Imha Tarikat
(written by Islander)
Today is my wedding anniversary (it’s a big one, with a number that ends in a zero). Today the Associated Press highlighted some other events that happened on this day in U.S. history:
- In 1822, Florida became a United States territory.
- In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”
- In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying citizens the right to vote and hold office on the basis of race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
- In 1923, the Cunard liner RMS Laconia became the first passenger ship to circle the globe as it arrived back in New York after a 130-day voyage.
- In 1939, Detective Comics issue #27 was released, featuring the first appearance of the superhero character Batman.
- In 1975, as the Vietnam War neared its end, Communist forces occupied the city of Da Nang.
- In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley Jr.
- In 2023, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, the first-ever criminal case against a former U.S. president.
Let’s celebrate!
IMHA TARIKAT (German)
We’ve been closely following Germany-based Imha Tarikat (the recording duo of mastermind Kerem Yilmaz and drummer Jerome Reil) for the last 8 years, with my friend Andy most recently reviewing their 2022 album Hearts Unchained – At War with a Passionless World, and me commenting on their 2024 single “Murderflesh”.
This year they will bring us a new album, Confessing Darkness, and last week delivered a thrilling video for its first advance cut, “Wicked Shrine“. Here’s how Kerem Yilmaz introduced it:
“The opening track ‘Wicked Shrine‘ pulls you into the relentless darkness of Confessing Darkness, straight from the start. This song celebrates sheer wickedness in an explosive manner. It marks an ecstatic beginning of a journey that takes a more emotional and self-reflective path as the album unfolds. Well, but sometimes, you just have to mess things up, you know?”
Yes indeed, and what a fine mess they’ve made. The song reinforces the notion we’ve had before that when diving into Imha Tarikat‘s music, it’s best to expect the unexpected. And so while the song is a turbocharged rush, indeed explosively wicked, the savage snarls are leavened by utterly wild cries; the cadence shifts into a vivid bounce; and the swarming riffage grows more cold and cruel.
But the lead guitar also sounds ebullient when it rears up. And when the pace moves into a slow lane at the end, that lead guitar exotically wails, like some spirit showing us its perilous charms.
Confessing Darkness will be released by Prophecy Productions on June 20th.
http://lnk.spkr.media/imhatarikat-darkness
https://imhatarikat.bandcamp.com/album/confessing-darkness
https://imhatarikat.bandcamp.com/album/confessing-darkness-deluxe-edition
https://www.facebook.com/imhatarikat/
ELEVENTH RAY (Greece)
The name Eleventh Ray didn’t ring any bells when I saw it last week, but Dark Descent Records rings them loud enough that I always pay attention to what they’re releasing, and Eleventh Ray‘s debut album Reviving Tehom is now on their schedule. Here’s part of how the label introduces the record:
The occult offerings within the unhallowed sleeve of Reviving Tehom invoke the spirit of Celtic Frost, Sodom, the ‘90s exploits of the great Magus Wampyr Daoloth (Necromantia, Rotting Christ, Thou Art Lord), and of course Therion’s 1993’s Symphony Masses: Ho Drakon Ho Megas album.
As a further enticement they also disclose that Eleventh Ray is the work of Y.K. from Serpent Noir, appearing here as D. Gharrassielh, and three other contributors.
The electrifying first song published from the album is “Ha Illan Ha Hizon TrianAdohi“. Its gnarled opening melody weaves and sways, like an occult serpent, accompanied by gritty flickering tones, like the flickering of its rough tongue. Beneath that quickly head-hooking reptilian overture, ritual drums pound, but the ritual reaches another phase.
Following a furiously gnashing guitar bridge, the music becomes feverish and even more corrosive, the rhythms resemble an avalanche, and possessed cries channel ecstatic fervor, as do extravagantly blaring chords.When the fevers briefly abate, the music again resembles the slithering of a serpent, but now an enormous world-devouring one, still fronted by fanatical but more menacing vocals.
Y.K. explains: “Listening carefully to the album, you will realise that into this blend there is a striking ritualistic element with an ominous vibe and a heavy occult twist.” That is certainly true of this first song.
And, as also explained, that common thread extends to the stunning artwork by L.G.N Nekropropaganda, which depicts the Great Red Dragon “as the orgasm of existence, the utmost symbol of hidden wisdom and forbidden knowledge which is also a tangible form of ecstatic energy. Lyrics deal with personal experiences related to the awakening/ channelling of this tremendous force.”
https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/reviving-tehom
https://www.facebook.com/eleventhray/
WALD KRYPTA (Canada/U.S.)
This next song is rough and raw and thoroughly exhilarating. The riffing vibrantly whirs in scratchy, whining tones. The drums sound like thumping on old hide stretched across the frames. The crackling vocals conjure visions of an enraged offspring of vampire and werewolf.
As the fleet-fingered riffing rises, falls, and whirls, often elaborately augmented by a layering of one abrasive guitar over another, the music sounds like a wild dance spinning in a fiery circle, like the jubilant celebration of demons given free reign on an ancient Samhain night. Their vicious glee is infectious. Were we there, it would be damned hard to resist joining in, even if we might get cut to pieces in their frolic.
