September ends today. If history is a useful guide, we’re only about six weeks away from the point at which year-end lists will begin appearing (DECIBEL’s is the first high-profile one that I usually see, in mid-November). And yet, while a lot of people will soon be looking backward, we still have a full three months of new metal ahead of us.
Fortunately, those of us here at NCS have undergone body modification so that we have eyes in the back of our heads as well as those gazing forward. Using the latter pair, I’ve spied four forthcoming releases from which I’ve selected song streams in this round-up. Using the backward-looking orbits, I’ve also chosen some music from a pair of other releases that have already come out, though very recently. I’ve arranged the music so that we’ll start fast, slow down, and then ramp up again.
RADIATION
Bratislava, Slovakia, is home to the death/thrash band Radiation, whose debut album The Gift of Doom will be released by Witches Brew on October 17. I would like to draw your attention to a pair of songs from the album now streaming on Bandcamp, “Praise the God of Nuclear Fusion”, and the title track.
Radioactive poison does seem to come off these nasty riffs in waves, bubbling the skin while the bassist rumbles your guts and the drummer snaps your head. There’s some superheated soloing as well, and as icing on the cake, the vocals are a reverberating effusion of toxic gargoyle growls. Murderous mayhem, done right.
Bandcamp:
https://witchesbrewthrashes.bandcamp.com/album/the-gift-of-doom
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/radiationslovakia/
REDENIK
Continuing with music that gets the heart surging and the head hammering, I turn next to the debut album of a Serbian band named Redenik. Entitled Nekrografija, it will be released tomorrow by the Serbian label Dirty Malice Productions, although a full album stream is already now available on Bandcamp.
Redenik brand their music “Necro Crossover”, as a way of capturing its nasty blend of thrash, hardcore, black metal, and other extreme ingredients. I’ve chosen the album’s fifth track for this Saturday playlist.
“Polumrtav” isn’t the most intricate or stylistically scrambled song on the album, more of a straight-ahead thrash mauler, but it’s such a sure-fire adrenaline trigger that I couldn’t resist. The guitar tone is gnarly as hell, the vocals are exceedingly vicious, and the track will give your neck a good workout.
(Thanks to Miloš for linking me to this recording by his countrymen.)
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/redenikserbia111/
Bandcamp:
https://dirtymaliceproductions.bandcamp.com/album/nekrografija
LETHVM
Now we’ll begin the process of slowing down, but in no way easing the intensity of the music.
The next song is “Wandering At Dawn“, which is the first advance track from This Fall Shall Cease. That’s the debut album by the Belgian band Lethvm, which will be released on November 24th (on CD) by Deadlight Entertainment. A vnyl edition will be coming from Dunk! Records, and a cassette tape edition will be released by Denses Records.
I learned of this song thanks to a recommendation by starkweather, who made me smile when he jammed together three references in saying it has “the Cult of NeurIsis sound”, though with even more unhinged vocals.
The dissonance in this bleak song’s opening might put your teeth on edge, and the sludgy weight in the low end might loosen your bowels, too. The shrieking vocals are indeed maniacal, though there are clean vocals in the song as well. And while the song is a tension-ratcheting experience, it becomes a doom spellcaster in the mid-section, and a pile-driving destructor at the end.
Pre-order (CD):
http://www.deadlight.fr/products/601376-lethvm-this-fall-shall-cease
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/lethvmband/
DEADSMOKE
I owe a big thank-you to my friend Ryan (from Seattle’s Lb.!) for the super-enthusiastic recommendation of Mountain Legacy, the new album by the Italian sludge/doom band Deadsmoke. It was released just two days ago by Heavy Psych Sounds Records.
There are no weak links in this album, but I’ve chosen “Endless Cave” as a way to introduce you to Mountain Legacy. It is indeed mountainously heavy, and massively intense in its slow kindling of apocalyptic hallucinations. The moaning guitar solo about two-thirds of the way through bleeds agony, and the vocals flense the brain. The song turns skin to ash, bone to powder, and the mind to a quivering pool of fear. Along the way, it will get your head moving, too.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/deadsmokedoom/
Bandcamp:
https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/deadsmoke-mountain-legacy
DEATHFUCKER
Now it’s time to shift into a higher gear.
Last December I sang the praises of a demo named Fuck the Trinity by an Italian duo (vocalist/guitarist/bassist Insulter and drummer J.K.) who call themselves Deathfucker. Now it appears that Trauma Records (Colombia) has just released a Deathfucker EP, which bears the same name as the demo. It includes the three demo tracks plus two new ones.
I’ve already described the demo tracks as a combination of vocals scraped raw with braying fury, abrasive riffs charged with megawatt energy, and delicious fireball soloing — a kind of death/punk/thrash fusion that kicks down your door, busts up all your furniture, batters your head, and leaves you grinning through broken teeth.
The two newer tracks, “Agents of Satan” and “Obsessed By Death“, are just as nasty, raw, and completely electrifying as the first three. The band seem to teeter right on the brink of madness and chaos, but the songs have immediately catchy melodic hooks, gripping rhythms, and commendable dynamism as well.
I’ve included YouTube streams of all five tracks below. To order the EP, write the label here: traumarkhan@hotmail.com. I’m hoping there will also be a legit way to download it via Bandcamp or some other platform.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/agentsofsatan/
PEACE IS JUST A BREAK
To wrap up this round-up, I’ve included two videos for two songs by the Swiss band Peace Is Just A Break. One of them appeared recently, and that led me to discover the second one, which was released in March. Both tracks are off the band’s debut album Little Boy, which is due for release on October 13.
The lyric video for “A Hate So Strong” was constructed by Jonas Lacôte using excerpts from the 1964 movie Attack from Space, which is a hoot to watch. The other one, made by Lacôte and Valentin Graff, gives you a chance to see the band in action.
Both songs are damned strong formations of heavy-grooved, rocketing melodic death metal propelled by an especially bone-shattering rhythm section. The band harness together jolting grooves (peppered with start-stop flurries of destructiveness), spider-like fretwork, and fluid, fiery melodies. If you prefer truly ferocious, howling vocals in your metal, you’ll get that here, too.
Little Boy is available for pre-order on iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pijabofficial