BIESY: “TRANSSATANIZM”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 182020
 

 

(Here’s Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Polish band Biesy, which was released by Godz Ov War Productions on May 8th.)

Black Metal is, let’s face it, an inherently contradictory genre.

By turns both fearlessly progressive and rigidly (some might even say “religiously”) conservative, infinitely malleable yet stubbornly inflexible, it’s the sort of place where bands can preach rebellion and non-conformity on one hand while ostracising anyone who dares to colour too far outside the lines on the other.

And while I love pretty much everything about it – the sound, the fury, the blending of avant-garde artistry and punk-as-fuck attitude – I’m also not afraid to acknowledge the high camp of it all either, considering how much time I’ve spent in small, dark rooms, watching shirtless, make-up covered men with pseudonyms like “Goat Impaler” and “Ultra Sodomite” hammering out priapic hymns of uber-masculinity, all while rocking a borderline-erotic amount of leather.

So it’s actually kind of surprising that it’s taken so long for someone to connect the obvious dots between the nihilistic escapism of Black Metal’s corpse-painted pageantry and the performative, provocative world of drag, but that’s exactly what the mastermind behind Biesy has done, adopting the persona of blue-haired punk-rock princess “Faustyna Moreau” to create an album designed to make you question your own prejudices and preconceptions about the necro-metallic arts. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ASCENDENCY, BIESY, HELGAMITE, KENAZ, NEKUS, OMINATION, TITHE

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
May 032020
 


Ascendency

 

We’ve now entered the second full month of a government-ordered shutdown here in Washington State, with only minimal re-openings permitted before June, and maybe not even then. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the country communities are being encouraged to become human petri dishes by venturing out to movie theaters, gyms, restaurants, beaches, etc. Good luck to them. I’ll be interested to see what grows within their cells, or doesn’t.

Meanwhile I’ll try to suppress my own depression and anxiety over the prospect of another month within these walls, and continue to sift through the great mass of new metal in an effort to make my life, and perhaps yours, a little more harrowing and wretched. To that end, below you will find six individual tracks and one album to stream. I also have a collection of other complete releases I would like to recommend. Maybe tomorrow…. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BIESY — “CZERŃ NAS PROSI”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Aug 242017
 

 

So far, two songs have premiered from the debut album by the Polish project Biesy, one of which we’re bringing you in this very post — and both of them demonstrate the emergence of a precocious new talent. The composer, lyricist, and principal instrumental performer in the band goes by the initials PR, and this album — Noc Lekkich Obyczajów — represents his first recorded work, though you wouldn’t guess that from the music. In this endeavor he was capably supported by two session members, vocalist Stawrogin (Odraza, Massemord) and drummer MP (Outre).

This new album will be released by Third Eye Temple on September 9, and the song we bring you today, accompanied by a haunting video, is named “Czerń Nas Prosi“. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: GRIFT, RUNESPELL, BIESY, GRAVE CIRCLES, SORGOTH

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Jul 302017
 

 

I picked advance tracks from three forthcoming albums and two recent EPs for this edition of SHADES OF BLACK and arranged the streams in a way that made sense to me. I had to cut out a few other streams due to the inconvenient encroachment of the rest of my life, so you’ll probably see another one of these collections tomorrow.

GRIFT

In 2015 Grift released a video for a song from the Syner album named “Svältorna“, a song that I included in our list of that year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. It was made by Daniel Blomberg and Grift’s Erik Gärdefors near a small mountain named Kinnekulle in the southwestern Swedish province of Västergötland, and it featured Gärdefors‘ father Dag Gärdefors, whose face alone tells a thousand stories.

Now the same trio have collaborated again (along with Simon Blomberg) on a video for a new Grift song — “Den stora tystnaden”” (“The Great Silence”) — which “follows the red thread” from the video for “Svältorna”. Continue reading »