Seattle

Plague Bearer, Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation (Nameless Grave 2023)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

After thirty years, Plague Bearer releases its first full-length album, Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation.

Plague Bearer started out in Seattle in 1992. They released a couple of demos before changing their name to Drawn and Quartered in 1994. But there was always something about that original formulation that the founders could not let go of. As the story goes, “guitarist K. S. Kuciemba was determined to keep the Satanic flame alive, slowly amassing simpler, eviler blackened riffs with partner H and putting out a demo in 2001 and [an] EP in 2006 with Nuclear Winter Records. In 2017, K and H reunited with longtime ally T on drums, along with vocalist Nihilist…” So, Plague Bearer is a side project of the principals from Drawn and Quartered, but it is more than that, given the long history. After all this time, the musicians have decided a long-player is in order, so we have Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation.

The opening song is “Unholy Black Satanic War Metal.” What a title, huh. It sounds brutal. It sounds aggressive. It sounds chaotic. The actual song is all of these things, turned up past ten. It is a rampage, with a “Gates Of Babylon” feel to it from time to time, but colored by a darker brush. The title track follows, and it has a slower cook at the jump. The blast beats do come, and the growling, curdling vocals. With recklessness at its center, the black embrace of this music cannot be shaken. “Defiled By Sodomy” alternates between gatling gun and pile driver in its rhythms. Impossibly, there is also a groove thread. That is a characteristic of this music that other music does not have – the ability to take buzzsaw constructions and play them over and around a catchy execution. If you listen to this one with your head held just right, the vocal melody is almost a shanty. Amazing.

There is a lot more to admire on this record. Spend some extra time with “Decapitated Angels” and “Churches Are In Flames” to appreciate their depth and impulsive verisimilitude. The closer is “Christbane” and it is a banger. I love this track. This album rips and roars and kicks in your doors. Highly recommended.

Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation is widely available on Friday, March 3rd through Nameless Grave Records. Look over the label’s website and Bandcamp to see the available formats and variants at the links below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://plaguebearerwa.bandcamp.com/album/summoning-apocalyptic-devastation

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/drawnandquartered

Nameless Grave Records, https://www.namelessgraverecords.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Plague Bearer, Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation (Nameless Grave 2023)

Witch Ripper, The Flight After The Fall (Magnetic Eye 2023)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

Seattle sludgers Witch Ripper let loose with their second long-player, The Flight After The Fall.

Witch Ripper is a metal band from the Pacific Northwest, formed in 2012. They have released an EP, a split, and a full-length album prior to the new one. They are typical called a sludge band, I’ve noticed, but when you hear The Flight After The Fall, you might think of them as progressive metalers.

The narrative content of the new record is described in the prerelease material as containing “ a mad professor, his dying wife, cryogenic chambers, a black hole as well as themes of love, failure, loss, and acceptance.” That is pretty exciting – fertile ground indeed. The band is Chad Fox (guitar, vocals), Brian Kim (bass, vocals), Curtis Parker (guitar, vocals), and Joe Eck (drums).

“Enter the Loop” is the first of six tracks on the record. The quiet dissolve is a slow build that pushes into a proggy arrangement. Hooking melody follows, surprisingly, cracking off in a gruff direction afterward. I am getting a little dizzy listening to the music. This is a fascinating choice for an opener. “Madness and Ritual Solitude” is next, breaking out in percussion to set up a big guitar riff. This one lays on the doom side of the field, with additional activation from the drumming. The composition does turn more technical, but the tone remains serious, the instrumentations are more muscular. Very good. “The Obsidian Forge” is ponderous, drawn more in an intellectual, or at least contemplative, space. Meditate on this one and see if you can find deeper meaning.

“Icarus Equation” is my favorite track outside of the gigantic closer. It offers beautiful, bewitching frontmatter before laying out heavy tones and celestial ideations. But the big story is “Everlasting in Retrograde Parts I and II.” Running almost seventeen minutes, it fits right in as a two-parter since the other songs average about half that mark. What especially appeals to me is the periodic heaviness that exceeds earlier levels, placed in contrast to melodic outpourings. Truly, you could listen only to this final piece and be satisfied, although it does have a greater impact after the rest of the music has been ingested. This is not what I thought I was going to hear, but I thoroughly enjoyed the album. Recommended.

The Flight After The Fall is out on Friday, March 3rd through Magnetic Eye Records. Listen and buy at the links below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://witchripper.bandcamp.com/album/the-flight-after-the-fall-2

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Witchripper/

Magnetic Eye Records, https://us.spkr.media/us/Artists/Witch-Ripper/Witch-Ripper-The-Flight-After-The-Fall.html

© Wayne Edwards

Witch Ripper, The Flight After The Fall (Magnetic Eye 2023)

Hissing, Hypervirulence Architecture (Profound Lore 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , ,

Hypervirulence Architecture is the new album from Hissing.

With three EPs and a long-player under their belt, Seattle’s Hissing brings out a new full-length album, Hypervirulence Architecture. Having begun only in 2015, this is a notable record of musical creation from the highly respected death and black metal band. The musicians are Zach Wise (bass, vocals), Joe O’Malley (guitar), and Sam Pickel (drums).

This new record is noticeably different from their debut album, Permanent Destitution (2018). The press release gets it right when it notes that, on Hypervirulence Architecture, “the trio take their sound into more nightmarish, trance-inducing, mercurial, and mind-altering sonic dominions.” They achieve a delicate balance between what we might think of as death metal and black metal, while making concerted use of ambient/noise moments constructed sometimes almost ritualistically. It is a sinister blend.

