Songs that Increase My Blood Strength This Week Yes I Know I Just Made That Up Aug 31 – Sep 6

A sane person would allow the fact that he had just released a compilation album on which he had worked for months to lay back one week and forget about the post. I am not that person. Call it graphomania, call it trying to hide myself from the war by writing about weird, pointless music, call it "Saturday at the Ben-Tovim household," regardless, it's happening.

The main even remains, clearly, MILIM KASHOT VOL. 6, the latest in the MILIM KASHOT compilation series, that was created and curated to support the superhuman efforts of World Central Kitchen. They are the avant-garde black metal of doing good in this world, and the compilation took form also because I didn't want to feel like a passive piece of shit anymore. Many would doubt whether any music compilation, let alone that enjoyed and appreciated by about seven people, revokes my passive status in this war. But given the bar set for inaction, and given the horror that aims like The Neverending Story's "nothing" to annihilate me it felt like, somehow, preventing that from happening. 

So: CHECK OUT THE ALBUM. SHARE THE ALBUM. BUY THE ALBUM. It has so much good shit, I swear it might be the best one yet. I would list all the bands here but I can't write all that again, and it's in the album liner notes. I'll just SCREAM MY THANKS TO THEM. Oh, and will also note the fact that the Krallice alt take is, I am told, the only released music by the band that includes vocals from all three vocalists on the same song. Yeah. 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.

Cult Member – "Skull Smasher Psychic," from Gore (Thrash Metal – Loyal Blood Records). Listen, what I'm about to write here, just a fair warning, makes zero sense. Thrash metal was my gateway drug, as it was for many, and yet I have detested basically thrash metal since, with the possible exception of one band who shall remain unnamed and, well, Power Trip's Nightmare Logic. So, given that, and given the fact that Nightmare Logic is universally accepted as a modern thrash classic if not THE modern thrash classic (or THE ONLY modern thrash classic) I will go on record to say that this album by a Norwegian band that I knew nothing of and that just randomly appeared in my promo inbox is the best modern thrash metal I have head either since Nightmare Logic or perhaps before. This is – I can't believe I'm tying this – AOTY-consideration-worthy thrash metal. In 2025. In this economy. I know, it sounds nuts, but all the intangible things that separate good thrash (1 percent of the field) from tired rehashed garbage (99 percent of the field) are here by the ton. Character, dynamism, dare I say "spunk," all of it. I hated being 15, and this makes me want to be 15. I even fucking linking to Spotify because that was the only way, seriously. It's that good. 

Fleshvessel – "Mental Myiasis," from Obstinacy: Sisyphean Dreams Unfolded credits (Progressive Death Metal – I, Voidhanger Records). One of the best contemporary bands on earth and the authors of one of the best albums of the current decade (interview here, receipts here), are back with new music that sounds like the drain in the cosmic toilet of life + keyboard solos and stop-start song structures. Life-affirming music in death-affirming times – wild, creative, fantastical, and as aggressive as a very aggressive animal. 

Raein – "Secondo Movimento," from Forme Sommerse (Post-Hardcore/Screamo – Persistent Vision/Shove). Immaculate, beautiful, emotional, dynamic screamo-ish music from another world, with that world conveniently situated in Italy. Iconic cover art, iconic music, and the first album from these Italian masters of "angular" music in a WHILE. So pretty, really. I just can't over just how pretty (and well produced so as to bring that pretty out) this is. Perfect.

Kostnatění – "Samotář (Loner)," from Přílišnost (Excess) (Avant-Garde Black/Death Metal – Willowtp Records). Sometimes, like, say, when you're about to release something that you've work on for months (AHEM), the anticipation of the possible reaction, and the anticipation of the audience toward the thing, is the bane of getting to experience it. There's build up, and always, almost, disappointment, with a re-evaluated appreciation once the emotional dust has settled. That was not my experience with the new Kostnatění single (another interviewee, btw, and a favorite at that). No. My experience was more like: "One of my favorite and most unique modern bands sounds better than it had ever sounded and is incorporating various elements of its catalog to create the perfect amalgam of everything I love about it." It has the nasty edge and insanity of Hrůza zvítězí and the more realized sense of sound of Úpal and, most importantly, the spirit of adventure that made of the best modern metal releases of our time, Oheň hoří tam, kde padl. It's perfect, and it's emergence makes this the album to beat, as far as I'm concerned, for the best of the best. Also, THAT FUCKING ART. It's like The Feral Wisdom art only poisonous.

Veilburner – "Da'ath Ye Shadow Portrait," from Looking for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy) (Avantgarde Death/Black Metal – Transcending Obscurity). Veilburner was more of a slow burner for me – ha ha ha, what a fucking idiot. Didn't get it at first, kept trying, and got it so hard that it became my family. Their previous release is slowly and steadily climbing the imaginary list (who am I kidding it's in my Google Docs) of best disso death albums ever. And it seems that with this new release they are intent on fucking up that list again. Unhinged nastiness that rings in your head for days. We may be living through nightmare times, many of us, but this music exists and that album title is so good I'm renaming my kids "Looking for Tragedy," "Comma," and "Reeking of Tragedy."

StumpTail – "Scripture in the Scales," from Sonder Down Yonder (Avant-Garde Southern Metal – Moonlight Cypress Archetypes). More multi-faceted geniuses return with their gang to fuck space-time up. This time it's the MCA posse, their southern twang, and their impossibly perfect ear for the most blissful combinations of experimental, almost modern-classical sensibilities and fucking riffs. This time it's StumpTail's time in the sun, perhaps the most flagrantly "southern" of the bunch (I guess Primeval Well would be second), and, still, so fucking alien and beautiful. No music, no song a hundred-minutes long, deserves to be this good. None.

Test and Deafkids – "Paraísos Plásticos," from Sem Esperanças (Experimental/Noise – Rapid Eye Records). A collaborative album/performance by two of the truly weird bands out today, with Deafkids, at least for me, already reaching legendary status with not only the level of music they produce but with their unusual choices and taste level. Together they bring out the weird and violent in each other, producing an album that feels like belongs in the Circle family of weirdo Finnish krautrock-cum-noise-cum-brilliant-visionary-music. So cool.

Kold – "Alt Vi Havde Kært," from Det Falmede Håb (Atmospheric Black Metal – Vendetta Records). Safe to say I'm a day-one Kold fan at this point, having pointed out their brilliance basically every time they've released. So a new album is great news. The other thing that is great news is a return of their majestic, melodic, melancholy atmospheric black metal that always feels like the music that must have been playing in the heads of nineteenth-century Romantic poets. 

Coltaine – "Above The Burning Sand," from Brandung (Post-Rock/Post-Metal – Independent). Speaking of northern European melancholy, very happy to see Coltaine get back to making more music this soon after their absolutely beautiful Forgotten Ways. And, again, everything that needs to be perfect in an album of this cloudy quality is just there, in droves. The atmosphere, the songwriting, the performances, as if they were hand-crafted to sound like tears falling. I feel like taking the way the drums were recorded here and replace the drum sound of The Earth is Not a Dead Cold Place. That pretty. Like Messa? This is you all over.

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: New The Ruins of Beverast Coming.

TWO: New Blut aus Nord coming. I need to search within myself to see if I care.

THREE: RIP Flipper's Bruce Loose. I was just thinking about Flipper the other day. Irreplaceable. 

FOUR: Invunche compilation coming. If you missed these lunatics, don't.

FIVE: RIP Innana.

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: The beautiful Unru album I wrote about some time ago is getting a CD version via Vendetta.

ONE LAST THINGGGGGGG: Support the NEW COMPILATION. I'm proud of it, and I think you would be too, and it's for the best cause.