Month: July 2023

NEBELKRÄHE set release date for new CRAWLING CHAOS album, reveal album trailer

ephemer, the third album of German black metallers Nebelkrähe, will be released on October 27th via Crawling Chaos Records. The album contains seven songs with a total playing time of 50 minutes and will be released on digipack CD and vinyl LP formats as well as digitally. 

Guitarist Morg comments on the album title as follows: “Most words lose their appeal over time. With ephemer, I feel the exact opposite – the more I hear, read, or think about this word, the more exciting it becomes. In its gentle sound, its meaning – ‘fleeting,’ ‘transient’ – already seems to resonate. In that sense, it was the perfect title both for the cover photo and for an album that deals with dreams and illusions, dashed hopes and other ‘existential trifles’ of being human.”

The sound was handled by Victor Bullok (Woodshed Studio; e.g. Anomalie, Dark Fortress, Farsot, Secrets Of The Moon), and the drums were recorded by Christoph Brandes (Iguana Studios; e.g. Imperium Dekadenz, The Spirit, Thron). Guests on the album include Noise (Kanonenfieber), sG (Secrets Of The Moon, Crone), and Markus Stock (Empyrium, The Vision Bleak).

Commenting on the process of making ephemer, Morg continues: “The progression of the album – over a period of ten years – was arduous. But while I’ve almost forgotten how the struggle for single words and notes made me despair, the collaborations with good friends and great musicians will always stay in my memory. The fact that protagonists of my own ‘black metal socialization’ – be it sG, V. Santura, or Schwadorf – have lent their talents to me still feels surreal.”

Commenting on the album cover by Josef Beyer, Morg concludes: “When I first saw the photo, I knew that this image belonged to our album. It makes the all-encompassing theme of transience – be it of very concrete things, of youth, or of feelings like happiness – that we deal with on ephemer comprehensible. Later, this photo inspired me to write the lyrics for the title track, so it’s much more than ‘just’ artwork. It’s part of this album; it’s the visual quintessence of this album.”

In the meantime, see & hear a special trailer for ephemer here:

Aforementioned cover artwork and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Nebelkrähe’s ephemer
1. Tumult auf Claim Abendland
2. Nielandsmann – feat. Noise
3. ephemer
4. Dornbusch (Im Norden kein Westen) – feat. sG
5. Über Menschen unter Tage
6. Kranichträume – feat. Markus Stock
7. Die Strandbar von Scheria

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/NebelkraeheOfficial

Sweden’s ATONEMENT stream DYING VICTIMS debut album

Today, Swedish deathrashers Atonement stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut album, Sadistic Invaders. Set for international release on July 28th via Dying Victims Productions, hear Atonement‘s Sadistic Invaders in its entirety here:

One of the most literally explosive young bands in the nowadays metal underground, Atonement are a trio of Swedes whose average age was 16 years old when they released their debut demo, Merciless Blasphemy, in 2021. Despite such youth, Atonement proved that they are steeped in the ancient essence of thrashing death metal circa 1987. Bubbling forth from their cauldron of nastiness were the likes of early Destruction, Sepultura, Possessed, Death, Sweden’s Morbid, Germany’s Poison, and Chile’s Pentagram, and thus was Merciless Blasphemy aptly titled, for each of the demo’s five songs whipped forth a filth & fury quite unlike anything else around.

With expectations understandably high, Atonement took their time crafting the penultimate debut album, and two years later it arrives in the form of Sadistic Invaders. Yet another aptly titled recording, Sadistic Invaders carries forward that filth & fury of its short-length predecessor and amazingly ups the nastiness to hellish levels. Again, even with the band not yet in their 20s, Atonement are dead-ringers for juiced-up and jackhammering deathrash of a most mid-‘80s vintage, and the ten songs they devilishly dole out across the 37-minute album are somehow more crazed and compact than on said demo. And whereas that demo’s ultra-rawness emitted an air of the otherworldly, here on Sadistic Invaders do the trio impart a thicker and fuller-bodied aspect, retaining a respectable rawness but not at the expense of their superlative chops; while it’s always full speed ahead for Atonement, they manage to twist the ceremonial knife in different and sometimes-impossible ways, elevating the album above the masses still searching for Endless Pain. Dizzying yet addicting, Sadistic Invaders hits with the power and precision of a nuclear strike.

