SHADES OF BLACK: ALTARAGE, SELBST, ANCESTORS BLOOD, OCERCO, NABAATH

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  11 Responses »
Dec 262015
 

Satanic statue

 

I had no Christmas rant this year. Truthfully, I said about all I have to say on the subject five years ago. And if I were even more honest with myself, I’d admit that I’m not quite as big a humbug about the day as that post might suggest. It has its good points, to the extent that it provides an occasion for people who actually do like or love one another to get together and enjoy themselves (and I hope that happened for you).

Now that the day has been interred for another year, it’s time to return to the unearthing of new underground metal. In this collection, and in another one I have planned for tomorrow, I’ve got music to recommend in a blackened vein — not all of it black metal, but all of it pleasingly dark nonetheless.

ALTARAGE

In July I reviewed a two-song demo by a Spanish death metal band named Altarage, concluding as follows: “This is primitive, poisonous, electrifying music from a band that’s now squarely on my radar screen for the future.” They’ve now made a new appearance on the screen. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EMPTINESS, ANCESTORS BLOOD, AND ANAAL NATHRAKH WITH NIKLAS KVARFORTH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 192013
 

This is the second of two posts in which I’ve collected music I found last night in my searches for new things that would help put me in the right frame of mind for the new week. And by “right frame of mind”, I mean “take no prisoners”. Because it’s a goddamned Monday and I knew I would be feeling mean as soon as I saw the light of the new day. I’ve learned through experience that I do better adding fuel to that fire than trying to get in a compliant, accepting, quietly seething mood.

EMPTINESS

I found out about this Belgian band, which includes two members of  the excellent Enthroned, via a recent post on CVLT Nation. Their most recent album is 2012’s Error on the Dark Descent label, though they are now writing new songs. Error is available for streaming on Bandcamp, so I embarked on this phase of my listening session by starting at the beginning of it. Because my mission for the night was to sample a lot of bands I had heard about, I didn’t make my way through the entire album. But I did listen to the first five songs (which is four more than I intended to hear), and man was I floored by them.

The music is difficult to describe, drawing from a multitude of genres but with a healthy helping of death/doom, black metal, and sludge. The sound is deeply corrosive and destructive, a howling, vicious maelstrom of sound and fury. It’s massively heavy and violent, and choked with the black ichor of doom. Yet the songs include hugely compelling riffs and attractive melodies, and all of the instrumental performances are dynamic and technically excellent. Continue reading »