Listening to Kowloon Walled City to Feel and/or Hide the Pain While Writing About Sick Metal May 3-9

The Kowloon Walled City show I was fortunate enough to witness in Roadburn changed my life. Truth be told, it wasn't the only cathartic, mind-expanding moment in my time there, but Kowloon Walled City was that show I wasn't really expecting to floor me and it did. Partly because it took place two minutes after meeting the wonderful Ramon and his wife, and him being so kind to me and my work. Party because I had just got high, partly because Kowloon Walled City are one of my favorite bands. But that show touched my soul in a way that others didn't. I have been listening to The Cavern a lot since getting back, because that Inter Arma show was one of the best moments of my life. I haven't stopped listening to Yellow Eyes, mostly because I always never stop listening to Yellow Eyes. It makes me miss those moments, but also in a good way. In the "I can't believe I saw that, and here it is again" way. But the Kowloon Walled City show, of the perfection of which I had written the day after, ruined a part of me. Like every note hit me like a punch in my face. It felt real, if that makes sense. It felt like real people doing real shit. In the same way that I know I try to write about real shit, whether here, in my academic writing, or in my prose writing. And there it was, real people doing real shit at the highest possible level, right in my face. This rant reminds me of one of the first things I wrote for this blog, it was about Helmet, and also Sonic Youth. I'll quote a small piece from it. Warning – it might not hold up. It was written 16 years ago (this is a translation of the Hebrew):

In a way, excuse the artsy-fartsyness – Helmet are the musical equivalent of a painting by Mark Rothko, who is too, whether coincidentally or not, a New York abstract artist: they might not use every color, but what they do with one most people didn't, and still can't achieve with all the colors of the rainbow. 

OK, my mistake. It wasn't from the Helmet piece it was from a thing I wrote three months later about "regular people." Or maybe not. 

Whatever. The experience as a young teen of being completely decimated by people who look like they could be you. I go far and I go wide for music and the kinds of art that impact my soul, but I think that's still the most basic level – doing extraordinary things with bricks. 

Keep safe.

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Emptiness – "The Clash of Forces," from Nowhere Speaks (Avant-Garde Death/Black Metal – Season of Mist). The shift from Nothing but the Whole into Not for Music marks one of my favorite two-album tandems in music history. It's like a clock beings to melt in one, and really melts in the other. Later down the line Emptiness went full meltdown with Vide, an album I was very ambivalent about at first – loved all of it, wished some had riffs – and ended up respecting hugely. It was and remains a very disturbing listen, and in fact a shocking one if you expected anything like the previous albums. What it also did was create an open field of expectations – Emptiness could do whatever the fuck they wanted. Well, it seems like what they wanted was to create an immediate sequel – down to the very connecting notes – to Nothing but the Whole. On the one hand you could say, well that sucks. They were already on a journey of adventure and possibility and now they're just catering to all those whiney fans who hated Vide. But really it goes much deeper. Nowhere Speaks, which I have had the honor of listening to in its entirety, is Emptiness still retaining their wild scientist/priest vibe while reinvestigating their past. This is something I cannot help but respect, since that's basically what I do in my own work – circle the same drain over and over. But it's not just about the respect. It's about them reinvestigating their past, feeling it out with their older hands, and coming up with what, for me, right now, is far and away the best album of 2026 so far.

Darkthrone – "The Dry Wells of Hell," from Pre-Historic Metal (Black Metal – Peaceville Records). I was completely floored by this album. Not band has any right being this good and this consistently good for so long, but Darkthrone, I am beginning to realize in my old age, isn't just another band. In many ways my favorite black metal band maybe ever, Emperor, is just a band. They made incredible music that will stay forever, but they were a very good band. Darkthrone aren't a band. They are a piece of moss, a stump, a rusty rod. They are an object in the world. And I realize they have to be pretty brilliant people to do what they do, and I also realize there is a lot of trial and error in these things, but their music always exudes a sense of intuition. And so, in me giving in to this idea, Darkthrone is an intuition. And Pre-Historic Metal is not only pure, beautiful intuition but most definitely my favorite Darkthrone album since Arctic Thunder, and quite possibly far beyond that as well. A masterpiece of melody and pace (might be a good time to point toward the only post in this blog's 16-year history that wasn't written by me, with Jonathan Shkedi's brilliant Darkthrone retrospective). 

