Steve Bruder Des Lichts

Nocturnal Graves stream new album in full

NOCTURNAL GRAVES are unleashing their complete forthcoming new album, ‘Titan’, which will hit the stores on May 18, 2018. The Australian extremists are now streaming “Titan” in full

NOCTURNAL GRAVES have previously revealed the cover and details of ‘Titan’, which can be viewed below.

Track-list
1. Resistance (6:44)
2. Roar of the Wild (3:41)
3. Ecdysis, Shedding Weak Flesh (6:13)
4. Souls Tribulation (3:42)
5. And Hell Followed Them (4:15)
6. Bow before None (6:07)
7. Silence the Martyrs (3:34)
8. Titan (5:27)

Total playing time: 39:43

Remember the famous blues legend about aspiring musicians meeting the devil at the crossroads, who offers artistic greatness in return for the souls of the eager seekers of fame? Well, a similar story can probably be told about NOCTURNAL GRAVES. Just exchange “fame” with “true old school spirit” and re-locate the fateful meeting to the very point where black, death, and thrash metal grow in and out of each other – with each of these sub-genres being expressed in their earlier incarnations.

At exactly those crossroads you will find ‘Titan’. The third full-length of the Australian veterans unashamedly celebrates the testosterone-driven raw aggression of the darker side of the ‘80s metal scene. Each riff hits home hard with as much passion as precision. NOCTURNAL GRAVES obviously love what they are doing and this shines through every brutal note. Song by song this band keep the flame burning and their uncompromising conviction as well as execution sets ‘Titan’ apart from random nostalgia and makes the album fully relevant within the contemporary metal setting.

NOCTURNAL GRAVES were originally formed in Melbourne, Australia in 2004. Two well received demos, ‘Profanation of Innocence’ and ‘Deathstorm’ followed in the same year. Quickly scoring a record deal, the band officially released the ‘Necromancer’ 7″ vinyl in 2006 before unleashing their cult debut full-length, ‘Satan’s Cross’ the following year, which was re-issued with the stunning cover art by renowned painter Paolo Girardi (INQUISITION, MANILLA ROAD, HIEROPHANT) in 2017.

When the Australians first hit Europe in 2009, they celebrated the event with ‘The Gravespirit Sessions’ split. Former DESTRÖYER 666 and RAZOR OF OCCAM guitarist Shrapnel, as well as drummer L.W., joined in 2012.

NOCTURNAL GRAVES widely extended their international fanbase with the release of sophomore album ‘…From the Bloodline of Cain’ (2014), which resulted in an invitation to the 2016 edition of Maryland Deathfest and more shows in the US. The band supported the tour with a limited 7″ EP ‘Sharpen the Knives / Lead us to the Endless Fire’.

Now, NOCTURNAL GRAVES are getting ready to conquer the world with their highly anticipated forthcoming third full-length. ‘Titan’ is in every sense as big as the album’s name implies. Prepare for impact!

Production: Nocturnal Graves
Engineer: Jarro Raphael at I-HQ Recordings, Australia
Mix: Jarro Raphael
Mastering: Tony “Jack the Bear” Mantz and Tom Beard at Deluxe Mastering

Recording line-up
Decaylust: lead guitars, vocals
Shrapnel: lead guitars
J.R.: drums, rhythm guitars, bass, lead vocals

Current line-up
R. Prain: bass, vocals
Shrapnel: guitars
Decaylust: guitars
J.R.: drums

www.facebook.com/nocturnalgraves
www.instagram.com/nocturnal_graves_official

Craft unleash second new track of forthcoming album

CRAFT are unleashing the second crushing track taken from their forthcoming new album, ‘White Noise and Black Metal’, which will hit stores on June 22nd, 2018.

CRAFT have previously released the amazing cover of ”White Noise and Black Metal”, which has been created by renowned Polish artist Zbigniew Bielak and can be viewed together with the album details below.

