Why do we have two song premieres from forthcoming albums paired together in this article? Here’s a multiple choice quiz for you:
a) the albums are being released on the same day
b) the albums are being released by the same label
c) both bands are the work of the same person
d) it makes it easier for us to melt your brains
e) all of the above
f) none of the above
Make your selection and find the answer after the jump.
If you selected (e), give yourself a gold star (we stopped giving out gold after hoarders drove the price up).
Yes, it’s true that both albums will be released on April 5th by the same label, I, Voidhanger Records. It’s also true that these two bands — Herxheim and Manasseh — are both the solo work of Patrick Brown, whom you may know was the mastermind behind the late great Howls of Ebb. And as for the combined effect of the music on your brain, read on… and listen.
HERXHEIM
Herxheim‘s new release is an EP named Contrapasso. We’ve already commented here about the first song revealed from the EP, one perplexingly named “The Enchanted“. The one we’re revealing today is “The Surrogate“, which opens the record.
The player below allows you to listen to both songs back to back. In the case of “The Surrogate“, prepare to be chilled to the bone and then to have bones broken and cranial neurons twisted into nightmarish new configurations.
As the drums hammer-smash your face and the bass rumbles your guts, the guitars squeal and screech as if in the throes of demented blurting ecstasy while a cavalcade of macabre voices utter distorted pronouncements and vent fury in ugly growls and rabid howls. Eerie tones slither and shimmer while the rhythm section brutally chops like a corroded ax, and the shrill sirens in the music begin to sound like the agonies of torture victims.
Jittery fevers surface in the riffing, as if hungry insects have found their way into your wounds, driven onward by hacking drums, tunneling bass lines, and maniacally murderous and muttering vocals.
It’s the kind of freakish experience that’s likely to leave listeners feeling bamboozled and bewildered, beaten and bruised, and possibly even exhilarated by all the mad and maddening twists and turns. Just imagine what it will be like to go from there right into another asylum-strength escapade — which is what happens as you venture into “The Enchanted“, with only a minute of creepy ambient sounds to let you catch your breath.
“The Enchanted” includes bizarre bouncing grooves and ticking fretwork, which seize attention right damned quick, but what goes on around them (including another changing pageant of grotesque and frequently bestial vocals) is an order of magnitude more bizarre. When those destabilizing lunatic grooves vanish near the end, the creepiness rolls in like a poisonous fog and you can hear your fellow inmates conversing from the next ward over.
Now, just imagine that the EP includes two more tracks, in case your mind isn’t already left in tatters by these two….
I, Voidhanger will release Contrapasso on CD and digital formats, and recommends it for fans of Order From Chaos, Celtic Frost, Voivod, and of course Howls Of Ebb.
https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/contrapasso
http://metalodyssey.8merch.com/
http://metalodyssey.8merch.us/
MANASSEH
Next up we have the music of Manasseh, a very different kind of outlet for Patrick Brown‘s unorthodox creative impulses. The forthcoming release is a 10-track debut album named Tunneling To Paradiso, so named because it represents “a descent towards an upside-down Paradise”, which proceeds over the course of those 10 compositions (and perhaps draws influence from Dante’s Inferno).
Two stages of the descent have already been revealed — the songs “Last Bastion’s Keep” and “Plane of Morbid Foresight“. What we have for you today is the track that immediately follows “Plane…”, “Rock of Condemnation, Bridge to Flagellation“.
Again, the player we’re sharing allows you to hear all three, in order. This music is quite different from Herxheim‘s, but in its own very different way is no less disturbing.
In “Last Bastion’s Keep“, Brown interweaves elegant and ancient acoustic instrumentation, musing bass tones, glittering and whistling electronics, and bits of haunted monastic singing and demonic words. It sounds somewhat medieval, but also somewhat jazzy, and eventually its ambient outro becomes quite frightening.
“Plane of Morbid Foresight” continues to deploy similar instrumental ingredients, but with different stylistic textures, including crocodilian snarls and what these ears hear as a flamenco influence in the picking, and they create an even creepier and more diabolically demented atmosphere.
And then you’ll come to the song we’re premiering. It somehow manages to both shiver the skin and to sound seductive, especially when the ringing acoustic notes beautifully beckon by themselves in all their ancient elegance, leading the listener, before realizing it, into a kind of ghost realm where the red eyes of hungry things await.
So yes, the nocturnal music of Manasseh is dramatically different from the experiences of Herxheim, evidence of how far-ranging Patrick Brown‘s interests and impulses truly are, and yet when you listen to all of the music we’re sharing today it’s not shocking to realize that the same person made all of it, under the influence of different muses, because all of it is fiendishly unorthodox.
I, Voidhanger will also release this record on CD and digital formats, and this one they recommend for fans of Howls Of Ebb, Herxheim, Ysengrin, acoustic music, and dungeon synth. The wonderful cover art was created by Gerard Trignac.
https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/tunneling-to-paradiso
http://metalodyssey.8merch.com/
http://metalodyssey.8merch.us/