OUR LIST OF 2021’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 12): CHAINSWORD, CHESTCRUSH, CHOIR

Chainsword

 

Can you tell how I settled on this trio of songs for today’s installment? Could it be that I focused on the “C’s” in my alphabetized list of candidates? Why yes, that could very well be true. In fact, it is true.

It also pleased me to choose songs that reflected the recommendations of my long-standing NCS comrades DGR and Andy Synn, plus of course one of my own choosing. Not that I would have picked a song just because DGR or Andy pushed for it, because this is my list after all, and they’re just my servants. But in my infinite wisdom I agree that their two recommended songs are worthy choices.

(You’ll find the preceding Parts of this list (and an explanation of what it’s all about) through THIS LINK.

CHAINSWORD (Poland)

After my Norwegian friend eiterorm brought the cover of Chainsword‘s 2021 album to my attention I readily agreed that we needed a five-nipple pentagram chain emblazoned on out site. Little did I know that the band’s just-released single from the album, “Daemonculaba“, would kick my ass as hard as it did.

Featuring a tandem of grotesque roars and nasty screams, “Daemonculaba” delivers big, noxious chords and bursts of violent tremolo’d swarming, as well a mix of rocking snaps and jackhammering booms in the drum department that will ruin normal necks. It’s further accented by a bit of dismal, slithering melody and a morbid but increasingly deranged and supernatural guitar solo, which climbs to heights of swirling magnificence.

In a nutshell, the song is as ornery and brutish as a syphilitic bear, but man, it’s also highly infectious. It’s from this Polish band’s debut album, Blightmarch (great album name to go along with a great band name), which was released last February.

https://www.facebook.com/Chainswordband/

 

 

CHESTCRUSH (UK)

Now I’m turning to the track recommended by DGR. Oddly, I can’t find that the track or the album it appears on (Vdelygmia) was mentioned anywhere on our site last year, and I’ve forgotten the circumstances that led to DGR discovering it (if I ever knew). But anyway, he’s responsible for me checking it out, and I’m glad I did.

The song is “Different Shepherd, Same Sheep“. It’s more vicious than a junkyard dog afflicted by rabies and punches harder than a pile-driver. While the vocals growl and scream in your face, the song imperiously stomps and batters, and ejects feeding-frenzy riffing and big moaning chords, infiltrated by shrill swirling guitar tortures. It’s those cold-hearted stomps that become a big factor in the song’s catchiness.

https://www.facebook.com/chestcrushband

 

 

CHOIR (Singapore)

To close today”s segment I’m turning to that track that Andy recommended. He wrote these words (among others) about the album that includes it:

Clocking in at just over forty-six minutes, and made up of seven sickeningly heavy slabs of devastating Blackened Doom, Songs for a Tarnished World is not an album for the faint of heart, or anyone with a sensitive disposition, but it is most definitely a monstrous piece of work that rightfully deserves your attention and acclaim….

Vicious and visceral and vile in every way, it’s also virulently catchy and almost violently compelling, and currently stands out as one of the most welcome, albeit horrific, new discoveries of the year for me.

The song Andy recommended, “Triumphant Chants for the Barren“, bears out those descriptions, including the infectious part. It sounds hopeless and hideous, noxious and nightmarish, and eventually becomes a convulsion of insane violence, as if conceived in a filth-ridden and festering 18th century asylum for the insane that becomes engulfed in flames. But yes, it eats its way under your skin and is hard to get out, in part because of the eerie chiming and wailing melodies that surface within the cataclysm.

https://doomchoir.bandcamp.com/album/songs-for-a-tarnished-world