Deus Otiosus Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

SEEN AND HEARD: VALLENFYRE, DEUS OTIOSUS, LOATHFINDER, MOURNERS LAMENT, MARTYRDOOM, ABDUCTION, HALF BLOOD, MAGNACULT, ANNTHENNATH

Mar 232017

As you can see, I have been a busy blogger — but a tardy one. On Monday night I moved through a lot of news and new music, all of which I came across solely from the Monday arrivals in our in-box and my own surveillance of Facebook. I selected these items to recommend, intending to post this on Tuesday, but my fucking day job prevented me from finishing it in time and since then other things have gotten in the way.

At least I resisted the temptation to make this longer by including more things I’ve discovered since Monday night. I’ll pull together some of those for another round-up as soon as I can.

After the first two bands in this collection (who are among my favorites), all the rest are new discoveries for me, making their first appearance at NCS.

VALLENFYRE

On Monday, Century Media announced that it will release a new album by Vallenfyre on June 2nd. The name of the album is Fear Those Who Fear Him. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KREATOR, BETHLEHEM, DEUS OTIOSUS

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 7 Responses »

Nov 182016

I have quite a lot of new music I’d like to recommend, but am short on time in what’s left of my blogging day, so I’ll just throw the following three items your way and save the rest for this weekend. Enjoy….

KREATOR

I learned about this first video through a Facebook post by a Scandinavian musician friend, who introduced it this way: “This is how you thrash… not the sorry excuse of music Metallica just released.” Well, I must confess that made me smile. Putting to one side whether the slap at Metallica is warranted, Kreator’s new song is definitely a scorcher, with a made-to-shout-along chorus and a solo that ought to get lots of clawed fingers thrust toward the sky. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ATTAN, CHRONOLYTH, DEUS OTIOSUS, GRIFT, HOAXBANE, LOST SOUL, PANOPTICON, POWER FROM HELL

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 11 Responses »

Sep 142015

I’ve accumulated quite a large number of interesting news items and new songs from my excursions through the interhole and the NCS in-box this weekend. In order to present more of them than I’m usually able to do, I’m going to do something that causes me great personal pain and undoubtedly will bring tears to the eyes of our faithful readers: I’m going to hold my own beautiful prose to a minimum and allow the music to speak for itself, largely without benefit of me as its interpretive intermediary.

Presented in alphabetical order:

ATTAN

Attan are a Norwegian band whose debut EP From Nothing will be released through Shelsmusic in limited-edition vinyl and digitally on November 30. The opening track, “Nocebo (I Shall Harm)” is now available for streaming on Soundcloud.

An avalanche of unhinged destructiveness; skull-fracturing drumbeats; spleen-rupturing riffs; aorta-rupturing vocals. Discordant and demented. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEUS OTIOSUS — “SIS MORTUUS MONDO”

Premieres 4 Responses »

May 192015

I’ve been following the Danish band Deus Otiosus since 2011, when I first discovered (and wrote about) their 2010 debut album Murderer. Since then the band have released two more albums, 2012’s Godless and last year’s Rise. The band have begun work on their fourth album, which is projected for release in 2016, but in the meantime they’re releasing a special EP on May 26 via Germany’s Godeater Records. Entitled Sis Mortuus Mondo, the EP consists of two new songs, one of which is a preview of the next album and the other of which is exclusive to the EP. And today we give you the chance to hear both songs in advance of the EP’s release.

“Greater Horror”, the album preview track, is a giant hornet swarm of riffs driven by deeply grooved bass-and-drum thunder, a fusion of adrenaline-pumping thrash and carnivorous death metal malevolence. There’s a lot of fleet-fingered guitar and bass flash in this head-wrecker, including some incendiary soloing. It romps and then it staggers and then it jams the pedal to the floor again just in case it hasn’t already succeeded in tearing your head off. Continue reading »

NEW MUSIC FROM ENTHRONED AND DEUS OTIOSUS

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Feb 242014

I thought about saving the two songs in this post until our next round-up of new music, but I’m too excited to wait.

