One of my favorite American black metal bands, Ash Borer, went on a gnarly tour up and down the East Coast this summer. For those that were lucky enough to see them, I know it was all that and I know they didn’t disappoint. For those humans that got to catch them at the Corpse Fortress in DC, man, that show was electrified darkness. Today CVLT Nation would like to bring you that show for your downloading pleasure. It was captured live by the Charred Resistors crew, and this is one of the sickest live recordings I’ve ever heard. Close live recording sounds like mush, but this recording is clear with intensity, it’s clear with emotion. I mean, I love everything that this band’s recorded, and this is almost up there with some of their studio recordings on how rad it is. It actually transports your brain, your body and your soul to the Corpse Fortress in DC – that shows it’s beyond awesome. It’s beyond rad, it’s Ash Borer live..good looking out Charred Resistors!

Ash Borer Live in D.C. click HERE to Download!

Last year, Rhode Island doom duo The Body released All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood, an album that totally smashed and reshaped everyone’s perception of the doom metal genre. It was an album that featured a full women’s choir, noise, sampling and electronics. All of these elements helped make Waters such a weirdly compelling listen. Underneath all the brain scrambling weirdness is the core of The Body; chest-caving drums, muddy distorted guitar and shrieking vocals. Take those three elements and combine them with the spacious, folky post-rock of North Carolina’s Braveyoung and you get Nothing Passes, The Body & Braveyoung’s new collaborative album. Essentially.

While there are moments on Nothing Passes where you can hear the unique styles of both bands, the overall vibe of the record is something entirely distinct from their past albums. The feel of the first three songs of this record is that of unsettling melody paired with distortion and harsh noise. The first song, the aptly titled ‘Song One’ opens the record with a harsh distorted drone, like the sound of an old generator struggling to power flickering lights. Eerie violin lines creep in and slither on top of the chugging drone. ‘Song Two’ is the only song on the album that harkens back to the last Body record. The 15 minute track is the only song on the record that employs The Body vocalist/guitarist Chip King’s trademark shriek, as well as the only song that has truly discernible riff. The choral elements present throughout Waters are used to great effect on this song.

The title track is a tempo-less dronescape. The first five minutes is made up of a distorted drone that is harshly contrasted by an eerie and repetitive xylophone melody. The drone eventually dwindles into beautiful volume swells and subdued synth passages. After the violence of ‘Song Two,’ the fine tuned ambience of title track assuages the listener and creates the impression that Nothing Passes is essentially a drone record, with one “rocker” song. When the title track ends is where the record does a complete 180. After the drone decays, the lightly strummed acoustic guitar and melodic female vocals kicks off album closer ‘The Vision.’ This is hands down the best song on the album, and one of the best songs of the year. The fact that it comes as the last song is too perfect. The Body & Braveyoung somehow managed to write a full fledged gospel song. The guitars strum and twang, the soulful voice sings about a vision of being visited by angels while the choir hums along. The harsh noise of the rest of the record is still present, but buried deep under all the layers.

Nothing Passes is out September 27th on At A Loss, and is an incredibly intriguing listen. Fans of either band should take note. It was an ample opportunity for The Body to experiment and collaborate before their next album, which I honestly hope is a gospel record.

Insects are crawling slowly around in a cave of blackened drone, while communicating with the feedback that is pouring out of the rock walls. No light shines inside this place, and only shrill screams out of the darkness radiate onto our bleak thoughts. The insects are growing stronger as silence is replaced with the sound of cryptic doom, resonating with the energy of their ancestors. What force has inspired the words I write? It’s the otherworldly sounds of CIRCLE OF EYES. This Bay Area band is made of up some pretty rad humans: Sutekh Hexen’s Kevin Gan Yuen, Necrite’s Thrull & J. from Swamp Witch on vocals. CIRCLE OF EYES’ limited edition self-titled tape will be released by FLENSER Records & is available now! CVLT Nation is super excited to be able to turn the world on to one of our favorite new recording projects. Allow your mind to expand as CIRCLE OF EYES streams for you below!

Preview the cassette artwork after the jump…

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Text/Interview via Canadian Metal Hell
MITOCHONDRION are a blackened death metal band hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia. In their 8+ years as a band, they’ve released 2 full lengths and a split with fellow British Columbian band Gyibaaw. With profound international success touring with Inquisition, the band is well-known throughout the North American metal scene.
I recently had the pleasure to ask Nick Yanchuk (guitar and vocalist) a couple questions regarding Mitochondrion and more…Interview after the jump!

LIVE…SUBURBIA! is a celebration of suburban Americana and youth culture in the post-1960s world, all the way up to the culture mesh of the 90s, co-authored by by Anthony Pappalardo and Max G. Morton. This book looks like a seriously entertaining read, with awesome photos and stories that will either remind you of your youth, or remind you of why you wish this was your youth, instead of your years of Power Rangers and unpronounceable Japanese anime characters. Pappalardo and Morton have compiled home photographs of the legendary subcultures that rocked the suburbs in the pre-cell phone, pre-Internet era, archiving the suburban decay that manifested itself in skateboarding, the KISS army, graffiti, skinheads, hardcore, punk, kung-fu, mall arcades, metal, BMX, drug abuse, and all the rest of the youth movements born from idyllic American hamlets across the nation. The book hits the shelves courtesy of powerHouse Books in October, and the official release party is Friday, September 23, 7–9 PM at the powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn. They are also giving people a chance to submit and display their own suburban photo memorabilia at the release, for more details check the flyer after the jump. Also check out a rad preview video with some awesome, rainbow Sabbath footage from their ’74 performance at California Jam, plus the LIVE…SUBURBIA! book flip.

