SHADES OF BLACK: VIRCOLAC, IARMHAIRT, TORTURERS’ LOBBY, JZOVCE, PORONIEC

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 172024
 

Yesterday I read that in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parades in the Irish Channel of New Orleans, float riders toss cabbages and potatoes to the people on the street, a unique twist on the Mardi Gras practice of throwing strings of beads to revelers.

Although a flurry of cabbages would be entertaining, I’ll have to aim some other things at your head on this Paddy’s Day — spiky obsidian things dipped in poison or hallucinogens, some red with heat and some freezing.

Of course, I felt compelled to lead with music from a couple of Irish bands before crossing the waters east and west.

P.S. This column is late-appearing because I can’t hold my Saturday night Jameson shots and Guinness back like I used to. and my spouse and friends kept me up way past my bedtime. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): ROTTING CHRIST, VIRCOLAC, CROSSBOW SUICIDE, BAKUSHIN, SEBDOOM

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Feb 072019
 

 

As explained in Part 1 of today’s round-up, I feel particularly inundated by new metal this week, far too much for me to cover comprehensively (and I’ve still got a lot of catching-up to do with music that came out before this week). I’m not sure there’s much rhyme or reason to what I chose to write about in this two-part installment. The choices were pretty damned impulsive.

For example, I could have written about the new songs and videos by Allegaeon, Continuum, Kartikeya, Katechon, Latitudes, Nightrage, and Sectioned (to name just a few), but I haven’t — though you can click those hyperlinks and check them out anyway. Here’s what I am writing about:

ROTTING CHRIST

Yesterday the Russian site Satanath (home to Satanath Records) premiered another new song off the new album (The Heretics) by Rotting Christ, which will be released by Season of Mist on February 15th. The name of the song, “Vetry zlye (Ветры злые)“, explains the choice of Satanath for the premiere. But although the song title and some of the lyrics are in Russian, it’s not Sakis Tolis who “fights his way through a maze of Russian phonetics” in the chorus, but guest singer Irina Zybina (vocalist in the Russian folk metal band Грай [Grai]). Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS: WĘDRUJĄCY WIATR, TARDIGRADA, FURIA, RASPAIL, AZOOMA, CÓNDOR, BESTIAL RAIDS, VIRCOLAC, AGGRESSION

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Nov 152016
 

wedrujacy-wiatr-art

 

As I mentioned earlier this morning, we’re rapidly approaching the brink of our year-end LISTMANIA orgy. In fact, on Friday I’ll be soliciting reader suggestions for our annual Most Infectious Song list, and about a week after that I’ll be asking our readers to give us their lists of the year’s best releases — so please start thinking about both of those subjects. Of course, we’ll once again be re-posting year-end lists from select print zines and “big platform” music sites as they appear, as well as publishing “best of” lists by our staff and invited guests, both band members and fans.

In the meantime, we’ll also continue trying to recommend new releases, and there are still some big ones due for arrival before January 1. There have also been some notable ones released quite recently that I fear we’ll never get around to reviewing, and so I’m forced to resort to posts like this one in which I’ll just share the music and sacrifice the words of praise (though in many cases we’ve already written about individual songs). However, we do welcome your own thoughts about these releases in the Comments. Here we go — I hope you’ll give each of these albums at least a sample test.

WĘDRUJĄCY WIATR

Album: O turniach, jeziorach i nocnych szlakach
Released: October 31
Approximate Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Country: Poland Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: VIRCOLAC, AZOOMA, FROMHELL, VIOLENT MAGIC ORCHESTRA

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Oct 082016
 

vircolac-the-cursed-travails-of-the-demeter

 

Happy Saturday. At least I hope it’s happy for you. I’m feeling a little woozy from the usual bout of end-of-week inebriation, amplified by a celebration of what is surely the final nail in Donald Trump’s maggot-ridden coffin. Surely it is, isn’t it? (And yes, I hear you saying, “Don’t call me Shirley”.)

I spent basically the entire past week writing reviews to accompany premieres, of which we had a shitload of good ones (and one more is coming tomorrow). What fell by the wayside were Seen and Heard round-ups of recommended new music. I now have vastly more on my list than time or room to cover all of them. I’ve moved some into tomorrow’s usual Shades of Black feature, and these four I sifted from that giant list in part to provide variety and in part for… well, I don’t know what the other part is.

VIRCOLAC

I’m pretty sure that I first discovered Dublin’s Vircolac through a 2014 year-end list on our site by the Siberian musician “B” (of Station Dysthymia, among other groups), who said of Vircolac’s debut demo Codex Perfida: “Very nuanced and dynamic release! Vircolac has to be one of the most organic black/death hybrids I know, not so much switching between as seamlessly fusing the parent genres.”

As you’re about to find out, Vircolac have become even more adventurous and adept at organically fusing musical elements together, and they’re not limited to the trappings of black and death metal. Continue reading »