This collection is short in number, just three new songs, two of them with compelling videos — though those two are quite long. But that’s three songs I now don’t need to include in this weekend’s coming roundups, and thus I’ll have room for three others as I continue trying to winnow down my monstrous list of recent releases.
SAOR (Scotland)
I’ve chosen to begin with a video for the title song from Saor‘s new album Amidst the Ruins. Although the video starts with a majestic but haunting scene from the Highlands, it soon shifts to dramatic film of the band’s performance, appearing as dark silhouettes in the midst of rushing smoke or clouds. The music is equally dramatic. The drums attack and the bass heavily rumbles, but the music flows in sweeping and searing waves, glittering and glorious.
The scene shifts again, back to the Highlands, where Andy Marshall performs on a breathtaking precipice. And with that, the music shifts as well, still sweeping in scope but more anguished in its mood, intensified by Marshall‘s tormented screams and accented by a plaintive whistle.
The video begins to merge the performers into stunning natural settings. The guitar vibrantly trills; the drums vividly tumble; Uilleann pipes wail; dual guitars also ring like pipes; a violinist and cellist are somewhere in the mix as well. Richly layered, the music gloriously rises and sorrowfully descends.
The song continues to shift, becoming soft, spellbinding, and ancient, but also jolting and resurgent. It seems to whirl like a dance; reverent voices soar, along with all the instruments; and then the flutelike whistle and acoustic strumming take over and beautifully escort us to the end.
Amidst the Ruins will be out on February 7th on Season of Mist. Credit for the cover art goes to Julian Bauer.
https://orcd.co/saoramidsttheruins
https://www.saormusic.com
https://www.facebook.com/saorofficial
https://www.instagram.com/saormusic
AXIOMA (U.S.)
In August 2017 I made a trip to Jackson, Wyoming with friends and family to witness a total solar eclipse. Approaching totality, we listened to Soundgarden‘s “Black Hole Sun” (the subject of still one of the most bizarre videos ever). The song was an excellent choice because of its gradual build toward dark intensity.
In April of this year the Cleveland post-black metal band Axioma traveled to Lorain, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie, to witness another solar eclipse. But they didn’t just witness it, they simultaneously provided their own soundtrack for it. Building up to the eclipse and continuing through it, they performed an instrumental piece on the lakeshore that they’d written for the occasion, aptly named “Live Totality“, and some friends filmed it. The video also includes gorgeous overhead scenes of the band’s setting and the lake.
Like “Black Hole Sun”, this Axioma soundtrack is a build toward intensity, but a much slower build, one that lasts for 14 1/2 minutes. Patience is required as the song moves toward the apogee of darkness and then emerges on the other side.
In its opening phase, the music is haunting — slow, gentle, and sad, with brittle strings setting the mood. Eventually, the build begins, with tumbling tom-drums, the throb of the bass, and evanescent appearances of unearthly guitar-shine. Further still, things get much, much heavier, as the drums methodically pound and crack, the bass booms, and the lead-guitar miserably groans and moans, quivering in its tones.
The darkness grows, and the guitar mewls its anguish around humongous rhythmic blows. As totality approaches, the corrosive quivering of the lead-guitar intensifies, growing ever more shrill and afflicted in its sound while a percussive avalanche occurs beside it. Together, they bring catastrophe.
The sky brightens again; the catastrophe slowly spends itself; rough tones pulsate, and then vanish; the music becomes slow, gentle, and grieving again.
Credit to Decibel for the video premiere. “Live Totality” is the opening track on a new Axioma EP of the same name, which also includes three new studio recordings. It will be released on December 6th, and it’s up for pre-order at Bandcamp now.
https://axioma.bandcamp.com/album/live-totality-ep
http://www.facebook.com/AxiomaSound
https://www.instagram.com/axiomasound/
ACID MAGUS (South Africa)
Not long ago Andy Synn sent me and DGR the cover art to the next song by Acid Magus, with a question: “Artwork of the year?” As you can see, it really is amazing, something like a vision of a long-dead conquistador reanimated and rising up from its watery tomb, transfixed by a ghostly moth shrouded in smoky vapors. Credit for this hand-drawn piece goes to by Tyrone Le Roux-Atterbury.
The artwork is for new Acid Magus single named “Emperor“. They brand their music “Garage doom on shrooms”, but this new song turns out to be gut-punching and bone-bruising in its grooves and both abrasively scathing and heavily heaving in its riffage, and the strident, sky-high vocals (yes, singing!) are terrific.
The song’s scary intensity grows, and becomes harrowing. The bass thunders; the whirring guitars sear; the drums clobber and cavort; the vocals near the screaming line. After that crescendo, a baritone saxophone or a guitar tuned to sound like one dismally wails, but those tremendous vocals get the last word (or nearly so) way up in the rafters.
“Emperor” is the damned good second single released so far from this Pretoria band’s soon-to-be-announced third studio album. I’ve read that the Emperor is the new album’s central antagonist — “a power-hungry overlord who thrives on destruction”: “As a metaphor for colonialism and the erasure of culture, the Emperor embodies raw, destructive ambition.” With respect to this new single, Acid Magus have commented:
“We wanted to capture the Emperor’s madness and the absolute corruption of power. This song channels the darkness in humanity that few dare to confront. Psychosis never sounded this good.”
https://acidmagus.bandcamp.com/track/emperor
https://facebook.com/acidmagus
https://www.instagram.com/acidmagus