LISTMANIA 2024: NEILL JAMESON’S “ODDS & ENDS”

 LISTMANIA 2024  No Responses »
Dec 232024
 

(Last week we published a three-part series of year-end lists (which you can find here) prepared by Neill Jameson (Krieg), but it turned out those lists omitted some things, and Neill has cured the omissions in another list installment we’re presenting below.)

I was certain I forgot a few things in my main list(s) since I tried to get everything written and submitted early this year in an effort to be responsible, something I’ll never be again, so I put together an additional list of some of the things I forgot as well as some of the cool shit that got reissued this year. 2024 was a pretty loaded year for music overall but one thing I really enjoyed was being able to finally pick up a few pieces that were just too goddamned expensive on the secondary market that were handled with obvious care to the source material in a trend that I hope continues. 

Anyway, here’s a few of them: Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: BYTHOS — “SORATH THE OPPOSER”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 262020
 

 

Although a new alliance, the Finnish black metal band Bythos boasts a seasoned line-up of performers who come from other groups whose names will be known to every fan of black metal — Behexen, Horna, Sargeist, and Ajattara. In this new formation they’ve combined their talents to create an album that is thematically “an interdimensional view of the underworld and its deities, emphasising strongly on the spiritual evolution to liberate the imprisoned powers, and make one with the outer darkness”.

As further described, The Womb of Zero deals with: “The resetting of the divine plans through destruction and rising above limitations of life. Beauty in destruction, destruction in beauty. A sonic interpretation of what once was, and our constant path of devolution towards the Luciferian dawn”.

We share these insights first, because the music within the album translates these lyrical themes so well, and so powerfully, creating sensations of both chaos and transcendence, of fury and exultation, of menace and magic. We have a great example of these achievements in the song we’re presenting today through an occult-themed video, in advance of the album’s April 24 release by the esteemed Terratur Possessions. Prepare for “Sorath the Opposer“. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2019’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): SARGEIST, DARKEND, TOTENGOTT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2019  2 Responses »
Jan 262020
 

 

I’m writing this on Saturday, to make sure I’m able to post it on Sunday — because there’s a more than even chance that my head won’t be functioning very well on Sunday morning. I’m going to an annual party tonight (to celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns), and based on past experience I’ll drink way more single malt whisky and sleep less than is conducive to the formation of sentences the next day.

For the same reason, the odds are high that I don’t get a SHADES OF BLACK column written for Sunday (I also do remember that I never finished Part 2 of last Sunday’s column). So, to partially make up for that, the songs I grouped together in this Part 17 of the list fall into the categories of black or “blackened” metal.

SARGEIST

In the 2018 edition of this list (here) I included the title track from Sargeist’s brilliant last album, Unbound. Given that the band have established about a four-year cycle on their albums, I figured it would be 2022 before we got more new music from them. But at the beginning of the last week of 2019 they dropped a surprise EP named Death Veneration. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): SARGEIST, SIVYJ YAR, SVARTGREN

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Dec 252019
 

 

“Confrontation is expected, it doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas”. That’s a quote from a 28-year-old restaurant worker in the midst of a crowd exchanging insults with police today in Hong Kong, where protests continue without regard to the holiday. But when I saw that line in an article this morning it seemed a fitting introduction to this column too. We’re not shutting down either, so get ready for a lot of confrontational metal to blacken this holiday (divided into two parts).

SARGEIST

This is a rare SHADES OF BLACK in which every band here, in both Parts, is one I’ve written about before. And they’re here again because they’re all damned good. Of them all, Sargeist is the most venerable and venerated. Now 20 years into their career, and still led with venom and vigor by Shatraug, Sargeist gave us a new album last year, but decided to drop a new EP just yesterday. It caught me by surprise, and what a good surprise it is. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 16): SARGEIST, DEITUS, HEGEMONE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2018  5 Responses »
Jan 292019
 

 

Unlike some people I know, I have zero problem with current bands slavishly devoting themselves to the sounds of black metal from the early-mid ’90s, as long as they’ve got the talent to express their devotion in credibly cold and grippingly hostile fashion.

But it so happens that the black metal songs I’ve added to the list today (which are among my favorites of the last year) aren’t of the slavishly old-school variety, yet no one would accuse any of the bands of being new-school posers either, with merely a trim-picked riff or two as the basis for claims of “blackened” sound. The albums in which these tracks appeared were also uniformly excellent.

