SEEN AND HEARD: ENDLESS RECOVERY, VALROGH, FUCK-USHIMA, ONE TAIL, ONE HEAD, OLD SKIN

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Nov 282015
 

Endless Recovery-Revel In Demise

 

This is kind of an odd Saturday. Here in the U.S., it’s the middle of a long holiday weekend, two days after Thanksgiving, a day after Black Friday, and two days before what snake oil peddlers have annointed “Cyber Monday”, when people get back to their high-speed internet connections at work and are encouraged to buy shit online that they don’t need, with money they don’t have. Hail Satan!

Anyway, I’m not sure if anyone will be visiting us today, but I’ve stitched together some (mostly) new music anyway, because instead of leaving my house to spend money yesterday I hunkered down and doused myself with a few hours of new metal. Much more satisfying and much less costly.

ENDLESS RECOVERY

I decided to start this round-up with a healthy heaping serving of high energy, beginning with a blast of speed metal from the Greek band Endless Recovery. The band’s new album (their second full-length) is named Revel In Demise, and it’s set for release by Witches Brew on December 24. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (A HALLOWEEN EDITION): BLACK ALTAR, NECROPHAGIA, OLD SKIN, THE CHASM, GAPED, AND SARTEGOS

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  5 Responses »
Oct 312013
 

We’ve already delivered quite a flood of posts today, at least measured by our modest standards, but since tonight is the most metal holiday of the year, I couldn’t end our posting day without a round-up of newly discovered music suitable to the occasion. This is a big bag of special treats for your ears, the musical equivalent of those apples embedded with razor blades and worms that I like to keep around in case any neighborhood brats come calling. Just think of it as a big playlist of putridity, and feel to skip my words, as long as you don’t mind the thought of me weeping.

BLACK ALTAR

Black Altar are a black metal band from Olsztyn, Poland, with two albums and assorted shorter releases to their credit since 1997. Their latest offering is a five-song EP named Suicidal Salvation. I had never heard Black Altar’s music before, and all I knew about this EP was that it includes songs that were intended for a split with Shining that apparently didn’t come to pass.

I found two streaming examples of the EP’s music — a full track named “The Sentence” and a teaser reel of excerpts from all the songs. I’ve embedded both of them below. But I’m so taken with the band’s music that I also found two of the four tracks that they contributed to a 3-way split (Emissaries of the Darkened Call — Three Nails In the Coffin of Humanity) with Thornspawn (Texas) and Varathron (Greece) that came out at the end of 2012. Those songs are “I’m Demon” and “Nighthunter”. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: PROTEST THE HERO, EYE OF SOLITUDE, OLD SKIN, REFLECTIONS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 212013
 

I thought I’d make you aware, if you aren’t already, of a handful of full-album streams that became available in recent days. I’ve heard bits and pieces of most of these albums, enough to believe they’re all worth hearing straight-through. So here goes (and if you know of other recent streams that we should be noticing, leave a link in the Comments):

PROTEST THE HERO

I’m not nearly as zealous a fan of this band as other people I know, but I’m finding the tracks previously released from their next album — Volition — interesting enough that I think the album as a whole will be worth the time. It comes out on October 29th via Razor & Tie and can be pre-ordered here. Here’s your full stream of the album (via Metal Sucks):


Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: RUDRA, OLD SKIN, APHONIC THRENODY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  15 Responses »
Oct 112013
 

As explained in my last post, I’ve been diverted from metal over the last three days by activities relating to the old fuckin’ day job. However, I did manage to make a quick slog through the interhole in search of new music and found three diverse items worth sharing. Here they are:

RUDRA

I would venture to say that no one else sounds quite like Rudra. This Singapore band, whose last album I reviewed with lavish praise here, incorporate traditional Indian music, Sanskrit chants and mantras, and themes drawn from Sanskrit literature into a galvanizing combination of black and death metal, calling the result “Vedic Metal”. They’re now on the verge of releasing their seventh album, entitled RTA, through Sonic Blast Media, and today they began streaming the album’s second track, “Heartbreak”.

From its sublime meditative introduction to the jolting main section of the song (which features chants as well as strangling black metal vocals and a serpentine melodic guitar lead), this is an attractive tease for the new album. Continue reading »