Today, Dutch black metallers Sator Malus reveal a teaser video for the new track “Endless Cycles of Life and Death.” The track hails from the band’s highly anticipated debut album, Dark Matters, set for international release on June 30th via Forever Plagued Records. See & hear the teaser video for Sator Malus’ “Endless Cycles of Life and Death” exclusively here at Forever Plagued’s official YouTube channel.
Hailing from the Netherlands, Sator Malus play atmospheric black metal with conviction and ideas deriving behind darkness, space, and worlds beyond the eyes of humanity. Sator Malus include (ex-)members of such bands as The Spirit Cabinet, Walpurgisnacht, Grimm, Cirith Gorgor, and Hooded Priest, so they are not by any stretch new to black metal. Also, they’ve brought upon IX of Urfaust as special guest vocalist to one of the tracks for fans who can relate.
Forever Plagued will present Sator Malus’ Dark Matters on CD worldwide on June 30th, and the LP release later in the year. In the meantime, hear & see a special teaser video for that aforementioned track featuring IX of Urfaust – “Endless Cycles of Life and Death” – exclusively HERE at Forever Plagued’s official YouTube channel and also hear it at the label’s Soundcloud here.
NECROPHAGIA have already kicked off their European tour in support of legendary MORBID ANGEL fronter David Vincent’s I AM MORBID, which is joined by Californian heathens HELSOTT. The American cult death metal pioneers will continue to celebrate their horror shows throughout six more countries before a final curtain on the continent at the Hellraiser in Leipzig, Germany on the 11th of June.
Directly afterwards, NECROPHAGIA will continue to haunt the UK both as headliner and also in support of legendary Canadians, VOIVOD. A list of all new and remaining shows can be found below.
Killjoy commented: “Europe are you ready for some horror and gore? We are very excited to come back and spread the sickness with l AM MORBID!” The mastermind adds: “Following this killer tour, we added some UK shows, which we are already much stoked about
NECROPHAGIA
+I AM MORBID +HELSOTT
31 May 17 Budapest (HU) Dürer Kert
01 Jun 17 Ljubljana (SI) Orto Bar
02 Jun 17 Venezia (IT) Revolver
03 Jun 17 Lyss (CH) Kulturfabrik
04 Jun 17 Hamburg (DE) Logo
05 Jun 17 Moerlenbach-Weiher (DE) Live Music Hall
06 Jun 17 München (DE) Feierwerk
07 Jun 17 Erfurt (DE) From Hell
08 Jun 17 Flensburg (DE) Roxy
09 Jun 17 Den Haag (NL) Paard van Troje
10 Jun 17 Tilburg (NL) O13
11 Jun 17 Leipzig (DE) Hellraiser
NECROPHAGIA (UK)
13 Jun 17 Norwich (UK) Waterfront (+Voivod)
14 Jun 17 Glasgow (UK) Audio (+Voivod)
15 Jun 17 Evesham (UK) Iron Road
16 Jun 17 Swansea (UK) The Pit
17 Jun 17 Manchester (UK) Retro Bar
18 Jun 17 London (UK) Underworld (+Voivod)
NECROPHAGIA will be touring in support of their latest masterpiece ‘WhiteWorm Cathedral’
1. Reborn through Black Mass
2. Вий
3. Angel Blake
4. Warlock Messiah
5. Fear the Priest
6. Elder Things
7. Coffins
8. Hexen Nacht
9. Rat Witch
10. March of the Deathcorps(e)
11. Silentium vel Mortis
12. The Dead Among Us
13. WhiteWorm Cathedral
NECROPHAGIA are back to haunt you! The masters of death metal horror invite you to bang to the Sabbath on a coffin night, when the evil priest and the rat witch raise the dead among us! Once again Killjoy DeSade has taken his time to compose and record ‘WhiteWorm Cathedral’, but the result was well worth the wait. NECROPHAGIA have generally taken another step back to a more straightforward approach. Although their latest full-length ‘Deathtrip 69’ (2011) was generally met with roaring applause, there has been some criticism levelled at the album. Killjoy DeSade seems to have drawn the same conclusions and reduced the atmospheric samples to the necessary, while focusing on songwriting and catchiness. Now NECROPHAGIA deliver more old school death metal with a blasphemous groove and killing hooks. The band was formed in late 1983 by the Godfather of Gore Metal, Killjoy and their debut recording ‘Season of the Dead’ was unleashed in February 1987. In the same year the Americans split despite their tremendous impact in the underground death metal scene, which they helped founding. In the middle of the 1990’s horror fan Philip Anselmo (DOWN, ex-PANTERA) convinced Killjoy to resurrect NECROPHAGIA and joined for the next three releases including their second album ‘Holocausto de la Morte’ (1998). The band released two more albums including ‘The Divine Art of Torture’ (2003) and several EPs despite undergoing continued line-up changes. NECROPHAGIA’s fourth full length ‘Harvest Ritual Vol. 1’ (2005) saw some experimentation, while their next eerie incarnation ‘Deathtrip 69’ featured more evil movie samples adding to the beloved vintage horror feeling. Yet the time has come to light those black candles, chant the incantations and watch the ‘WhiteWorm Cathedral’ rise! Amen, Brother Killjoy!
