OUR LIST OF 2021’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 6): FIAT NOX, THE SILVER, HJELVIK

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2021  3 Responses »
Jan 122022
 

Welcome to Part 6 of this expanding list. You’ll find the preceding Parts (and an explanation of what this list is all about) through THIS LINK.

All three of the songs featured today were included in my part of the playlist that DGR, Andy Synn, and I put together for a September 2021 guest DJ appearance on Gimme Metal (and speaking of which, we three are doing another guest DJ appearance on January 25th). I included these three songs for a reason — because all three are so damned infectious. They had all gotten stuck firmly in my head by that point, and I was eager to infect other people with them. Obviously, I still am.

FIAT NOX (Germany)

Last year we had the honor of premiering a new EP by this German band (In Contemptuous Defiance) in advance of its October release by Personal Records. In an accompanying review I wrote that this new release “further elevates the place of Fiat Nox as a band capable of creating marvelously dynamic and multi-faceted music that gets the blood racing with its muscular, hard-charging aggression but also creates wholly enthralling atmosphere through its emotionally powerful melodies”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (STILL TOO MANY NAMES TO PUT IN A POST TITLE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Aug 072021
 

 

By some kind of industry consensus Fridays have become big days for the release of new music. When you stack a Bandcamp Friday on top of that, you get a deluge of biblical proportions. In an effort to keep up with the torrent, I compiled an extra-large roundup yesterday, but even though it included 14 new songs and videos that I enjoyed it still only scratched the surface. So I decided to do it again today, and to go even bigger, though I didn’t quite make it to Z in the alphabet.

Once again, there are a lot of bigger names in this collection, and once again I’ve injected some lesser-knowns as well. I’ve also included some playthrough videos. There’s not a lot of black metal in the mix, but that’s because tomorrow is Sunday, and you know what that means. Don’t you?

A THOUSAND SUFFERINGS (Belgium)

In this first song the dark, folksy, acoustic opening grabbed me, and then I felt both swept aloft and heart-stricken by the ensuing waves of bleak but grand melody and the shattering screams. The sounds are immense, stately, and emotionally crushing, even with the softer, haunting interstitials that arrive. The music boils over into sounds of torment and fury, and becomes almost hallucinatory in its agony, which makes this rendering of black/doom even more powerful. Continue reading »