SHOW REVIEW: SWALLOW THE SUN, HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY, GHOST BATH, SNAKES OF RUSSIA – FEB. 28, 2025, ORLANDO FL

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 212025
 

(Daniel Barkasi provided us the following wonderful report on the February 28 Orlando stop of Swallow the Sun‘s recently completed U.S. tour with Harakiri for the Sky, Ghost Bath, and Snakes of Russia, accompanied by the wonderful photos of Brittany Barkasi @Turn off the Thunder.)

Personally, Swallow the Sun is a band that has meant quite a bit over the years, both to myself and many friends – memories that will never fade. A good friend even made merch in the form of necklaces and keychains for this very tour, which are super high quality and wholly unique. For yours truly, ever since having my blackened heart soothed by The Morning Never Came in 2003, these Finns have been a constant in the listening rotation.

I first caught them live in September of 2007 (17-½ years ago – time is damn cruel) on what now has to be described as a dream tour, with Katatonia headlining, and Insomnium, Scar Symmetry, and Swallow the Sun supporting. Hard to imagine that tour was real, but for me and a bunch of others in the old Peabody’s (miss that place) in Cleveland, it was quite an affirming event. Since then, we’ve managed to see them a bunch of times, and when the opportunity arises, it’s one that we can’t turn down.

Adding to the allure of the melodic death/doom legends were Harakiri for the Sky, the post-black stalwarts who have eluded me for quite some time. Add to that the pummeling sounds of Ghost Bath and the dark electronics of Snakes of Russia, and we had a varied collection of fantastic acts to take in.

So off to Orlando we trekked to a usual landing spot in central Florida – the incredible Conduit – for a memorable evening of heart-wrenching musicality. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2015’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 13)

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2015  5 Responses »
Jan 122016
 

Jotnaar-Burn and Bury

 

I had planned to resume my rollout of this list yesterday, but somehow the blogging part of my day ended before I could finish it. In my defense, we’ve had quite a lot of things to post yesterday and today. In my further defense, I’m forgetful, scatterbrained, and easily distracted.

Most of the installments of this series have had some kind of thematic connection between the songs in each post. I don’t really have one to suggest this time. These are kind of odds and ends that I was ready to add to the list, and I didn’t want to kill even more time trying to think of good pairings for each of them. To see the rest of the songs on the list that preceded these two, go here.

JØTNAAR

I wrote about this first song last August soon after discovering it — and I was waiting for it eagerly based on the band’s previous two-song EP, 2014’s Divide the Growth and Stone. This three-man group from Colchester, England, is now two-for-two. In addition to that excellent previous EP, their 2015 collection, Burn and Bury, is also excellent. Here’s what I wrote about the new EP last year: Continue reading »

GHOST BATH: “MOONLOVER”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 022015
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the debut album by Ghost Bath, which comes out on March 17 via Northern Silence, with a full-album stream at the end.)

The Deafheaven comparisons will overflow Ghost Bath’s ethereal tub, but at its heart Moonlover favors its depressive black metal side over any of the shoe-gazing it flirts with. The opening “Golden Number” uses more synths and piano than Sunbather had as an entire album. On “Happyhouse” the band make it even clearer that the depressive elements are more important to them than the shoe-gazing. They drill into the blasting section, their drummer attacking with more feral precision than Deafheaven.

The crystalline ringing of the guitars in “Beneath the Shade Tree” is darkly beautiful, though it is just an interlude that gives some breathing room before the first part of “The Silver Flower”. From this point on the album takes a turn away from more vocal-centered music into atmosphere and ambience, dragging you along for a session of melodic hypnosis before the blast beats kick you off the cliff. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: FALSE, ACHERONTAS, DØDHEIMSGARD, VOLAHN, MISÞYRMING, GHOST BATH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Feb 152015
 

 

This is a round-up of news and new music that I discovered in a long bout of listening and reading yesterday. It happens that all the items in this collection concern black metal, but black metal is a broad spectrum, and it happens that the music you’re about to hear is quite diverse — and all of it very good.

FALSE

This first item is a piece of news, an official announcement of an album that’s been on my personal “most anticipated” list for 2015 since I heard it was being recorded last year. It’s the debut full-length by False from Minneapolis, and it will be released by Gilead Media in the May-June time frame, both as a double-LP and as a CD. The cover art (above) is killer — I’m eager to see what the LP gatefold looks like.

False have only released three songs in their meteoric career — two of them on an untitled EP in 2011 and one on a 2012 split with Barghest (reviewed here). But False are fond of long songs, and so those three add up to almost 45 minutes of music — 45 very intense minutes. Continue reading »