SEEN AND HEARD ON A BLACK FRIDAY: VREDEHAMMER, BLOOD RED THRONE, NECROWRETCH, DVVAD, AKKAMOTH

Here in the U.S., where I am, it’s been a holiday week. For the rest of the world, it was just another Thursday. The holiday continues today, but even elsewhere in the world it’s not just another Friday.

For decades here, the day after Thanksgiving has marked the beginning of shopping season for the upcoming Christmas holidays, but it seems to have spread its infection elsewhere, even in the world of metal, based on the volume of e-mails I’ve received offering discounts on records and merch from locations in Europe as well as North America.

Well, why fight against the tide? Today, for one day only, we’re offering a 50% discount on the price of subscriptions to NCS, which is normally zero. Get ’em while they last.

I resisted the obvious temptation to limit today’s collection of new music to black metal, but it’s all still pretty black.

 

 

Per Valla – photo by Bent Arne

VREDEHAMMER (Norway)

Vredehammer‘s new song “The Joker” isn’t a cover of the one by the Steve Miller Band. I was kind of hoping it would be, just to see what Per Valla would do with that.

What he and session drummer Nils “Dominator” Fjellstrom have done with their own song “The Joker“, however, is glorious and punishing, ripping and scathing. The riffing grinds and flickers, jolts and feverishly convulses, while subtle synths shine in the upper elevations. The vocals scald, the drumming is electrifying, the whole black-hearted song will get your motor running hot and fast.

The song is from an upcoming album to be released by Indie Recordings.

https://www.facebook.com/vredehammer
https://www.facebook.com/vallaofficial
https://www.vredehammer.no

 

 

BLOOD RED THRONE (Norway)

One good dose of bone-shaking and blood-letting savagery from Norway deserves another, and who better to turn to for that than Blood Red Throne?

Replete with guttural bellowing and hair-on-fire shrieking, “Tempest Sculptor” will bust you up and set swarming and sizzling guitar-demons loose in your rapidly emptying cranial cavity. But there’s an exotically swirling guitar solo in the midst of the traumatic pounding and the devilish delirium too, and dismal groaning riffage as well.

The song is from the band’s upcoming 11th studio album NONAGON, out January 26th from Soulseller Records.

https://soulsellerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/nonagon
http://soulsellerrecords.aisamerch.com
https://www.facebook.com/BloodRedThroneOfficial/

 

 

NECROWRETCH (France)

Why stop there? Let’s have some more bloody red meat for death metal carnivores, this one with some flame-broiled charring and an excellent video.

With a little drum solo to open the festivities, “Numidian Knowledge” gets very heavy without further ado. As it goes, the drums keep booming with exhilarating effect, and the riffing is authentically venomous but still catchy.

The screams go sky-high, and other ingredients in the song create an infernally esoteric aura consistent with the song’s title, an aura that becomes even more otherworldly when all the booming and slashing vanish and interesting acoustic instrumentation ripples, providing a brief digression before the band kick the gates of hell open again and resume their invocation of dark horned powers.

The song is from a new Necrowretch album named Swords of Dajjal. It comes out on February 2nd through Season of Mist.

https://orcd.co/necrowretchswordsofdajjal
https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/necrowretch-swords-of-dajjal
https://www.facebook.com/Necrowretch

 

 

DVVAD (Hungary)

Rennie Resmini‘s latest starkweather SubStack entry set the hook on the next song with this description:

DVVAD is a Hungarian monstrosity displaying a sludge laden black metal style on this preview track for their Talheim Records Germany debut. Feast your eyes on that cover image… cosmic horror certainly awaits. The first half of this song has an almost Eyes of Fire atmospheric, synth enhanced plodding style before detonating into a full-on astral black metal racket before crashing back to terra firma in a screaming heap of burning wreckage comprised of twin guitars, bass, drums, and electronics.

I can’t improve on that, so why try? You might need some foundation repairs if you play this song loud enough, but maybe contractors are giving discounts on Black Friday too. You can also use the song to levitate above the rubble while you wait for them to arrive.

https://dvvad.bandcamp.com/track/mrklb-i
https://www.facebook.com/DVVAD-2223034931273790/

 

 

AKKAMOTH (?)

To close things out today, here’s “DEEP.BREATHE.NEED.DEATH“, the debut single of a duo from some undisclosed location in Scandinavia. It’s anchored by big body-moving electro-beats, so if you’re not into that kind of thing you might be checking out. On the other hand, what goes on around it gets pretty nasty.

Nastiest of all are the throat-slitting black metal snarls and screams, but this industrial duo also bring to bear acidic sonic blzzards, darting and wailing symphonic strings, feverishly pulsating electronics, a bit of vocoder-like singing, and piston-driven percussive hammering — among other things.

https://akkamoth.bandcamp.com/track/deep-breathe-need-death
https://www.instagram.com/akkamoth_band/