SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IN THE WOODS…, BONG-RA, DESSIDERIUM, NOMADIC RITUALS, AGHARATH, BRAT

(written by Islander)

I’m going to a memorial service today for a friend who died of brain cancer. First time I’ve been in a church since the last church funeral I attended, which was pre-covid. During covid I attended two memorial services via zoom, one for my best friend, the other for my most important mentor, both of them killed by the same disease that then kept their friends and family from remembering them in a shared physical space.

The arc of life being what it is, the longer you survive, the more chances you’ll have to show up for those who succumbed before you have. I really don’t want to go to today’s service, or any of them. Who does? But at some point in the distant past I learned from what other people did when I lost family members I loved: I learned the importance to the survivors of showing up, of being present, even if you don’t utter a word. Most of the words you might utter would sound so clichéd anyway that they’d risk coming off as phony even if they aren’t.

I make this dreary report only to explain why I’m late in posting this Saturday roundup and why it’s shorter than I wish it were. My head has been clouded by sorrow and dread since waking up, remembering the last times I sat with my friend when he could no longer speak and now daunted by the prospect of what’s coming later today. All that slowed me way down, though the music I did manage to investigate blew away those clouds, even if only temporarily, and even if sometimes they replaced them with other clouds.

 

IN THE WOODS… (Norway)

Let’s start with a song that I already think is assured of a place on my list of 2025’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs (if I live that long).

It rocks hard, and it shines. It sings and it snarls. It goes dark, pulling from sorrow, and it jolts back and rises. When Bernt Fjellestad hits the high notes, it’s especially spine-tingling. For some reason it made me think of an oft-repeated line from Game of Thrones: “What do we say to the god of death?” “Not today.” A fine video too.

The song is “A Misrepresentation of I.” It’s from an eagerly awaited new In the Woods… album named Otra, which will be released by Prophecy Productions on April 11th.

http://lnk.spkr.media/inthewoods-otra
https://www.facebook.com/inthewoodsomnio

 

BONG-RA (Netherlands)

On the way is a new Bong-Ra album entitled Black Noise, which Debemur Morti Productions sums up as a “cold Industrialised wallop… a personal journal into machinal distorted hybrid electronica that reflects the dystopic elements of the modern world.” Last week brought us a video for a second single from it, this one named “Death #2.”

The video is fascinating but creepy as hell. In many respects, so are the words and so is the music, though the song gets muscles throbbing too. The bass sounds like a bone-gnawer; the drums crazily rattle as well as pound; the vocals are monstrously malignant; the surrounding sounds shiver and sear, mysteriously glimmer and sink in despondency. This one’s catchy too.

DMP will release Black Noise on February 21st.

https://dmprd.com/bongraBN
https://www.facebook.com/debemurmorti

 

DESSIDERIUM (U.S.)

Time to banish Death, and to go long-form with the first advance track, 10 1/2 minutes of it, from a new Dessiderium album named Keys to the Palace.

The project’s sole creator Alex Haddad takes us off to the races right away, whipping up a pulse-pounding gallop amidst riffing that manically darts and swirls, and jitters and jolts, accompanied by wild howls and vicious growls, but also soaring singing.

The music also gloriously rings and soars, matched with jubilant keys and backed by electrifying rhythm-section work. It’s an ecstatic and remarkably elaborate extravaganza, and there’s nothing more ecstatic or extravagant than the song’s brilliant guitar solo.

But, this being a long song, it does change soon after that eye-popping solo, shifting into a sublime piano instrumental that put me in mind of Debussy, joined by angelic choral voices, and then getting more dark and daunting when the music powers up once more — until horn-like tones bring the light in again.

In a nutshell, “Dover Phoenix” is a flat-out stunner. Keys to the Palace will be released by Willowtip on March 14th. Can’t wait to hear the rest of this!

https://dessiderium.bandcamp.com/album/keys-to-the-palace
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063280476262

 

NOMADIC RITUALS (Northern Ireland)

Now another turn in the path, twisting it in a darker and uglier direction.

In this song, “Change,” the sludge-doom band Nomadic Rituals greet our ears with clobbering beats and demonic snarls, with vicious sizzling tones and shrill demented decibels. The mangling low-frequencies lurch like some big primeval beast; the vocals scream and bay at the moon; the beats crack and tumble.

The music also pounds like a sledgehammer and seems to moan in agony, and the beasts come out in the doubled vocals too. It might have ended there, but doesn’t: the drums vividly clatter; the guitars go off like sirens; the low end brutally gouges with gruesome claws; the voices scream bloody murder.

“Change” is from Nomadic Ritual‘s forthcoming fourth album, Fust. It will be released by the Irish label Cursed Monk Records on March 14th.

https://cursedmonk.bandcamp.com/album/fust
https://www.facebook.com/NomadicRituals/

 

AGHARATH (India)

Now we come to a song that spreads darkness in a different way, in line with the song’s name: “Diabolical Ensiferum.”

Prepare for a sequence of chilling and unearthly ambience followed by a fiendish miasma of writhing and slashing riffage, backed by drums that hammer like pistons gone mad, and fronted by monster gutturals and boiling screams.

Unexpectedly (or at least I wasn’t expecting it), a dismally grieving melody slowly slithers through the remnants of the violence and flowers in a way that reminds us where this band are from. But the violence flowers again too, as the riffing churns and warps, the drums inflict high-speed punishment, and the vocals come for our jugulars.

We’ve already had signs of the music’s multi-faceted nature, and more evidence soon arrives, through jolting rhythmic interplay, a guitar solo that wails and catches fire, and the reemergence of grim and exotic melody. All in all, a brutal but fascinating experience.

The song is the debut single of Agharath, a blackened death metal band from Kochi, Kerala.

https://www.instagram.com/agharathofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556386943307
https://open.spotify.com/track/0D2N5UA42afLtUhEYk8s5J

 

BRAT (U.S.)

One way of banishing the deep shadow of Death, at least temporarily, is by indulging in outright silliness, and so I relished watching and listening to this NOLA band’s new cover of Heart‘s “Barracuda,” especially because it features a guest appearance by Goatwhore‘s Sammy Duet.

I feel no guilt at all in reminding our visitors how fucking much I enjoyed watching Brat‘s performance at last year’s edition of Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. Because of that, I was very eager to hear what they did with “Barracuda” — especially because the opening of the video suggests it’s going to be drug-induced. And so it is.

It’s hard to fuck up this galloping song, and so it still works well with growls and punk yells and some added grit in the instrumental gears, and Duet‘s solo is choice. The video is a complete hoot, of course, and it’s a nice break to see Liz Selfish in her more elegant new attire.

The song has been released by Prosthetic Records to help draw attention to the fact that Brat will be joining Napalm Death, Crowbar, and Full of Hell on tour in Europe.

https://brat504.bandcamp.com/album/barracuda
https://www.facebook.com/brat504