In this article we shall see how Dawning manages to juggle various styles of doom and black metal while letting a fifteen minute song to mature as well as keep the listener hooked. Join us in this existential pilgrimage to Umunhum!
10 CommentsTags: dawning, ildjarn, immortal, mount um + 1997 demo, Mussorgsky, necromantia, pilgrimage to umunhum, steve cefala
In the years after underground metal imploded and became assimilated by standard teenage rock music, metal musicians have been reaching out toward styles which avoid the stereotypical elements of the underground. (more…)
16 CommentsTags: dawning, Gothic rock, guitar rock, Heavy Metal, interview, nothing left, pale existence, rotten copper, stephen cefala, steve cefala
Living in a dying time presents as many troubles as recording in a dying genre. Something went wrong with metal in 1995, and since that time we have had big oaf idiot metal from the NWN/FMP types which bores us, versus popular metal music which is vapid and consumerist at its core and so has nothing to offer of substance.
11 CommentsTags: dawning, Doom Metal, gothic, Heavy Metal, nothing left, review, rotten copper, steve cefala
Another previously unreviewed record judged some of The Best Underground Metal of 2016.
Mount Um + 1997 Demo is a digital anthology collecting what Steve Cefala judged to be Dawning‘s strongest material. Half the run-time (“Side A”) is one new, extended track entitled Mount Um in three parts: “Pilgrimage to Umunhum”, “The Albino Bridge Sacrement”, and a melodic bass outro. Mount Um sounds like Summoning worshiping Emperor‘s In the Nightside Eclipse in a lengthy composition reminiscent of Celtic Frost‘s album work. Ambient fantasy keyboards are perverted into pandemonium as if on an arduous journey of great hardship and loss culminating in a bittersweet victory over the uncaring, vicious forces of nature. Mount Um‘s composition is progressive and profound.
11 CommentsTags: anthology, Black Metal, dawning, demo, hate your guts records, mount um + 1997 demo, review, steve cefala
Collapse rock band Rotten Copper emits small blips of its chaos live recording The Toxic Wasteland Jams through obscure pathways. Most recently, the video for the song “Live Among The Ruins” has touched down with a new video. In the video it is the year 2035. The world has crumbled. Only skaters and metal-heads remain. And they are threatened by not just a civilization in decline, but something not entirely human lurking among the dark places of the earth.
Tags: collapse rock, hard rock, music video, roadhouse rock, rotten copper, steve cefala
2016 is over. The funderground mentality continued spreading forth, infesting metal over the last year just the same as it had in the decades past the genre’s artistic high-point in the early nineties. Rehashes of past greats pandering to a lowest common denominator audience continue to dominate the release schedules of metal labels all too willing to please the lemmings with music fit to safely ignore during drunken socializing. Ever-flowing streams of posers are desperate to be rock stars, pumping out plagiarism, and paying their way to record deals. File sharing and streaming reducing the cost of hearing new music to essentially nothing has led fans to constantly consume whatever is new regardless of quality. However the purging is at last at hand. The day of doom is here. The filth who have lied and corrupted the underground must be cleansed while the commendable elite few will remain.
145 CommentsTags: 2016, ananku, best of, Black Metal, crossover thrash, dawning, dead congregation, death metal, Grindcore, Harley Flanagan, infamous, Jarno Nurmi, Kshatriya, mortalized, ripper, Serpent Ascending, sorcier des glaces, steve cefala, Takafumi Matsubara, tarnkappe
Occasional Death Metal Underground contributor and Dawning and Pale Existence mastermind Steve Cefala was interviewed by Doom-metal.com about his No God Only Pain project. Want to read Steve discussing his influences, the corporate metal of Bob Rock and Scott Burns, survivalism, Hillary Clinton, and how the world is moving into a new dark age of uncertainty following the collapse of neoliberalism? Let’s find out!
13 CommentsTags: Black Metal, dawning, Doom Metal, doom-metal.com, Heavy Metal, interview, no god only pain, pale existence, steve cefala
Former Dawning/Nothing Left composer and periodic Death Metal Underground writer Steve Cefala has unleashed his latest project, an attempt to synthesize metal, industrial, punk and post-apocalyptic roadhouse improvisational rock into a soundtrack for the decline and collapse of human civilization.
1 CommentTags: dawning, no god only pain, nothing left, rotten copper, steve cefala
Doom/death metal band Pale Existence has posted its complete 1995 demo for posterity. This band arose in the second wave of death metal and was part of the wave of bands experimenting with slower and more atmospheric metal after other branches had gone for speed or riff-labyrinth composition.
Over the years several members of Pale Existence migrated to other bands from the area surrounding their San Jose origin, including Exhumed. wound up in that band. Guitarist Lorin Ashton became the popular DJ/electronic artist Bassnectar.
Personnel
Brian Glover – Drums, obnoxious vocals
Bud Burke- Guitar , vocals
Mark Smith- Brutal low vocals
Lorin Ashton – Guitar and mid range vocals
Steve Cefala- Fretless Bass
Recorded by Bart Thurber on top of Mount Um in 1995.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRuMm7IAVEw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=090libRlEvI
9 CommentsTags: brian glover, bud burke, death metal, Doom Metal, lorin ashton, mark smith, pal existence, steve cefala
San Jose underground metal band Pale Existence has posted its 1994 demo, “Dark Tranquility,” for those who missed the original tape to hear. Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, it shows influences from death metal, grindcore, the nascent black metal scene and doom metal, all without sabotaging any one of those by trivializing it, instead blending them into a unified voice.
Tracklist:
1. Dismal Paths
2. Dark Tranquility
3. Sickness
4 Impure
5. Subconscious Weeping
6. Visions of the Disconsolate
Personnel:
Mark Smith – vocals
Lorin Ashton – guitar and vocals
Bud Burke – guitar and vocals
Brian Glover – drums and vocals
Steve Cefala – fretless bass
Recorded by Brett Tyson at Studio B in Campbell on January 29 and February 3, 1994.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq3j_CTeRt8
8 CommentsTags: brian glover, bud burke, lorin ashton, mark smith, pale existence, steve cefala