ENTHRONED

A scant six days ago I received the news in my e-mail inbox that Agonia Records will be releasing the 10th studio album by Belgium’s Enthroned on April 15. The title is Sovereigns, and it’s now available for pre-order at this location. I wrote about that news even though I had no music to share, because hell… it’s Enthroned!

Now I have new music to share. “Of Feathers and Flames” is the song’s name. It’s both a blitzkrieg assault of feral power and a stomping death march, both a ravaging storm and a swirling fog of funereally bleak melody, both a merciless battlefield fusillade and a dismal downpour of staggering hammer blows. After being stunned by 2012’s Obsidium I had very high hopes for Sovereigns. Sounds like expectations will be met. Continue reading »

DEUS OTIOSUS AND ETERNITY

RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Jul 152012

Deus Otiosus is Latin for “idle god”. It’s a phrase that refers to a theological concept of a god who created the world, set it in motion, and then checked out, leaving things to unfold as they have, which is a convenient explanation for both the ugliness that human beings have persisted in inflicting on each other and nature’s periodic outbursts of destruction. Deus Otiosus is also the name of a pulverizing Danish death metal band we spotlighted in a MISCELLANY post last August.

Eternity, of course, is another big concept, one that’s especially hard for us mere mortals to wrap our minds around, bound as we are by time and a strict (if unknown) sell-by date. Of course, the concept of eternity requires no religious belief, and it’s no more provable. Eternity is also the name of a German black metal band who’ve been kicking around since 1994, which may not be as long as eternity but is still longer than some of our readers have been alive.

Today I discovered new music from both bands, and it seemed fitting to package them together in this post, though appreciating their music requires neither a leap of faith nor solving the great mystery of the universe.

DEUS OTIOSUS

This band (whose Facebook page is here) have a second album on the way later this year called Godless, which is another concept for explaining why shit happens. The very nice album cover is taken from an engraving by Gustave Doré. Today the band started streaming a song from that album called “Pest Grave”, which is about the black plague. It’s a blast of death metal mixed with blackened thrash and energized with fire-breathing guitar fury, and it includes a grim melodic breakdown. The abyss-deep vocals are vividly voracious, too. I liked it. Listen right after the jump — and bring on Godless! Continue reading »

MISCELLANY NO. 32: DEUS OTIOSUS, SHANGREN, AND FOREVER REVENGE

MISCELLANY 18 Responses »

Aug 122011

At the risk of boring our longer-term readers, here’s a reminder about how this MISCELLANY game works:

We keep a constantly evolving list of new bands whose music we’ve not yet heard, based on various sources, including band e-mails we get, reader recommendations, press releases, and stickers left on urinals at metal clubs we frequent. Whenever I can manage, I pick a few names off the list, I listen to at least one of their songs, I write about what I heard, and then I stream the same track(s) so you can make up your own mind about whether to explore the bands further.

It’s a good way to discover new music, and I wish I could do it more often. But it’s a bit risky for readers, because even if I hear something I wouldn’t normally recommend to you, it still goes in these MISCELLANY posts. For today’s edition of this dice-roll, I listened to Deus Otiosus (Denmark), Shangren (Australia, I think), and Forever Revenge (China). Here we go . . .

DEUS OTIOSUS

This Danish band e-mailed us late last month and gave us the chance to check out their 2010 debut studio album, Murderer (the band also released a live album in 2010, preceded by a split and a demo). According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, the band’s name is Latin for “idle god” and refers to a “theological concept used to describe the belief in a creator god who largely retires from the world and is no longer involved in its daily operation.”

I’ve always thought this was an interesting concept, and it does provide an answer (if you’re a Deist at least) as to why the human world has been such a brutally fucked up place for thousands of years: The creator had some kind of inexplicable fun creating the earth, and then checked out. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »