Extinction Level Events and Endless Punishment

nope. not yet. just wait.

This post will offer you Plenty of Nothing. Sit back and enjoy. I imagine a few of these will end up as end of year album contenders.

BIG|BRAVE with quite a quick turnaround time between this album and last year’s nature morte. Where this one takes us will soon be revealed. New mistresses and master of quiet/loud push/pull dynamics and organic tone bring “I Felt A Funeral.”

I miss Parisian noise mavens Revok. Sala Bestia share a pair of members with that long running act. While not as Voivod meets KCMO (S2R and Molly McGuire) given additional density as Revok, it scratches a similar angular noise rock itch while placing emphasis on minimalism and open space for spidery dialed back guitar distortion, huge bass, stripped down kit work and melodic vocals to play. A bit of the quiet/loud dynamic here with a brooding, simmering tension throughout that will draw comparisons to Slint, but, the songs don’t meander and the lower register tether doesn’t feel out of place with UK post punk or gnarlier noise rock.

On the subject of gnarlier noise rock, members of Unsane and Council of Rats walk into an Italian bar where Marnero is playing. Later that night they leave and form Baratro. This is the third offering from the trio, The Sweet Smell of Unrest. What you’ll hear is what you expect.

One look at the artwork on the new Santacreu album and you know you’re in for a majestic tour. Melodic, atmospheric doom inflected metal with vocals in Catalan. Pairs up just fine with last year’s TodoMal in yin/yang terms of atmosphere where TodoMal being the dark to Santacreu’s light. I see some reviews bringing up Isis, I don’t hear it. I mean not at all. For me there’s more of a desert rock openness to much of the work and the vocals are a completely different tact. Sure, there are sudden explosions from the open drifts that are part and parcel of the entire CultofNeurIsis post style… but here there are excursions into speedier climes that not even Neurosis explored since pain of mind and the word as law and those iterations sound more Black Flag than Black Sabbath.

New Mnajdra track on Rotten Pages compilation.

Chilean upstarts Asphalt Grieving with a punked up black death rip ride. Vocals infused with Sakevi Yokoyama feral intensity which push this into a mandatory purchase. The other interesting thing at play is a thread of meandering atmospheric background texture lending ethereal or cosmic vibes to the rough and ready rugged riffing and battering ram speeds. When things slow down Asphalt Grieving have the quasi-melodic quality that fellow countrymen Animus Mortis has. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the two acts share guitarists. We shall return to Chile later.

Hesychia are self proclaimed “Experimental no-bounds metal group hailing from Latvia.” Very much on point. Everything and the kitchen sink… ethno-folk melodic numbers, rough and tumble raging black metal, ecclectic mixes of styles that can at times resemble Negura Bunget delving into a electronica toolkit, even elements that will recall Meshuggah crossed with Godflesh (“Avidya”), chilled out ambient and Ulver-esque soundtrack styled epics.

Blackened neo crust brutes Svdestada unleashed Candela early in the year. Short sharp shocks that are rip roaring off to the races with a feral vocalist exhorting his bandmates to frenzied heights. Terrific tones across the board with the bass and drums adding thump behind the razor slicing guitar work.

Netherlands black metal supremacy from Verwoed on display on the two tracks from forthcoming The Mother.

Finland’s Baron and Transcending Obscurity find themselves Beneath the Blazing Abyss in April for Asphyx doom death transcendence. Vocals here are more Tucker than van Drunen. Great mix of OSDM and, as Asphalt would write, “low IQ riffs” that it will satisfy a wide berth of metalheads.

Unsure how many tracks you will hear of Extinction Level from Anchor and Burden on the bandcamp site if you haven’t purchased. Once it is bought, all songs are unlocked. If the preview track doesn’t whet the scythe for you, your loss. Maybe someone should’ve insisted on “Mutual Assured Destruction” or “Nine Gates to Domination” for the drum clinics. The trippy finale, “The Crust of this Earth” must suffice with its improvised retro futuristic sci-fi soundtrack quality doom jazz. Cue a Zone scene from Stalker and let it flow.

Danes Kollapse soon to return with the pummel and sturm und drang with AR. Noise rock done most deranged and minimal. Death tripping the Breach most Unsane. If you were all in on Great Falls multiple releases and KENmode’s Void from last year, ante up.

Trifecta from Poland.

Coming in under the radar are death metal hooligans Kult Mogił. The intensity here is at Demolition Hammer levels of aggro and early 90s Morbid Angel antics. And with that sort of thinking, Florida Solstice circa 92 does come to mind, but, unlike the Sentencing there are no crossover/hardcore nods here. Only the eye opening level of unbridled anger and technicality.

“Spark” is the first dose of Above Aurora’s Myriad Woes.

Defying return with a concept album based on Jerzy Gierałtowski short story "Wadera" and Marek Piestrak’s shewolf film Wilczca (which I have seen as it is one of the All the Haunts Be Ours box set disks). Defying, as the name suggests, again alter sonic construct. The songs on display here ascend to black metal heights rather than post metal prog of their outstanding The Splinter of Light We Misread from 2016.

New Misotheist supposedly dropping March 1st. Last year the first preview track dropped. Here’s a reminder.

As threatened, we return to Chile with Unaussprechlichen Kulten. Creepy crawly Lovcraftian Morbid Angel death metal madness rife with dual guitar dynamics, twisting and turning arrangements that, in the words of the Gemini Killer, “is the torment of your friend… as he watches while I rip, and cut, and mutilate the innocent! His friends! And again! And Again! And On and On!… Oh, gracious me. Was I raving? Please forgive me. I'm mad...”

Good god almighty… the real time terrors Weasel Walter, Rick Eye and Adios from Everywhere have wrought. Even if you don’t care for the lo-fi knock down drag out guitar and electronic noise - you can put it on mute and listen to something more your tempo while the kalideoscopic body horror unfolds.

oh, and what do we have here… nothing yet to hear, but as Bob Saginowski and cousin Marv will tell you, “We’ve got the word out.” Walk Through Fire.

Before closing please support: Everything Went Black, The Metal Dad and his fiendish five podcast, No Clean Singing, Stereogum: The Black Market, The Devil’s Mouth, Aversionline, Invisible Oranges, Horror Wolf 666, Into the Necrosphere, Sol Nox Podcast, The Book of Very Very Bad Things, Plague Rages, Thrown to the Abyss Podcast, Freedom Has No Bounds, Machine Music, Dreams of Consciousness, Doktor Dismemberment’s Midnight Murderplex and Crucial Blast’s Warhead…. most of these sites update daily and weekly, most likely more frequently than what I provide.