SHADES OF BLACK: SLEGEST, MAJESTIES, HØSTSOL, DEVISER, ONTBORG, HIVERLUCIDE, VĖLIŲ NAMAI

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Jan 082023
 


Slegest

I didn’t put together the usual Saturday roundup of new songs and videos yesterday. Partly this was because I got a late start on the day, but also because I wanted to spend more time figuring out what to include in the rollout of our 2022 Most Infectious Song list. I made good progress there, with enough choices to fill segments every day during the coming week. I think they’ll provide more reminders of what a great year for metal 2022 was.

But now on to the task at hand. The collection I assembled for today explains why I chose the name “Shades of Black” for this column too many years ago for me to remember, because most of these songs hover just on the outskirts of the black metal soundscape. They wouldn’t sound the way they do without that influence, but they’re built around other significant interests too. However, I’ve balanced those with a pair of songs near the middle that dive deep back into black metal traditions of yesteryear.

This collection is also more like the kind of “Seen and Heard” roundups that I failed to do yesterday, in that all the songs are advance tracks from forthcoming albums rather than complete new releases (even though one of those advance tracks is 20 minutes long). And I think you’ll find all the songs quite infectious — until you get to the closing pair. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A BANDCAMP BLACK FRIDAY: HOST, GOATBURNER, ÚZKOST, FORMLESS ARCHITECT, SLEGEST, ONHOU, TCHORNOBOG, ABYSSAL

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Nov 252022
 


Host

When you combine a Black Friday with a Bandcamp Friday the result is a goddamned typhoon of new music and videos, with bands and labels not only launching sales but trying to take further advantage of the situation with new releases, some of them out today and some now up for pre-order.

Correction: As Nic pointed out in a comment on the post following this one, Black Friday was NOT in fact a Bandcamp Friday, and now I’ve forgotten why I thought it was. On the plus side, I get to do something like this again on December 2nd!

I can’t say I’ve waded through all of it to make your shopping experience easier (I’m only one bedraggled human and speed-cloning is a generation or two away), but I did make my way through some of it, and have these recommendations for you.

I also did try to provide some genre scatter in the choices, knowing that not everyone loves everything, and to provide a range of radar elevations among the bands. As vivid proof of that, I’m leading off with… Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: GROZA, DRATNA, A FLOCK NAMED MURDER, SLEGEST, HISSING, SOLAR TEMPLE, FLUISTERAARS, TURIA

 SHADES OF BLACK  12 Responses »
Sep 302018
 

 

I struggle with these picks every week, and resolve the struggle in different ways. Sometimes, when I’ve got the time, I double-up the column so I don’t have to leave out quite as many possibilities. I don’t have that kind of time today. And to make the task harder, a lot of the music I wanted to talk about today turns out to be extra time-consuming — full releases, really long songs, many minutes that don’t lend themselves to pithy introductions.

Days like this I’m reminded that the main value of what we do here is “curation” (to use a pretentious term), i.e., the sifting and sorting of music and the selection of what we find appealing and think might be worth the time of people like you. If the writing itself proves to be entertaining, that’s a bonus. Mainly, we just do that to entertain ourselves. Hopefully, the curation alone will carry the day today — my own words are limited to begin with and kind of tail off into tiny dribbles the further you get into this.

GROZA

My friend eiterorm found Groza’s new album on Friday, said it was obviously inspired by Mgła, and expressed completely certainty that I would like it, judging from our common tastes in metal. “So make sure this one gets top priority. ;-]”, he wrote. So I did, and my friend was right — this is really good. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SLEGEST — “I FORTIDA SITT LYS”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 272016
 

slegest-in-a-barn-photo-by-havard-nesbo
Photo by Håvard Nesbø

 

A couple of weeks ago we had the pleasure of premiering a highly infectious song called “Wolf” from Vidsyn, the new album by the Norwegian band Slegest, and now we’re bringing you an official video for another track from the same album, “I fortida sitt lys“.

We’re told that the video “was recorded at an old mountain barn abandoned by time in a valley in Leikanger”, and that the concept was the brainchild of Håvard Nesbø:

“Like the song, the theme of the video can be placed in the light of the past — in the intersection of the now and the ever present whiff of olden times. Nesbø also produced the video, on a budget of pure idealism and a case of home brewed lager.”

Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SLEGEST — “WOLF”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Oct 122016
 

slegest-vidsyn

 

In December of every year our putrid site rolls out a list of the year’s “most infectious” extreme metal songs, as chosen through our own infallible judgment. This song we’re about to bring you by the Norwegian band Slegest has vaulted onto the list like Superman leaping a tall building in a single bound.

The name of the song is “Wolf” and it appears on Slegest’s second album Vidsyn, which is being released by Dark Essence Records. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: INFERNO, SLEGEST, DARKMOON WARRIOR, AND PATRONS OF THE ROTTING GATE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHADES OF BLACK  9 Responses »
Sep 252013
 

In this post I’ve collected three new songs from three new albums that caught my ears over the last 24 hours, as well as a full-album stream of another recent release. As you might have guessed from the title of the post, all of the music flies the black metal flag, but the styles are nevertheless significantly different from each other. The bands are Inferno (Czech Republic), Slegest (Norway), Darkmoon Warrior (Germany), and Patrons of the Rotting Gate (Ireland). I might add that all four albums are adorned by some very eye-catching artwork.

INFERNO

Inferno’s current album, their sixth, is entitled Omniabsence Filled By His Greatness and was released on September 24 by Agonia Records. The fantastic cover art that you see above was creatd by Fenomeno Design (Blut Aus Nord, Glorior Belli, Perdition). Yesterday Agonia uploaded one of the new tracks to Soundcloud.

“The Funeral of Existence” rings with chiming guitars and thrums with heavy weight in the low end. It rocks and rolls, its ephemeral melody will reverberate through your skull, and when the blasting and growling begins it will be time to run for cover before the roof comes down. Damned fine piece of progressive black metal, and really well-produced. This may well be a damned fine album, too — I now intend to find out. Continue reading »