Drudkh announce new album, release new track - 'Nakryta Neba Burym Dakhom'

     Ukraine's Drudkh, unanimously considered the forerunners of the atmospheric black metal subgenre, have had a long and storied career. From their legendary first albums - the sublime Autumn Aurora, and the blisteringly frigid Blood in Our Wells and the Swan Road - to their more recent outings (including a one-off with Alcest's Neige), Drudkh have long stood as a bastion of the style even as their stylistic descendents brought the genre into the forefront of the black metal consciousness. 

      Today, Season of Mist announced a new outing from the reclusive project, imposingly titled Їм часто сниться капіж (They Often See Dreams in the Spring), appropriately set for release on March 9th. The band also released a new single - 'Nakryta Neba Burym Dakhom', which my limited Ukrainian and google translate-fu seem to hint means 'the Sky was Covered by a Roof'.

      Regardless, as with other Drudkh outings, 'Nakryta Neba Burym Dakhom' is patient, hypnotic, but unerringly restive, eschewing the yawning synths and plodding pace of their kin in Summoning for tribal, folk-tinged blast beats, relentless guitar leads that conjure up golden sunsets on the steppe, and Roman Saenko's signature roars that rush like a gael of wind along the corridors of the song. 

Їм часто сниться капіж will be released on March 9th through Season of Mist. You can listen to 'Nakryta Neba Burym Dakhom' below:

Watain - Trident Wolf Eclipse REVIEW

       2018 sees Sweden's Watain in an awkward position. Their lukewarm previous release, 2013's The Wild Hunt, debuted to head-scratching confusion due to some artistic choices that fell flat; namely, the bizarre decision to include an 80s power ballad, some Avenged Sevenfold-lite songs, and the band's signature dedication to the aesthetic earning them the somewhat disparaging moniker of 'black metal Rob Zombie' in more kvlt circles. The black metal faithful, ever mercurial, immediately turned their backs on the group, who, indeed, went on to carry the torch (metaphorically and literally, for anyone who's seen their live shows) as one of the most recognizable acts in black metal for most of the five-year interim. Watain toured with Mayhem twice, cementing their place as a heavyweight in the scene, even as the hype and controversy around The Wild Hunt slowly evaporated. 

      Five years later, it was with no undue amount of trepidation that I placed the needle on the band's newest offering Trident Wolf Eclipse. Forerunning single 'Nuclear Alchemy' was promising, delivering the signature blistering style of Watain's strongest modern material with none of the theatric silliness that had made prior outings fall flat, but ultimately, Trident Wolf Eclipse transcends the carnival goofiness of the Wild Hunt and, five days into the new year, stands unopposed as the year's finest black metal outing so far. 

     Black metal, for all of its fixation on isolation, is inherently an incredibly theatrical genre. Its signature subject matter - unspeakable rituals, the depths of self-loathing, crystalline, hivernal forests - are all presented with a flair for the dramatic, and always have been since the days of Bathory and Celtic Frost (This is heavy metal, after all!). 

      But this, in turn, begs the question - how much melodrama is too much? 

      Big-name Swedish black metal, for some reason, always seems to have an issue nailing what I'm going to call 'tasteful aesthetics', and has a tendency to embrace the already-over-the-top black metal aesthetic so profoundly that the music loses all sense of legitimacy and becomes just silly to watch. Watain, with their pig's-blood-drenched live show resplendent with candelabras and skulls, have always been notable for taking this to a new extreme, but this aesthetic choice, more often than not, crept into their music over the years, to mixed results. 

       In this regard, Trident Wolf Eclipse sees the band reigning in their theatrics, while nevertheless unleashing nine tracks of frenetic, furious, depraved black metal. Even more laudably, Watain bring the songwriting chops they had on the Wild Hunt - undebatably the best part of eye-rollers like 'Outlaw' - to bear with a classical black metal bent. 'Furor Diabolicus', which opens with a furious riff, buttressed by an incendiary guitar lead and vocalist Erik Danielsson's signature roar, is a perfect example of this, and flows between sections effortlessly, even throwing in a quick solo for good measure. 'Towards the Sanctuary', some three tracks later, features some of the tightest Watain guitar playing this side of Casus Luciferi, and immediately sees the crushing guitar enter a frenzied back-and-forth with Danielsson's eerie whispers. Watain balances these frenzied, riff-led tracks with several eerie, atmospheric outings, such as 'the Fire of Power' and 'A Throne Below', which eschew the fire-and-brimstone of the former for more nebulous, yawning textures. 

         In a sense, this is the band's return-to-form. Trident Wolf Eclipse has Watain return to their roots, to great success, and is a worthwhile listen for anyone who enjoys excellent songwriting and unrestrained fury in their black metal.  

     

January 2018 belongs to...Austria?

...And we're back.

Happy new year! Welcome to 2018, where we all realize we really are in 'the late 2010s' and the crushing existential weight of the years gone by swells in magnitude...but, never fear! 

With the inevitable changing of calendars has come an absolute flurry of new album releases. Over the past five days, we've gotten teasers from the likes of Panopticon, A Forest of Stars, Soft Kill, Destroyer 666, Hellripper, Urfaust, Lebanon Hanover, and potentially even Nachtmystium, and that's mostly just metal bands! This week in particular, two great new metal albums from the homeland of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Sound of Music, and schnitzel.

Most people don't really tend to associate Austria with heavy metal. Metallum claims that the early 90s saw some kind of 'Austrian black metal syndicate' a handful of demo-only projects took part in, but as a whole the country has remained largely unrecognized on the worldwide stage, with the obvious exceptions of Summoning, the legendary atmoblack duo that single handedly invented a new
genre of black metal in the late 90s.

Summoning need no introduction - Silenius and Protector have been purveying synth-driven, epic, Tolkien-inspired black metal for two decades, and today released their newest offering With Doom We Come in what may possibly be Nuclear Blast's only worthwhile release for 2018. With Doom We Come wastes no time, and commences with the bombastic 'Tar-Calion'. Fuzzed-out guitar lines dance in the misty gloom, buttressing symphonic synth leads and the endless, plodding drum machine Summoning are known for. Together, the quintessential Summoning sound materializes for eight long-form tracks, and leads the listener on an epic journey into the heart of Middle-Earth.

Stream With Doom We Come on Spotify here.

On the other hand, Abigor are one of Austria's best-kept black metal secrets. Since the early 90s, mastermind Peter Kubik has been quietly releasing a veritable library of albums, EPs, splits, and more, even as the band has largely evaded widespread recognition. Abigor's newest full length, Höllenzwang (Chronicles of Perdition), continues the band's evolution, mixing frenetic black metal with off-kilter, layered guitars and some of the project's finest vocals ever into a schizophrenic, pulsating, evil mass. The result, which sounds like a fine-tuned mix of Blacklodge, Mayhem, and even a little Deathspell Omega thrown in for good measure, is an absolute beast to listen to.

You can Höllenzwang here.

Thangorodrim - Gil-Estel REVIEW

Obscurity, in the current year, has become a hot commodity. Gone are the tape-trading days of the pre-internet epoch, where word-of-mouth, label flyers, and the occasional zine were the only connection one had to the shadowy, reclusive underground of the music scene. In its place, for better or for worse, is the ability to expose oneself to most of the music anyone has ever created. If you have an 8-track and an acoustic guitar, the abyss known as Bandcamp will allocate you your own bit of abyss to host your music. During the summer of 2013, I singlehandedly acquainted myself with black metal using nothing but YouTube album streams and Metal Archives. Two years later, equipped with a handful of recommendations and handmade charts, I did the same for shoegaze and neofolk. With the right curiosity, the limiting factor in discovering new music is one's own time.

