SHADES OF BLACK: PROFUNDIS TENEBRARUM, VOID RITUAL, MYTERI, AKATHARSIA, WHORE OF BETHLEHEM, NEVERENDING WINTER, KALABIRA

 

Though laid low by an injury over the past week, I recovered well enough this weekend to do lots of catching up on what I missed. I suppose that’s obvious, given how much music I recommended in the Saturday and Sunday NCS posts, but I’m not finished. Here are recommended songs from seven more bands (I ran out of gas before posting these blackened offerings in their usual place on Sunday).

Some of the music in this post comes from full albums or EPs that have already been released, and with one exception I’ve only sampled a few tracks from each of those so far — but I like what I’ve heard. So, rather than risk not mentioning them at all, I’ve selected one song from each of those full releases to include here. The rest are advance tracks from forthcoming albums.

PROFUNDIS TENEBRARUM

This Spanish black metal band from Valencia released their first demo in 1997, and on July 1 the French label Egregor Records released the group’s fourth album, Disciples of Venomous Death. The track I selected to begin this collection of music appears third in the running order and its name is “Exsanguination Smell”

This is a pure firestorm of hellish ferocity, near-staggering in the combined speed and intensity of its astonishing drumwork, its withering riffs, and its maniacal demonic vocals. As full-throttle adrenaline bursts go, it’s an electrifying and thoroughly unhinged form of punishment. However, the more you listen to it, the more gripping the currents of dramatic melody also become.

As mentioned in the introduction, I haven’t yet listened to the whole album, but the other songs I’ve heard are equally scorching. However, you will be able to take at least one ragged breath during the middle of the track that follows this one (“Serpent Cult Abomination”), which slows and becomes hypnotic, mystical, but no less fearsome.

Bandcamp:
https://egregor-records.bandcamp.com/album/disciples-of-venomous-death

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/PROFUNDIS-TENEBRARUM-131133906966511/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VOID RITUAL

Holodomor, the 2014 debut EP of this one-man band from Albuquerque, New Mexico (Daniel Jackson does everything) garnered quite a lot of attention and acclaim. Void Ritual followed that in 2015 with a split with the Scottish band Barshasketh, which was also well-received. And now comes the debut album, Heretical Wisdom, which will be released on August 18 via the Mexican label Throats Productions and Minnesota’s Tridoid Records.)

(Since first posting this column I learned, thanks to a comment below, about Spirits of the Black Past, an album-length compilation that Void Ritual released this past February, which contains not only the song you’ll find below but also other new songs, some re-recordings of previously released tracks, and an Immortal cover (“Mountains of Might”)).

Below you can experience the first advance track, “A Mockery of Flesh and Bone“. It sets the hook in the first 30 seconds with an urgent yet forlorn guitar melody that only becomes more vibrant and gripping the more you hear it as the song rushes forward at a headlong pace, with Jackson howling like a mad wolf. The melody goes through variations, all of them appealing, but never loses its intense emotional power.

Bandcamp:
https://throatsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/heretical-wisdom

Void Ritual on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/voidritual/

Void Ritual on Bandcamp:
https://voidritual.bandcamp.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MYTERI

If you’ve been following these SHADES OF BLACK columns for a while, you know that they’re not rigidly confined to black metal, even though black metal is the focus of the series. With this next song I’ve crossed over into crust and hardcore with the Swedish band Myteri, and yet when you listen to “Act Right Now“, you may not think it’s out of place.

That song is the third track on Myteri’s self-titled LP, which will be released on August 4 by Alerta Antifascista Records, but is already streming in full on Bandcamp.

Once again, I haven’t listened to all of this album yet, but as I’ve been making my way through it, this song in particular grabbed me body and soul, though it’s only two-and-a-half minutes long. It’s bruising and battering, and the barbarous vocals wouldn’t be out of place in a black metal band, but the source of its powerful attraction is the very bleak and biting melody, which is also somehow ardently defiant.

Pre-order:
https://alertaantifascistarecords.bandcamp.com/album/aa128-myteri-s-t-lp-out-august-2017
http://www.replenishrecords.com

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/myteriswe/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AKATHARSIA

Here’s an album that is being officially released today but has been streaming in full on Bandcamp for at least the last few days. Entitled No Generation Without Corruption, it’s the debut album by an Oakland band named Akatharsia.

