(Nathan Ferreira brings us this review of the new album by the black metal band Rampancy from London, Ontario, Canada — out now via Mutual Aid Records.)

It’s not often I get the chance to write about music from my neck of the woods, much less black metal – London, Ontario’s got a passionate but small metal scene for a city with a population of almost 400,000, and generally the inhabitants are more partial to thrash, groove and melodic death metal, as is evidenced by most of the bands that come out of here. Some examples of the more widely known ones: Kittie, Baptized in Blood and Thine Eyes Bleed. It’s not known as a well of growth for the more extreme tendrils of the music I crave constantly.

Amidst this nebulous and fragmented landscape, there’s been one constant consistently cranking out noisy, despondent extreme music for almost a decade now: Preston Lobzun, a.k.a. Oculus Tod, the sole curator and musician behind all of the instruments you hear on Rampancy’s third full-length album, Coming Insurrection.

Oculus has a handful of different projects he contributes to, most notably Saudade and Odol, and has piled up dozens of releases to his name, in addition to recording and mixing credits for countless other bands – but Rampancy is his only solo venture, and you could make the case it’s what he saves his most groundbreaking ideas for. Continue reading »