SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: WAYFARER, ENDOLITH, TROUNCE, KRÂEL, KING KAOS, DOMINION OF SUFFERING, PHOBONOID

Wayfarer – photo by Frank Guerra

Another Bandcamp Friday again overwhelmed the NCS in-box as bands, labels, and PR agents sought to capitalize on Bandcamp’s reduced take from sales. A similar deluge washed through social media, and every other channel where I look for new music.

It really is overwhelming, and probably self-defeating. Ironically, releasing new music on a Bandcamp Friday is probably the best strategy for getting overlooked — drowned in the flood.

It certainly adds to the stresses of creating this weekly column. I fantasize that the point of it is to help guide people toward musical gems, even though in even a normal week I know it’s still a very random process because I can’t listen to everything that might interest me or you. In a week like the last one, the process of sifting becomes an even more ridiculous challenge.

All I can say is that I enjoyed what you’ll find below, and hope that you make some valuable discoveries from it too. (And don’t bash me for overlooking a couple dozen more songs, not to mention complete albums and EPs, that would have been just as worthy of attention.)

 

 

WAYFARER (U.S.)

There are a lot of very good videos in today’s selection, and I decided to begin with probably the best of all (made by Alex Pace), which provides a hauntingly beautiful visual setting to another song off this Colorado band’s new album American Gothic.

The music sounds very much like the song’s title — “A High Plains Eulogy“. It’s solemn and vast, clouded by sorrow and stricken by glittering and brittle sounds of pain and regret.

It will surprise some newcomers here that the heart-felt vocals are entirely singing, but we do make exceptions when they’re earned, and they’re earned here. This sad, hypnotic folk music also isn’t nearly as “extreme” as usual around here, but we make exceptions there too. And don’t worry, the music will get a lot more extreme before you reach the end of this column.

Just this one excerpt from the lyrics tells you a lot about the music:

I have seen enough
A poor man’s dreaming, all alone
When the dust comes raining down
A solemn release is what is found
And when there’s nothing left we sing
A bitter song for dying plains

American Gothic will be released on October 27th by Profound Lore (USA) and Century Media Records (EU).

https://wayfarer.lnk.to/AmericanGothicID
https://linktr.ee/americangothic
https://wayfarercolorado.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/wayfarercolorado

 

 

ENDOLITH (Norway)

Four years ago, right around the time when Endolith released their most recent album (Chicxulub – The Fossil Record), our own Andy Synn interviewed vocalist Frode Hofsøy about his lyrics, and in introducing that discussion he recommended their music as “perfect for fans of Meshuggah, Devin Townsend, Arcturus, Fear Factory, and Strapping Young Lad“.

Those references are still apt in the case of the band’s new single, “Noise Floor Dancers“. It delivers polyrhythmic grooves delivered with the sound and punch of crowbars and sledgehammers against concrete, coupled with electrifying percussive interplay, gritty growls, the contrasting sheen of futuristic synths, vibrant bowing by guest violist Willem Mathlener, and brief bursts of impassioned singing.

Close to the mid-point, those off-kilter head-hooking grooves vanish in the midst of a dense sonic cataclysm (and there, the snare just keeps metronome-time, probably because everything else is convulsing). From there, the slugging and the convulsing trade off as the song rises to a closing crescendo.

Cool song, and a cool video too. It’s the title track from Endolith‘s new EP, which was digitally released yesterday. And, well, this one wasn’t timed to capitalize on Bandcamp Friday, because I can’t find it on Bandcamp. I’ve read that apart from this title track, the EP includes cover songs.

https://orcd.co/noisefloordancers
https://www.facebook.com/endolith

 

 

TROUNCE (Switzerland)

I decided to follow that Endolith song with this next one by Trounce because it also includes clanging atonal chords, slugging grooves, interesting percussive interplay, and moments of shattering convulsion.

But the song also includes other features: Harrowing words expressed in a high, quavering singing voice; shrill dissonant guitars that feel like needles quivering under the skin; unhinged screams; and searing sounds of panic and pain.

The words really are shattering — horrific and tragic, and all too real in their portrayal of a woman imprisoned in horrid conditions. The track also arrived with an effective lyric video, one that visually amplifies the music’s extremely disturbing qualities.

The song is named “Walls“, and it’s taken from Trounce‘s debut album The Seven Crowns, which will be out on October 20th via the Swiss label Hummus Records (whose mastermind Jonathan Nido is the principal creative force behind the Trounce project). Hummus Records will release the 11 studio songs on that album along with 11 more recorded live at Roadburn festival earlier this year.

https://www.hummus-records.com
https://hummusrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-seven-crowns
https://www.facebook.com/TROUNCEnoise

 

 

KRÂEL (Germany)

Now we’ll shift gears into black and blackened metal — which may seem like an odd choice, because of course I’ll have another column tomorrow that’s mainly devoted to the blacker arts. But I couldn’t resist.

First, the gear shift takes you to a video for “Morgengrauen“, the opening song on the German project Krâel‘s debut album Vanitas Vitae, which “tells the story of life and death in a fictional town inspired by late medieval/early modern european history”.

