SEEN AND HEARD: ENDSTILLE, CREMATORIA, A SOLSTORM-KIM HOLM “DUET”, SINCARNATE, AND AN ASHENCULT/MEPHORASH UPDATE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Sep 182013
 

Collected here are a large handful of items of interest that I came across today and yesterday while crawling through the underground. The last four items consist of pairings that work. You’ll see what I mean.

ENDSTILLE

German black metal band Endstille, they take no prisoners. They have a new album named Kapitulation 2013 that Season of Mist plans to release in NorthAm on November 12 (November 8 worldwide). I remembered their name somewhat fearfully from the last album, which is now on Bandcamp, so I was interested to hear the new song that debuted today — “The Refined Nation”.

I find it very difficult to be very refined in writing about music like this. In my case, the capacity for careful dissection and articulate analysis go up in a mushroom cloud of obliteration, and Endstille don’t strike me as a band who care terribly much about refined criticism anyway. The song is a black metal detonation that fills the air with shrapnel and the screams of the dismembered (or that may be Endstille’s vocalist, it’s hard to be sure). Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 55: SERPENT OMEGA, CREMATORIA, PUREFILTH, AND ASPHODEL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Free Shit, MISCELLANY  4 Responses »
May 262013
 

Many of you already know how this MISCELLANY game works, but for everyone else, here’s what it’s about: Using no rhyme or reason whatsoever, I pick bands whose music I’ve never heard (usually bands whose names I’ve never heard either), I listen to one recent track from each of them (though sometimes I cheat and listen to more than one), I write my impressions, and I stream the music for you so you can judge for yourselves.

Every other musical feature on this site, other than this one, involves metal that I or the other writers have heard in advance and want to recommend. MISCELLANY, on the other hand, is a shot in the dark. I don’t know what these selections will sound like. We’ll both find out together. Today’s bands are from all over: Serpent Omega (Sweden), Crematoria (Denmark), Purefilth (Ukraine), and Asphodel (Greece).

SERPENT OMEGA

I found out about this relatively new Swedish band via a Facebook recommendation from another band whose doings I follow. They’ve recently released a self-titled debut album via the Mordgrimm label, and it turns out that they have a female frontperson (Pia Högberg). I decided to check out their music in part because of that recommendation but mainly because I thought the new album’s cover art was cool. Continue reading »