I have to be brief today, because I’m compelled to leave home soon for a few hours. An appointment you really don’t want to hear about, and one I’ll be attending masked, in an effort not to infect people around me with my shitty cold. So, without further ado….
AHAMKARA (UK/U.S.)
I think most NCS visitors know by now that we don’t report “the news”, i.e., announcements of new bands or records, if there’s no music streaming. There’s too many such announcements and too few of us. If there’s no music available yet, we just wait until there is, and then see if we think it’s worth recommending.
But there are exceptions to every rule, and I’m beginning with one.
The news is that there will be another Ahamkara album, more than a decade after the only previous one. That first one, The Embers of the Stars (which I wrote about here), was the work of instrumentalist Michael Blenkarn and vocalist Steve Black, who died the year after it was released.
As announced a week ago by Bindrune Recordings, the new one features a lineup of Michael Blenkarn-Durning (instrumentation and vocals), Panopticon‘s Austin Lunn on drums, and Alexandra Blenkarn-Durning of Nemorous performing synths. Bindrune pitches it this way:
An emotionally charged and fiercely personal record, The Harrow of the Lost takes the Ahamkara sound in a more complex and tormented direction, encompassing existential rage, nihilistic despair and all in between…. [T]he album integrates the expansive reach of the Cascadian black metal sound with the densely detailed savagery of classic Emperor and the aching melancholy of early Anathema to produce a deeply involving journey of genre-transcending atmospheric metal.
Really looking forward to this.
https://www.facebook.com/theembersofthestars/
https://www.instagram.com/ahamkaraband/
AN AXIS OF PERDITION (UK)
As you might know, Michael Blenkarn-Durning is also a member of An Axis of Perdition, and they too have a new album headed our way after a long gap (13 years) since the last one. The new one, Apertures, will be coming out on December 13th via Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings.
The first song from it, “Private Acts of Abnegation“, is a head-spinning sonic tapestry, with the roared words initially echoing from abyssal depths. The drums throb and bob with a rocking rhythmic pulse while other instruments unfurl gleaming audio swirls and glass-like chimes. The bass lends its own enormous throbbing pulse as the drums become more manic (and impressively inventive) and the guitars and keys more deliriously ecstatic in their shining and swirling manifestations.
The song begins to sound like prog metal exuberantly performed by an off-planet species, strange and wondrous, and furious screams add to the growing madness — though they’re much more vicious than the exhilarating alien jubilation around them.
https://apocalypticwitchcraft.bandcamp.com/album/apertures
https://www.facebook.com/AnAxisOfPerdition
SJÁLFSMORÐ AF GÁLEYSI (Iceland)
I didn’t discover Sjálfsmorð af Gáleysi until Rennie Resmini recommended this Icelandic project’s 2020 demo Degenerator, which I then promptly spilled some words about. A 2023 split with Salqiu came next, and then a January 2024 album (Astral Abstractions), and now there’s another album named Absolute Monarchy pegged for release on November 30th.
The text at Bandcamp reads like the arguments of advocates to a judge, one speaking on behalf of a person accused and the other an enraged prosecutor. Based upon the song names, the album as a whole may be the narrative of events leading to that argument and following it, though whether the judge is human or inhuman and whether the accused alive or dead may be open questions — though I think the music answers those questions.
Degenerator was nightmarish, but the twisted techniques used to generate the frights were fascinating. Similar impressions have been etched again by the three songs now streaming from Absolute Monarchy.
Rendered in murky and miasmatic tones, “Stygian Descent” is as cold and dismal in its mood as one of those hopeless old Arctic explorers grimly contemplating cannibalism. The music moans and wails, punctured by ghastly roars, hideous howls, wretched screams, and drums that drop like boulders and fire like mortars.
The atmosphere is ill and malignant, but also vast and all-consuming, laced with waves of spectral, shimmering synths in the upper reaches and ominous heaving movements deep below.
