AN NCS INTERVIEW: FELLED

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jan 112022
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks talked with members of the wonderfully multi-dimensional Oregonian black metal band Felled, whose debut album The Intimate Earth saw the light of day last summer via Transcending Obscurity Records, and which we reviewed here along with a song premiere.)

Transcending Obscurity Records has given a big push to a lot of great extreme metal bands, choosing from among the best of the worldwide underground. Folk / black metal band Felled from Eugene, Oregon is one such band.

Cavan Wagner (guitars, vocals) and Jenn Grunigen (drums, vocals) started as Moss of Moonlight in around 2010 but the project was renamed in 2014, and soon Isamu Sato (bass) and Brighid Wagner (violin, vocals) joined them. Since then only the 2017 demo Bonefire Grit was published until The Intimate Earth full-length album was released in July 2021. It was worth of the wait, with five tracks presenting to listeners the dramas of Nature and the anguish of its witnesses, showing the best of “Cascadian black metal”.

True to tell, I didn’t know this genre name before… well, I knew bands like Agalloch or Wolves in the Throne Room but I didn’t have a clue what “Cascadian BM” was. Thus we got in touch with Cavan Wagner to sort it out, along with other matters, but in the end other members contributed to this interview too. Continue reading »

FELLED: OUR PREMIERE OF “SPHAGNUM IN THE HINTERLANDS” AND REVIEW OF “THE INTIMATE EARTH”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
May 172021
 

 

(In this article Nathan Ferreira reviews The Intimate Earth, the new album by Oregon-based Felled, and introduces our premiere of a song from the album.)

As any self-respecting metalhead should, I keep regular tabs on Transcending Obscurity Records. Their versatility and ear for quality sets the pace for other small-to-medium-sized labels, and I particularly appreciate their willingness to wiggle a little bit outside of their comfort zone in terms of style/genre. You never quite know what you’re going to get from the folks at T.O., you just know it’s gonna be good.

I am also one of those tree-hugging types that is infatuated with Cascadian black metal. Combine these two factors and it becomes easy to see why, when the label announced they were releasing the debut album of Felled, an Oregon-based band that cited some of my all-time favorite artists as influences (early Ulver, Agalloch, Drudkh, Saor), I was already reserving a spot in my AOTY list for it. Continue reading »