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Showing posts from June, 2020

Derhead - Irrational I

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Back in the 2000s, I read an article about Finnish black metal band …And Oceans that combined black metal and electronics. I started to look for any songs that I could download on the web (I didn’t know anything about Napster or Limewire). I found one and that was Odious and Devious. I really liked the cold they put in the music. This EP by Derhead called 'Irrational I' has got the same cold gloom on it.  Tracklist: 1. The End For Now 2. Corpses Of Desires This one-man project from Giorgio Barrucco makes black metal in the …And Oceans kind of way, cold, icy and with a hint of industrial. That’s what makes this record stand out, the feeling of being surrounded by ice and icicles that can pierce right through you. Started in the 2000s, Giorgio has made several demo's and an EP as Derhead and he also plays bass in gothic metal band The Void. He's a busy man and luckily he made time to create this gem. With snarling vocals, crazy black cold metal riffs and menacing drum wo

Light Dweller - Hominal

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Somewhere in the Sonoran desert, a man is walking wearing an old filthy cloak of old sheep wool, his face hidden in a cowl. That’s what came to mind when I saw this artwork. It’s made by Kieran Wakeman from Divine Art Chaos. It is unsettling, mysterious, raw and it fits perfectly with the music on the second album of the one-man project Light Dweller ‘Hominal’ . Tracklist: 1. 13:12 2. Thrall Beguiled 3. Isolation Devalorize 4. Sequester 5. Chasm Of Limbs 6. Sciolist 7. Dogma Harlot 8. Herd Animal Have you ever bought a record purely based on the artwork? I have and sometimes it was a success just like this record. Cameron Boesch is the main man and only man behind this black/death metal beast of an album. With his talent and creativity, he makes ‘Hominal’ a highpoint of technical black/death metal. Everything sounds so devastatingly heavy like you’re in a sandstorm that suffocates you. The double bass drum, the gut-punching palm-muted guitars, the deep growls make for a trip down a ‘C

Swarming - Primeval Arteries Of The Sacred Dead

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The last couple of years the USA brought forth some of the best black metal I ever heard. Bands like False and Obsequiae are making nature-inspired black metal that's aggressive and melodic. Swarming falls in another category, their music has some emotional touches but they mainly manufacture a very harsh, unnerving feeling that makes you see shadows everywhere. Their debut album ‘Primeval Arteries Of the Sacred Dead’ comes out on the 30th of June by Nihilistic Propaganda Records. Tracklist: 1. Veins 2. Womb 3. Vessel With only three songs that each last ten minutes, the album pulls you into an enormous maelstrom filled with dissonant guitar work, unnerving noise effects and thunderous bass. What stands out is the full drum sound on this album, you can hear every detail. Especially on Womb , an instrumental song that builds up beautifully, starting with this weird feedback-laden noise palette with howling guitars that weave an awfully spine-tingling dark dream.  Swarming makes you

Unruly - Unruly

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When a British family deeply misbehaved in New Zealand in 2018 (extreme littering on the beach, threatening people and stealing), the government revoked their visa’s and they were forced to go home to the UK. The local news called the family ‘an unruly family’ and the members of Bonecruncher, DAHTM, Ritalin, Skaface Claw, Meth Drinker, TVX, Fantails, Freak Magnet, Dak Knife, Rogernomix, Shoc Futuro and Scab amongst others (!), thought that would be the name of their new sludge metal band. Unruly was born. On the 31st of July, their self-titled debut album comes out on Sludgelord records and on vinyl. Tracklist: 1. Floorboards 2. Bleach Jesus 3. Absence 4. Problem 5. Stare into Fire 6. Unruly Family 7. Catfish Hemorrhoid 8. Primordial Hash 9. Blood of Satan Coming from Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), this three-piece comes from a long line of sludge/punk/hardcore bands. That’s why it’s recorded at the infamous Scumbag College, a recording studio where you can find the nastiest local p

Feed Them Death - Panopticism: Belong/Be Lost

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The one-man band Feed Them Death makes very original, very nihilistic grindcore/death metal with industrial and noise influences. Panopticism: Belong/Be Lost is their second record and I have to say, it has something that not many bands have.  Tracklist: 1. Zoneless Confinement (2:58) 2. Scar? (4:20) 3. Apologue of Descent (1:14) 4. For Our Insolent Dead (2:43) 5. Anti-modernist Extradition (2:59) 6. Prescience/Evokism III (6:07) 7. Black Bile Banquet (2:58) 8. Break The Infi/nite (1:53) 9. Lotusbluthen III (4:33) 10. Evokism II (3:36) 11. Dead Is Better (2:27)   Although the band is relatively young (formed in 2017) the man behind it, Void, has had his fair share of metal hair and was once the vocalist and bass player for Italian brutal death metal band Antropofagus. On this album, you can hear that death metal has not fully left him. There are some nasty death metal riffs on here and with that subtle touch of noise, it makes the record sound surprisingly fresh. When it comes down to

An Autumn For Crippled Children - All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet

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On the 1st of May Prosthetic Records brought out the 8th album by Dutch black metal band An Autumn For Crippled Children called 'All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet'. If the band name surprised you, you’re not the only one. I couldn't think of a genre that would fit it, maybe some obscure grindcore band or something like that.  Tracklist 1. I Became You 2. Water's Edge 3. Everlasting 4. Paths 5. Silver 6. None More Pale 7. All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet 8. The Failing Senses 9. Craving Silence 10. Distance Formed in 2009 in Friesland, a province in the Netherlands, AAFCC has been putting out records almost every year. And  ' All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet' is an album that  makes me feel like I'm flying above the ocean, looking at the raging monsters and demons below the surface. That's what black metal and shoegaze always do, they make you feel. It's music that's positive and not in a happy-go-lucky kind of way. It reminds yo

Cosmovore - Into The Necrosphere

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For years I’m really intrigued by the Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksínski. His paintings are otherworldly, immensely dark and utterly beautiful. They represent my inner world so perfectly it’s scary. So when I saw the album cover of the German death metal band Cosmovore I immediately knew I had to listen to it.  Tracklist: 1. Into the Necrosphere 2. Vessel 3. The Watchers 4. All-Devourer The band is shrouded in mystery, the internet doesn’t know who the band members are, how long they’ve been around or where they get their socks. Here’s what we do know: they’re from Augsburg, Bavaria and that’s pretty much it. O and they made an EP called 'Into The Necrosphere' , and it‘s atmospheric blackened death metal from the highest order. If you like Ulcerate and Portal then Cosmovore is right up your alley. This album thrives on the lugubrious dark core of fear and expands it to a whole new level. I mean, the guitars sound like razor-sharp winds that tear your skin apart, just listen to &#

Changeling - III

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Artwork by Eli Mack At the end of 2019, there were two bands from Minneapolis that took the number one spot on my album of the year list: 'Portent' from False and 'The Palms Of Sorrowed Kings' by Obsequiae. Some entity keeps creating these beautiful black metal diamonds. And on the 8th of May, another one was shaped, Changeling brought out their third record called III.  Tracklist: 1. Ominous Disclosure 2. No Gods Left To Kill 3. Fascism Unveiled 4. So It Has Always Been Contemporary black metal is more about escapism and dealing with inner and outer turmoil than worshipping the devil and destroying Christianity. Of course, there are still some ‘true’ black metal bands, but nowadays they’re not so shocking anymore. Black metal has evolved and I’m glad it did. If it didn’t, Changeling never put out such an incredible album. With only four songs that call upon the imagination to see a dystopian future ruled by fascism, the band is one of the many bands that form a new st