“Cells of Nonbeing” is the first of seven tracks. It sounds for all the world like a frantic casting about in a dark cave that might very well be an abyss. The farther in you go, the more mysterious it becomes. The guitars lean toward dissonance part of the time, and the vocals are not meant to be reassuring. “Hostile Absurdity” further loosens the moorings you thought were secure, leaving you to drift into dangerous regions. “Operant Extinction” is then unleashed, and it is the most impressive track on the album. An epic piece, running over ten minutes, it is fascinatingly doomy and filled in every space with dark and frightening looks.

The second half of the album starts with a transition piece, “Hypervirulence,” then kicks in the door with “Intrusion,” a song that builds tension to the bursting point. “Identical To Hunger” and “Meltdown” are reflected images – visions distorted by a warped onyx glass. Listening to these last two tracks, I began to feel appropriated by some existential object that could not be clearly discerned. This album will affect you. Recommended.

Hypervirulence Architecture is out now through Profound Lore Records. Have a look at the label’s website and/or pick the album up at Bandcamp.

Band photo by Marena Shear.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://hissingseattle.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/hissingseattle

Profound Lore Records, https://profoundlorerecords.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Hissing, Hypervirulence Architecture (Profound Lore 2022)

Stricken, From A Well Of Emptiness, A Stygian Serpent Born (HPGD 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

Heavy doomers Stricken shake the Seattle mist off to throw out a new long-player, From A Well Of Emptiness, A Stygian Serpent Born.

Stricken materialized in the Pacific Northwest around 2017, releasing a three-song demo the following year. Sometimes described as blackened doom metal, their music sounds more like a death metal / doom metal crossover to me – but what’s in a title anyway? The songs are heavy and grim in the best possible way. The Metal Archives tells us the musicians are Rob Ropkins (bass and vocals), Chris Wozniak (drums), and Nick Charlton (guitar).

Over the course of seven big tracks, Stricken puts suffering, misery, and hopelessness to music. To wit, the aptly titled opener “Consuming Misery” is an avalanche of mourning. Surprisingly peppy percussion channels the heavy riffs into a primordial swirl. “Divine Appointment” follows with shuddering drama. Ropkins’ vocals are strong, and project a soaring quality. You have to admire the consistency and enthusiasm of the pummeling rhythm.

“Sacrifice” is the heaviest song of the first side, and that gives it an elevated position in my mind. I can’t get enough doom, and this one lays down three strong merciless minutes of it then picks up the pace a bit and steamrolls on.

Every track has something particularly notable about it from the great buried hook in “Eon” to echoing tragedy of “Dishonored In Death” to penetrating inevitability of “Sudden Fall.” The closer is the epic “Beyond The Void,” hoisting metal heavy enough to smother any remaining resistance from you. This new Stricken album needs to be in heavy rotation. Recommended.

From A Well Of Emptiness, A Stygian Serpent Born is out on Friday, March 25th through Horror Pain Gore Death Productions on digital and limited-run CD. You can also grab a shirt if the spirit moves you.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/from-a-well-of-emptiness-a-stygian-serpent-born

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/stricken.seattle

Horror Pain Gore Death Productions, https://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/

© Wayne Edwards. All rights reserved.

Stricken, From A Well Of Emptiness, A Stygian Serpent Born (HPGD 2022)

Sun Crow, Quest For Oblivion (Ripple Music 2021)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , , ,

When I think of Doom Metal this is what I hear in my head: Sun Crow’s debut album.

Quest For Oblivion was released late last year by the band, and now it is getting broader distribution through Ripple Music. The musicians are Ben Nechanicky (guitar), Brian Steel (bass), Keith Hastreiter (drums), and Charles Wilson (vocals). The band as it is might be fairly new, but the members have a solid history of honing their talents and together they are pure metal lava.

There are eight tracks on Quest For Oblivion, four of them over ten minutes long. The album starts with “Collapse,” a slow-opening heavy doom statement with planetary-scale riffs and soul-freeing power. The music is unhurried. Sure of itself, the composition moves in its own natural direction. “Black It Out” is next with a quicker build and a sound just as big. “End Over End” hits next, and it might be my favorite track on the album, although picking one among this pack is a fool’s errand because every song has so much to admire. Here I am enthralled by the lead guitar work and voice, the rollicking drums and muscular bass which together compartmentalized my mind and gave me a feeling like I was existing in a distinct cranial collective rather than a single source of thought.

There are two shorter songs, six and five minutes each, and they have a generally quicker tempo – “Fear” and “Nothing Behind.” The shift is a shove that rattles you around to secure your attention for the final two, “Hypersonic” and “Titans.” The penultimate song is a trip to the stars the final one brings the celestial to the terrestrial and shakes the prehistoric structure of the earth. Taken together as a full set or one song at a time, Sun Crow has set a standard with Quest For Oblivion to which other doom music will be compared. Highly recommended.

The digital download is available now at Bandcamp through the band directly or through Ripple Music. Physicals ship in July from Ripple.

Links.

Sun Crow Bandcamp, https://suncrow.bandcamp.com/

Ripple Bandcamp, https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/quest-for-oblivion

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/theSunCrow/

Sun Crow, Quest For Oblivion (Ripple Music 2021)