This ease of access to music has fomented its own issues, which I'm not going to delve into in this post, because that runs the dangerous risk of turning into a rant. But, even as the internet has cast a light into the darkest corners of the underground, there have been recesses of it that have largely resisted the cloying light, remaining hidden and obscure even as the mainstream remained merely a handful of well-placed clicks away. And the tenacity of those corners to remain obscure has made them all the more appealing. Perhaps the crown jewel of those forever-outsiders is dungeon synth.

The name might sound goofy, but the genre has been around for at least twenty years - arguably longer, with some devotees citing Tangerine Dream's soundtrack for 'the Keep', released in 1984, as the first example of what would become dungeon synth. Nevertheless, the genre experienced its aesthetic 'birth' at roughly the same time as black metal roared into existence. Burzum's seminal compositions 'Den Onde Kysten' and 'Han Som Reiste' (off Det Som Engang Var) are considered the founding moments of the genre. Later refinements would come from Austrian band Summoning, Norwegian project Mortiis, and German act Depressive Silence, among others, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Dungeon synth is characterized by its aesthetic - namely, the monochrome of black metal with a decidedly medieval twist - and instrumentation. The latter features long, droning, minimalist synth lines that channel its fraternal twin black metal's fixation on generating vast soundscapes, oftentimes reminiscent of 90s role-playing games. Arizona's Thangorodrim, a modern project that incorporates elements of dark ambient into its expansive, Tolkien-themed work, have risen to prominence as one of the pre-eminent modern dungeon synth projects in recent years. Last year's Taur-Nu-Fuin, an epic, four-song foray into the sinister depths of Mordor, assisted by yawning, imperceptible vocals, was my first exposure to the project, which, in the absence of any social media presence, dropped its newest album Gil-Estel earlier last month. In true underground fashion, I was only alerted to this release by a poster on a music forum, which I would be lying if I said didn't add to the appeal of unearthing and listening to Gil-Estel.

Gil-Estel picks up where Taur-Nu-Fuin left off - anthemic, sprawling, chilling, sinister dungeon synth lacking in the neoclassical flourishes of other pioneers. Thangorodrim favors long, orchestral pieces that build on themselves to an epic sword 'n sorcery climax that channels the foggy forests and ancient crags of Tolkien's fantastic world, with sensible, slow melodies that are at once haunting and expansive.

Thangorodrim's strength lies in this long-form songwriting, wherein the ideas develop slowly over more than ten minutes. By contrast, Chaucerian Myth's monolithic, nearly four-hour dungeon synth interpretation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which flirts with neoclassical instrumentation to channel the medieval aesthetic of the genre, often falls flat, and transcends the narrow line between endearing and excessive cheese. With a genre as atmospheric as dungeon synth, subtlety is king, and this is where Gil-Estel reigns supreme - the music is patient, pensive, sublimely simple, yet equally nostalgic and epic, melding the minimalism of dark ambient with the emotional and instrumental maximalism of the heavy metal subgenre that spawned its style.

You can stream Gil-Estel here.   

New Music Wednesdays - Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Perturbator, and Street Sects

Welcome back ladies and germs, to a new segment I've decided to call New Music Wednesdays, wherein we try our best to get through Hump Day with some new tunes worth checking out!

This week has seen new music premiere from old fixtures and scrappy newcomers alike - Canadian post-rock mainstays Godspeed You! Black Emperor, French synthwave titan Perturbator, and Texas industrial lunatics Street Sects.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (henceforth 'Godspeed') require no introduction. The collective singlehandedly defined post-rock's controversial "second wave" in the late 90s and early 2000s with a handful of seminal masterpieces, only to reemerge in the early 2010s with a decidedly more experimental, drone-tinted output. The third LP of this incarnation of the band, Luciferian Towers, is slated to be released in late September on Montreal's Constellation Records (you can preorder the record here) and made waves with its politically-charged press release which included, among other statements, a blanket ban on the album's export to Israel. Nevertheless, Godspeed have released two singles from the album - 'Undoing A Luciferian Towers'[sic]', the introductory track, which premiered over the weekend, and, this morning, the Quietus debuted 'Anthem For No State Pt. III', the LP's closing track. You can stream 'Undoing' on the band's bandcamp here and 'Anthem' on the Quietus here.

Godspeed's music has always been an exercise in length, with long-form tracks flowing between numerous themes, moods, textures, and melodies over their hefty duration. However, 'Undoing' commences Luciferian Towers with five minutes of flitting between ephemeral, heavy atmospherics and uncompromising, cavernous drone, echoing the band's most recent record Asunder, Sweet, and Other Distress. The song builds in tension over its eight-minute duration, exploding into a melodic, guitar-and-violin-driven climax to close out the song. 'Anthem', conversely, sees the band at their most triumphant, with chaotic, turbulent noise transforming almost immediately into the awe-inspiring, sublime beauty that the collective have been purveying for over twenty years. The contrast between both tracks begs the question - what goes on in between? We'll have to wait for the 22nd to find out.

Perturbator, in a bit of a left-turn, are arguably the champions of the synthwave movement, an 80s revivalist cult that channels the decade's artistic cheese and obtuseness into a dark, dystopian, electronic context. Perturbator rose to prominence in 2014 with their Dangerous Days LP, finding a fanbase in both electronic and metal communities alike, and bringing their stylistic niche to the public eye. Since then, the genre has all but exploded as part of a ubiquitous nostalgia for the 80s that's gripped underground music for the past three years. Even Dan Barrett of Have a Nice Life fame has dabbled in it.

With two LPs and a handful of EPs under his belt, Perturbator's newest release New Model sees the synthwave forerunner slowing down, creating a darker, more brooding atmosphere that lacks the bright fluorishes of prior Perturbator outings - though that's not to say New Model doesn't have its fair share of anthemic moments (the drop on 'Tactical Precision Disarray' is absolutely jaw-dropping), but that the EP is less 80s motorcycle chase and more John Carpenter's gnawing dread. The penultimate track, 'Corrupted By Design', which veers between mid-tempo grooves and eerie, atmospheric synth lines, epitomizes this niche. Ultimately, New Model is a departure from Perturbator's previous style and, true to form, nails the aesthetic even as it pushes the genre into new territory.

New Model is out now on Blood Music (digitally). Physical releases will be released October 20th. You can stream the album here.

