Mar 102014
 

I’m happy to be back home after almost five days away, but I’m less than happy that today is a fucking Monday. I thought I’d celebrate the wretched occasion by throwing some miscellaneous things your way that I saw and heard after I got home late yesterday. I’ve packaged these items together because they’re… what’s the word I’m looking for?… let’s just say they’re out of the ordinary.

CHATALHÜYÜK

The last time I came across music billed as caveman death metal, it was Norway’s Goat the Head. They have been sadly missing in action for the last three years, but until they see fit to rouse themselves into a new burst of creative activity, I will have to content myself with Chatalhüyük. They have labeled their music “Neolithic metal” and they sing of such Stone Age things as big wood spirits and pterorhs stealing their krohi.

I’m not sure what a krohi is, unless it’s a Neolithic youngling. I’m pretty sure a pterorh is a pterodactyl, even though they became extinct about 60 million years before the Stone Age began and the Neolithic came at the very end of the Stone Age. But hey, if you’re willing to contemplate the concept of Neolithic death metal, then why not krohi-stealing pterodactyls? Continue reading »

Nov 012013
 

Halloween Day turned out to be quite a day for discovering new songs and video debuts. In our first post of this post-Halloween Friday, I collected five new videos that came out yesterday, and in this post I’ve got some other recommended new songs that I discovered on Halloween (or first thing this morning), presented in the order of discovery.

CRYPTICUS

Crypticus is a collaboration between American vocalist/guitarist/bassist Patrick Bruss and Norwegian drummer Brynjar Helgetun that I came across (and wrote about) through their 2012 EP, Insieme Verso Terrore. That was enough to land them a place on our recent list of the best Swedish-style death metal released in the last five years by newer bands. Their third album, The Barrens, is due for release on December 1 and can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp now.

To celebrate Halloween, Crypticus released a free Horror Grind Mixtape on Bandcamp, which they describe as “an original Death Metal mini-anthology”. It’s one nearly 11-minute adrenaline rush called “The Belasco Bequest”, the kind of expertly executed, blast-force chainsaw death metal (with surprises) that Crypticus do so well. Tasty riffs, tasty drumming, tasty lead guitar melodies, varying rhythms, carnivorous vocals — and it’s free! Continue reading »