Mitochondrion Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

MITOCHONDRION – VITRISEPTOME

Oct 302024

(Have they achieved enlightenment, or simply gone mad? Andy Synn sets out to see what eight years wandering the wilderness have done to Mitochondrion)

As we rocket towards the end of the year – looking at the calendar it appears I’ve got five, maybe six, weeks to start putting together my mammoth annual round-up of all the Good, Great, and Disappointing albums I’ve encountered since January – the pressure on my already limited time just seems to grow with each passing day.

But sometimes, when something special comes along… sometimes you just have to make time in order to give a record the review it deserves.

And the colossal, cacophonous new album from Mitochondrion – their first new release in eight years, and their first full-length album since 2011 – is one that both deserves, and demands, your full attention… and mine.

SEEN AND HEARD (HEADSPIN EDITION): MITOCHONDRION, AVHATH & KUNTARI, RINTRAH, THE HOLY FLESH, HIGH INQUISITOR WOE, DUKH DÄKOMPOSITA

Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 1 Response »

Oct 022024

Mitochondrion

(written by Islander)

With my wife out of town visiting one of her sisters and me having gotten a head-start on the premieres I’d committed to write for today, I found myself with a rare chunk of time to go musically exploring yesterday, and to prepare this rare mid-week roundup.

Entirely by coincidence, most of what I listened to was head-spinning in different ways (as you can tell by the post title). I think it’s fair to call all of the following songs unconventional, and maybe even experimental in some respects, including the ones that feature singing (and yes, some of these are “exceptions to the rule” around here).

But lest you think I’m about to load you up with many melodious things, let’s incinerate that assumption immediately. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): VACIVUS, CHAMBRE FROIDE, THE AUSTRASIAN GOAT, MITOCHONDRION, GROK, BLOODLUST, SHAMAN RITUAL

SHADES OF BLACK 1 Response »

Jul 022017

Vacivus 2015

As I started pulling together this Sunday’s round-up of new or newly discovered black and black-ish metal I once again found myself with too many recommendations to squeeze into a single post, despite the fact that I posted one of these SHADES OF BLACK features only two days ago. So, even though 7 bands are featured here, there will be a Part 2, which I probably won’t finish and publish until tomorrow because I’ll be visiting a friend’s licensed weed farm this afternoon. Horticulture FTW.

VACIVUS

The first song in this collection was a last-minute addition, and it comes from a band who are more death metal than black metal, but I was so damned excited when I heard this track that I couldn’t wait to foam at the mouth about it. It’s also a damned vicious, pitch-black piece of audio electrification, so I don’t think I’m bending the SHADES OF BLACK format very much by including it.

The song, which first appeared on YouTube this morning, is “Oubliette” and it comes from Temple of the Abyss, the new album by UK-based Vacivus. Profound Lore will release the album on September 22. Continue reading »

CALIFORNIA DEATHFEST 2016 (DAY THREE)

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Oct 182016

Monday morning, Oakland waterfront

This wraps up our coverage of the second installment of CALIFORNIA DEATHFEST, which took place from October 14-16, 2016, in Oakland, California. As was true of my posts on Day One and Day Two, I haven’t written fulsome reviews of the performances I saw on the final day, though this time I have included a few more impressions than in the earlier installments — but I’ve once again included photos and videos I made using my iPhone.

Yes, this is a half-assed way to document a festival compared to what you will probably see from a few of the more well-healed metal publications out there who employed professional photographers and videographers. However, because “Half-Assed” is in fact my middle name, I’m being true to myself. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: AUROCH AND MITOCHONDRION — “IN CRONIAN HOUR”

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Jun 092016

Auroch and Mitochondrion are two Vancouver, BC, bands with interlocking parts who have been favorites of this site for a long stretch of years. They have joined forces in a split release called In Cronian Hour that’s finally on the brink of release via Dark Descent and Hellthrasher Productions, and we’re damned fortunate to bring you a stream of the split today.

We’ve been waiting for this release a long time — I first wrote about plans for the split in November 2013. Yet despite the passage of years, this week turns out to be excellent timing for the debut of the music stream: Less than two weeks ago, both bands proved their power once again with staggering sets at Maryland Deathfest 2016 (reviewed here), and less than two weeks from now Auroch will undoubtedly do it again in Vancouver as part of the stacked line-up at this year’s Covenant Festival on June 16-18.

People who have seen the bands perform within the last six months have probably heard both of the songs on this split. They’re striking songs, even heard individually and separated in time, but they’re connected. Continue reading »

A MARYLAND DEATHFEST RECAP (PART 4)

Concert Reviews 9 Responses »

Jun 042016

Friday beer/brunch at Alewife with friends.

For those of you just now joining this series about Maryland Deathfest XIV, I’m in the process of highlighting the bands whose performances were the best of the ones I saw and heard in Baltimore beginning on Wednesday of last week.

