SATURN’S DAY: KYPCK, OUR PLACE OF WORSHIP IS SILENCE, DEFECRATOR, NAAT, SECOND TO SUN

 

Yesterday, to end the work week, I picked new (or newish) songs from five bands to recommend out of a much bigger group of new stuff I thought was good. To celebrate Saturn’s Day, I’ve picked four more from that original group and added one older EP that I finally got around to checking out.

KYPCK

Formed back in 2007 and naming themselves after the Russian city of the same name, KYPCK (pronounced “kursk”) are Finnish but led by a vocalist (Erkki Seppänen) who is fluent in Russian and sings in that language. His bandmates include two former members of Sentenced: guitarists Sami Lopakka (who uses a six-string guitar made from an AK-47 assault rifle) and Sami Kukkohovi, along with bassist Jaakko Ylä-Rautio and drummer Antti Karihtal. Their discography, such as it existed at the end of 2014, was the subject of the 53rd edition of THE SYNN REPORT at our site.

 

 

Their new album, Зеро (Zero), will be released on September 16, and yesterday the band premiered a striking video for a new song called “Ya svoboden” (I am free). The video is directed by Harri Haataja and was filmed near Oulu, Finland.  It’s a gripping thing to watch, particularly the overhead shots of the band.

The song is a gripping thing to hear as well — a massively heavy, mid-paced bulldozer of doom with a rising vocal harmony in the rocking chorus that sticks in the head. A mood of anguish seeps through the song, and it will rattle the teeth in your skull, too.

Orders for the album can be placed at PledgeMusic and Record Shop X. Here’s the track list:

01 – Ya svoboden (I Am Free) (5:16)
02 – 2017 (5:14)
03 – Mne otmshchenie (Vengeance Is Mine) (5:19)
04 – Progulka po Neve (Stroll by the Banks of Neva) (4:43)
05 – Na nebe vizhu ya litso (I See a Face in the Sky) (11:02)
06 – Moya zhizn (My Life) (6:01)
07 – Poslednii tur (The Last Tour) (5:32)
08 – Rusofob (Russophobe) (5:00)
09 – Baikal (5:08)
10 – Belaya smert (White Death) (7:40)

https://www.facebook.com/KypckHeadquarters/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OUR PLACE OF WORSHIP IS SILENCE

The Embodiment of Hate is the name of the debut album by Our Place of Worship Is Silence, who are from Los Angeles (and whose line-up has changed in two respects since this album was recorded). The album will be released by Broken Limbs on October 14. I received the album two days ago, but so far have only listened to the song you can also hear below, “Feast of Martyrdom”.

This feast lays before you a frenzy of skittering, poisonous riffs and dissonant notes along with earth-rumbling rhythms and horrifying vocals that range from abyssal roars to ghastly shrieks. It’s an abysmal death metal monstrosity that exerts an eerie appeal.

The Embodiment of Hate can be ordered on LP or cassette here, or in digital form through the Bandcamp links below.

http://www.facebook.com/ourplaceofworshipissilence
https://brokenlimbsrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/feast-of-martyrdom
https://opowis.bandcamp.com/album/the-embodiment-of-hate

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEFECRATOR

Having moved into heavier, more deathly territory with that last band, I’ve decided to stay in that general vicinity with this next one. They were recommended by my NCS comrade DGR, mainly because the band (Defecrator) seem to be from the vicinity his hometown of Sacramento. Although their music isn’t squarely in DGR’s wheelhouse, it hits mine dead-on. This is high-quality savagery.

The music in question appears on the band’s debut 2015 demo, Tales of Defecration, which includes three original songs and a cover of an Impaled Nazarene song. In the original songs, Defecrator unleash a seething, destructive torrent of blackened death metal. The drumwork is both riveting and punishing, while the vicious riff storms give off an aura of inhuman savagery, and when the band do (infrequently) slow their ravaging pace they foul the air with a sense of suffocating dread. The roaring vocals are inhuman, too.

The cover song slots in nicely with the original tracks — as rendered by Defecrator, it’s a hurricane of ravening fury and blood-rushing intensity. It’s also further proof that these dudes can hit maniacal speeds in their instrumental work — they seem right on the edge of just exploding into a million highly radioactive pieces

I’m thinking this EP will appeal to fans of those Vancouver siblings Mitochondrion and Auroch. Based on a Facebook post I saw, Defecrator are working on a split release with Ritual Genocide, with a recording session scheduled for November. That should be worth watching for.

https://www.facebook.com/defecrator/
https://defecrator.bandcamp.com/releases

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAAT

Now I’ll turn back to brand new stuff, albeit in a very different style of music from the last band. What comes next is a track called “Vostok” from the self-titled debut album of a post-metal band from Genoa, Italy, named Naat. The album will be released by the Italian label Argonauta Records on October 3.

I’ve listened to “Vostok” repeatedly since first discovering it, mainly because it’s such a powerfully addictive, pile-driving skull-crusher. Over the top of those bone-splintering riffs and rhythms, Naat spin out both demented guitar vibrations and a pulsing, rippling melody that sinks its tendrils into your head.  Naat are a purely instrumental band, but I’m pretty sure you won’t miss the vocals in this dark, disorienting, and damned infectious beast of a track.

Naat can be pre-ordered in CD here.

http://www.argonautarecords.com
http://www.facebook.com/naatband/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SECOND TO SUN

To conclude this collection of music for Saturn’s Day, I have the latest single by a band I’ve featured several times previously at our site — Russia’s Second To Sun. This one is a cover of a song called “GladWeHaveAnUnderstanding” by a group called Bones.

The original (a video of which is here) is a minimalist hip-hop song consists of a repeating keyboard motif, spare, wobbling beats, and a mix of screams and rap. Second To Sun include a short bit of rapping in the song and they retain the original song’s simple little keyboard melody, but otherwise they crank up the heaviness and ominous intensity of the music by orders of magnitude.

“GladWeHaveAnUnderstanding” was released April 27 on Bandcamp, though I missed it until yesterday. It’s gotten its hooks into me, and even though it’s a far cry from much of what we cover here, it would be disingenuous of me not to give it a spot in this round-up.

https://secondtosun.bandcamp.com/track/gladwehaveanunderstanding-bones-cover
http://www.facebook.com/second2sun