VIDEOGRAPHY: BEHEMOTH, GORGUTS, UADA, BLACK SPACE RIDERS

 

We had such a big line-up of premieres and reviews yesterday that I didn’t have time to pull together a round-up of new things, so I’ll do some of that today. As a consequence of waiting, the first couple of items in this round-up of new videos (and one new song excerpt) will no doubt have been seen by most of you already. I still want to leave them here because they’re so good — though I don’t think I need to say much about them. The second two are somewhat more recent, and are by bands who don’t have quite the name recognition among metal heads as the first two, so I’ll spill a few words about those.

BEHEMOTH

Nergal has a reliably interesting artistic vision for Behemoth’s videos, and a knack for enlisting help from talented people in making them a reality — including Sharon Ehman of Toxic Visions for the costume and prop design in this video, among a long list of others (who are identified in the notes to the video here). Of course, the dramatic natural setting for this video is the real star.

The song is “Ben Sahar”, from The Satanist.

https://www.facebook.com/behemoth/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GORGUTS

Gorguts‘ new EP, Pleiades’ Dust (coming out May 30 via Season of Mist), is one long 30-minute track. A couple of days ago Gorguts released another section from the song, a movement referred to as “Besieged”. Here’s a long revealing statement from Luc Lemay about this part of the song, followed by the stream:

“With ‘Besieged’, the composition that is Pleiades’ Dust reaches its last segment. I wanted to have a ‘Funeral March’ feel to it, since it is a dramatic point in the story, when the Mongol invaders destroy the library and most of the books are thrown in the Tigris river. Musically, I wanted to pay tribute to 3 things with the opening doom riff.

“First, in the progression of the doom riff, throughout the four repeats, I wanted to expose the theme in unison and in counterpoint, among the string instruments, that gets more complex each time. This constitutes an ode to Penderecki’s second violin concerto, which introduces a funeral march feel right after the cadenza. Second, is the guitar tone represents a big nod to the sound of Sunlight studio / HM2. I am absolutely crazy about this guitar tone, which we find on the first ENTOMBED album and also the BLOODBATH records. Those had a massive influence on me, when I was writing ‘Considered Dead’.

“Third, is the ‘doom riff” guitar work that I originally discovered on the first PARADISE LOST album. I was so intrigued by this dark feel in their writing style and that was also a huge influence for the distinct dual guitar riffs on ‘Considered Dead’. Therefore this is a tribute to Greg Mackintosh.”

https://www.facebook.com/GorgutsOfficial/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UADA

In late January I wrote about a striking new song named “Black Autumn, White Spring” from the debut album Devoid of Light by Portland’s Uada (due for release on April 8 by Eisenwald). Yesterday Uada released a video for the album’s title track. The credits for the video can be found in the notes here.

Like Behemoth’s video above, this one features a striking natural setting as the backdrop for some occult, ritualistic goings-on. The music is as compelling as the dramatic landscape, beginning as heavy, mid-paced atmospheric black metal with a strong, dark melody, and then bursting into flames, with the vocals rising from a low growl into searing shrieks. The song starts to rock hard as the bonfire blazes and the moon turns red, and that compelling opening sequence returns to close a really excellent song.

Director Tim Keenan Burgess did a great job with this video.

UPDATE: I just discovered that the entirety of the album is available for listening on Soundcloud, and so I’ve now embedded that stream after the video.

https://www.facebook.com/Uada-557297117740779
http://www.eisenton.de
https://www.facebook.com/eisenwaldofficial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLACK SPACE RIDERS

Whenever I see the name Black Space Riders, my memory immediately reverts to the song “Run To the Plains” from their last album Refugeeum, which I wrote about here last year. It’s one of those songs where the music comes rushing back into my head immediately after thinking of it. And so even though the band are well off our usual beaten paths, when I got an e-mail this morning about a new Black Space Riders song and video, I had to check it out.

The song is “Starglue Sniffer” and it will appear on a new EP named Beyond Refugeeum, to be released on May 13. The animated visuals for the song (created by Lenia Friedrich) are half the reason to watch this. The song is damned catchy, too, though for most of its length it will probably strike you as a dance track. It doesn’t get heavy until near the end… much like the build-up that occurred in “Run To the Plains”. Selfishly, I wish the band had either hit this part of the song sooner or stayed with it longer, but that’s a function of my own musical preferences. Nevertheless, I’m still enjoying it, even though it’s a pretty dramatic exception to all sorts of our “rules” at this site.

The EP can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp:

https://blackspaceriders.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-refugeeum-ep-2

https://www.facebook.com/BlackSpaceRiders/