Lastly, Texas' Street Sects are veritable newborns, with just one album, End Position, released last year on weird rock/metal label the Flenser. The project, which melds blistering industrial beats with sampling and the raw fury of hardcore, are arguably one of the most unique listens in contemporary rock (please prove me wrong and clue me into something similar if I am), and are set to release an EP, Rat Jacket, on October 6th. Similar to Godspeed, after dropping the EP's debut track 'Blacken the Other Eye' a few weeks ago, released 'In Prison, At Least I Had You', a seven-minute (an eternity by Street Sects standards) affair that completely eschewed the duo's signature howled, screeched vocals in lieu of haunting cleans even as the industrial instrumentals rage behind them. With half the EP released, Rat Jacket may surpass the uncompromising, destructive rage of End Position. You can stream 'In Prison, At Least I Had You' here.

death's dynamic shroud.wmv - Heavy Black Heart REVIEW

For a genre that started out as an ironic joke among internet forum-goers, vaporwave has undergone a stylistic revolution in the five short years since the genre broke into the underground with Macintosh Plus' Floral Shoppe, widely considered the genre's ur-text (ur-album? Ur-listen? Whatever.). Initially consecrated and characterized as a bizarre offshoot of plunderphonics (that is to say, music synthesized from existing samples cobbled together) with a sardonic anti-capitalist subtext, various producers and projects have latched onto both the genre's existence and its aesthetic, and, in the process, vaporwave has gone from loquacious inside-joke to a post-ironic genre into itself. The popularity of "Simpsonwave" last summer, which even prompted a Pitchfork article, is the ultimate proof that the genre has gone from vaguely unnerving slowed-down Donna Summer songs to something with broad appeal. More anecdotally, Blank Banshee, one of vaporwave's patron saints and the forerunner of the needlessly niche "vaportrap" sub-subgenre, sold out most shows during a North American tour earlier this summer, indicating that what some people dubbed the first "post-internet" genre is encountering a lively childhood.

Yet even as the genre grows in popularity and moves further away from its roots in sampling obscure 80s/90s muzak, there's another half to the equation, as a handful of underground projects push the genre to its experimental limits, dissecting the genre's aesthetic and technique. Among these latter explorers is Philadelphia project death's dynamic shroud.wmv (DDS). The project first came to my attention in 2015, with their record I'll Try Living Like This, which eschewed the sugary, sterile atmosphere of a vaporwave record with a more cloying, pervasive sense of tension, assisted by glitched-out production and an almost strident, urgent feel to the record's numerous songs. Two years later, DDS have released a new record, Heavy Black Heart which, while it lacks the ghostly unease of I'll Try Living Like This, provides an intriguing, multifaceted listen.

Heavy Black Heart's most striking features aren't the glitched-out vocals that seem to writhe and stammer on top of tight, compressed beats, nor is it the almost sound-collage-y assortment of samples that blast into being from the first few seconds of the record and continue at an off-kilter, irregular pace - all of those could be seen as a natural, albeit jarring, evolution of the repurposed elevator muzak of vaporwave's genesis. Rather, it's the record's mounting sense of chaos that builds and pervades every second of Heavy Black Heart, contrasted against the spic-and-span samples and throaty, Rick Astley-like vocal clips (albeit in Japanese).

Newer vaporwave outings have had a tendency to toy with ambient, immersing the listener in the strange, idyllic, self-contained microcosm that advertisements seem to exist in. 2814's Birth of a New Day, one of my favorite releases from 2015, nailed the sentiment perfectly, transporting the listener into a hazy, rainy Japanese late-night journey. This is not the case with DDS, and certainly not with Heavy Black Heart, whose glitchy production, especially the vaguely danceable 'Life Should Be Easy', forces a more cerebral experience. What's more, the release toys with that latter's ambience, with the delicate synth lines that open 'You at Night' being interspersed by gnawing noise and goofy, out-of-place vocals before exploding into a punishing, bass-driving, drawn-out beat. Ultimately, the song collapses in on itself, before re-igniting into the almost-industrial-tinted 'Pennington Acres'.

Heavy Black Heart isn't going to be making it into compilations of chill lo fi anime beats any time soon, but ultimately it represents a far more experimental take on the sample-based origins of the genre, representing a further refinement of its aesthetic, albeit in a warped, esoteric, and oftentimes gloriously cacophonous way. DDS have never made easy-to-listen music, but Heavy Black Heart is its most daring, experimental outing yet, and ultimately begs third and fourth listens in order to ply its deceptively deep crevasses.

[Thee] Oh Sees - Orc REVEW

Usually, I'd start a record review with a brief discussion of where this album fits into the overall stylistic evolution of a genre. But, unfortunately, that's not quite possible here. It might not occur to most people, but psychedelic rock is one of the longest-lived extant styles of rock music in total. With a genesis in the mid-to-late 1960s, psych rock outstripes even heavy metal, which in fact diverged from the former at the dawn of the 1970s. As such, placing a modern psych rock release into context in the nearly 55-year history of the genre is exceedingly difficult, since psych rock has been in a continuous state of evolution even as it has influenced every subsequent style of rock to come after. While that sounds like a nightmare for someone trying to write a retrospective of psych rock, it's actually incredibly freeing - the genre's monolithic influence and history are so diverse, so omnipresent, that almost any artist, band, or project purveying it can, in most cases, be considered in a near-vacumn, connected only to their direct influences.

Enter Oh Sees, formally with a "Thee" in front of their name, an exceedingly prolific psych rock act out of San Fransisco that have been putting out at least one record a year without fail since 2008. Orc, their thirteenth album in nine years, sees the band purveying breakneck, fuzzed-out rock riffs that competes with phantasmagoric interludes, during which the band toys with psychedelic arrangements. The interplay between both, reminiscent of Australian band King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizzard, helps to break up the record's seeming endless barrage of top-tier riffs. Orc's first half is an angular, unpredictable listen that left me surprised on my first listen multiple times. The mid-track tempo-change on 'Keys to the Castle', where the band veers from mid-range groovy guitarwork into a much slower, drum-dominant section, and finally into a stoned raga-rock finale, nearly gave me whiplash.

Orc's second half, however, sees the band screeching to a halt abruptly, as 'Cadaver Dog' abruptly pulls the rug out from under the chugging riff-train, and the band recommences at a glacial pace. Penultimate track 'Drowned Beast' is the record at its most torpid, as the thick guitar leads grind to a near-halt, hashing out and repeating themselves, with vocalist John Dwyer's vocals adopt a liquid, distorted twist. 

As with prior [Thee] Oh Sees outings, the band runs the gamut of different styles, influences, tempos, feelings, and textures, tied together by vocalist John Dwyer's vocals, which veer between gruff grunts and more intimate crooning. Despite sounding uniquely like themselves, sections on 'Nite Expo' echo Melt Banana's frenetic, unhinged, distorted assault; Orc kicks off with a pop-y distorted guitar line in the vein of the aforementioned King Gizzard on 'the Static God'; and the drone-y conclusion to 'Keys to the Castle', as the sitars collapse in on themselves, brings Earth's later records to mind. 'Jettison', which features intricate drumwork courtesy of Paul Quattrone, features a nearly jazz-like break in between distorted guitar lead licks. 'Cadaver Dog', which sees a Hammond Organ form the backdrop against which the guitars rage, is another altogether unique case.

In summary, Orc brings the sonic variety [Thee] Oh Sees have been known for throughout their prolific career. Orc appeals equally to my metal-honed riff-o-philia, as well as my soft spot for jam-tinted psych explorations. Comparisons to King Gizzard's Nonagon Infinity may be unavoidable, but in the absence of a King Gizz record able to top last year's output, Orc may be one of the finest fuzz-addled psych release of the year.

Orc will be released August 25th via Castle Face Records. The entire album can be streamed here.

Don't call it a comeback - Idiot In Remission's Top 10 Albums of 2017 (so far)

Hello internet. It's been a while. Miss me?
Probably not, but I certainly have missed you. In the 2+ years since I (ostensibly) shuttered Idiot In Remission, things have changed - I left a two-year relationship, finished university, started graduate school, developed a passion for powerlifting (of all things) and, as of yesterday, submitted my thesis, effectively concluding almost twenty consecutive years of education as I await formal recognition of my Master's degree by the university. As  I enter a new chapter in my life - namely, bidding Montreal, my home of six years, farewell - and find myself confronted with the existential horror of being in my mid-20s and attempting to break into the job market, I've decided to reactivate Idiot In Remission.

