Never on track

or back on the map.

Nov 03, 2023

Just in time for your November bandcamp Friday.

I’m not going to go into the whole Void issue… if you know you know “Who are you?” How these guys didn’t (or neglected the fact) is an entirely different story. Nonetheless, the UK Void are quality. They’ve recently aligned themselves with Brucia Records to follow up their killer 2021 concept album the Hollow Man (which, incidentally, is far and away better than the Entombed song) with Jadjow. Whether this album is as raucous and kaleidoscopic as the last is yet to be heard. First track on preview is more direct and focused. The sonics here are as if Code were using Suffering Hour’s guitar rig and pedals. Calliope on fire riffage, stacked vocals in a dynamic arrangement. If this is any indication it’s gonna be a hell of a ride.

Given the announcement of Jadjow, and less than 6 degrees of separation between the two, I would be remiss to not mention Code as they unloaded a “single” back in September that I, in ignorant haste, forgot to mention here or on the meta platforms. Need I remind you all Code released the bestest track of this century that has yet to be bested? “Brass Dogs.” There. I wrote it. “Hunting for Ceasar” and “The Long Drop” are the latest songs from this stalwart crew of misfit prog black metal mavens. Song writing here is compact, not dissimilar to Resplendent Grotesque, and showcases all the peaks/valleys, melodic/dissonance clashes and atmosphere one associates with Code.

Painted Throat was a blind purchase based on the fact it is comprised of a couple Ehnahre members, Ryan McGuire and Joshua Carro. The duo have produced an album of experimental, organic metal drone and ambient noise that isn’t too far removed from the most “out there” Ehnahre releases. Definitely feel the weight of the contrabass from the outset of “Branches and the Nests in Them.” Free wheeling drums, death metal growls, an abundance of noise and very very little in way of conventional riffing given much of this is bass dominated and distant from things like Bell Witch, Geryon, Necromantia, Morkobot. The Clock Shaken From the Wall is at turns ambient, noisy and flat out bruising.

Stillness of a Dying World debut with God of the Mind, a black metal assault on sanity daubed in murky production that would align it with primitive acts out there. Although there appears to be more going on under the hood than many intentional lo-fi recorded raw black metal. For instance, during “Devourer” the bass work has post punk punch and there is a submerged melodic theme (either synth or guitar textures or both) that recall Amebix “Coming Home.” Opening riffs of “The Long War” are almost black metal tremelo takes on classic Bolt Thrower/SacrilegeUK harmonized guitar parts.

I’ve long championed Pestilength. Now the duo have Vindsval and Debemur Morti legitimacy and the opportunity to truly run amok over the world. Slime encrusted Ulcerate Portal defects across An Axis of Perdition. New album in 2024. New song now.

You ever wonder what dictius te necare era Rainer Landfermann sitting in with an early 90s screamo band would sound like? Before you ask why, allow Valeska Suratt to sort you out.

Blackened dissotech from San Diego: Cerulean’s Carrion Angel feasts with choppy stacatto strikes, angular movement, great low end gurgle, energetic kit work and ravening vocals. Song structures and riffing hit as if Atheist and early Dillinger Escape Plan gorged on Deathspell Omega.

You know what was missing from this and the last post until now? Yeah, you guessed correctly: a band from Poland. Post punk goth goodness in the form of Kryształ. I caught on to this late, but, thanks to Gorycz and Krzta for setting me straight. Enjoy a couple singles from this year and 2022’s full length which has a fair shake of Killing Joke tribalism.

Oh, speaking of KRZTA, this just in… Dobra 12 sessions.

Finland’s Throat leaving the noise rock in the dust and not bothering to glimpse the rear-view mirror for what it has left behind. Opening with “Negative Life” on We Must Leave You finds Throat in a realm closer to Nine Inch Nails than the thugged out noise rock they started out as so many years ago. This album is fully cleansed of the Fudge Tunnel and Unsane pounding but it is not without having a very percussive rhythmic feel. When “Heaven Hanged” hits it is not a little bit early 90s Therapy? (or Killing Joke, for that matter.) “The Transaction” has a goth tinged feel where Sisters of Mercy meets KJ push and pull. Most songs here have the UK post punk sounds dialed in, locked and loaded with Killing Joke and Therapy? shimmering guitar, propulsive rhythms and dour FotN/SoM/Mission vocal stylings. Sure, this is all familiar ground, but, Throat does it with extreme precision and attention to detail that it is magic.

This may be the dark horse release of this post: new full length from A Flourishing Scourge. While we wait in wonder for new Howling Sycamore this should burrow its way into that space in your brain. Funny enough, Hannes Grossmann is behind the kit here, too. The vocals aren’t the strongest feature in the sandbox - moreso the harsh vocals being average and I believe the cleaner voices are stronger in terms of arrangements and patterns. Forgetting the vocals for a moment, because, man oh man, musically this is stellar. There is fantastic song writing that ebbs, flows, shifts and twists down to the foundations almost as if A Flourishing Scourge were splicing Still Life Opeth grandeur with Atheist and King Crimson complexity.

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.

“As Spoken” video by Knoll from forthcoming 2024 similarly titled album brings the Portal insectoid insanity to the funeral grind proceedings of these Tennessee terrornauts. Whether this album will be more deathly long form excursions into horror across the board has yet to be revealed.

On November 2, 2023 Tetragrammacide and Iron Bonehead revealed Typho-Tantric Aphorisms From The Arachneophidian Qur'an in full. Less unhinged grind and skewing toward full on Hate Eternal blazing death metal crush with a few ambient excursions for respite and retaining epic length song titles no one will remember.

Monument are here to remind you all they unleashed a significant release earlier this year with this recent video drop. Elegiac, sorrowful, grand sound that works in a manner that makes me think what could’ve happened if Elbow took a deeper dive into 4AD territory after Asleep in the Back. So, if you’re not familiar with either, no better time than the present.

Another case to remind people there was a release earlier in 2023, Virtaus unveiled a video for “Ihmisyyden Raunioilla.” Occult Finnish black metal gone cavernous and unhinged.