These dudes (The Black Sorcery) look like they mean business. And what kind of mean business do they mean? Take a clue from some of the song titles on their new album: “War Fangs”, Putrescent Infected”, “Angry Spit of the Witches Piss”, and the album title-track we’re premiering: “Wolven Degrade“.
Here’s another clue:
That’s the degrading cover art for this new album. The second full-length defilement by these barbarians from Alberta, Canada, it will be released on March 28th by Krucyator Productions. And while the cover doesn’t leave much to the imagination, we’ll go ahead and share a few unflinching words from the band about the song that shares the album’s title:
Her whimpersong briefly fought,
And won over by the hearth of warm fur pressed at her back.
Held down at the snow,
Bent and broken conceded a fragrant fear turned lust“The title track ‘Wolven Degrade‘ is true bestial debauch, the tale of an abyssic winter rape and subsequent impaling murder of a witch nestled in the unforgiving Canadian Rocky Mountains. As the hungry wolf’s knot stabs at the heart of her, the onslaught of The Black Sorcery will conjure a freezing splattering of blood into the merciless snow of your deadest frostbitten thoughts…”
This scattering of clues would be unnecessary if your mind had already been mauled by the band’s debut album, 2018’s ...and the Beast Spake Death from Above, or even by the single track from that album which we premiered last April. You would already know that The Black Sorcery are devoted to a particularly extravagant (and viscerally thrilling) expression of war metal violence. Rest assured, they haven’t discovered the meaning of mercy since last year.
As forecast, the title track is indeed a bestial debauch, a primitive and priapic violation of the senses. With a plodding pace at first, it becomes a hammering, snare-driven charge and then devolves into a punishing stomp. Surrounding those changing rhythms is a maelstrom of cruel riffing that roils and pulses, pierced by a shrill, skittering, whirling solo and shards of eerie luminescent sound. The beastliness of the music is augmented by the horrors of the vocals, a grotesque menagerie of grunts, growls, and gurgles, like bubbling cauldron of toxicity.
Tasteful outwear courtesy of Panzerfaust Records
Krucyator will release Wolven Degrade in a jewel-case CD edition with a 12-page booklet, as well as digitally.
PRE ORDER:
Bandcamp : https://krucyator.bandcamp.com/album/wolven-degrade
Shop : https://krucyator.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-black-sorcery-wolven-degrade
Digital : smarturl.it/wolven
THE BLACK SORCERY:
https://www.facebook.com/The-Black-Sorcery-133516247446955
TRACK LIST:
1.War Fangs
2.Intolerance Enthrone
3.Putrescent Infected
4.The Crone
5.Body Coffin Betrayal
6.Wolven Degrade
7.Sawed Strings and the Fall of a Marionette
8.Angry Spit of the Witches Piss
9.Worse Still the Fog of Man Settles
10.Revelation of Dark Desire
10 Responses to “AN NCS PREMIERE: THE BLACK SORCERY — “WOLVEN DEGRADE””
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That label is only handling one format of the release. Appalachian Noise Records is handling every other format and merch. If you want vinyl and a shirt head to appalachiannoiserecords.com to get it.
I dont mean to be salty and so on, but….I dont know, Im bothered more and more by the way in which women in metal are depicted all the time. I mean these lyrics and imagery–and it is by no means limited to this band here. Women are dissected/raped etc on covers, lyrically they are witches at best and treacherous or leacherous creatures at worst. In all, women in metal, I daresay, exist as variables in a male equation; they are devoid of agency. ‘But Duerk, what about all those female-fronted bands then?!’ Well, there you have it, you call them ‘female-fronted’, as if it is such an exception which it is, sadly.
You may say ‘Well, Duerk or whatever your name is, dont listen to this band then!’, or ‘Wanker, metal is not about equality and inclusion’ etc. etc. etc., but that argument does not have that much traction I feel; not when everything around metal (i.e. society at large) is in constant flux trying to change for the better.
Maybe it is the environment I am in, or that I dont feel to get on board the machismo train so much, but where I feel that metal concerts are being visited by ever more women, a band like this—or so it feels–actively strives to keep the bar at the ridiculously low level it is at presently.
I know that there is no direct relation between female concert goers and dumb-ass lyrics and images, but there still remains the idea that society functions that much more effectively if people are included and treated fairly; you know—like you would want to be treated (OMG was that a christian value I just repeated??!) My point is that metal is so male-dominated with all its backward tropes: no wonder people continue to regard the whole genre as such.
A real shame considering the wonderful and challenging nature of metal
Anyway, blah.
I take it you don’t listen to rap.
I do—it can be hilarious. But yes, I understand the difference between fiction and fact.
Favourite rap whatever at the.moment: Run the Jewels and Geto Boys
Duerk, I showed this album cover to my very independent-thinking wife – she laughed at it (after all, it’s not a photograph of an actual event) and suggests that if it offends, then maybe other genres of music may be less offensive to you! Extreme metal has always been free thinking and frequently OTT and has largely evaded censorship.. I hope it remains that way.
One of the reasons I’ve continued to enjoy working on NCS is that the people who comment here can have a discussion like this without being name-calling assholes about it. Thank you both.
Also, it helps that for the people who can’t resist being assholes, I can delete their assholery as fast as they can submit it. 🙂
The album cover suits the lyrical content. The theme being loss of innocence, violation, grief and revenge. But you didn’t bother to read those words before you concocted this opinion you based solely on a picture of bestial sexuality. This is a work of fiction that in no way condones/promotes acts of rape, but rather viscerally expresses the human emotions of anguish.
The art is intentionally graphic and the Black Sorcery stand by the intensity of the imagery. We are NOT misogynists, we are conjurers.
Read the poetry before you become insensed at a picture of a beautiful nude woman, and a band you haven’t bothered to learn anything about.
—LM
Dear LM/Russ Drury,
I have to say sorry if you think I meant to say you are misogynists; it is true that I havent given much thought to what The Black Sorcery stands for. who is in the band or how their choice imagery ties in with their lyrics. I perhaps should have not made my point–to which you may agree or not–under a post about The Black Sorcery. Again, I was not going for this band–I enjoyed the music—and the way the band presents itself is VERY much the band’s own choice.
I dont think Id have the power or am that important to try and start a controversy focussed on one band anyway.
As for the rest of the commenters in general and Islander in particular: thanks for not going after me or berating me for trying to annoy people. This is partially why I visit this site.
I realized before posting yesterday that I might come across as a smug d-bag. For the record, Im not ‘incensed’ by this record/band and I have been loving black, death etc. metal since I was around 15 (38 now) so I know what Im in for—the argument that ‘less offensive’ genres are just over the horizon for me to discover has little meaning, therefore. Besides, Ive seen/heard much worse.
The point I was trying to get across was merely that I feel more thought could be put into the matter of how women are depicted in metal: that some questions could be asked, that bands and fans could perhaps reflect on the product they lovingly create or buy. Narratives and imagery can shape thoughts about what is ‘the norm’, ‘allowed’ etc, after all.
To me, it is not one band or even a hundred bands that ‘create’ or ‘perpetuate’ an issue—although I did, admittedly, hint at it in my previous post. I am, however, wondering whether a certain structural flaw or blind spot may be upheld when a genre is less interested in reflecting on where it stands or how it got there. And we can all agree on the fact that metal has had this issue, although you may not see the issue at hand, here.
In any case, I just wanted to contextualize what I said earlier, not to offend anyone or single out a band.
Werewolves should be held to a higher standard!