SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: KRYATJURR OF DESERT AHD, OXBOW, BALMOG, SARVEKAS, HOST, ÚZKOST

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 292023
 


Balmog

Happy Saturn’s Day (and good wishes to the dead Romans who named it.). For me, paying work was all-consuming during the first part of this past week, but it was sheer laziness that kept me from compiling a roundup of new music in the closing days. Those two phenomena were connected of course. After some NCS editorial work and some premieres during the days when the paying work relented, I felt like I’d earned the right to stop scurrying and attempt a mind-meld with sloths.

With no head-start behind me, here I am with a giant slag-pile of new music and videos to go through, and great risk of cutting myself followed by infection as I try to paw through it. But paw I did (thankful for band-aids), and the results are presented below. It doesn’t include everything that grabbed me, but to include everything would have left me still writing come sundown. I don’t want that. I want time to go outside and enjoy the warmest day of the year so far here in the Pacific Northwest, or more likely just take a nap.

As if I didn’t have enough picks already, this morning brought a new installment of Renni Resmini’s starkweather substack, and as usual I hadn’t heard the majority of those selections, and as usual his writing compelled me to check out some of those, which has made this roundup even longer. 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: ARKÆON, HARVEST GULGATHA, INCANTVM, ÚZKOST, DØDSENGEL, WOLOK, DEVISER, ENDLESS LOSS

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Oct 302022
 

I was able to devote a lot of time to listening to new music this weekend, despite feeling borderline-miserable. One result was a big round-up of new music yesterday. Another result is this over-stuffed column of blackened sounds – advance songs from seven forthcoming albums, some with videos, and one very recent EP.

ARKÆON (Denmark)

Over the last six months or so, I, Voidhanger Records has been announcing new releases in batches. I’ve done my best to call attention to most of them as time has allowed, because (as usual for this label) they are so unconventional and interesting. From the latest batch I’ve picked music from two albums for this column, and the first of those is Parasit, the debut full-length from a veteran Danish trio who call themselves Arkæon. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): LORD ALMIGHTY, NINKHARSAG, CHANID, ÚZKOST, REVERORUM IB MALACHT

 SHADES OF BLACK  4 Responses »
Aug 302020
 

 

I’ll dispense with an introduction to this closing Part of today’s column. The intro to Part 1 was long enough.

LORD ALMIGHTY

Adam O’Day‘s cover art for Lord Almighty‘s forthcoming second album seized my attention before the music did, but man, the first advance track from that album turned out to be even more attention-seizing.

I didn’t know what to expect, in part because I hadn’t paid attention to this Boston group’s 2015 debut album, Paths, and in part because I hadn’t yet read anything about their new full-length, Wither. Later, I read that their base inclination is rooted in black metal, past and present, but that they bring into their music “a love for NWOBHM, sludge, hardcore, blues rock, and more” — all of which is borne out by “Cry of the Earth“. Continue reading »