SEEN AND HEARD: PIG DESTROYER, REVOCATION, THE RITUAL AURA, KVALVAAG

 

A whirlwind trip to Denver for my fucking day job prevented me from posting anything yesterday other than my premiere and review of the new Temple Desecration album. So I’ve got some catching-up to do. Later today I’ll post Part 2 of a post I began on Monday (“Doom Meets Death”) along with a couple more song premieres and the beginning of a three-day series of photos by Teddie Taylor from this year’s edition of Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. But first, it’s time for a mid-week round-up of new music and videos.

PIG DESTROYER

Pig Destroyer’s new album, Head Cage, has been high on our list of highly anticipated albums for the second half of this year. Yesterday they provided the album’s first single (and video), “Army of Cops“. To put things politely, it produced some mixed reactions across the interhole. For example, there was this exchange among certain people affiliated with NCS, whose names I’ve concealed because I didn’t ask permission to quote them:

 

Photo Credit: Joey Wharton

 

Critic 1: That PD song is downright awful.

Critic 2: That Pig Destroyer song is fucking incredible and all the haters can suck it! I FEEL LIKE I COULD JUMP OVER THE MOON AND SUCKER PUNCH THE FUCKING SUN.

Critic 3: People don’t appreciate a good, solid, angular groove these days. Also that’s like four dudes what been in Agoraphobic Nosebleed in that video.

Critic 2: It sounds like Misery Index and ANb did a song with JR on vocals, which is LITERALLY WHAT IT IS.

Critic 3: I mean, its purposefully sloppy as fuck and gets kind of sludge-y right at the end.

Critic 2: This thing’s a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus.

Me? I’m in the fuck-the-haters, love-the-bowel-loosening grooves, sexual tyrannosaurus, camp. PigDestroyerHC indeed. And yes, that is Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Richard Johnson making a guest vocal appearance (AnB’s Kat Katz is a guest on the album, too). And the video, which is fun as hell to watch, was made by Dave Brodsky in a stuffy loading dock on a 102-degree day.

Head Cage will be released by Relapse on September 7.

Pre-order:
http://bit.ly/PigDestroyerHC

Digital Downloads:
http://smarturl.it/PigDestroyerHC

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REVOCATION

There’s a new Revocation album on the way, also highly anticipated around these parts. Entitled The Outer Ones, which is probably not about navels that are convex instead of concave, will be released by Metal Blade on September 28th. The first advance track provided yesterday (also presented through a video) is of unworldly origin, and has been named “Of Unworldy Origin“.

And basically, this is a full-throttle, crowd-pleaser of a track that includes all the ingredients that we’ve come to know and love about this band’s music, including an eye-popping David Davidson solo. And you get to watch a gory, face-licker of a video while you listen.

Pre-order:
http://www.metalblade.com/revocation

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE RITUAL AURA

Last fall it became evident that The Ritual Aura’s next release, which was first forecast as an EP, had been expanded to album length, though the title remained the same: Velothi. DGR wrote about an advance track last September, a song named “Keening III: Dreamer’s End“. In early June the band released a further track, which DGR and I missed because we were otherwise occupied with presenting the second edition of Northwest Terror Fest. Later, the song appeared again through a lyric video, which was supposed to be disclosed when the audio for the track first appeared but was delayed due to unidentified issues beyond the band’s control.

DGR tells me that this new album is inspired by and based on the mythology from the third Elder Scrolls game, Morrowind. I have no idea what that is, but I’m mentioning it because someone besides DGR might play video games.

This latest track, which appears to be the album closer, is called “Keening IV: Red Year & The Fall“. It includes beautiful performances by Ryan Cho on violin and viola, and KC Brand on drums. It glides and gleams, twists and turns, swoops and soars, and folds together a rich variety of stylistic ingredients in unpredictable yet cohesive (and fascinating) ways.

Velothi is supposed to be out later this year. Watch this space for further developments:

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KVALVAAG

Seid is the third studio album by the Norwegian black metal band Kvalvaag, and it’s set for release by the Dusktone label on July 30. The one track from the album that’s now streaming on Bandcamp, “Bergtatt“, is the song I picked to close this mid-week round-up.

Combining moody yet sweeping symphonic melody, blast-furnace drumming, ghostly pinging and darting keyboard notes, menacing riffs, sorcerous soloing, and a blend of vicious harsh vocals and gothic cleans, the song creates an atmosphere of peril and punishment that’s grandiose and hallucinatory. It whirls the mind and activates the adrenal glands in fine fashion, and is so immediately addictive that the first thing I did after the song finished was play it again.

Bandcamp:
https://dusktone.bandcamp.com/album/seid

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