VARIOUS SONGS THAT ARE A VIOLENCE FROM WITHIN THAT PROTECTS ME FROM A VIOLENCE WITHOUT MARCH 23-29

An earlier post this week because I'm about to spend what I hope is a stress-free, very rare weekend with my beautiful significant other (first in about three years) due to being born. And we shall begin this post, as one does with all metal-related writing, with a poem:

Wallace Stevens – "Another Weeping Woman"

  Pour the unhappiness out
  From your too bitter heart,
  Which grieving will not sweeten.

  Poison grows in this dark.
  It is in the water of tears
  Its black blooms rise.

  The magnificent cause of being –
  The imagination, the one reality
   In this imagined world –

   Leaves you
   With him for whom no phantasy moves,
   And you are pierced by a death.

 

Keep safe.

If you're new to this metal blog of bones you can also check out the various interview projects I have going on as well as the weekly recommendation posts. And if you'd like to keep abreast of the latest, most pressing developments follow us wherever I may roam (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Bluesky, etc), and listen to my, I guess, active? (no) podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), and to check out our amazing compilation albums. You could also possibly 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. It's probably a bad idea, but to each their own. On to the list.

God's Funeral – "Terra de Foc i Pluja," from God's Funeral + Peine Kapital (Doom Metal – Independent). A new split combining the talents of Spanish doom act God's Funeral and French sludge weirdos Peine Kapital. A very pleasant foray into what feels like a love letter to 90s doom, especially My Dying Bride, mashed with borderline atmospheric black metal. Beautifully written, beautifully recorded and beautifully executed. Have, to me own shame, never heard of them, but will sure to check out what looks to be a pretty extensive back catalogue. 

Teitanblood – "From the Visceral Abyss," from From the Visceral Abyss (Black/Death Metal – NoEvDia). Staying in Spain with the return of the absolute kings of the blackened assault through death metal means, Teitanblood. To perfectly honest, I'm rarely at a place in life where I "need" this kind of music. Bands I adore, present company included, or modern iterations such as the magnificent Deathsiege that undoubtedly make brilliant, malevolent music. And yet 9 times out of ten I'll reach for the weird black metal or atmospheric version of whatever category before I go for "please knock my brains out." However, and this is a big "however," when it's this good, this urgent, and this belligerent, then it's pretty irresistible. More violence of this kind, less violence of the violent kind.

Drudkh – "Fallen Blossom," from Shadow Play (Atmospheric Black Metal – Season of Mist). Is it weird to still love Drudkh? Part of me feels weird about still loving Drudkh. But as much weirdness is felt within me there's also that other part of me – maybe the pancreas – the listens to the new Drudkh album in absolute wonder. This is – somehow, still – atmospheric black metal done at the absolute zenith of the craft. The melodies, the dynamics, and progression. It's all basically as perfect as possible (and yes, it's still weird).

Gryla – "Banners Soaked in Crimson Essence," from – The Redeemer's Festering Carcass (Black Metal – Iron Bonehead Productions). This gem came recommended by my dear friend Alex, and boy oh boy did Alex know what Alex was talking about. Some albums just emit humanity, the sense of a human not trying to be anything other that exactly human when expressing itself through the inefficient but glorious medium of extreme music. Genital Shame is that, Extra Life is that, Sweven is that. Well, add this incredible one-man show of musical expression to that very respectable list. Black metal that doesn't feel like attempting to hitch itself to a tradition but demonstrating what that traditiom had always been about – expressing fucked up shit with fucked up music. Brilliant, and easily one of the best black metal releases of this year so far. 

Rale – "Estrangement of Survival," from Spirit Death (Death Metal – Independent). Other than drinking champaign in a hot tub, one of the other perks of being a metal writing person is being sent cool shit. And so a few weeks back a member of this cool project (and possibly a reader of my hot-tub inspired rhymes) sent me this album, and I'm thrilled he did. Death metal with a post-rock sensibility, is that a thing? Not sure it is, but this feels like that. The riffs and edge are definitely here, but so is this meandering melodic sensibility that is both kind of proggy but also pleasant and, yeah, meandering. Beautiful stuff. 

fate propels the falling scythe – "your heart and the sky have a hole in it," from the forgotten leaf (Screamo – Independent). Very cool new (?) New York-based project that issues forth glorious hardcore-heavy screamo that shifts from gentle strings and melancholy to, as I think this track demonstrates, full-on destruction. As stated above, I'm a sucker for what feels like genuine performances and genuine emotion and this is basically the dictionary definition of that. Powerful, sparse, and beautiful.

Blood Monolith – "Prayer To Crom," from The Calling of Fire (Death Metal – Profound Lore Records). Shocker: Profound Lore released another immaculate-sounding death metal album. How would have thunk it? Shelby Lermo (Ulthar, ex-Vastum, and more recently Thanatotherion) again unleashes his seemingly endless wellspring of evil-sounding riffs upon us all, this time in the form of good-ole-fashioned "cavernous" death metal. Your plate, you will notice, has only meat and potatoes on it. Man I miss potatoes. Besides the point. But both are the best meat and/or potatoes gets. Plus some ridiculously sick drumming courtesy of Aidan Tydings-Lynch of Deliriant Nerve, of which I had never heard and to which I am currently listening and apparently they rule. Further proof of the old adages (that I am currently creating) that the best death metal is death metal with grindcore drummers.

Mika & Khalil – "Exiled," from Ruins (Ambient/Drone – Independent). A lot to love about this track. Firstly there's the death metal elephant in the room in the form of the two collaborators, Defacement's guitar wizard and all-around genuis/sweetheart Khalil and Mika of Pestilength. The second is the topic of exile, one very close to my heart on a intellectual/emotional level, and with which I had been kind of grappling in the more recent past. Say, pondering the decision to become one, the price you pay for decisions like that, your kids, etc. And then there's ruins, which, as physical objects go, are too high on my list, for related reason. I write about ruins in my job, I write about ruins in my "writing writing," and so I'm here for that as well. Last, but surely not least, there's the music itself, which feels like a melancholy and at times frightening fog hovering over something. Might be ruins, might be someone's bedroom, might be both. But it's beautiful and engaging in ways most ambient/drone just isn't.

Caged Bastard – "NARCI.C.II," from NARCICULT (Black Metal/Experimental – Independent). It's been a whole while since I have feasted my ears (?) on the pure weirdness and power of Tunisian project Caged Bastard. Five years, in fact. But here we are again, with what seems to be a new EP of pure, original, creative, weirdness being emitted like some kind of sickly frequency into the ether. More music needs to sound like sickly frequency into the ether, that just goes without saying. Brilliant stuff, can't wait.

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: Apparently there once was a French metalcore band (apropos Ian's amazing metalcore post) called Ananda. I know this, because there's a reissue/remaster of an album released in 2000 called Profane and it's fucking amazing.

TWO: More Fluisteraars coming. Will it be ambient? Will be black metal? Who the fuck knows at this point.

THREE: I wrote about the great Osgraef debut a while back. Not knowing – bam bam – it was in fact Alex Poole behind the helm. Pretty fucking cool.

FOUR: Ossuarium was a great band that released an amazing debut way back when. Kind of wondered what was up and snooped around and a) apparently their done (sad face) and b) issued a whole slew of amazing projects, such as this from Somatic Decay.

FIVE: Death from Above 1979 did a KEXP performance. Not enough from their debut, but cool to see them at it.

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: A kind reminder that the new Grey Aura is now streaming on YouTube and soon is out.