OVERFLOWING STREAMS ON A SATURDAY: ARCHSPIRE, DREAMWELL, HUMANITY’S LAST BREATH, KUNSTZONE, SLEEPWALKER, CHOSHECH, SWARRRM, SYLOSIS, TRIVAX, WORMHOLE

Archspire

Someone wrote they get by with a little help from their friends… don’t tell me… it will come to me….

I got by with some help from my friends this morning. It was one of those especially distracting weeks when I had almost no chance to claw my way through the hundreds of e-mails we get every day, so I didn’t have much new music bookmarked to check out over the last 24 hours and really wasn’t eager to do the catch-up chore. However, DGR and Andy Synn pitched five new songs and videos at me, and I also noticed a few recommendations from some other valued influencers.

Collectively, those became my main targets… and like the blind squirrel who found an acorn, I did stumble across a few nuggets of musical nourishment myself. The result is the very big collection I’ve assembled below, organized alphabetically by band name and with fewer words than usual for Saturday round-ups. Surely you will find something to enjoy….

The Beatles!

 

ARCHSPIRE (Canada)

Prepare for: one HELL of a wild ride, both visually and musically. You probably know that the song is a leader in the arms race for high-speed tech-death supremacy (but includes a surprise dreamy interlude). I think the less I tell you about the video, the better, so as not to spoil any of its many surprises, some humorous and many horrifying. Let’s just say it’s a portrayal of a live show gone very, very WRONG. Be sure to stick around while the credits roll.

The song is the title track to Archspire‘s latest album Bleed the Future, which was released about two years ago by Season of Mist. The video is brand new, financed through Kickstarter.

https://shopusa.season-of-mist.com/band/archspire
https://som.lnk.to/ArchspireBtF
https://www.facebook.com/Archspireband

 

 

DREAMWELL (U.S.)

Hey, I’m just following the rules of the alphabet, but it happened that one bamboozling escapade now follows another.

Prepare for: a brazen, bewildering, and battering experience — which becomes almost dreamily sweeping and melodic — coupled with vocals that are just as much of an arcade-flipper game as the careening and contorting instrumentals. As long as you don’t mind getting flipped off, the video is a great trip too.

“Obelisk of Hands” is from this Rhode Island band’s album In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You, out on October 20th through Prosthetic Records.

https://lnk.to/Dreamwell
https://dreamwell.bandcamp.com/album/in-my-saddest-dreams-i-am-beside-you
https://www.facebook.com/dreamwellband/

 

 

HUMANITY’S LAST BREATH (Sweden)

Prepare for: an eye-popping video for a bunker-busting bombing-run of a song, and a strafing run too… and a malicious mind-mangler of derangement as well. To help you envision the bleakness of all the cities that have been leveled down into rubble, there’s some gloomy singing — before the band make extra-sure they haven’t left anything standing.

“Passage” is from the upcoming album Ashen, available August 4th via Unique Leader Records.

https://ffm.to/hlbpassage
https://humanityslastbreath.8merch.com/
https://humanityslastbreath.8merch.us/
https://www.facebook.com/humanityslastbreath/

 

 

KUNSTZONE (Canada)

Prepare for: a hulking, pile-driving, and obliterating mechanized monstrosity of sound, but with some singing and swirls of futuristic melody in the midst of all the bombast. Also prepare to pick up your teeth from the ground and hope a dental surgeon can re-insert them, and kidney punches that will leave you pissing blood.

“Cerulean Blue” is a new digital single by this industrial/death duo and follows two other singles in 2021 and 2022, perhaps paving the way toward a new album?

https://kunstzone.bandcamp.com/track/cerulean-blue
https://www.facebook.com/kunstzone

 

 

SLEEPWALKER (夢遊病者) / CHOSHECH (חושך)

Prepare for: the only music in this collection that isn’t “hot off the presses”. I’m only catching up to it now, but definitely better late than never. So let’s start again:

Prepare for: mandolin and melodica; fretless bass and ocarina; an assortment of acoustic and electronic percussion; singing and screams; and a changing tapestry of electric guitars and synths tuned and toned in different ways. Indeed, this whole long song is a rich and remarkable sonic tapestry.

In less prosaic terms, prepare for an experience that’s mysterious and beguiling, indeed entrancing; but one that’s also smoky and soulful, lysergic and lycanthropic; and one that crashes and burns, transforming in near-hallucinatory ways into cataclysm.

“BVAKVM AKHZR” is the result of a collaboration between 夢遊病者 and חושך that was composed and created especially for MILIM KASHOT VOL. 4 a remarkable compilation originally released by Israel-based Machine Music last September (available here). This collaborative track is available as a “name your price” release on Bandcamp (linked below) with 3 alternate pieces of cover art by LEV.FM (included in the download).

https://vnkv.bandcamp.com/album/bvakvm-akhzr

 

 

SWARRRM (Japan)

Prepare for: a twisting, turning, and generally head-spinning kaleidoscope of discordant noise rock and chaos grind, with loads of freak-out fretwork, bamboozling rhythm-section acrobatics, and berserk vocals.

“”香り -scent-” is from SWARRRRM‘s seventh album Kogase, coming out on August 25th via LongLegsLongArms Records. (Thank you Rennie.)

https://swarrrm.bandcamp.com/album/kogase
http://longlegslongarms.jp/music/index.php
https://www.facebook.com/p/SWARRRM-100063050748325/

 

 

SYLOSIS (UK)

Prepare for: more singing… and more howling and roaring and screaming… and grim serpentine riffs (plus bursts of squealing string-torture and an attention-grabbing solo),,, and plenty of sledgehammer blows to your defenseless neck.

“A Sign Of Things To Come” is the title track from this band’s next album, out September 8th via Nuclear Blast.

https://sylosis.bfan.link/a-sign-of-things-to-come.yde
https://www.facebook.com/Sylosis

 

 

TRIVAX (Iran)

Prepare for: a misanthropic exaltation of death, which begins with an overture performed on traditional Persian instruments and then converts into thrashing black metal to rage and blaze with martial ferocity, and to soar and jolt, but without abandoning the distinctive melodies.

“Azrael ( عزرائیل )” is the opening track taken from the album Eloah Burns Out, to be released on September 29th by the UK label Cult Never Dies. (Thank you Miloš.)

https://cultneverdies.myshopify.com/
https://linktr.ee/trivax
https://www.facebook.com/trivaxband

 

 

WORMHOLE (Int’l)

Prepare for: a burst of dissonant, freaked-out technical death metal melded with pavement-fracturing brutality, with plenty of growls, gurgles, and squealing to go along with the neuron-twisting fretwork maneuvers and cold-hearted thuggery, plus one hell of a solo.

“Elysiism” is the second single from Wormhole‘s new album Almost Human, out on September 22nd on Season of Mist. I’m also including a video for the first single, “System Erase“. To quote DGR, “That first of the two Wormhole songs sounds like they went on a serious Ulcerate binge”.

https://orcd.co/almosthumanpresave
https://wormholemetal.bandcamp.com/album/almost-human
http://facebook.com/wormholemetal