photo by Ester Segarra
Today we have a two-part round-up of (mostly) new music for you. I put together this selection of new things I spotted over the last 24 hours. A bit later today we’ll bring you another compilation, assembled by Grant Skelton. Here we go:
AT THE GATES
“The Night Eternal” is one of my favorite tracks on At the Gates’ latest album At War With Reality. Honestly, it’s probably my favorite track on the album. So I was excited that the band released an official video for the song a couple of days ago, and even more excited when I realized that the video consisted of an animation by Romanian graphic artist and musician Costin Chioreanu. And it truly is a wonderful creation. Costin wrote this about the video:
“The story of ‘The Night Eternal’ speaks about the dark side of human nature and about the tragedy of living now, in a moment when any possible tool for hiding it becomes futile. The Night Eternal is in us, The Night Eternal is what we became, guiding our spiritual evolution using a wrong map, provided by a wrong society. The victim remains lost in a dream of constant need without any perspective of fulfillment. I present you the best piece I ever done in matter of illustration, concept development and animation.”
Feast your eyes and ears upon this:
https://www.facebook.com/AtTheGatesOfficial/
SECRETS OF THE MOON
This morning Terrorizer premiered a lyric video for the song “Hole”, which appears on the new album Sun by Germany’s Secrets of the Moon.
Terrorizer writes that on this new album Secrets of the Moon “have stretched beyond their black metal lineage and mixed in elements of Bauhaus, Killing Joke and The Nephilim“. I can’t comment on that because I haven’t listened to the album yet. Our man Andy Synn has been toiling over a review, and seems to be having difficulty finding the right words to describe his reactions, which is intriguing. The band wrote this about the song:
“Hole’ describes the desolate story of humanity. A story that is more present than ever before with the tragic attacks in Paris that leave me speechless and resigned. There is no hope. There is no god. Whatever we do, whatever we create, whatever we love is temporary. It is a gift that we go on for nothing. ‘Hole’ sketches pretty much the opposite of ‘going on’, also within the music. At least that’s what I feel right now.” – sG
The song really does pull you in — at first down into a dark, strange place that shimmers with the sounds of reverberating guitar melody. Then the song becomes a heavy rumble that really got its hooks in my head as it rolled and lumbered forward. Cool wah-wah guitar solo at the end as well.
You can pre-order the album here. It’s due for release on December 4 by Lupus Lounge.
https://www.facebook.com/sotm777/
CHTHE’ILIST
Le Dernier Crépuscule is the name of the new album by the Quebec band Chthe’ilist. It will be released on January 29 by Profound Lore (CD and digital), with a vinyl version coming later via Dark Descent Records and a cassette edition from Graceless Recordings. It was recorded and mixed by Greg Chandler (Esoteric, Cruciamentum, Indesinence) at Priory Studios, and it features cover art by the masterful Paolo Girardi.
Two days ago Stereogum premiered a track from the album named “Voidspawn”, and I finally caught up with it last night. In his introduction to the song, Doug Moore wrote that “Demilich’s singular, oddly elliptical riffing style resonates loud and clear on Le Dernier Crépuscule.”
“The angular lope and ensuing stomp that break out a minute into “Voidspawn” could have come from a lost Demilich record, but Chthe’ilist become even more impressive when they switch gears into an atmospheric, depressive lurch in the song’s third act.”
This really is an exceptional, dynamic song that employs a variety of stylistic tools — meshing thick, heavy murkiness and horror-show vocals with eye-crossing guitar derangement and blending ghastly trudging with bursts of rampaging mayhem. And speaking of eye-crossing, there’s one hell of swooping, diving, searing guitar solo in here, too.
https://www.facebook.com/Chtheilist/
OBSCURA
The last item in this little collection is an official video for the title track to Akróasis, the new album from Germany’s Obscura.
This is the right kind of video for Obscura’s music — you get a close-up look at all the spidery finger-work and machine-precise drumming that goes into this song, which is a deft blend of brain-scrambling tech-tonics and swirling/lilting melody. Fun to hear, fun to watch!
Akróasis was produced by the band and V. Santura (Triptykon, Pestilence) and will be released February 5, 2016 via Relapse Records. The album will be available in CD, 2xLP, and digital download. Physical pre-orders for Akróasis are available HERE and digital pre-orders can be placed HERE.
http://www.realmofobscura.com
https://www.facebook.com/RealmOfObscura
9 Responses to “SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): AT THE GATES, SECRETS OF THE MOON, CHTHE’ILIST, OBSCURA”
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In a nutshell, this post contains good music and the video by At The Gates is wonderful indeed!
In a nutshell, Chthe’ilist is the best thing here…thought maybe theyd never get past the demo stage, so this is awesome news
On the strength of this song, I’m very, very eager to hear the rest of the album. Sounds like a serious step forward from what I remember of the demo (though I also remember liking it).
Chthe’ilist is my favorite of this bunch, they sound awesome 😀
Chthe’ilist one ups every aspect of the 2012 EP. Im very eager to hear this. MORE LOVECRAFT!
I am absolutely in love with that Chthe’ilist track!! Very excited for that album!!!
Good to hear that Obscura wasn’t hurt too badly by their member shuffling.
Just when I thought that Meshuggah, Vektor, and Obscura would be my most anticipated albums next year, along comes Chthe’ilist. Absolutely fantastic!!!
That Obscura track is excellent too. I like that sound a lot more than the path that Alkaloid took, and even more than the Hans Grossman solo album sound.