Since you’re all probably pretty tired of the grind and -core I’m putting up, I’m gonna pump in some more black and death metal for a few posts. A warning though you can count on plenty more of that regardless so have fun. Speaking of: if you’re waiting on the new Immolation, Ulcerate, or Inquisition then I think you’re gonna want to give this a few spins as well. Might be a bit of a sleeper gem for 2013 or just something really solid. And yes I will be getting to those Abyssal albums sometime soon.
I posted Witnessing The Fall last year not long after I saw Svart Crown support Ulcerate on their first North American tour and was very impressed by both their tight performance and quick, dissonant sonic seige. This french horde has obviously been taking their writing even more seriously in the past three years, fleshing out their influences and strengthening their skills to invoke a distorted vision of dissonant blackened death metal entitled Profane that would make Immolation proud. It’s a surprise and crept out of nowhere a few days back and may end up on my year end list.
Profane is a far more absorbing venture through vigorous, bendy American sounding dissonant black/death metal compared to their more tame (or less colorful maybe, while enjoyable) 2010 record. I say American because instead of feeling more creepy-chaotic like French/European acts Deathspell Omega, Hectic Patterns, Dodecahedron, etc. Svart Crown use Profane to channel the fiery, blasphemeous, and weighty sound of Immolation with a wild, open-stringed blackened discord and pacing of Inquisition. That’s not to say the US doesn’t have it’s share of torrential death chaos (Ævangelist for instance, holy hell) but the other brand is far more recognizable obviously.
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CVLT Nation
The Formulas of Death
TRIBULATION Interview0
Posted In Death Metal,Features,Interviews,Music
Let’s start with the present – “The Formulas of Death” was officially released last weekend with a launch gig. How was the event? And are you happy with how the finished album has turned out?
The festivities surrounding the release of the album turned out the way we wanted them to. We had a sold out show and I guess you can say that we arranged the entire night by ourselves. We only played songs from the new album since it was the release show, and that all felt really good. Yes, we are of course very pleased with the way the album turned out.
I’m curious about the genesis of this new record, as it seems like a giant leap in every way from your previous work. I only discovered recently that there was a big delay between the recording and release of “The Horror”, so I’m curious first of all: did the work start on the writing of “Formulas” before “the Horror” was released? And did the time between the recording of the first album and it finally seeing the light of day allow you time to reflect on how you wanted to progress as a band?
The first conscious decision to start writing on a new album came after the release if I’m not mistaken, around three months after the release. Some of the riffs actually date back as far as 8 years. I don’t recall us actively discussing how to progress, it all happened when we were not together really. We didn’t rehearse for quite a long time due to various things and once we started doing it again we were somewhere else. No one objected and no one really said anything about it. To say a cliché; it was all very natural. We all knew that we were going somewhere else, and I guess we are still on the move.
Feast of The Damned…
BLACK BREATH Full 4/20/13 Set
Now Showing!0
Posted In Death Metal,Film,Music,Music Videos,Thrash
Rage loud and ride the flames of hell! BLACK BREATH fucking wrecked shop at the Knitting Factory in New York a week ago. Our videographer comrade Pit Full of Shit was on had to capture the band’s sonic onslaught! Check out the full 46 minutes of mayhem here at CVLT Nation! BLACK BREATH Rules!
HEAVY HOUR (((((5))))) Featuring
NECROT, SORCERY, KRIEG
ICON OF PHOBOS! Now Showing1
Posted In Black Metal,Death Metal,Features,Film,Live Rituals,Music,Music Videos,Streaming
Necrot is a band from The Bay Area that formed from the wake of Acephalix and Bruxers. They began demoing in 2011 as a two piece, you can check out their demo’s here:Necrot Demo’s. In the last year, Sonny from Saviours joined the band as Lead Guitarist and the band has Amped up their sound and have been touring and ruling shows since. This was a show at a Legendary Club in Oakland, known as The Continental, Hendrix, B.B. King, & Marvin Gaye have also performed at this place.
Photo captured by Yusef.
Necrot
Jason G. of Brainsplitter.tk captured the live audio for the creation of this video. Necrot is a band you definitely want to know about. Killer Bay Area Death Metal!
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New BONE SICKNESS LP
“Alone In The Grave”
Streaming Now!0
Posted In Death Metal,Features,Music,Streaming
Diseased riffage and rotting vocals with the aggressive attitude of punk only begins to sum up Olympia’s BONE SICKNESS. On April 30th, the band’s debut album Alone In The Grave will be released via 20 Buck Spin. Today we are streaming the whole deranged piece of torment below…Read the CVLT Nation review of the album HERE!
Review Source:Equivoke
As some of you might be aware of, the Cassette rip of the limited demo (?) version of the upcoming Antediluvian record Λόγος has finally been circling the outer rungs of the web. I really wanted to hear this at the end of 2012 but only heard about it weeks after it was stealthily released. Anyway here we have it.
Pronounced “logos”, a cursory Google search suggests it’s ancient Greek for “I say” or “that which is said” (or possibly “reason” but I am both lazy and out of my element here), lending to the ancient biblical and cryptic tone the band has shouldered thus far even more so. The art is once again very eerie. I know that it’s a little hard to believe but even in demo form (and depending on the future, even more so here) its blatantly obvious this material represents the greatest channeling of archaic global turmoil Antediluvian have achieved.
At first Λόγος seems like it is far more formless and fluid in structure than all their past recordings, and in reality their bizarre conjurations are definitely far more entangled than ever before. They once again manage to keep vigilant and cull only the best 34 minutes it seems. Riffs which are constantly mutating through copious dissonant bends and decrepit time signatures is what makes Antediluvian and their brethren so violating and captivating, and yes they continue to wallow in this filth here.
