SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: MESHUGGAH, AMORPHIS, CENTINEX, DAWN OF SOLACE, THE SPIRIT, BEASTIALITY

 

I spent the first part of this morning pulling together the second-to-last installment of our Most Infectious Song list, which hasn’t left a lot of time for me to make my way through the typically giant list of songs and videos which surfaced over the last week that I thought might be worth recommending. I jumped around that list like a hummingbird (if hummingbirds moved at the pace of sloths). Here’s what I came up with:

MESHUGGAH (Sweden)

Even a blind hummingbird would know to stop and taste the nectar of a new Meshuggah song, and I’m not blind. Nor are the 150,000 people who’ve listened to the song’s YouTube stream in the last two days. But what to make of “The Abysmal Eye“?

The opening mix of bursting riffage, swirling leads, thudding bass tones, and off-kilter drum beats does set the hook nicely, and Jens Kidman‘s scorching screams are as welcome as ever. The soaring waves of eerie melody and the fleet-fingered rippling tones that come and go create a chilling and futuristic aura. The fast, jabbing guitar work that comes to the fore near the end give you a chance to groove too.

I’ve been accused of liking “everything” but I do like the track, though one of my comrades (who shall remain nameless) thought it was reminiscent of “some of the lesser moments from the last album, rather than making me particularly excited for their new one” (though he did surmise that it “it may just be a bit of a grower” and therefore reserved the right to change his mind).

The name of the album is Immutable. It will be released by Atomic Fire on April 1st (no fooling).

https://meshuggah.afr.link/TheAbysmalEye
https://www.facebook.com/meshuggah

 

 

AMORPHIS (Finland)

I started with a big name and decided to follow it with another one. The latest Amorphis track from from their upcoming album Halo (due February 11th from Atomic Fire Records) is “On The Dark Waters”. The accompanying video is cold, grey, and beautiful. The music jitters and jolts, and then the keyboards shimmer and soar as Tomi Joutsen sends his voice high from a bellowing growl (I do love both of his vocal variants).

The grooves are mighty, the chorus melodies are uplifting, and there’s a moody, proggy instrumental digression that adds spice to the meal. It may be exactly what anyone would expect from Amorphis, but I’m hooked anyway.

https://music.atomicfire-records.com/halo
https://www.facebook.com/amorphis

 

 

CENTINEX (Sweden)

In my flitting through the big list of songs I wanted to check out, the decision to pause and check out a new Centinex song was just as irresistible as the first two decisions above. “Armageddon” turned out to make the decision a wise one, especially because it comes with a video.

These veterans open up the throttle on this death/thrashing song, drums battering and the guitars skittering and blaring in a semblance of maniacal savagery. Fire burns through the music and in the rabid, throaty  howls. If you feel like you have iron-poor blood today, the song will administer a swift kick in your ass to counteract your somnolence. It’s a brazen beating of a very high order, and highly contagious as well.

The song is taken from The Pestilence EP, due on April 1st (again, no fooling) from Agonia Records.

https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-pestilence
https://www.facebook.com/Centinexofficial

 

 

DAWN OF SOLACE (Finland)

Now for a radical contrast with that Centinex song.

Not long ago (here) I added a song from this band’s 2021 album Flames of Perdition to my nearly complete Most Infectious Song list for last year, and yesterday they released a lyric video for one of the other tracks on the album – the title song.

The video presentation of the lyrics is cool, with musician Tuomas Saukkonen seeming to hand-write them on sheets of paper and vocalist Mikko Heikkilä gloomily holding them up, and both of them sitting off-center inside a dark house with a snow-covered forest visible through the windows, everything leeched of color.

The plaintive piano melody and Heikkilä‘x magnificent, haunting voice quickly create a mood of melancholy. Bits of heavy rumbling come and go, and then things get much heavier and harder — and more heartbreaking. The song becomes an soaring anthem of grief. Eventually the drums begin to hammer and Heikkilä‘s voice climbs even higher in his impressive register, putting your heart in your throat.

https://music.nobledemon.com/flames
https://dawnofsolace.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/dawnofsolace/

 

 

THE SPIRIT (Germany)

I’ve been eager to hear something from this melodic black/death band’s new album Of Clarity and Galactic Structures, and we got the first single two days ago, which turned out to be the title track.

This dynamic firebrand of a song will get your blood racing as the drums blast and boom, the vocals shred like sharp blades, and the guitars blaze and mercurially twist and turn. Quivering and darting fretwork mutations burst forth when the drumming settles (but the drumming still remains vibrantly interesting throughout).

It’s a frequently ferocious track, but a head-spinning and unsettling one too, made even more so by the contrasting pair of guitar solos and the closing segment of mesmerizing folkish melody. The song’ss frequent variations in tempo, mood, and guitar machinations help make it relentlessly captivating. This is every bit as good as I hoped it would be.

Of Clarity and Galactic Structures will be released by AOP Records on April 1st (once again, no fooling).

https://artofpropaganda.bandcamp.com/album/of-clarity-and-galactic-structures
https://www.facebook.com/thespiritband/

 

 

BEASTIALITY (Sweden)

I had a devil of a time trying to decide how to close this round-up, with so many songs and videos on my list of candidates left to explore. I checked out the one I ultimately chose based on good memories of the band’s last release, the 2017 album Worshippers of Unearthly Perversions (I premiered a track from that album in the run-up to its release). This next song is the title track to a new EP named Sacrificial Chants, which Invictus Productions will release on February 25th.

The song has a momentous and majestically ominous start, but then (as expected) the band begin ripping and rampaging. The riffing has a livid pulse that will infect your veins, just as the drumming spits bullets and pounds like mallets and the vocalist screams like a ferocious banshee.

Sonic nuclear annihilation has become the band’s stock in trade, but this track shows they’re capable of more than that (if you don’t already know), using a slowed pace and a riveting solo to create (or rather enhance) an atmosphere of sinister sorcery, before unleashing ecstatic barbarism and inflicting bone-smashing trauma once more. Don’t be misled by the band’s names, there’s a lot more songwriting flair in what they do than the name suggests.

https://invictusproductions666.bandcamp.com/album/sacrificial-chants
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063773287597