FFMB show recap is here: https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2023/02/11/thy-art-is-murder-at-the-king-of-clubs-columbus-ohio-february-9-2023/
Photos by Wayne Edwards.
© Wayne Edwards
Photo Gallery: Thy Art Is Murder
Australia
Photo Gallery: Justice For The Damned
FFMB show recap is here: https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2023/02/11/thy-art-is-murder-at-the-king-of-clubs-columbus-ohio-february-9-2023/
Photos by Wayne Edwards.
© Wayne Edwards
Estrangement, Disfigurementality (Aesthetic Death 2022)
Baroque funeral doom band Estrangement present their first full-length offering, Disfigurementality.
Estrangement is the creation of Australian musician JS, a multidisciplinary metal master. He incorporates baroque music with his metal premises, engaging the talents of other artists for the additional (non-metal) instruments such as double bass, violin, cello, piano, flute, and classical guitar. Add in guttural vocalizations and throat singing, and you have something new under the sun. This musical project has been active since 2010, releasing a demo and a split along the way. Disfigurementality is the first long-player by Estrangement.
“Destitution Stench” brings melancholy strings and a sorrowful, warning voice. It seems introductory at first, but really I think the song is better described as an invocation. “Detritivore” is the first track that gives you a clear view of what to expect for the rest of the album. Told at a funeral doom pace, the integration of grating, tortured vocals with strings, massive guitar riffs, percussion, and a flute is off in a direction you have never heard before, unless you have heard Estrangement.
There are slower, melodic movements throughout the set, like “Belong Beneath,” that have a soothing effect. Still, while you are hearing them, listening, you know that any moment the music will take a darker turn. Massive songs like “Womb of Worlds” and, especially, “Doppelganger,” are extensive journeys with rich, divergent constructions living together in both turmoil and harmony. I can hear this record as a funeral doom album, and I can also hear it as death metal. It is best just to admit that it isn’t any one thing, and take the trip for all it is worth. Recommended.
Disfigurementality is out on Friday, November 25th through Aesthetic Death. Find out more at the links below.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://estrangement.bandcamp.com/album/disfigurementality
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/estrangementdoom/
Aesthetic Death, https://www.aestheticdeath.com/
© Wayne Edwards
Sarcophagum, Conduits To The Underworld (Nuclear Winter 2022)
Newly minted dark metal band Sarcophagum release their debut EP, Conduits To The Underworld.
Comprised of members from the Australian death metal band Golgothan Remains, Sarcophagum is a doom-heavy death metal act. There is old school death metal at play hear, to be sure, as well as what I have been trying to call dark metal: an intentional dismalness that is more active than doom metal and can express itself in a variety of forms. There are three songs on the new record, and they are all quite impressive.
“Pits of Hate” is beautifully dark at its open. The growling, croaking vocals enter after the riffs pick up and the land is verily shaken free of care. This song smells like the plague and sounds like its title. The music pushes you right up to the edge of the abyss and makes you look over into the infinite, not at all concerned about the price you will pay.
“Netherengines” poses dissonance as a rendering of attitude, and carries it on to the next level. The sour clashing is a sign that things aren’t right. In due course, we find out the details. No amount of distracting reverie can transport you away from the reality expressed in the constricting musical space of this song.
“Between Two Worlds” is an ode to hopelessness, by the sound of it. The dreariness is oppressive; the weight of a cosmos presses on you from either side. The guitars play together, mournfully detailing the predicament. The vocals are a narration of your demise.
The metal on this EP is as heavy as a rational mind can contemplate. Well done. Recommended.
Conduits To The Underworld is out through Nuclear Winter Records on Monday, September 12th. You can get it at the label’s on-line shop or Bandcamp.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://nuclearwinterrecords.bandcamp.com/album/conduits-to-the-underworld
Nuclear Winter Records, https://nuclearwinterrecords.com/shop/
© Wayne Edwards
Mournful Congregation, The Exuviae Of Gods – Part I (20 Buck Spin 2022)
On the cusp of thirty years in, Mournful Congregation begin their two-part EP series with The Exuviae Of Gods – Part I.