And yet, it’s still early days for Atonement, so who knows how far they’ll venture into the lungs of Hell? Sadistic Invaders provides the first full-length clues, and is highly recommended for maniacs of Deathhammer, Division Speed, and Norway’s late/great Condor.
 
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Atonement (Sweden)’s Sadistic Invaders
1. Hellish Delight
2. Await The Command
3. Fatal Militia
4. Axe Of Death
5. Evil Disaster
6. Lust For Sin
7. Unholy Sorcery
8. Death Merchant
9. Evil Minds
10. Sadistic Invader
MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/atonementband

www.dying-victims.de 

COUNTESS ERZSEBET streams new mini-album – features XASTHUR collaborator

Today, olde-world black metal entity Countess Erzsebet streams the entirety of her highly anticipated new mini-album, self-titled Countess Erzsebet. Set for international release on July 28th, Countess Erzsebet‘s self-titled mini-album in its entirety here:

Countess Erzsebet is the work of Rachel Bloodspell Moongoddess, who’s previously played bass for a number of bands but more recently Xasthur, where she did three tours playing acoustic bass and was on the Aestas Pretium MMXVIII EP. A guitar/bass-maker learning the luthier trade, Rachel plays in Countess Erzsebet her own electric bass and guitar she both built. All instrumentation in the band – guitar, bass, organ, vocals, and programming – is handled by Rachel, with four of the upcoming mini-album’s songs featuring drums by S.P. of Spirit Possession and Pandiscordian Necrogenesis. Trained in classical piano and jazz bass and guitar as a child, Rachel’s unique upbringing is subtly interwoven into Countess Erzsebet.

Previously monikered Erzsebet and having digitally released the nearly-album-length Black Spell in 2017, Rachel’s rebirth as Countess Erzsebet marks a clear, new epoch for the one-woman band. Whereas that previous recording was more than half acoustic and largely instrumental, Countess Erzsebet builds a grimier and ghastlier soundworld where the likes of Goblin, Ved Buens End, Mercyful Fate, Coven, Leviathan, and Bathory all bubble in a murky, mysterious cauldron – and what emerges sounds entirely unique, and entirely Countess Erzsebet. Olde-worlde and unorthodox, Rachel here harkens to lonelier, more vanguard days for black metal, brimming with a bounty of ideas that seem strange on the surface, but all eventually are threaded together with bedeviling witchcraft. With Hammer-horror organ and her whisper-to-a-scream vocals at the forefront, Countess Erzsebet here creates a remarkably varied canvas where each track holds its own identity – be it primitive gutter pulse or wandering-in-the-woods ethereality, ultra-minimalist doom or occultic torch song – and they’re then sequenced in a manner that creates an all-consuming experience. And one, above all, that is HAUNTING beyond belief: Rachel’s own music videos and plans for using the mini-album as the soundtrack to an independent short film no doubt render Countess Erzsebet a cinematic work.

Out of the dungeons and into the woods, spells cast and the Self recast, Countess Erzsebet displays a bold & brazen landscape on which to roam with Countess Erzsebet.

Also see the recently revealed video for “In the Blood of Virgins” exclusively HERE, courtesy of NoCleanSinging.com, as well as the previously revealed video for “Glorification of the Profane” HERE at Countess Erzsebet‘s official YouTube channel. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Countess Erzsebet’s Countess Erzsebet
1. In the Blood of Virgins
2. Glorification of the Profane
3. 666
4. Pray to the Devil
5. Obliteration of Thy Enemy
6. Exile Into Depravity

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/Erzsebet.us

WALDGEFLÜSTER set release date for new AOP RECORDS mini-album, reveal first track

Today, AOP Records announces September 29th as the international release date for a special mini-album from Waldgeflüster, Unter bronzenen Kronen, on CD and 12″ vinyl formats.