Season of Mist are proud to announce the signing of FESTERDAY. Not counting the compilation of earlier material, the Finnish death metal cult act will release its debut studio album on Season of Mist.
Regarding their signing, FESTERDAY comment: “It is now close to 25 years, following our decision to split up. It has taken as many years after writing any songs for this band that we got our shit together again and came up with new material to see where this might take us. Six new songs later, we sent them to various labels and magazines. Much to our surprise, the feedback was overwhelming. After negotiating with different labels and pondering over their offers, we decided to take action and double the excitement by joining a familiar and globally established label: Season of Mist. It feels like coming full circle to return to the label, where it all started with …AND OCEANS over 20 years ago. Like in this old proverb, it goes without saying: the frost will drive a pig back home.”
FESTERDAY were formed in Pietarsaari, Finland in the year 1989. In the following years, the band released three demos, in truly laconic Finnish style simply entitled ‘Demo I’ (1991). ‘Demo II’ (1992), and ‘Demo III’ (1992) that gained cult status. ‘Demo II’ was also released on a split with CARNIFEX. In 1993, the group split-up.
This could have been the end, but FESTERDAY got together again in 2013, remastered all their previous material with Sami “Jämy” Jämsen at Studio Perkele in November 2014, and released everything on ‘…the Four Stages of Decomposition…’ (2015).
Featuring members of …AND OCEANS, MAGENTA HARVEST, HAVOC UNIT, and KHAOS NIHIL, FESTERDAY are back together and will finally release their debut full-length on Season of Mist later this year.
Line-up
Antti Räisälä: bass
Kena Strömsholm: vocals
Timo Kontio: guitar
Teemu Saari: guitar
Jani Kuoppamaa: drums
SINISTRO are announcing a string of European shows in support of PARADISE LOST and PALLBEARER. For the fascinating Portuguese, the tour will kick off at the Kulturfabrik in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg on September 27th and continue through 13 more European countries before coming to a close at the Columbia Theater in Germany’s capital Berlin on the 9th of November.
Singer Patricia Andrade comments on behalf of the band: “We are very pleased to be touring with PARADISE LOST. It is not everyday, we are able to share the stage with a legendary band that was an important part of our adolescence and gives this tour a special feeling. We are also very much looking forward to be on the road such a great band as PALLBEARER. It is hardly surprising that we are very much looking forward to this tour. See you there!”