Australian doom band Mournful Congregation is a pillar of the funeral doom mausoleum. From the very beginning with the Weeping demo in 1994, they have set their own boundaries. A second demo appeared the very next year then, a few years on, Tears From A Grieving Heart, their first full-length album. Since then, there has been a steady, well-paced flow of much-needed doom. The band is peopled by Damon Good (vocals and guitar), Justin Hartwig (guitar), Ben Newsome (bass), Ben Petch (guitar), and Tim Call (drums).
Exuviae Of Gods will be released in two parts, the second appearing later this year. Part I contains three long tracks starting with “Mountainous Shadows, Cast Through Time.” An organ fades in playing sinister tones leading in short order to a confrontation with a massive wall of guitar riffs. The vocals that ensue have a sound of distance in them, gruff and croaking. Slow and deliberate. The guitar solo enters in its own time and, when it does, it is genuinely enthralling.
“The Exuviae Of Gods” is a deeply moving instrumental piece soaked in sorrow. At merely seven minutes long, it is sandwiched between two behemoths. The vocalizations in “An Epic Dream Of Desire” are spoken word, offering unmuddled direction in the narrative. Halfway through, a lead guitar embarks on a deeply emotive dirge of mystical wonder. Beyond is the eventuality of existence and nonexistence. The space that Mournful Congregation inhabits in the land of funeral doom music is most compelling. Recommended.
The Exuviae Of Gods – Part I is out on Friday, May 27th through 20 Buck Spin digitally and on CD, with vinyl to follow a bit later on. Osmose Productions is handling the album outside of North America.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://mournfulcongregation.bandcamp.com/album/the-exuviae-of-gods-part-i
Website, https://www.mournfulcongregation.com
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/mournfulcongregation
20 Buck Spin, https://www.20buckspin.com/
© Wayne Edwards
Cryptivore, Celestial Extinction (Bitter Loss Records 2022)
Australian one man band Cryptivore rakes the earth with Celestial Extinction, the inaugural long-player.
Brisbane’s own Chris Anning handles all the instruments, including voice, for his project Cryptivore. Five years ago he released a demo called Unseen Divinity, and now we have ten new songs. There isn’t any inherent reason why one person cannot take on the complete burden of creation and performance, except that it is a lot to do – it’s an enormous task. Sometimes it turns out well and other times you really miss the third party perspective collaborators provide. In the case of Cryptivore, the end result is excellent and engaging death metal. Well done.
The ten songs on Celestial Extinction all fall in the two-to-three-minute range, and brevity is an opportunity for high impact. “Gate Of Dismal Torture” is an excellent example. Clocking in at just over two minutes, it has great hooks and is able to stimulate suspense with tempo changes and unexpected punches. The track the follows immediately, “The Ethereal Deceased,” has a convincing doom intro followed by a catchy hook then pressed on by a forceful death metal verse. There are many looks on this album – it is full of exploration.
The elements in the music are clear enough to see. The best part about the music is the way Anning combines them and puts his own unique flair and sensibility in the mix. The first bars of “Solemn Desolation” are like a call to dark meditation and that gets almost immediately juxtaposed with a ravaging death metal torrent but then on the way out there is a cooking groove. I got into this album immediately and stayed with it all the way through, from the opening wails of “Cocoon Hecatomb” to the closing dramatic bars of the anchoring title track. Recommended.
Celestial Extinction is out on March 15th through Bitter Loss Records on digital, CD, and vinyl.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://bitterlossrecords-au.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-extinction
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Cryptivore/
Bitter Loss Records, https://www.bitterlossrecords.com/
© Wayne Edwards. All rights reserved.
The Neptune Power Federation, Le Demon De L’Amour (Cruz Del Sur Music 2022)
The fifth album from The Neptune Power Federation is the best one yet: Le Demon De L’Amour.
