NINE SONGS I LIKED THIS WEEK IN LIST FORM AUG 7 – AUG 12
Take care y'all! Yes, this is the intro! That you need to take care! Kay, bye bye.
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1. Cabinet – "Insufflating Aureated Remains (...in the factory basement)," from E.P. (Death Metal – Blood Mountain Records). The suffocating essence that is California's Cabinet is back to wreck your bowels and save your soul with a brand-new EP of eerily ambient chaotic death metal that sounds like cave took a dump on your chest while hooked up to a solid-state amp. With candles. I've been a big fan of everything Blood Mountain for some time now, especially because of this Sxuperion album, one of my top of 2020 and one of the most underrated metal releases of the past few years. I urge you to become a fan as well. FFO: Being dumped on, basically.
2. Hallucinate – "Paracletus," from From The Bowels of The Earth (Death Metal/Prog – Caligari Records). This entry came as lovely recommendation form the lovely Jake. The prompt was "for fans of Morbus Chron and Sweven" and, if you know anything about me, that's a whole mouthful. A delightful mouthful, like a mouthful of marshmallow and delicate riffs (don't take my word for it, take my words for it – one and two). And the basics are definately there, leaning I think closely to older school MC with certain elements of Sweven. But this is its own thing entirely, and just a wonderful foray into that scared wood of jagged Swedish melodies and fantastic atmosphere. ALL WHILE BEING GERMAN! Quite the feat. FFO: Mobus Chron, Speglas, Hallux Valgus.
3. Insurrexión – "Vórtice," from Alea Iacta Est (Black Metal – Sinistrari Records). South American black metal that sounds like South American black metal sounds like. Which means it's: a) gross; b) blasty; c) scary as shit; d) hateful; and e) blasty again. No one's going to be writing their physics PhD about this shit, let me tell you, but someone's going to break their own neck headbanging to it. And that, my friends, is enough. FFO: Not physics.
4. Torpor – "Accidie," from Abscission (Post-Metal/Sludge – Human Worth). Torpor's brilliant Rhetoric of the Image singlehandedly (if albums had hands, that is, which I'm pretty sure they do, otherwise why do people keep saying certain albums "grab" them. right? Simple maths) caused me to remove the tombstone I have placed over the grave I have dug (I have hands, for sure) for post-metal in the late 2010s. I mean, let's face it, that grave marker fucking deserves to be there, but Torpor are one of the few acts that make me ponder the possibility of a new lease on post-metal-life. This new single from the long-awaited next record is giving me all the rights feels too. Just the right amount of "desolate," "gross," and "overwhelmingly heavy" to make me feel fine. Lovely stuff. FFO: Wren, LLNN, Hellish Form.
5. Urfaust – Untergang (Doom/Black Metal – Ván Records). What an emotional roller coaster of a week for fans of one of the greatest metal bands of all time, Urfaust. It began with the announcement of a new EP, a wonderful track served many different ways, all of which magical. It continued to rise with a surprise drop of a new LP, affixed to this very message, replete with all of wonder and awe Urfaust have managed to produced for a solid 20 years. But, sadly, it ended with the band calling it quits. I can't even be either mad or sad about it, to tell you the truth. Partly because the incessant creativity of Jim Dokter and Willem Niemarkt will continue to resonate throughout the cosmos, whether or not the band exists anymore or not. But, secondly, because Urfaust was and is one of the true rare gems of music – not just metal, music – that started off brilliant, and never stopped changing and forging ahead while still remaining brilliant in any and every iteration they had, whether it was raw black metal or ritualistic doom yelling into the void. And when you're that good, that honest and true about what you do, then sometimes silence is the next logical progression. Their influence on me and countless other people will never be quantified. They are, were, and will be the very definition of what magic in music is. Oh, and the new album destroys. FFO: Life. Wait, another thing. What a rare feat it is not only to hold your own for 20 years of magic, but to depart in such a way that is both contextual to your art and that makes sense as a continuation of your art. Urfaust didn't break up, they dissipated into fumes.
6. Bloody Sacrifice – "Alaba lo Impuro," from Perpetua Apoteosis Mística Suprema Inmolación (Black Metal – Forgotten Treasures). Another foray into Chilean black-metal madness, this time with this frankly immaculate execution of nasty-ass black metal. I've already made the cave and shit metaphor above, but I'll just say that if you were looking for the feeling of a 80s teen, covered head-to-toe with acne, opening a package with some dubbed tracks from a tape trading bud, which you then proceeded to unwrap, stare at, place in your tape deck, and get scared into another dimension, then this is a good place to start. FFO: Invocation Spells, Inculter, Sepulcher.
7. Acausal Intrusion – "Encoded Exagrams," from Panpsychism (Weird-Ass Shit Metal – I, Voidhanger Records). Speaking of scary shit, there's a new Acausal Intrusion album coming! Now, to be fair, among the many projects emanating from the minds of Nick Turner and Jared Moran, the previous AI album wasn't really that high on my life. I guess I'm more of a Nothing is Real person. But, for one, I love the choice to go a bit "cleaner" on some bits (relative term, I guess), while, at the same time, shooting rusty rods at your soul. Sounds very cool, and I can't wait to check out the rest. FFO: Abyssal, Haunter, Defacement.
8. Mycorrhizae – "Death and Leaf," from The Great Filtration (Lo-fi Black Metal – Big Bovine Industrial Wastes). Well, here's a record that shot to the top of charts out of nowhere. In my mind somehow the great American wave of raw black metal is kind of over, but listening to this gem of a rager makes me reconsider my position on the matter. Mystical, heavy-metal infused, black metal wizardry of the highest order. Cool-ass shit. FFO: Old Nick, Baalzvaat, Wraith.
9. Krieg – "Solitarily, A Future Renounced," from Ruiner (Black Metal – Profound Lore Records). I wasn't really ever into Krieg. In the grand scheme of USBM I was always for whatever it was that set American bands apart from what seemed to me, for the most part, a pretty tired, standardized European scene. And Krieg, I think quite consciously, were never into fucking with the equation that much. And so, I liked and respected what they did, but never connected fully. That being said, this new single, while still fitting that general description, is very well done, extremely well performed and recorded (shout out to Alex Poole, big fan) and makes me wanna check the new album out. So that's nice. FFO: Black Metal!
FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
ONE: U.K. black metal wizard Nietzu is back with a doomy new album.
TWO: Old Lady Driver's magnificent eponymous albums turned 35 this week. All the more reason to blast it.
THREE: There's a Helm's Alee/Melvins split!? The fuck?! (first single).
FOUR: There's this time-travel quality about being a parent in that I love my kids so much and at the same time am so incensed at my parents that it's inevitable to both envision myself as an adoring child as well as see my kids becoming angry adults. Painful and pretty at the same time.
FIVE: If you like vinyl and spending money then Gilead Media just released pre-orders for a shitload of recent Krallice albums.
ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: I really should be working on MILIM KASHOT 5, but I have no energy left in my soul. Will try, though.
