For this currently foggy-headed writer yesterday was a hell of a day and last night was a hell of a night. There was food grilled near hot coals, copious drinking, fire, and conversation far into the night among people who could barely understand each other. Deep underground with the oxygen cut off, a bigger bed of hot coals started cooking some things; today we will reconvene to discover the results.
Depending on those results we may eat grass and go our separate ways early, or it may be another late night. But yeah, it’ll probably be a late night regardless; there’s still plenty of beer, wine, and dry wood on hand.
And that’s an explanation for why this usual Saturday roundup is appearing so late and is so short, and a preview that Sunday’s black metal roundup may befall the same fate.
FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE (Italy)
Long ago when this site was still in diapers I used to joke that when we became rich and famous we’d pay Fleshgod Apocalypse to move to the NCS HQ and become our house band, to play for us and our friends (and the rowdy loris horde) whenever we wanted. That was back in the days of Oracles and Mafia, records I still fondly go back to.
Much has changed since then. We still don’t make any money from NCS, and it would take a hell of a lot more to move Fleshgod to the Pacific Northwest and get them to play exclusively for us. Now with their sixth album on the way, they’ve become a much bigger deal in the global metal scene.
Like all the other albums, the new one has a one-word title — Opera — and really, it was just a matter of time before they picked that name for their evolved style of baroque and bombastic music.
According to Nuclear Blast’s announcement of the album yesterday, it “is structured like a 10-act theatrical piece” and was constructed as “a gut-wrenching musical journey inspired by the tragic mountain climbing accident [that] occurred to their frontman and mastermind Francesco Paoli, in 2021.”
photo by Francesco Esposito
Along with that announcement, Nuclear Blast and Fleshgod released a video for a single from the album called “Bloodclock“, described as “a roaring song seething with anguish, pain and visionary tales of life and death.” Here too is part of a comment by Francesco P. about the song:
“What do we see right before we die? Well, with ‘Bloodclock’ I bear my witness and reveal the personal visions I had while hanging on a rope, unconscious, a few hundred meters above the ground. It’s insane how reality can be much more terrifying and soul crushing than imagination….
“But this song is not only about death, it’s also about life. ‘I’m not dead yet’ was some sort of mantra that became my battle-cry. The moment I woke up, I started my war to stay alive, that with time turned into a true and never-ending calvary as I’m still carrying the cross for what happened that day. But this is another story and its time is yet to come…”
He also calls the accompanying video directed by Martina McLean “the best music video we’ve ever had in our career,” which is saying something.
photo by Francesco Esposito
After my compatriot DGR saw the video he remarked to us that Fleshgod now “get to be classmates with Wretched from thirteen years ago and their ‘Preservation of Immortality’ video by spending the entire thing having blood dumped and or rained on them,” though he clarified that “obviously the Fleshgod video is way more dramatic and cinematic.”
Indeed it is dramatic and cinematic, and it is also indeed a blood-drenched piece of pageantry. As for the music, though it begins with a gentle and beguiling piano-and-harp instrumental, it explodes in a storm of thunder in the low end and an attack of incinerating guitar and keyboard intensity.
Back and forth the song goes, raging and soft (with variations between furious howls and gasped words), eventually reaching heights of blazing intensity accompanied by sky-high operatic choral vocals and bestial roars, segmented by start-stop bursts of savagery.
But wait, there’s more! Veronica Bordacchini‘s solo singing which pitches into the stratosphere; gut-busting grooves; a dramatic guitar solo; and the unfolding of epic expanses in the music, where the orchestration reaches its crescendo.
All in all, it’s damned breathtaking.
Opera is set for release by Nuclear Blast on August 23rd. According to the label, the cover art by Felicita Fiorini “portrays Veronica as Music, a superior entity that defeats the social and artistic decay of modern age.”
https://fga.bfan.link/opera
https://www.facebook.com/fleshgodapocalypse
THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER (U.S.)
No one is ever really going to replace Trevor Strnad. He will always be missed by metal fans and by his family and friends, including those who were him in The Black Dahlia Murder. But as most of you know, the band decided to resurrect themselves after a period of mourning his death, and they’ve recorded a new album named Servitude that’s now set for release by Metal Blade on September 27th.
The album marks the recording debut of BDM co-founder and guitarist Brian Eschbach as lead vocalist and lyricist, and of Ryan Knight on guitar for the first time since 2015’s Abysmal. (Max Lavelle is on bass, Alan Cassidy on drums, Brandon Ellis on lead guitar and backing vocals.)