Looking back on my posts from 2014 (and earlier) brings me a mixture of nostalgia and embarrassment - this blog was a pivotal outlet for self-expression during a tumultuous time in my life. Perhaps I'm seeking to recapture that juvenile spirit, or perhaps I'm simply yearning for that self-expression. Regardless, it's 2017, and I have a lot of ideas for Idiot in Remission that I'm itching to bring to fruition. But for now, let's break the blog back in with my top 10 of 2017 so far:



10. Hellripper - Coagulating Darkness

Coagulating Darkness is the debut LP from Scottish one-man black/speed metal project Hellripper. The genre fusion, epitomized by Venom's rabid, seminal, NWOBHM-on-steroids approach, has proven a fruitful one, with plenty of modern acts such as Midnight, Chapel, Omega, and Black Fast churning out fist-pumping, razor-sharp heavy metal riffs accompanied by throat-shredding vocals with the subtlety of a jet engine. Hellripper, a relative newcomer, nevertheless hits the ground running with 'Bastard of Hades'. The record is a too-short tour-de-force chock full of catchy riffs, excellent songwriting, and a surprising amount of groove. It might lack the brooding, dejected atmospherics of its black metal contemporaries, but Coagulating Darkness' strength comes from its obtuseness. In a genre where minimalism is king, Hellripper's guitar solos, speed metal riffs, and the unbridled insanity of its songs are a breath of fresh air. This project has huge potential, and I can't wait for what comes next.

Stream Coagulating Darkness here.

9. Old Tower - Rise of the Spectre

Old Tower is a secretive dungeon synth project hailing from the Netherlands. Now, I know what you're thinking - what the hell is "dungeon synth"? Thankfully, someone did a better job of explaining than I ever could. Go read this. In short, dungeon synth is an offshoot of dark ambient that evolved concurrent with black metal, but never really experienced as much of an explosion as the latter. Think the cheesy synth opening to Burzum's Det Som Engang Var, or Summoning's Lugburz. Regardless, Old Tower delivers a droning, haunted, ominous experience that straddles the oft-fine line in dungeon synth between too cheesy and sublimely beautiful. This is dusty, melancholic music that could be the accompaniment to silent horror movies in the vein of Nosferatu. Droning, plaintive synth lines punctuated with subtle symphonic elements and an echoing bass drum round out the experience. This is one of Old Tower's finest releases yet.

Stream Rise of the Spectre here.

8. Sorority Noise - You're Not as ____ as You Think

Emo revival is an extremely polarized genre for me.  The discrepancy between the genre's best and the rest is one of the most stark I've encountered. I'm not ashamed to say that I can only really tolerate modern adherents to the genre when they fuse the oft-maligned hardcore offshoot with pop punk - the apex of which I will maintain was the Hotelier's 2014 release Home, Like No Place Is There. Three years later, however, Connecticut's Sorority Noise delivered their third full-length You're Not as ____ as You Think, and completely blew me away. This is the genre at its absolute strongest - huge guitar leads, heart-wrenching lyrics delivered in a morose baritone, and driven, tight songwriting. In a sense, what I enjoy most about Sorority Noise is their ability to maintain an emo aesthetic while avoiding the fixtures of the genre I cannot abide -  namely, the nasal, whiney vocals and the math rock theatrics, which I find clash horribly with the atmosphere and subject matter of a genre that's short for "emotional hardcore punk".

Stream You're Not as ____ as You Think here.

7. Oiseaux-Tempête - AL​-​'AN ! الآن (And Your Night Is Your Shadow - A Fairy​-​Tale Piece of Land to Make Our Dreams)

What a title. French experimental post-rock collective Oiseaux-Tempête, inspired by a journey around the Mediterranean, the recent political turmoil in the west, and the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, released their fifth studio album this past April. Making post-rock in 2017 usually means one of two things: either you're an old fixture of the genre continuing to explore your own vision (see the new Godspeed You! Black Emperor LP set to drop in September), or you're a part of the now-tired third-wave that took inspiration from Explosions in the Sky and are releasing tired, cookie-cutter instrumental rock with faux-emotional delivery. Exceptions, of course, exist, but Oiseaux-Tempête (and the new Grails, but we'll get to that later) prove that the divide isn't as clear cut as you might think. Sure, the project purveys yawning, droning sonic soundscapes, but those seemingly-hackneyed musical choices are balanced with the project's striking blend of sitar, 'oud, tabla, and traditional rock instruments. Far from being gimmicky, the unique instrumentation on AL-'AN! creates an atmosphere that's beggars comparison; transcending the sample-based tension of their previous outing Utopiya. This is a truly unique sounding record that can't be adequately described in a brief review.

Stream AL-'AN! here.

6. Black Cilice - Banished From Time

 Mysterious Portugese black metal project Black Cilice is notable for one thing that becomes apparent within the first few seconds of listening to their new release Banished From Time - that this is black metal at its most inaccessible, most cacophonous (although the new Obskuritatem gives Black Cilice a run for its money), and most uncompromising. The guitars sound like they were recorded into a computer microphone, and the crash of the drums is almost utterly lost in the grainy fuzz of the atmosphere, and yet there's something intriguing about Black Cilice's music that keeps drawing me back in. It's an intriguing mix of total sonic maximalism and minimalism. The music resolves into a pulsating morass of guitar riffs, punctuated with the frenetic pound of snare and bass drums. Vocals are soaked in reverb, and practically inaudible, railing against the wall-of-sound produced by the guitar and drums. Ultimately, while it may scare away Deafheaven fanboys, Black Cilice's music is one of the finest examples of raw black metal done right.

Stream Banished From Time here.

5. Elder - Reflections of a Floating World

The fourth outing from Massachusetts-based band Elder has the band continue to do the impossible - making stoner/doom interesting. For a genre that has struggled to fill the massive shoes left by Electric Wizard, Cathedral, and Sleep for so long, Elder are one of the finest modern iterations of the genre, and have been masterfully blending the riff-based drive of stoner rock with the slow, thunderous pace of doom metal. Reflections of a Floating World, like its predecessor Lore, makes excellent use of progressive rock elements as well, reconciling the thick, Iommi-like drive of Kyuss with the more theatric virtuoso fluorishes of Yes. The result is a stunning journey through riff-based soundscape that only ever lets up for clear-skied atmosphere to shine through. Barring a surprise release from one of the genre's greats, this may be the greatest stoner rock/doom outing of 2017.

Stream Reflections here.

4. All Them Witches - Sleeping Through the War

Nashville psych quartet All Them Witches bring their signature jam-band-meets-blues-meets-experimental-meets-stoner-rock to heel on their newest outing, Sleeping Through the War. Swaying between gentle psychedelia and fuzzed-out distortion, All Them Witches have always been notable because of their jack-of-all-trades approach to their sound, which evades both comparison and imitation. Opening song 'Bulls', which introduces the record with a gentle guitar chord before launching into a heavy riff, demonstrates the band's strengths perfectly. As the band's fifth release, Sleeping Through the War sees the band continue their meticulous ability to transition between influences, moods, and textures. Their requisite desert rock banger 'Bruce Lee' aside, the album is a masterful synthesis of various different styles. In this regard, it's short-sighted to call All Them Witches a master of none, because in the fertile niche they play in, they are the undisputed masters. 

