SHADES OF BLACK: DER ROTE MILAN, NUSQUAMA, ONDFØDT, BLUE HUMMINGBIRD ON THE LEFT, OMEGAVORTEX

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Dec 182018
 

 

I wasn’t able to write a SHADES OF BLACK column for last Sunday due to feeling like hell. I felt somewhat better than hell yesterday, and decided to pull this together now rather than wait until next Sunday. I have more new music from the black realms that I’d like to recommend, and will try to fold them into a different kind of round-up later this week. What you’ll find below are songs from four albums slated for release early next year and a mid-2018 promo EP that I’ve just discovered.

DER ROTE MILAN

Der Rote Milan‘s 2016 debut album Aus der Asche was an intense blending of grim ferocity and melancholy beauty, a powerfully affecting sequence of songs that makes their new album also worth close attention. Entitled Moritat, it will be released by Unholy Conspiracy Deathwork on February 1st. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): HAIL SPIRIT NOIR, ROTTING CHRIST, KVALVAAG, INCULCATOR, DER ROTE MILAN

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK  9 Responses »
Jun 072016
 

Hail Spirit Noir-Mayhem In Blue

 

For almost two weeks I’ve been in the throes of Maryland Deathfest frenzy, taking time away from many of my typical blogging activities to attend the festival itself and then re-living the experience through a five-part recap all of last week. I missed a lot of new music, and of course when you check out for that long in today’s riotously fecund metal environment there’s no way to completely catch up. However, I have spent some hours making incomplete lists of what I missed and then listening… and from that I have some songs I want to recommend.

Many of the new songs I want to write about are connected in various ways to black metal, and I’ve collected some of them here, along with one recent piece of very enticing news. There will be at least one more installment in this blackened catch-up collection, and maybe two if time allows.

HAIL SPIRIT NOIR

I think of Hail Spirit Noir as sonic alchemists, highly adept at combining different stylistic ingredients and transmuting them into strange and wondrous sounds. They’ve proven those alchemical talents through two albums so far — Pneuma in 2012 and Oi Magoi in 2014 — and last month they announced that a third one is on the way. Continue reading »