Track-list
1. The Cosmic Sphere Falls (4:56)
2. Again (4:15)
3. Undone (6:39)
4. Tragedy of Pointless Games (6:27)
5. Darkness Falls (4:50)
6. Crimson (4:49)
7. Shadow (5:40)
8. White Noise (4:42)
Total: 42:18

By dry definition, white noise denotes a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. It has been commonly employed in electronic music and denotes for instance the sound of a non-existent radio station, while searching through the spectrum for a signal. For black metal it denotes the yin to the yang of the will to shape forms and patterns of melodies and rhythms and as such has a constant presence.

CRAFT have chosen their title as a perfect description of this symbiotic relationship into which the seeming contrast and contradiction of black and white enters. With ‘White Noise and Black Metal’, the Swedes return to strength after a long hiatus following the release of previous full-length, ‘Void’ (2011). The forthcoming album combines the vitriolic virtues of ‘Terror Propaganda’ (2002) with an updated songwriting that is as mature and intelligent as it is razor-sharp. The fast and furious of extreme metal contrasts with dark and depressive passages with added undertones of black ‘n’ roll.

CRAFT embodies the black metal virtue of raw spiritual energy expressed through violent, ripping guitar-work and unholy rhythms enhanced by demonic vocals. The Swedes have long enjoyed a massive cult status within underground circles, yet also gained strong acclaim and recognition by mainstream metal media and critics.

CRAFT were spawned by guitarist Joakim, who was joined by a friend on drums in late 1994. Lead guitarist John was added to the roster in 1996 but left in 1998 only to return about a year later. A demo entitled ‘Total Eclipse’ hit the world in 1999, which led to a first record deal. During the recording of their crushing debut ‘Total Soul Rape’ (2000), the Swedes were reinforced by vocalist Nox. This misanthropic album captured the ear of SHINING’s Niklas Kvarforth, who released sophomore opus ‘Terror Propaganda’ in 2002 on his own label. With their extremely dark music the group gained much acclaim by critics and fans alike. CRAFT continued to build and expand their typical hateful and destructive style by adding ‘Fuck the Universe’ (2005) and ‘Void’ (2011) to the list of their albums. Meanwhile bass player Alex had joined and with their completed line-up the band finally became a live entity in September 2014.

Now CRAFT are ready to take a giant step in their career with the extremely strong, ‘White Noise and Black Metal’. This is misanthropic Swedish black metal honed to perfection.

www.facebook.com/craftblackmetal

Current line-up
Joakim: guitars, electronics
Nox: vocals
John Doe: guitars
Alex: bass

Recording line-up
Joakim: guitars, electronics
Nox: vocals
John Doe: guitars
Alex: bass
Daniel Moilanen: session drums

Recording: Studio Gröndahl, Stockholm, Sweden and self-recording

Producer: Karl Daniel Lidén for drums and Joakim for everything else

Mix & mastering: Karl Daniel Lidén at Tri-Lamb Studios

Cover art: Zbigniew M. Bielak

OVERACTIVE : “The Opponent” cover artwork and tracklist announcement

Italian Death Metallers OVERACTIVE reveal cover artwork and tracklist of their upcoming debut full-length album ‘The Opponent’.

1. The Call Of The Grave
2. Soulless
3. Bloody Innocence
4. Lies In Your Faith
5. Prince Of Slaves
6. Crucefix
7. Clerical Euthanasia
8. Nocturnal Disgrace
9. Prelude
10. The Opponent
11. Overactive Imagination (Death Cover)

Feuturing a contemporary death metal sound resulting from the mix of technique, brutality and tight passages, their concept album is focused on a story of rebellion, evolution, magnification of disvalue in spirituality and moral authority.
“The Opponent” was recorded, mixed and mastered at 16th Cellar Studio (Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hour Of Penance, Decrepit Birth) by Stefano “Saul” Morabito.
Cover artwork by Alessandro Alfonsi at Art Tattoo.

