Borknagar
It’s nice to begin a Saturday roundup of new songs and videos without bitching about my day job. Hard to bitch when I’ve had enough time to pull together roundups like this one for three days in a row. The cat’s away, so this mouse will play.
My spouse is away too. Has been since early last week, off visiting a sister in Nevada, so that’s another cat away. She’ll be back tonight, hopefully with her claws retracted, but the annoying state of air travel these days makes that unlikely.
Still, being annoyed by all the hassles is better than having part of the fuselage blow out at 16,000 feet. Fingers crossed that won’t happen on this trip, even though she’s flying the same airline, which will forever remember this video.
Anyway, my fellow mice, I hope you enjoy some or all of what follows.
BORKNAGAR (Norway)
It’s fair to say that I’ve been banging the drum about Borknagar‘s new album, since this is the third time I’ve written about a song from it. Of course, given the modest reach of our site, the banging of our drum is something like this. Bigger drums are banging too.
I’m a sucker for Lars Nedland‘s singing. On this latest song, released with a video yesterday, it again causes my heart to swell. Of course I’m equally happy to listen to metal that sounds like it wants to rip the heart from my chest and eat it while it’s still beating. There’s nothing that nasty in “The Wild Lingers“. It turns slowly, like a gleaming orb of lament, enthralling but heart-breaking. Of course, this being Borknagar, it also soars and slugs, and ICS Vortex joins in the singing.
Borknagar‘s new album is entitled Fall. It was released yesterday by Century Media. We actually will have a review of the whole album to share very soon.
https://borknagar.lnk.to/FallOP
https://www.facebook.com/borknagarofficial
DEATH SCYTHE (Mexico)
Near Thanksgiving Day last year I included a song and video by this melodic death metal band from Yucatán in another one of these Saturday roundups. Yesterday they released a video for another new single, and I’ve been enjoying it too.
This one, “Ek Balam“, is a musical tribute to a Mayan deity, described by the band in these words:
Amidst the celestial canvas, Ek Balam emerges as the guardian of the night, the keeper of time, and the protector of the skies. With fiery eyes and a cosmic essence, Ek Balam symbolizes the seamless connection between the earthly and celestial realms. The lyrics narrate the legend of this divine jaguar, a powerful and enigmatic entity gracefully dancing among the stars, resonating with an ethereal melody in the expansive tapestry of the night.
To pick up where I left off with Borknagar, this song also slugs and soars but it drives much harder and faster. It’s a bit like opening a time capsule that contains a lost song of Scandinavian melodeath from an earlier era, replete with tons of darting and swirling fretwork, galloping and battering percussion, glorious soloing, and electrifying vocals that will strip the paint from your walls.
If this don’t get your heart pumping hard, call emergency services immediately. Excellent video as well, adding to the high-voltage impact of the music.
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/deathscythe1/ek-balam
https://linktr.ee/death_scythe
https://deathscythemx.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/DeathScytheMetal
HERXHEIM (U.S.)
Three pieces of information drew me to this next song. First, it’s from an EP that will be released by the distinctive I, Voidhanger Records. Second, I was reminded that Herxheim is the solo project of Patrick Brown, the main maniac behind the now-defunct Howls of Ebb. And third, the label describes the music as “a monstrous, violent and bestial black-thrash EP, which recalls CELTIC FROST, early VOIVOD and ORDER FROM CHAOS”.
The proof, of course, is in the pudding, and the pudding here seems to be made from blood, hydrochloric and lysergic acid, and the fangs of vampire bats. Oddly, the first single is named “The Enchanted“.
Well, maybe not so odd after all, once you hear the weird wavering and warbling tones that make up the song’s first minute. But after that things get far more strange, thanks to a demented bounding beat, an assemblage of screeching, scratching, and sizzling tones, the crackle of distorted demonic snarls, and the kind of wails and screams that might cause you to sleep with the lights on.
The lunatic rhythms turn out to be compulsive, even as the tempos flip up and down. Everything else fillets the listener’s brain and fries the slices with onions and hair. The lyrics are also worth reading – available here. Though I can’t agree that it resembles violent and bestial black thrash, it’s only the first song.
The name of the EP is Contrapasso. It’s set for release on April 5th.
https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/contrapasso
SADISTIC FORCE (U.S.)
I confess that after listening to that Herxheim song I went looking for something more turbocharged and straight-forward, but hopefully no less diabolical. I found it in this next song from Austin-based Sadistic Force.
The name of this game is blackened speed metal. “Iron Rite” takes off like hungry bats flying from their caves at night, propelled by catchy beats, bass lines thrumming like pistons, and high, whining riffs that skitter, blare, and boil, with a howling goblin leading the flight.
The riffing is also catchy as hell, but its maniacally boiling phases add elements of demonic cruelty to the mix. And there’s a solo waiting for you that will set your hair on fire. Also, feel free to yell out the song title along with the gang yells in the song. Your neighbors have probably already figured out you’ve got a few screws loose.
As far as I can tell, this song is a stand-alone single. I’m hoping the year will bring more.
https://sadisticforce.bandcamp.com/track/iron-rite
https://www.facebook.com/p/Sadistic-Force-100064130731403/
WAIDELOTTE (Ukraine)
Today marks the second anniversary of Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, two years in which hundreds of thousands have died on both sides. Putin celebrated the occasion by blowing out the candle of Alexey Navalny. Navalny’s widow accused Putin of satanism for not releasing his body for burial, but comparing Putin to fallen angels defames the latter’s reputation.
With Ukraine on my mind, I chose this final song in today’s collection, a cut from the debut album of this Ukrainian band, whose lineup includes members of White Ward and Soen.
In its opening phase, “The Era of Stagnant Gods” is a blistering black metal attack, drums hammering in a fury, the bass bubbling, the guitars maniacally writhing, the vocals screaming at the top of the lungs.
But even in the violent lunacy of the opening phase, you’ll detect other interesting instrumental tones and maneuvers that eventually become more prominent, like some wizard is performing seductive conjurations in a house on fire.
There is another phase, a sudden change in which the flute-like tones of the duduk take command and weave an inviting spell, backed by head-moving grooves. The diversion doesn’t last long, but it’s very enticing, and the folk instrumentation doesn’t vanish even after the song surges once more, staying present to add moods of sorrow to the headlong race.
Waidelotte‘s debut album is named Celestial Shrine. It will be released by Debemur Morti Productions on March 29th. DMP heralds the album as “impassioned and addictive”, encompassing music that “balances violent riffing, driving rhythms, fluid basslines and raging vocals with a poignant sense of melancholy via plaintive, exultant rural harmonies and the use of native instruments including the duduk, bandura, tsymbaly and hurdy-gurdy”.
Including guest performers, the album lineup is 14 names long.
https://waidelottemusic.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-shrine
https://www.debemur-morti.com/en/12-eshop
https://debemurmorti.aisamerch.com/
https://www.facebook.com/waidelottemusic