DEATH RITUALS: HATE, SUCCUMB, MAUSOLEUM, PHRENELITH, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, CRYPT ROT, SIGIL

 

As I looked through my list of candidates for a SEEN AND HEARD round-up, and having siphoned off some of the more blackened entries for a continuation of the latest SHADES OF BLACK column, it dawned on me that many of the remaining songs were of a deathly variety. And so I’ve compiled them here with a different post title. Different forms of death, to be sure, but plenty of heaviness and savagery is to be found below.

HATE

Tremendum is the name of the new album by the Polish leviathans (note, I did not say “behemoths”) in Hate. It will be released on May 5 by Napalm Records. This morning the band debuted a lyric video for the first single from the album, a track called “Asuric Being“.

 

 

Heaviness and a black mood are what we expect from Hate, and we get that from “Asuric Being”, but we also get a full-throttle militaristic assault, plus eerie yet alluring vibratory guitar melodies and soloing, plus a slow, bleak exit that rings in the head for a while after the song ends.  I like.

http://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/store/hate
https://shop.napalmrecords.com/hate
https://www.facebook.com/HATEOFFICIAL/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUCCUMB

Succumb is the new name for a Bay Area band originally named Cloak, whose debut demo (available here) was named Succumb. Got that? Good. The band’s debut album, also named Succumb, will be released by The Flenser on May 5.

Last week DECIBEL premiered a track from the new album named “Survival”, and it’s now stream-able on Bandcamp.

I’m fascinated by the song. It’s an electrifying and often dissonant hybrid of death metal, grind, and crust that’s both frenzied and head-hammering, and the echoing cries and roars of vocalist Cheri Musrasrik make it stand out even more. Though I can’t make out the words, I’ve read that Musrasrik crafts her lyrics based on such literary works as the poems of Yeats, Jean Genet, and Emile Zola.

https://succumb.bandcamp.com/album/succumb

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAUSOLEUM

Next up I invite you to experience “The Curse of the Tomb“, which I discovered through a post by a Facebook friend, who remarked that it was one of the heaviest things he’d heard this year. It is indeed pretty fucking heavy.

The song is a new single by the Pennsylvania zombie cult Mausoleum, whose last album was 2011’s Back From the Funeral. The opening minute and a half of the song is positively crushing and positively ghastly. After that, it becomes positively eviscerating and maniacal. And then it drops into a grisly crawl that once again vibrates the earth beneath your feet. And then it starts to rumble like a steamroller. And then… well, why don’t you just listen to it?

https://www.facebook.com/thezombiecult/
http://www.thezombiecult.us

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHRENELITH

Copenhagen-based Phrenelith (whose line-up includes members of the lethal Undergang) put out a hell of a split with Spectral Voice last fall (released by Dark Descent and Iron Bonehead), and our very first post of 2017 included a track from a full-length Phrenelith promo tape named Desolate Endscape, which I think will eventually be re-released by Me Saco Un Ojo and Dark Descent, though I’m no longer sure of that. But what I have here is a new Phrenelith EP named Chimaerian Offspring.

These three songs will do a very effective job of taking your damned head right off and leave you with a spurting neck stump. The vocalist’s horrifying roars, the rancid guitar tone, and the poisonous tremolo whirring have a lot to do with the unhinged yet cold-blooded violence manifested in these tracks. These megaton detonations called “songs” also include brain-pulping brutishness, thanks to a massively hard-hitting rhythm section. And the change of pace in the middle track provides variety of the doomed, horror-stricken kind. I’m in lust with this EP.

https://phrenelith.bandcamp.com/album/chimaerian-offspring
https://www.facebook.com/phrenelith/

 

 

 

 

 

 

HIDEOUS DIVINITY

Adveniens is the new album coming our way on April 28 (via Unique Leader) from Italy’s Hideous Divinity. Revolver was chosen to host yesterday’s premiere of a new single from the album named “Ages Die”.

Hideous Divinity open up the throttle on this track with an eye-popping drum attack and lots of fleet-fingered barbarism in the riffing and flame-throwing heat in the deranged soloing. It’s an electrifying piece of red-eyed ferocity, with the bestiality of the vocals adding a hair-raising element of savagery — and there’s a dismal and unsettling interlude in the second half that precedes an ominous and imperious finale.

http://www.indiemerch.com/uniqueleader/band/hideous-divinity
http://www.facebook.com/hideousdivinity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CRYPT ROT

I could have sworn I’d written about Crypt Rot last fall when I first discovered their existence, but now can find no evidence that I did. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’m writing this now. Pretty sure.

Crypt Rot are an Ohio band whose line-up includes current and former members of such bands as Homewrecker and Scorched (with whom they’ll be releasing a split later this year via Unspeakable Axe Records). Their debut album Embryonic Devils will be released by Southern Lord on April 28, and the song below is a track from that album named “Chapters of Torment“.

The song has been out in the world for a few months, but yesterday’s announcement of an album release date by Southern Lord provided the reminder that I’d never written about it, though I’d intended to. The band claim influence from the likes of Carnage, Dismember, Cannibal Corpse, and Deicide, among others, and this particular song is indeed a murderous death metal rampage. But it eventually slows, and that’s when the completely unglued vocals change… and it’s a cool change.

https://www.facebook.com/CryptRotOH/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIGIL

As I’ve admitted more than once, I have a soft spot for bands from my old home town of Austin, Texas, and I’m indulging that weakness again with the final song in this round-up. It’s the title track to Kingdom of the Grave, which is the debut album of Austin-based Sigil. The album is coming out on April 7 through Horror Pain Gore Death Productions.

A soulful and grieving violin instrumental begins the song, and the band hang on to the doleful melody when they add their own weight to the intro… but soon enough they start to gallop and pummel, interweaving ingredients of old school Swedish death metal and crust. The song gets the blood pumping in a rush, and the melodic elements get their hooks in, too. Very nice.

https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/kingdom-of-the-grave
http://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/store/hpgd144.html
https://www.facebook.com/Sigilmetal/