Steve Bruder Des Lichts

Chilean blackthrash magickians Invocation Spells stream new HELLS HEADBANGERS album

Today, Chilean blackthrash magickians Invocation Spells stream the entirety of their highly anticipated third album, The Flame of Hate. Set for international release on July 7th via Hells Headbangers, hear Invocation Spells’ The Flame of Hate in its entirety.

Ever aptly titled, The Flame of Hate bursts into being immediately, igniting a sulfurous conflagration from the first few notes. Indeed, this is very much the Invocation Spells the metal underground quickly came to worship with Hells Headbangers’ international release of the band’s second album, Descendent the Black Throne: harsh, hammering blackthrash imbued with that ancient filth ‘n’ fury that can only come from South America, and specifically the duo’s cult homeland of Chile. But as the album evolves, often at a breakneck pace, it becomes poignantly apparent that Invocation Spells have advanced as songwriters.

Granted, much of Descendent the Black Throne had a special magick that helped it elude easy “blackthrash” categorization – namely, through an acute balance between the bestial and more classically speed metal tropes – but the molten, even martial pulse the band employ here turns these more deliberately hypnotic spells of possession into veritable anthems of minimalism, spilling poison and black blood in equal measure, and giving new rise to the term “headbanging.” And just like its predecessor, the recording across The Flame of Hate locates that elusive middle-ground between fuck-off raw and clear/cutting, with each incensed-yet-impassioned note ringing out through the humid haze before mangling the mind with quintessentially Chilean diabolism. At eight compact songs, The Flame of Hate wastes no time and demands repeat ignition, each glowing/glowering ember lighting the way to absolute possession. The Flame of Hate burns to the touch, and Invocation Spells dare you to take this torch!

Tracklisting for Invocation Spells’ The Flame of Hate
1. Darkness Prevails
2. The Flame of Hate
3. Nocturnal Silence
4. Messiah
5. Ride the Fire
6. Evil Mountains
7. The Invocation
8. Renegade of the Light

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/barbarianmetal

Spanish female-fronted death metallers Bloodhunter reveal the cover artwork their second album, The End of Faith

Today, Spanish female-fronted death metallers Bloodhunter reveal the cover artwork their upcoming second album, The End of Faith, whose release date is scheduled for October 16th through Xtreem Music.

Formed back in 2008, Bloodhunter is one of Spain’s leading death metal forces. Led by virtuoso guitarist Fenris and vocalist Diva Satanica, the band released their debut album, Bloodhunter, back in 2014, where they started to create a solid fanbase around the country thanks to their strong live performances and high-quality death metal with a melodic & brutal edge.

Bloodhunter has now finished recording their second album, The End of Faith, whose lineup is completed with bassist Éadrom and magnific session drummer Marcelo Aires. The result is fantastic and will definitely put Bloodhunter on the map as a force to reckon. Just imagine if Arch Enemy would play death metal – yes, death metal, not aggressive modern heavy metal – with a much more brutal approach.

First advance track to be revealed shortly. Cover and tracklisting are as follows

Tracklisting for Bloodhunter’s The End of Faith
1. The Forbidden Zone
2. The End of Faith
3. Eyes Wide Open
4. Still Standing Up
5. Death & Rebirth
6. The Queen Beast
7. All these Souls Shall Serve Forever
8. Spirits of Sin
9. Let the Storm Come
10. Possesed by Myself
11. Crystal Mountain (Death cover)

https://www.facebook.com/BLOODHUNTEROfficial/

Chicago Stoner Doom Act BURY THE MACHINES Release “Beneath My Wrath” Official Video

BURY THE MACHINES has released the official video for “Beneath My Wrath,” a song from the recently released Wicked Covenant EP. In the words of Cvlt Nation: “The driving force behind ‘Beneath My Wrath’ is a soaring amount of heavy melodic sonics that is highly addictive.” Check out the video

BURY THE MACHINES released the Wicked Covenant EP, the follow-up to the 2016 full-length Barbwalker, on June 9. Featuring three new tracks, extreme multi-tasker John E. Bomher, Jr. (I KLATUS, ex-YAKUZA) explores the extent of his mechanical abilities and penchant for creating melodic, hypnotizing songs of depth and character. Seeing release on cassette, compact disc and digital formats, Wicked Covenant will see the dark of night through Long Beach, CA based label Midnite Collective. The EP will be available on CD, Cassette, and digital formats.

