Oct 122024
 


Vidres a la Sang

(written by Islander)

Last week I came across the word “Alician” for the first time. Pronounced similarly to “elysian”, it means “Surreal, whimsical, or illogical.” Maybe you can guess by now that it’s based on the character Alice, the heroine of Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

By coincidence the word came back to me as I was sifting through a big pile of music in order to make choices for this Saturday roundup. It came back to me because at some point I began to feel like I was tumbling farther and farther down a rabbit-hole, coming across one thing after another that really did sound “surreal, whimsical, or illogical”.

We’ll get to those songs, because I hung onto them, but not right away. Right away, we’ll get to something much more serious — unsettling in a different way. Continue reading »

Feb 102018
 

 

Impure Sounds is an appropriately named independent label and recording studio based in Melbourne, Australia. Their past releases have included works I’ve written about at NCS, including a split by Graveir and Mar Mortuum, and the debut album by Dødknell. Impure Sounds now has two new releases on the way, one of which can now be streamed and downloaded in full and the other of which has an advance track up for listening — and both are very good.

 

GOLGOTHAN REMAINS: PERVERSE OFFERINGS TO THE VOID

Sydney’s Golgothan Remains launched their first demo two years ago and are now following that with a full-length record through Impure Sounds named Perverse Offerings To the Void. A digital version of the album is available now, and a 12″ vinyl is scheduled for April 20.

Vehemence (Through Pain Divine)” opens the album in stunning fashion, with titanic rumbling and booming in the low end, bursts of freakish, swarming guitar dissonance in the upper reaches, and grim grinding in the mid-range, like a bone saw scything through gangrenous limbs. The destructive barrage of sound is segmented by slower cascades of pile-driving brutality. A heartless roaring monstrosity has somehow seized the microphone, venting a tyrannical tirade in the midst of this war zone. Continue reading »