We know there is broad cynicism toward religion here; after all the Abrahamic (Islam, Christianity, Judaism) religions seem awfully simple and emotional. However, there is a whole world of spiritual belief out there which is not metaphysical dualism, neoplatonism, or universalism.
60 CommentsTags: christianity, golden dawn, h.p. lovecraft, j.r.r. tolkien, magic, Occultism, Paganism
I found it hilarious to see the book sales of George Orwell’s 1984 skyrocket just after the election of President Donald Trump. (more…)
6 CommentsTags: censorship, Death Metal Underground under siege, decline and fall of western civilization, dystopia, end times prophecy, Fahrenheit 451, h.p. lovecraft, historical revisionism, Ray Bradburry
The Lurking Fear ludicrously claim that:
5 CommentsThe Lurking Fear is bringing sheer, natural weirdness and horror back to the scene, as we want our death metal ugly, twisted and possessed.
Riffs should stir up real feelings of repulsion, and disgust deep down in your soul, and vocals should sounds like hounds of hell howling at the moon.
Tags: cash grab, century media, century media records, death 'n' roll, deathcore, h.p. lovecraft, HPV, liars, Lovecraft, review, shit, Sweden, the lurking fear, Tomas Lindberg
The Lurking Fear, the H.P. Lovecraft themed Swedish death metal band featuring At the Gates members Tomas Lindberg on the mic and Adrian Erlandsson behind the kit and Jonas Stålhammar from God Macabre on guitar, is releasing their debut album Out of the Voiceless Grave August 11th on Century Media. Hopefully the rest of the record will be better than the preview track, which sounded like a simplified, phoned-in and more boring Lucky Charms version of Grotesque. Will Tomas Lindberg take off the trucker hat and put the black leather trench coat back on?
3 CommentsTags: Adrian Erlandsson, century media, century media records, death metal, h.p. lovecraft, jonas stålhammar, Lovecraft, mainstream metal, Sweden, the lurking fear, Tomas Lindberg, upcoming album, upcoming release
Former Morbid bassist Dr. Schitz was interviewed by metal webzine Bardo Methodology. Dr. Schitz, a working psychologist in Sweden, tells what drove his bandmate Dead from Mayhem, Dead’s Cotard’s Delusion, and why H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos along with the related Simon Necronomicon from the 1970s (used for lyrical inspiration by Morbid Angel) was so influential to non-English speaking metal lyrics and themes. Check it out.
4 CommentsTags: bardo methodology, Dead, dr. schitz, h.p. lovecraft, interview, Lovecraft, mayhem, morbid, Sweden, Swedish Death Metal
Article by David Rosales. Occasionally our staff have differing opinions on unpristine works from upcoming or past their prime bands. The editor’s sobering take on Garroted – In the Court of Nyarlahotep was presented in Sadistic Metal Reviews: Taste the Rainbow!
A modernist acoustic guitar intro, an undefined progressive death metal tirade, cavernous vocals and death-grind guitar tones. An exquisite Old School written all over it, and yet, the young Garroted manage to avoid becoming guides in nostalgia trips. Like Colombian Condor, Garroted takes the tools from the past and forges a future strictly on the loyalty to those traditions.
16 CommentsTags: death metal, demo, Garroted, h.p. lovecraft, In the Court of Nyarlahotep, Lovecraft, review, techdeaf, Technical Death Metal
Named after a fictional work of occult literature in the Cthulhu mythos by H.P. Lovecraft, the “nameless cults” give their name also to this band who create modern death metal that remains true to the death metal style. Like Immolation circa 2000, carefully tuned guitars and use of odd diminished melodies create a suspension of reality that a rhythmic approach like that of the Deathspell Omega era “progressive” black metal complements and expands.
Baphomet Pan Shub-Niggurath cites from fully four generations of metal, mixing speed metal riffs with modern black metal and the aforementioned dissonant and complex death metal, but sometimes slides in old school death metal riffs and transitions reminiscent of the hybrid era of underground metal in the early 1980s. The tendency to offset rhythms to insert additional riffs comes from the newer style of black metal, which permits groove so long as it is disturbingly detached from consistent expectations, but the core of this album comes from the streamlining of death metal in the early years of this century that brought different chord shapes and dramatic conclusions to the genre.
Other influences work their way in here including a use of plodding cadences that would have fit onto a God Macabre or Afflicted album. Songs work riffs into a circular pattern that always returns to familiar themes for choruses but splits verses across multiple riffs using a Slayer-inspired pattern of working in a precursor riff, then changing riff, and then altering its texture and tempo with layers of drums, bass and vocals. Then the song culminates much like later black metal in a kind of revelation which melts down into the soup of primordial riff ideas that earlier served to introduce or complement themes.
For contemporary metal, Baphomet Pan Shub-Niggurath keeps its focus more firmly in the continuance of past traditions into the future than bands like Immolation managed. It does carry the tendency to be too emotive on its surface like Deathspell Omega, which leads to technique replacing content, but keeps this in line. This work impresses with the first couple listens and while it will undoubtedly socket itself into the secondary tier of death metal bands, crushes most of its contemporaries handily and displays a blueprint for death metal to get out of the metalcore funk and back to a newer version of its roots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z15bfUxUEn0
21 CommentsTags: Black Metal, dark descent, death metal, demigod, h.p. lovecraft, immolation, iron bonehead, unaussprechlichen kulten, underground metal
You’re on the one metal site that has identified the roots of metal imagery, content and outlook: Romanticism, or the artistic movement which swept the West in response to the Enlightenment and consequent industrial revolution.
Some 240 works from more than 70 artists comprise the show, encompassing some 150 years of fascination with mysticism and the supernatural. The paintings, sculptures, photographs and films were created by prominent artists such as Francisco de Goya, William Blake, Caspar David Friedrich, Johann Heinrich Fuseli, Edvard Munch, René Magritte, Hans Bellmer, Salvador Dalí, and Max Ernst. While some come from the Städel’s own halls, others are on loan from internationally recognized collections like the Musée d’Orsay and Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Museo del Prado in Madrid and the Art Institute of Chicago.
The exhibition categorizes the works both chronologically and geographically with an aim toward linking various interpretations of Romanticism, the post-Enlightenment movement that began sweeping across Europe by the end of the 18th century and continued its influence long after.- Der Spiegel
In literature, Romanticism includes Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecraft and E.A. Poe, from the later years of Romanticism.
In its earlier years, it includes Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, John Keats, John Milton and William Blake.
All of these feature prominently in metal lyrics, as do horror movies derived from those Gothic Romantic works.
No CommentsTags: Black Metal, bram stoker, edgar allen poe, h.p. lovecraft, john milton, mary shelley, Romanticism, samuel taylor coleridges, william blake, william wordsworth
