(written by Islander)
I had grand plans for this column. I had a big pile of picks, enough to mega-size it, just needed to do the writing. And then I did what anyone with any sense does on a Sunday (but not me because sense is always in short supply) — I slept late. I would have slept later except one eye stickily opened and I saw the time on the bedside clock. Yikes!
So the grand plans have fallen apart. Many times in the past when I’ve been in this situation I’ve thought about just stitching together a bunch of song streams and videos without commentary, like some internet-enabled DJ or “influencer”. It would be easy to do that but I’ve always detested the thought. You may wonder why. Here’s the why:
I don’t write about the music I enjoy to get ego-strokes from seeing my words on a page. I like to think that sometimes the words would lead people to listen to something they otherwise might not bother with, but just sticking in song streams without words would be better than nothing.
What I’m really doing is sending thank-you notes to bands. Most of them will read what I’ve written even if you don’t. I want them to know how they made me feel, and to show gratitude. And that’s the main reason why I would feel grumpy and guilty just stitching together a playlist every week.
But for whatever reason that’s mainly what I’m going to do today — uneasily convinced, at least for one day, that sticking in song streams without words is better than nothing. I did get some thank-you notes out for the first few songs today, and then my window of NCS time began slamming shut. I batched in the rest of the songs with just a few quick notes before the window closed.
Mo’ynoq – photo by Grayson Simon
MO’YNOQ (U.S.)
A couple of people who are fans of this North Carolina black metal band, and know I am too, tipped me to their new music before I came across it myself. That new music is one of two Mo’ynoq songs from their forthcoming split with another NC black metal band, Urocyon.
My friend Andy summed up the intensity of Mo’ynoq‘s 2019 debut album as “the audio equivalent of standing in front of an open blast furnace, in the middle of a hurricane, wearing only your socks.” In my own past writing about their music, I’ve referred to it as “emotionally fragmenting”, “riotous and riveting”, but also desolate, depressive, and occasionally even dreamlike.
The new song “Hyperstitions” is itself very intense, like a powerful storm, near-overpowering in its immense scale and fury. It thunders and rumbles, maniacally spins and sears, and the lead guitar flashes like lightning. Even when the drums methodically snap and the riffing dismally roils, it feels like some harrowing force of nature at work, augmented by swirling and blistering solo work. The unchained vocals, as ever, are a shattering element of the music’s intensity.
My’onoq do break up the immense cataclysm with a phase in which the guitar miserably muses, but even that is punctuated by titanic crashes, and when the power swells again the music carries forward that feeling of bleakness and pain, but on a much grander scale — until the storm reaches tornado strength and lightning flashes again through another remarkable solo. Breathtaking stuff….
The Mo’ynoq/Urocyn split features cover art by Misanthropic-Art. It’s set for release on April 18th. I’ve looked for streams of either of Urocyn‘s two songs but haven’t found them yet. For people in the right vicinity, I’ve seen that the two bands will be co-headlining two release shows in Raleigh on April 25th and Asheville on April 26th with Plaguefever, Nganga, and Nocuous Lust.
https://moynoq.bandcamp.com/album/moynoq-x-urocyon-split-2025
https://ampwall.com/a/moynoq/album/moynoq-x-urocyon-split-2025
http://facebook.com/moynoq
https://www.instagram.com/moynoq
https://www.instagram.com/moynoq
PATHS TO DELIVERANCE (France)
Next up is a chilling supernatural video for “Reveries“, a song from this band’s debut album Ten. It’s described by Malpermesita Records as an “Avant-garde Black Metal project leaded by A.S.A (Alkhemia, Azziard…), joined by Kevin Paradis (Benighted) on drums for the first album Ten, then joined by talented and experimented musicians from Alkhemia, Azziard, Skaphos….”
If you can keep your eyes off the video and just focus on the music (no easy task), you’ll hear music of daunting immensity and power, infiltrated by chime-like guitar leads that bespeak agonizing grief. You’ll also be startled by an eruption of blasting drums, scarring screams, bestial roars, sandstorm riffage, and enormous sub-surface bass undulations.
Those desolate, chiming, piercing leads persist but magnify the agony they’ve started channeling. Even more painful expressions feverishly ripple and rise into the music’s upper elevations, and the guitars pulse like an intensely distressed heart while the drums riot and methodically pound.
It’s the kind of astonishing, emotionally ravaging experience thing that may leave the whites of your eyes showing all ’round, as it did me….
https://pathstodeliverance.bandcamp.com/album/ten
https://www.facebook.com/pathstodeliverance
ANCESTOR OF KAOS (Cuba -> U.S.)
Horror Pain Gore Death Productions describes Ancestor of Kaos as a band formed in Havana, Cuba in 2005, but that moved to the United States in 2013 (and are now in Las Vegas). Their first album on the HPGD label is Animal Ritual, encompassing 10 tracks of black/thrash. My next selection today is a performance video for the album’s first single and opening track, “Death By Hanging“.
