AN NCS PREMIERE: BLACK HOLE GENERATOR — “A REQUIEM FOR TERRA”

 

Ten years ago a band named Black Hole Generator released a debut EP called Black Karma. After that long absence Black Hole Generator is returning with a debut album entitled A Requiem For Terra, which will be released next month by Dark Essence Records. Consider this about the people who have participated in it:

First, there is the creative force behind Black Hole Generator, Vulture Industries’ main man and long-time Taake and Helheim producer Bjørnar E. Nilsen. And then there is guitarist Arve Isdal (Ice Dale) of Enslaved and Audrey Horne, plus Gjermund Fredheim (Taake/Orkan) contributing lead guitars on three tracks, as well as additional guitars by Dag Terje Andersen. Also, the distinctive Romanian artist and musician Costin Chioreanu made the cover art.

By dropping those names, I suspect we have now seized your attention. And while we have it, we would like to share with you the premiere of the new album’s title track. It will seize your attention, too.

 

Photo credit: Jarle Hovda Moe

 

I remember the feeling of having an ice pick driven straight through my skull when I first came across Black Hole Generator’s video for the title track from Black Karma back in 2011. I remember because I can resort to the post I wrote about the video back then. “A Requiem For Terra”, however, is a different kind of beast — multifaceted standing alone, and still only one facet of this jewel of an album, which displays divergent faces as you turn across its seven tracks.

This really is an unusually fine song. In the beginning, it’s slow and very heavy, thanks to an earth-rumbling bass and drum rhythm and the ringing of corroded chords, with vocals that are jagged and demented, sinister and ravenous. The music immediately begins casting an ominous but hypnotic spell, redolent of peril and impending doom.

But this song that begins as a crusher builds to a massively headbangable crescendo. You listen, and you can imagine a desperate soul being pushed over the brink of madness — and thereby finding freedom.

The pace accelerates, the vocals rise up in inflamed cries, and the riffing becomes more urgent and compelling, without in any way diminishing the song’s heaviness. The guitar begins to seethe, the bass to grind, and the drums to blast, providing an intense framework for a pulsing guitar melody. And when the intensity eventually diminishes, the melody becomes even more seductive, the magnetic notes continuing to ring out across your skull long after the song reaches its eerie and unsettling conclusion.

 

Photo credit: Jarle Hovda Moe

 

Dark Essence recommends the album for fans of Tribulation, Dödheimsgard, Thorns, Emperor, Vulture Industries, Anaal Nathrakh, Tom Waits, and Devil Doll. What an attractive and intriguing list of names that is — and I will vouch for the fact that it’s not an exaggeration or a misdirection. Keep your eye out for this album.

Dark Essence will release A Requiem For Terra on November 18, 2016, on CD and vinyl. Pre-order links are below, along with the track list, and of course our stream of “A Requiem For Terra”.

Europe webshop:
https://www.darkessencerecords.no/
Bandcamp:
https://blackholegenerator.bandcamp.com/album/a-requiem-for-terra
U.S.:
https://darkessence.aisamerch.com/

TRACKLIST

1. A Requiem for Terra
2. Titan
3. Moloch
4. Beneath a Chemical Sky
5. Emerging Pantheon
6. Earth Eater
7. Spiritual Blight