AN NCS PREMIERE: RUNESPELL — “VENGEANCE REIGN”

 

The creative fires that burn in Australia’s Runespell seem unquenchable. Since the Unhallowed Blood Oath debut full-length in 2017, the band has released significant new works every year, including 2018’s Order of Vengeance, 2019’s Voice of Opprobrium, and the 2020 split with Forest Mysticism, Wandering Forlorn. And, like clockwork, Runespell has completed a new album that will be released on September 10th of this year by Iron Bonehead Productions, which has ushered forth all of the previous releases as well.

Runespell has already staked out a musical territory that presents (in the accurate words of the press materials) “grandiose melancholy given majestic flight” coupled with “bloodlusting energy no matter the tempo — widescreen in its vast landscapes yet fiercely focused….” And the new album displays those qualities again, but does so in ways that are perhaps even more dazzling in their extravagance, more unearthly in their aura, and more heart-stricken in their melodic moods. Witness the track we’re premiering today, “Vengeance Reign“.

 

 

Above a rumbling bass and a neck-snapping snare the guitars blaze with searing, preternatural light, soaring in shivering glory. Hateful howls echo across the soundscape as the chords rise, fall, and writhe in a manifestation of harrowing grandeur (and simultaneously burrow their intense melody into the listener’s head). When the drums begin blasting and the bass thunders the music takes on a more savage and dire aspect, and when the drums briefly vanish the music glimmers with mystery, until the song ignites again in a sweeping conflagration of symphonic sound in which a guitar maniacally flickers and the drums and bass pump like overdriven pistons.

 

 

Below you’ll also find a stream of the previously released album track “Structures of Collapse“, which quickly creates an atmosphere of mesmerizing, unearthly magnificence and frightening wonder — and then becomes a stunning sonic storm that’s panoramic in its sweep, crazed in its intensity, and stately in its grim, regal sorrow. Immense, tumbling drums lead the music into a towering crescendo of spectacle and savagery that reaches its apex through a glorious, lightning-fast solo.

 

 

Iron Bonehead will release Verses in Regicide on CD and vinyl LP formats, which will become available for order on September 10th.

IRON BONEHEAD:
http://www.ironbonehead.de
https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/IronBoneheadProductions

RUNESPELL:
http://www.runespell.bandcamp.com