SHADES OF BLACK: ONIRISM, HECATE, MISANTHROPIC RAGE, ENDE, KOSTNATĚNÍ

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Feb 252018
 

 

I stared at my long list of recent black metal releases that I found appealing. My eyes drifted further down the list to all the releases and advance tracks from weeks past that I had wanted to say something about, but hadn’t. That daunted feeling that crept into my head like a bad old friend, it locked up my brain. To unlock it, I tried to allow instinct to take over, and speared these five names based on the thought that the flow of the music would provide some interesting twists and turns as you move through them.

ONIRISM

Upon encountering this one-man French band’s second EP, Sun, last year, I tried to sum up my reaction in these words: “Onirism isn’t the first band to combine utterly enthralling and transcendently beautiful sounds with the kind of savagery that makes you want to hide under your bed, but holy hell, they do it well.”

Later in the year I revisited Onirism through our premiere of a track from the band’s split with Pure Wrath, and left enthralled again. Continue reading »

AN NCS DOUBLE PREMIERE: ONIRISM (“ASTRAL FOREST”) AND PURE WRATH (“THE DARKEST STAGE OF TWILIGHT”)

 Premieres  1 Response »
Nov 152017
 

 

Beginning on December 1, the Mexican label Throats Productions will release Endless Journey, an album-length split by a beautifully matched pair, two striking atmospheric black metal bands we’ve praised here in the past — Onirism from France, and Pure Wrath from Indonesia. Today we bring you the premiere of two substantial songs from the split, one by each band.

ONIRISM

I first came upon Onirism in August of this year, through an advance track from a new EP named Sun, which was released by Naturmacht Productions the following month. That was the second EP released by this project, after The Well of Stars in 2016, a year that also saw Onirism’s release of a debut album, Cosmic Dream. The project is the work of a single creator, Antoine Guibert (aka Vrath), whose work is also present in the music of Catacombes, Hentgarm, KerIfern, and Belenos (with whom he has been a live performer).

When I heard the first music of Sun, I wrote: “Onirism isn’t the first band to combine utterly enthralling and transcendently beautiful sounds with the kind of savagery that makes you want to hide under your bed, but holy hell, they do it well.” And a similar kind of union occurs within this new song from the split, “Astral Forest“. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): REX DEMONUS, ONIRISM, IMPLORE, KRIEG, ROTTING KINGDOM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Aug 242017
 

 

I know I posted a round-up of new music just yesterday, but there are far more discoveries I’d like to share, and these go a bit deeper into the obscure realms of the underground than the ones I picked yesterday.

Lots of interesting stuff here, so much that I’ve divided this post into two parts. You may need to skip a meal and a bathroom break to get through both parts, but you’ll be glad you did, even if you begin gnawing your fingers and wetting yourselves. That ain’t fake news.

REX DEMONUS

The first band here is Rex Venomous, they are a multinational group, and the debut two-song EP you’re about to hear is Tenetur et Relicta. I looked up those two Latin words, and they translate as “bound and abandoned”. Continue reading »