that I can’t recognize a good song when I hear one. And I’ve actually got three good new songs in this post that I heard this morning, plus one very cool new video — presented in the order in which I heard and saw them.
photo by Jørn Veberg
SHEVILS
It’s been a little over a year since I last wrote about Oslo’s Shevils. That was back when they released a new single named “Shivers”. This morning they released another single, “One Thousand Years”. It comes from their new album The White Sea, which will be released on November 6.
Shevils are more a hardcore punk band than a metal band, but they’ve always had a heavy undercarriage to their sound, which is one reason why I like their stuff. But that’s only one reason. “One Thousand Years”, for example, alternately hammers like a pneumatic piston and slashes with some very catchy (and dark) melodic riffs, while the vocalist howls his lungs out. Infectious and hard-hitting, it was a good way to start clearing the fog from my head.
“One Thousand Years” is available for free download HERE.
https://www.facebook.com/shevils
http://shevils.com
ABBATH
When I wrote about the live video for Abbath’s new song “Fenrir Hunts” about five days ago, I noted that the band planned to release two more live videos this year, and the first of those appeared near the end of this week. It’s a cover of a song called “Warriors” originally released by the band I on the album Between Two Worlds (2006) — a band that included Abbath on vocals and guitar, plus guitarist Ice Dale (Enslaved), bassist King ov Hell (ex-Gorgoroth), and drummer Armagedda (Demonaz).
The video, directed by Fraser West, is well-made — and the performance is outstanding, too. And that’s all I have to say about that.
https://www.facebook.com/abbathband
http://www.abbath.net
PERTURBATOR
Perturbator’s Dangerous Days album was released by Blood Music in June of last year. A fan of the band named Monte Legaspi made a video for a song on the album named “Complete Domination”, and the label and band liked it so much that they’ve now released it as the official video for the song.
It’s not possible to remain completely still when you listen to the song; this has been scientifically proven beyond all doubt. And the video is a real trip to watch. So watch it.
P.S. Perturbator has completed a new album (the band’s fourth). Entitled The Uncanny Valley, it’s projected for release late this year or in early 2016.
https://perturbator.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/Perturbator
https://www.facebook.com/BlooodMusic
MOLOKEN
On October 19 in the EU and November 13 in the U.S., Temple of Torturous will release All Is Left To See, the new album by Moloken from Umeå, Sweden. The album is the first in a concept trilogy that the band have named Mörkrets Kärna, which is “about falling down a pit of your darkest being, losing yourself completely and desperately trying to make sense of it”.
Last month I wrote about one advance track from the album named “I Dig Deeper”, and yesterday the label and band premiered another new one — “Subliminal Hymns”. The song rumbles like big tank, with a kind of cold, mechanistic atmosphere to the music, laced with guitar dissonance and throat-rupturing howls. But then the song takes a sharp turn into a parallel dimension in which ominous ambient sounds hold sway. This interesting song gets into your head very easily, so easily that I wish it had been twice as long.
All Is Left To See is available for pre-order here.
http://www.templeoftorturous.com
http://www.facebook.com/ToTRecords
http://templeoftorturous.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/Molokenofficial
http://moloken.bandcamp.com
4 Responses to “SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: SHEVILS, ABBATH, PERTURBATOR, MOLOKEN”
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That Shevils track is a banger – and I’m certainly becoming ever more intrigued as to the upcoming Abbath album.
The time is now exactly 02:30 in Norway. A great time of day to enjoy beer and metal undisturbed by phones, kidz, choirs and shit. 🙂
Abbath and King ov Hell covering a band made up by Abbath and King ov Hell et al. Can that even be defined as a cover?
On a more serious notice, Moloken sounds frighteningly disturbing, and that atmosphere’s never wrong in the darkness of night.
Aren’t time zones wonderful?
You do have a point about whether “Warriors” is really a “cover”. And yes, Moloken do generate a nice, creepy atmosphere. They can pound pretty hard, too.
I’m loving everything I’m hearing from Abbath, too bad the new album is still a few months away!