This week’s SHADES OF BLACK is going to be a bit shorter than usual. For better or worse, I spent a fair amount of time pulling together the two Overflowing Streams roundups that I posted earlier today, and wasn’t able to get to everything I wanted to write about for this column. Still, it’s a fair share of music, with streams and reviews of two new albums and one new EP. I’ll add that all of these selections include black metal as only one of several genre ingredients.

HAIDUK (Canada)

Haiduk‘s fourth album Diabolica (released on September 21st) consists of 11 tracks, all but two of them less than three minutes in length. Both individually and collectively, they deliver such full-bore intensity they may suck the wind from your lungs. You can imagine being caught in the midst of a gale-driven firestorm, or desperately hanging onto the wing of a jet aircraft that’s blazing straight up into the skies. The dense, swarming riffs and maniacal leads are themselves a superheated blaze of head-spinning, mind-mutilating sound. Continue reading »