SHADES OF BLACK (OVERFLOWING STREAMS EDITION): COMMUNION, FEVER, HIMELVARUWE, KOMMANDANT, SANGUINARY TRANCE, SKELETAL SERPENT, THE SPIRIT OF IUVENIUM, TAUR-IM-DUINATH, TETH-NAHASH

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Jul 292018
 

 

I have a lot of black (and “blackened”) metal I’d like to recommend this Sunday. But because of a two-day picnic that Ms. Islander and I are hosting this weekend at the NCS compound for co-workers and other friends, I don’t have time to write much about each song or album that I’ve chosen. So I’m resorting to a thing I’ve done in the context of the SEEN AND HEARD posts during the work week when I’ve been in a similar metal-flooded, time-short situation, which I’ve called OVERFLOWING STREAMS, for obvious reasons.

Here’s a big torrent of music, with fewer words of review than usual, and I hope it’s not so much metal that you’re deterred from investigating for yourselves. I’ve arranged the music in alphabetical order by band name,

COMMUNION

In December of last year I posted about a stream of a song called “Witching Thrust” by the Chilean black/death band Communion. It came from their second album, The Communion, which was then set for release by Hells Headbangers on January 26th. The whole album popped up in a Bandcamp alert I received late last week, which might mean that it only recently became available as a digital download. Or maybe it was just a reminder. Either way, I got all fired up again listening to the song “Witching Thrust”. Continue reading »

ONE AT A TIME: COMMUNION (“WITCHING THRUST”)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 032017
 

 

As I’ve mentioned more than once, I’m leaving the country today on a 12-day vacation. I was able to write the two premieres posted earlier today, but ran out of time before I could put together a SHADES OF BLACK feature for this Sunday. As I’ve also mentioned, I made a pact with my wife that I will severely restrict my blogging during this trip. That’s my interpretation of the pact; hers is that I won’t blog at all. This is an ominous misunderstanding.

Before we began the negotiations that led to this pact, I had committed to write three premieres spread over the coming 12 days. I will keep those commitments. I also plan to format and post Andy Synn’s year-end lists, which traditionally kick off our staff’s contributions to LISTMANIA, and I further intend to keep my eye out for the appearance of year-end lists by certain print publications and “big platform” web sites that I usually include in our LISTMANIA series. And I have one more modest goal:

I’m going to attempt to briefly write about one, and only one, new release in order to avoid barrenness on days when we would otherwise have nothing new to post at NCS while I’m gone. It might be a single new song or as much as an entire new album. This post you’re now perusing is an example of that. Continue reading »