SHADES OF BLACK: ARKONA, GROZA, GAEREA, AETHYRICK, SVRM, EZKATON

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 252024
 


Arkona

(written by Islander)

Yesterday I read a story about a recent lobster-boat race across Casco Bay along the coast of Maine. It was won by a man and his 14-year-old daughter, with his daughter at the wheel of their 32-foot diesel-powered fishing boat. The man summarized their race strategy to a reporter: “Point it and punch it!”

Today’s collection includes new music from black metal bands who follow a similar strategy, but it also includes music that reveals a different strategy, something more like “slow it and sink it” (and maybe set it on fire first).

What ties all the music together is the presence of emotionally moving melodies and often the achievement of a certain scale and sweep (vast). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SCARCITY, SIDUS ATRUM, STRYCHNOS, SVDESTADA, SVRM

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Mar 242024
 


Scarcity — photo by Caroline Harrison

Today’s selection of black and blackened metal was partly the result of coincidence and partly by design. Coincidentally, out of all the worthy songs I listened to in searching for selections, many of them were by bands whose names begin with “S”. By design, I limited this column to those bands. Chalk it up to some need for order out of chaos.

Also coincidentally, two of these songs were accompanied by videos that are among the best I’ve seen this year in any genre, and by arranging this column alphabetically by band name, they come first. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY (PART 1): SVRM, MALIST, DEPARTURE CHANDELIER, VERGEL, EBOLA, THE STROYMACHINE, THE LORD AND MARTHE

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Dec 022023
 

Yesterday I managed to crawl through the 300-400 Bandcamp alerts and e-mails that hit our in-box during the 24 hours of Bandcamp Friday, plus social media messages from a few of the people whose recommendations I pay attention to. I even managed to very quickly skim through e-mails from the day before.

Doing that, I saved a shitload of links, and then barely scratched the surface of them in listening. There were some big surprises in that pile, some from bands I knew about and even bigger ones from names I’d never heard of. I picked some to pass along to you today. I’ve saved some others for the Sunday column, which I hope I’ll get to.

I had so many picks for today that I decided to divide them into two parts. The second part includes three bands from the same archipelagic country, all of which fall into the big-surprise category. I haven’t yet written part 2, and because the hour is late, it will probably come tomorrow. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: SPIRIT ADRIFT, SEEK, THE CIRCLE, SVRM

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jun 162023
 

 

As usual, I have far more new music I want to recommend from this week that’s now ending than I have time to write about today. If I play my cards right, and the creeks don’t rise, I can spread them out over three posts, including another roundup on Saturday and Shades of Black on Sunday. That will help, though I’ll still fall short of being comprehensive. Here’s what I picked to start off:

SPIRIT ADRIFT (U.S.)

When you see a song named “Barn Burner” you expect… well… a barn burner. Or in this case, based on the lyrics and the video, it’s more likely a church burner, or a flaming pyre of people who bought and sold deified lies. And yes indeed, the song is a muscle-moving born burner. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: KAMPFAR, SVRM, BÂ’A, SVARTSOT, THE SUN’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE NIGHT, SAQRARUNA, INTUS MORTEM, BEELZEJUD, ARCHVILE KING

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 202022
 

 

My day job has left me alone this weekend so I decided to make hay while the sun shines. Yesterday’s round-up included the music of eight bands and this one includes the music of nine.

There is indeed quite a lot of music in this week’s black(ish) metal column, but even I haven’t heard all of it. The releases I haven’t heard in their entirety are included in Part 2 below, where I’ve revived the strategy I used in the old Miscellany columns (and if those don’t ring a bell I’ll explain when we get there).

PART ONE

KAMPFAR (Norway)

I’m beginning with “Lausdans Under Stjernene“, a new single released by Indie Recordings on February 16th by a band who are approaching their 30th anniversary but show no signs of slowing down or playing it safe. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: LOCISTELLAR, SVRM, APRAXIC

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Dec 032020
 

 

We only made one NCS post yesterday, a consequence of some of our writers working on their year-end lists and myself getting ridden off the road by highwaymen from my day job. I managed to pick some things for a new-music round-up, but getting chased through the woods put an end to the actual writing. But now it’s done, a day later than anticipated. I picked more songs for a Part 2 of this SEEN AND HEARD column, but I have a feeling I’ll be chased again, so I’m making no promises.

I put these particular three songs together for several reasons, but probably the most prominent one is that all three feature powerhouse vocals.

LOCISTELLAR

Eighteen months have passed since I spent time talking with Lance Netherlin at the 2019 edition of Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle, before knowing that Locistellar existed or that Neatherlin was the band’s vocalist. I later learned that the band had been founded in London by drummer Didier Almouzni (Razor of Occam, Dragonforce) and guitarist Alexandre Lenormand (Loudblast), who then relocated to Seattle where they brought in other members, including Lance Neatherlin and guitarist Eric Snyder (Second Coming, The Crying Spell). Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: MALOKARPATAN, NADSVEST, SVRM, BANNWALD, QAYIN REGIS, UKLARHET

 SHADES OF BLACK  No Responses »
Dec 292019
 

 

Just three days left, including this one, before time consigns 2019 to the history books. Although we’re spending more and more time looking ahead to the records that will be released in 2020, we’re not finished with our reflections about metal in 2019. We will have more year-end lists from NCS writers and guests to share with you throughout the coming week, as well as the launch of our Most Infectious Song list, and at least Mr. Synn and I still plan to review some 2019 releases we haven’t gotten around to yet.

I’m doing some of that in today’s column. I picked three advance tracks to recommend from forthcoming 2020 albums, but the other three items are albums or EPs released this year, one of them as far back as August, which already seems like an eon ago. Hope you like all of it.

MALOKARPATAN

I’m a bit late getting to this first track, which debuted 10 days ago. That surprised even me, because I’ve been a fascinated follower of Malokarpatan from the beginning. The song is the first one revealed from this Slovakian band’s third album, Krupinské ohne. Its conceptual nature has been described by guitarist Adam as follows: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON THE LAST DAY OF THE YEAR: JUBAL, OBED MARSH, DEPARTURE CHANDELIER, CVLT OV THE SVN, SVRM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  12 Responses »
Dec 312018
 

 

Man, have I got a red-hot New Year’s Eve planned with my wife. Bring in some kind of dangerous take-out food. Watch some re-runs of Law and Order. Maybe have an egg nog with a shot of whiskey (but only one because I don’t need the calories and I’m cutting back on the booze). Asleep by 10:30 at the latest. I’m so fucking excited that I’m hyperventilating.

You think I’m joking, but I’m really not (except about the hyperventilating). After more than a few decades of severe misbehavior, the idea of a quiet night and a New Year’s Day without a cataclysmic hangover has become very appealing. No more day-after’s wondering “is that blood on my shirt mine?”, “whose room is this?”, and “where did I leave my pants?”

These days I tend to get a lot of my thrills from heavy music, and I spent this morning catching up on some new sounds, some of which I’m recommending to you in this round-up. This actually started as what might have been a second SHADES OF BLACK installment yesterday, but I decided to throw in a few other styles of music and finish it up for today.

JUBAL

I was quite impressed by the first demo (Archaic Discipline) released by the hooded Dutch duo Jubal through Clandestine Faith earlier this year, and said so here: “There is foreboding, catastrophe, and grandeur in the sensations of these savage, dramatic songs, along with a panoply of killer riffs and the kind of vocals that summon visions of demons coming for your throat.” I was thus excited to learn that Jubal have a new release headed our way in 2019. Continue reading »