Today we have begun a new week of posts at NCS, and thus resume the rollout of our list of 2024’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. To check out the preceding 7 installments and get an explanation about what the list represents, go HERE.
I don’t have any logical organizing principle for why I put these three songs together in this Part 8 of the list, though I suppose I might have subconsciously grouped them just to keep listeners off-balance. I do enjoy doing that.
ULCERATE
This is another example of choosing a song from a band who are extremely well-known and whose 2024 album (Cutting the Throat of God) justifiably garnered a ton of acclaim. Those factors would not alone warrant the pick of a song for this list, because (as I’ve explained before) it’s not really about critically acclaimed music. It’s about songs that are “catchy,” very memorable, or “most-played” — features that are all aspects of infectiousness as I define the term.
As it happens, however, a number of the songs on Ulcerate‘s new album — hell, probably all of them — are worthy contenders for this list in addition to making up an album that has rightly been critically lauded.
As with other 2024 albums loaded with candidates for this list, I really struggled about which one to include. I sought help from a couple other writers, and DGR helped me settle on “To See Death Just Once.” He not only reviewed the album for us, he also put it at No. 2 on his year-end list. As he wrote before:
“To See Death Just Once” is a song in which Ulcerate absolutely land their auditory punch somewhere between bulldozer and suffering, forcefully yanking between the two at multiple points within its eight and a half minutes…. [It] is an absolutely amazing song that transcends just being part of the Ulcerate collective. It is a song more people should experience, even if you’ve long sworn off the big, crashing guitars and drowned vocals of this band. You can’t help but be won over by that song.
I find myself in agreement!
https://ulcerate.bandcamp.com/album/cutting-the-throat-of-god
https://www.facebook.com/Ulcerate/
SÓLSTAFIR
Speaking for myself, but probably for other writers around our mouldering halls, Sólstafir is a beloved band. We’ve been following them since very early days, watching their star rise even as the music has evolved significantly. As it has evolved, I’ve found myself still attracted to the music. Honestly, I’m not sure I can any longer separate the attraction of the music from my love for their home country, which was born immediately upon my first visit to Oration Festival there and has only deepened with repeat visits to the successor Ascension Fest. But it is what it is.
The band’s latest album, Hin helga kvöl, somehow evaded attention at our site, at least in the sense that none of our usual reviewers chose to write about the album as a whole, although I did write about a couple of the album’s singles. One of those singles is what I’ve added to this list. Other songs were candidates, but this is the one that stuck in my head the hardest.
And speaking of things I have difficulty separating, one of the reasons that “Blakkrakki” (“The Black Dog”) stuck with me is the video that first presented it, which I still think is one of the best of 2024.
I devoted an entire SEEN AND HEARD column to this one song and video here, and included a lot of details about the making of the video. Here are a few excerpts from that writeup:
Basically, as you will see (if you haven’t already), the band set up on a flat-bed trailer and played through the song while being pulled by a truck around Reykjavik and less inhabited places – including being pulled at highway speeds with other vehicles whizzing by them in the other direction.
It’s pretty obvious from the video that the bandmembers weren’t tied down to avoid being pitched off, which is part of the thrill that comes from watching this. (I’m guessing their vehicle’s insurance didn’t cover this excursion, nor any other insurance.)
…Part of what makes the video so engaging are the sceneries visible around the band as they truck along. It does give you a taste of what makes the country so beautiful. And, as always, the band is also very cool-looking.
…Oh yeah… there’s the music too! If the song were ho-hum, it probably would have made the video seem drab, notwithstanding everything about it that’s wild. But the song is definitely not ho-hum. It’s a vividly throbbing, hard-rocking, vividly ringing and slashing romp, completed by Aðalbjörn Tryggvason‘s one-of-a-kind vocals and a blazing solo. It will get your muscles twitching, and it’s catchy as hell, but it’s also got some darkness in it too — it is named “Blakkrakki” for a reason.
https://solstafir-band.lnk.to/HinHelgaKvol
https://www.facebook.com/solstafirice
EVERTO SIGNUM
Last fall I had the pleasure of premiering a full stream of Everto Signum‘s new album Beastiary on the eve of its release by Monumental Rex. Unlike the albums by Ulcerate and Sólstafir, I fear it flew under the radar screens of far too many people. In an extensive review, I did my best to explain why that should not happen.
Without repeating everything I wrote, I think it’s important for listeners to understand the fascinating concept behind the album. Thematically, it portrays a chain reaction of natural disasters, which the band interpret and manifest as wild, uncontrollable beasts. As I wrote then, “the album’s lyrical narrative describes a process of Death dealt by Nature, a process of deconstruction and purification that leads to transformation and new creations.”
The album and the lyrical narrative begin with an earthquake that shakes a mountain into avalanche. As the album continues in repeatedly astonishing fashion, it eventually reaches the point when the cataclysm causes a flood, represented in Everto Signum‘s bestiary as a Wyvern – a mythic winged dragon.
It’s the song “Wyvern” that I’m now adding to this list. When I wrote about that song in the context of the premiere, I referred to it as one that encompassed “evil, bounding frolics, dervish-like spinning, and glittering keyboard and spiraling guitar glories of a genuine musical spectacle.” I still find the song incredible (as I do the album as a whole).
https://evertosignum.bandcamp.com/album/beastiary
https://www.facebook.com/evertosignum