SEEN AND HEARD: AL-NAMROOD, BLACK TUSK, DEAD FLESH, DVNE, GATECREEPER, HALNY, JORDSJUK, KULT IKON, RIITASOINTU, SIX FEET UNDER, SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI, WARM GADGET

What I’ve assembled for visitors today is an even dozen songs and videos from bands spread across six countries and a variety of genres (and at least one that’s not really metal), including death metal, black metal, sludge, doom, post-metal, progressive metal, deathcore, folk-metal, and some things that are harder to pin down. If you don’t find something to like, it must be because you searched for “no spring cleaning”.

One thing you’ll figure out fairly soon is that a lot of today’s songs rock out, providing some very catchy head-movers. There’s also singing (or close to it) in some of them (gasp!). But of course I’ve sprinkled in some ravagers too, and because I’ve arranged these songs and videos in alphabetical order by band name, one of those comes first.

AL-NAMROOD (Saudi Arabia)

The first song is “Lisan Al Nar” (Tongue of Fire) from AlNamrood‘s new album Al Aqrab, to be released by Shaytan Productions on June 9th.

Prepare for… wailing Arabian melodies formed through the harmony of high flute-like tones and riffing made of sandstorm grit, as well as voracious growls and scarring snarls, booming drums and clacking cymbals. Altogether it makes for an exotic and menacing experience.

https://shaytanproductions.bandcamp.com/album/al-aqrab
https://www.facebook.com/alnamroodofficial

 

 

BLACK TUSK (U.S.)

I did promise that today’s collection would include some songs that are very catchy head-movers, and the first of those is next. The humongous bass-lines and gun-shot drum-beats have a lot to do with that, but so do the big gnarled riffs and the manic pulse of raging screams. As icing on the cake, you’ll encounter some sweet wah-wah soloing.

“Dance On Your Grave” is the second single off Black Tusk‘s seventh album, The Way Forward. It will be out on April 26th via Season of Mist.

https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/black-tusk-the-way-forward
https://orcd.co/thewayforwardpresave
https://blacktusk.bandcamp.com/album/the-way-forward
https://www.instagram.com/tcbt/
https://www.facebook.com/BlackTusk

 

 

DEAD FLESH (UK)

Although my mileage varies with deathcore these days, I was drawn to check out this next song and video because Dead Flesh have a decidedly political stance, and one I can get behind. Here’s what they say about the next song in today’s collection:

“It’s a protest song, a direct fuck you to the people who are currently in charge of running this country, their complacency towards the climate crisis and their attempts to weaponize protesting. Fitting with some of the themes of the upcoming EP, I’m pissed and pretty miserable with the state of this country. But on the plus side it’s a hell of a good song for a circle pit!”

As for the music, it’s a fucking blast furnace of fury — a storm of viciously screaming and voraciously roaring vocals, obliterating drumwork, and low-end decimation that sounds like humongous excavating machines at work, all of it accented by weirdly wailing melodic vapors up in the rafters, frenetically pile-driving grooves, and bunker-busting drum detonations. The fast-cutting, multi-angled video (shot by Richard Stevenson) amplifies the song’s feeling of unbridled destructiveness.

The song is from this band’s debut EP Dehumanise, set for release on April 28th.

https://deadflesh.bandcamp.com/music
https://www.facebook.com/DeadFleshUK

 

 

DVNE (Scotland)

It’s a good time for DVNE to return, what with all the well-deserved acclaim still raining down for Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune: Part Two.

In the case of “Pleroma“, the new song recently revealed from DVNE‘s new album Voidkind, prepare for mysteriously glittering arpeggios and vast droning waves, but also skull-cracking beats and feverish fretwork flurries, gut-busting bass-lines that play well with inventive percussive variations, and keyboard apparitions that sound like whistling winds, plus sky-high singing and ravenous screams.

Yeah, this is one of the head-movers I mentioned. Cool video too. Voidkind will be released by Metal Blade on April 19th,

https://www.metalblade.com/dvne/
https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/album/voidkind
https://www.facebook.com/DvneUK

 

 

GATECREEPER (U.S.)

Gatecreeper‘s new song “The Black Curtain” will keep your noggin’ noddin’. Like a couple of the preceding songs, it’s got a big throbbing bass in the mix and pulse-punching drum grooves, along with dense waves of sinister, abrasive riffage and another throb in the lead-guitar, coupled with the howling and shrieking of unhinged vocal torment. Also, wind-blown hair, lightning strikes, and something that won’t stay dead.

The song is from Gatecreeper‘s new album, Dark Superstition, out on May 17th via Nuclear Blast Records.

https://gatecreeper.bfan.link/the-black-curtain.yde
https://gatecreeper.bfan.link/dark-superstition.yde
https://gatecreeper.bandcamp.com/album/dark-superstition
https://www.facebook.com/gatecreeper

 

 

HALNY (Poland)

Next up is “Zawrat“, the title track from the debut album by the Polish black metal band Halny.

Prepare for opening guitars that sound both dismal and desperate, and then an explosion of blasting drums and whirring chords that carry the melody forward in fire, even more desperate than before. Here too, there’s a prominent bass in the mix and rocking rhythms, as well as feverishly flickering leads that begin to sound hallucinatory, bestial growls, and hair-raising howls.

