The Austrian extreme metal band Cadaverous Condition started in the early ’90s (their first demos were released in 1990-’92), and since then their discography has swelled significantly, though more than a dozen years have passed since their last album (Burn Brightly Alone), if one doesn’t count an album-length collaboration they did with Herr Lounge Corps in 2018.
Despite their significant number of releases, this seems to be our site’s first encounter with them. The musical histories we’ve been provided are intriguing, to say the least. We’re told that their path has taken “many twists and weird turns, incorporating neofolk (‘death folk’) and collaborating with a wide range of artists creating a weird yet coherent body of work”.
It’s a crooked path that reportedly made them the first death metal band to cover The Sisters Of Mercy and Death In June and included their own interpretations of songs by The Decemberists and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and collaborations with such acts as Nurse With Wound, Thighpaulsandra, Tobias Nathaniel (The Black Heart Procession), and the afore-mentioned Herr Lounge Corps.
They also did an art project with Bill Drummond (The KLF) involving a specially made CD and sending a message in a bottle from the shores of Iceland.
Having read all that, we really had almost no idea what to expect from their new album Never Arrive, Never Return, which is set for a June 14 release via The Circle Music. What we found is something fascinating, something clearly rooted in death metal but with tendrils that taste of other terrains. As a sign of what we found, today we’re premiering a lyric video for the new album’s chilling but powerfully captivating opening song, “They Came From the Hills“.
This song traces an arc of tormented intensity, gradually ascending both rhythmically and in the igniting of musical embers into fire. Along the way it burrowed under our skin and into our heads, to the point that this writer had it on a loop for a long time.
At the opening low end of the arc there’s an isolated guitar melody, soon joined by an earthshaking bass, which creates a dismal and haunting mood. From there the rhythm section lock into a powerfully head-moving rocking groove and the guitars begin to sizzle and swarm, a manifestation of dread, danger, and despair.
As we climb the arc, propelled by that enormous bass and the gut-punch of the drummer’s pounding, the riffing rises and falls, but gradually elevates, reaching a zenith of vibrating turmoil above the rhythm section’s suddenly furious hammering and whip-cracking snare beats. Only at the end does the music quickly fall off the precipice, a short but sudden descent of the arc into gloom again.
The lyrics and the vocals are a critical feature of the song from start to finish. The words, seen in the video and intelligibly articulated in the sound, are mysterious and frightening. They could be interpreted as the mad expressions of people in some desolate place fallen prey to their own mental sickness and inner violence and thus opening themselves to the occupation of nightmare beings that offer a hideous comfort — or perhaps those beings are figments of their own fractured minds.
The rendition of the words by Wolfgang Weiss is captivating, and also frightening — a mighty roar that’s also raw and jagged like the teeth of a saw.
In the PR materials we received Never Arrive, Never Return is described as “a relentless journey with no peace or rest”, a theme reflected in the artwork, which depicts “the ghosts (or inner demons?) we encounter on our path through life’s complexities”. In a nod to the band’s past, the album closes with “To Be”, a newly recorded version of a song written in 1992, “a massive old-school death-doom march that leads the listener to a place of desolate solitude”.
Besides vocalist Wolfgang Weiss, the lineup that recorded the new album includes René Kramer (guitars), Peter Droneberger (bass, guitars), and Paul Droneberger (drums).
The Circle Music will release the album on CD, LP, and digital formats. There’s a fair chance we’ll have more to say about it as we get closer to the release date in June.
PRE-SAVE:
https://thecirclemusic.lnk.to/NANR
CADAVEROUS CONDITION ONLINE:
Website: http://www.cadaverouscondition.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cadaverouscondition
Instagram: http://instagram.com/cadaverouscondition
Bandcamp: http://cadaverouscondition.bandcamp.com/
THE CIRCLE MUSIC ONLINE:
Website: https://thecirclemusic.gr/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/thecirclemusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Circle-Music-109161897443413/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_circle_music/
Bandcamp: https://thecirclemusicfamily.bandcamp.com/