SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GATEWAY, VIELIKAN, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, BURNING PALACE, NUBIVAGANT, OSI AND THE JUPITER, PORTRAYAL OF GUILT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Jan 022021
 

 

Last night I decided not to post anything today and instead spend the time trying to figure out how to begin rolling out my 2020 Most Infectious Songs list next week, and to get my shit together for when my day job starts whomping me in the head again on Monday. I have spent some time on both of those projects but my NCS obsession got the better of me, and I took a break to listen to some things on my ever-burgeoning list of music to check out. From that listening session, I picked what you’ll find in this round-up.

I have made a few compromises, compared to what I usually do in these posts, so I can get back to the other projects a bit faster. The main compromises were to dispense with tracking down, re-sizing, and uploading album art, and to write less.

GATEWAY (Belgium)

Been anxiously awaiting the first preview of music from this death/doom band’s new EP, Flesh Reborn, and it finally arrived today. The ferocity of “Slumbering Crevasses” will maul and mangle you, and the cavernous monstrosity of the vocals and quivering eeriness of the leads may put the hair up on the back of your neck too. When the song slows, it’s still punishing, and even more apocalyptically frightening. Continue reading »

BACK AND FORTH: DEIVOS, PERIHELION, REVEL IN FLESH, OSI AND THE JUPITER, NEKRO DRUNKZ, MENTAL CAVITY

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Oct 292019
 

 

I really like all the songs you’ll find below. Only problem is that I don’t have much time to write about them, so I’m forced to just blurt some brief blurbs.

You may have noticed that I have a different title for this post than the usual “SEEN AND HEARD“. That’s because some of these songs go hard and some go a bit softer in comparison, and I’ve arranged them in alternating fashion (until we get to the end, when I’ve doubled down on the hard stuff)

DEIVOS

What a welcome return this is. The Polish death metal destroyers Deivos have a sixth album named Casus Belli that’s headed in our direction via Selfmadegod Records, with a November 29 release date. The first advance track, “Ataraxy“, is what I’ve picked to launch this round-up. Continue reading »

CONTRASTS: SAND WITCH, OSI AND THE JUPITER, HRVST, EINVIGI, BENEATH THE SOD

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Sep 182017
 

 

I had a busier than usual weekend that left me little time for NCS, and so I wasn’t able to compile a SHADES OF BLACK post yesterday. I did spend some time here and there exploring new music, and it occurred to me that the collection you’re about to hear would make for an interesting playlist to start the week.

I don’t know whether you will find this as interesting as I did, but I chose these songs and the order in which you’ll hear them in order to juxtapose very different sounds, alternating between extremely heavy, harrowing music and music whose emotional effect is more sublime, or more uplifting. (Thanks to Miloš for links that led to most of these discoveries.)

SAND WITCH

I chose to lead off with the Vancouver sludge/funeral-doom band Sand Witch, because the first song from their new demo (“The Cushion of Roosevelt’s Wheelchair“) itself provides a dramatic contrast that kind of encapsulates what I tried to do in arranging everything in this post. It moves from a slow, reverberating, elegiac guitar instrumental that’s beautiful and mesmerizing… to a shockingly heavy and abrasive apocalypse of sound, also slow, but soul-shuddering in its brute intensity. Continue reading »