Something that also continues is the wrecking ball drumming, putting a lot of guys to shame as she coordinates with the frightening guitar work Haasiophis dredges up. “Beyond Diurnal Winds” for example, this chick is a fucking beast. The bass however is fairly lost underneath everything else, I can hear it but it needs either more growl or bounce; this was not a problem on the last few records.
The crooked paths of the songs and their unpredictability forces you to pay attention as there’s so much buried in each track you have no choice, lest you get lost and write it off as poor writing (a hard sell no doubt). On the first listen as it progresses Λόγος grasps a firmer foundation, probably around “The Ash and the Stars” (which is huge and complex) you’ve begun to just get hold of this writhing serpent; a song which is the first time I would argue that the Portal comparisons are actually accurate. Everything before this was almost overwhelming in it’s reveling in chaos, where you only get glimpses as you adjust once again to their craft.
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The singular entity known as JBS, partially responsible for such sonic aberrations as Encoffination and Father Befouled, unleashed this romp into chasmic turmoil upon the world last year. Justin has been increasingly busy the last half of the previous decade building and implanting himself in series of pitch black projects which dabble in various doomy death metal flavors, and this most recent experiment appears as Redolent of Spheres as channeled through the form of Chasm of Nis.
BENCHPRESS Splits Heads
With ‘CONTROLLED BY DEATH’ EP
Streaming0
Posted In Death Metal,Features,Hardcore,Music,Streaming
Metallic tinged hardcore has become a common pollutant in the recent years of contemporary hardcore. In a sea of bands that claim to be influenced by the first wave of 90′s death metal (Entombed, Dismember, Grave etc.), it’s difficult to pick out the ones that are truly proficient at their craft. Furthermore, finding a band that is able to present a formulaic style of music that is still engaging and visceral is something that is even harder. Central PA’s BENCHRPRESS is a prime example of a band that presents straight forward and intensely heavy metallic hardcore while still displaying some clear chops instrumentally. While the death metal influence is totally more of an overtone heard in the excellent guitar leads and thrashier riffs, the band definitely comes from equal parts Hatebreed as they do Slayer and Exodus. Band names can be misleading, but making the mistake of thinking that BENCHPRESS lacks substance would be your own loss.
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Their newest EP, CONTROLLED BY DEATH is streaming in it’s entirety above. Turn up the volume and spin kick a co-worker hard enough to turn them into vapor. BENCHPRESS plans to continue their regional assault of the United States throughout 2013, with rumors of an East Coast tour and an inevitable European tour to close out the year. CONTROLLED BY DEATH will see a CD release through Marked For Death Records this month. Order it at the link below and ACCEPT DEATH.
The New Heavy Metal Intelligentsia
Death Metal Underground Interviews Dr. Karl Spracklen0
Posted In Apocalyptic Blues,Black Metal,Death Metal,Doom,Features,Interviews,Music,Sludge,Thrash
Interview via Death Metal Underground
Academic acceptance of metal accelerates through conferences dedicated to studying metal, professors teaching about heavy metal, investigations of links between heavy metal and religion, and the launch of an international journal for studying metal.
While the metal community may not have found a position on this change as of yet, the very fact of its existence is startling to those of us who experienced metal in the 1980s or 1990s, when society viewed us as outcasts of a likely deranged, intoxicated, criminal and Satanic nature. From the censorship battles of the 1980s, when the Parent’s Music Resource Center (PMRC) attempted to prevent younger people from acquiring metal in record stores and tried to legislate a requirement for lyrical content warning stickers on metal records, to the 1990s bourgeois bohemians wrinkling upper lips at the impolitic and feral nature of metal, society hasn’t liked us.
Luckily, academics don’t see it that way and have forged ahead with metal study, coinciding with a massive “hipness” of metal in the mainstream press and hipster underground. Metalheads might find this interesting because academic study can balance out what social pressures amplify.
We are fortunate to have Dr. Karl Spracklen, Professor of Leisure Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University, here to tell us more about his projects, the International Society for Metal Music Studies, its conference, and its journal.
Why study heavy metal?
Heavy metal is an important part of modern culture and everyday life, so studying heavy metal enables us to understand both of those things. For me, the interesting thing about heavy metal is the tension between metal’s strong sense of being part of a non-mainstream subculture, and metal’s place in the industry of modern pop and rock music. That’s because I’m essentially a sociologist. Other heavy metal scholars might be interested in the way the music is constructed, or the meaning behind song lyrics, or the history of the scene, or the use of heavy metal as a philosophy or ideology of life. Heavy metal is just a subject field, a lens, through which we can think about problems in other academic diciplines.
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Okay, so over the past few years there has been some really fucking good death metal coming out of the US and I gotta say it’s pretty goddamn cool to say the least and CLERIC (feat. members of Kill The Client, Tyrannosorceress and Baring Teeth) is no exception to this. I’m an absolute sucker for some dirty, mean, fist pumping, heavy-as-shit sounding Old School Swedish Death Metal reminiscent stuff. Seriously, for me personally this is some of the best modern Death Metal from the US to grace my ears alongside the likes of ACEPHALIX, MORTUOUS, NECROT, VASTUM, DISMA, FUNEBRARUM and many more. Now.. these three tracks they have up on their bandcamp page seem to be coming out on their forthcoming album entitled “Gratum Inferno” so don’t think this is all you’ll be getting. You’ll just have to wait a while until the whole thing comes out (release date uncertain it seems).
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