Stream Sleeping Through the War here.

3. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me

Mount Eerie, the project behind lo-fi and indie folk figurehead Phil Elverum (also of the Microphones), are notable for their vast, diverse catalogue over a career spanning nearly a decade. The project's latest release, A Crow Looked At Me, arrived earlier this year a few months after the death of Elverum's wife Geneviève. As such, to call it heart-wrenching would be an understatement. A Crow Looked At Me is deceptively minimalist - most songs feature Elverum's crooned vocals, his guitar, and not much else. Even Elverum's lyrics are stripped back, as he numbly recites his experiences dealing with his wife's death - meeting with their counselor, at first walking hand-in-hand, then driving when his wife became too weak; receiving a backpack in the mail for his daughter that Geneviève had bought in secret, among others. The defining feature of this record, thus, is its ability to convey Elverum's raw, unfiltered grief. Perhaps abetted by the bare-bones instrumentation, forcing the listener to pay attention to Elverum's voice, this is one of the most emotionally visceral releases I personally have ever heard. A Crow Looked At Me's ability to elicit such a powerful emotional response makes it difficult to sit through more than once - arguably its most striking quality is its ability to convey emotion through music. In this regard, A Crow Looked At Me is one of the most emotionally raw releases of the year, and potentially of all time.

Stream A Crow Looked At Me here.

2. Havukruunu - Kelle Surut Soi

  Two years after the release of their sleeper hit Havulinaan, which lit up the black metal underground with its breathtaking black/folk metal fusion, Finland's Havukruunu return with an even more brazen sophomore LP on Kelle Surut Soi. Havukruunu's formula is as simple as it is effective - channel the general instrumentals of Primordial, Drudkh, and Horn, distil the atmospherics into misty, yawning soundscapes, hammer them home with folk riffs that would make Isengard blush, and wrap things up with unique vocals that sound like a Berserker gearing up for battle. While the project favors longer songs that allow them to show off their songwriting and riff-writing mettle, Kelle Surut Soi never suffers from boredom. This is black metal at full speed, and never falters for a moment. More notably, Kelle Surut Soi eschews the darkness Havukruunu toyed with in the past, in lieu of anthemic, upbeat folk metal rooted within a black metal context - think Hammerheart if Quorthon used more blast beats. Even as folk metal lapses further into "melodeath with violins", the black metal underground manages to keep folk metal alive and well, and nowhere is this clearer than with Havukruunu.

Stream Kelle Surut Soi here.

1. Slowdive - Slowdive    

Speaking of comebacks, twenty-two(!!) years after their third LP Pygmalion led to the band's untimely end, British shoegaze pioneers Slowdive return with a new, self-titled LP in what's become one of the most divisive reunions of the year. The biggest question that has emerged around Slowdive's newest release has been, namely, how can a band who achieved fame via adolescent angst (even by the band's admission) possibly live up to the hype and semi-mythical status Souvlaki has earned in the underground? A precedent exists with My Bloody Valentine's m b v, a flash-in-the-pan 2013 release that achieved only lukewarm praise, and was unable to follow up the legendary Loveless. Nevertheless, Slowdive's reunion LP, in my opinion, stands by itself as a unique blend of old and new. Straddling the divide between the dreamy, goth-inflicted melancholy of Souvlaki and the minimalist, more experimental Pygmalion, Slowdive delivers a mature, meticulous sound that manages to reflect the nearly twenty-year gap between albums - it's unmistakably the band that wrote 'Souvlaki Space Station', but the adolescent despair has been replaced with a more measured, yet equally emotional feeling. I was fully prepared to be disappointed, but Slowdive, in my opinion, managed to deliver on the hype.

Stream 'Sugar For the Pill', from Slowdive, here.

Honorable Mentions:

Blanck Mass - World Eater
Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun
Ride - Weather Diaries
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration
Crurifragium - Beasts of the Temple of Satan
The Cherry Wave - Shimaru
The Black Angels - Death Song
Forest Swords - Compassion
Emyn Muil - Elenion Ancalima
Tchornobog - Tchornobog
Algiers - The Underside of Power
Xiu Xiu - Forget
Brand New - Science Fiction
Incantation - Profane Nexus
King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizzard - Murder of the Universe
[Thee] Oh Sees - Orc 
Toro Y Moi - Boo Boo
death's dynamic shroud.wmv - Heavy Black Heart

Upcoming releases I'm excited for:

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers

Dälek - Endangered Philosophies

Street Sects - Rat Jacket

Archgoat - LP 2018

Airiel - Molten Young Lovers

The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Always Foreign
Converge - The Dusk in Us
Midnight - Sweet Death & Ecstasy
Wolves in the Throne Room - Thrice Woven

And that's all for now! I hope to do a bunch more with the blog in the near future, including expanding a little bit more to my other hobbies.

Reviews for death's dynamic shroud.wmv and Oh Sees' new records coming soon! Stay tuned...

~-IIR

A Forest of Stars break their silence

        A Forest of Stars, that Sheffield-based metal band that has masterfully interwoven black metal, folk metal, and psychedelic rock within a bizarre, steam-powered Victorian aesthetic, have at long last announced their upcoming return. In a deluge of new information released via Facebook after their vocalist Mister Curse recovered from an unspecified illness, the follow-up to the band's 2012 LP A Shadowplay For Yesterdays has a confirmed name, release date, track listing, and art.

       The record will be called Beware the Sword You Cannot See, and will see the light of day on February 27th next year (stylized '1895' by the band) through Prophecy. Thematically, the band (in true Victorian histrionics) had this to say:

For our fourth long playing wax cylinder, we have elected to slip down the rabbit hole of death. Cliche notwithstanding, the overarching concepts here are embroiled in the stumbling off of this mortal coil and the pleasures that go with said activity.
Premature grave population, enclosed spaces, panic, worms, maggots, creeping crawling things. Alongside these happy thoughts, we explore rot, mould, feotor, decay and dilapidation. The crumbling of minds, cities and epochs. Mental collapse.

In order to keep with the programme, we also stick our hobnailed boots into organised religion. Physically abusing angels and delousing the house of god.

        Beware the Sword You Cannot See's artwork is equally insane, echoing Hieronymous Bosch's depictions of hell, and involving a train made of flesh, skeletons wearing party hats, and angels shooting up. One of the images is posted below, but all three beautiful pictures can be found here. Incidentally, it was done by Alex CF of English post-metal explorers Light Bearer, a band fans of Cult of Luna will definitely enjoy.

Click to zoom in.

        Track listings, preorders, and more information to drool over can be found on Prophecy's website. A Forest of Stars have been one of my favorite bands for quite some time now, and this information is incredibly exciting.

New Archgoat Song - "Congregation of Circumcised"

         

        It shouldn't be a surprise that I love Archgoat dearly. Their logo, their over-the-top album titles, the fact that they've been around since 1989...everything about the Finnish war metal act is brilliant - including their new song. Torn from their imminent full-length the Apocalyptic Triumphator (which is set to be released January 25th by Debemur Morti), 'Congregation of Circumcised' ratchets the intensity up ten fold, opening with a volcanic eruption of monstrous guitars and blistering drums that careen as fast as a pyroclastic flow.

