SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: RALE, SUPPRESSION, CREDIC, BLACK FUCKING CANCER, LAMENT CITYSCAPE, INTIMIDATION DISPLAY, BELLGRAVE, PRIESTS OF PROMETHEUS

Rale

Man, what a week. I couldn’t wait for it to end. One day after another when I got slammed by my fucking day job, a nasty reminder that NCS is a “hobby” for me (and everyone else here). It lives only when the rest of daily life permits it to live.

It didn’t take long before I had to abandon any close review of our in-box or other sources I turn to for new metal. I made no lists of new songs and videos to check out for a possible round-up, and I haven’t tried to catch up this morning. But I wanted to pick at least a few new songs to share at the site today, and wound up picking eight. I’ll tell you how I did that at the end of this post.

RALE (U.S.)

I decided to begin with “Grave Emperor“, a new single by this North Carolina death metal band, whose 2020 demo and 2021 EP Psychic Devastation I showered with praise when they came out. In the case of that EP I wrote: “These songs are so eccentric and intricately plotted that I’m tempted to call them ‘avant-garde’, but ‘progressive death metal’ is also certainly suitable (and you might be tempted to stick ‘blackened’ in there as well). Whatever label you might want to attach, it’s an exciting new work from a band that just get more and more worthy of very close attention.”

Rale are still worth very close attention. The new single is massive and mangling in its slow, ominous opening. It remains so even after the warped and writhing guitars come in, along with the savage snarling vocals. The music continually mutates, creating discord and livid punishment in varying ways, and eventually becoming a maelstrom of roiling, screaming madness.

Even after the chaos subsides, the guitar and bass contortions and wild vocal shrieking channel dementia. But make no mistake, this kaleidoscopic experience is as fascinating as it is bone-smashing and mind-boggling.

https://ralenc.bandcamp.com/album/grave-emperor-single

 

 

SUPPRESSION (Chile)

I’ll seize any excuse to splash Paolo Girardi‘s artwork on our pages, especially when it comes with music that’s as menacing and marauding as this next track.

Prepare for a full-throttle rampage, a turbocharged attack of maniacal drumwork, jittery, jagged, and jolting riffage, mercurial guitar leads, and utterly rabid vocals. When the band temper the onslaught, they deliver a fascinating prog-influenced instrumental jam.

The technical superiority of the performances and the adventurousness of the songwriting are damned impressive, and the non-stop twists and turns are exhilarating. I got flashes of old Atheist and Gorguts as well as Dysrhythmia.

Suppression includes two former members of the excellent thrash band Ripper. “Monochromatic Chambers” is off their debut album The Sorrow of Soul through Flesh. Unspeakable Axe Records will release it on CD and digital formats on April 25th. Vinyl treatment will come later this year via Dark Descent Records.

https://unspeakableaxerecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Suppression.Death.Metal

 

 

CREDIC (Germany)

Next up is “Tides Disharmonized“, presented through a lyric video. It’s an attention-grabbing fusion of synth-assisted melodic death metal and futuristic electronica that will hammer your spine, jangle your nerves, and make your head swim among the stars. Although it’s a fast-changing escapade, it’s also a highly infectious romp, and the bestial vocals are tremendously good.

The song opens an album named Vermillion Oceans, to be released on April 22nd by Black Lion Records.

https://music.suricatemusic.com/credic
https://www.facebook.com/credicofficial

 

 

BLACK FUCKING CANCER (U.S.)

“Serpentious Flames” is first new aural assault in half a decade from this reclusive Californian black metal legion, whose name could not be more fitting to their music. This new song is brazen and blaring, spine-shaking and slaughtering. The drumming is vertebra-cracking and knee-capping, goes off in eye-popping hyper-speed bursts, and shifts into military patterns. The vocals are thoroughly crazed, you can feel the bass in your guts, and the guitars become a wall of deranged violence, but also slither, slash, and swarm at high rates of speed.

If you’re in need of a head-spinning shot of pure adrenaline, this will fix you up. Be sure to hyperventilate before pressing Play.

The song appears on a new BFC album named Procreate Ineverse, which will be released by Sentient Ruin on March 18th.