Founded fittingly in autumn 2005, Waldgeflüster have steadily perfected an individual mix of melancholic and nature-bound topics, rendering homage to black metal and its complexity with every note and every word of their lyrical songs. Began as a solo project of German multi-instrumentalist Winterherz, Waldgeflüster released its first demo, Stimmen im Wind, during the summer of the following year. In 2009 came the band’s debut album, Herbstklagen. The sound of Waldgeflüster was able to capture the recondite might of nature by harmonic but also overwhelming melodies, while the lyrics underlined the projected thoughts and feelings and therefore perfected the record. With his brother P., Winterherz created the concept record Femundsmarka – eine Reise in drei Kapitel in 2011. After the release of the follow-up Meine Fesseln, as of August 2014, Waldgeflüster transformed from a solo endeavor into a full band, with live musicians Arvagr, Domi, Markus, and Thomas finally joining the band as full members.

Thereafter, in 2016 did Waldgeflüster join with the Swedish label Nordvis and released their first split with their brothers Panopticon, shortly followed by the highly praised album Ruinen that same year. In 2019, the successor record, Mondscheinsonaten, was released to yet more acclaim, further exploring the trademarks of Waldgeflüster but always reaching for new territories.

Since 2007, in addition to their steady stream of studio recordings, Waldgeflüster have become a prolific live force, playing many shows throughout Europe and the world, including such highlights as the Summer Breeze and Ragnarök festivals, a festival organized by Hammerheart Brewing Company in the US, and a full European tour during spring 2018 with Angantyr and Ereb Altor.

In 2021, Waldgeflüster joined the highly acclaimed roster of AOP Records, who will take care of the future endeavors of the band. That same year, the first fruit of this union brought forth the release of their sixth full-length record, Dahoam, which reached #49 on the official German album charts. Dahoam is now followed now the new mini-album Unter bronzenen Kronen: a collection of four autumnal songs, including two covers, showing Waldgeflüster further perfecting their sound and drawing the listener ever deeper into their world of melancholy.

As the band state, “We are thrilled to unveil our latest endeavor, a heartfelt compilation of songs to accompany the embrace of autumn. This collection, although not a full-length album, tries to capture the essence of the season when the leaves turn into shimmering hues of bronze, gold, and red – a sonic reflection of the bittersweet melancholy that seeps into our bones and hearts during this time.

“We reimagine three existing songs—one of our own, and two masterpieces from extraordinary artists— and looked at them from a different angle, casting a new light upon their inherent beauty. Additionally, there is a new composition, delving into the realization that our own questions, flaws, and enigmatic uncertainties endlessly circle back to us, leaving an eternal imprint upon our hearts.

“We invite you to tread alongside us through the bleakness of our everlasting woods,” they conclude, “to find solace and respite, resting your weary heads beneath the majestic crowns of bronze that adorn these trees.”

In the meantime, hear the brand-new title track “Unter bronzenen Kronen” here:

Cover artwork, courtesy of Oliver König, and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Waldgeflüster’s Unter bronzenen Kronen
1. Unter bronzenen Kronen [8:07]
2. The Pit [7:18]
3. Herbst befiel das Land 2023 [7:48]
4. Black Flies [4:57]

MORE INFO:
www.waldgefluester.com
www.facebook.com/BlackMetalWaldgefluester

www.aoprecords.de

BLACK SORCERY stream ETERNAL DEATH debut album – features members of BOG OF THE INFIDEL, SANGUS, NEFARIOUS+++

Today, ancient black metallers Black Sorcery stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut album, Deciphering Torment Through Malediction. Set for international release on July 28th via Eternal Death, hear Black Sorcery‘s Deciphering Torment Through Malediction in its entirety here:

Rooted in two decades of Rhode Island black metal lineage – with members hailing from past bands Bog of the Infidel, Sangus, Nefarious, and Sorcery – America’s Black Sorcery emerged out of the plague days of early 2020. Fittingly for such origins, the quartet play a consciously regressive style of music that rejects the bloated aesthetics of most modern American black metal and embraces the arcane forms of the past. Whether it’s the paradigmatic early days of Gorgoroth or the contemporaneous turn-of-the-millennium work of Behexen and Satanic Warmaster serving as the aesthetic foundation, Black Sorcery truly sound like they do not belong to this decade nor this country. 