         Eventually, the band returns to its signature vomitous pace just in time for all chaos to break loose as the song falls in around Lord Angelslayer's gurgled roar, even as a guitar solo - a true rarity in the putrid line of music Archgoat purveys - closes the track off. The overall feel of the song even feels mildly grindcore, coming to an abrupt halt with a howled "LUCIFER" breaking off. Combined with 'Nuns, Cunts and Darkness' (streamable here), Archgoat's newest outing does not seem about to disappoint. 

          You can stream 'Congregation of Circumcised' at No Clean Singing here.

#Metalgate - An (attempt at) objective dissection

     

     

Many folks with nothing better to do than watch nerds fling shit at each other over the internet may have noticed the recent influx of all things related to #Gamergate - an ostentatious "call for reform" in video game journalism that has split gaming culture down the middle. The entire debacle began when the boyfriend of a prominent internet feminist Zoe Quinn published an angry blog post alleging that she had slept with a number of eminent gaming journalists in order to get good press for her new game Depression Quest. The full bevy of accusations, if you can be damned to read it, can be found here.

       

        For better or for worse, Quinn's boyfriend's blog post single-handedly ignited a massive controversy as two sides gradually materialized - the arbitrarily named "pro" Gamergate side, arguing for ethical standards in gaming journalism, and the similarly randomly named "anti" Gamergate side, which drawn the internet's favorite despised subculture - social justice advocates, disparagingly dubbed "social justice warriors" (SJWs). "Anti" Gamergate folks, similar to their opponents, are also calling for standards in journalism, but any common ground the two sides had was quickly blown away as both sides proceeded to dox, harass, and make death threats against each other in what's amounted to a massive internet tantrum that's been, at its best, cringe-inducing, and, at its worst, positively worrying. As someone not too versed in video games (the last game I bought was Skyrim in 2011...), this entire kerfluffle seems to me to have lost its original vision and morphed into a war of attrition between pro- and anti- "internet social justice" camps.

         And normally, I wouldn't care too much, but over the past week, metal music has emerged as a theatre in this ongoing geek war, and my hope with this blog post is to (hopefully) clarify some misinformation and hopefully discuss why "metalgate" amounts to nothing more than concerned hand-wringing on both sides of the issue. 

        The entire "metalgate" affair began with this article earlier this week on Death Metal Underground acting as a "call to arms" for folks to prevent gamergate from happening in the metal scene. In this post, writer Cory Van der Pol dramatically misinterprets several quotes from eminent metal journalists as the advent of a great cleansing - an invasion into the precious flower that is heavy metal, which will deprive it of its ethos in the name of "political correctness". While there is some ground to the DMG post - namely, attempts to make metal "more sociable" have usually been rejected by the underground - the article is very literally making a massive deal out of two quotations, and essentially claiming that the same sequence of events leading to gamergate will eventually infect heavy metal.

       The problem is, there is no definitive proof that the so-called Great Hipster Invasion of Metal is actually anything more than an artistic shift. How many so-called "hipster metal" bands are politically outspoken and trying to alter the way metal fans behave? Deafheaven? No. Altar of Plagues? No. Krallice? Guess. Are their PBR-sipping legionnaires doing anything other than changing the demographics of metal shows? Well, besides the odd misinformed Sunbather bandwagoner whining that metal fans don't take them seriously, or Noisey throwing a tantrum about how people don't like certain bands, there's been very little pressure on metal musicians to "PC-ify" their act. This post on  Servile Insurrection compiles a list of perceived SJW-mediated slights against metal music over the past year, and while it may seem like cherrypicking, the writer does hit on two good points:

1. Social justice advocates are present in the metal scene.
2. These people are not taken seriously because they view music as a political message instead of artistic expression.

         In response to the rising amount of "metalgate" press, resident MetalSucks Babymetal aficionado Vince Neilstein wrote a scathing response that, for the most part, resonated deeply with me. Neilstein calls the debacle, which is rapidly gaining press, as "entirely manufactured. No one, or no group, is banding together to try and change metal in any one specific way — the threat is entirely imagined. Certain social values enter the metalsphere simply because those values are spreading throughout society as a whole[...]the idea of #metalgate ignores one very important fact about metal: lyrics mostly don’t matter to metalheads, it’s all about the music itself. Which further proves that the people writing this #metalgate stuff have at most a basic familiarity with metal; they’re not in metal culture so much as observers looking for a cause to latch onto."

        And you know what? He's got a point. With the exception of DMG, the vast majority of asshats feeding the #metalgate fire are at best only partially involved in metal. Return of Kings is primarily a men's rights activism (MRA) site that takes aim at social justice wherever it manifests. Speaking from experience, very few of the in-depth metal fans I know are outstandingly political - preferring instead to focus on music (as Neilstein said) than on political message. Obviously the tender question of liking Burzum presents an ethical dilemma, but very few Burzum fans will openly plug Varg's opinions.

     On the other side of the fence, with the disappointing exception of Kim Kelly's calling metal "deeply conservative" (seriously, Kim? Surprised you of all people would say that), the side whining about hurt feelings plugs such underground gems as...Slayer and All that Remains. Hell, can you even trust the Washington Post as an authority on metal? The ongoing frantic push for metal fans to accept Myrkur's frighteningly unimpressive music, which has boiled down to accusations of misogyny when people point out Myrkur's only discerning factor is her gender, is yet another case. Noisey even lashed out at metal fans who call gimmick on Myrkur as "people who still live with their parents", rapidly extrapolating those fans' reservations into "speaks a lot to gender politics in music in general with how this scenario played out". What all of these critics have in common is that they are not primarily music fans, but folks only semi-interested in metal trying to push a message. 

        Regrettably, the stage is set for a repeat of gamergate, with the "anti" side (loathe as I am to describe it that way) trying to push a social justice agenda again, this time with metal a a bargaining chip, and the "pro" side howling "get out, poser". In any case, this debacle is nothing more than a thinly veiled political debate that happens to tangentially involve metal as a catalyst. Given the gamergate precedent, the music itself will soon become totally irrelevant in this drama as people flock in for a chance to yell down their political opponents instead of promote reform - whether toward or away from political correctness. 

       And this is disheartening, because, as the DMG article writes, "metal is beyond the left-right divide." True, metal can be highly political - see Cattle Decapitation, plenty of thrash songs, even NSBM is an (admittedly disagreeable) form of political expression. But there's just as many bands content to talk about partying, or sadness, or Satan, or death, etc. Metal is a highly diverse genre, and pigeonholing all fans as X-ist is unfair, and both serves to demonize your target demographic and delegitimize your platform. Politicizing something as un-political as songs called 'Penis Perversor' serves no real goal.

        As I mentioned in a discussion about Sunbather a year later, reform in the metal scene has never come from outliers, political activists, or attempts to make money, but from the nerdy music fans that are content to be weird and record themselves being weird. No amount of whining, no amount of howls of execration, is going to change the fact that, as Jack Black famously said, you can't kill the metal. 

        

Archgoat announce new album, release new song "Nuns, Cunts, and Darkness"

        Archgoat, the Finnish war metal act that, alongside Blasphemy and Beherit, defined the foul subgenre in the early 90s, have announced their fourth full-length: dubbed, in true (or dare I say trve) Archgoat histrionics, The Apocalyptic Triumphator. The LP will follow 2011's stellar Heavenly Vulva: Christ's Last Rites, and is slated for release by Debemur Morti on January 26th in Europe and 27th in North America. 

