Demoncy – Empire of the Fallen Angel (Eternal Black Dominion)

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Demoncy originally recorded Empire of the Fallen Angel in 2003 and a dozen years later has re-recorded and re-issued these compositions as Empire of the Fallen Angel (Eternal Black Dominion). Having thought for years that the original release deserved a second look, it was great to see it ride again.

Recorded solely by Demoncy creator Ixithra without the benefit of a band as happened on the original, this new edition includes four new compositions which will be of a style familiar to listeners of Enthroned is the Night: more melodic than the classic Joined in Darkness, but still furious in intensity. The re-created older tracks feature better vocals and better production, giving the guitars greater power and fitting songs together more tightly. Empire of the Fallen Angel came out when “depressive black metal” was first a trend, and represents a response to that in the form of black metal that is often doomy: slow, morbid, and atmospheric. While the traditional powerhouse Demoncy riffing that sounds like all the savagery of Incantation and Profanatica undergirded with melody is present, much of this release also resembles the mood-oriented immersive pieces of bands like Black Funeral or even Ras Algethi. This album was always a more sensible method of expressing that sensation in black metal than the “depressive” variant, which amounted to essentially Burzum ripoffs that never changed riff, and now with more powerful production it reveals its strength. A listener might also note pervasive influences from Gorgoroth throughout this material.

Much of the album also uses faster material of the type seen on Enthroned is the Night: fast angular riffing that preserves melodic affinity between internal phrases, keeping a sense of mystery and ongoing discovery vital in the music. The new vocals have all of the whispering abrasive sound that made Joined in Darkness sound like a communication from dark gods hidden underneath the earth, but with the intensified production both float above and complement the guitars. While this album is not as intensely violent and confrontational as Joined in Darkness, nor as death metal influenced and energetic as Enthroned is the Night, it captures both the esoteric fury of American black metal like Black Funeral and the melodic intensity of European acts, all within its own voice. This classic not only rides again, but does so with a new life of its own.

Tracklist:
1. Invocation To Satan
2. Risen From The Ancient Ruins
3. Scion Of The Dark
4. Eternal Black Dominion
5. Sepulchral Whispers
6. My Kingdom Enshrouded In Necromantical Fog
7. The Enchanted Woods Of Forgotten Lore
8. The Obsidian Age Of Ice
9. Night Song (Apocalyptic Dawn)
10. Empire Of The Fallen Angel
11. Shadows Of The Moon (The Winter Solstice)
12. Warmarch Of The Black Hordes
13. The Ode To Eternal Darkness

Empire of the Fallen Angel (Eternal Black Dominion) will see release on June 29, 2015 via Forever Plagued Records.

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Sorcier des Glaces at work on North

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French Canadian black metal band Sorcies des Glaces announced that the band is heading into the studio this summer to finish the recording of North, its upcoming LP. The band also released the cover image above.

Known for its flowing black metal in the style of old Immortal and Graveland, but an idiosyncratic twist of its own, Sorcier des Glaces graced a number of the “best of 2014” lists floating around the internet including our own. Hopes are high for the new material.

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Death Is Upon Us death metal compilation planned

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The German zine Legacy – The Voice From The Dark Side plans to release a death metal compilation entitled Death Is Upon Us featuring cover artwork by infamous death metal artist Mark Riddick.

The first 14 tracks from this compilation feature bands from Dark Descent Records:

Thevetat
Morpheus Descends
Horrendous
Blood Incantation
Spectral Voice
Grave Ritual
Divine Eve
Father Befouled
House of Atreus
Imprecation
Blaspherian
Weregoat
Ritual Necromancy
Ghoulgotha

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Profile: Death Curse Productions (Germany)

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Death Curse Productions represents the new wave of smaller underground labels who are targeting niches within the mainstreamed post-underground instead of trying to drop out from the methods used by normals to exchange music. Despite offering some unconventional formats, Death Curse Productions keeps its offerings accessible to the world at large, as if daring them to look underneath the mantle of normalcy and discover the twisted, weird and alienated…

When did Death Curse Productions (DCP) get started, who started it, and what was your intent?

Death Curse Productions was founded in the year 2013 A.B. by two individuals who felt the urge to uphold the traditions of Black Metal.

The main intent behind the label’s activities was, is and always will be to create strictly limited pieces of music we approve to be worth the attention. DCP’s work concentrates on the production of quality releases in every way, be it musical, spiritual, visual or concerning design in general.

Mainly it’s quality above quantity, as nowadays the so called Black Metal ‘scene’ is all about putting out shitty releases of shitty sideprojects on a daily basis.

What type of music do you cover, and what do you do? Will this expand in the future?

We don’t determine an exact style as long as the music or the band matches our philosophy. In this case the essence of our philosophy is the glorification of death itself.

We canalize the music onto analogue media to preserve them against extinction. For now the focus is on tapes but that shall not set a restriction for what we do in the future.

In other words expansion is something we highly strive for.

Do you think underground metal is still relevant in the days of post-metal, indie-metal, jazz-metal and modern metal?

Today, in a time where those genres reached their peak of popularity, they managed to take the original values from the metal music itself and turn them into something completely depraved. The music was originally intended to be violent, raw, sinister and dangerous, instead people went forth and created something clean, peaceful and enjoyable, only in order to attract a tasteless mass of lambs and accumulate money.

Concerning the underground, especially Black Metal is declared to be dead by a lot of people, yet there’s a black flame still being kept burning by a small amount of certain individuals, who preserve the underground from being swallowed by trends and who put all their passion and devotion into creating music following the old path.

What are your favorite bands in the underground metal genres?

This is not a question we want to answer, as opinion-making is for the weak-minded, whose taste is defined by trends.

Of course there are undeniable classics everyone should be aware of, as well as some so-called newcomers who stand out in a way, they contrast from the common stuff.

If people are interested in what DCP does, where do they go for more information and/or how do they contact you?

Whoever is seriously interested in DCP, should contact us by mail.

For any updates visit the blogspot page or facebook.

Death Curse Productions 2014 releases:

DCP001 – KILL (Swe) “Inverted Funeral” tape

Yet to be released in 2015:

DCP002 – BALMOG (Esp) “Testimony Of The Abominable” tape
DCP003 – BALMOG (Esp) “Svmma Fide” tape
DCP004 – ILLUM ADORA (Ger) “Demo MMXV” tape
DCP005 – ACRIMONIOUS (Gre) “Purulence” tape

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Nausea – Condemned to the System (2014)

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Yes, this is a metal blog, and yes, this is a punk album and also yes, people who try to be ironic are annoying. Nausea Condemned to the System is worth your time if you enjoy energetic and powerful music of any kind. Born out of a punk album, this half-hour terror extends to grindcore and the type of speed metal touches that influenced later 80s hardcore. Unlike most hybrids of this nature, Nausea fuses its influences into a singular voice.

Condemned to the System distinguishes it from thousands that wish to be like it by maintaining a high degree of internal contrast, dialogue between riffs, and compelling tempo changes in songs that develop from a central conflict and by doing so avoid the dual extremes of riff salad and endless loop that make many minimalistic albums as boring as listening to a diesel engine idle. Instead, these songs launch into verse chorus pairs shaped around a central conflict with discursive and transitional material allowing the central loop to take more form. Grindcore-style layering of riffs and instruments gives these songs additional power.

For punk purists, there may be too much emphasis on muted chords used to end phrases, and for metal purists, there may be too many straight-up punk riffs of the 1970s style, but when looked at from a distance, the singular voice of this band emerges. Tempos stay high and vocals incoherent, keeping the guitars and drums as the center of the band with guitars leading and drums producing a pulsing violence behind. Avoiding technical playing entirely, Nausea focus on paring down their songs until a unique form emerges, then playing it with full intensity. The result is an album of short glimpses of life portrayed with the manic intensity of a paranoiac on a four-gallon coffee break, capturing the alienation of punk without self-pity and the willpower of metal without posturing.

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Profile: metal trader Sean Clark

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Sean Clark has been a part of the metal underground trading and selling circle for a long time, hunting down CDs and rare vinyls across the globe. As he gears up to sell some of his excess to finance further purchases of rare Profanatica material, he was able to answer a few questions for a profile:

When did you start selling/trading CDs and why did you get into CD trading? Were you a tape trader as well?

I think that I started seriously trading music back in the mid-’90s when I lived in Australia. Mostly copying tapes and trading with local friends. I started trading CDs on a wider scale around 2000 once I moved to the USA and a friend of mine introduced me to newsgroups, etc…

What appeals to you about underground metal? Does the same thing still appeal to you? Do you listen to other music as well?

EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing about today’s metal scene… so I just mostly keep myself busy with the stuff that I enjoyed in the past (but still do check out new bands nowadays just to make sure that I’m not missing out on something). Today’s scene is too hard to keep up to date with though… too many new releases every month.

Yes, I do listen to other music as well, but underground metal is usually about 80-90% of my music library.

What was your first encounter with the DLA/DMU and how did it ruin your life?

I honestly cannot remember how I found out about DLA/DMU…. but it was after speaking to you… must have been back in ’97? Probably on the newsgroups. I think that you bought some cds from me once though… but I knew you before I started selling/trading. We’ve had contact through various platforms for a long time now.

What current bands make you excited?

I am not so excited about many current bands because they mostly just remind me of better bands in the past. I think that most of the bands that I get excited about now aren’t even metal (Lana Del Ray, for example).

If people like the CDs you have, where do they find a list and buy them?

Everything that I have for sale is on my Facebook page : www.facebook.com/CryptsOfTrades

Click on PHOTOS and then ALBUMS… there are several photo albums there with pictures of everything that I am selling.

Good luck, Sean and let me know if you find any killer Profanatica stuff.

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Blaspherian reaches milestone in recording new album

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Texas cult primitive occult death metal band Blaspherian has recorded five tracks for its upcoming Reborn through the Black Flames of LuciferLP/CD and another single track for a 7″ with another band, the band said Monday. This release will follow the triumphant Upon the Throne…of Eternal Blasphemous Death 7″, the 2014 release of the bands demos and 2011’s Infernal Warriors of Death.

Known for its raw and subterranean sound, Blaspherian won over converts with its 2007 full-length Allegiance to the Will of Damnation but has continued to hone and intensify its songwriting since that time despite having to overcome numerous lineup changes and other impediments. The story continues, as the band added to its statement: “Two more [tracks] and we are ready to record.”

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Blasphemy reissues Fallen Angel of Doom on Nuclear War Now! Productions

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Grindcore/proto-black metal band Blasphemy has announced the re-issue of its classic album Fallen Angel of Doom on Nuclear War Now! Productions for CD and vinyl, with Blasphemy official merchandizing arm Ross Bay Cult issuing a cassette version.

The band announces the “tentative” release date as June for teh CD and July for the LP. In addition, the band says the release with be perpetual: “Both the LP and CD will be kept in print for the foreseeable future to combat the endless stream of bootlegs from subhuman scums.”

Having owned and enjoyed the Wild Rags issue of this album for many years, and believing it to be the best output of this influential band, it is great to see this one ride again.

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Hot Fuzz (2007)

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In the grand tradition of send-ups like Naked Gun, Tropic Thunder and Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, this goofy UK film tears apart movie stereotypes and cliches while providing relatively harmless laughs. It bears no relation to reality and exists solely as distraction but serves an important role in revealing movie tropes for the empty and implausible scenarios they are.

As in most good films, it begins with hyperbole and descends into satire. A super-cop from the city moves to a small town where he finds that mysterious deaths are going unreported. He investigates and finds a dark secret to this idyllic and seemingly useless place. Because of his inner conviction that law and order is important, he takes on the bad guys with impossible odds against him. Since this is a family film, there are no major surprises in the plot, and the filmmakers focused on texture instead. Like most films of this genre, internal plot features are repeated in different contexts to achieve both continuity and contrast. Characters, while one-dimensional, also exist as people with relatively complex motivations formed from a balance of self-interest and goodwill. What initially seem like simply stereotypes expand to show the reasons behind the behavior, reducing the implied mindlessness of lifestyle choices. This allows the filmmakers to mutilate, spindle and destroy those roles and bring out the absurdity of our time.

Comedy cannot be bloodless. In this film, the prime targets are the vast hypocrisy of a society that, like the idyllic town in this film, has given up on finding reason for its actions. It operates on rote, driven by money and obedient to mindless rules, and these two behaviors get the most ire. Throughout the movie, classic movie moments are revisited and destroyed with mockery. Characters twist and erode their own character types of the type one might expect in a Hollywood blockbuster. Through it all, the film manages to make its characters likeable by showing them as relatively simple people working on simple rules that they have found generally guide them to the right places in a world that is chaotic and beyond control. While no surprises or great profundity come from Hot Fuzz, what makes it powerful is that in the process of satirizing a situation, and then movies themselves, it also mocks the absurdity of our current era and the uselessness of people within it. Like all good comedy, this approach results in well-needed laughs and increasing cynicism toward “the way things are always done around here.”

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