More and More Strange Metal Tunes For Your Ear Holes Oct 25-31

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, 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.

Skin Tension – "α2: The Kingdom of Four Parts," Xomn (Avant-Garde Black Metal – Independent). A lot of great music came out this week, but I would be remiss* if I didn't first mention the newest insane, over-the-top, gratuitous-to-the-point-of-aesthetic-ecstasy release from Skin Tension. One can get lost in this too-wide ocean of "music in the internet age." So much stuff going on, so many waves upon waves of fake and real hype, and so many people writing their nonsense about why music matters (myself included, naturally). Skin Tension has always decided to deal with that predicament, and with its more ambitious cousin "Why Make Art At All?" – by going all out. No, not "Frontierer" all out, with all respect to that band, meaning – not "look at me I'm crazy" all out, but by fashioning sculptures of sound art out of the chaotic, nerve-wrecking pain and weirdness of human life. That's Skin Tension on a "normal" day, mind you, a Tuesday. But this Skin Tension is 36 hours – yes, you read that correctly, a tad more than the 27 hours or so of their 2022 release Omni – of mind-bending, limb numbing creativity. A life force with power enough to enliven even the dead-while-alive or the am-I-dead-yet hordes that include me. And maybe, maybe, you too. I find it very hard to believe that I'll need any new music beyond this and the new Kali Malone. Everyone else can just go home.

Just kidding, I'll always need new music. But this is a big bite indeed. A big, satiating, satisfying bite.

*Fucking Dumb

Boarhammer – "Psychedelic Renaissance," from III: Instruments of Fungal Intent (Black Metal – Independent). I really should have written about this last week, but the way these things work is that I get a promo copy, I love the album, can't/won't write about it yet, and then it's released and I'm suddenly behind the ball. That's just life. So, that's the boring part. The less-than-boring part is that Boarhammer are back, sound evil and fun as fuck, and deliver what might easily be one of the best just a band having a good time in the rehearsal space albums of the year. Listen in a dark room that smells like beer and death. If there ever was an Autopsy black metal band, this is it.

Oerheks – "De Vloed Vervloekt," from De Stroom (Amotspheric Black Metal – Amor Fati Productions/Babylon Doom Cult Records). Oerheks are just the fucking best, man, and sound even better with this normie logo. One of the earth's best-kept black metal secrets, the one-man project is back with a full-length debut after a string of brilliant shorter releases, as all as other-project-related bouts of black-metal genius (see, for instance, Häxenzijrkell's Portal). Dark, "recorded in the house next door with the volume down" vibes, and seamless dynamic flow of human anguish.

Aftoktonia – "In Astral Lamentation…," from Aftoktonia / Rakta Tṛtīya Netra (Atmospheric Black Metal – Independent). My favorite, and most prolific, new atmospheric black metal band is back spewing astral hate into the void of existence, this time via a strap-on-and-get-wild split with Austrian project Rakta Tṛtīya Netra, the latter of which apparently released a full length earlier this year, so I'm on that. This time, I think, Aftokonia has opted to go full-on feral atmospheric, every note sounding like it emerged spiked from the back of some very-sad- beast. It's raw, it's dark, it has, I think, some serious demo Lamp of Murmuur vibes, and, as always, excellent. 

Dickweed – "Silence as Weapon," from Pray for Death (Sludge/Stoner – Independent). Okay, we've been careening down "existential angst" alley so far, so it might be time to take a hard left at "big big bigger than the cosmos." This is easily the best new stone-ish music I've heard in the very long time. It's big, it's vibe-y, the riffs are very big and very effective, and they sound like they're being transmitted into earth from another planet. All of these are very good things. New band, I suppose, and now they have a new fan.

Enslaved – "Mountain," from Mið (Prog Metal – Nuclear Blast Records). Yes, still the best band still at it from the way-back time of way-back. Yes, still doing their own thing and caring exactly zero-amount what you or I have to say about any of it. Yes, still proggy, at times cheesy, and ambitious to the point of overly ambitious. Who cares – they're 35 years in and they can still write and produce this caliber of music. Inhuman and unhuman.

Christian Molenaar – "Achilles and the Tortoise," from Jeremiah XVII (Avant-Garde Pop – Independent). It's been a wild ride if you've been following the strange and inspiring wanderings of one C. Molenaar – from the dungeon-torture of Those Darn Gnomes, to the strange, avant-garde leanings of Crowhurst, to anything he's felt like doing, really. This one kind of caught me off guard, giving me, perhaps strangely, very Our Shadows Will Remain-era Joseph Arthur. That was a very special album for me, during a very "special" time in my life, so the very comparison is kind of uncanny. But, I think, reveals the depths of beauty and originality at play on this beautiful album.

Dungeon Serpent – "Rainland's Elegy (The Lamentations of the Shadowkingdoms)," from Lamentations of the Shadowkingdoms (Melodic Death Metal – Profound Lore Records). I may be off my game – who am I kidding, if course I'm off my game, but I had zero idea there was a new Dungeon Serpent album coming. Here, nevertheless, we are. I was a huge fan of their debut (receipts) and they sound way more Dark Tranquility than I remember them being, but holy hell do I not care. This rips – it's beautiful, intricate, over-worked, very Swedish-sounding and fucking awesome. 

Resin Tomb – "Fetid Existence," from Fetid Existence (Death Metal/Grindcore – Transcending Obscurity Records). I had some options on how to close this week's post, but not writing about the new Resin Tomb, or of the very fact that there is a new Resin Tomb coming, given how much I've fucking loved these crazies (receipts and receipts and receipts) seemed wrong. Not sure how to go about this, so I'll just say – in the absence, and probably demise, of Wake, this is the all the Wake you need.

FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ONE: If you haven't gotten to it yet, the collaborative track with M. Lamar and Nick McMaster is weird fantastic. Hopefully much more to come. 

TWO: Historically, I've loved everything and anything Undeath have recorded independently and have not loved their label stuff. Unsure why, but it is what it is. This new single sounds good, but jury's out.

THREE: The fantastic Bergtagen (Jon Rosenthal) played live recently, and sounded pretty great.

FOUR: Remember Balmorhea? Well, I didn't. Apparently they're still out and about, and a have an unsurprinsingly new track from earlier this year.

FIVE: Apropos the above-mentioned Oerheks, a related black metal project by the name of Mists is going to come out with some of the best atmospheric black metal of the year pretty soon. Peel the ears and leave them peeled. 

ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: New Owl album rips. Might get to this more at length next week. Very Jesu-ish.