More details about the release will follow, stay tuned !!!

Follow OVERACTIVE :
FACEBOOK : http://goo.gl/KPNTgZ
YOUTUBE : http://goo.gl/GxUMbi
BANDCAMP : http://goo.gl/stCqzK

STORTREGN: Streaming A New Track From The Album “Emptiness Fills The Void”

Swiss blackened death force STORTREGN is in league with German Legacy Magazine for streaming the opening track “Through The Dark Gates” from their upcoming album. Their fourth album “Emptiness Fills The Void” to be released on May 25 through Non Serviam Records. The band has recently finished their European tour with IMMOLATION & FULL OF HELL.

STORTREGN is a blackened death metal band, formed in Switzerland in 2005. Initially influenced by the Nordic black metal scene, they have expanded their vision and sound into a more contemporary era. They are greatly appreciated for their music and even more so for their live shows. With a relentless energy, they deliver a mix of charging riffs, blast beats and brutality that leaves the audience with a lasting impression and begging for more. After a deluge of gigs, including Wacken, Metal Days, and 4 international tours, Stortregn has become inevitable in the Blackened Death metal scene.

After many changes, the formation has stabilized and the current line-up consists of Romain Negro on vocals, Johan Smith and Duran Bathija on guitars, Manuel Barrios on bass guitar and Samuel Jakubec on drums.

After recording three albums, toured in three different continents and worked with various records labels, they are proud to present the fourth album, “Emptiness Fills the Void”. To give the album the aura it deserves, they hired the revered Daniel Seagrave to create the artwork, and recorded the album at the prestigious Conatus Studio with Vladimir Cochet (Mirrorthrone, Weeping Birth). The album will be released by Non Serviam Records on May 25th, 2018.

Moreover, with the recent signing with Alpha-Omega Management Agency, Stortregn are now planning to tour the world intensely. A European Tour is already scheduled with Immolation & Full Of Hell in March and April 2018, and there is far more to come. Expressing this album through live performances with violence, blast beats, and killer riffs is what the band is about. At each of their thunderous live appearances, Stortregn ravage the place until the smallest shred of human skin is marked. The five members, tight as a hungry wolf-pack, energetically release their inner storm to transform every show into a dark and metallic mass of death, with precision, quality and professionalism.

“Emptiness Fills the Void” will be released on May 25 on digipak format under the flag of NON SERVIAM RECORDS. The first 50 pre-orders will receive a free patch.

PRE-ORDER:
Webshop: http://www.non-serviam-records.com/shop.php#!/Stortregn-Emptiness-Fills-The-Void-digipak-Pre-Order/p/103155720/category=5291899
Bandcamp: https://non-serviam-records.bandcamp.com/album/emptiness-fills-the-void

STORTREGN
http://www.stortregn.com
https://www.facebook.com/Stortregn
https://twitter.com/stortregn
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4SuIgDBeOQBz7cI1HfsK31

Polish Post Black metalists HEGEMONE stream their full album

HEGEMONE, blackened post-metal from Poland, are streaming their astonishing second album, “We Disappear”, in its entirety :

No Clean Singing writes : “You can pick out elements of black metal, post-metal, post-punk, and sludge in the songs, and Hegemone harness them together in a way that seems natural, heavy, and hypnotic (…)the songs aren’t clones of each other, and that’s part of what makes the album one that’s well worth your attention.”

while musika.be and kvlt.pl give the album their maximum rates : 100/100 and 10/10 !!

“We Disappear” contains 6 monumental compositions “with beautiful, complex, rich, ringing soundscapes and throaty vocals, that will appeal to post and black metal fans alike” :

01. Mara
02. Fracture
03. Raising Barrows
04. Π
05. ХанТәңірі
06. Тәңірi

The sumptuous artwork was realized by famous French artist Dehn Sora (BLUT AUS NORD, ULVER…).