The song’s name is “Opulent Impudence“, and that is exactly what it is. It’s from Wald Krypta‘s fourth album Disenchantment, which will be released on May 30th by the New England label Eternal Death.
https://eternaldeath.bandcamp.com/album/disenchantment
VARNHEIM (Poland)
After that last mad romp, you might want to settle down a bit, and the opening phase of this next song will allow that — but not for long. After all, the name of the song is “Vengeance“, and it does become vengeful — in stunning ways.
In that opening phase, Varnheim use orchestral tones to create an experience of mystery and menace. But the void-space into which they lead us gradually becomes more frightening, and then titanic drums begin a martial rhythm in the midst of a building sonic storm.
This is all prelude, a chilling path toward metronomic hammering and a swarm of viciously snarling guitars that then shift into a higher and more distressing octave as the accompaniment for monstrous growls.
Varnheim then down-shift the cadence and bring forward both enormous rumbling bass tones and eerily chiming guitars, half clear and half abrading, that create hallucinatory visions of misery. A frantically flickering guitar periodically pierces through riffing that sounds like warped chimes, and the roars elevate into raw howls.
More changes come. The storm abates and the notes enticingly ring across the channels as the drum mimics a metronome again, but those notes start warping again, uncomfortable and even demented, until the dissonant storming and feral slashing resume and elevate, until it sounds like bellicose assaults and brilliant fires in the heavens.
“Vengeance” is the extravagant opening song of Varnheim‘s new album Void, which is set for release by Godz Ov War Productions on April 18th. I’m very eager to hear the other three songs.
https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/void
https://www.facebook.com/varnheim/
ANGLACHEL (Greece)
Once more, it may be time again to let the pace of your heart settle and your mind to become less roiled and more meditative. To help achieve that, I’m turning next to a video for a haunting song called “Shadows Awake“.
Here, electronic keys slowly ripple beneath a flowing melody that sounds like a union of violin and flute. The melody is soulful and grieving, eventually accompanied by primitive beats that could be a funeral processional. The keys also mysteriously quiver and shimmer, and the melody is carried in tones like a squeezebox.
When a distorted voice eventually arrives, it’s frightening, a kind of near-gasping growl, like some dying beast that speaks.
“Shadows Awake” is from Anglachel‘s debut album Of Tuor, Idril and their Departure from Gondolin. The album was originally released in 2019, but was recently re-released by FYC Records with an exclusive bonus track (see the links below).
Anglachel is a Dungeon Synth project by Admetos (from the black metal bands Elegos and Faunus), drawing inspiration from the world of J.R.R. Tolkien. This album captures the fall of Gondolin and the journey of its survivors.
https://fycrecords.bandcamp.com/album/of-tuor-idril-and-their-departure-from-gondolin
https://linktr.ee/anglachel
https://www.facebook.com/anglachelds
GEMYND BEADU (Australia)
To close, I want to recommend the debut album of a one-man Australian band named Gemynd Beadu (the solo work of Injiss). To be honest, I was first drawn to it by the album’s name — Continued Degradation Of Life — and its author’s description of the record as “Inspired by the continued worsening of myself and the world around us.” I don’t feel too hopeful about the world’s direction either.
The music, as you might now expect, could be labeled depressive atmospheric black metal, but its expressions vary widely. In the opener “Diagnoses“, the music is partly acoustic and gently sad, but also hallucinatory and scarred with sounds that spawn tension.
“Sonder Mechanism Invocation“, on the other hand, assaults the listener with frightening noise and then with vividly hurtling drums, feverishly throbbing bass, furiously writhing riffage, a melody that miserably crests and falls, and ripped raw screams filtered through shattered glass. The sound is caustic and corrosive.
But the intensity drifts, allowing the warmth of the bass and swaths of sonic acid to carry things before the sounds become more searing as the beats slowly stagger ahead — but with outbursts of hammering and corrosive musical madness.
You’ll probably know by now whether the album is your kind of thing. It doesn’t pull its punches, either emotionally or sonically. It’s like an extreme catharsis, an expression of pain and hopelessness in terms that usually aren’t at all easy on the ears. But you still won’t have heard all the techniques that Gemynd Beadu uses.
The music also includes distressingly eerie and mystically shimmering keys suggestive of dungeon synth (and ghosts); grimly slashing chords, gnarly in tone; guitar-leads that resemble mournful sirens wailing through speakers degraded by rust, or vividly trill; tragic horn-like and shrill flute-like tones; poignant picking; abyssal roars; choking growls; haunted spoken words; equally haunted singing; and insane, tortured cries.
There are moments of beauty. At times the music becomes almost pastoral, as well as cosmic. The bass is a persistent welcome presence, usually the only thing warm about the music, and subtly melodic. Those are some of the features (among many) of the shoegaze-influenced “Neglected Formation Tool“, which I think might be my favorite track.
Maybe this album a bit like what would have happened if Lifelover had decided to play raw black metal with abundant helpings of industrial noise and seasonings of dungeon synth?
P.S. We’re told that the band’s name is Anglo-Saxon for “Fight With Memory.”
https://gemyndbeadu.bandcamp.com/album/continued-degradation-of-life