SEEN AND HEARD: WOLFHEART, HIGHRIDER, HYPERDONTIA, EADEM

 

We probably won’t have as many posts at NCS today as we usually do. I’m on my way to Sea-Tac airport for a flight to a top-secret location in New Mexico where I’ll be engaged in various nefarious activities until Sunday night. I have an even longer trip next Tuesday that will take me away for that entire week, and posts will be scanty then as well.

I know we will have a very enticing premiere today, because I’ve already written it, and beyond that we might not have anything else. But before I zoom off into the clouds I thought I’d share a new video, two new songs, and a new item.

WOLFHEART

The news item makes those of us at our putrid site happy and hungry even though there’s no music to share yet: Finland’s Wolfheart will be returning with a fourth album on September 28 via Napalm Records. Its name is Constellation Of The Black Light.

 

photo by Mike Sirèn

 

I don’t think it’s necessary to say more, beyond the point that if you haven’t listened to Wolfheart’s past music, you owe it to yourself to do that.

As soon as music from the new album publicly surfaces, you can be sure we’ll sharing it in another of these round-ups.

Pre-order:
https://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/store/wolfheart

Wolfheart:
https://www.facebook.com/WolfheartRealm/

 

 

 

 

 

HIGHRIDER

Like Wolfheart, Sweden’s Highrider is another band I think everyone should listen to, regardless of your usual listening habits. We had the great pleasure of premiering their latest release, 2017’s Roll For Initiative debut album, and I went on at length to explain why I thought it was essential listening. To crib from that review:

The vibrant mix of styles in Highrider’s formula is fascinating. You can readily pick out the influences as you make your way through the album, but what you probably couldn’t have predicted is how creatively and seamlessly Highrider blend them together in every song. The music is thus both pleasingly familiar and marvelously unique — and it’s also massively infectious….

…The songs are well-written; they get stuck in the head; they’re performed with top-shelf skill; they’re produced in a way that delivers clarity and power. And whether Highrider are charging ahead like a big rushing freight train, or acting as executioners, marching you solemnly and ominously to the gallows or the chopping block (which is how I think of the album’s final track), they’re in command. As they say in the trade, Roll For Initiative is all killer, no filler.

My excuse for regurgitating these words of praise is yesterday’s release of a video for one of the tracks off Roll For Initiative, a high-flying romp named “Batteries” that eventually includes some psychedelic flavors in its boiling cauldron of cross-genre ingredients, and a goddamned classic solo. The music slays, and so does the video, in which the band members fall before the blade of the executioner.

Buy:
https://freighttrain.se/sv/cd/highrider-roll-for-initiative.html?mc_cid=c83b4a1b31&mc_eid=c45d400b96
https://highriderofdoom.bandcamp.com/album/highrider-roll-for-initiative

Highrider:
https://www.facebook.com/HighriderOfDoom/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HYPERDONTIA

The Italian maestro Paolo Girardi strikes again, and so does Hyperdontia. What a fine pairing.

I last wrote about these Danish death-dealers in late 2016 after discovering their debut EP, Abhorrence Veil. And again, I’ll share what I wrote then because it’s also relevant to the new music that’s just appeared:

Hyperdontia link arms with some very old, very ugly death metal traditions (fans of Incantation, in particular, are likely to eat this up), with its slow, grotesque, über-deep growls and extremely morbid, pestilential, vibrating riffs. But the music is also galvanizing as hell, thanks in part to a production that gives the bass and drums the kind of massive punch that threatens organ rupture and a dynamism in the song-writing that keeps you on your toes.

The new music is a song called “Majesty“, off Hyperdontia’s debut album, Nexus of Teeth, which will be released by Dark Descent (CD) and Me Saco Un Ojo (LP) on September 6, 2018.

Bandcamp:
https://hyperdontiaofficial.bandcamp.com/album/nexus-of-teeth

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EADEM

To close this round-up I’ve chosen “Delusions of Grandeur“, a song from the debut EP of the Portuguese band Eadem, the name of which is Luguber.

The press release I received characterizes the music as “something that could be labelled as traditional ‘free jam’ black metal, with lyrics that “deal with sorcery, occultism, superstitions, depraved poetry, and alchoholism”.

I do find the song an interesting and unpredictable little head-trip. Certainly, it is black metal, but the occultism in the sound borrows from other musical traditions, and the combination proves to be intriguing as well as hallucinogenic. I’m eager to hear more of this devilishly twisted music.

Luguber will be released by Iron Bonehead Productions on October 19th on CD and 12″ vinyl format.

Eadem:
https://www.facebook.com/Eadem-777971238890775