SARTEGOS: THE PREMIERE OF “AS DEVESAS SOM DOS LOBOS” AND A REVIEW OF “O SANGUE DA NOITE”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 282019
 

 

(On November 29th I, Voidhanger Records, in collaboration with Blood Harvest Records, will release the debut album of the Galician black metal band Sartegos. Today we’re premiering a song from the album, preceded by a review of the album by guest contributor Conchobar.)

 

“Behold, may that night be barren; may no joyful voice come into it.
May it be cursed by those who curse the day — those prepared to rouse Leviathan. May its morning stars grow dark; may it wait in vain for daylight; may it not see the breaking of dawn.…”

Job 3:7-9.

Darkness has an odd ontology; the metaphysics of night are pluripotent but also polysemic. Shadow has with it the dusky, twilit sense of a lessening, but also the waxing of a distance from daylit realities. There is, as night advances, a thickness and a viscosity in its tendrils – it stains and layers the fading of light. And as it advances, it consumes. Not ravenously, but purposively, relentlessly, indefatigably. The negentropic islands of solar reality are slowly blotted out by the obscurations of a lunar regime.That nocturnal density – its flows and coalescences, pulses and coagulations, are the blood of the night – o sangue da noite. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SARTEGOS, AVSLUT, GOLDEN CORE, TOOTHGRINDER, ZARRAZA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Oct 072019
 

 

I took the weekend off for a short road trip with my spouse. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry on Friday morning to get out of town I might have thought to mention that, so people wouldn’t get the wrong idea about why we didn’t post anything over the weekend. I didn’t listen to any new metal over the weekend either (my wife has no use for it), at least not until after we got home last night. And I didn’t have enough time to make much of a dent in my listening list after the return home — but enough time to find the new songs you’ll find below, all of which are IMHO great.

SARTEGOS

My introduction to this Galician black/death band came through their 2013 EP, As Fontes Do Negrume (“The Origin Of Darkness”), which demonstrated the band’s impressive ability to combine exotic melody and harrowing ferocity. The conviction only grew stronger three years later when they participated in a split release (Resvrrezionespiritval) with Ysengrin, which Semjaza of Thy Darkened Shade included in his 2016 year-end list for our site, with praise. Early last year we premiered their next release, a split with Balmog, which only strengthened the attraction to their music.

Now, at last, Sartegos has a debut album on the way: On November 29th Blood Harvest Records and I, Voidhanger Records will jointly release O Sangue Da Noite. Continue reading »

AN NCS SPLIT PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SARTEGOS AND BALMOG

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jan 312018
 

 

We tend to take the often extravagant rhetoric in press releases about forthcoming records with a grain of salt. The one we received about the new split by Sartegos and Balmog, which is being released on vinyl by Caverna Abismal Records today, concluded with the claim that it “is essential short-length listening for those sworn to the dark”. In this instance, the music backed that claim to the hilt. The split includes only one song by each band, but each one is diabolically brilliant.

As gratifying as it was to make that discovery, it really was not at all surprising. Both of these bands from Galicia in Spain have already proven their worth and earned the allegiance of discerning followers in the black metal underground. These tracks prove it all over again.

We have premiere streams of both at the end of this post, preceded by some introductory remarks about the bands for those who might be new to them, and impressions of the music. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (A HALLOWEEN EDITION): BLACK ALTAR, NECROPHAGIA, OLD SKIN, THE CHASM, GAPED, AND SARTEGOS

 Free Shit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Oct 312013
 

We’ve already delivered quite a flood of posts today, at least measured by our modest standards, but since tonight is the most metal holiday of the year, I couldn’t end our posting day without a round-up of newly discovered music suitable to the occasion. This is a big bag of special treats for your ears, the musical equivalent of those apples embedded with razor blades and worms that I like to keep around in case any neighborhood brats come calling. Just think of it as a big playlist of putridity, and feel to skip my words, as long as you don’t mind the thought of me weeping.

BLACK ALTAR

Black Altar are a black metal band from Olsztyn, Poland, with two albums and assorted shorter releases to their credit since 1997. Their latest offering is a five-song EP named Suicidal Salvation. I had never heard Black Altar’s music before, and all I knew about this EP was that it includes songs that were intended for a split with Shining that apparently didn’t come to pass.

I found two streaming examples of the EP’s music — a full track named “The Sentence” and a teaser reel of excerpts from all the songs. I’ve embedded both of them below. But I’m so taken with the band’s music that I also found two of the four tracks that they contributed to a 3-way split (Emissaries of the Darkened Call — Three Nails In the Coffin of Humanity) with Thornspawn (Texas) and Varathron (Greece) that came out at the end of 2012. Those songs are “I’m Demon” and “Nighthunter”. Continue reading »

SARTEGOS, MITOCHONDRION, PROTEAN COLLECTIVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Sep 062013
 

We’re going to be a little light on content today because your humble editor will soon be embarking on a drive with his spouse to Vancouver, BC, where we will then engage in various entertaining activities that do not include blogging. I do have one very unusual premiere to bring you a bit later this morning, one guest review, and this round-up of items that tunneled their way into my head yesterday and left its meager contents in a state of satisfying disarray.

SARTEGOS

The ghastly words sound as if they’re bubbling up through a lava pool in a caldera, the air rendered opaque with the suffocating stench of sulphur. Primitive occult riffs vibrate with unholy energy. The muffled thump of drums roll like an avalanche of skulls hitting a barren plain. A twisted guitar melody echoes like the recital of a satanic liturgy across the vault of a hellish cathedral. And damned if the thing won’t hook you right through the gills. That’s “Meianoite No Jardim De Deus”, a song by Sartegos.

Sartegos are one of the few metal bands I’ve ever heard of who make their home in Galicia, an autonomous community in northwest Spain with its own language. In English, the song I heard means “Midnight in God’s Garden”, and it’s as dark as the name sounds. It appears on a 2013 EP entitled As Fontes Do Negrume (“The Origin Of Darkness”) that was recently released on CD by Bloody Productions and is about to get a vinyl treatment by I, Voidhanger Records.  Continue reading »