I thoroughly enjoyed the previous album from The Neptune Power Federation, Memoirs of a Rat Queen (2019). Indeed, that one was the first I had heard from the Australian heavy rock band and it turned me all the way around. I vowed at the time to see them live as soon as humanly possible and I still haven’t done it yet – any US dates coming up? The music is an energetic hard rock that has some retro components but lives firmly in the here and now. The stage names of the musicians in the band are Screaming Loz Sutch (vocals), Search and DesTroy (guitar), Inverted CruciFox (guitar), Jaytanic Ritual (bass), and River Sticks (drums).
The song you might have heard already is “My Precious One” as it is the advance single and there is a video of it floating around YouTube. If you haven’t heard it yet, drop everything and listen now – it’s a banger. If that song doesn’t make you want to listen to the rest of the album then I don’t know what. Fast, hooky, with a great guitar in the riff and lead, and the fiercely emotive vocals combine to make this a radio hit (if there was still radio). It is a great song, and I would recommend the album on the strength of it alone, but there is more.
Le Demon De L’Amour is a set of eight hard-edge, deep-cutting love songs. While on the surface that might not sound so great for a metalhead like me, the actual music is incredible. Filled with heavy psych, hooks and breaks, and deeply soulful vocals, The Neptune Power Federation is taking the love song back for the heavy music crowd.
The album begins with the eight-minute epic “Weeping On The Morn.” It is a massive rock and roll homage that dips into many corners. The single “My Precious One” cracks next and then the funky “Baby You’re Mine” struts out. There are so many great looks in just the first three songs it is hard to count them all. All the tracks are up-tempo, and each one has its own intrigue. “Stay With Thee” is one of my favorites, “Madly In Love” appeals to my contrarian side. My full list of favorites would be eight songs long so I’ll just leave it there.
If you don’t know about them yet then you need to get your life together and listen to The Neptune Power Federation. Highly recommended.
Le Demon De L’Amour is out on February 18th through Cruz Del Sur Music. Bandcamp is the easy way to get it in the US.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://theneptunepowerfederation.bandcamp.com/
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/theneptunepowerfederation
Cruz Del Sur Music, https://www.cruzdelsurmusic.com/blog/
Descent, Order Of Chaos (Brilliant Emperor 2022)
The new album from Descent is step forward in their heavy music campaign.
Order Of Chaos is the second full-length album from Brisbane, Queensland death metal band Descent, following 2018’s Towers of Grandiosity and a demo three years before that. The music they play is a brutal mesh of death metal, black metal, and hardcore. According to the Metal Archives, the band is Jim Dandy (bass), Anthony Oliver (vocals), Kingsley Sugden (drums), Brendan Auld (guitar), and Josh Kane (guitar).
I wrote a book (pseudonymously ) a few years back titled The Sequence Of Random Events so I appreciate the concept of Order Of Chaos. You think about it for a while and there is always a pattern in there somewhere and meaning can be ascribed. Alternately, the chaos itself might be the order, eh – that’s a brain-pulsing notion on its own. Of course it could just be that there is never any order and searching for it is a waste of time so you might as well embrace the chaos. Or … we could just listen to the music.
The punishing begins at the jump with “Tempest” and carries through on all eight tracks. The gravely rawness of the vocals is hammered home by the relentless percussion and rhythm. The riffs carry both a violent menace and a patterning groove. The lead guitar is like close-up knife work that makes an art of the carving. Don’t drop the needle on this one if you are not ready for the rumble.
My favorite tracks are “Fester” and “Safe.” The former has a hook with a wicked barbed that attracted my gaze and then would not let go. The latter track is the shortest of the set and it is just a hard straight shot to the face. The album shook the ice out of my beard and got my blood up. Recommended.
