SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OPETH, OMINATION, ORANSSI PAZUZU, THE FLIGHT OF SLEIPNIR, AGRYPNIE , MAUL, TRIBULATION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 032024
 


Opeth photo by Terhi Ylimäinen

Raise your hand if you’re surprised that I’m starting this Saturday’s roundup with Opeth‘s new song.

Okay, I see no hands. Well, almost none; I see my own because I’m a self-taught typist and therefore hunt and peck.

But I’ll try to be more surprising after we talk about Opeth.

OPETH (Sweden)

Based on the small dose of social media I’ve seen, Opeth‘s first single from their next album is proving to be divisive. (I can only stomach social media in small doses, like beets or eggplant). In one camp are people who are unhappy with the dominating return of Mikael Åkerfeldt‘s death growls for the first time since Watershed. In the other camp are those who’ve welcomed the return with open arms and gleeful grins. Can you guess which camp I’m in? Continue reading »

OMINATION: “NEW GOLGOTHA REPVBLIQ”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 162021
 

 

(Here is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by the Tunisian band Omination, which was recently released by Hypnotic Dirge Records.)

Like many of you (including, I would imagine, at least some who discovered the band through our site) I was first introduced to the work of Fedor Kovalevsky via 2019’s astoundingly ambitious Prog-Death opus Back to the Black Marsh, the second album from his semi-solo-project Vielikan.

Having instantly fallen head over heels for that release (which was, and remains, one of my favourite albums of that year) it wasn’t long before I decided to delve further/deeper into his previous work, which quickly led me to his other primary project, the “Post-Apocalyptic” Doom Metal of Omination, whose full-length debut, 2018’s Followers of the Apocalypse is well worth checking out if you’re after a truly gargantuan dose of gloomy grimness.

But we’re not here today to talk about the band’s past, we’re to talk about the present, namely their new album, which was released on February 05 by our old friends at Hypnotic Dirge Records.

So, without further ado, allow me to welcome you, my friends, to the New Golgotha Repvbliq. I hope you packed a change of clothes, because we’re going to be here for a while… Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: OMINATION

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Feb 122021
 

 

(With pleasure, we present Comrade Aleks’ extensive interview with Fedor Kovalevsky of the Tunisian extreme metal bands Vielikan and Omination, whose critically acclaimed new album NGR was just recently released by Hypnotic Dirge Records.)

This Tunisian funeral doom-death project offers high quality material. Created in around 2016 by Fedor Kovalevsky (who has Ukrainian roots), Omination consistently developed ’til it became the size of a trio consisting of Fedor at the helm and his bandmates from progressive death outfit Vielikan – Zied Kochbati and Nassim Toumi. With a full lineup and the support of Hypnotic Dirge Records, Fedor presents Omination’s second full-length NGR (New Golgotha Repvbliq), which has been out since the 5th of February.

The last times are upon us! So be forewarned! And don’t forget to take a listen to NGR. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: INHEIN, TRUP, OMINATION, WAMPYRIC RITES, FIUR, STARER, CRUSTY OLD TOAD

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Dec 272020
 

 

Today’s column is a collection of substantial musical mood swings. I didn’t plan it that way, it’s just how it came together. I enjoyed the twists and turns and hope you will too.

INHEIN (Russia)

Suffering for iron-poor blood? Ass dragging like there’s a load of bricks in your stained shorts? Sinking like a stone beneath an endless ocean of listlessness? The first song in this playlist furnishes the remedy for all that, at least for six minutes. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ASCENDENCY, BIESY, HELGAMITE, KENAZ, NEKUS, OMINATION, TITHE

 SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
May 032020
 


Ascendency

 

We’ve now entered the second full month of a government-ordered shutdown here in Washington State, with only minimal re-openings permitted before June, and maybe not even then. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the country communities are being encouraged to become human petri dishes by venturing out to movie theaters, gyms, restaurants, beaches, etc. Good luck to them. I’ll be interested to see what grows within their cells, or doesn’t.

Meanwhile I’ll try to suppress my own depression and anxiety over the prospect of another month within these walls, and continue to sift through the great mass of new metal in an effort to make my life, and perhaps yours, a little more harrowing and wretched. To that end, below you will find six individual tracks and one album to stream. I also have a collection of other complete releases I would like to recommend. Maybe tomorrow…. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ELLENDE, MESZAROTH, OMINATION, ULTIO, SULDUSK, MALHKEBRE

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Feb 032019
 


Ellende

There’s quite a lot of new music I’m recommending in this Sunday’s column — three full EP streams (one of which is an EP-length single composition), plus advance tracks from three forthcoming albums. Coincidentally, four of the featured bands are essentially solo projects.

As usual, I picked these selections in part to provide some listening variety, though there’s certainly more than a fair share of melancholy and grandeur to be found herein, along with a fair share of ripping and tearing. I also positioned one selection to provide a bit of a diversionary interlude through its interweaving of Neo-Folk elements (and clean singing) among heavier sounds.

ELLENDE

I discovered this Austrian atmospheric/post-black metal band through a 2016 video of the title track from their 2014 EP, Weltennacht. I couldn’t get the song out of my head, and the video was hard to forget, too, since it included film of the 1987 public suicide of a Pennsylvania politician (Budd Dwyer) at a press conference he conducted the day before he was to be sentenced to prison following a conviction for bribery. Continue reading »