Black Cilice – "Vows Sworn for Centuries," from Votive Fire (Black Metal – Altare Productions). Have a complicated relationship with "black metal recorded via transistor radio in the other room" because, mostly, I'd like to hear the music and also because it's such a one-note (pun very much intended) take on music. But the thing is that when it's actually done right, and when it feels like someone's world is falling apart in that other room, the music takes on a sense of sadness and tragedy that's very hard to replicate. I might not always want to listen to this album, but that's mostly because I know what the effect might be.

Diabolic Oath – "Emblazoned Upon Ebony Winds," from Unholy Barbaric Hymns (Death/Black Metal – Sentient Ruin Laboratories). Diabolic Oath have been rock solid for more than a few years now, and by "rock solid" I of course mean a swamp of unstable riffs and moods that feels like it can suck you in at any given moment. They're always incredible, always creative, and always fucking terrifying. I say all this to say that I think this first single might be my favorite Diabolic Oath track ever, and that I am HYPE for the new album. incredible stuff.

Acele – "Somnambulist Trance," from Heartbeat in the Brain (Instrumental/Acoustic/Experimental – Independent). Mesmerizing, out-of-left-field shimmering acoustic beauty coming from the same fingers that elsewhere furiously pluck at the heart of the universe in the stupendous Scottich black metal project Gråt Strigoi. Weirdly this reminds me of listening to John Fahey. Not as folky, but, I think, as strange and eerie and expansive, at least that's its effect on me. It's been a whole while since I loved anything of this general style, but this is fucking awesome. 

Haruspex Chants – "Parallel Aberrations," from Demo MMXXVI (Death Doom – Independent).  I stumbled into this gem last week, and had it written down as "check this out," which I immediately did and while listening to it during the very posting of last week's installment kind of wished I had included it then. Absolutely top-notch death doom in every way – instrumentation, atmosphere, production and that most-difficult of all death doom achievements – it isn't remotely boring. Feels in moments like a beefed up, more death metal version of Esoteric if that makes sense. Great stuff.

Saidan – "Kara No Bara," from Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memories Wrist (Atmospheric Black Metal – Avantgarde Music). The very-sad-speed-freaks are back with some very fast and somehow still very sad music to satisfy that inner goth kid that wears mascara and randomly loves Yngwie Malmsteen-levels of musical maximalism. Saidan have been dancing to the tune of their own melodramatic guitar-flute for quite some time now, and is it me but are they only getting better?

Joybun – "Ignorance was Bliss Until Ignorance was Sin," from Ressociation (Screamo – Independent). Sometimes it feels like the only thing that can fix things, say, the profound void I had found myself in following my foray into Kowloon Walled City, and the existential angst and sorrow that void brings, is good screamo. Good screamo as in not just "screamo that is good," but "screamo that reminds you that the existence of the genre is laid on the foundation of the idea that sometimes the only way out for human emotion is a volcanic explosion of minor melodies and rage." So, this from Joybun is that. Oh god it's so much of it.

[4672] – "Nevrine," from [apex8] (Avant-Garde Metal – Independent). From the pits of emotional despair to the heights of intellectualized music that doesn't spread its wings from the mountain top and calmly flies its way from Crete to the mainland but flies too high and ends up dead at the bottom of the sea. Part masterclass in songwriting, part burning that classroom and pissing on your head. So, the best music.

BONUS: Dust Worship – "Numb and Neon," from Anodyne (Mathcore – Independent). Am I biased because my new novel is called Dust? Maybe. Am I also biased because I tend to like it when people take it upon themselves to go nuts and records themselves? Probably. Fantastic, attacking music for mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights in which one just must imagine oneself decapitating everyone they know.

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: The Body's Master, We Perish, which just so happened to be one of the most significant albums in the early days of this blog, is being re-issued in an expanded edition. Which sounds terrifying. 

TWO: Hulder is working on a new album.

THREE: Black metal comets Masse d'Armes (mentioned here) released their older demos, which is cool.

FOUR: If you crave experimental music that feels like recorded life on tape, this from Eyal Nachtomy from late last year is fucking magic.

FIVE: Very randomly got into this jungle/ambient release from Pugilist this week. It's cook.

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: Will do more about this next week, but this from Haze Gazer is ridiculous. Amazing shit. 

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE: Excellent Iranian black metal project Akvan released an ambient track to commemorate the bombing of the Shajareh Tayebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran. May those families find whatever comfort is even possible under life in hell.