SINISTRO
+PARADISE LOST +PALLBEARER
27 Sep 17 Esch-Sur-Alzette (LU) Kulturfabrik
28 Sep 17 Herford (DE) X
29 Sep 17 København (DK) Pumpehuset
01 Oct 17 Oslo (NO) John Dee
03 Oct 17 Helsinki (FI) Nosturi
07 Oct 17 Aarhus (DK) Voxhall
10 Oct 17 Brno (CZ) Fleda
11 Oct 17 Bratislava (SK) Randal
13 Oct 17 Belgrade (RS) Dom Omladine
14 Oct 17 Zagreb (HR) Boogaloo
15 Oct 17 Budapest (HU) Dürer Kert
18 Oct 17 Nürnberg (DE) Hirsch
19 Oct 17 Frankfurt (DE) Batschkapp
20 Oct 17 Saarbrücken (DE) Garage
21 Oct 17 Genève (CH) L‘Usine
28 Oct 17 Fontaneto D’Agogna (IT) Phenomenon
29 Oct 17 München (DE) Theaterfabrik
30 Oct 17 Pratteln (CH) Z7
03 Nov 17 London (UK) Electric Ballroom
06 Nov 17 Utrecht (NL) Pandora
07 Nov 17 Tilburg (NL) 013
08 Nov 17 Köln (DE) Live Music Hall
09 Nov 17 Berlin (DE) Columbia Theater
SINISTRO Festivals
02 Jun 17 Leipzig (DE) Wave Gotik Treffen
16 Jun 17 Dessel (BE) Graspop Metal Meeting 2017
05 Jul 17 Neskaupstaður (IS) Eistnaflug
SINISTRO are currently preparing for their sophomore album, which means that you can expect to hear brand new material as well as songs from their critically acclaimed dark melancholic masterpiece, ‘Semente’.
Artwork and tracklist of ‘Semente’ can be viewed below
Tracklisting
1. Partida
2. Estrada
3. Corpo Presente
4. Semente
5. Relíquia
6. A Visita
7. Fragmento
Portugal is well known for its fascination with the morbid. Death is part of daily conversation. Its national chant, Fado, is the musical incarnation of melancholy and painful longing called “saudade”. And the country’s capital Lisbon only wakes up in the darkness of night.
From this unlikely location, SINISTRO emerged as an embodiment of both lush and devastating musical landscapes driven by five individuals from distinct art circles. Their new album ‘Semente’ (“Seed”) is a fascinating exercise in amalgamating this national legacy into dark and fascinating sound. This unique music is quite hard to easily tag and file into a drawer. The mind tries tricks and attempts constructions like LANA DEL REY meets MY DYING BRIDE – only to drop the idea a minute later.
Looking for points of reference, SINISTRO might at any moment give reason for comparison with MASSIVE ATTACK, ENNIO MORRICONE, BOARDS OF CANADA, HOWARD SHORE, RADIOHEAD, FAITH NO MORE, ANGELO BADALAMENTI, DAVID BOWIE, SWANS, UNWOUND, MOGWAI, and CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX. Yet none of these names dropped here will make sense at another sequence. It is very much up to each listener to determine their own points of reference.
SINISTRO have been cultivating such sonic exploration since writing their self-titled debut album, which was released in 2012 and delivered elegant doom rock combined with a soundtrack like approach that harvested praise from both public and critics alike.
SINISTRO’s following effort ‘Cidade’ (2013) welcomed singer Patrícia Andrade on board and went on to explore a massive wall of guitars combined with gritty keyboard layers and an emotional vocal performance. Backed by unanimous critical acclaim, ‘Cidade’ established SINISTRO as an essential name in the Portuguese music scene.
SINISTRO began composing ‘Semente’ in 2014. The band added a second guitarist to the fold, who helped push their unique style another step further. Keeping a cinematic feeling in the background, the Portuguese vary from abrasive musical thickness to a perfect sense of stillness, which portrays the urban landscapes of their homeland and its legacy with a strong visual presence. SINISTRO created seven brand new tracks that are bound to appeal to music fans of various genres. Now we shall leave you and kindly ask you to listen carefully to form your own opinion…
Cruz Del Sur Music has inked a recording deal with Indianapolis’ SACRED LEATHER for the release of debut album Ultimate Force. With influences that are surely evident to any heavy metal purist, SACRED LEATHER’s music seems to emerge directly from the early 80s, mixing elegant and nostalgic hard rock/ proto metal with the most belligerent side of the traditional NWOBHM sound. The recording of Ultimate Force will start in early September for an expected February 2018 release.
