Serpent Ascending – Ananku (2016)

by Daniel Maarat on December 25, 2016

Ananku is a term from the Tamil language describing the otherworldly and awesome power of sublime natural places and objects to overwhelm mankind into submission to their will by merely the perception of them. Jarno Nurmi of Serpent Ascending accomplishes this musically on his album of the same name by composing harmonized heavy and black metal style leads atop a death metal rhythmic basic into occult blackened narratives. Riffs are phrased and repeat to numerologically unfold, revealing profound and novel melodic leads as if the petals of a flower gradually blooming into gnostic truth when bathed in unconquered light.

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Jarno Nurmi Interviewed by Raw War

by Daniel Maarat on December 14, 2016

Jarno Nurmi was interviewed by black metal blog Raw War to promote his one man band Serpent Ascending‘s new album, Ananku. Jarno reveals he has left Desecresy and discusses the Finnish black and death metal scenes along with the mythological, occult, and esoteric motivations behind his latest work, Ananku.

Aṇaṅku is a different concept from ancient Tamil language and the word was chosen because it is widely unused and unknown, in many senses, but also because of it’s meanings of course. This is a nod to my earlier interests towards Indian and Asian esoteric traditions from where the process began though it ended up in something quite different.
The album turned out to have emphasis mostly on Northern European culture and identity from which it seeks to find the hidden sacred force that the word Aṇaṅku symbolises in the context. The album is adoration to Earth’s and Nature’s holiness, soil, blood and death.

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Infester Remaster Coming This January

by Daniel Maarat on December 13, 2016

Martyrdoom Productions posted more information about their long awaited reissue of Infester‘s To the Depths, In Degradation on their Facebook page this week. Hopefully the audio will be from the master tapes and not simply the original CD’s Redbook audio compressed and limited.

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Bardo Methodology Interviews Dead Congregation

by Daniel Maarat on December 8, 2016

Webzine Bardo Methodology interviewed Dead Congregation guitarist and frontman Anastasis Valtsanis. AV touched upon Dead Congregation‘s imitators (even though they worship Immolation and Incantation), record labels forcing bands to conform to release schedules, the decline of Greek black metal in the mid 90s, how most “lost gems” are mediocre, and why the accessibility the internet affords along with the decline of the music industry revenue genericizes metal bands into pedestrian products.

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Ananku Out on CD

by Daniel Maarat on December 7, 2016

Serpent Ascending‘s Ananku came out on CD recently courtesy of I, Voidhanger Records. The solo project of Jarno Nurmi of Desecresy, Serpent Ascending compose heavy and speed metal riffs into occult narratives of blackened death metal. Ananku is limited to 300 copies and may be purchased from Jarno Nurmi himself at the Serpent Ascending bandcamp page.

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Bardo Methodology Interviews Angelcorpse

by Daniel Maarat on December 5, 2016

angelcorpse-band

Webzine Bardo Metholody interviewed frontman Pete Helmkamp (Order From Chaos, Revenge) and guitarist Gene Palubicki (Perdition Temple, Blasphemy Cruelty) of Angelcorpse. Helmkamp talks about music as a sort of arcane magic ritual, quitting drinking, his career, and why Order From Chaos and Angelcorpse both disbanded. Palubicki reflects on the weaklings of modern metal.

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Dead Congregation – Sombre Doom (2016)

by Daniel Maarat on November 24, 2016

dead-congregation-sombre-doom

Sombre Doom is the new EP from Dead Congregation. The riffing is in the same Immolation and Incantation style with simple but effective variations as on their past releases while the production is a less compresssed version of Dead Congregation’s prior album, Promulgation of the Fall, some of The Best Underground Metal of 2014. Thankfully gone are the cheesy Kerry King style leads and guitarists AV and TK have markedly improved the song structure.

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