Speaking of gears, the frenzied riffing sounds like feverishly grinding gears. They do writhe and pulsate in head-hooking ways, backed by a deep bass hum and riotous drumming and fronted by livid, crackling snarls.

The song also shifts gears in gripping ways, delivering sinister, slashing and whining chords coupled with rocking beats, as well as outbursts of incendiary yet grim fretwork and vocal violence matched with hyper-speed blasting, and an unexpected acoustic denouement.

Vanitas Vitae will be released by Naturmacht Productions on October 27th.

https://krael.bandcamp.com/album/vanitas-vitae

 

 

KING KAOS (U.S.)

Shifting gears again, I’m turning to yet another excellent new video in today’s collection. In fact, the animated devilry in the video was a big reason for choosing it, but there’s a lot of exhilarating and viscerally appealing devilry in this black thrashing song too.

“Buried Alive” moves with the throttle wide open, the drums pumping like pistons and galloping like hell-steeds, and the riffs pulsing like mad fevers, darting about like exultant demons, and swirling in glory.

Not to be outdone, Kon Cornier‘s fanged vocals are both crazed and vicious, holding nothing back in their snarled and screamed tirades. As icing on the cake, the band also throw in some woozy, wailing, and quivering solos that contrast with all the rampant fevers in the music.

“Buried Alive” is from this L.A. band’s Wasteland EP, which was digitally released in 2022, but looks like it will also be released by Sliptrick Records.

https://sliptrickrecords.com/king-kaos/
https://kingkaosmetalband.com/
https://kingkaosmetalband.bandcamp.com/album/wasteland
https://www.facebook.com/KINGKAOSBAND/

 

 

DOMINION OF SUFFERING (Slovakia) / PHOBONOID (Italy)

I decided to close with a complete album-length release that surfaced on Bandcamp Friday via Godz Ov War Productions, which is how I found out about it. I chose this one because I decided you haven’t yet been sufficiently terrorized by everything else I chose today. And be forewarned, this split by Dominion of Suffering and Phobonoid really is a terror.

I dived into it mainly because I’ve been a fan of Phobonoid‘s previous works (witness these previous mentions), but also because of the album’s incredible cover art by Belial NecroArts. The discovery of Dominion of Suffering became the icing on a very evil cake.

The first three tracks on the split are the work of that trio, and they are unhinged. The riffing and soloing maniacally broils the senses, and the drumming is sheer high-speed decimation. The vocals proceed at a more stately pace, but they’re so hideously possessed that they become the music’s scariest aspect of all. Indeed, I can’t think of a vocal performance I’ve heard this year that’s more extravagantly wild and frighteningly tortured than the work of Quasar here.

Despite how startling the music’s insanity is, you can’t help but appreciate the technical skill in the delivery. And the band do break up the violent vulcanism in different ways — a few hammering grooves and punkish riffs here, a few berserk solos there, as well as moments of soaring but despairing grandeur, abject agony, and perilous hallucination.

Moreover, the music has a persistently unearthly atmosphere, with the kind of sweep that’s transportive.

Dominion of Suffering‘s three tracks are the kind of stunning experience that spins the mind and sucks all the wind from a listener’s lungs. And thus they pose a real test for Phobonoid in following them.

Phobonoid follow them with two long connected tracks (“Cosmonauta Eterno I” and “Cosmonauta Eterno II“) and one very short one (“Crionia“). But this solo project doesn’t really follow them except in sequence on the split, because of course Phobonoid follows its own strange and wondrous path, and it makes for a great contrast and complement to the Slovakians’ music.

The song titles suggest that Phobonoid hasn’t tired of space and sci-fi themes, and the music is even more off-planet in its atmosphere than Dominion of Suffering‘s. As in the past, Phobonoid interweave ingredients from black, death, and doom metal (among other things), and the results are both unsettling in the extreme, intensely moving, and ultimately spellbinding.

Over the course of those two long tracks, the intensity ebbs and flows, often suddenly. They include nova-like explosions, passages of vast cinematic splendor (both blazing and chilling), harmonies of heartbreak and hopelessness that drift without drums, and elements of futuristic electronics with an alien, spine-shivering aura.

Even if this two-part work was not intended as a narrative of an astronaut endlessly lost in the wonders and hostility of space, arcing out among the planets or the stars, the music seems to be such a portrayal. It’s certainly very, very easy to get lost in these tracks.

I should add that the vocals here may not be quite as off-the-hook as Quasar‘s but they’re still plenty terrifying.

The short instrumental closing work (“Crionia“) might represent the astronaut’s ultimate destination. But whatever it represents, it’s mysterious and mesmerizing… definitely otherworldly and enticing, but also haunting.

All in all, I found this a fantastic split. It’s out now digitally, and Godz Ov War Productions will release it on CD on October 27th.

https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/dominion-of-suffering-phobonoid
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100041438421607
https://www.facebook.com/phobonoid