SACRED LEATHER was created out of necessity, to summon the spirit of the Heavy Metal forefathers into an age mired in apostasies. Make sure to keep an eye out for the legion of leather! In the meantime, check out the band’s 2016 official video for “Prowling Sinner”
SACRED LEATHER is:
Wrathchild: vocals
The Devil’s Hellion: guitar
The Highway: guitar
Magnus Legrand: bass
Jailhouse: drum
Unyielding Love announce the vinyl release of The Sweat of Augury – the unbelievable debut EP/mini album from Belfast – Northern Ireland-based blackened noisegrind slaughterers Unyielding Love, which, upon its initial release on tape/digital in September 2016, made heads turn with its mindless and cataclysmic alloy of incredibly savage blackened grindcore and festering harsh noise.
When Decibel Magazine (click HERE to read their feature) first encountered the scathing and torturous sonic depravity of The Sweat of Augury they stated the band “have blasted so hard towards the realm of harsh noise that their song structures are framed around icepick feedback and a layer of pedal abuse that makes it seem like every song they are playing is the last they’ll manage before their equipment disintegrates”, and then further exclaiming that Unyielding Love are “a goddamn nightmare of grind and discord that may have a few of you shitting teeth”. Later, CVLT Nation went to to elect it as one of the best grindcore albums of 2016.
It comes as no surprise that anyone who is first exposed to this band’s skin-peeling music remains completely baffled and speechless in front of the enormous amount of violence and senseless antagonism that bleeds out of Unyielding Love’s crazed homicidal songs. Blending grindcore, black metal, noise and power electronics in a firestorm of abhorrent sonic chaos, Unyielding Love have perfectly bridged the gap between the aesthetics of bands like Full of Hell (for whom Unyielding Love will open all upcoming UK dates), Column of Heaven, Discordance Axis, (early) Knelt Rote, Sutekh Hexen, and Gnaw Their Tongues, creating something so heinous and sonically wretched that the human brain will ever only partially be able to fully grasp the full extent of this band’s immeasurable madness and vision.
SÓLSTAFIR are unveiling their complete forthcoming full-length, ‘Berdreyminn’, which means a “dreamer of forthcoming events”. The new sixth masterpiece of the enigmatic Icelanders will be released tomorrow on Friday, May 26th
Frontman Aðalbjörn Tryggvason comments on behalf of SÓLSTAFIR: “Finally, the time has come to present you ‘Berdreyminn’ in its entirety. Hopefully, the previous pieces that we have released will now fall into their rightful places in the puzzle that this album represents. There is much to explore, surprises to discover as well as meeting old friends again, and we sincerely hope that you will like what you find. Enjoy!”
The cover art by Adam Burke and track-list of ‘Berdreyminn’ can be viewed below.
SÓLSTAFIR have previously announced their first European tour in support of their forthcoming full-length ‘Beyrdreyminn’ (out May 26th) in June.
The tour will kick off at the Download Festival in Paris on June 10th and afterwards the enigmatic Icelandic rockers will continue to perform in England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France before a final show at the Spanish edition of Download in Madrid on the 24th of June.
SÓLSTAFIR commented on the tour: “We are stoked to be back on the road and doing up ‘n close personal club shows between summer festivals. Some of the small venues are expected to sell out fast – so better get your ticket right away.”
