OVERFLOWING STREAMS: AETHERIAN, APHONIC THRENODY, ARKONA, ASCENDED DEAD, ASHBRINGER, DÅÅTH, DEATH OF GIANTS, HOLY DEATH, IMMORTAL, NOCTURNAL TYRANT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 222023
 

Saturdays are usually days when I pick a handful of new songs and videos to recommend, accompanied by some of my own peerless prose (HA!). But as I waded through possibilities this morning it quickly dawned on me that there was just way too fucking much stuff for me to pare down to a handful without experiencing some mental agony in making the choices.

So, I’ve thrown up my hands and resorted to this “Overflowing Streams” format, where you will find a lot more music than in the usual “Seen and Heard” columns, a lot fewer of my own words (dry your eyes), and very little cover art — other than Yoann Lossel’s stunning artwork “Les Fleurs du Mal”, which is on the cover of the new album by the first band in this roundup.

Today the musical arrangement is alphabetical by band name (heavily weighted by the A’s). I’m deferring most of the black metal discoveries until tomorrow.

AETHERIAN (Greece)

Wonderful news to see that this Greek melodic death metal band are returning with a new album, six years after their fantastic full-length debut, The Untamed Wilderness. They say this marks “the start of a new era for Aetherian“, and it appears that they’ve added a couple of new guitarists to an already formidable lineup. The first sign of what the new album brings is a lyric video for the song “Army of Gaia“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: APHONIC THRENODY, TYRANNOSATAN, AMMANAS

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 152022
 

This is a rare weekday when we have no music premieres on the calendar, and thus I had some uncommitted time to use in sifting through the murky metal flood in search of other shiny nuggets. Coincidentally, it leads to the fifth day in a row when I’ve been able to pull together a round-up of new sights and sounds, creating our own flood. May you keep your nostrils above the tide.

For moi, part of the fun of these exercises is not just the process of making selections but the arranging of them. What comes first, what comes next, how to end? It’s as close as I’ll ever come to being a DJ. I wouldn’t be a very good one in any event, because the idea of enabling people to flow fairly smoothly from one thing to the next in a similar sonicsphere is usually uninteresting to me. Sometimes it’s more fun to create whiplash through abrupt shifts and jarring juxtapositions.

APHONIC THRENODY (International)

Aphonic Threnody never indulge any temptation for half-measures. The immense power of their funeral doom has proven to be unyielding, and so has the volume of the output. This year marks the third in a row to witness a new Aphonic Threnody album, following on the heels of The All Consuming Void and The Great Hatred. Moreover, those two were hour-long records and the one we’ll receive this year — The Loneliest Walk — is a double-album that’s almost 2 1/2 hours long. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: APHONIC THRENODY

 Interviews  No Responses »
Oct 222020
 

 

(Comrade Aleks brought us the following discussion that he had with two members of the multi-national funeral doom band Aphonic Threnody, whose latest album is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.)

A bit of good deathly funeral doom won’t hurt anyone. International project Aphonic Threnody proves it with their third album The Great Hatred released by Transcending Obscurity Records just a few days ago.

Formed in 2012 by Riccardo V (guitars, bass) and Roberto M (vocals), who are also known with their doom death band Dea Marica (put on hold since 2013), Aphonic Threnody gained a fair reputation delivering their artistic and grim litanies at full capacity. The lineup changed from album to album and now the project consists of Riccardo V, Juan Escobar on keys, and Justin Buller on guitars. Juan joined Aphonic Threnody six years ago, and he took part in over a dozen different bands (you know for sure the Chilean melodic death doom band Mar de Grises, one of his most well-known outfits). Justin Buller has a shorter list of bands he was involved in, and funeral capella In Oblivion is one of them.

So… The Great Hatred is a killer title, something most of us know well nowadays. Let’s learn more about it with Riccardo and Juan. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: APHONIC THRENODY — “DROWNING”

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 132020
 

 

We all have metal bands whom we consider good old friends, not because we’ve ever met or even communicated with their members but because we’ve lived with their music for such a long time, without ever being disappointed by their work, and often associating it with signal events and powerful moods in our own lives. And so when we “meet” them again through a new release, the feelings are akin to a happy reunion. For this writer, Aphonic Threnody are one of those bands — even though happiness is almost always a foreign concept in their music.