“We Disappear”, released by Debemur Morti Productions, is available right now on Digipack CD, 12″ LP and Digital.
HEGEMONE evoked around 2010 and began their road made of fury, heaviness, melancholy and psychedelic sounds. Some musicians came through this project but only around the beginning of 2015 did the current line-up become stable. So far the band released their debut full-length “Luminosity” and a split with CHALLENGER DEEP from Belarus. The new album is due to release in the beginning of 2018. There is no path or goal defined. Only thing is a moment of madness’ mastery. No more to be said…

WITCHING HOUR reveal cover art, tracklisting for forthcoming HELLS HEADBANGERS album

Today, Hells Headbangers reveals the cover art and tracklisting for the highly anticipated third album of Germany’s Witching Hour, …And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon. The album shall be released later this year on CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats.

Witching Hour came to life in 2006 and are currently based in the southwest of Germany. Although their discography is relatively sparse the past dozen years, it is of uniformly high quality. Their two albums for Evil Spell Records – 2009’s Rise of the Desecrated and especially 2011’s Past Midnight… – are prized artifacts of the deep underground, confidently portraying a unique and highly idiosyncratic form of blackened thrash. Now, with the long-awaited …And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon – the band’s first album for Hells Headbangers – Witching Hour shall prove that they’re some of the black metal scene’s most gifted songwriters.

Sequenced like a story and flowing with almost dream-like ease, …And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon is the album whereby Witching Hour move from sepulchral blackthrash magick towards ancient metal mysticism. The transition is an enviously fluid one, as the characteristically high songwriting standards the band have held from the beginning are now transposed onto more nuanced, dynamic, and timelessly HEAVY METAL creations. It all sounds as old as time itself, yet breathes and heaves with a positively invigorating freshness. Glorious and gloomy melodies gallop forward into the fog-choked night, instilling an atmosphere that’s simply impossible to shake, but also latching their claws into the deepest, most emotional corners of the soul.

For Witching Hour create an experience here, one that honorably straddles the divide between traditional metal’s rigorous foundation and black metal’s orthodox/unorthodox duality. Put another way, …And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon is a 43-minute, absolutely addicting journey from which you’ll never want to return.

Release date and preorder info to be announced shortly. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Witching Hour (Germany)’s
…And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon
1. …And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon /
Once Lost Souls Return
2. From Beyond They Came
3. Sorrow Blinds His Ghastly Eyes
4. Behold Those Distant Skies
5. The Fading Chime Of A Graveyard Bell
6. As I Walk Among Sepulchral Ruins

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/witchinghourthrash

NASTY SURGEONS reveal first track, cover, tracklisting for new XTREEM MUSIC album

Today, Spanish deathgrinders Nasty Surgeons reveal the cover artwork (again by Juanjo Castellano), tracklisting, and first single from their sophomore release, Infectious Stench, which will be released July 5th through Xtreem Music.

Having released their debut album, Exhumation Requiem, in January 2017 with a very good acceptance in the gore, grind, and death metal scene, Nasty Surgeons are back with a new album including 11 songs that will for sure appeal to any fan of bands like old Carcass, Necrony, Exhumed, The County Medical Examiners, and General Surgery.

This what Nasty Surgeons says about this first single: “This is our own tribute to the gods Carcass. The main riff reminded us from the beginning, and that’s why the title of the song was ‘The Carcass.’ We adapted the title and the text. This is perhaps the ‘softest’ song on the album and it has a catchy riff, but we love it and it is an essential element for our live performances. Enjoy!”

Release date for Infectious Stench will be July 5th through Xtreem Music on CD format.