         To that end, the band have debuted a new song from the record. With a title like 'Nuns, Cunts & Darkness', it's easy to tell what you're in for. Beginning with a fiendishly catchy hook, the song barrages the listener through four minutes of Archgoat's signature mix of blood-curdling brutality and tongue-in-cheek obtuseness. As Lord Angelripper gurgles and burps his way through the song, it's difficult not to bang your head, and the band even makes use of some chilling choirs as they did on now-classic Archgoat bits like 'Goat and the Moon'. 

You can stream 'Nuns, Cunts & Darkness' below:

Taake announce new album, debut new track

        Three years after the stellar Noregs Vaapen, the Norwegian force of nature that is Taake will be releasing their newest record on December 8th. The record, entitled Stridens Hus ('House of Strife'), will be the one-man project's sixth full-length in a career that is about to turn twenty. 

         To celebrate the release of this news, a new song from the record has surfaced. 'Det Fins en Prins' ('A Prince is Found') is quintessentially Taake - kinetic, groovy, and unafraid to stand black metal on its head compositionally. You can stream 'Det Fins en Prins' below:

Cult of Fire announce new EP

   

          Cult of Fire, the insane Czech black metal act whose spellbinding sophomore album मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्यान 's brilliant mix of frenetic black metal and scintillating Eastern instrumentals earned them a last-minue place on many best-of lists last year, are slated to release a new EP, Čtvrtá Symfonie Ohně (Czech for 'Fourth Symphony of Fire', appropriately) this December. To that end, the band have debuted a new song from the album, 'Vltava'. With regards to its name, all I can find is that the Vltava is the longest river in the Czech Republic.

       While this seems to suggest a more patriotic slant for the upcoming EP, 'Vltava' is Cult of Fire at their best - frenetic, chaotic drums rattle against the backdrop as the guitars weave an epic atmosphere that pummels the listener to death, reminding me of Canadian black metallers Forteresse at times. While the sitar will definitely be missed, Čtvrtá Symfonie Ohně will definitely feature that blistering Cult of Fire sound we've all been thirsting after.

        You can stream 'Vltava' below. Čtvrtá Symfonie Ohně will be released by Iron Bonehead on December 8th.

An in-depth analysis of the new Bring Me the Horizon song

       

         

          Hey all! Sorry for the silence, my life has been in a turbulent state of chaos for the last two months as I get reacquainted with the horror of university and start putting some gears in motion for what comes after. But now that things are relatively stable, I should be able to post a little bit more often.
           To that end, let's talk about Bring Me the Horizon's new single, 'Drown'. Allegedly supposed to be released as a single on December 7th, the song leaked about a week back and the band responded to the leak in the same way they dealt with the leak of their last full-length, Sempiternal, back in 2013 - by releasing it almost two months early.
            As time goes on, and Sempiternal stands effectively unopposed by any other metalcore act in terms of its vision, one's first instinct is to praise the band for putting a fresh new spin on the often-repetitive, rarely interesting metalcore sound that's been in a bit of a rut for the past three years. And while Bring Me the Horizon as a band have always been quite good at reinventing themselves with each release - tracked by yours truly back in 2012 - 'Drown' has left me scratching my head.
            To its credit, the single gives us a decent look into the creative vision of the band, who have a knack for disappearing into the English moors to record new albums. But that doesn't entirely excuse the fact that this song sounds like a B-side from one of Coldplay's worse albums...it's an interesting twist, but at the end of the day the song is severely lacking, even if there's a bit more to this video than usual.
          The fact of the matter is that Bring Me the Horizon's last two albums have all had a much more serious slant - 2010's There is a Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It, There is a Heaven, Let's Keep it a Secret toyed with themes of suicide, while frontman Oli Sykes has gone on record as saying that Sempiternal was all about his ketamine addiction. Lyrically, 'Drown' is basically a plea to someone to not let Oli Sykes 'drown' - presumably, a flimsy metaphor for a relapse into his ketamine addiction - but the song (and the video) all point to the continued 'maturation' (I hate using that word) that Bring Me the Horizon have been trying to get a grip on for years - even if the video features a zany 'exorcism' replete with blue vomit (how very 2006).

Exhibit A:

     While many of you will be drawn into Oli Sykes' seductive gaze, the symbol behind him is one that the band have been playing a lot with recently and is the emblem of Aleister Crowley's esoteric religion Thelema. Now, this is a pretty obscure symbol for a metalcore group to be touting - especially when their scene is replete with Christian fundamentalist shitheads, and while it's possible the band picked the Thelema symbol because it looks cool, its significance as a semi-pagan icon suggests that they're trying to be anti-religious but in a "look, we know how to use wikipedia" type way.

     Exhibit B: the first fifteen seconds of 'Drown'. I've heard similar passages on a This Will Destroy You song, and from Sempiternal we know the band is definitely listening to a little post-rock. The introduction to the new single closes the gap between what they're doing and what they want to do, even if Oli Sykes still has to sing to appease the girls. Regardless of whether or not they succeed, Bring Me the Horizon are getting closer and closer to it. Maybe Oli Sykes' decision to use clean vocals on this song is his way of 'growing up' from the screams of metalcore? Either way, the band still have a long road ahead of them before they can even be remotely linked to post-rock. 

Exhibit C: There's the sense that this music video is extremely backward-glancing - without music, the video could be something the band released during their Suicide Season touring cycle - the garish colors, the tongue-in-cheek 'zany' scenester humor, all of it is contrasted with the music, which is as far from the band's previous sound as possible. It's almost as if the band is nervously trying to poke fun at themselves. 

        The only problem is, at the end of the day, 'Drown' is just not a very good song. When compared to some of the hard-hitters on Sempiternal ('House of Wolves' springs to mind), it can't hold up. As a song, it takes none of the risks and blazes none of the new territory we'd expect a new Bring Me the Horizon song to try. And while we can learn a thing or two by analyzing the video, that can't really excuse the poor quality of this new material.

           

Babymetal is this year's Sunbather

      I get it. Babymetal are cute. Babymetal are catchy. Babymetal are Japanese. Babymetal are the best idea since gravity. There is literally nothing wrong with Babymetal and if you don't like them, you're just a greasy grumpy elitist who doesn't know how to have fun since you never leave your mom's basement because Babymetal are fun. Why can't you have fun!? You must like Babymetal. Babymetal are one of the best metal bands in existence. Babymetal are the only real metal band in existence. Babymetal.

      Back in 2013, the internet got in a stir over a certain J-pop act named Babymetal, who, despite later confirming they had no idea what it was, used a decent amount of generic melodeath/NWOBHM guitar lines in their music and happened to have a heavier backing band than one would normally find in a J-pop girl group. Now, normally, people would chuckle a little, roll their eyes at the now-so-characteristic "Japaneseness" of the spectacle, and move on with their lives. But regrettably, that's not entirely what happened. Well, not at all.

     The past year has seen an explosion of hype surrounding this act. They opened for Metallica at Heavy Montreal a few weeks back, and have every yellow-fever-stricken weeaboo absolutely gushing unending praise, citing the same hackneyed argument: "Only metal elitists could dislike this!" Well, I'm far from a metal elitist, and while I don't find the band's music that tantalizing (always was more of a K-pop dude), Babymetal fans, between their superiority complexes over liking something as stupid as a J-pop band and their inability to make a good argument, are insufferable.

      A few months back, I wrote a post condemning the unfair hype Sunbather garnered last year. In it, I criticized the insistence that disliking the album made you an ELITIST who didn't want to see metal move in a less traditional direction, as well as retrospectively noting that the music was nothing special. With Babymetal, I see the exact same series of events. 