SARGEIST

Unbound was the creation of an (almost) entirely new incarnation of Sargeist, with only mainman Shatraug remaining from the line-up which gave us such gems as Disciples of the Heinous Path and Let The Devil In, but it too turned out to be brilliant. Given that the new line-up included a guitarist from Nightbringer, a bassist who dwells within the Saturnian Mist, and two members who provide bass and vocals for Desolate Shrine, all of whom (along with Shatraug) stand out in the sharpened production of this record, that should have come as no surprise. Continue reading »

SARGEIST: “UNBOUND”

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Oct 112018
 

 

(Andy Synn reviews the brilliant new album by the Finnish black metal band Sargeist, just released by W.T.C. Productions.)

Surprise releases seem to be all the rage these days and, wouldn’t you know it, Finnish Black Metal beasts Sargeist seem to have decided that they want a piece of that action too, so they dropped their long-awaited fifth album via the WTC Bandcamp page late last night.

So I thought that, much as I did with the new Behemoth album (a record whose overall status and impact I’m still pondering), it might be fun to address the release of Unbound with an extra degree of spontaneity by basing this write-up on my early impressions of the album, going track-by-track, now that I’ve had a few chances to listen to it in its entirety. Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2015: DAY TWO

 Concert Reviews  5 Responses »
Apr 092015
 

 

(Andy Synn reports on the second day of Oslo’s Inferno Festival 2015 and provides photos.  For Andy’s report on the pre-fest show last Wednesday, go here, and his report on Day One is at this location.)

If there’s a better way to kick off another day at one of the world’s best metal festivals than by seeing Goatwhore, I’d like to hear it. Big riffs, big spikes, big attitude, the band positively ooze confidence and bleed metal, smashing through their set with almost reckless abandon.

Bassist James Harvey had a bit of a rough night, truth be told, early songs rendering his bass-lines as little more than a barely audible rumble, while snapping a string part way through the set forced the band to play a few songs without him entirely. Still, they persevered like the stalwart soldiers of Satan that they are, and on his eventual return Harvey’s lurching low-end was much more prominent. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THANTIFAXATH, AMPUTATION SPREE, SARGEIST, MECHINA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Mar 052014
 

I’m headed for the airport again this morning, and then winging my way back to sunny Southern California for my day job, returning to sodden Seattle on Sunday. This will again restrict my blog time. Before leaving, I wanted to share a few recent discoveries.

THANTIFAXATH

This Toronto band, whose three members prefer to remain anonymous, released a self-titled EP in 2011, and now they have a debut full-length on the way. Entitled Sacred White Noise, it’s coming out on April 15th via Dark Descent. Not long ago the band premiered an advance track named “The Bright White Nothing At the End of the Tunnel”.  I’ve been meaning to check it out, and finally did so last night — and I’m in love.

There’s a writhing, dissonant guitar lead that begins almost immediately and then intermittently continues to whip and squirm its way throughout the rest of the song, and once heard it’s hard to forget. But that’s only part of the music’s attraction. The song also includes hammering percussion, scalding riffs, bestial black metal vocals, and a load of other strange but magnetic repeating motifs. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: LORD MANTIS, SKELETHAL, INFESTUS, SARGEIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  6 Responses »
Mar 032014
 

This round-up of news and new music is skewed toward the especially dark, depraved, nihilistc end of the extreme metal spectrum, hence the name “Shades of Black”, even though only two of the bands march under the black metal banner.

LORD MANTIS

Once you’ve seen Jef Whitehead’s cover for the new album by Chicago’s Lord Mantis, you really don’t forget it. I splashed it across the top of our site when it became public about two weeks ago, though back then I hadn’t yet heard any of the music from Death Mask. Now I have, and man, it makes a scarring impression, too.

The song that premiered last Friday is the album’s searing opening track, “Body Choke”. Three things about it stand out. First, there’s the visceral pounding of the rhythm section, with Charlie Fell’s bass and Bill Bumgardner’s drumming interacting like men at work on a demolition project. Second, there are Fell’s vocals, which sound like a man drowning in sulfuric acid. And third, there are the doomed, devastating, degraded riffs; they create a choking, noxious atmosphere.

You will want to headbang. You may also want to open a vein. Continue reading »

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