(written by Islander)
This column comes later in the day than usual, just like yesterday’s did. Yesterday’s was late because I went overboard with how much I tried to cover. Today’s is late because I spent a bunch of time this morning reading things that have nothing to do with music, still trying to process “current events”.
It’s also late because I still tried to cover as much as I could, though not quite as overboard as yesterday. Like yesterday I’ve alternated between recent singles and complete new records, and at the end I’ve added a couple of new videos for songs that aren’t new, though in different ways they’ve been made new again.
KILDONAN (Scotland)
Because I’m special I’ve heard all of Kildonan‘s debut album Embers. I have a lot of complimentary thoughts about it but haven’t yet found time to put them into print. But I do have enough time to tell you what I think about the first advance track, “Iolliar – Bhuidhe“.
That song title might be (based on my research) the Scottish Gaelic name for “golden eagle”, a majestic creature which is in fact native to Scotland. That would correspond to the Embers cover art (created by by Karolina Szymkiewicz).
Embers is dedicated “to all who lost their homes during the Highland Clearances”. With an inspiration such as that, it’s no wonder that there is anger, sadness, and a sense of a particular place in “Iolliar – Bhuidhe“.
Both the anger and the sadness come through quickly in the bleak slash of the song’s opening riff and in the intensity of the howling and splintering cries. The fury surges as the drums take off and the burning violence in the riffing swells. The music also soars above the tumult of bass and drums, more expansive in its sweep but also more tormented and despairing in its mood, though the wrenching wildness of the vocals have something to do with that too.
The grip of the song never loosens, even when extravagant singing (epic and doomed) replaces the cries and screams, even when the drums rumble and tumble and the slashed chords grimly reverberate. When the intensity mounts again, those wailing cries seem even more shattering, and the music even more stricken with agony.
Kildonan is principally the creation of Hamish MacKintosh (whose lengthy resume includes his work with Ageless Summoning, Sluagh, Tlön, Úir, and Haar), aided by guitarist AC. It will be released on tape and digitally on December 13th by Caligari Records, which describes the album as follows:
“Nods to gods of dissonance like later Deathspell Omega and Blut Aus Nord are prominent, but there’s equally a second wave-derived spellcasting not unlike the atmospheric black metal movement as ushered forth by the likes of Altar of Plagues.”
https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/embers
ATRA HAERESIS (Russia)
In 2021 the part-Russian, part-Belarusian black/death metal band Atra Haeresis appeared seemingly out of the blue with an album named Pretium that was their first release. We helped introduce it through a premiere of the song “Pretium?” in advance of the album release. In introducing that song, we warned listeners more than once that it would take their breath away and expose them to physical trauma, and eventually we named it to our list of 2021’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. The rest of the album was equally impressive.
Just yesterday Atra Haeresis chose to self-release for streaming a new album named Paritas, though at some point they expect it will be available on CD from the Russian label More Hate Production.
I received this comment from the band about Paritas:
This is probably one of our most interesting works. It has an incredible number of references and hidden meanings that literally permeate each composition.
There is no place for coincidences in the album. Every meaning we put into the music, words, design, and even numbers has been carefully thought out and perfectly integrated into the overall concept of the game.
As you can see from the title and cover, in this work we have touched on the topic of equality, which seems simple, but in fact is very complex. We tried to reveal the dark and terrifying side of human nature, to show how imperfect and unintelligent people are.
Once again, we humbly hope for your support. Share your opinion about the album, even if it is negative. Everyone’s opinion is important to us, because we have even more extensive work ahead on the third album.
Well, I have an opinion, and it isn’t negative.
The opener “Prayer of Taurus” is both momentous and rocketing, booming like guns and flashing like lightning in a bottle. The rich layering of guitars creates glittering swirls and chimes around gut-punching bass-lines, munitions-grade drumming, and a cavalcade of snarls, screams, and growls.
The guitars also viciously swarm, frantically dart, exotically slither, and maliciously slug, and the drums also rock. At the end the music also becomes slow, soft, and moodily self-reflective… a phase that carries the album into the next song, “Judgment“.
The whole album works that way, with the songs sometimes flowing into each other, but also altering course. As the movements change, the band bring in changing moods and new musical dimensions, including deep spoken words, strident singing, fervent dialogues, and gruesome gravel-gargling growls, as well as solos that are grieving or downright glorious.
