SHADES OF BLACK (CHRISTMAS DAY EDITION): SKAGOS, WĘDROWCY~TUŁACZE~ZBIEGI, ZÉRO ABSOLU, THE MAN AND THE ABYSS, ISTAPP

(written by Islander; photo by Islander)

I hope you got a holiday today. If you did, I hope you’ll be able to spend the time happily, however you choose to spend it and whatever it may mean to you. If you didn’t, from all of us at NCS the same wishes still apply.

I wasn’t able to compile a SHADES OF BLACK column last Sunday. I didn’t think about trying to cure the omission during this week, but then DGR said I should run it today “for kvltness so cheesy it would qualify as proper parmigiano.” It’s nice that he picked “the king of cheeses”, and also fitting that it’s often served shaved or grated, since that’s what some of the following selections might do to your brain.

As an aside, did anyone notice that we served up lists from a Grover and a Gonzo yesterday? I wish I was clever enough to have done that on purpose, but I was just following my habit of posting lists from our writers and other friends in the order received. Sometimes the stars align. (And thanks to Dan Barkasi for pointing out the Muppets connection to this dummy.)

And now, onward with some gifts we were all given as the year’s nights turned longest, and which will keep things dark even with the solstice now behind us. (My family’s all old enough that we don’t give gifts any more, so I had some money to spend on this music, and hope you’re not too broke to do that yourselves.)

 

SKAGOS (Canada/U.S.)

Eleven years after their last album Anarchic, the Skagos duo of Ray Hawes and Isaac Symonds returned on the winter solstice with a new album named Chariot Sun Blazing. It has spread by word of mouth very quickly. Our supporter Rodney provided a nice and concise review last Sunday when, in place of that un-finished SHADES OF BLACK column, I invited our visitors to tell us what they’ve been listening to:

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.

I’ll enthusiastically second what Rodney wrote. Much happens in these seven carefully crafted songs, both instrumentally and in the shape-shifting of style and mood.

Instrumentally the songs include haunting and hectic violin strings, other bright and mesmerizing acoustic instruments, eerily shimmering radiations of unknown origin, bird-song, and maybe a harmonica, but also riffing that boils and churns and drums that gallop and rock out, as well as funereal French-horn tones and whispering chimes.

They include strident vocals like bursts of shattering glass, mixed with wild cries and thorned snarls, and pleasingly warm and nuanced bass-work that gets numerous chances to shine.

In their moods, the music ranges — from grieving and tormented to mystical and splendorous, from contemplative to furious. And stylistically, folk and classical elements (including a string quartet) go hand-in-hand with black metal, and even a bit of post-punk, to create a very immersive, quite elaborate, and often exhilarating atmospheric experience.

https://skagos.bandcamp.com/album/chariot-sun-blazing

 

 

WĘDROWCY~TUŁACZE~ZBIEGI (Poland)

Ah, dammit, Devoted Art Propaganda has released an album named Droga Do Domu which they say is the final album from Wędrowcy~Tułacze~Zbiegi. I had no reason to think this band would shelve their eccentricities or shave down their variable interests just because this was their swan song, and of course they didn’t.

Gritty guitars sizzle and swirl; sinister keys shimmer and pulse; the drums bound and batter; the bass throbs like lust. Some things sound like an accordion, other things like a tinny old electric piano or theremin. The singing is a bit raw and wild enough to have been fueled by strong drink, except when it sounds mysterious and moody.

Sometimes they create a devilish waltz, sometimes a dervish whirl, sometimes a sweaty orgy, sometimes a strange rave, sometimes a hallucinogenic dream. It seems to span about 60 years’ worth of musical influences.

The whole thing is less than 20 minutes long. It will take you out of your head for all those minutes. Google tells me that the Polish lyrics of the last song mean: “Time has passed me by / So that I don’t hold back the world for others.”

https://wedrowcy-tulacze-zbiegi.bandcamp.com/album/droga-do-domu

 

 

ZÉRO ABSOLU (France)

The French band Glaciation put out two albums in 2012 and 2015. After that (according to a press release) one of the members who had been fired by the others created a new lineup and registered the name Glaciation with the French government.

We’re further informed that last year the core of the original Glaciation lineup, accompanied by a member of Regarde Les Hommes Tomber and another from Alcest, recorded a new album named La saignée (“The Bloodletting”), and to put an end to the drama, they decided to rename Glaciation to Zéro Absolu. Their album is now set for release by AOP Records on January 31st.