The turbocharged rush of the song gets the adrenaline flowing, and the clarity of the production is a help rather than a hindrance, not too pretty but defined well enough to let us pick out all the elements of this ravishing attack.

Zawrat (the album) will be released on March 22nd by Via Nocturna.

https://bit.ly/zawrat-cd
https://vianocturna.bandcamp.com/album/zawrat
https://www.facebook.com/halnyfenowy

 

 

JORDSJUK (Norway)

The next song, “Viva La Apocalypse“, is the second single released this year by Indie Recordings for the Norwegian black metal band Jordsjuk, a trio whose lineup includes members of Djevel, Nordjevel, Urgehal, and Koldbrann — which is reason enough to check out the song.

Prepare for a raging torrent of hornet-swarm riffing, drums that blast and go punk, asylum-quality barks and screams, and yet another prominent bass-rumble, with dissonant blaring and moaning tones and wickedly writhing leads bringing in dismal moods — this is, after all, the apocalypse we’re looking forward to!

https://jordsjuk.bandcamp.com/track/viva-la-apocalypse
https://www.facebook.com/jordsjuk

 

 

KULT IKON (U.S.)

“Untethered” is the name of the next song I selected for today’s collection. It’s a 10-minute instrumental excursion that sounds futuristic (for want of a better term).

Once more, we’re treated to a big growly bass and spine-snapping, gut-slugging drumwork that join forces to get heads moving. Around those compulsive grooves, the band weave an array of guitar textures and tapestries, some of them sparkling and seductive, some of them grit-caked and gnashing, and the band also make room for a spell-binding digression along the way, one that seems to carry us out into space lanes where nebulas glisten and glory.

A second song from the album, “Overburden“, recently premiered at Cave Dweller Music’s site (here), and I’m also including an earlier video for “Lost Sea“.

Black Iron Prison is the name of the album, and it will be released on March 15th.

https://kulikon.bandcamp.com/album/black-iron-prison
https://www.facebook.com/thekultikon

 

 

RIITASOINTU (Finland)

The next song, “1050“, is from Riitasointu‘s debut album Pedon Leikki, which is described as one that “tells tales from the old Tavastia region”.

You’ll see quite quickly that this song is as heavy as a sledgehammer, and dark as the plague, and it’s yet another head-mover at first, though the unexpected spasms of drum mania portend something more dire. The trilling guitars weave sinister and sorcerous melodies, paving the way for fervent singing but also for vampiric screams and lycanthropic howls.

There’s witchiness in the music but also jolting outbursts and hulking stomps, episodes of bleak grandeur, shattering and grim chants, and music that sounds hopelessly bereaved. Quite a wide-ranging and dynamic affair, and gripping in all its phases.

Pedon Leikki will be released on March 29th.

https://riitasointu.bandcamp.com/album/pedon-leikki
https://www.facebook.com/riitasointu.official/

 

 

SIX FEET UNDER (U.S.)

Presented through a lyric video that makes the enraged words plain for all to see, “Know-Nothing Ingrate” is a song from Six Feet Under‘s new album Killing For Revenge. As frontman Chris Barnes explains:

“It’s basically about online trolls who voice their uneducated and unnecessarily spiteful review of any artist’s output. You’re entitled to your opinion, and I’m entitled to mine.”

Reunited with guitarist and old Cannibal Corpse bandmate Jack Owen (along with guitarist Ray Suhy, bassist Jeff Hughell, and drummer Marco Pitruzzella), Barnes brutally growls out the words in front of viciously frenzied riffing that sounds like carnivorous insects swarming, and metronomic beats. The song also includes a deliciously dismal guitar solo that ignites into its own frenzied, string-melting spasms.

Killing For Revenge will be released by Metal Blade on May 10th.

http://www.metalblade.com/sixfeetunder
https://www.facebook.com/sixfeetunder

 

 

SONS OF ALPHA CENTAURI (UK)

More head-nodding to come: Next up is the title track from SOAC‘s fourth studio album, Pull. Prepare for… massive pulsating grooves and rifle-crack drums, weary singing that soars and gets ragged as it does, fever-borne lead guitar spiraling, riffs that channel their own moaning and blaring pulse — and a little bass solo.

The album will be released by Exile on Mainstream Records on March 28th.

https://sonsofalphacentauri.bandcamp.com/album/pull
https://www.facebook.com/sonsofalphacentauri

 

 

WARM GADGET (U.S.)

To close, I picked a new song from this unorthodox band out of Bend, Oregon. Its name is “Annoyed“, and once you figure out from the words in the video what that means, it’s chilling.

Kind of moody and miserably musing at first, the song kicks listener’s muscles into action with heavy and hulking bass maneuvers and rhythmic percussive clattering, and then puts nerves on edge through bursts of skittering and whining riffage, and crazed screaming that’s as raw as a sucking chest wound. It’s hard to sit still during the song; it’s hard to feel very good after hearing it too.

https://WarmGadget.fanlink.tv/Annoyed
https://remissionentertainment.bandcamp.com/album/annoyed
https://www.facebook.com/warmgadget