A Hurried Attempt to Discuss Good Music as a Way to Stave off the Stench of Meaninglessness from My Existence Oct 26 – Nov 2

It's been a while, no one cares. Life continues to be clowns dancing on a tight rope made of razor blades. Might be coming to the western side of the world for a week in a couple of weeks so if you're anywhere in the Bay Area let's meet and go see Jerome's Dream and Portraits of the Past. Keep safe. Oh, and Agriculture too.

Check out MILIM KASHOT VOL. 6, our latest in the MILIM KASHOT compilation series. All the money goes to World Central Kitchen. 

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.

夢遊病者 – РЛБ30011922 (Experimental – Independent). You may have stumbled into 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker) and latched onto their black metal side. You may have followed 夢遊病者 and enjoyed the independence of thought and fearless creativity. These are all true statements. But to me 夢遊病者 is reading a journal found in a ruin, a document that represents a voice as it searches for meaning and solace in the past and its present that serves, for they who unearth it, as source of solace and meaning as well. It's almost private, at times too private, to be reading this at all. It wasn't meant for me, it was meant for them. But, at the same time, it's the kind of journal that knows it will one day become a relic and as such is an object aimed at communication to the outside world. In fact, with each successive release, 夢遊病者 feel, to me, like they're opening up more and more to the outside world – sometimes it's the use of clean vocals, sometimes, as with this "album," recognizable musical tropes (prog, rock, fusion), but, somehow, that added familiarity doesn't add up to accessibility. The journal is also made for you, you in the future, yes. But it is always there first and foremost for them, always semi blocked from view. This is their best release to date, maintaining a trend of getting better and/or different with each subsequent release, and it's easily a top album for the year. "People were dying."

Yellow Eyes – "Confusion Gate," from Confusion Gate (Black Metal – Gilead Media). I have been upfront about the importance of this special band in my life, and so feel no need to state what to me is the obvious. By far the most important black metal project of my adult life, and some of the absolute best human beings one may ever hope to meet. What I will state now is less obvious. Somewhere post Sick with Bloom Yellow Eyes took a slight left turn. No, not a turn, a divergence, a slight left as Waze would say. They never really changed as a band, and their aesthetic and identity were always rock solid. But, again, a slight divergence. This album feels like the completion of that process, one in which Yellow Eyes both "return" the the avenue from which they diverged while also bearing the scars of the riches of the journey. Which is another way of saying this just might – do I want to write this? I might – the best Yellow Eyes album to date, beautifully bringing together the bizarre, eerie power of old with the atmospheric, haunting vibe of new. All of them are perfect, each in their own way, but this feels like a whole new level of craft and mastery, which is crazy. I'm writing crazy things. That are true. Also, this is almost the last hurrah for Gilead, one of the best and most important labels in modern underground metal, which makes this whole affair a little more bittersweet that I would have liked, but no one asked me.

Keys To The Astral Gates And Mystic Doors – "Royal Anathema," from Anathema (Black Metal – Empty Pit Recordings). As an early admirer of KTTAGAMD's musical stylings (and logo), I was very happy to see some more music from the Wisconsin duo. Even happier to see a promo, which means, I guess, a full album is on the way. Regardless, straightforward, satisfying, melodically rich raw black metal. That's fine by me.

Martröð – "Sköpunin," from Draumsýnir eldsins (Disso Black/Death – Demebur Morti Productions). Well, I guess this must be "legends re-emerge from the fog of obscurity to burn down your home while you aimlessly type away at your dumb blog" week, because not only do Sleepwalker and Yellow Eyes just up and release full fucking albums out of fucking no where we are also seeing the return of Martröð after a wee nine years of radio silence. And yes, "radio silence" in this context doesn't really mean silence given that both Alex Poole and L.V. have been very active as of late (just this year: Osgraef and Vörnir) but, still. It should be mentioned, however, that with the joy that comes with this release comes also the realization that we will never get a new Skáphe album. You take the good, you take the evil. I mean, we still get Jack Blackburn in this, so, whatever. Oh, and the fact that it's fucking sick. That too.

Skin Tension – "Rocket BNA," from Inaugurate Renaissance (Avant-Garde/Improvisational Weirdo Metal – Independent). More great returns, this time from the "so fucking convoluted my mind translates it as ambient music," fucked-up and beautiful project Skin Tension, underpinned, at least since 2024's brilliant Prolegomenon by the fucking drums of Joshua D. Byrd and spearheaded by friend of the show and artist out of his mind Edward Longo (place endless list of brilliant bands here). Still fucking nuts, still makes no sense, still should be banned from all music stores both physical and digital for going against the rule of basic logic, and still fucking unreal. There's no one or thing like it. 