Photo by Marshall Wieczorek
As a sign of what they’ve accomplished, they released a grisly, flame-enhanced video (created by David Brodsky for My Good Eye) for a single named “Aftermath“. What’s it about? Eschbach explains:
“Lyrically, it’s about a meteor that fucks up the whole planet, but there’s still people living. Kind of like The Walking Dead, but with no zombies — so you get right to how people deal with it. And by the end, they’re eating each other.”
So, a song about post-apocalyptic cannibalism! Makes your mouth water just thinking about it, doesn’t it?
In rendering this gruesome tale the music is a full-bore riot, drums driving into the red zone, fretwork flying as if in the throes of a crazed feeding frenzy, the words spewing forth in rabid screams.
The music also whirls in jubilation, eerily shimmers (while the drums still go nuts), pungently throbs, and thuggishly hammers, and there’s a shredder of a guitar solo in there too.
So, get ready for a big adrenaline rush, tuck your napkin under your neck, and dig in!
https://www.metalblade.com/tbdm/
https://theblackdahliamurder.bandcamp.com/album/servitude
https://www.facebook.com/theblackdahliamurderofficial
BURIAL OATH (U.S.)
I started with some big names today, not only because the songs and videos are worth recommending but also as a way of luring people into selected music from some lesser known names — such as Burial Oath.
In December 2020 we premiered a video for a song by this Cleveland band named “Pagan Fires,” which was then forecast to become part of their next album. There have obviously been some delays in that plan, with Burial Oath‘s Jesse joining Cloak on drums and touring with them (and performing briefly with Uada).
The band have also undergone some lineup changes. They’ve got a new vocalist (Mor Grish) and a new bassist (Rob Schroeder) now in league with Jesse and guitarist Dominic Passalacqua. With the new lineup in place they plan to complete the new album, but for now they’re introducing the revised Burial Oath lineup with a new lyric video (shot, edited and curated by Greenfeather Media) for a re-recorded version of that “Pagan Fires” song (which premiered at Decibel last Monday).
In the slowly meandering opening moments of the song, as candles are lit in the video, the music seems to morbidly muse and miserably wail, and the mood becomes ever more distressing when the tempo accelerates and the blasting begins, accompanied by piercing and feverish fretwork.
New vocalist Mor Grish expels the words with bloody screams and tormented howls, adding to the song’s feelings of severe stress and sometimes wrenching agony, and the drumming constantly shifts gears and patterns, and vanishes in the song’s gloomiest moment, while the bass throbs like a pulse of old that hasn’t yet been silenced.
Quite a compelling new rendition of a song that was excellent to begin with.
https://burialoath.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/burialoath
WHITE STONES (Spain)
For reasons explained at the outset I’ve got to sadly cut this roundup short, with a ton of other good new music left behind. To close, I chose the following video for “La Ira” (“Anger”) a howling head-spinner of a song which marks the welcome return of progressive death metal maestros White Stone.
The video (made by La Lombarda Films) is itself a head-spinner, splicing together fast-cutting film of the band’s performance with an array of creepy supernatural imagery. And there’s something sinister and creepy about the song too, not least of which are the evil, snarling and howling vocals.
The lyrics are in Spanish (as they are for all the songs on the new album), but they’re provided beneath the YouTube stream for the video. My Spanish being rusty, I used google to translate them. In brief, they’re a commentary on the inescapability of death and the shamelessness and anger of a life poorly lived (or that’s how I interpret it).
photo by Sandra Artigas
You may know that White Stones is the band of Opeth bassist Martín Méndez, and his fascinating bass-work is part of what makes the song so intriguing and immersive. But the mercurial maneuvers of the multi-toned guitarists, themselves sinister and delirious in their sounds, and the head-hooking drum patterns, measurably add to that effect.
Things get jazzy and funky, punchy and pulsating, woozy and weird, and it’s all pretty addictive too. One listen is not enough.
The name of White Stone‘s new album is Memoria Viva. It will be released on June 28th by Reigning Phoenix Music. It includes the participation in the band’s lineup of Joan Carles Marí Tur on drums and guitar solos provided by João Sassetti., along with mainstays Martín Méndez and vocalist Eloi Boucherie. Additional guests include José Ignacio Lagos (flute) and Joakim Svalberg (keyboards).
https://whitestones.rpm.link/lairaYT
https://www.facebook.com/whitestonesofficial