(We will let our Vietnam-based writer Vizzah Harri explain in his own words what he did in selecting the records reviewed in the following article, and why they are here now.)
What follows are other obscurities and arcane esoteric mysteries of the abstruse. If a more redundant sentence exists as title, I’m obviously ignorant of its existence. It’s almost October, I know, but my brain is still stuck in the heretofore, so the next few writeups will contain releases that happened at the end of the year of the rabbit (cat in Vietnam) and the beginning of the year of the dragon (earlier in 2024).
In signs of the times, it is easy to become but a whisper of grace wrapped in a facade of putrescence in the absolute cacophony and unceasing mass of new sounds. In this era of mass consumption, it is the underground at times where some of the truest art hides. Especially of the underground metal kind if you are so inclined. Only one of the releases to follow can be described as metal, though they all dabble in extremities in different senses.
A fun game I like playing with friends (which doesn’t always work) is to go to the Bandcamp webpage’s search bar and each person would provide an adjective, genre, or sound. We then deliberate about which cover looks the coolest or evokes the value entered. Sometimes cool, unexpected sounds pop up, other times not.
To give you an idea of what kind of surprisingly listenable weirdness is out there, on a trip to Ninh Binh – where Shelby Lermo of Ulthar fame recorded the ambient noise on “Codex Crepusculum” from Thanatotherion’s Alienation Manifesto in the Mua Caves in March 2023 – my friend Timmy and I came across this fun oddity by typing in electronic jaw-harp folk:
On the same trip we learned about Steve Hackett of Genesis fame’s solo project that released a fabulously bizarre-titled album by the name of The Circus and the Nightwhale, his 30th. It is actually quite a fun trip, but this too is not metal and if you did want to know more about it, this piece by Nick Tate on the prog report will give you an in-depth analysis. Apologies Mr. Hackett, but I think we typed in ‘clown whale progressive’ in the search bar, which doesn’t work anymore.
Daniel Barkasi got into it about AI cover art lately, and I think everyone at NCS is on board with the sentiments he shared and how strongly he feels about anthropomorphic art. In fact, it’s one of my favorite things to do, click on the metal tab in Bandcamp, look for a cool cover, and hit play. More often than not, let’s go with a utilitarian majority here of 51% of the time, the music is solid. So, when I saw the offbeat cover art by MEIZARRAF of Ridicule of The Common Soldiery, a great album title btw, I simply had to click.
BAAZLVAAT (USA) – Ridicule of The Common Soldiery
Released January 30th, 2024
One wouldn’t exactly know what to expect from a cover that could seem to some like a joke, a parody, an attempt to stand out from the crowd. Hey, we’ve covered albums with all sorts of insane cover art, but then it is not often that we cover a band that would seem diametrically opposed to the kind of music or philosophical stances one would expect from black metal. BAAZLVAAT are from Flint, Michigan. They make experimental-black-folk metal with hard rock elements, and thematically they delve into fantasy, magic, and spiritual forces.
BAAZLVAAT identify as Christians. Some of our readers probably do too. Their music fucking rocks. End of story. No need for a whole deep dive on the merits of separating art and artist, or of white metal… haha. They stated in a recent-ish interview on Invisible Oranges that they don’t identify with any denominations.
Instead of attempting to create an opposing force to that which a lot of satanic black metal stands for, just like when people make depressive-suicidal black metal as catharsis, in a different kind of way, BAAZLVAAT also really believe that they are making music to lift people up. ‘Whimsy’ was used quite a bit in that interview, and if you humor them and press play, you might just have some fun.
Here is a band that went for a lo-fi sound, not exactly raw black metal to be sure, but it has a very DIY quality about it. The melodicity and hard rock elements take the forefront though. They’ve calmed down on biblical themes of late, even though their most blatant Christian metal album The Higher Power’s superlative title track does slap hard.