Crude and rude but not without a sense of regal refinement, the band’s Deciphering Torment Through Malediction debut album storms right out of the gate and leaves little to the imagination: this is all-caps BLACK METAL forged in the fires of old and tempered with the patience of longtime zealots. Each song of this 40-minute work combines cold, somber melodies with raw, visceral aggression in an unapologetic homage to the early waves of black metal. No matter the tempo – rippingly fast, folklorish downshift, hypnotic pulse – Black Sorcery keep proceedings orkish and medieval, such as they were back in the glorious times of Sombre, A.M.S.G., and Drakkar Productions. Form meeting content, their lyrical expression revolves around the themes of torment and mutually-assured destruction in the form of curses wrung from a severe disdain towards all human life, and butchered rituals performed in the heat of pure resentment, resulting in one’s own self-destruction: the ouroboros of esoteric failure and abysmal ruin. And all these ripped-raw tones are rendered all the more powerful with mastering courtesy of Enormous Door.

No more but definitely no less, Black Sorcery‘s Deciphering Torment Through Malediction is pure black metal for pure black metal people!

Preorder info can be found HERE at Eternal Death‘s Bandcamp. Cover artwork, courtesy of Maegan Lemay, and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Black Sorcery’s Deciphering Torment Through Malediction
1. Intro
2. Gasping for Light Under a Petrine Cross
3. Final Meditations on Despair
4. Erinyes Slough
5. Gomorran Virtue
6. Sordid Rote
7. Heinous Rites
8. (Endgame Thought Process)
9. Seven Veils


MORE INFO:
blacksorcery93.bandcamp.com

www.eternal-death.com
eternaldeath.bandcamp.com

PROFANATICA release second new track of forthcoming album!

Blasphemous black metal legion PROFANATICA are back with a brand new album ‘Crux Simplex’! In celebration of the new satanic offering, the band is now releasing the second single “The First Fall”, which can now be heard here:

The new album will be out on 22 September, 2023 via Season of Mist Underground Activists and can be pre-saved HERE.  Pre-order are available HERE!

PROFANATICA have previously unveiled the cover artwork for “Crux Simplex”, which can be viewed together with further album details below. Please note that there is a censored version of the artwork available in the PROFANATICA press kit HERE.

Tracklist:
1. Condemned to Unholy Death (4:38)
2. Take Up the Cross (3:01)
3. The First Fall (3:24)
4. Meeting of a Whore (3:02)
5. Compelled by Romans (4:47)
6. Wipe the Fucking Face of Jesus (2:20)
7. The Second Fall (2:40)
8. Cunts of Jerusalem (3:35)
9. The Third Fall (4:18)
10. Division of Robes (6:51)
Total: 36:76

PROFANATICA are at the vanguard of the first wave of American black metal. Founded and led by infamous master of black perversion Paul Ledney (drums/vocals), they have purveyed primeval blasphemy for nigh on thirty-three years.

Ledney formed the band from the ashes of the first INCANTATION lineup when he split and took with him all of the members sans John McEntee. That early trio of ex-INCANTATION members reeled off three ground-breaking demos of some of the most extreme and blasphemic metal of its time in rapid succession. The band flyers that permeated the tape-trading circuit were no less shocking and featured the trio bloody and naked and in the throes of what was most certainly a primeval summoning of some kind. In short order, they had inked a deal with the fledgling Osmose Productions for what became one of that labels first releases (Osmose release #5); a legendary split with Colombia’s MASACRE.

Something so volatile could only last briefly, and after another brief recording session the band collapsed under the weight of its own extremity. but the recordings made in this two year window went on to see dozens of reissues in the coming decades, in a testament to how formidable and formative they are to the black metal scene worldwide.

After almost fifteen years spent with his equally polarizing solo project HAVOHEJ, Ledney reignited the flames of PROFANATICA in 2006. Reemerging with a new deal from Hells Headbangers, Ledney and his new band released ‘The Enemy of Virtue’, a collection of that vaunted early material, and a new full-length, ‘Profanatitas de Domonatia’. A triumphant return, ‘Profanatitas de Domonatia’ picked up right where these Kings of US Black Metal left off, delivering a savage stream of chainsaw guitars and relentless battery upon which they desecrated everything sacred.
  