The album consists of only two songs. The title song is a little more than 20 minutes long. The other one, “Le Temps Détruit Tout,” is about 13 1/2. They are both fascinating.

As a teaser, AOP recently released a 5 1/2 minute excerpt of the title track. I’ve included it below, but I’d like to offer impressions about the song in its entirety, which I’ve heard (along with the second song).

Over the course of those 20 minutes “La Saignée” varies considerably. With dismal bowed strings and clattering chimes, it’s eerie and haunting at first, and then becomes disturbing. The drums pound, the cymbals crash, the bass undulates, the sizzling guitars slither and pulsate.

Just in time for screams to explode, the drums take off in a race, the guitars convert to throbbing shrieks, fury becomes manifest. The guitars continue to pierce the senses, weirdly writhing, screeching, and rising in a boil, backed by constantly varying beats and vitriolic vocals.

On the other hand, the music also softens and becomes misty, allowing brittle guitar tones to ring, but only briefly, before whirling and clattering convulsions ensue again. The ebb and flow continues. When it softens again, spoken words in French also come to the fore with melancholy strummed chords and a bone-humming bass. When it softens another time, mellotron-like notes glimmer above hornet-swarm abrasiveness, with more spoken words, like a conversation.

The music gets a bit bluesy, a bit folky, a bit beautifully bright and wandering, like a musing stroll through sunlit woods. Hints of old Alcest emerge. The music also wondrously soars even as the furies return, and it kind of grimly gnashes at the end.

Honestly, I haven’t even listed to the 5 1/2 minute excerpt, so I don’t know which parts of this come through. I fear the whole is just too extravagantly multifaceted, too head-spinning and mood-moving, to be pared down in any way.

I think I’ll save my thoughts about the second song for a later time.

https://linktr.ee/aoprec
https://artofpropaganda.bandcamp.com/album/la-saign-e
https://save-it.cc/aop/la-saign-e

 

 

THE MAN AND THE ABYSS (France)

I discovered this next album thanks to a pointer from Rennie Resmini (starkweather). The band describe themselves as a group formed in Strasbourg in 2018 “by veteran musicians active in the metal scene for more than fifteen years.” They characterize their music as “post-metal with blackened doom elements.” They released a previous album, Loin des Hommes, in 2020, but I missed it.

The four songs here are long ones, ranging from nearly 8 minutes to 13 1/2. By sheer coincidence, they fit in very well with that Zéro Absolu song I described above. Each one proceeds like dramatic tides, surging and crashing against the rocks, and receding into encroaching miasma-like mists, with an emotional undertow that can carry you down.

At high tide, the guitars have a dense, roughened, and searing tone; the bass is enormous; the drums strike with organ-rupturing and bone-cracking force. The vocals scream with unhinged intensity and snarl with malice.

Those same forces also cause the music to dismally churn in between the crashing high tides and the submersive ebbs, like a brutal whirlpool which froths and whips even as the rhythm section are stomping like giants and cracking the whip, as if reminding us that towering Poseidon rules these dangerous waters.

And truly, the music is often just fucking immense, and emotionally harrowing. At times the guitars dissonantly wail, or ring like miserable sirens, or quiver like raw nerves on edge. At low ebb the band also create chilling, queasy, and surreal sensations, and sometimes they bring in morose singing and strangled gasps. But they equally know how to move a listener’s muscles with visceral power, and how to give you a sore neck.

If you just want to taste-test this powerhouse of an album, I’d recommend “Dissolution of Self.” But I really recommend you hear all of it.

https://themanandtheabyss.bandcamp.com/album/wrapped-in-white
https://www.facebook.com/themanandtheabyss/

 

 

ISTAPP (Sweden)

To close, I’m going to leave you with a lyric video for Istapp‘s new song “Under Jökelisen,” which includes artwork suitable for the winter season — albeit a season in which a veil between worlds has been parted.

Prepare for a hard-charging but head-spinning song, with riffing that viciously burns and deliriously swirls, but also cuts like a sleet-storm and vibrantly jolts. It also features a pleasingly prominent bass and vivid drumming, and further includes impassioned singing as well as goblin snarls, plus the bright ripple of some old plucked instrument.

The song’s fire-bright whirling riff (you’ll notice it very fast) is just electrifying and gloriously mesmerizing every time it appears, but all the other ingredients in the song are also captivating.

The song is from this long-running band’s new album Sól Tér Sortna, which will be released by TrollZorn Records on March 6th.

https://www.trollzorn.de
https://www.facebook.com.istappofficial
https://www.instagram.com/istappistagram