SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: NECROPHOBIC, VILKACIS, ARCHAIC TOMB, SCREATURE

 

I didn’t expect I would be able to prepare this round-up. I’m still on vacation (through December 15), and have been pretty faithful to the promise I made to She Who Must Be Obeyed that I would not blog (much) during this trip. For example, we had nothing on the site yesterday, which is a rarity.

But, I had a small amount of time to myself this morning, and there didn’t seem to be any harm in checking out some new music. I’ve barely glanced at the NCS e-mail box during the last week, so I decided to start making my way through the mail that arrived over just the last two days (more than that would have devoured my limited blog time this morning). What you will hear in this round-up is the result of that limited and hurried survey.

First, however, I want to share a piece of news that I had missed until Andy Synn indirectly led me to it.

NECROPHOBIC

On Friday I posted Andy’s list of his favorite 2017 EPs. One of his choices was inadvertently omitted from the text he originally sent me for posting, and when he caught the error, he sent me some further text, and the omission happened to be a 7″ EP called Pesta that Necrophobic distributed during a tour.

 

 

I checked Necrophobic’s Facebook page just to see if it had become available for download through one of the usual platforms (it hasn’t yet), and there I saw that Necrophobic will be releasing a new album.

Entitled Mark of the Necrogram, it will be released by Century Media on February 23, 2018 (CD, vinyl, digital), with pre-orders starting on December 15. The excellent cover art was created by Necrolord (Kristian Wåhlin).

This will be the band’s eighth album in a career that now spans almost 30 years, and the first since 2013’s Womb of Lilithu. It will also mark only the second appearance of vocalist Anders Strokirk since the band’s 1993 debut album The Nocturnal Silence, the first reappearance coming on that Pesta EP mentioned above.

We eagerly await the release of song streams from this album.

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/necrophobic.official/

 

Now I’ll turn to the new songs I discovered his morning, though my limited blog time prevents me from including my usual impressions of the music. You’ll just have to form your own, without my irreplaceable assistance. I really like all of them.

 

 

 

 

VILKACIS

Three years ago I reviewed the debut EP (The Fever of War) by the Brooklyn-based band Vilkacis, which is the solo project of Michael Rekeviks, who has also been involved with Fell Voices, Sleepwalker, Vanum, Vorde, and Yellow Eyes (among other groups).

Thanks to a Bandcamp alert, I discovered this morning that Vilkacis will release a new album named Beyond the Mortal Gate on March 2, 2018. A song called “Sixty Three” is now available for streaming, and you’ll find it below.

Bandcamp:
https://vilkacis.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-mortal-gate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARCHAIC TOMB

The next song in this little collection is “Vast Cursed Landscapes” from Congregations for Ancient Rituals, which is the debut recording by a Portuguese band named Archaic Tomb. It consists of 4 songs and 30 minutes of music, and it will be released on January 15 (tape and CD) by Caligari Records.

Bandcamp:
https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/congregations-for-ancient-rituals

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photo by Nedda Afsari

 

SCREATURE

The final two songs in today’s round-up come from the third album (Old Hand New Wave) by a band from Sacramento named Screature. The album will be released on January 19th.

Screature describe their music as “dark psyche”, “a chimera stitched together from post-punk, ’67-era garage psych and early goth”. The band’smembers are Liz Mahoney (vocals), Miranda Vera (drums), Sarah Scherer (organ), and Chris Orr (guitar).

Now I admit that based on the genre description, I had doubts about whether I would enjoy the music, but I’m very glad I listened to these two songs anyway. One is “North of Order” and the other is “Hit the Void“.

iTunes Pre-order:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/old-hand-new-wave/1320192222

Bandcamp Pre-order:
https://screature.bandcamp.com/

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/screaturesound