SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GOJIRA, MALAMORTE, GLACIAL TOMB, MORCAINT

photo by Weiyi Cai/The New York Times

Yesterday was a day of firsts. Among other things, it was the first time a heavy metal band performed in the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. And the first time memes took off about a U.S. vice-president candidate fucking a couch. Less exciting, I’m also pretty sure it was the first day since I started this blog 14 1/2 years ago that we failed to post anything on a weekday.

I made a whirlwind driving trip with a friend to Vancouver, heading north on Thursday and coming back to Seattle yesterday. In between, we attended a blowout celebration related to our day jobs that left me not enough clear-headed time yesterday morning to do anything before beginning the trip home, even though I had a couple of interviews ready to publish.

I’m getting a late start today, and that whirlwind trip didn’t give me any time for listening to the kind of music we focus on here (my road-trip companion isn’t into that kind of music, and anyway, I didn’t bring with me my list of new stuff I wanted to check out). So I did some whirlwind catching up today, and here’s what I hurriedly picked to share with you.

 

photo by Weiyi Cai/The New York Times

GOJIRA (France)

I’m guessing that the only metalheads who don’t already know about this first item are people who just awoke from a coma a minute ago. A musician who’s an internet acquaintance of mine posted this:

Metalheads: “metal never gets its credit in the mainstream, one day people will learn how great and influential metal music can be…”

Also metalheads: “why TF is Gojira playing the Olympics fucking sellouts, metal needs to stay underground…”

Also metalheads: “instead of Gojira, the Olympics should have actually had ‘insert their favorite band here'”

I’m in the first group. And I have always been a Gojira fan. And I’m thrilled they got to play in the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony. And you’re damn right I’m going to memorialize the event in this here Saturday roundup.

How could you not be thrilled for them, getting to do something they’ll undoubtedly remember like it was yesterday, for as long as they live?

The official NBC Sports YouTube channel posted a high-quality video of the event. The first half-minute is part of a performance of Les Misérables, and then Gojira comes on, joined by headless Marie Antionettes and eventually by opera singer Marina Viotti sailing by. The song they performed at the Conciergerie on the banks of the Seine was “Ah! Ça Ira,” a song popularized during the French Revolution (and altered of course by Gojira‘s arrangement).

The video is spectacular. Although you’ll have to endure the stunned commentary by the NBC talking heads, that doesn’t last long.

I’ll add this excerpt of an article in The New York Times (yes, a lot of people will be finding out about Gojira for the first time):

Before Friday’s performance, Joe Duplantier, 47, the band’s singer and guitarist, said in a phone interview that asking a heavy metal band to play a revolutionary anthem was a smart idea. “It was a very bloody era of French history, so it was very metal,” he said.

Duplantier said the band felt pressure to represent “the whole metal community on the world stage,” but insisted Gojira would not be toning anything down. “The song’s going to be in your face,” Duplantier said.

NBC Sports has of course disabled playback of the video anywhere other than their YouTube channel because (of course) they’re money-hungry. So you’ll have to click on the link below to watch and listen.

UPDATE: I found an even better version of the video used by NBC Sports. It’s the same footage but this one is limited to Gojira‘s performance and has no commentary by broadcasters. I left the link to it below the YouTube link for the NBC Sports video.

https://www.gojira-music.com/
https://www.facebook.com/GojiraMusic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgzDfVfn6w8

https://sporza.be/nl/2024/07/26/death-metal-op-de-olympische-spelen-gojira-zorgt-voor-stevig-vuurwerk-naast-de-seine~1722018199036/

 

 

MALAMORTE (Italy)

I thought this next song and video would be a fitting follow-on from that Gojira video. It too features theatrical high-pitched singing and head-moving punch, though both the video and the song’s devilish and menacing moods are creepier and more rooted in gothic horror.

Along with those ingredients, the song includes rocking grooves, ear-worm heavy-metal riffs, goblin snarls and cackles, spooky keys, and an arena-ready guitar solo.

“I Am the Scourge” is the song’s name, and it’s from Malamorte‘s forthcoming seventh album Abisso. It’s set for release on August 9th via Moribund Records. The Hammer-Horror-esque cover art is by Badic.

http://www.moribundcult.com
https://moribundrecords.bandcamp.com/album/abisso
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063530951556

 

 

GLACIAL TOMB (U.S.)