The elaborate “Order in the Court of Chaos“, which expands to nearly 13 minutes, maintains the chilling unearthly atmosphere of that first song, as well as the feelings of bodily corruption and mental degradation, but with convulsions of chaos spliced within — maelstroms that are also entirely otherworldly as well as demented — and other episodes that, while still queasy, become almost mesmerizing, like extremely warped visions of celestial magnificence. Again, the vocals resemble the performance of a hideous demonic bestiary.
And finally, “The Games” takes pity on the ears with nearly a minute of silence, and finally we hear the slow swell of glittering and groaning frequencies, like a terrible sunrise over blighted landscapes. Again elaborate in its layers and immense in its scale, it sounds like a portrayal of utter doom and wrenching agony, a giant maw opening wide to ravenously engulf the listener — with just a bit of strange wonder at the end.
Harrowing stuff, but I do look forward to hearing the rest and getting lost in it. Lovecraft’s Outer Gods would enjoy it too.
https://sjalfsmordafgaleysi.bandcamp.com/album/absolute-monarchy
https://www.facebook.com/sjalfsmord
TODESTRIEB (Poland)
Without intending to, this week I’ve waded into renditions of blackened extremity that sound alien and experimental in different ways, and those coincidences continued when I heard the first song from, Corona Tenebra, the debut album from the Polish duo of blein and Res, with drumwork provided Michał “The Fall” Stępień (of Mgła, Hauntologist, and Owls Woods Graves).
Certainly, the opening guitar refrain of “Axis Nihil” wails and warps in a way that sounds strange and uneasy, even when backed by the warm grumbling of the bass. The drums then pound, the cymbals crash, and a second guitar lends its own dismally writhing voice to the affair. Announced by a brazen but still unsettling fanfare, the words come forth in gritty, teeth-bared growls.
The rhythm section continue their intriguing maneuvers while the guitars whine and bray, and then furiously surge forward, with the fretwork creating a paroxysm of twisted dissonance — and extravagant voices singing. The drums gallop, and the music soars, but the twisty path continues turning, with strangely chiming sounds sparkling above distorted spoken words and cavorting drums.
Corona Tenebra will be released by Avantgarde Music on December 13th.
https://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/corona-tenebra
https://www.facebook.com/todestriebofficial
NOITASAPATTI (Finland)
I wish I could go on longer, but I need to wrap things up. In deciding how to end today’s collection, I tried to stay in the inter-dimensional and/or off-planet musical lanes I’ve been in so far. The first two songs made publicly available from Noitasapatti‘s new album (their second one overall), Sankarin matka, allowed me to do that — sort of — though it’s not as “out there” as what you’ve heard above. I suppose I would call it “neoclassical black metal”.
In the album’s running order, “Henkien polulla” occupies the sixth position but is set to play first at Bandcamp. It glitters and shimmers, snickers and growls, and then pounds and expands, spreading its wafting keys, interspersed with start-stop crashing chords. The vocals arrive soon after, and may take some getting-used-to, as they’re closer to the shrillness of screamo than the more usual black metal varieties.
The music’s momentous and strangely swirling symphonic expansiveness trades off with rocking beats and bursting fretwork — and then suddenly shifts into baritone spoken words, brightly dancing piano keys, a guitar that wails like a sax, and rapidly thudding drums. Subtly, the stratospheric expanse becomes more distressing….
And then it’s time for the other song now streaming, “Paluu liekkeihin“, which appears in the album’s fourth position. Its opening notes are eccentric but inviting, yet the music grows darker, as a prelude to a haunting episode of whispered words and sorrowful violin melody.
Gritty and ominous guitars join in, grimly groaning and feverishly stabbing. A piano, when it appears, also sounds stricken with sorrow, and so does a spiraling guitar solo, which leads the music into a phase of greater (but emotionally fraught) grandeur, in which all the instruments announced so far come together.
The intensity and the magnitude of the decibels continue to ebb and flow, yet the music remains classically elegant and elaborate, and choral voices pitch it to an even higher plane — though those wrenching screams keep it grounded in raw torment.
Sankarin matka will be released by Inverse Records on November 29th.
https://noitasapatti.bandcamp.com/album/sankarin-matka
https://www.facebook.com/noitasapattiofficial/