new year coming in hot.

I further digress.

Welcome 2023. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. LAIBACH. Love the cold, minimalist approach going on with this new track from Sketches of the Red Districts. Sure, it isn’t the old boss. Face it, 1980-87 Laibach is unfuckwithable. Though some recent recordings are returning to the essence in a stately, melancholic manner.

Rage for the light? Quick glimpse at the Vitae Crucis lyrics one wouldn’t take this as unblack, but, does it really even matter when you’re taking a sound throttling? Besides, the mission statement could even relate to the Bloodborne video game, so, again, who cares? What does matter is the music and this UK black metal act brings a mix of feral and choral vocals and very interesting guitar work that ranges from frosty hyper picked runs with great details to end phrasings and a nice undertow thump from the bass.

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Remorseful are an act from the city/state where Doktor Dismemberment formerly set up shop… somewhere in the wilds of Boston, Massachusetts, what T stop is anyone’s guess. If one were to base a band’s sound on the state of public transportation the best bet would be this is a Philly SEPTA production: scuzzy, dirty, threatening to shatter to pieces in some urine-stained concourse below City Hall. I digress. Remorseful is an industrialized monstrosity that hammers, plods, churns and slogs in moods most foul and with breath of sulfur. The cover art would make one think this is cosmic horror based, but, these are litanies of plagues regarding everyday urban terror.

On a similar course of destruction and noise as Remorseful, Germany’s Plague have previewed new material from forthcoming The shape of misery to come... The first song here has a recording sounding as if it were recorded inside a subway tunnel giving it a cavernous, reverbed out sound quality. This conductor, too, is absolutely raving insane. The second track isn’t as much of a cave explorer’s audio terror as it sounds more refined, less wet but it is as ugly in intent. More direct and throttling.

Next two on the docket are disfigurations from Jared Moran. When you see all of the projects he is involved with you wonder if the man sleeps. I’ll let you in on a secret. He isn’t human. He is Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. One of his thousand young, Yzordderrex is a riot in slow motion. An atonal, disjointed, downtrodden creepy crawly thing abhorrent of light and feeding on rust for sustenance.

The flipside to Yzordderrex is Ullequip. 24 untitled tracks in under 6 and a half minutes. Grinding mayhem that has an improv feel and a devil may care attitude toward production value. These freak outs, 25 of them to date, all sound as if they are a spur of the moment primal scream of sorts. The recorder is in constant motion, drums are put down in a cave man Buddy Rich playing from enslavement to obliteration. Maybe it is the other way around? Guitar and bass agitations that are then given drum treatments. Or just maybe, Jared has multiple appendages like the eldritch horror I’ve suggested he is and does this all simultaneously.

Just before 2023 broke Sum Lights sent out this salvo… To which I say, only a single, gentlemen? 2021 you guys tried to linestep with the full length Emanating Fulguration. Which was a brilliant move, only to have Mutterlein pull off the biggest kiss off to 2021 with Bring Down the Flags. Again, I digress. With any luck “The Sense of a Sun” is the precursor to a new full length from this German blackened death dealing outfit. Until then, you have 9 minutes to get warped on.

Morocco isn’t the first place I would think of for metal. Guterus, which is a project comprised of a few members of Vile Utopia with personnel from other acts. Verminiscence is an exercise in experimental death metal… not quite as uber tech Blotted Science as Vile Utopia but more in a Martyr, Theory in Practice riffy style with added Gorguts atonality and bass clank. Saxophone blasts make an appearance on a couple tracks which also happen to have vocals from the singer of Parisian act PhonoPaths.

Back to one man bands, this time Рожь (aka Rye). Vladimir Frith is the party responsible and once again he brings a sense of orchestrated fervor with this project. Opening track is straddling black gaze and post metal with guitar effects, multi-vocal tracking and a sense of epic wonder. Other songs are full throttled black metal with a lot of bass thump, solemn majestic solos and atmospheric breaks that wouldn’t be out of place on a Wardruna recording.

Final two for this offering of pomp, circumstance, filth and noise will be from the Kolkata Inner Order Propaganda school of sonic terror. These are cassette releases that GoatowaRex has uploaded to their YouTube channel. First to call is Birdirna Dhamani. Ritualistic moments and primitive savagery on display… though savagery tends to be a Kolkata Inner Order pre-requisite…. Cavernous, distant production on hand here, but, not so much that the riffing becomes blurry. Basic, no nonsense knock down drag out death metal. The only time the suffocating tide is turned is when there are ritual percussion interludes and introductions.

Vipannamaya is the more abstract of the two Kolkata releases on hand and it has a more black metal lean. Busier in terms of structures and utilizing more tools out of the shed to work on three long form songs. And who am I to argue with the label describing it as “Vipannamaya displays here the meditations of its strangulated epiphanies, delivering nightmare blow after nightmare blow of vast atmospheric punishment.” It does display a hellish carnival ride of sorts at the final third of opener “DAIVIK ABHYAGAM” with what sounds like detuned piano chords overlaying the buzzing insanity.

That is a wrap. I am still in the process of processing things for the 2022 EP/Demo/Split break down. Hopefully by the weekend, but, you can never be certain.