I have an explanation and a request.
The explanation concerns why I haven’t written a Shades of Black column today for one of a very few times since I started this Sunday thing many years ago. After finishing the Saturday roundup I checked out of listening to music or writing about it the rest of yesterday and last night, and spent all that time with my spouse and cats instead.
And then this morning I left the house very early with her and another friend to go to a reputedly great breakfast place about a half hour away that you reportedly couldn’t get into without a long wait if you didn’t arrive when it opened (turned out to be true). By the time I got back home, having satisfied my total recommended caloric intake for the whole week, the morning was gone.
Now for the request I’d like to make of you.
Since I always hog the choices at our site on these Sundays, I thought it would make sense to open the floor to you. So the request of our visitors is that you use the Comments to share what you’ve been recently listening to and enjoying from the realms of black or black-adjacent metal, whether it’s an individual song or a complete release. Adding links to the music in your Comment would be appreciate, but not demanded.
I really hope some of you will participate. Hell, I really hope all of you will participate.
P.S. The artwork at the top of this post is the cover of an EP named Needle Cathedral by the Czech band Můra. It’s coming out in January on the Doomentia and Caligari labels. I haven’t yet listened to it, but I plan to, based mainly on that cover art, the name of the EP, and those labels being involved. The Bandcamp page is here, but none of the songs are streaming yet.
12 Responses to “SHADES OF BLACK (BREAK)”
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Hey, take a break.. you’ve earned it and I’m sure many readers are like myself and take your efforts for granted. Return to this column when you’re fully refreshed and enjoy some family time!
I appreciate the warm thoughts. It did turn out to be a very refreshing weekend.
Not sure if it was covered here already, but I’ve been digging the new Argwaan. Great sadboi black metal that reminds me a bit of a rawer Alcest. And its NYP on bandcamp.
https://argwaan.bandcamp.com/album/violable
Nothing from the deep underground. I’m really digging Kolga’s lisergic cocktail of black and surf, Givre’s translucent description of pain and its escatological implications, Ilienses’ take on the millenial sardinian folk tradition.
Still i think the overwhelming stream of year end lists you grace us all is far more then we can handle. So enjoy your well deserved break my friend.
Thank you!
I found these quite interesting –
Kamaq – Los Quin Vinieron Antes – BM from Peru
https://kamaq.bandcamp.com/album/los-que-vinieron-antes
Svartfjell – I, The Destroyer BM from UK
https://svartfjell.bandcamp.com/album/i-the-destroyer?from=embed
plenty more, too many to chose from
It’s from April, but the latest Locrian album is high on my list this year:
https://locrian.bandcamp.com/album/end-terrain
I really liked Saidan’s album that came out in the middle of the year. I and one or two other people put them on the listeners’ end of the year list that you guys solicited a few weeks back but they didn’t make it onto the Good or the Great list unfortunately (I understand though; we seem spoiled for choice this year).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsLi0BRGg0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc2RGf5XOAM
Many decades ago when I was forced to sit in a church and try to find the lord, I wish it sounded like this:
https://ulvik.bandcamp.com/track/sown-on-earth
And another, from last year. That’s still gets a ton of listening time for me. Especially on long drives:
https://ladlo.bandcamp.com/track/2-cursed-by-the-crown
I’m digging the early 90’s aesthetic of the EP Invidia by the Italian occult black metal band GVLA https://gvla.bandcamp.com/album/invidia released just a few weeks ago (so almost new!). Great production while keeping a degree of low-fi feel, wonderful snare sound, strong hi hats and ride cymbal propulsion, perhaps deliberately a little out of time when speeded up (according to my untrained ears, I could definitely be wrong) that only adds to the chaotic and dark wonder. Includes some sub-terranean dark ambience that I haven’t quite heard in the same way from a retro-sounding black metal EP like this.
And 11 years after their great release Anarchic, the Cascadian atmospheric black metal band Skagos is back, still with Isaac Symonds and Ray Hawes at the creative helm. Chariot Sun Blazing https://skagos.bandcamp.com/album/chariot-sun-blazing was released yesterday on winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. A very confident album that’s not afraid to rest into the sentiments and landscapes of this type of black metal, feels very sincere. Maybe a little less experimental than Anarchic, a little less post-black, but we are only talking about a small matter of degree here. Great use of horns and strings to provide overtones and melody support, that only adds to the blue grass, Wayfarer-like soulful feel weaving in and out at various points. I can see why they did an earlier split with Panopticon. Black metal art that you can surrender to and maybe come out at the end feeling more restored to face demons.
After all these years, It’s still Altar of Plagues.
And Krallice.
Yes, very little can beat these two amazing bands. I consider Skagos to be contemporaries, but their scant discology doesn’t stack up in the same way. Nor to Panopticon’s… Skagos go to some spaces that Panopticon doesn’t quite, but at the same time they’ve never come close to anything like Panopticon’s Social Disservices, nor even the more ‘controlled’ fury of later releases. Still, how does one compare musical art of this quality? It’s all unique in their own special ways.