SÓLSTAFIR tour
10 Jun 17 Paris (FR) Download Festival
11 Jun 17 Brighton (UK) The Haunt
12 Jun 17 Colchester (UK) Arts Centre
13 Jun 17 Leeds (UK) Brudenell Social Club
14 Jun 17 London (UK) Old Blue Last
15 Jun 17 Breda (NL) Mezz
16 Jun 17 Dessel (BE) Graspop Metal Meeting
17 Jun 17 Utrecht (NL) Tivoli de Helling
18 Jun 17 Hannover (DE) Musikzentrum
19 Jun 17 Dresden (DE) Beatpol
20 Jun 17 Karlsruhe (DE) Jubez
21 Jun 17 Colmar (FR) Fete de la Musique
22 Jun 17 Lyon (FR) CCO Villeurbanne
23 Jun 17 Toulouse (FR) Rex
24 Jun 17 Madrid (ES) Download Festival
SÓLSTAFIR festivals
07 Jul 17 Neskaupstaður (IS) Eistnaflug Festival (Exact date tba)
29 Jul 17 Neuensee bei Lichtenfels (DE) Rock im Wald
18 Aug 17 Borre (NO) Midgardsblot Festival 2017 (Exact date tba)
Music will always be inspired by the environment in which it is created. With its incredible array of highly diverse landscapes ranging from white glaciers via volcanic bizarreness, moss-green bubble-fields, deep fjords, and frost-cracked mountains to black beaches, Iceland has shaped a host of astonishingly original and fiercely individual bands such as SIGUR RÓS, BJÖRK, and SÓLSTAFIR.
SÓLSTAFIR embody the ever-turning wheel of seasons with their shifting light, darkness, and colours, extreme Northern climate, the stark contrasts, the closeness of beauty and deadly forces of nature, the impressive sceneries that have the bones of ancient gods enshrined in them like hardly any other band in every aspect of their existence.
SÓLSTAFIR are not like any other band. Their latest album, ‘Berdreyminn’ underscores this statement. As its title “a dreamer of forthcoming events” aptly describes, the four Icelanders have taken their already impressive evolution one step further. The band has continued to amalgamate haunting melodies, psychedelic phases, as well as strong undercurrents of classic rock and hard rock with echoes of their metal past. Yet SÓLSTAFIR’s focus is not on style but pure emotion. ‘Berdreyminn’ is eclectic by a conscious choice to make feelings audible and transform taste as well as texture to sound. Genre borders are not broken but simply ignored. Musical influences are gathered from a wide range of sources, re-arranged, and woven into new patterns. Melancholy, longing, anger, joy, pleasure, pain, and other emotions are fulling this album.
Despite leaning clearly towards an expression that can be described as rock today, SÓLSTAFIR have their roots in metal as their debut full-length ‘Í Blóði og Anda’ (2002), which translates as “In Blood and Spirit” still witnesses. Instead of today’s Icelandic gravel throated siren chants, frontman Aðalbjörn Tryggvason spat forth vitriolic crusty vocals and all strings were forged with black metal. Already their next albums ‘Masterpiece of Bitterness’ (2005) and ‘Köld’ (2009) marked stations of a continuous evolution. SÓLSTAFIR went further along their solitary path and obviously left any categorising box with the ground-breaking follow-ups ‘Svartir Sandar’ (2011) and ‘Ótta’ (2014), which received high critical acclaim and attracted new fans in equal measure, while managing the difficult feat of keeping most of their earlier following too.
SÓLSTAFIR have set sails to new horizons with ‘Berdreyminn’. Yet the Icelanders brought their home with them and the silhouette of their vessels remains easily recognisable. Welcome aboard on a new adventurous musical journey into uncharted territories.
Today, Iron Bonehead Productions sets July 28th as the international release date for Urn’s highly anticipated fourth album, The Burning. One of the Finnish underground’s longest-running yet best-kept secrets, Urn have been flying the flag of hate for unholy blackthrash since 1994. Founded by ex-Barathrum guitarist Sulphur, Urn have been a study in delayed-gratification patience and trend-bucking defiance. Their 2001 debut LP 666 Megatons sounded exactly like that, detonating a nuclear blast of classic blackthrash-cum-speed metal, which was further roughed up and refined on the successive LPs Dawn of the Devastation (2006) and Soul Destroyers (2008). But just as Urn had seemingly perfected their addicting ‘n’ acidic style, their classic power-trio lineup disintegrated and it was up to Sulphur to rebuild the band again. And rebuild, the bass-playing frontman did, as The Burning is the triumphant phoenix from the ashes.