Hear that first single, “The Carcass,” both HERE

The aforementioned cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Nasty Surgeons’ Infectious Stench
1. Ex Putrefactione Generati
2. Smell the Carcass
3. Infectious Stench
4. Subdural Haematoma
5. Impaled Crucified and Beheaded
6. Forensic Necrophilia
7. The Lobotomist
8. In Peaces
9. (a) Mouth to Anus
9. (b) Infernal Bacterial Infection
9. (b) Dr Death

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/nastysurgeons

SWEDEN’S BLACK METALISTS BERGRAVEN’S ‘DÖDSVISIONER’ TO BE RELEASED ON VINYL FOR 1ST TIME

May 7, 2018 – Los Angeles, CA – Sweden’s revered experimental black metal band Bergraven will release their seminal, critically heralded album, Dödsvisioner, on vinyl LP on June 1st with Swedish label Nordvis. Originally released by U.S. based Hydra Head Records 11 years ago, the record will get its first ever pressing on wax next month. Fans can pre-order it now at https://nordvis.com/en/bergraven-a-3.

It is hard to believe that eleven years have passed since Pär Stille’s Bergraven released Dödsvisioner into the black metal biome. Impishly experimental and yet highly honed and focused, it is an album that seeps its way into the subconscious as all the best black metal is wont to do. Perhaps the most striking sensation you get when listening to this album is that doom-informed riffs, idiosyncratic grooves and shadowy interludes included, you are experiencing the work of a mind open to integrating sounds that are rarefied in the often stubbornly traditional black metal genre. It would be difficult to talk about Dödsvisioner without a nod in the direction of Xasthur and Burzum before them, but Bergraven’s black metal is not as repetitive and only sometimes as hypnotic as these forebears. The subtle shifts in tempo and dizzying experimental deviations rife on Dodsvisione play tricks on the listener’s mind, much like mountains from which the first part of the band’s name come can disorientate and confuse weary walkers, rendering madness a distinct possibility.

“It was more than ten years ago, I had written the darkest music I possibly could. I made so many demos, of the songs, trying to find that perfect balance between listenable music and just pitch black death and sorrow. I was haunted by thoughts of death day and night, in sleep and awake. In many ways I had to make this album to leave parts of all these thoughts if I was to go on living a somewhat normal life. The album became like the last breath, the last waken hour, the last thought. Musically it was the direction I wanted with the band and the addition of Perra behind the drums was absolutely amazing. The doomy slow groove and the surreal fill ins was perfect and if nothing else Perra came up with the title to the album one night when in the studio. He had the perfect guts for this. I also was in contact with Mannevond from KOLDBRANN and really liked his vocal style so I invited him to come to the studio and try to mix his amazing skills with my material. It was totally amazing, I sometimes wonder why he didn’t do all of the vocals. I guess I still think the album is great, it holds so many private memories but today it has also grown out of my person, like someone else did it. This makes me enjoy it even more today and finally get in released on vinyl. Thank you so much Nordvis for making this album available in the best format and with new artwork!” – Pär Stille

Pre-Order Dödsvisioner on vinyl LP:
https://nordvis.com/en/bergraven-a-3

Dödsvisioner Tracklisting:
1. Döende
2. Av saknad släcker jag ljuset
3. Ondkall
4. Känsla av livets nästa skede
5. Den svarta angstens essens
6. Det man med själen…
7. Ekot av bikt
8. Döende (en avslutning)

For More Information:
https://www.facebook.com/Bergraven/
https://www.facebook.com/nordvis/
https://nordvis.com/en/

ATAVISMA set release date for MEMENTO MORI debut, reveal first track

In their endless quest to push and support current underground acts that that deliver the goods unaware of trends and hypes, on July 23rd, Memento Mori is proud to present the highly anticipated debut album of France’s Atavisma, The Chthonic Rituals.