This set-in motion another frenetic burst of work for PROFANATICA. The next decade saw them unleash four new full-length albums of blasphemous perversions, sacrilegious incantations, and furious black metal. In addition, the band issued six mini-albums and EP’s, a full DVD of early footage, and began touring internationally in Europe and in Central and South America. For the first time PROFANATICA were appearing near or at the top of the bill at festivals like MDF, Messe Des Mortes, Hells Headbash, Prague Death Mass (Czech Republic), Chaos Descends (Germany), Black Sun (Spain), Tyrant Fest (France), SWR Fest (Portugal) and many more.

In fall 2018, PROFANATICA joined forces with Season of Mist and undertook their biggest tour to date supporting WATAIN and ROTTING CHRIST across Europe. And a year later, the trio vomited forth a most vulgar strain of black metal ejaculate with their SoM debut album ‘Rotting Incarnation of God’.

The band embarked on an extensive twelve-country European headline tour in the album’s wake. Shortly after returning home that winter, the world ground to a halt in 2020. Save a live-streaming concert production for the legendary Rock al Parque in conjunction with BATUSHKA, little was heard from PROFANATICA.

That is until spring 2023, when PROFANATICA emerged from their den of iniquity on a European headline tour to promote a new album. ‘Crux Simplex’ is a ten-track offensive of sin and sacrilege, a nasty affront that bastardizes the first 10 stations of the cross. As per their legacy, PROFANATICA deals in bestial, first-wave black metal barbarity, and their eighth album unveils ungodly levels of bile and blasphemy.

www.facebook.com/profanaticausa
www.instagram.com/profanaticaofficial
www.profanatica-us.bandcamp.com

Line-up:
Mayhemic Slaughter of the Heavens – Drums / Vocals
Destroyer of Holy Hymen – Guitar / Bass

Recording line-up:
Mayhemic Slaughter of the Heavens – Drums / Vocals
Destroyer of Holy Hymen – Guitar
The True Perversion of the Heavenly Father – Bass

CRYSTAL COFFIN set release date for new A BEAST IN THE FIELD album

Today, A Beast in the Field announces October 31st as the international release date for Crystal Coffin‘s highly anticipated third album, The Curse of Immortality, on digipack CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats.

Crystal Coffin are a melodic black metal trio from Vancouver, Canada that was formed in 2016 by Aron Shute (vocals, bass guitar), Lenkyn Ostapovich (guitars, synths, piano, scapes, secondary vocals), and Rob Poirier (drums). Comprised of members from previous Vancouver acts Destroy All, Koma, and Caskets, their music references their love for 1970s/’80s Italian horror cinema, sci-fi storytelling, and philosophies. Crystal Coffin combines black metal styles with influences of prog and ambient/electronic music while re-imagining 20th and 21st century atrocities as poetry and melody.

Combining a love for vintage horror, folk, history, storytelling, and other esoteric influences, Crystal Coffin released their debut album, The Transformation Room, in March 2020 to favorable reviews. The album presented scenes of the Holodomor famine that tore families and villages apart in Soviet-era Ukraine during the early 1930s and contained lyrics and music that were washed in pathos, both brutal and beautiful. The band’s second full-length, The Starway Eternal, released in October 2021, embraced a sci-fi concept utilizing the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Pripyat, Ukraine as a backdrop for fantastical storytelling. This second album expanded their progressive inclinations and infused a new confidence into their songwriting, helping to solidify themes and sounds that would steer the band’s next direction. Rightly so, The Starway Eternal garnered Crystal Coffin even more attention, setting expectations for their third album considerably higher.

And, amazingly, they’ve eclipsed those expectations. The Curse of Immortality, releasing on Halloween day 2023, leverages similar storytelling themes but looks forward into a future where the limitations on existence are no more, for better or for worse. Less a formal concept album from its predecessor, the eight tracks loosely depict a protagonist whose failed attempts at suicide have placed him into a rehabilitation center wherein clandestine medical personnel experiment on the captured and unconscious patients at night in chambers below. Through a combination of cryogenetics, evil rites, and state control, the subject involuntarily becomes the first successful completed case for verified immortality – a life that will no longer require death. The music and the lyrics found throughout are darker, heavier, and faster than anything Crystal Coffin have released and stand as the sonic culmination of the band’s efforts and intentions over the past six years. 