In the song’s overture, the corpse-painted bandmembers issue brazen and blaring chords, deep booms, and a whipcrack snare. When they cut loose, the riffing furiously scythes and dismally writhes, and the vocalist comes for our throats with fangs bared. They relentlessly change the percussive rhythms and tempos, and the riffing.
The music viciously jolts, rings like a fanfare for some hideous infernal lord, manifests the grim agonies of its victims, and whirls in violent ecstasies. Near the end we get a screaming fret-melter of a solo that pitches the song’s exhilarating intensity to a higher plane.
(The bandmembers are Jorge Hellfire (vocals), Joel Zalazar (guitars), Luis Bosque (bass), Alcides Rodriguez (drums)).
https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/animal-ritual
https://www.facebook.com/Ancestorofkaos
SUM LIGHTS (Germany)
The last pick I’ve made today to which I’ll devote more than just a few notes is a new EP named Dissolve|Emerge by the German band Sum Lights. It follows their 2021 debut album and a subsequent single named “The Sense of the Sun” (which I reviewed here). The new EP is just two songs long, but each of them is in the 12-minute range.
Sum Lights don’t waste the significant amount of time they ask of you. Like many long songs, if astutely composed, these traverse a lot of sonic territory and moods, with wide variations in decibels, pacing, and scale. They also include truly frightening vocals, which themselves vary, sometimes bestially ugly, sometimes boiling in oil, other times giving free reign to wild, tortured cries.
Just to note some of the music’s phases (though not all): Depending on where you are, it can sound immense and apocalyptic in its bleakness, or like the kind of derangement produced by mind-ruining fear or lacerating agony. It portrays storming violence and terrifying majesty, but also haunting and mysterious visions, like drifting wraiths who haven’t found their home yet, and grim death marches where funeral bells seem to ring.
The music is elaborately layered, but produced in a way that lets each expertly executed instrumental layer (and those very scary vocals) stand out with clarity — which doesn’t do anything to diminish the music’s ravishing power when it hits high tide.
Very easy to succumb to this EP, and no temptation to leave before it’s over.
(The amazing artwork was created by Belial NecroArts.)
https://sumlights.bandcamp.com/album/dissolve-emerge
https://www.facebook.com/sumlights/
AND NOW FOR THE PLAYLIST….
NO HAND PATH (Greece)
Another complete album released on March 21st. Raging and grand, sinister and surreal, and eerily haunting and heartbreaking too, with thoroughly wrenching vocal intensity and wonderful bass work in the mix. An elaborate, ever-changing, and relentlessly gripping work, often theatrical in the unfolding of its dramatic narratives.
https://nohandpath.bandcamp.com/album/-
https://www.facebook.com/nohandpath
KARG (Austria)
This is the second single taken from the upcoming album Marodeur, to be released on April 18th by AOP Records.
https://artofpropaganda.bandcamp.com/album/marodeur
https://www.facebook.com/kargband/
…AND OCEANS (Finland)
Next is a video for the latest single, “Prophetical Mercury Implement“, from …And Ocean‘s new album The Regeneration Itinerary. It will be out on May 23rd on Season of Mist.
https://orcd.co/andoceanstheregenerationitinerary
https://andoceans.bandcamp.com/album/the-regeneration-itinerary
https://www.facebook.com/andoceans/
EREMOS (Latvia)
Below is a lyric video for the song “Monarch Of The Mound“, but the entire album is out now on Bandcamp too — and worth your time.
https://eremos.bandcamp.com/album/marquis-of-snakes
https://www.facebook.com/eremosband/
ZKARV (Australia)
This is “Silent Confliction“, the latest single by the Australian solo project Zkarv. More are available at Bandcamp.
https://zkarv.bandcamp.com/album/
https://www.facebook.com/Zkarv666/
VERSATILE (Switzerland)
This video, which gives good views of the frightful visages and apparel of Versatile while performing, is for the song “Morphée“. Their new album Les Litanies du Vide will be released by Les Acteurs de L’Ombre Productions on April 11th.
https://ladlo.bandcamp.com/album/les-litanies-du-vide
https://www.facebook.com/versatilemetalband/
ALUKTA (France/Belgium)
This band is the duo of Brouillard and Déhà. The wicked video is for the song “Exuvia“, which is off Alukta‘s album Merok, which will be released on May 2nd by the Transcendance label.
https://transcendance-bm.bandcamp.com/album/alukta-merok
https://www.transcendance-bm.com/boutique
WULKANAZ (Sweden)
An entire new Wulkanaz album named Luftuz that will be released by Regain on April 18th but is streaming in full now. It’s a wildly extravagant head-spinner, blistering and bizarre, feral and freewheeling, and trippy as hell….
https://regainrecords.bandcamp.com/album/luftuz
https://www.facebook.com/wulkanaz