Hailing from the new breed of exquisite French death metal darkness, Atavisma formed in late 2013 and promptly set to work perfecting their assiduously doomed-out craft. Founders G. (guitar) and L. (vocals) wanted to create a band devoted to old-school death metal, and with the addition of C. (drums) and W. (bass) shortly thereafter, the quartet’s compositions progressively shifted towards a death-doom approach with a penchant for lyrics that mainly deal with the relationship between man and nature, ancient cultures and spirituality. Wisely prizing quality over quantity, Atavisma’s sparse discography comprises a debut single in 2014 and a four-song demo that same year, a split 7″ with Maur in 2015, and a two-song 7″ last year on the esteemed Blood Harvest. During all this, the band took their craft to the stage alongside such bands as Archgoat, Merrimack, Inferno, Ritualization, Ataraxie, Mercyless, and Mourning Dawn, and as recently as February/March 2017, they embarked on their first French tour and supported Blood Incantation and Cruciamentum during their European tour.

With their chops finely honed in the studio and on the live front, at last comes the time for Atavisma’s momentous debut album: The Chthonic Rituals. The album’s title not-so-subtly serves as a clarion call for the quartet’s aesthetic to date, and where that aesthetic can fully go when given a long-form format. Ridiculously filthy and yet exuding a startling sense of clarity, Atavisma here conjure a forever-roiling, fatally-swirling whirlpool of murk and total ‘n’ utter DARKNESS. Riffs are doled out like sick ‘n’ slithering creatures that soon overtake their master, devouring both body and soul with salacious delight. Thus armed, compositions take on obscene forms, utilizing both über-heavy hooks and labyrinthine detours, hackle-raising tension and hypnotic quasi-melodicism, winding the listener down caverns most foul, warping any sense of sanity. And although the band’s attack has gotten progressively doomier, there’s never a moment of inertia; all is forward momentum, and it all leads toward an abyss with literally no end. The 11-minute closer says everything in its title: “A Subterranean Life.”

As with all Memento Mori releases, totality is reached in both cover art (courtesy of E. Muskie), mixing by Johan Bijaoui at Mannaz Records, and mastering, by the elite Javier Felez at Moontower Studios. Maniacs of Incantation, Cianide, Grave, Disma, Winter, Funebre, Encoffination, and classic Convulse, hereby meet your new masters: Atavisma! Let The Chthonic Rituals begin…

The first ritual can be found HERE

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Atavisma’s The Chthonic Rituals
1. Chthonic
2. Extraneous Abysmal Knowledge
3. Sacrifice unto Babalon
4. Invocation of Archaic Deities
5. Monoliths
6. Ashen Ascetic
7. Amid the Ruins
8. A Subterranean Life

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/atavisma.band

MALSANCTUM set release date for IRON BONEHEAD debut, reveal first track

Today, Iron Bonehead Productions sets July 13th as the international release date for Malsanctum’s highly anticipated debut album, simply titled Malsanctum, on CD and vinyl LP formats.

Malsanctum hail from Canada and made its first public recording with the aptly titled demo Metamorbid Fetishization. Inconspicuously released in 2015 by Iron Bonehead, Metamorbid Fetishization presented Malsanctum in a cruelly stark and most frightening manner: a single 24-minute track of noisy ritualism, alternately spacious and suffocating, but most certainly uncomfortable. However, all that is trumped by the full-length Malsanctum.

Here split into three tracks – two at 10 minutes, and the closer at a staggering 24 minutes – Malsanctum’s debut album is 45 minutes of obscene body worship. Defiantly challenging and sickeningly fascinating in equal measures, Malsanctum once again mangles trace elements of funeral doom and black metal into a malodorous miasma that defies both genres. It is as hypnotizing as it is hellish, fully utilizing those epic lengths with time-evaporating/halting inertia cum overload. The listener becomes lost because there was no path to begin with; obfuscation is thus replaced by pure punishment. But to simply listen to Malsanctum in general and Malsanctum in particular is not to just “listen,” but to endure…and the light at the end of the tunnel was already snuffed out long ago.

The end will come…but not when you want it. Time, then, to enter Malsanctum’s Malsanctum. Step forward into the 10-minute “The Father” HERE

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Malsanctum’s Malsanctum
1. The Father (10:17)
2. The Son (9:47)
3. The Shattered Spirit (23:49)