Thanargonauts – Awakening the Egregore (Black Metal/Doom – Musical Excrements). We need to have (another) conversation about Déhà. I know he doesn't mean it, I think he means well, but I have come to the conclusion that Déhà cheapens genius. By that I don't mean to say he isn't a genius, or that he's cheap (though, come to think of it, he never bought me anything), but that the frustrating effortless with which he not only does everything perfectly but seemingly at will makes the whole music thing seem like a scam. He has the cheat sheet, and he's not afraid to use it. This time, it's gargantuan, weirdo evil black metal. Yay. He got that too now, this time with the aid of his Cult of Erinyes coconspirator and human hammer, Ahephaim (one of the few Hebrew words used in metal that's actually cool). Ridiculous. I would like to take this platform to urge Déhà to resign from making music. You're making everyone, not least me, look bad. 

Gloombound – "An Eternity of Complete Acquiescence," from Dreaming Delusion (Doom/Prog/Death Metal –  Gruesome Records). What a delight. I was cleaning out my inbox (it is not yet clean, it will never be clean) and found this striking piece of artwork and decided to investigate. Upon investigation I discovered an album that makes sense in a category with bands such as Fleshvessel, VoidCeremony, and Forlesen, which, I mean, is insane in and of itself, because those are some of the best bands. A rare and thrilling bringing together of constant creativity and dynamics with the ability to fucking execute ideas and produce a perfect thing. It's not common that those two characteristics arrive in one package, and somehow they have arrived in the debut album by this fantastic Norwegian project. Unreal stuff that's equal parts doomy, proggy and demented. 

Auriferous Flame – "Breathing Shadows." from The Duel (Epic Black Metal – Independent). The convergence of streams seems to be the theme of this week's post, and this is one further iteration of that idea. Ayloss was always one of the best dreamers, by which I mean one of the best, most creative minds in underground extreme metal. And along with that came a certain openness regarding how those ideas were fleshed out, whether in terms of "tightness" or in terms of production. That was part of the magic for me, of course, and for many of his many fans, that it felt organic and "real" while obviously the work of a creative genius. But these past few years he has made a point of trying to pin down his sound, or to find a sound that best fits his ideas (and he has many ideas, and many projects to try them all out). Not just to allow sound or atmosphere to be the dangling fringe of the artistic carpet, but to somehow better control that hang, to include it as part of the process. This release feels like another huge step in that journey – it's still that ever-active, somewhat traditionalist mind at work, but it just sounds incredible. Every instrument is both crystal clear and appropriately black-metal-muddled at the same time. That's a very hard thing to do. 

Krallice – "Protean Pulse," from No Hope (Avant-Garde Black Metal – Independent). Aside from the negligible fact that Krallice fit enough music and ideas into what they call an EP that would serve other bands for entire full-lengths, Krallice hasn't really done the EP thing much, the last one being the very excellent Wolf, which came out WAY back in 2019. This one finds the legendary New York band continuing along relatively similar paths that can be traced (if you could trace on water, of course) to their growing interest in ambient/ambiance somewhere around COVID times. Officially I'm obliged to say all Krallice is both brilliant and genre-defining and genre-defying music, which is true. But unofficially this has been my favorite "era" of the band, not least because what I feel the added subtlety has done to the texture of their music. I wish I could write like Krallice, I wish I was Krallice, and having them agree to genrously participate in the most recent compilation will, once I'm finally done torturing myself to no good reason and decide to stop doing those, go down as a highlight of both that series and my time here writing my nonsense. No one like them, not even close. 

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: Glasgow band Unmaking just released what I can only imagine a British person calling a "corker" of an album.

TWO: Tribal Gaze, who consistently release excellent death metal, did exactly that – again.

THREE: New Kali Malone collab. Isn't as immediate as some of her other stuff, but very interesting. 

FOUR: Light Dweller split with Aoecist is great, especially enjoyed the Aoecist side.

FIVE: More Déhà you say? This new project Rå – led by the apparently incredible Isa Myling – caters for your emo-black metal needs.

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: Proggy black metal mayhem from Italian band Esox.

ONE LAST THINGGGGGGG: You might not care that Megadeth is doing "Ride the Lightning" for their final album, but I do. 

ONE LAST THINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG: Rwandan music from the past that sounds like music from the future? (Bizimungu Dieudonne) – YES PLEASE.