The song I picked for this SHADES OF BLACK playlist is the opening track, “Refusal of Light“. It tells you that Akatharsia’s approach to black metal involves integrated doses of crust punk and storms of raw, abrasive noise. It goes full-bore almost from the very beginning, but while it’s cacophonous and calamitous, flying along the edge of pure chaos, the riffing is damned good, the grooves are there, and the energy is highly communicable.

The few other tracks I’ve heard from the album so far are just as riveting, and just as dire, so if you like what you hear in the first song, just let that player continue to run.

(Thanks to Milos for pointing me to this album.)

Bandcamp:
https://akatharsia.bandcamp.com/album/no-generation-without-corruption

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/akatharsia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHORE OF BEHLEHEM

As I’ve done before, I first paid attention to Whore of Bethlehem because they come from my birthplace and old hometown of Austin, Texas.  Most would not think of Austin as a hotbed of brutal black/death, but that’s what Whore of Bethlehem are blasting at us.

Their second album, Extinguish the Light, is due for release on July 23rd by Black Market Metal Label, and the song below is the title track. It thunders like mass artillery, with braying riffs that pulse like deep, hellish trumpets of war and cut like bone saws. It bludgeons, too, and the vocalist roars and shrieks as if transformed into a monster. Near the end, a bleak guitar melody rears its head and slowly slithers like a viper through this war zone. Catchy stuff, as well as obliterating.

The pre-order of the album (see the link below) comes with a Bandcamp download, and it will presumably be available as a straight download on Bandcamp after the release date.

Pre-order:
https://www.whoreofbethlehem.com/store

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/wobethlehem/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEVERENDING WINTER

Neverending Winter come from Tomsk in Siberian Russia. Their debut album Series of Decades came as a great late-year surprise in 2015 (I wrote about it here), and a couple of months ago I reported that they have a second one named Хиус (which apparently is a word for “a very strong kind of a wind that is mostly common for the winter seasons”) that will be released later this summer.

In that earlier report, I included a teaser of excerpts from the album, and now the band have posted a full track named “By snow ridges“, which you’ll find below. Like most of the tracks in this particular SHADES OF BLACK collection, it’s a blood-rushing piece, with blood-spraying vocal ferocity, but the song is also a dynamic one that rocks and stalks as well as ravages, and it includes more than enough melodic hooks to pull the listener in for the ride.

And speaking of dynamism, I should mention that in the song’s final minute it transforms into something quite unexpected and quite cool. And it would be boorish of me to spoil the surprise.

Bandcamp:
https://neverendingwinter.bandcamp.com/album/2017

Facebook:
https://facebook.com/neverendingwinter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KALABIRA

To wrap up this round-up, I’m going back in time. Not too far back, only about a year, to May of 2016. That was when a band from Cebu City, Philippines, named Kalabira self-released their debut EP, a four-song, 15-minute eruption called Hypokrito.

I learned of the album only because the band e-mailed us recently, and I happened to notice the e-mail at a rare moment when I actually had time to listen. And while the Philippines may not be best known for their black metal bands, this one has a good thing going.

The song below is “Hammer, Nails, Cross, and the Crown of Thorns“, but if you let the YouTube player run it will continue to serve up the other three tracks as well. You’ll know from the opening track if this EP is your kind of thing, because the other three songs are in a similar vein. And what kind of vein is it?

It’s a vein of bestial, high-speed, black metal delirium, loaded with machine-gun drumwork, furious thrashing riffs, and throat-ripping vocal fury. What grabbed me about the music though (besides those qualities), were the rapidly writhing guitar leads and the scintillating (non-standard) solos, which often give the music an unearthly sheen, and the jolting tempo changes.

In addition, the songs do not all sound alike. The final track, in particular, is a divergence. It’s a cover of a song called “Banal na Aso”. From some googling, it appears to be a track originally recorded more than 20 years ago by a Filipino folk/punk/alternative band named Yano, with lyrics that attack religious hypocrisy. Kalabira change it up, of course, and do a great job of making it their own (it also includes the best guitar solos on the EP). (The original is a damned good song, too.)

In other words, this is above-average boiling savagery, with nimble instrumental performances and addictive as well as adrenalizing qualities. Unfortunately, the EP isn’t on Bandcamp and I haven’t found another easy way to acquire it.

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/kalabiraofficial/