OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 8): MESHUGGAH, SENSORY AMUSIA, TOMB OF FINLAND

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  No Responses »
Jan 112023
 

 

The theme of today’s installment of our 2022 Most Infectious Song list is:  THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES.

MESHUGGAH (Sweden)

I’m noticing, as you may have noticed, that I’m being influenced in my choices for this list by excellent videos. That happened again in my selection of Meshuggah‘s song “Broken Cog” from their massive (and massively long) 2022 album Immutable.

Well, you might say, “The Abysmal Eye” had a hell of a video too, and that song is a more prototypical riff-driven ‘banger than the doomier and more atmospheric “Broken Cog” (to borrow some phrases from Andy Synn‘s nuanced review of Immutable, so I guess I ought to add a little more explanation. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOMB OF FINLAND — “COFFIN BOUND”

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Aug 042022
 

It’s not often that we premiere more than one advance track from an impending album release, much less three of them. But in the case of Tomb of Finland‘s new album Across The Barren Fields we’ve been offered the chance to do three, and have eagerly accepted the opportunity.

In the case of the first two songs we’ve presented, they were first released as stand-alone singles, and that’s true of the song we’re presenting today — “Coffin Bound“. It will be available as a digital single beginning on August 5th. But we’re also now getting much closer to the August 19th release of the album by UPRISING! Records in a variety of physical formats, and thus this latest single serves as a reminder of that. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TOMB OF FINLAND — “SHADOWS OF THE NORTH”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Jun 142022
 

This makes our second video premiere for a song off the forthcoming third album by Tomb of Finland, a record whose title — Across The Barren Fields — foreshadows some of its grave and grim moods and its occasionally expansive sweep. But the title doesn’t tell all, as you’ll learn from today’s new song, “Shadows of the North“.

In this newest track, delivered with a well-made video of the band’s performance, a fever burns in the darting riffage despite the song’s dark and ominous name. The music takes flight as the guitars soar like flames in the wind, though the mood even then is no less tormented. The delirium subsides and the music becomes both more forlorn and more mesmerizing — an unfolding of melancholy that quickly takes root in the mind. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TOMB OF FINLAND — “WRETCHED BLISS”

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May 052022
 

The beautifully made video you’re about to see takes us on a journey of mystery, menace, magic, and madness. We follow the actions of a lone shirtless man who appears to be engaged in a ritual of incantations and blood, a ritual that spawns hallucinatory visions and the presence of a hooded figure who may not be of this world. The man seems to spasm like a puppet on a string. He burns from the inside out, and perhaps what burns is his soul — as it is removed and encased in a different vessel, leaving his body a lifeless husk.

Does he experience a wretched kind of bliss during the course of this experience? Well, that is the name of the fantastic song by Tomb of Finland which the video presents, a song that will be released as a single on May 6th to help pave the way for the band’s forthcoming third album, which will be released later this year by Uprising! Records. Continue reading »