Brilliant Emperor Records releases Order Of Chaos on Friday, January 14th. Redefining Darkness has the CD and Caligari Records offers up the cassette.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://descentmetal.bandcamp.com/
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/descentmetalbrisbane
Brilliant Emperor Records, https://brilliantemperor.bigcartel.com/
Vahrzaw, The Trembling Voices Of Conquered Men (Transcending Obscurity 2021)
Australian death metal band Vahrzaw continues its impressive run of drastic music with The Trembling Voices Of Conquered Men.
Formed under a different (and evolving) name in the early 1990s, Vahrzaw released the first full-length album, Defiant, in 2009. That is a long journey and a fascinating tale, I am willing to bet. Once the flag had been unfurled, new LPs rolled out on the regular with Twin Suns and Wolves’ Tongues in 2018, followed by Husk four years later. The music is fundamentally death metal with black metal cross-over features and seeds of thrash and prog. The new album is vibrant and tenacious and not to be ignored.
There are five primary tracks on The Trembling Voices Of Conquered Men, plus an acoustic intro and outro. You can hear “Death Of An Unknown Architect” approaching in the distance, pushing nearer with a relentless surety as the volume ramps up. Inescapable. The guitars strike a sour note above the battering percussion then rip into merciless speed and crunch. This is a prog death tune from the land beyond. “Waiting With The Wolves” swings in on a groove that quickly twirls into something more hideous, signaled early with a black metal hiss in the collateral vocal. The changes are too numerous to delineate and they are almost entirely unexpected. It is a stitching of disparate parts, somehow becoming fluid in the collective.
“As Ships Upon Shores” is a plaintive, doom-laden call. It is a beautifully dark song that rises steadily in tempo then drifts off to quietude in the distance at the end. “Vultures” could be a single with its catchy opening riff if only the composers had married the desire to be approachable to the masses. Soon enough the music is off on an absolute black metal rampage. “The Pessimist” is a nine-minute journey into a twilit realm of despair and incontrovertible angst. All the pieces are revisited and renewed, engorged on the endless creativity of the musicians. This is an album clearly marked for greatest in the annals of heavy music. Highly recommended.
The Trembling Voices Of Conquered Men is out now. In the US, orders are easy at Bandcamp, or buy directly from Transcending Obscurity Records at their on-line store.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://vahrzawband.bandcamp.com/album/the-trembling-voices-of-conquered-men-death-black-metal
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/VAHRZAW
Transcending Obscurity, https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
Norse, Ascetic (Transcending Obscurity 2021)
Australian dissonant Black Metallers Norse release their fourth full-length album, Ascetic.
Norse is a duo that has been haunting the landscape since 2006. Their focus has always been on Black Metal, but the execution of the musical endeavor has changed over the years. The new album works a penetrating brand of dissonance that enhances the chaos of the songs’ narrative themes.
There are eight tracks on the album, most of them tipping over the five minute mark. The title track has what I would call strong doom influences to go along with the more central dissonant black metal orientation and it opens the set with howl. “Parasite Warmongers” is very clanging, noisy, and operates a clearly defined dissonance. I know I am over-using the word, but an intentional grating quality is so much a part of this album that it is difficult to avoid.
Don’t get me wrong – there is plenty of variation. “Fearless Filth Seeker” has a shrill distortion to it gliding along with the melodic vocals. “Radical Depression” sounds like a march played in a cocktail lounge at the beginning, quiet and sultry; insinuating. After a couple of minutes a wall of sound kicks in and pushes you over until toward the end when the snare returns. There are many corners and crannies to explore.
“Useless” is the final mail in the coffin, and it seems to be offering a way through. But to where? The afterlife? Maybe. I hear it as a parable of the ultimate pointlessness of a life of struggle when the end is predetermined: death. That might be too on the nose. Whatever the intent, it is one the most engaging tracks of the set and it is properly fitted at the end. It is also one of the main reasons I am recommending the album.
Ascetic is out through Transcending Obscurity on Friday, October 8th, gatherable at Bandcamp or the label’s US store.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://norsebm.bandcamp.com/album/ascetic-dissonant-black-metal
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/norse.official
Transcending Obscurity, https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
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