Rather than doing a day-by-day recap, I’ve organized the bands into four somewhat loosely defined categories. Yesterday’s feature was a “Shades of Black” collection of black metal bands, and before that was one under the heading “Swedish (and Dutch) Death Metal Supremacy”. I’m calling today’s celebration “The Black Death“, not only because that describes the general style of music performed by the following six bands, but also because they all spread a lethal kind of auditory plague.

Presented in the order in which I witnessed the performances over 5 nights and 4 days, and I’ve again included my photos of each band (most of which are gathered at the end of this post). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: ARKHĒ, MITOCHONDRION, AUROCH, VANHELGD, ABNORMALITY

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 13 Responses »

Mar 122016

It has been a crazy week for new metal. Even if I had posted round-ups every day, I still would have fallen behind — or to be more accurate, more behind. Yet for various reasons, I couldn’t do that. So here I am, sitting on an enormous number of new songs and announcements that I want to throw out there. What I’ve decided to do is collect just four of the most recent ones in this post, and then tomorrow I’m going to surrender and do a link dump for a lot of the rest.

ARKHĒ

When KevinP linked me to this next video, he described the song as “Spacey prog Rock/metal from the bassist/vocalist of Sear Bliss“. The mention of Hungary’s Sear Bliss was more than enough inducement, and now that I’ve heard the song I’d probably add “goth”, “doom”, and “electronica” to Kevin‘s string of adjectives. And lest some of you think the song is too close to pop at the beginning, András Nagy does break out the growls and snarls before the song ends, in addition to his vaulting clean vocal melodies. Continue reading »

A FAMINE FEST REPORT (PART 2)

Concert Reviews 11 Responses »

Feb 232016

On Saturday I hastily scribbled a few thoughts about the first night of Famine Fest, which took place at Panic Room in Portland, Oregon, on February 19-20. You may remember that I was having so much fun getting fortified for the festival with my old friend Joseph Schafer and my new friend Cat Jones that I missed a rather large section of the fest’s first-night festivities. This didn’t trouble me too much because I’ve learned that, at least for me, half the fun of going to metal fests is enjoying good conversation with good people over good cocktails. Still, I thought I’d make an effort to arrive at the second night of Famine closer to the starting gun.

Well, that didn’t really happen, but for the very same excellent reasons. The three of us, this time joined by yet another great new friend (Invisible Oranges writer Greg Majewski), were again having such a good time that I don’t think any of us felt any crippling anxiety about not showing up punctually.

And speaking of good cocktails, this had something to do with the lack of punctuality on the second night of Famine: Continue reading »

WRECKAGE IN 2014: MITOCHONDRION, AUROCH, BÖLZER, WOODS OF DESOLATION, OBSCURE BURIAL

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 6 Responses »

Nov 202013

This is really just another “Seen and Heard” post, but something about this collection of things I noticed over the last 24 hours put the image of “wreckage” in my mind. You’ll see why. And all of the items concern 2014 releases.

MITOCHONDRION AND AUROCH

I saw that Hellthrasher Productions is going to release a 7″ split by two Vancouver wrecking machines who are favorites of this site, Mitochondrion and Auroch. It is described “a conceptual song divided in two halves, with one title and one set of lyrics”, and it’s expected in early 2014. Both of these bands are at work on new full-length albums for Profound Lore, which will be on our highly-anticipated list for next year — and so will this split. Artwork and further details will be forthcoming.

BÖLZER

This next item consists of relatively recent updates that I just noticed concerning the titanic black/death entity from Switzerland known as Bölzer. First, they will have a new three-song EP entitled Soma released by Invictus Productions in 2014 (and yes, that also goes on our highly-anticipated list of 2014 releases). This is expected to be a fitting complement to the band’s stunning 2013 EP, Aura. Second, they will be performing at next year’s Maryland Deathfest. And third, the band’s 2012 demo Roman Acupuncture, which was originally released on hard-to-find tape, is going to be issued on vinyl next year by Iron Bonehead Productions. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: MITOCHONDRION, IMPUREZA, NECROPOLI (AND LUMBAR-NOOTHGRUSH-COFFINS UPDATES)

Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC 3 Responses »

Nov 122013

Here are a few things I saw and heard yesterday that I want to recommend to you.

MITOCHONDRION

Vancouver’s Mitochondrion are working on their third album. There’s a chance it may reverse the space-time continuum, or possibly open portals to a nearby dimension in which human beings are food stock for the nourishment of nightmares. Probably won’t happen, but with this band I never rule out such possibilities.

Yesterday they saw fit to release a demo version of one of the new album’s songs, “Writhen Unto Abraxas”. It’s a mauling frenzy of destructive riffing and horrific vocal effusions, caked with grime, splintered with jagged grooves, and writhing with maggot-ridden guitar leads. Galvanizing and merciless, doomed and infectious, the song is yet another triumph of blackened death metal malignance for this frightening collective. Listen next. Continue reading »

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