On each of the last three days I intended to post a round-up of new music and videos that I thought were worth your time, and each day I failed. I would have run out of time again today if I hadn’t managed to throttle my usual verbosity. In fact, I’ve resorted to sentence fragments rather than complete sentences in order to get this done.
As the days passed, of course, some of the items in this post have become a bit dated, and the volume of selections has swelled with newer discoveries.
BLUT AUS NORD
After more than 20 years of musical activity, Blut Aus Nord finally released their first-ever music video a few days ago. The chosen song is “Metanoïa“, which appears on Deus Salutis Meae, which I reviewed here, accompanying our premiere of the first publicly revealed track from the album.
For the creation of the video, BaN turned The Cuckoo from Terra Tenebrosa. Not surprisingly, it’s creepier than most people’s worst nightmares. If your own makes this video seem tame, you have our condolences.
Bandcamp:
https://blutausnord.bandcamp.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Vindsval.official/
ZEAL AND ARDOR
On Tuesday Zeal and Ardor posted a two-minute video on the band’s Facebook page, with no explanation.
An old man staggers from the mouth of a building, a haunted look on his face, and what seems to be a shotgun in one hand. The camera pans back, showing equally haunted looking children carrying wood toward a pyre and chopping other pieces of wood.
The music is also… haunting. It seems to be an excerpt from a longer song and video, perhaps a forthcoming single, or EP, or album. I’m anxious to find out.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/zealandardor/
BAPTISTS
Earlier today Vancouver’s Baptists announced that their third album, Beacon Of Faith, will be released on May 25th by Southern Lord. It was recorded with Kurt Ballou at Godcity in Salem, Mass., and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege in Portland, Or.
At the same time Baptists began streaming an advance track called “Capsule”. My reactions:
…as grim and hopeless as a sucking chest wound… transfixing drumwork… crushing riffs… raw, red-eyed vocal fury… heaving, braying chords… and interesting melodic accents…
Bandcamp:
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/BAPTISTS/111676572202547
CHRCH
Light Will Consume Us All is the name of the second album by CHRCH, and it’s set for release on May 11th by Neurot Recordings. Today brought the advent of an advance track (one of three long compositions on the album.
“Portals” is… goddamned titanic… mountainous riffs… anvil-heavy drumwork… a voice from beyond the grave… enthralling melody… and signs of evolution from the band’s first full-length.
Pre-order:
https://neurotrecordings.merchtable.com/artists/chrch/
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/chrchdoomca
LLNN
The Danish band LLNN have a new album coming on April 27th named Deads. It follows their hellaciously good split last year with Wovoka.
Below you’ll find the stream of a track called “Armada“: massive, brute-force, jackhammering punishment laced with bleak, alien melodies and abundant vocal tortures. Hallucinatory, frightening, and apocalyptic… capable of smashing your poor head into a messy slop of goo.
Bandcamp:
https://llnn.bandcamp.com/album/deads-2
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/llnnband
MORGENGRAU
Nick Keller created the album art for the new second full-length by the Austin-based death metal band Morgengrau — and he did his usual spectacular job. Only part of his creation is shown above. More is visible here:
This new album, Blood Oracle, will be released by Unspeakable Axe Records on June 22nd. I really like the first track to emerge from the album, which is “Wolves of Thirteen“.
…thoroughly hellish, and a hell of an adrenaline trigger… highly infectious riffs that pound, batter, and swarm… shrieking whammy-guitar soloing… a potent rhythm section at work… a vibrantly vicious vocal attack…
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Morgengrau-112541632142818/
ABYTHIC
Beneath Ancient Portals is the name of the debut album by the German death/doom band Abythic. It’s coming out on May 11th via Blood Harvest Records. The first-revealed song, “Abandoned Tombs On Ungodly Grounds”, is very, very promising.
…gruesome tremolo-implemented barbarism, both seething and crawling… with a destructive rhythm section… a roaring monster behind the mic… and a thick, morbid atmosphere…
Bandcamp:
https://bloodharvestrecords.bandcamp.com/album/beneath-ancient-portals
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Abythic/
SECTIONED
The Scottish band Sectioned have risen again after a temporary burial with a revamped line-up and a new album named Annihilated that will be released on April 27th. Last month I heaped praise on the album’s title track, which is indeed annihilating — “a veritable hurricane of battering drumwork, murderous riffing, shrieking leads, pile-driving grooves, and lunatic raving, all wrapped in a squall of abrasive noise”. It left me wide-eyed and trembling.
Now there’s another single from the album named “Starved Lives”:
…bleak as hell but fantastically electrifying… staggeringly bone-breaking… with eruptions of mind-shredding violence… threaded with tension-torquing melody… and lashed by unhinged vocals…
Bandcamp:
https://sectioned.bandcamp.com/track/starved-lives
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sectioned/110534288996228
ATONE
To conclude I have a recently released EP by the band Atone from Oakland and San Francisco (whose line-up includes members of Body Void and Swamp Witch), which is available from Transylvanian Tapes. “Surgical punishing SLUDGE” is what the label calls the music.
The EP is a leviathan of sound… torturous low-frequency amp worship that makes your entire skeletal structure vibrate… harrowing vocals (both high and low)… catastrophic melodies… neck-wrecking rhythms… and much more.
If only I had time to continue writing, but my time is up. Listen:
Bandcamp:
https://transylvaniantapes.bandcamp.com/album/atone
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/atonehymns/
9 Responses to “OVERFLOWING STREAMS: BLUT AUS NORD, ZEAL AND ARDOR, BAPTISTS, CHRCH, LLNN, MORGENGRAU, ABYTHIC, SECTIONED, ATONE”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Woah, that MORGENGRAU, don’t know if it even be called “just” Death Metal.
I agree with you — lots of other interesting genre ingredients in this song!
Do they still sound like an Electrocution worship band?
You’ll just have to listen and find out. 🙂
That’s asking an awful lot of me 🙂
The Zeal and Ardor video is fucking awesome. There were some gems on the first album, but it was too inconsistent for my tastes. I hope this is a sign of what’s to come.
That Zeal ‘n’ Ardor thing is *fantastic*.
I hope they get to do Bray Wyatt’s new entrance theme.
The video for the Blut aus Nord track was disturbing, but I kind of liked it.
Not sure what I should think about zeal and Ardor especially after listening to their released albums so far.
Morgengrau was okay.
But Atone was another gem.
There must be more than one artist called Baptists, the ones I know and like would not play that slow. Okay after some research I found out that these guys are the Baptists I listened to.
Chrch are okay, but I am not into 15 minute songs when they are played as slow as this.
LLNN are a bit more interesting, but it feels that something is missing.
Abythic don’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s solid.
And now we are talking with Sectioned being absolute brutal and fast. Instant like
Tastes being what they are, it would be odd if anyone liked everything in this collection… I mean, other than me, who is possibly the only person in the world who likes everything in this post.