As always, form and content go hand in hand for the band, and the characteristically detailed cover artwork (once again by Ostapovich) as well as “classified document”-style inner sleeve vividly complete the totality of The Curse of Immortality. Altogether, the album stands as Crystal Coffin‘s boldest and most complete work to date.

First track and preorder info to be revealed shortly. Aforementioned cover artwork and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Crystal Coffin’s The Curse of Immortality
1. Shadows Never Cast [6:15]
2. The Undead [5:08]
3. The Vortex of Earth and Death [4:19]
4. Final Breaths [5:36]
5. Cryogenesis [6:00]
6. Rise [3:42]
7. Leviathans Encased [5:54]
8. The Closing of the Crystal Coffin [5:36]

MORE INFO:
www.crystal-coffin.com
www.facebook.com/Crystal-Coffin-2228111600765172 
www.crystalcoffin.bandcamp.com

ETERNAL ROT stream new MEMENTO MORI / GODZ OV WAR album

Today, pan-international death metallers Eternal Rot stream the entirety of their highly anticipated third album, Moribound. Set for international release on July 24th – Memento Mori will handle the CD version while Godz Ov War Productions will handle the vinyl, cassette tape, and digital formats – hear Eternal Rot‘s Moribound in its entirety here:

Eternal Rot crawled out of a musty dungeon in London in 2012, born out of a passion for death metal by Mayer and Grindak. Their 2013 Promo Tape demo (released as Grave Grooves on 7″ EP through Fallen Temple Productions a year after), featured two swampy and deadly tracks that attracted vigilant zombies who began to spread the word about a new sonic disease. A few years of disgusting excavations later, they joined forces with Godz Ov War Productions and spewed out the debut album Cadaverine, which was adorned with the artwork of Mark Riddick, who would ultimately become the band’s artist of choice from then on. Shortly after, the duo were joined by Radek Pierściński (Meat Spreader, Neuropathia, The Dead Goats) on drums, and the result was the band’s second album, Putridarium, which featured an improved formula of their already trademark purulent and über-crushing death metal. The band’s latest chapter of filth up to date was the 2021 split with death/doom metal powerhouse Coffins, on Behind the Mountain Records.

Now, at long last, Eternal Rot will release their third album, Moribound. Aptly titled in a perverse way and again graced with another unforgettable Mark Riddick cover, Moribound proves that the power-trio’s death metal is as undead as ever – “rottenly fresh,” as it were, or perhaps “freshly rotten”! No compromise made and no quarter given, Eternal Rot stick to their grimy guns and unleash another slab of organ-crushing, mind-blowing, and sickening DEATH METAL. That it’s stripped to the fucking bone is one thing (and indeed it is); that it’s insanely CATCHY is another! Someone once said that it takes a truly smart man to know when to be dumb, and Eternal Rot just might be the smartest men around with the ignorant, knuckle-dragging stomp of Moribound. There’s just no resisting these anthems-in-the-making, especially as the gut-wrenching crunch devours you whole and then sucks the very marrow from both bone and soul. Of course, a horror-drenched atmosphere still pervades all that Eternal Rot do, but the modus operandi here is undeniably the absolute CRUSH of the listener – in the catchiest way possible!

Maniacs for Autopsy, Undergang, Hooded Menace, Rippikoulu, Anatomia, Disma, Coffins, Grave, Incantation, and Funebrarum, prepare to permanently add Eternal Rot to that list with Moribound!

Aforementioned cover art and trackisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Eternal Rot’s Moribound
1. Summoned from Moribund Delusions
2. Reflected in Perpetual Waves of Despair
3. Swollen Corpse Adoration
4. Desecrated Guts
5. Gestures Never Recalled
6. Lurker in the Morgue

 

MORE INFO:

www.facebook.com/EternalRot
www.eternalrot.bandcamp.com

www.memento-mori.es
www.facebook.com/memento.mori.label

www.godzofwar.com

Spain’s MORTA set release date for SIGNAL REX debut album, reveal first track

Today, Signal Rex announces September 8th as the international release date for the highly anticipated debut album of Spain’s Morta, La España negra, on CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats.

One of the black metal underground’s best-kept secrets, Morta first fully arose from the crypt with Signal Rex’s release of their debut EP, Fúnebre. Banging ‘n’ clanging anguish echoing from the filthiest dungeons, the then-trio’s first short-length succinctly displayed their palpably physical – and surprisingly emotive – attack across nearly a half-hour. In a sense, Fúnebre felt like an album, but such was still brewing…

At long last, Morta’s debut album bubbles up from the primordial muck with no small amount of rudeness: La España negra. Pure and proud BLACK METAL from southern climes, Morta’s first full-length carries forward many/most of its predecessors’ foremost strengths – deft shifts from spiralingly violent hypnosis to scabrously headbanging segments, a remorselessly raw-yet-refined soundfield, ugly and emotional in equal measure – but a relatively wider (and wilder) swath of ideas and textures are given ample room to roam across this 39-minute recording. Just like that predecessor, La España negra resides firmly within the realm of black metal, be it elder expressions from the ‘90s and underground-entrenched ones post-Y2K; the now-quartet honor the sanctity of the artform by exploring their own vibrations rather than those of others. But within a longer format and maximizing that expanded lineup, Morta often allow bass guitar to guide their eerily hummable melodicism – again, one could liken that to a romanticism unique to their Spanish heritage – and even when pushing busier, denser tonalities, there’s a perversely ethereal quality that creates a cool disconnect. Their dungeons are deeper than ever, and the reverberations go straight to the soul…

Forever champions of Southern European black metal aristocracy, Signal Rex are honored to foster the gangrenous growth of Morta and spread the spell of La España negra.

In the meantime, hear the brand-new track “La fé impura de un futuro envuelto en llamas” here:

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Morta (Spain)’s La España negra
1. Requiem por una España fragmentad
2. La caída de los infieles
3. La fé impura de un futuro envuelto en llamas
4. La muerte santa
5. Leyenda negra del tiempo
6. Mi invierno eterno
7. Estigia
8. Transustanciación Diabólica

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/MORTA-Black-Metal-110470397260377

www.signalrex.com
www.facebook.com/signalrex

DESOLUS sign with HELLS HEADBANGERS, prepare debut album and reveal first track – features members of PIG DESTROYER, MISERY INDEX, NOISEM+++

Today, Hells Headbangers announces the signing of Desolus. The first fruit of this union shall be the band’s highly anticipated debut album, System Shock, which should release through the label early next year. In lieu of this announcement, Desolus reveal the brand-new title track “System Shock,” which can be heard here:

Hailing from the Mid-Atlantic United States, Desolus formed in 2019 at the beginning of the pandemic. Inspired by Sodom, Kreator, and Dark Angel, Jimmy Frost (guitars and vocals) and Vivek Rangarajan (bass and vocals) wrote songs as an outlet for the feeling of what seemed to be the end of times. As time went by and the dust settled, they traveled north to Baltimore, where they recorded a series of demos with Sebastian Phillips (Exhumed / Noisem / Castle Freak). Phillips engineered and tracked drums on these demos in hopes to release it for the DMV (DC, Maryland, and Virginia) metal scene. While recording these songs, they met Travis Stone (percussion), a former member of Noisem and current member of Pig Destroyer and Misery Index. Stone heard the songs and was on board as soon as the first riff played. Soon after, he began rehearsing with the band day in and day out until they were ready to take their music to the streets. Desolus gained traction within the DMV music scene over the span of a few years and began traveling across the United States to spread their love of old-school thrash.

About Desolus‘ signing with Hells Headbangers for their imminent debut album, a statement from the band reads: “This joining of Desolus and Hells Headbangers is something the Antichrist would dream of. We are massive fans of the HHR catalog and proud to be on the same label with Deathhammer and Nunslaughter. We are stoked to bring our form of thrash savagery to the ears of the metal underground!”

About Desolus‘ imminent debut album, System Shock consists of nine ripping songs featuring themes of horrors beyond this world, Satanic science fiction, and a dystopian future that is seemingly within arm’s reach. System Shock will reanimate the energy and aggression that came from bands in the ’80s such as Sodom, Kreator, and Dark Angel.

In the meantime, catch the band on their upcoming West Coast tour – dates below. For more info, consult the links further below.

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/DesolusDM
www.instagram.com/desolus_dmv

www.hellsheadbangers.com