Sea Mosquito Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

BEST OF BRITISH: PLEIADES, SEA MOSQUITO, WARCRAB

Nov 092023

(Andy Synn presents three more metallic morsels from his green and unpleasant homeland)

As always I’ve done my best to cover as many of the homegrown acts from here in the UK who have released albums this year and, ultimately… have probably only written about a small fraction of them.

But that’s always going to be the case, I suppose. I’m just one person after all (at least, I think I am) and can only do so much with the limited time that I have.

Plus, to be brutally honest, because I only write about albums I actually like that means some good stuff that I, personally, just don’t really rate is going to end up getting left by the wayside.

So consider this my apology to every band and artist I wasn’t able to feature this year. It’s not you, it’s me.

SHADES OF BLACK: SEA MOSQUITO, NINKHARSAG

SHADES OF BLACK 3 Responses »

Oct 152023

After failing to write anything this usual Sunday column for the last two Sundays I was really determined to get one finished this week, and to make it extra-large. But then I had some unexpected family activities this weekend which shoved that plan into the ditch.

Consequently, this column isn’t extra-large, it’s extra-short. Apart from the usual desire to help spread the word about worthy music, I’m mainly doing this (quickly) to avoid three Sundays of failure in a row.

SEA MOSQUITO (UK)

I discovered the music of Sea Mosquito through their 2021 EP, Fire, Magic & Venom (four other EPs and a split had preceded that one). It was just a single 23-minute song. I spilled a lot of words about it here, ending with these:

“The song is absolutely, stunningly, mad. It makes you quiver and dance like a puppet on a string in a hellish theater, manipulated by a team of demon princes. (Given more time, I would come up with a dozen more metaphors, but maybe the song title says all that needs to be said.) It left me wide-eyed and jaw-dropped.”

SHADES OF BLACK: MAYHEM, DARKTHRONE, NECRONAUTICAL, EXITIUM SUI, SEA MOSQUITO, HAPLESS WRETCH, UNDERDARK

SHADES OF BLACK 1 Response »

Jun 062021

I nearly didn’t include the new Mayhem and Darkthrone songs in this column, because I thought anyone who would visit us today would have already heard them. Plus, as is generally true of NCS as a whole, I tend to focus on less-heralded bands than the ones whose names are household words. On the other hand, those are two of black metal’s most influential bands, and getting new songs from both of them in the same week seems like something especially noteworthy, especially for a column like this one. So, they’re both here.

After that I shifted the focus to more obscure names, and by coincidence almost all of them are UK groups.

MAYHEM (NORWAY)

Atavistic Black Disorder/Kommando is a Mayhem EP that will be released on July 9th by Century Media. The dual title signifies that the EP includes three original tracks (“Voces Ab Alta,” “Black Glass Communion,” and “Everlasting Dying Flame”) as well as covers of classic punk tracks from Discharge (“In Defense Of Our Future”, Dead Kennedys (“Hellnation”), Rudimentary Peni (“Only Death”), and the Ramones (“Commando”). The song that emerged last week is one of those original tracks, which was initially recorded during the band’s Daemon sessions. Continue reading »