The album has the character of a dramatic and detailed tapestry flowing by, a tapestry that includes audio visions of cruelty and haughtiness, of gloom and anguish, of torment and fury, of confusion and bewilderment, and there are also times when it becomes mystical and surreal (especially, but not exclusively, in the closer “Aeshma Daevas“, which also might be the album’s most crushing, blistering, and proggy track). And if you really want to get your head pumping like a piston, you’ll get that chance in “Retaliation“.
As the mood-changes occur, so does the work of the rhythm section, with the drumming coming across as particularly well-geared to the scene-changes, as well as vibrant in its manifold fills, and the bass doing a potent job in adding to the songs’ periodic body-blows. However, all of the performers who played roles here are very, very good.
In short, the album is a very elaborate and constantly changing experience, both viscerally powerful and head-spinning. You could indeed think of it as an audio tapestry, or maybe more accurately like a theatrical black/death pageant — in which there’s never a dull moment. Don’t miss it.
https://www.instagram.com/atrahaeresis/
DEWFALL (Italy)
Speaking of pageantry, I attempted to sum up Dewfall‘s last album Hermeticus as “a panoramic heavy metal pageant that strives to bring to the stage all the foolishness, fearlessness, and ferocity of which human beings are capable, the depths of pain and heartbreak, the beauty of great achievements, and the terrible exultation of madness”.
After an experience like Hermeticus, I have very high expectations for Dewfall‘s new full-length Landhaskur, which is to say that I expect to be shaking my head in wonder after I hear it. That’s certainly what I was doing after hearing the album’s first two songs, “FARA” and “SKALKS“, both of which are now streaming.
Like Hermeticus, Landhaskur has a concept that’s unusually interesting, described this way by Naturmacht Productions:
Landhaskur is an epic black metal opus with a folkloristic and medieval blend, narrating the forgotten myth of Winnili (the ancient population known as Longobards) and the atavic pagan cults and traditions they infused during their 200 years kingdom at the doors of the middle age within the Italic Land, during its apparently darkest historical period. The story is performed in English with a tribute to the ancient Latin and Langobardic languages, with a medieval Italian insert.
In line with the head-shaking-in-wonder expectations, the album credits include guest appearances by performers on cello, violin, bouzouki, ocarina, traditional flute, jaw harp, sleigh bells, traditional lute, and war horn. And I’ll add that it was mixed by Christopher Fielding and mastered and engineered by Herbrand Larsen.
In the case of the two songs you can hear now, the cello and violin play a prominent role in the mournful opening of “FARA“, and they establish a melody that Dewfall soon hurl forward with dramatically greater speed, intensity, and wrenching power. That melody digs in, piercing like vibrating knives, as the vocals barbarically vent the words and the rhythm section whips up a riot.
The riffing also contorts — feverishly attacking, dismally swirling, and becoming delirious; the lead guitar spins up into a brilliantly spiraling solo; the vocals give birth to both mad cries and deep, solemn singing; the song crescendos in a way that may leave you gasping.
“SKALKS” provides a very quick and haunting breather, and then it takes off too, like a race across the skies on some winged chariot of fire. Its blazing lead riff also digs in; the vocals also quickly vary; and the fleet-fingered and fast-limbed rhythm section pour high-octane gasoline into the engine of your pulse.
It’s all just fucking glorious… until it becomes more distressing… though even then, rising choral voices and swirling guitar harmonies bring the glory back. The dark moods don’t completely disappear, but the song keeps climbing, to an epic height — which is where Dewfall most like to dwell.
Yep, shaking my head in wonder again. The album will be out via Naturmacht on November 29th.
https://dewfallnp.bandcamp.com/album/landhaskur
https://www.facebook.com/DewFallOfficial/
HORNWOOD FELL (Italy)
I’ve been avidly following Hornwood Fell for a lot of years, which (to use a metaphor I’ve used before) has been like following “pools of mercury on a subtly shifting sheet of steel, catching different lights”. Yet despite my continuing interest and intrigue I managed to miss out on their November 2 release of a new EP (Reduce the earth in stone), but ultimately made the discovery thanks to its inclusion in Ron Ben-Tovim‘s latest weekly roundup of recommended new stuff at Machine Music. Here’s what he penned about the EP:
Hornwood Fell continue to be one of the most underrated black metal bands on earth. And they always, as in here, hit that sweet spot I never thought existed between dissonant and kinda-sorta symphonic black metal, in a way that makes them sound like an angel getting fucked up by a rock. Always good, and this is good too. Surprise surprise.