I’ve been following and writing about this funeral doom/death band since 2011 when I came across their debut EP First Funeral, and have closely tracked their movements ever since. Their newest work is a full-length named The Great Hatred that becomes the third album in their discography. It’s set for release by Transcending Obscurity Records on October 16, and we’re in the fortunate position of hosting the premiere of the album’s third advance track, “Drowning“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: APHONIC THRENODY — “LIFE STABBED ME ONCE AGAIN” AND “ALL I’VE LOVED”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 192017
 

 

“The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.”
–W.H.Auden

There is a staggering sense of desolation and hopelessness in those words. It’s not surprising that the international funeral doom band Aphonic Threnody have associated those words with the sorceries of sorrow that make up their new album, Of Loss and Grief, nor any surprise in the releasing label’s own formulation of the music’s atmosphere: “No sun shines here, nor happiness or hope … just grey, insurmountable walls”.

The album will be released on October 9 by Terror From Hell Records, and today we present the debut of, not one, but two tracks from the album, “Life Stabbed Me Once Again” and “All I’ve Loved“. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: “MEDITATION ON EARTH” — FEATURING THE DEBUT OF “DEATH OBSESSION” BY APHONIC THRENODY

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 242014
 

We have an unusual kind of premiere for you in this post, a collaboration between a visual artist and a metal band that is strange and hypnotic, and open to varying interpretations that depend on the imagination of the viewer/listener. The creator of the video is a Dutch artist named Jérôme Siegelaer, and the metal band is the multinational funeral doom collective known as Aphonic Threnody.

My own experience with Aphonic Threnody (whose members come from other well-regarded underground groups) goes back to 2011, when I came across their debut EP First Funeral (and wrote about some of the music here).  I wrote about them again (here) in a review of their superb 2014 split with Ennui entitled Immortal In Death. At last, the band have recorded a debut album entitled When Death Comes that’s due for release on the Doomentia label on October 31, and the longest song on that album, “Death Obsession”, is the soundtrack to this video. Or you could just as easily consider the video as a visual interpretation of “Death Obsession”. Continue reading »

APHONIC THRENODY / ENNUI: “IMMORTAL IN DEATH”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 142014
 

I’ve been trying to understand why I find the kind of music on the excellent new split by Aphonic Threnody and Ennui (entitled Immortal In Death) so appealing. I didn’t always. When I got into metal, the music that grabbed me raced like thoroughbreds with their bloodstreams flooded by adrenaline.  Immortal In Death moves like draught horses pulling a granite crypt, with no finish line in sight. Yet the music is immensely powerful and emotionally intense despite its glacial pacing and its black moods. It overwhelms the senses, maybe even more thoroughly than the kind of high-octane romps that were my first loves.

Each band contributes one very long song to the split, and although they are more alike than they are dissimilar, I’ll still take them one at a time.

APHONIC THRENODY

My own experience with this multinational funeral doom band (whose members come from other well-regarded underground groups) goes back to 2011, when I came across their debut album First Funeral (and wrote about some of the music here).  Though the band favored long songs on that release (all of them in the 9-10 minute range), “Ruins” dwarfs them. It’s a nearly 21-minute monolith — and it represents Aphonic Threnody’s crowning achievement so far. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: RUDRA, OLD SKIN, APHONIC THRENODY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Oct 112013
 

As explained in my last post, I’ve been diverted from metal over the last three days by activities relating to the old fuckin’ day job. However, I did manage to make a quick slog through the interhole in search of new music and found three diverse items worth sharing. Here they are:

RUDRA

I would venture to say that no one else sounds quite like Rudra. This Singapore band, whose last album I reviewed with lavish praise here, incorporate traditional Indian music, Sanskrit chants and mantras, and themes drawn from Sanskrit literature into a galvanizing combination of black and death metal, calling the result “Vedic Metal”. They’re now on the verge of releasing their seventh album, entitled RTA, through Sonic Blast Media, and today they began streaming the album’s second track, “Heartbreak”.

From its sublime meditative introduction to the jolting main section of the song (which features chants as well as strangling black metal vocals and a serpentine melodic guitar lead), this is an attractive tease for the new album. Continue reading »