Premiere: Get Smacked Inside Your Soul by Ultio's Black Metal Crookedness

Amid the humdrum of incoming missiles, here's something really explosive. The second EP from Italian black-mongers Ultio, Cor, is one of those rare moments of black metal painting well within the bounds of the "genre" while fucking it up from the inside (excuse the accidental NIN reference here). Six tracks of unbridled fury that double as six tracks of incredible creatively that triple as, perhaps strangely, six tracks of melancholic, melodic beauty. I already pointed my dirty finger at this multiplicity when I "reviewed" their go-ahead single a few weeks ago, but that sense of two parallel universes coexisting in one release only gets stronger with each listen. 

And amid all that chaos and purported dualities, Ultio's next single "Looking for Eyes" – presented before you today in Bandcamp player format, a few lines beneath my stumbling intro – is that rare moment of relative stability. I mean, if by "stability" you mean something like "the body-deforming anxiety of daily awaiting death from either the sky or via the violent dissolution of the body politic through either civil war or just plain chaos." I am absolutely not talking about myself, of course, but about how the music sounds and feels. Don't go rushing to conclusions here, my friends. This is an objective, forward-facing music blog, not some kind of diary-keeping, navel-gazing exercise in verbal and creepily personal exorcism. 

Where was I? Oh yeah, Cor is easily a black metal highlight of the year so far and a must-buy album for anyone feeling their world is tumbling down while they type music reviews. Buy it now via the blessed – the always blessed – Brucia Records before it drops officially on May 23 (which just so happens to be my brothers birthday, is what I would say had I not been 100 percent super professional). 

As always, check out my various interview projects and other cool shit. And if you'd like to keep abreast of the latest, most pressing developments follow us wherever I may roam (FALSE!) (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and now also a tape-per-day series on TIK TOK!), and listen to my, I guess, active (?) podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), and to check out our amazing compilation albums. You can support my unholy work here (Patreon), if you feel like it. Early access to our bigger projects, weekly exclusive recommendations and playlists, and that wonderful feeling that you're encouraging a life-consuming habit.

 

Pre order HERE.