In a modern culture of do-it-yourself ethics, viral videos and unfettered access to an endless amount of knowledge, BURY THE MACHINES has sought to define a new niche in a body of people and artists hungry for fresh, unadulterated material. Mapping out the peaks and valleys of sonic waves, BURY THE MACHINES discover a rhythmic groove and unique beauty amidst the uncountable tumultuous echoes of today’s world wide web of noise. Breathing life into his machines, Chicago native John E. Bomher, Jr. (I KLATUS, ex-YAKUZA) masterfully conducts movements of immense weight acting as the heart to his cables, like veins, flowing with signals as blood pumping warmth and being into his body of mechanical, electronic appendages. Ultimately seeking to return the soul to machine-based music, John has created this project as a vessel of travel to take a listener from this world to one beyond, to where his ghosts and spirits rest, Buried with the Machines.

As a one-man solo incarnation, BURY THE MACHINES has performed alongside Helen Money (Thrill Jockey), Glaare (ft. ex-Ancestors and current Buried At Sea, Deth Crux, Black Mare members), Endon and Spell (Canada). Readily available to engulf viewers in its sinister soundscapes, BURY THE MACHINES is prepared for offers including local, touring support and one-off festival appearances

https://burythemachines.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/burythemachines/

Swedish DSBM Legends Shining finish new album in studio

SHINING have finished recording their tenth studio album, ‘X – Varg Utan Flock’ (“Wolf without a Pack”).

Mastermind Niklas Kvarforth comments:” It has been an ordeal of gigantic proportions, but I am pleased to announce that the recording of our tenth album have now come to an end, and I am currently working on the final visual details before this aural nightmare can be sent off to our label and fuck up your lives.

‘X – Varg Utan Flock’ is the direct follow up to our fifth album, but, as usual it does contain a few unexpected twists and turns that will send cold shivers down your spines. It was an honour to serve for two decades as the grand puppet-master and bringer of chaos.

Let there be Blood!”

https://www.facebook.com/shiningofficial

URARV set release date for debut album, reveal first track – features Aldrahn of DHG/Thorns fame

Northern trees sometimes bear strange fruit. Arising from the shadow of mental institutions and personal secret corners comes the Norwegian Urarv (“Ancient Heritage”), the new project spearheaded by avant-metal stalwart Björn Aldrahn Dencker of DHG and The Deathtrip and Thorns fame. “The ideas and visions for Urarv started actually back in 2003 during a stay that I had at the local mental institution where I live,” comments Aldrahn. “It began dawning on me one evening as I was locked out on to the perimeter of the facilities to have a stroll.”

At first, Urarv was going to be a folkish song-oriented solo-project exclusively, but as time went by, those thoughts proved themselves to be much too dysfunctional, and in the end, it would take several years until it all began taking shape properly. It wasn’t until the summer of 2013, however, when enough material for a full-length album was ready. From thereon, Aldrahn sought out for fellow musicians to join his escapade of sonar expedition and relinquishment of artistic restraints. He was lucky enough to find two excellent creatures to do the drums and bass. Patricia and Sturt joined in with great enthusiasm and conviction when rehearsals began taking place later that year.

While Urarv recognizes the ancient heritage of Norwegian black metal, it also tramples across limitations. At the core of the project lies the idea of experimentation with various unorthodox tunings and curious sounds. “We want to tap into uncharted territories to see what lies hidden under the rocks and dead horses and beneath the cold vastness of uncertainty,” says Aldrahn. “We’re traveling to remote regions of metal music and mental space with this music. Although our message is one of emotional putrefaction, we want to help listeners find a way through the black hole.”

Aurum is set for international release on September 22nd via Svart Records on CD, LP, and digital formats.

Tracklisting for Urarv’s Aurum
1. Forvitringstid
2. Ancient DNA
3. The Retortion
4. Broken Wand
5. Guru
6. Valens Tempel
7. Fancy Daggers
8. Red Circle

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/urarv

UK’s Black Metal HORRIFIED reveal cover art and release date for forthcoming SHADOW KINGDOM album

Today, Shadow Kingdom Records announces September 29th as the international release date for the highly anticipated third album of the UK’s Horrified, Allure of the Fallen. A work of towering, melodic death metal majesty, Allure of the Fallen is the record by which Horrified continue their ascent and truly stake their claim as the genre’s elite – and render a new modern classic to the canon.