       1. Band uses accessory metal elements to appeal to a broader audience.

       2. Band is hailed as 'visionary'.

       3. Everyone points fingers at a "metal elitist" strawman who does the unthinkable and has a                 differing opinion.

    Except, somehow, the Babymetal hype is even worse. Vince of MetalSucks blathered about how the music is "incredibly complicated"  in a masturbatory post calling them "the best thing to happen to metal in the last decade". The convenient fact that Babymetal is comprised of three girls has unleashed the social justice wolves on the band's detractors with cries of 'misogyny' (Never mind they probably call Butcher Babies 'boob metal'), and NPR even compared them to Oranssi Pazuzu. Sunbather bandwagoners, while still insistent it was the "dawn of a new age of black metal", had the added limitation of being fans of a niche genre (read: hipsters). Babymetal, because of their listenability and spread mostly via YouTube as an internet meme, have developed an insane penetrance and just as many loudmouthed fans.

     But beyond that, Babymetal fans use almost exactly the same arguments as Sunbather proponents did last year. In fact, they're so interchangeable I made a chart (click to enlarge):

     Now, let's get one thing straight: there are good aspects of Babymetal's huge exposure. Namely, it will definitely cause a surge of interest in Japan's thriving heavy metal scene, which contains some absolutely amazing acts like the serial-killer-obsessed doom band Church of Misery or the unrestrained insanity of Sigh, whose ridiculous compositions give Deathspell Omega a run for their money. Just as well, maybe more people will get into metal now, etc.

     But at the end of the day, Babymetal is purely a corporate gimmick - the band didn't even know what metal was when they started out, so I'll be damned if they know who Slayer are. And their fans, like all other fans of gimmicks in metal, hurt more than help with their blind refusal to see it as one. So, with all due respect to Babymetal, fuck Babymetal fans.

 


   


   

Supergroup Alert - Martröð

   

       Fallen Empire, the American label that this year has been cranking out unforgettably crazy black metal from acts like Skàphe, Xothist, and Misþyrming, have announced the signing and upcoming release of a new band, with the equally unpronounceable moniker Martröð (which can be  be roughly transliterated as 'Martreuth'). Despite the band's Scandinavian flourishes to their name, their guitarist is the only true Norseman in the group - and just so happens to have a little project of his own you might know of called WORMLUST.


        Followers of Idiot in Remission will know that I absolutely adore Wormlust, so when I saw its mastermind H.V Lyngdal would be contributing guitars to Martröð, my interest was piqued, and, to my amazement, I realized the group is a dream come true for black metal nerds like me. The lineup features MKM of French destroyers Antaeus and Aosoth on vocals, Jef "Wrest" Whitehead of Leviathan on keyboards, Esoterica of Krieg, and Thorns of German band Barad Dür on drums.

        According to Fallen Empire, Martröð will be releasing a two-track EP later this year. Get excited! Hopefully this supergroup works out better than Wrest's last endeavor... 

Svartidauði release live album "III.XX.MMX"

       

          Well this came out of nowhere.

         The Icelandic BM thugs in Svartidauði have released a live album from a show in 2010 they did with  Urfaust to commemorate the rash of volcanic eruptions that have rocked Iceland recently. The album, recorded the day in 2010 when the volcano Eyjafjallajökull (try saying that three times fast) cataclysmically erupted and stalled air traffic over Europe for almost a month, is exactly what you'd expect it to be coming from Svartidauði - violent, dark, and uncompromising, but what makes this release so great is the band's bombastic press release, posted through their Facebook page:

On the 20th of March 2010, we performed a ritual with our brothers in Urfaust here in Reykjavik. As the last notes of the night faded out the volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted, causing the rest of the world billions upon billions of dollars in economical- and environmental damage.
So, to celebrate that our lands have again begun to ejaculate fire and toxic smoke we've put recordings of our whole set from that night online. (Source)

         I absolutely adore Svartidauði but this sounds like a mix of something Gaahl and Nathan Explosion would say.
 
         You can stream III.XX.MMX below:



       

Misþyrming continue Iceland's penchant for awesome metal

      Iceland, despite its historical association with the rest of Scandinavia, never really partook in the extreme metal explosion that rocked Scandinavia (or, indeed, the rest of Europe) in the early 90s. Sure, acts like Sólstafir began as rather traditional Viking metal, but within a few years had taken the project in a completely different direction. Indeed, it seems many Icelandic acts are loathe to do the same thing twice - Sigur Rós' experimentations with shoegaze at their inception fused with more pop-minded sensibilities as the band aged - and this trend extends to the country's metal.
      Icelandic metal stands apart from its church-burning-and-corpsepaint-wearing Scandinavian compatriots in many ways. Most notably, and unsurprisingly, is the heady element of atmosphere that almost all Icelandic acts seem to expertly work into their music. For Sigur Rós, this takes the form of dreamy, Slowdive-esque clouds, but insofar as metal acts, Svartidauði, for example, contrast frenetic drumming with sinister guitars to create a nefarious, feverish miasma. Meanwhile, Wormlust's nightmarishly cold synthwork and freezing psychedelia paint a much different picture.
      Enter Misþyrming, an extremely young (as in, formed last year) Icelandic black metal band signed to Fallen Empire Records, who are fast becoming one of my favorite underground BM labels. As of writing, Misþyrming have no material released, with their debut full-length Söngvar elds og óreiðu ('Songs of Fire and Chaos') due October 19th, but have released two tracks of blistering black metal to whet our appetites.
'Söngur heiftar', the album's opening track, echoes Svartidauði's brutal attack while toying with the faintest hint of melody as the drums and guitar surge through catchy combinations - but if 'melody' makes you think Dissection's sorrowful passages, you'll be sorely mistaken. Misþyrming are nothing if not staunchly violent, with the guitar melodies bereft of any sort of comfort.

      Fallen Empire, who just this past year have released two mind-blowing black metal records from Skáphe and Xothist, are well-known for Misþyrming's take on black metal, but this doesn't diminish the Icelandics' skill at songwriting whatsoever - contrarily, it makes me even more excited for Söngvar elds og óreiðu to see the light of day.

      You can stream Misþyrming's two available songs below. 

Falls of Rauros premiere new song - "Ancestors of Smoke"

       

     After a stellar sylvan split with Kentucky bluegrass-BM crossover act Panopticon, Maine atmospheric black metal act Falls of Rauros are slated to return this fall (appropriately enough) with their third full-length Believe in No Coming Shore. The record will follow 2012's folk-y, bucolic The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood, and the reclusive project has released Shore's first single in the torrential, ten-minute wandering entitled 'Ancestors of Smoke'. Despite the band's Tolkien-lifted name, the style of atmospheric BM Falls of Rauros purvey has always been closer to the airy ballads and primal ecstasy of the Cascadian scene than the wintery gloom of Evilfeast, or the epic synths of Summoning.

        'Ancestors of Smoke', however, sees the band broadening their sonic palate ever so slightly. From the melodic downpour that opens the song, to the rambling, four-minute solo that closes it, Falls of Rauros manage to show off everything their past two full-lengths have taught them, and tying everything together deftly that the song flows effortlessly. If it is any indication of what Shore has in store for us, Falls of Rauros may prove that the forests of the east coast are just as inspirational and mystical as the redwoods of Cascadia.

         Believe in No Coming Shore will be released in October or November via Bindrune Recordings. You can stream 'Ancestors of Smoke' below: