ORDER OF ORIAS set release date for long-awaited new W.T.C. album

Today, W.T.C. Productions sets April 30h as the international release date for Order of Orias‘ long-awaited second album, Ablaze.

It’s been nine long years since Australia’s Order of Orias released their bold debut album, Inverse, for W.T.C. Since then, in 2015, only a split EP with Aosoth arrived: but while being “merely” one track, Order of Orias‘ contribution was a staggering 13-minute epic, suggesting further glories to come. But then, only silence followed. The band’s flame of creation had not been extinguished; it was merely simmering in the shadows…

At long last, Order of Orias step forth from those shadows with a stark ‘n’ strident second album, fittingly bearing the title Ablaze. Indeed, the Order here blaze with a fury, locking into a moody ‘n’ martial style of black metal which seamlessly moves from teeth-gnashingly tense violence to smoke-swirlingly hypnotic downtempo passages. Within, big open chords reverberate with haunting magnitude while gravel-throated vocalist A.S explores sepulchral depths of the spirit. Co-conspirator D.A’s riffing in particular explores bolder expanses of the aggression vs. atmosphere divide, working within that spectrum a sulfurous magick. As such, Ablaze is an album equally suited to stage and solitude, of external displays of hatred and internal ones of same.

While orthodox black metal has largely been a sleeping beast lo these many years, it sometimes falls to yesteryear’s mavericks to awaken and shake the firmaments – and that’s exactly what Order of Orias do with Ablaze. And with Nocturnal Graves’ Jarro Raphael on session drums and mastering by Order of Apollyon’s BST, they’re certainly in good company. The flame still burns!

First track premiere to be revealed shortly.

Cover art, courtesy of Fenomeno Design, and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Order of Orias’ Ablaze
1. Blood To Dust
2. Gleaming Night
3. Raging Idols
4. Snares & Thorns
5. Crowned In Brass
6. Dawning Light
MORE INFO: www.facebook.com/orderoforias
www.w-t-c.org
www.facebook.com/W.T.C.Productions

BROKEN SPIRIT to have demo collection released on vinyl by GOATOWAREX

On December 1st internationally, Goatowarex is proud to present Broken Spirit‘s Demo Collections 2012-2017 on double-LP vinyl format. Originally released on CD in 2018 by Portugal’s elite Black Gangrene, this vinyl version will feature laser-etched artwork on Side D, the first of such type of release done by Goatowarex. As per the band’s wishes, it shall be limited to 160 copies, with newly remastered sound.

Emblematic of the newer breed of black metal coursing through the deepest, darkest veins of the underground, Australia’s Broken Spirit is unflinching misery & misanthropy incarnate. Perfectly monikered, Broken Spirit is but another face of prolific enigma B.H., who counts among his current endeavors Drohtnung, Grave Worship, Mors De Corpus, and Pestis Cultus. But, put more directly, indeed is Broken Spirit his most personal and most challenging face.

Broken Spirit‘s first public recording came with Promo 2013, a four-song fucking of your soul: blown-out but with a nuanced-if-peculiar approach, here was triumphantly turgid black metal that dared you to enjoy it. Picking up the pace, both release-wise and more so tempo-wise, was the three-song Rotting in Void a year later, with its disturbingly clanging riffs creating an unsettling dislocation of body and soul. Thereafter, with 2015’s Solò otro cerdó and successive, super-limited split tapes with the considerable likes of Obskuritatem and Drohtnung did Broken Spirit‘s sonics become more ghostly, hovering like a forever-lost spectre – truly, a Broken Spirit – but charging forward into a vortextural vacuum with self-inflicted violence, B.H. truly matching form with content.

It is with this history, this complementary alternate life to Broken Spirit‘s cult Vivid Dreaming debut LP (which will receive the Goatowarex vinyl treatment in the coming year) with Portugal’s likewise-elite Altare Productions, that Goatowarex wishes to preserve for posterity on black vinyl, serving as a reverberating curse before the next penultimate chapter begins…or ends.

Ordering information can be found HERE.

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Broken Spirit’s Demo Collections 2012-2017 1. I
2. II 3. III
4. IV
5. Entrance
6. Fourth Reich
7. Rotting in Void
8. Weeping Black Evangelium
9. Bitterness Becomes the Virus
10. Manifest of Suicide
11. No One Will Remember You
12. Cultivation of Evil
13. Void Worshipping Psychosis
MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/PLOGTWRX

MONGREL’S CROSS announce ABSU’s Proscriptor as new vocalist

Today, Aussie metal vanguard Mongrel’s Cross announce Absu’s Proscriptor as their vocalist. A statement from the band reads: “It is with great pleasure to announce the entire vocal performance for our upcoming full-length, Arcana, Scrying And Revelation, will be handled by none other than Proscriptor McGovern of Absu fame. Proscriptor has been a huge influence on us, and to have him bless our work is beyond humbling. Over the past few months, we have been conversing with the warrior of Ulster, and his dedication to metal and magic(k) is truly inspiring. You can expect nothing short of perfection with such a master of his craft at the helm.”

This momentous album will see release through Hells Headbangers next year, with a spring / summer release expected. Mongrel’s Cross released their long-awaited second album, Psalter of the Royal Dragon Court, this past August to international acclaim; the album can be heard here:
MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/MongrelsCross