SEEN AND HEARD: EYE OF SOLITUDE, AKROTHEISM, INCANDESCENCE

 

I’m kind of scrambling due to interferences from my damned day job, but I didn’t want too much time to pass before sharing with you a few items of interest — the first of which is an exclusive piece of very exciting news.

EYE OF SOLITUDE

Those of you who’ve been following the site for a while will probably be aware that we’re big fans of Eye of Solitude and their fearsome brand of funereal death/doom. We’ve been writing about these Romanian/British doom lords for well over six years now, and have featured articles on their work a number of times (such as here, here, here, and here), as well as one of Andy Synn’s Waxing Lyrical interviews of the band’s main man Daniel Neagoe (here).

Eye of Solitude’s most recent album, 2018’s Slaves of Solitude, presented (in Andy Synn’s words) “some of the best music we’ve heard from the band since their career-defining Canto III“, and was definitely one of the year’s doom metal high points, successfully achieving “that rare feat of providing a listening experience which is both utterly devastating yet eminently re-listenable.”

And now we are delighted to report that this year Eye of Solitude will be returning with another album named Godless, and to reveal the album’s cover art (above).

We can also share this comment about the new album from Daniel Neagoe:

“Godless is the band’s sixth album and the one with a special mark. Bleaker and more dissonant, painfully slow yet with bursts of aggression, almost an hour of sheer despair and anguish.”

We will be keeping a close watch on further news about the record, and eagerly awaiting the first track premieres when they are ready. To keep watch yourselves, follow Eye of Solitude through the links below. And if you happened to miss out on the wonders of Slaves of Solitude, you’ll find a full stream after the links.

OFFICIAL SITE:
http://eyeofsolitude.com/

BANDCAMP:
https://eyeofsolitude.bandcamp.com/

FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/eyeofsolitudeband/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AKROTHEISM

Though hurried, I did want to include some recent music in this round-up. My first choice is another new song recently released for listening from Akrotheism’s second album, The Law of Seven Deaths.

The first advance track, which surfaced in January, was “Manifesting Tartarus“. Ominous gloom descends immediately as the song begins, and you can soon sense a building tension — which becomes greatly magnified as the flesh-rending vocals appear along with bursts of drum tumult and sinister, seething guitar dissonance. In your mind’s eye, the flames leap higher and higher, and the vocalist’s wild cries and searing shrieks amplify the feeling of unhinged fervor that burns within the music and eventually becomes a conflagration.

It’s a disorienting, hallucinatory, and intense piece of music, and was a very good signpost for this eagerly anticipated new album. The newer song, “Typhonian Serpents“, is, if anything, even more frightening and unearthly. The vocals are especially wild and terrifying in all their permutations, but the music is itself nightmarish, presenting visions of berserker violence and looming magisterial cruelty. Chaos reigns in the maniacal drumming and spidery fretwork, and misery slithers like a serpent through the more stately passages.

The song is a constantly morphing composition, pounding and groaning, burning in unhinged ecstasy, sliding into disturbing hallucinations. Nothing about it is comfortable, yet it is nevertheless mesmerizing.

The Law of Seven Deaths was mixed and mastered by Stephen Lockhart at Emissary Studio, Iceland, and it features guest vocals and chants by Acherontas V. Priest and cover art by the distinctive David S. Hererrias. It will be released by Osmose Productions on March 29th.

PRE-ORDER:
http://www.osmoseproductions.com/
https://osmoseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/law-of-seven-deaths

FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/akrotheism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INCANDESCENCE

Incandescence is a Canadian progressive black metal band started by Philippe Boucher, a member of such renowned groups as Beyond Creation, Chthe’ilist, and Décombres. Although he was joined by a changing line-up of other members for the band’s first two albums, on the new third record he performs all instruments and crafted the lyrics as well. On this new record, Ascension, he is joined by vocalist Louis-Paul Gauvreau (The Uncouncious Mind, Helzgate).

The first single from the new album, “Tomb Made of Flesh“, premiered at DECIBEL earlier this month, and I’ve been meaning to say something about it since catching up to it last week. It’s absolutely blistering at the outset, driven in a superheated fury by Boucher‘s extravagant drumming and by boiling riffs laced with dismal strains of dissonance. Bursts of jolting chords and flurries of freakish melody amplify the song’s atmosphere of crazed, pestilential hostility.

The demented surge of the song does relent, paving the way for a multifaceted instrumental performance that creates a mood of grandeur conjoined with anguish. The gleaming melody of that segment continues to shimmer and swirl, twisting and turning through changes in tempo and rhythm as the music becomes darker and more desolate. It’s quite a head-spinning piece of music.

Ascension will be released on March 15th by Return To Analog, and features cover art by Mark Erskine.

PRE-ORDER:
https://returntoanalogrecords.com/collections/coming-soon/products/incandescence-ascension

FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/Incandescencebm/