Jun 292022
 

 

The new Orthodox album represents both a return to an earlier essence and also a step forward, with the former (perhaps paradoxically) making the latter possible.

Proceed (which is due for release tomorrow by Alone Records) is this Spanish band’s eighth album in an extensive discography that began with the 2006 debut, Gran Poder. In these last 16+ years they have let very few years go by without releasing something new, short or long, and have seen their star rise, to the point of playing festivals such as Hellfest, Roadburn, Supersonic, Amplifest, and Primavera Sound, opening for the likes of Voïvod, High On Fire, and Corrosion Of Conformity, and collaborating with artists as diverse as Julian Cope and flamenco dancer Israel Galván.

Along the way, however, the original trio became a duo after the departure of guitarist Ricardo Jiménez following the 2011 album Baal, which left bassist/vocalist Marco Serrato and drummer Borja Díaz to handle all recording and live performances since 2014. But Proceed represents Ricardo’s reunion with those two, and in that way, and others, it is a revisiting of the past — but still a formidable movement forward into uncharted waters, as you’ll understand when you hear our premiere stream of the album as a whole. Continue reading »

May 052015
 

 

Here’s an assortment of new music I discovered over the last 24 hours with some help from friends. Needless to say, I urge you to give all of it a listen.

GESPENST

Gespenst is a new Danish black band with some experienced members — vocalist/bassist Galskab, for example, is also a member of Woebegone Obscured, Dwell, and Black Dementia, as well as a former member of Horned Almighty and a live performer with Glorior Belli.  Gepenst have recorded a debut album named Forfald (Danish for “Downfall”), and yesterday they uploaded for streaming an excerpt of one of the album’s songs that blew me away when I heard it (it comes with some eye candy on YouTube).

The song’s name is “Life Drained To the Black Abyss”, and it’s a long one. Even the excerpt is more than 7 1/2 minutes long; as I learned from the band, the complete track runs more than 12 minutes. The album as a whole includes over 40 minutes of music, but only four tracks, so each of them is likely to be a long-form piece. Continue reading »

Jul 172014
 


Djinn and Miskatonic

(Today our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks brings us Part 6 of a six-part series in which he puts the same five questions to doom bands from around the world, and introduces us to their music at the same time.)

Sometimes I use this unpopular “quiz” format because there are too many interesting bands that I would like to bring to light, and in my opinion it’s a good way to spread some news and to get new points of view on a few issues (including even some political questions). The list of questions I put to the bands is below:

1. What is the band’s latest news and what are your plans for the near future?

2. What do we get (in the broadest sense) from the release of your last album?

3. What is the best response that your band has ever received?

4. What role does the church (or any other religious organization) play in your life or (let’s take it wider) in the life of the heavy scene? Is there any spiritual, religious, or antireligious component in your songs?

5. What does the Media in your country tell about the situation in Ukraine? And how do you see that situation? Some people from other countries have asked me strange questions about Russia’s policy, and let me say that I have a few friends in Ukraine and my colleagues have relatives there, and believe me, there’s no media in ANY country that is showing the problem as it really is. We can watch as the Cold War turns into real warfare.

Today, we bring the answers to these questions from Djinn and Miskatonic (India),  Et Moriemur (Czech Republic), Hooded Priest (Netherlands), Mythological Cold Towers (Brazil), Orthodox (Spain), Soom (Ukraine), and Talbot (Estonia). Continue reading »