My own expressions about the EP aren’t as vivid as his, but then again they never are, yet I still persevere.
The four new songs on the EP reveal Hornwood Fell in their finest hallucinatory regalia. The music is capable of sounding very cruel and dismal, but also as demented as prophets of old, seeing and hearing things detectable to no one else. It’s not just the wide-ranging vocals that sound like that; everything does.
The performances are technically very impressive, but their renderings are thoroughly unconventional (if you don’t count the periodic blast-beat eruptions), and mind-warping. The music is also capable of becoming mesmerizing, but even then it won’t really calm you, because it’s predictable that something else very strange and unsettling will come your way very soon (that’s really the only thing predictable about these songs).
Not being a musician myself, I’ll still venture that minor keys play a big role throughout these songs. As the notes sizzle, chime, wail, and writhe, they create persistent feelings of unease, and all the frightening vocal variations (there are so many!) definitely do that as well. Even the impressive potency of the drum-and-bass work can’t take your mind off that; they don’t often follow a straight path either. Dramamine probably won’t help.
As unsettling and surreal as the music is, through and through, it’s so ingeniously and intricately written and so carefully crafted to fulfill the band’s disturbing ambitions, that it’s truly fascinating, to the point that I think you’ll have a very hard time finding anything this year that sounds quite like this. And I feel very confident in asserting that if you get through it, you won’t soon forget about it.
https://hornwoodfell.bandcamp.com/album/reduce-the-earth-in-stone
THULCANDRA (Germany)
In 2010, before NCS had reached its first birthday, Thulcandra released their debut album, Fallen Angel’s Dominion. It’s an understatement to say I fell head over heels for it. In my review I went on and on and on about the album, preceded by an on-and-on discussion of C.S. Lewis and his books The Chronicles of Narnia, which were the source of Thulcandra’s name, as well as the histories of the band members.
So it’s no big surprise that I’ve leapt toward a forthcoming Thulcandra live album, whose release was delayed by Covid, which focuses on songs from Fallen Angel’s Dominion and their second album Under a Frozen Sun. To help spread the word about it, Napalm Records released a video of the band performing the title song from their debut album, with the full original lineup in place: Sebastian Ludwig, Tobias Ludwig, Matthias Landes (Dark Fortress, Noneuclid) and Steffen Kummerer (Obscura, Death, Cynic).
This video for “Fallen Angel’s Dominion” is a vivid reminder of why I fell so hard for the album of that name (though if you have light-induced epilepsy, you better steer clear of it), and it definitely hasn’t become stale with the passage of 14 years, especially with the energy Thulcandra threw into this performance.
Live Demise will be available on December 6th through Napalm Records.
https://lnk.to/Thulcandra-LiveDemise
https://thulcandra.bandcamp.com/album/live-demise
http://www.thetruethulcandra.com
https://www.facebook.com/ThulcandraMetal
https://www.instagram.com/thulcandraofficial
SAMMATH (Netherlands)
Now I’ll go back even further beyond 2010 — a LOT further.
What I’ve decided to close with is a video for “In Het Teken Van Het Zevende Zwaard“, a song from Sammath‘s 1997 demo, De Ruïnes Fluisteren, which was released only three years after the band’s inception and a time when they had keyboards in the mix.
What’s new about this music is that the song, like that demo as a whole, has been remastered this year by Peter Neuber for a vinyl and CD reissue by Docs Metal Prod and Zwaertgevegt.
Like the Thulcandra song that preceded this one, “In Het Teken Van Het Zevende Zwaard” hasn’t grown stale with time. It’s dark and vicious, with fantastically crazed vocals, bone-gnawing bass, furious and bounding drumming — and the ringing, organ-like keys make it sound even more supernatural. The riffing also spins, like the levitation of witches around a midnight bonfire, also supernatural but more delirious.
Remember this one come next Samhein night, but hopefully sooner too.