SHADES OF BLACK: BEASTLOR, I AM THE NIGHT, VERHEERER, DODSKOLD, ASCEND TOWARDS THE MOON, WICHER, BALMOG

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  1 Response »
May 092021
 

 

I think it’s fair to say that I’ve gone off the deep end. Between the new-music round-ups I prepared on Friday and Saturday and the column you’re now staring at, I’ve thrown out 28 advance tracks, EPs, or albums, almost all of which surfaced just within the last week or two. I don’t expect any normal person to pay attention to all of it, and I don’t really know how any normal person would pick and choose among all those tracks. So why have I done this? Don’t know… still waiting on the psychiatric evaluations….

BEASTLOR (U.S.)

I decided to begin with one of the two complete albums in today’s collection. It landed, fully formed and without warning, on the most recent Bandcamp Friday, two days ago. As you can see, I didn’t defer paying attention to it, because the man behind it is Mick Barr (of Krallice and Encenathrakh). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: BALMOG, IRAE, SØRGELIG, LEBENSSUCHT, SYMBIOTIC GROWTH

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Mar 292020
 

 

After all the listening and writing I’ve done this weekend, honestly I’m out of gas. So let’s just go right to it….

BALMOG

We begin with a track that roams far and wide over its significant length. In the band’s own words, “18 minutes of oppression and mysticism”, but there’s more than that. The music is eerie and crushing, dissonant and disturbed, wailing and delirious, vicious and violent, spectral and sepulchral, swaggering and priapic, bombastic and bruising, grand and glorious — and also home to some head-hooking riffs and spectacular soloing. The vocals are wide-ranging as well, more often than not frighteningly insane, but also spine-tingling when they soar. In its cadences, it stomps, rocks, races, crawls, and drifts away into a rhythm-less ether. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SARTEGOS AND BALMOG

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 312018
 

 

We tend to take the often extravagant rhetoric in press releases about forthcoming records with a grain of salt. The one we received about the new split by Sartegos and Balmog, which is being released on vinyl by Caverna Abismal Records today, concluded with the claim that it “is essential short-length listening for those sworn to the dark”. In this instance, the music backed that claim to the hilt. The split includes only one song by each band, but each one is diabolically brilliant.

As gratifying as it was to make that discovery, it really was not at all surprising. Both of these bands from Galicia in Spain have already proven their worth and earned the allegiance of discerning followers in the black metal underground. These tracks prove it all over again.

We have premiere streams of both at the end of this post, preceded by some introductory remarks about the bands for those who might be new to them, and impressions of the music. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: EUCLIDEAN, BALMOG, BHLEG, SAMMATH, BLACK KNIFE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Dec 272017
 

 

I’m three days late with this week’s edition of SHADES OF BLACK, and still woefully behind in sharing new music in a blackened vein that I’ve discovered over the last month. I’m bound and determined to do at least one more of these features before 2017 is interred in a moldy grave, as long as I’m sufficiently unbound by other distractions.

This particular collection includes one complete new album, advance tracks from two more, some new live videos, and a new single.

EUCLIDEAN

To begin this selection of music, I want to strongly recommend Quod Erat Faciendum, the debut album of the Swiss band Euclidean, which was released on December 21 and came strongly recommended to me by starkweather and by Miloš. Continue reading »