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/procreate-inverse

 

 

LAMENT CITYSCAPE (U.S.)

Lament Cityscape is the work of now-Wyoming-based Mike McClatchey. Although the project is prolific (and was included in a 2016 NCS series on power electronics and other forms of harsh noise that Todd Manning prepared), it took this next track (which comes packaged with a surreal lyric video) to tune me into them.

I thought “Another Arc” would pair well with that Black Fucking Cancer track. Sometimes we all need to have our necks jackhammered into submission and our skulls cracked like eggs, while a madman howls in our faces and hallucinogens get dropped down our throats. Or maybe I should just speak for myself?

The song is taken from the new Lament Cityscape album A Darker Discharge, out on April 29th (vinyl on May 27th) through Lifeforce Records.

https://orcd.co/lcs_adarkerdischarge
https://linktr.ee/Lamentcityscape

 

 

INTIMIDATION DISPLAY (U.S.)

Damned good name for this Baltimore blackened death/grind band, given the kind of music they make on their debut single “Massacre“, which is indeed an intimidating massacre. It also fits well with the preceding two songs in this collection, because it’s a ruthlessly jackhammering and pile-driving experience — and the weirdly squirming and squealing fretwork and ugly-as-sin growling and gurgling will also fuck with your head while you’re being subjected to all the non-stop physical trauma.

“Massacre” is from an upcoming album named Pulverizing Inferiority, which will be released in March 2022.

https://intimidationdisplay.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/IntimidationDisplay

 

 

BELLGRAVE (Germany)

The song in the intriguing video below is named “Nemesis“, and it’s the second single from this German band’s new album Back As King (set for release on April 9th).

The music is really interesting. The band demonstrate an ability to pound the shit out of you and simultaneously make you feel like you’re in a vicious knife fight, and the vocals are authentically raw, ravenous, and tormented. But when you least expect it, the band segue into a smoothly flowing and immediately beguiling clean guitar melody, which sounds both plaintive and musing and gets its hooks in your head really fast. There’s also a soft and wandering instrumental digression that connects with a reprise of that heart-felt and heartbreaking melody (and variations on the theme). Terrific drumwork too.

https://bellgrave.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/bellgrave.1

 

 

PRIESTS OF PROMETHEUS (U.S.)

If you don’t feel miserable or haunted enough to suit your circumstances and desires, this final track and lyric video for “Gut” from Virginia’s Priests of Prometheus will help you get there. “Gut” is off a new album named Hazardous Cycle, which will be out on April 1st (no fooling). The band say: “This time we switched up from the death metal of Lodestar and the dark ambient of Encased to noisy, industrial metal.”

I hesitated to write anything about the song (which proves to be both disturbing and mesmerizing) because it would spoil surprises. But here goes anyway:

The opening of “Gut” sounds like the growling of some über-subterranean beast, eventually swathed in chilling sonic mists and glittering lights. The distorted half-sung vocals are as dismal and bleak as the words, the drum blows are mountainously heavy, and when acoustic guitars and siren-like electronics come in, they have a narcotic effect. Floes of sorrowful violin melody pierce the soul, and harsh gasping whispers chill it. Those wonderful strings are cut off by abrasive electronics, and the deep lo-frequency drone returns along with those downcast vocals and the titanic detonations — until some strange percussive tones end it.

If you were thinking about taking psychedelics today, you won’t need them if you put this thing on a loop

http://priestsofprometheus.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/Priests-of-Prometheus-113905016661216/

******

Long, long ago I created a Category tag for these round-ups of new music. I chose “Random Fucking Music” not because I was focusing on music you could fuck to, but because back then I thought that in order to be cool in writing about metal, you had to use variants of the F word as often as possible. The real significance of that Category tag is in the word “Random”. Today’s choices were definitely random.

I skimmed through emails that arrived in our in-box today and yesterday, and didn’t go back any further than that. Given that almost 300 messages arrived today and yesterday, that seemed like enough. Most of them were easy to skip over (we’re on some weird distribution lists, that’s for sure). I made a list of about two-dozen things I thought might be worth exploring for various reasons, but then just impulsively stabbed at about half of those, and what pricked my interest the most is what I put in this collection. (I saved some black metal for tomorrow’s column.)