SEEN AND HEARD: ESKHATON, EMBALMED, VAULT WRAITH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Mar 012014
 

In my last stream-of-consciousness post I explained that I spent the last three days on the road working. I was able to spend some time conducting my usual surveillance of the interhole in an effort to find new music, but  didn’t have enough time to do much actual listening or writing. Instead, I added to my ever-growing list of things to check out later. I made a small dent in that list this morning and came up with some discoveries I thought were worth passing on.

ESKHATON

Eskhaton are based in Melbourne, Australia. They released a debut album named Nihilgoety in 2012, which I haven’t heard (it’s available on Bandcamp). Their second album is entitled Worship Death, it features killer cover art by Cesar  Valladares, and it’s due for release by the dependable Chaos Records on April 21. Last week a song from the new album began streaming on Eskhaton’s Bandcamp page, and I’ve got it for you here.

“Skeleton Shrine” is a goddamn vicious rampage of bestial blackened death metal. Subtlety and nuance are not the hallmarks of this style of metal — you go to it for the electric jolt it puts through your brain stem and the malevolent destructive force of its atmospherics. “Skeleton Shrine” delivers all that, and the flamethrower burst of the guitar soloing plus the complex tumbling of the drumwork put the icing on this poisonous cake. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: VALDUR, BEAST AS GOD, EMBALMED

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Nov 152013
 

Here’s a random round-up of destructive new music I found today, including a review of a stunning new EP I stumbled upon quite by accident.

VALDUR

I first came across this three-man collective from Mammoth Lakes, California (and wrote about) them more than three years ago following release of their excellent second album, Raven God Amongst Us. In September 2012 I found out that Valdur had finished writing their new album and were set to begin recording it the following November, and I also found out about an excellent two-song EP entitled The Hammer Pit that they had previously self-released, consisting of “rough version” of two new songs. We featured those songs here and here, and both tracks are now streaming at Bandcamp. And then last December I saw that Valdur had released a stupendous new single entitled “Blast Beast”, which I wrote about here and which is also available (pay-what-you-want) on Bandcamp.

And now, finally, we have news about the band’s third album and a “rough version” of one of the new album tracks to hear. The album is entitled At War With, it includes 10 songs plus the killer album art you see above, and it will be released on December 17, 2013, by Bloody Mountain Records. The pre-mastered song that went up for streaming two days ago appears to be the title track — and it’s a blackened death metal masterstroke. Continue reading »