SHADES OF BLACK: THE SPIRIT, SLAGMAUR, CULTED, THEBES, MOTSTAND, LENGUAJE DE VIBORAS, UNITED COLOR OF BLACK METAL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 282022
 

 

In normal times I would have posted this column yesterday, but I decided to devote yesterday to playlists of Ukrainian metal, which I hope you’ll explore (here and here) if you haven’t yet.

For this week’s black metal column I picked a variety of new songs and videos from among what I listened to in recent days, plus one big curveball of an album at the end that’s more than 18 months old.

THE SPIRIT (Germany)

To launch the column I picked the second single (with a video) to be released from this German band’s new album, Of Clarity and Galactic Structures. The new one, “Celestial Fire“, was preceded by the title track, which I’ve already written about here. True to its name, the new song blazes. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ISSOLEI, CAEDES CRUENTA, EGO, THE AMENTA, CULTED, VØIDWOMB, SUNNATA

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Dec 062020
 

 

Sometimes fortune smiles and these Sunday playlists just fall into place as if directed by some devilish higher lower power. In those times I move through songs I might be interested in, and by serendipity the music just flows in a way that makes sense. That didn’t happen today.

I had sorted out what I wanted to recommend, but had no good idea how to order them. I made an effort, but it’s still a pretty twisty and turny trip, made even more twisted by a last-minute addition prompted by a recommendation from my comrade DGR.

This episode is also different from most, in that it includes no complete releases, only advance tracks from forthcoming records. To spice things up, a few come with videos that will likely make you sit up and pay even closer attention.

ISSOLEI (Norway)

I decided to begin with a song called “King Apophis“, though I have very little information about the band or the release. Issolei apparently come from Trondheim, but beyond that they are a mystery. Terratur Possessions will release a debut Issolei record that includes this song, but hasn’t yet announced the title or a release date. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SEMPITERNAL DUSK, ZEIT, CULTED, MORTAL INCARNATION, CENTENARY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jul 182019
 

 

I nearly finished this collection in time to post it yesterday before I had to turn to the job that pays me. The delay turned out to be fortuitous, because in the meantime I found something else I was excited to include. As usual, my aim in this selection is to showcase the variety of extreme metal, and to do some extravagant globe-trotting as well.

SEMPITERNAL DUSK

First up is a track named “Spears of Pestilence” from a new album by Portland’s Sempiternal Dusk, set for release by Dark Descent on September 27th. The album title is Cenotaph of Defectuous Creation, and it features cover art by D. Desecrator. Continue reading »

CULTED: “OBLIQUE TO ALL PATHS”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 312014
 

(In this post you’ll find Austin Weber’s review of the new album by Canadian/Swedish band Culted.)

In the heart of winter, doom metal often makes for a great soundtrack to the season, as both the cold and doom have a common nature — they both desire to choke the life out of you. This is where Culted come in. They are a group of talented Canadians with a vocalist based in Sweden who together have utilized the internet to collaborate and give humanity top-notch doom that swells with an intense aura of bleak misanthropic rage.

The artwork certainly draws you in quickly, its imagery of a cloaked figure peering out at decay providing a visual glimpse into the crawling cold punishment explored on Oblique to All Paths. This is unsettling doom, bound in a sense of torment that seeps from every note and scream. Oblique To All Paths is sludgy, sometimes drone-y, and graced with piercing black-metal, reverb-soaked screams. Culted have a tendency to dress up the desolate proceedings in soundscapes that capture a morbid and mellow Swans-esque feel. This being a doom record, there are copious amounts of reverb and feedback swirling around, which only serve to magnify the deliciously suffocating and quite tripping duality conjured on Oblique To All Paths. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: HAIL SPIRIT NOIR, CULTED, TRENCHROT, THRALL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Dec 282013
 

Between the time I’ve spent with family and friends over the holidays and pushing out the biggest year-end LISTMANIA series our site has ever published, I’ve been constricted in my ability to listen to new songs and forthcoming releases. But I keep lists. I keep lists like a hoarder of names. Never mind that actually making it through the lists is a frail hope, given that they keep growing, and growing, and growing…

But yesterday, I made a small dent in them and came away with four songs I’m really high on. Two of them are new tracks by bands whose past work I’ve admired, and two of them come from bands who I’d never heard before. Musically, the four songs have very little in common, other than the fact that they are all winners — and they all have darkness in their souls.

HAIL SPIRIT NOIR

Hail Spirit Noir’s first album, Pneuma (reviewed here), was unlike anything else I heard in 2012. It was exceedingly strange and yet brilliant, a splicing together of black metal, 60′s flower-power pop psychedelics, 70′s prog rock, 80′s New Wave dance beats, melodic doom, and even cool jazz. Each song was distinctively different from, though related to, the others, like cousins on a gnarled family tree. Continue reading »