I woke up at an inhuman hour this morning, so early that friends of mine were still awake from last night and posting things on Facebook. By mid-afternoon on this wretched Monday I expect to have a thousand-yard stare and enough coffee in my gut to eat through sheet metal. What do you do when nothing else is awake except stealthy night predators and night-owl friends? I’ll tell you what I did: I decided to go spelunking through the dank caverns of the interhole in search of new metal. I found some veins of gold.

ARGENTINUM ASTRUM

Argentinum Astrum are from Knoxville, Tennessee. I discovered their existence through a post at CVLT Nation, which reports that the band have a three-song album coming under the title of Malleus Maleficarum. CVLT Nation is also streaming one of those three songs, identified by the Roman numeral “I”. It’s powerful. And by “powerful” I mean it will pound your bones to splinters and then sink them in a vat of tar.

“Heavy” doesn’t begin to describe it. It builds from ominous droning tones and a scattering of freakish noise, eventually joined by a lilting guitar melody, into a full-on crush-fest. Low and slow, the sludgy melodic riffs ring massive bells of doom and the drum hits come down like a rain of boulders. The vocals are pure acid spray. The song heaves like a storm-fueled ocean swell and eventually begins to rock like an earthquake. What a wonderful way to start the day! Continue reading »