Still maintaining that power-trio formation but now featuring a new lineup that includes guitarist Too Loud and drummer Revenant, The Burning literally explodes with an excitement that’s long been missing in black metal – suitably so, as it’s Urn’s first new recording in nearly a decade. Well rested, then, but certainly not resting on past laurels, Urn here fire off one veritable anthem after another with an urgency that’s startling to behold; the energy and passion are writ large across The Burning, and absolutely impossible to contain. And yet, for all its immediacy, there’s a certain grace and grandeur to The Burning that Urn have never revealed before: a wide-open, widescreened “man on the mountain” type of atmosphere that makes this pure black HEAVY METAL all the more majestic. However, let it be known that these Finnish bastards still revel in the dirt, just that now they’ve delivered their rancorous visions in a recording that’s their most robust and powerful to date.
Feel The Burning? It’s Urn, 666% back with a bestial invasion in the sign of evil! Bow before its first sign HERE at Iron Bonehead’s Soundcloud with the new track “Sons of the Northern Star.” Cover art, by Rok of Sadistik Exekution, and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Urn (Finland)’s The Burning
1. Intro – Resurrection
2. Celestial Light
3. Hail The King
4. Morbid Black Sorrow
5. Sons Of The Northern Star
6. Nocturnal Demons
7. Wolves Of Radiation
8. All Will End In Fire
9. Falling Paradise
10. The Burning
Darkness. Experimentation. Heaviness. Artistic integrity. A band that is born as a tribute to swiss titans Celtic Frost should have all these concepts as a basic reference when working on their own music. Formed in 2014 by three “off-road” musicians with a vast experience in metal, rock, and hardcore bands of Asturias (Spain), TOTENGOTT raises in the middle of the self-indulgent metal scene in order to claim the importance of evil and morbidity of compositions above technique, rawness above demonstration. An obsolete but effective speech.
It wasn’t long when their setlist, initially formed by classics (and “not-too-classics”) from Celtic Frost, started giving way to their own songs. Songs in which, although the “Warrior universe” touch is undeniable, we can also hear other influences like the space madness of Voivod, the sonic gravity of Conan, the experimentation of early Pink Floyd albums, the riffing mastery of Candlemass, or the atonality of Kryzstof Penderecki. Occult metal with obvious doom / death influences, but as we say, these are not the only ones: thrash, ambient, gothic… TOTENGOTT avoids limitations in the way they understand music.
In less than three years, they have managed to form a solid base of fans in the metal underground scene of their area. They have already shared stages with bands like Sodom, Entombed AD, Minsk, Holy Moses, Angelus Apatrida, Horn of the Rhino, Bodybag, Kowloon Walled City, and Wolvserpent, and they preached their musical philosophy widely in the north of Spain. This ode to darkness was depicted in the self-released Demo 2016, a three-song / 43-minute-long recording that served as an introduction to TOTENGOTT. The band sold more than 200 copies of this demo and gathered a good number of praising reviews in the Spanish extreme metal scene.
TOTENGOTT is now set to release worldwide Doppelgänger, their first album, on the 11th of July through XTREEM MUSIC / Burning World Records (label managed by Roadburn Records). The album was recorded, produced, and mixed by the band during late 2016 / early 2017 at Anglagard Recording Studios (Grao, Spain), and was mastered by James Plotkin (well known for his work with bands like Conan, Electric Wizard, Isis, Amenra, Jesu et al).
TOTENGOTT lineup
Chou Saavedra – guitar/vocals
Nacho Void – bass
José Mora – drums
The second album of Italian horror death metallers Gravesite is ready! Entitled Neverending Trail of Skulls, the album is set for international release on August 1st via Xtreem Music. The album was recorded by Umberto Furlan at Black Sun Studio between October 2016 and February 2017, with a later mastering by Daniel Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studio and topped off by the artwork of Matteo Zanella.
Gravesite was formed back in 2014 by members from other bands like Haemophagus, Undeed Creep, and Cancer Spreading among others, and released a demo entitled Obsessed by the Macabre. This led to their signing with Xtreem Music, who released their debut album Horrifying Nightmares… in July 2015, which was formed by nine tracks of old-fashioned death metal in the best tradition of bands like Autopsy, Grave, Death, and Carcass.
In the meantime, check out the title track to Neverending Trail of Skulls