The drum sound on Ridicule of The Common Soldiery might be taxing, and the bells and whistles of upbeat metal might not be for everyone, however this is the kind of album for anyone who’s reached a sense of sonic satiation with sameness in theme, layout, production, and execution of folk or black metal. Something truly different, off-kilter, and engaging.
Montresor (Australia) – Autopoiesis
Released May 24, 2024
This is not metal at all… The cover art by Kit Nicholls is alluring to say the least and the music is hypnotic if not completely mesmerizing. Autopoiesis refers to a system that is capable of maintaining itself through the creation of its own self-sustaining parts. This is the group’s first album in nearly a decade and a tribute to the Rock in Opposition (RIO) movement of the 1970s. A movement defined by their opposition to an industry that refused to recognize what they created as art. Whether or not the music sounds like metal in any way, that’s pretty metal in and of itself.
The brainchild of Cameron Pikó with guest appearances by a slew of musicians playing a wide array of instruments. Described on their Bandcamp as fusing “technical instrumental progressive rock with classical instrumentation [including] clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, piano, harpsichord and marimba alongside guitars, bass and drums.”
This is the kind of jazzy exuberance that could play as a film soundtrack, not that it is cinematic in the sense of superfluous excess. The composition has a finger on the pulse of tension, has the ability to twist unexpectedly, yet also uses repetition as a form of antanaclasis by finding new and surprising conclusions out of the repetition of one phrase or idea.
Tapping into not just the eccentricities of jazz but that of its bastard child in the avant-garde by taking prog, dissecting it, and then engaging in a deconstruction of descending values with the aim of ascension. If you love how far prog and the avant-garde can push the envelope and have a soft spot for classical instrumentation, this is an album not to be missed.
Arms and Sleepers (Germany) – What Tomorrow Brings
Released March 1, 2024
NCS used to do articles of “THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC, and THAT’S MUSIC — BUT IT’S NOT METAL. This falls into the latter category. The art is pretty metal, and not every poignancy, despair, or horror should always be catalogued in extremity. Other genres can and do find beauty in loss and tragedy. Here we have an experimental electronic/triphop release that could probably make it onto mainstream radio waves.
It is an essay on melancholy, becoming, memories of places and people that are not existent anymore, and the album is indeed divided into four distinct parts, namely innocence, melancholy, rupture, and reflection. What Tomorrow Brings is arresting and also disarming, it is reflective and also immersive; unassuming yet self-assured. Mirza Ramic weaves a sonic tapestry documenting a coming of age, forced banishment as a collateral of a war-torn homeland, and fundamentally how death and loss are unmistakably a part of the fiber of our existence on this corporeal plane.
This is for those who have nearly given in to despair, because this record shouts that in desolation and lamentation there still is triumph, there is still meaning to give to a world populated by strife, conflict, and grief.
Amphibian Man (Ukraine) – Zenith
Released February 2nd, 2024
When I first hit play on this it kept reminding me of اکوان ‘s (Akvan) سووشون (Savushun) which Islander wrote about here. The only initial connection musically would be that Amphibian Man employs inordinate amounts of tremolo, but their 2022 album Flaming Home also employed the same microtonality contained in Savashun. You might think I’ve gone on a surf-rock binge seeing as I reviewed Kólga’s Black Tides back in June.
Rising does open with what can be deemed Middle-Eastern inflected guitar tones; however, the intent of Zenith becomes clear around the 1-minute mark when the true nature of Amphibian Man spy-hops through that thin veil of perceptive judgement. This is compact even for an EP length, but not just for the runtime. Zenith is layered with an energy rarely found outside of tempests home to the tropics. Ivan Semeshchenko’s Bandcamp shows releases dating back to 2015’s Tsunami and which range from progressive thrash to desert-inspired surf rock. You read that right.
This new offer could be said to peak at the eponymy of its title track, yet the final two tracks of Fall and Africa offer up no less furious riffing and ecstatically addictive drumming and not once does one wonder, where are the vocals? If instrumental music is done this well and someone still asks that question, you should reconsider your associates.