Pandering to the aging millennials who still blight the black metal scene, USBM: A Revolution of Identity in American Black Metal attempts apologize for writing a book about “racist and misogynist bands” while simultaneously attempting to celebrate the same “racist and misogynist” bands. This baffling move should ensure that both USBM fans and SJW posers alike take a hard pass on buying a book that hates the very scene it features while also hating the values it claims to propagate.
After three decades of existence, Proscriptor McGovern has decided to finally end famed American black metal band Absu. While the “Absu” trilogy will never be finished due to Proscriptor’s difficulty in maintaining a stable lineup and the histrionic ego-drama of a certain guitarist, the band leave behind a decent catalogue with unfortunate dips in quality over recent years. Though this begs the question, was there anything else that Absu could express?
Elegy Records, the second oldest and longest running USBM record label, is closing its doors after 22 years due to social justice warriors lobbying to get them kicked off of credit card processors. The entire webstore is having a 60% off sale resulting in many classic and hard-to-find releases being available for around $4.
Grand Belial’s Key are the sister band of Arghoslent, sharing the same mastermind Gelal Necrosodomy alias Pogrom. GBK creates music in a similar vein to that of Arghoslent but through a Black metal lens to achieve very similar conclusions. Relying on the genre’s predisposition to incite Blasphemy, Gelal and co. assault both Christianity and Judaism with lyrics that show a deep understanding of both testaments. Musically there is a lot to be enjoyed as the band happily celebrate their crushing of Abrahamic faiths but cannot form the narratives to more aptly communicate such a message. (more…)
Of all of the bands and all of the musicians that have come out of retirement in attempt to cash in on their past, Judas Iscariot’s Akhenetan (Andrew Harris) has been one rare exception who has truly vanished into the depths of obscurity for good. (more…)
Elegiac is a one man band from California formed in 2014 by sole composer Zane Young, whom has released a large number of records under the name of Elegiac- far too much for any band yet alone a one man band. Like many bands of this generation, Elegiac play a basic form of black metal that can be described as the bastard child of Bathory, Satanic Warmaster and generic modern rock. This is not what one expects from USBM at all despite their promo toting this release as the return of the micro genre’s glory days. (more…)
Today’s American black metal has found itself right within the parameters of Poe’s Law which, when applied to this abomination of a music scene, would sound something like this:
Crepusculo Negro is holding a small black metal festival with Absu, Demoncy, Arizmenda, Volahn, Furdidurke, and Vorde on August 12th and 14th in Los Angeles. More information is available on the festival’s Facebook event page.
In darkness heavy metal finds its greatest friend. From the ominous tritone of Black Sabbath to the most vicious and bestial extreme metal of the modern day, diving into the abyss to find meaning has been metal’s clarion call. Keeping true to that paradigm, and displaying the ability to build upon it, Wormreich have crafted an EP of atonal black metal titled Wormcult Revelations.
Standing above ordinary circular composition, Womreich use leitmotifs if even on a small scale to expand the power of experience in this work. The narrative of this EP reveals itself through four songs which share returning ideas across the album, like a Satanic opera concluding in sinister victory. Cold and dark riffs, like a gathering of fervent souls brought together to recite the devil’s gospel, enclose this stygian mood. The dark, horror-like atmosphere of this EP separates this band from similar acts. The two instrumental keyboard tracks, “Shaare-Maveth” and “Codex Lvciferivm” use the dark-ambient style to emphasize that murky atmosphere.
Wormreich succeed in delivering a batch of haunting and devilish black metal similar to the likes of Aosoth, old Watain, and Deathspell Omega. Wormcult Revelations leads you through a whirlwind of smoke and fire for an authentic ritual experience.
Track Listing:
I. Revelation I: Vox in Rama 2:30
II. Revelation II: Serpents of Choronzon 7:06
III. Shaare-Maveth 1:57
IV. Revelation III: Devotion’s Final War 7:15
V. Revelation IV: Enim Satanas Meum Sanguinem 7:25
VI. Codex Lvciferivm 5:08
VII. Malign Paradigm [Deathspell Omega cover] 4:45
The next Krieg full length will be titled Transient and will be recorded in 2014, according to Krieg frontman Imperial. The new album will be 40-50 minutes long, “with some return to the old Krieg style in the sense that there will be a lot of very aggressive parts and a fair amount of samples.”
Transient will also blend in more influences from strange industrial projects, nothing you can dance to obviously, but the feeling you get from certain Coil, Whitehouse, and Controlled Bleeding recordings as well as a strong push into the more crusty rock n roll moments from the last three records.
Active since the middle 1990s, Krieg pioneered a unique sound of semi-improvisational and chaotic New World black metal that took many influences from violent and disoriented punk music and merged them with the minimalistic black metal of Darkthrone and Havohej. Recently, Krieg has been incorporating more post-metal influences in their music with The Isolationist, the record releases in 2010.
“It’s going to be a strange beast for sure, as always uncomfortable and hopefully challenging to the listener. We will be recording the majority at a different studio than we’ve used previously as to try to bring a newer feeling to the overall recording,” said Imperial.