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Who were some of the biggest weirdos in Los Angeles circa 1983? I would have to say the SST massive & their extended family. Man, I’m glad I got to know them when I was younger, many of their ideas about art, or what we we thought punk was supposed to be, did not really start to make sense to me until I got older. Looking back on it now, the SST crew were more out there than the leather jacket/studs punks on Melrose. They were planting the seeds for the next movement that would change the face of rock & roll. One band that were inspired what was going down on the West Coast in this era was SONIC YOUTH, who released many of their early albums on SST. Then you had Dave Markey from SIN-34, who also happened to be a young film maker with a mind that was full of left of center thoughts. SONIC YOUTH had him direct many of their first videos, which he did only how Dave could do them. This is around the time when GRUNGE came on the scene, but it had not yet been exploited by the media. Thurston took a liking to a young band from the Northwest named NIRVANA. 1991 was the year that all of these freaks of nature decided to tour Europe together, & Dave Markey was on hand to capture all of the mayhem. The footage he caught on film has become the movie we all know, called “The Year Punk Broke 1991″. It’s a pretty rad fucking movie, because it’s made by freakaziods for freakazoids, if you know what I mean! When you watch this documentary, you will see unbelievable live footage of SONIC YOUTH, NIRVANA, DINOSAUR JR., BABES IN TOYLAND & many more. What really strikes me about this celluloid piece of history is the moments of unscripted humor that Markey was able to catch. So after the jump, check out this super epic documentary, “The Year Punk Broke 1991″!

The Year Punk Broke vostfr part 1/6 by NoiseNews

Do you need some chaotic rage in your life? Well if you do, I have the perfect band for you that will meet all of your mayhem needs. Milwaukee’s ARMADA will give you the kick in the head that only killer hardcore can! What the fuck, his band gets me ultra excited with the kind of music that they create – it’s full of the right kind of demented angst. ARMADA does not fuck around, they get straight to the point with short bursts of caustic anger. None of their songs even reach the two minute mark. What amazes me is the way that in a short amount of time, these dudes draw you into their world, where the sound of their danger anthems will be blasting into your brain. ARMADA’s song writing is totally on point; they have nothing to prove to anyone & why should they, their songs speak for them motherfucking selves! These dudes also have the nuclear melodic factor that I want to hear in my hardcore, meaning no matter how fast their music might get, they never sacrifice melody. ARMADA’s 32 second banger, “Shit Tongue,” is a perfect example how rad this band is. I’m not even going to speak about how gnarly their vocalist is, I will let you hear him for yourself! Okay, do my words have your mind open yet? If so, check this out: you can download the Premonitions EP HERE!

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WITTR have always been a favorite here at CVLT Nation, so it was only a matter of time before we were able to snatch an interview with them! Once I was offered the chance to write the interview, I jumped on the opportunity. WITTR was personally the first group of underground metal musicians that were able to transport me directly into the vastness of nature, allowing me to truly get lost in an ethereal trance. This album, I feel, is the epitome of their great works and I was more than excited to delve right in to conjure up this collection of inquiries and couldn’t wait to hear what drummer Aaron Weaver had to say.

CN: Let’s start off with discussing the album itself. At first open, the music of Celestial Lineage personally brings to mind atavistic ceremonies in the forms of shamanism and worship, then cannibalism and primitive hunting, exiting in a slow submersion of death and ascension. Is this album an ode to ancestry, or perhaps an homage to the birth of life?

AW: Those are definitely all images that do appear on the record. We are very image based with our song writing.  All of the songs began first as pictures and concepts, and then we write the music around it. There is definitely a flow on the record from a very worldly place to something that is much more celestial, something that is more oriented towards the stars, the sun and the moon, and dimensions beyond.

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Right on time for the beginning of fall, Swedish monsters of Craft deliver another example of perfect Black Metal: Rawer like a stranded whale, dirtier like the whore of babylon and heavier like a tank Void blasts through your head and leaves you like a bloody wreck after more than 40 minutes of carnage. There are Black Metal bands that play more technical. There are Black Metal bands that create a more sinister athmosphere. But there are barely any Black Metal bands sounding as heavy and mean as Craft does.

Craft – Void – Succumb to Sin by craftblackmetal
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California stand up…are you ready to be destroyed? On Nov. 5th, all skulls in a 100 mile radius of Pomona will be crushed by the sound of murder core. It’s all going down in one night: the infamous blackened hardcore legends GEHENNA will be on hand to totally wreck shop. Did I tell you that the NAILS will also be spraying the room with their killer metallic ragecore? Plus Seven Sisters of Sleep & Children of God will be celebrating the release of their split, which I know will have the power to sonically decapitate motherfuckers! Then the Mistakes & Creatures will also be in the house to add more audio torture into the mix. If you are in Southern Cali, you know what time it is & where you will find yourself on Nov.5th. So check this out, after the jump is a video of NAILS performing their whole set in Philly, & now it’s up to you to show the world how the Westside rips shit!

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