My next selection is a song and video that recently premiered at Decibel from a new album by Denver-based Glacial Tomb. As Decibel writes:

Fronted by Khemmis guitarist/bassist Ben Hutcherson, Glacial Tomb further descend into dissonant death metal madness on Lightless Expanse, aided by the presence of new bassist David Small, who adds a whole new dynamic to the band’s sound.

In the Decibel premiere feature Hutcherson described the song below with these words:

“’Abyssal Host’ is a D-beat rager about cosmic forces beyond humankind’s comprehension. One of the central themes of the record is that we, as a species, are continually undone by our hubris yet we seem unwilling and/or unable to acknowledge the futility of control in all its forms. There is serenity in surrender, yet our species seemingly cannot help but fetishize martyrdom. What would happen if a person who doesn’t want any part of this world became host to something so grand, so divine, that they became an unwitting martyr?”

No lie, “Abyssal Tomb” is indeed a rager — a full-throttle assault of battering drums, maniacally writhing and roiling riffage, bowel-loosening bass lines, malignant growls, and unhinged screams.

But Glacial Tomb switch things up as the song proceeds, making room for d-beats (as advertised), freakishly jubilant skittering strings, an electrifying guitar solo, and fretwork that seems to bray and moan, stalk and stomp, squeal and screech. As the pace slows, it becomes morbid and frightening.

Lightless Expanse will be released by Prosthetic on September 20th. The attention-seizing, blood-congealing cover art was made by Daniel Vega.

https://lnk.to/GlacialTomb
https://glacialtomb.bandcamp.com/album/lightless-expanse
https://www.facebook.com/glacialtomb/

 

 

MORCAINT (Sweden)

To close, I’ve picked Mornië Utúlië, a new Tolkein-inspired EP by the Swedish black metal duo Morcaint that was just released yesterday by the Nordvis label, which has described it as a blending of “the ferocity of Dissection with the grandeur of Summoning.”

I picked it because for reasons I’m not sure I can articulate, it connected in my head with that video from Paris with which I opened today’s roundup.

Four songs long, the music evolves as the tracks roll by.

“A Pale Moon Rises” at the outset, providing eerie and ethereal synths that do glow like moonshine. While the synths continue to glimmer, the shine becomes more sweeping and searing as the drums cut loose.

Somber singing also rises, along with slowly musing bass notes that contrast with the spreading wonder of the surrounding sounds, which soar even higher, as do the vocals. But scarring growls also emerge, themselves inflamed with passion.

The title song “Mornië Utúlië“, which expresses the fear of an evil rising while others slumber, adds gentle guitar picking to the swaths of synths, creating a wistful and melancholy mood but also becoming more vibrant, paving the way for scorching, tormented screams and shrill, boiling guitars. The music again becomes expansive above the clattering and stalking drums, but also more crestfallen in its mood, as if drawing the listener into a haunted and harrowing embrace.

Morcaint can’t help but delve into glories (and glorious mysteries), and that happens in the title track too, propelled toward the clouds in part by reverent singing once more.

“Summons Dire” (a tale of the elves of Loth) provides yet another amalgam of expansive, luminous synths and roughly clawing guitars, of vibrantly flickering arpeggios and scalding screams, and moods of awestruck wonder and heart-breaking sorrow. An acoustic guitar interlude beautifully channels a lonesome remembrance before the guitars begin burning again, burning in a kind of anguished delirium. Eventually those two sides are brought together in a finale that’s both entrancing and distressing.

“Gilthoniel” (the queen beyond the western seas) is the closer. Using the same ingredients as before, but also adding quivering flute-like tones, Morcaint waste no time racing toward epic heights. Once there, they bring in grand heavy metal chords and the vibrantly wailing sounds of skirling pipes.

They create another digression (as you’ll guess they will by now), and this time the music whistles like tortured ghosts, providing the backdrop for singing that’s both somber and soaring, ringing as if captured beneath a cathedral’s vault.

Come to think of it, the song, like the EP as a whole, is often as elegant and vast as the Notre Dame, creating a supernatural and ancient kind of wonder and beauty, even if the cathedrals here are made of forests, mountains, and seas, yet with raw sinews that tie the music to very human agonies that never seem to heal.

P.S. Morcaint have posted the lyrics to each song on their Facebook page, linked below.

(Thanks to Miloš for linking me to this EP at just the right time.)

https://morcaint.bandcamp.com/album/morni-ut-li
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090867003525