Oranssi Pazuzu – photo by Rainer Paananen
Look at this, a true rarity: two NCS posts on a Saturday. If you haven’t yet read the first one, Andy‘s Synn Report for the merry month of May, you should do that (here) and then come back for what follows below.
If you had only listened to three new songs this past week it would be easy to choose what to recommend and to explain why. You’d pick three, two, or one of them. Or maybe you’d just keep quiet if they left you lifeless.
But what if you had listened to 20 new songs? How would you choose among then? Maybe you would listen to all 20 several times and then start ranking them. By the time you’d narrowed it down, the day would be gone. Which is why I didn’t do any of that with the 20 new songs I wanted to hear for purposes of this roundup.
What I did instead was to focus on singles from a few bands who have already proved themselves dependable (there were other such bands on that list of 20, so mood and impulse played a role too), and then took one chance on a newcomer to these ears.
ORANSSI PAZUZU (Finland)
To begin I chose a music video for Oranssi Pazuzu‘s new single, “Muuntautuja“. That song name translates as “shapeshifter”. You wouldn’t choose such a name unless the music is itself a shapeshifter, especially if you’re Oranssi Pazuzu, who have specialized in musical shapeshifting. And sure enough, the shapes in the music do shift, as do the images in the song’s strange accompanying video.
Rapidly pulsating, pinging, and swirling electronics surround throbbing and snapping beats. Distorted voices engage in a weird, sinister dialogue. Shrill sonic lights glitter and wail. The beats become more lively, screams erupt, and the tones slash, moan, and freakishly skitter. You might think of this as futuristic psychedelia. I did.
“Muuntautuja” is from a new Oranssi Pazuzu album, which is due to be released by Nuclear Blast sometime in the autumn of this year.
https://oranssipazuzu.bfan.link/muuntautuja
https://www.facebook.com/oranssipazuzuband/
DEFACEMENT (Netherlands)
The Dutch band Defacement will have a third album released in July, with the title of Duality. We have high expectations for it around here, given the formidable achievements of their first two albums. The last day of May brought us the debut of the new album’s title track, a 16+ minute exploration of madness.
With that much time devoted to their creation, Defacement engage in shapeshifting too, even more so than in that preceding Oranssi Pazuzu track, and the constant contortions are brain-boggling from the very start, as the shrill, dissonant guitars madly cavort while the drums hammer away in bursts and the bassist engages in his own frolics.
Follow along if you can as the guitars sizzle and boil, while the vocals scream, howl, and roar. Such extravagant and intricate insanity! It comes from all positions in the band, creating a jubilant and frightening delirium, and their caregivers have clearly run away with the medication, in fear for their lives.
Though the drums occasionally (and very briefly) do become a bit more calm, there’s no real relent in the head-spinning convulsions; if anything, the gloriously spiraling guitar-leads pitch things to even greater heights of rabid glee every time they break through. Near the end, the music shines in the higher elevations, creating entrancing but also chilling celestial visions above the rhythm section’s fascinating progressions.
Duality will be released by Avantgarde Music’s Unorthodox Emanations imprint on July 26th, with a North American vinyl version expected in collaboration with Total Dissonance Worship.
https://totaldissonanceworship.bandcamp.com/album/duality
https://defacementofficial.bandcamp.com/album/duality
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100056245957622
KANONENFIEBER (Germany)
Kanonenfieber now have a new album headed our way. Entitled Die Urkatastrophe (“primal catastrophe”), it is “dedicated to the victims of the First World War, so they are not forgotten. May their fates be a warning for all following generations even after more than 100 years”.
Last week brought us the first advance track and lyric video from the album, a song named “Menschenmühle” (“Human Mill”). No celebration this, but a furious condemnation and a reminder that “Only death succeeds in war”.
Announced by ominous reverberations, old sampled words, and somber ringing notes, the music eventually becomes considerably heavier and then erupts in a flurry of battering drums, viciously whirring riffage, and scalding cries. The bass hammers like a frantic march; doubled voices scream; the guitars boil; percussive bombs explode; confusion and pain reign; broken bodies moan. When will we ever learn?
Die Urkatastrophe will be released by Century Media on September 20th.
https://Kanonenfieber.lnk.to/Menschenmuehle-SingleOP
https://www.facebook.com/Kanonenfieber
CONSUMPTION (Sweden)
The next song is “Wide Open Eyes“, a new single from the Consumption trio — Wombbath‘s Håkan Stuvemark, joined again by drummer Jon Skäre and lead guitarist Ludvig Johansson, with frightening lyrics by Peter Svensson.
Håkan alluded to Carcass when announcing the coming of this song. With Jon Skäre kicking up an electrifying storm, the abrading riffage pulsates, whines, and whirls like some happily murderous monster, given voice through inflamed howls and horrid roars. Eventually, the beast lumbers, but Ludvig Johansson‘s fret-melting solo brings it back to delirious life, ready to begin bouncing off the walls again with fangs and claws bared.
The song is undeniably savage, but also thoroughly exhilarating. It will get your muscles twitching, but it’s a catchy beast too, accented by melodies that become part of the hooks.
Perhaps this is a sign of something longer in the works as a follow-up to Consumption‘s 2022 album Necrotic Lust. One can hope.
https://wombbathofficial.bandcamp.com/track/wide-open-eyes
https://www.facebook.com/consumptionsweden
GASKET (U.S.)
After that savagely exhilarating Consumption song, it turned out I was in just the right mood for this final song in today’s collection — which turned out to be even more raucous and riotous.
What you’ll get in “Syndicate” is a full-bore hardcore tirade. The furious words (which are worth reading at YouTube) are ejected in high-speed screams of larynx-flaying intensity, backed by hammering punk beats, ruthlessly slashing and vividly throbbing chords, and hefty gravel-chewing bass-lines.
There’s one brief break when the bass takes the lead, and then the music becomes more bleak and bruising but no less gritty and enraged.
As icing on the cake, the song arrived with an excellent red-tinted video of the Gasket quartet throwing themselves into the song with the kind of visible fury you would expect.
The song is from a six-song EP from these Baltimore-based marauders named Babylon, which will be out on June 21st via Blue Grape Music.
https://gasketbaltimore.bandcamp.com/album/babylon
https://www.bluegrapemusic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/antigasket/