SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IMHA TARIKAT, KAMPFAR, MULCIBER

Imha Tarikat

Last night the Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, clinching a place in the Major League Baseball playoffs and ending what most of us long-suffering Mariners fans simply referred to as The Drought, i.e., the longest span of years (21 of them) that any team in any U.S. professional sport has had to endure in between playoff appearances.

Along with a few million other Mariners fans in this part of the country, I celebrated the historic event. I might have par-tayed a bit too much. That’s a conclusion one might draw from the fact that I slept for 11 hours, as if in a coma. Well, I had a rough week at my fucking day job too, which produced steam that needed to be blown off last night. But even after dragging my ass out of bed late in the morning I still spent a lot of time continuing to wallow in the glory of that Mariners win, taking in videos, photos, and lots of articles.

But the NCS Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (a specific syndrome now recognized by the American Psychiatric Association) is still a thing, and so I couldn’t bear to leave a complete blank spot on the site this Saturday. Had to daub that spot with at least a few splatters of musical paint.

 

IMHA TARIKAT (Germany)

This German band with Turkish roots has become a favorite of many of us here, and thus it is very good news for us (and many others) that they have a new album named Hearts Unchained – At War with a Passionless World that’s set for release in early December by Prophecy Productions. Last week the band released a new song, but it’s a stand-alone single that’s separate from the new album. The band introduced it as a “monument of misled and possessed devotion”:

“Son Of Ultradevotion” is our most bitter song yet. A bitterness that is drowning a deep sorrow beyond recognition.

A song proclaiming the losing against the darkness within. A song like solutions whispered in your head that feel like needles stuck into the skin, that twist your stomach and that drive you insane.

There is no happy end.

True enough, this is not a happy song, but it is a remarkably vibrant one. The booming, bounding, and blasting drums have a lot to do with that, but so does the feeling of wrenching torment in the extravagant cries. The riffing is dense, and it writhes, seeming to channel a blend of fury and agony. The feverishness of the music reaches a zenith in the electrifying ring of a delirious solo.

Not surprisingly, because this is Imha Tarikat, the song is a memorable one, as well as one that’s spine-tingling in its explosive emotional intensity.

https://imhatarikat.bandcamp.com/track/son-of-ultradevotion-stand-alone-single
https://www.facebook.com/imhatarikat/

 

 

KAMPFAR (Norway)

Speaking of bands who are beloved around here, Kampfar continue to make their way, song by song, toward the release of their new album Til klovers takt in mid-November. The latest single, and the fifth one overall (with just one left to come), was revealed last week through a video created by Carl Eek.

As its name suggests, “Rekviem” eventually takes its place at a funeral, but its first movement is neither solemn nor sad but is instead a blazing rage in which the drums pump like overdriven pistons and the vocals snarl like the mad throes of a rabid beast. Those ferocious cries convert into soaring choral song in the midst of tempestuous, tormented riffing that truly burns.

The band also make the song grim and swaggering, and they use the grooves to punch your guts. The guitar melody seems to sway and swirl, and they eventually give the music a panoramic scope in an expression of melancholy grandeur. But when the music softens and becomes celestial, it also becomes more steeped in haunting sorrow, and those bleak moods persist even when the power swells again and the vocals become even more frighteningly impassioned in all their varying aspects.

I don’t think I’m going overboard in calling the song breathtaking. The new album will be released on November 11th by Indie Recordings. You can check out all the preceding singles at Bandcamp:

https://kampfarofnorway.bandcamp.com/album/til-klovers-takt-2
https://www.facebook.com/kampfarofficial/

 

 

MULCIBER (U.S.)

Metal-Archives lists two Mulciber‘s, one in Texas that seems to be “on hold” and one in Cleveland who will have their debut EP, Misery of One, released by Redefining Darkness Records on October 28th. That’s the band who just released the next selection in this small Saturday round-up.

“Christ, Deceiver” is the name of this new song, and it was presented just yesterday through a music video of a basement performance made by Chris Walter Visuals. This song alone proves that Mulciber know how to bring the death metal thunder — bludgeoning and battering with vicious force while the riffs bray and bay. They also mix in cruel tremolo’d frenzies and switch the vocals from bellowing growls to maniacal squealing.

But the riffing changes still again, creating sweeping waves of bleakness, which makes for an effective contrast with all the bone-smashing thuggery and barbaric savagery. And that’s still not all, because after a bass drop that serves as an announcement, they slow down and really devote themselves to brutally and methodically beating the bejesus out of every listener.

Redefining Darkness recommends Mulciber‘s new EP for fans of Aborted, Morbid Angel, Aeon, and Decapitated.

https://mulciberohio.bandcamp.com/
https://shop.redefiningdarkness.com/
https://www.facebook.com/mulcibercle