Misusing Valuable Time Better Spent Actually Getting Shit Done or Playing with My Kids to Write About Weird Metal MAR 22-28

Another week on the tightrope of sanity, that also happened to be the week of my birthday. My gift was some quality time in the bomb shelter with my family. Nature is healing! Anyhow. Keep safe.

This week also saw a new interview with the magnificent, the one-of-a-kind so-punk-it's-almost-black-metal band Daggers, marking the release of yet another beautiful collection of songs, due out in a few days. Check it out here.

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, TIKTOK 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.

Panopticon – "The White Cedars," from Det hjemsøkte hjertet (Atmospheric Black Metal – Bindrune Recordings). First impression of the new Panopticon single off of an upcoming album is that the production is different, muted, almost 90s-adjacent in how far-off and strange it sounds. The second impression is that the music itself fees like almost, and I mean this in the best possible way, time-capsule Panopticon. More specifically, Kentucky-cum-Roads to the North-era Panopticon. Both of these are great, to me, since I was getting a feeling that, while Panopticon never really dipped in quality, some of the stuff was a bit lost in the Minnesotan woods, if I may be forgiven a long pun. This feels, however, like what Panopticon music always feels when it's at it's absolute burst – a geyser of emotion bursting forth from one of the most talented human bodies to ever make heavy music, Austin Lunn. 

Great Falls – "A Story Eaten Alive," from Conscription (Noise Rock/Sludge Metal – The Ghost is Clear Records). Speaking of geysers of human emotion, fucking Great Falls are motherfucking back. I have been firmly on the GF bandwagon ever since discovering their unstoppable human (em)otion back when I did that Corpseflower Records (RIP) feature almost exactly seven years ago. I was just thinking about that today when I was kinda-sorta jogging (making sure to always stay near a shelter, of course) this morning. I was listening to the beautiful new The Silver album, thinking about the sad end of Gilead Media and of the many amazing labels that closed shop in the time this blog has been under operation. Music is always going to matter, musicians are always going to create, but losing these fantastic platforms run by passionate people is a body blow each time. Anyhow, fucking listen to Great Falls, what are you stupid? Also, let me, again, take time out of my day and praise Demian Johnston's art/design artistry. Every cover is always perfect, this one included.

Ghorot – "Void Drinker," from Obsidian (Black/Doom Metal – King of the Monsters Records). Another fantastic band that doesn't release that often, and another band I am happy to, again, champion. If metal was the space of worship and the attack on worship, Ghorot are, and have been since their excellent debut Loss of Light (on my 2021 list). Looking at the sky, spitting at sky, sounding loss and energetic when doing so, and kind of running their own, very unique thing. New track sounds nuts.

Rosa Faenskap, "La barna leve"from Ingenting Forblir (Post-Hardcore/ Black Metal – FysiskFormat). Last time I wrote about this excellent Norwegian project I said something to the tune of "if only all music was this pissed and this pretty." Turns out, it can be more pissed and, yes, more pretty. Picking up a bit more of a late-period Gojira vibe, which I'm not sure I noticed before, but it definitely adds a sheen over the desolate landscape of human sorrow that lays beneath. Big riffs, big atmospheres, and yet never feels stale or too big. Cool shit for the pissed post-whatever crowd.

Sconfitta – "Sconfitta," from Essere Nessuno (Hardcore/Post-Punk – Independent). In the opening frame I mentioned the passing of great labels, and one of those was Brucia, who not only ran a perfect business, exposed the world to great art, themselves the authors of some of the most underrated metal ever (Derhead) but were and are good people. Now, from the smouldring-yet-dignified ruin they emerge with their punk hats on, flaps turned up, with just enough of that bizarro, unsettling, post-punk vibe that had been the mark of some Brucia artists (I'm thinking here of Grieving Sea).  

Oerheks – "Goden op de Heuvel," from Relieken I (Black Metal – Amor Fati Productions). Sometimes a band teaches me to respect it, and I think that has been the case between men and Oerheks. Not that I ever had the inclination to disrespect them, just that I have learned through the years that clicking on a new Oerheks albums isn't just "oh yeah I know that band I wonder how this will be" and more "prepare yourself to elite black metal." This time I knew, I thought I knew, that going in, and was stil somehow surprised. The atmosphere is fierce and bizarre, the music is charging and relentless, and all is covered in the slight almost depressive mist of ionizing emotion. Just a wonderful project, with another wonderful release.

Vertige – "Plus jamais!," from Chute-Libre (Atmospheric Black Metal – Transcendence). Another band I have enjoyed in the past few years, back with some ice-inducing black metal. Their previous, and debut, outing was a spellbinding frosty affair that made it to my 2022 list, and it too featured what appears to be a true passion for exclamation points. More seriously though, just classic frozen atmospheric black metal done absolutely right. When I did the interview with Trhä a while back he said something to the tune of listening to certain black metal ands to almost create winter. This fits right there.  

Hellripper – "Blakk Satanik Fvkkstorm," Coronach (Thrash/Black Metal – Century Media Records). My continuing love affair with Hellripper is always surprising to me. Oh great, a new Hellripper album, I don't feel like blazing thrash leads right now. Click. I have been won over and own a castle in Scotland. It also doesn't hurt that a) this is the best song title ever, and b) they are both the most flagrant Megadeth-worship band out there and also the only one successfully channeling the pissed-Mustaine riffing and soloing (I'm talking strung-out-on-heroine Mustaine obviously). Fun, smart, and skilled.

Night Vigil – "The Hamlet," from The Hamlet (Black Metal – Independent). I'm pretty sure that if the universe collapses unto itself into a ball of massive gravity and no life Ayloss (Spectral Lore) will not only still be putting out new music but probably creating new projects and taking on new genres too. The unstoppable force of proggy black metal is back with his Night Vigil wing, which came out late last year and somehow still dented my 2025 list. No one nails the atmosphere-to-interesting-riff combo quite like him, and this is just another stellar showing from one of the most creative and innovative black metal minds of our time.

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: Intriguing stuff from Limule. Rock, hardcore, whatever. It's cool.

TWO: As a way of dealing with what feels like the never-ending threat to my existence, I have been cataloging my music collection on Discogs and, in the process, am reminded of some amazing stuff I totally forgot about. Like hardcore/grindcore project Glitterbomb that, apparently, never released one bad song. Hope they're still around.

THREE: More from the memory pile, death metal band Deliquesce who, for some reason, I stopped following, because they released a killer album last year that I completely missed. 

FOUR: Elder have a new single. 

FIVE: I am OK. Not OK, but OK. Thanks. 

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: Listening to Chaos Moon is a good idea.