Hailing from Newcastle upon Tyne, Horrified was born in 2012 with humble beginnings. An acolyte worshiping the altar of old-school death metal, founder and creator Dan Alderson would later transform the project into a full band. Like so many of their predecessors, Horrified took a sidestep and evolved into melodic and grandiose territory, adding twin-guitar harmonies and increasing its scope into epic territory without sacrificing their original vision of savage OSDM. After releasing two full-length albums on various labels, assaulting UK underground audiences with tight, energetic live performances and taking their aural onslaught to European audiences, Horrified took steps up from the underground with wide, positive acclaim for the second full-length album Of Despair.

But now, with the impending release of third album Allure of the Fallen, Horrified has been reborn into something far more vast than ever originally imagined. Comprising six expansive tracks in an epic 46 minutes, Allure of the Fallen finds the band in an enviable state of maturity, exuding class and power in equal measure, their ever-winding but never-extraneous compositions truly taking the listener on a journey into what real – and really melodic – death metal can encompass. Thus, Horrified’s signing to Shadow Kingdom for the album’s release is a logical alliance to bolster the band’s ever-growing evolution and constant broadening of vision, scope, and horizons.

Patient but never slumbering, Horrified arises from the ashes of a barren landscape, shrouded in majesty, resurrected in ancient art. This is the Allure of the Fallen: pay witness to the dawn of majesty.

“This band just keeps getting better with each album. On Allure of the Fallen, they shed much of their ‘Sunlight’ influences sound- and music-wise, and incorporate a lot more black metal and doom. It’s melodic, heavy, and catchy as hell. It brings to mind fond memories when I first discovered bands like Unanimated, Sacramentum, etc, and that’s an awesome thing. This will definitely be a highlight for a lot of folks in 2017!” – Damain Herring (Horrendous)

First track and preorder info to be announced shortly. Cover art, by Adam Burke, and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Horrified (UK)’s Allure of the Fallen
1. Allure of the Fallen
2. Light’s Dissolution
3. The Perceiver
4. Unanswered
5. Shorn
6. The Promise of Solace

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/horrifiedUK

Black Metal Duo ASAGRAUM set release date for debut album, reveal first track

Today, KVLT sets September 29th as the international release date for Asagraum’s highly anticipated debut album, Potestas Magicum Diaboli. A magickal work of nighsky majesty, simmering celestial aggression, and the most potent tenets of ’90s Scandinavian black metal, Potestas Magicum Diaboli breathes and billows a blast-from-the-past classicism that nevertheless manages to sound fresh among the modern BM landscape, outstripping the prevailing trends and the pretenders who enable them. Perhaps more importantly, it is the work of two women – a rarity in black metal, both past and especially present – who hereby render gender an irrelevant argument. Simply, Potestas Magicum Diaboli stands on its own, towering and terrifying.

A cross-continental entity, Asagraum was founded in the autumn of 2015 by vocalist/guitarist Obscura and drummer T. Kolsvart. The original intent was to play pure, Satanic black metal, in all its aspects, with the old-school feeling of the eternal ’90s greats but also with dark psychedelic influences. A three-track promo recording was released earlier this year, laying bare Asagraum’s aims and accordingly special sound. Wasting no time, Potestas Magicum Diaboli was then recorded, fleshing out further those aims into an eight-song, 44-minute work which maintains a fuller, more windswept totality. It heaves and weaves to both aggression and atmosphere, walking a delicate balance but always boldly. It is both unapologetically modern and authentically ’90s.

With anticipation high for the release of Potestas Magicum Diaboli, Asagraum will be touring Europe later this year, utilizing a bass-player – either Mortifero or Makashanah – for live performances. Onstage, the band is equally deadly, proving their left-hand-path black art knows no boundaries. Until then, let Potestas Magicum Diaboli revive the old cult of the witches, radiating forever the black flame of Lilith. “Black Sun Prayer,” the first track to be revealed from the album.

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Asagraum’s Potestas Magicum Diaboli
1. Transformation
2. Black Triangle Temple
3. Leviathan
4. Gospel of Ignition
5. Daar Waar Ik Sterf
6. Black Sun Prayer
7. Carried by Lucifer’s Wings
8. I Burn within the Devil

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/asagraum

Italy’s Barbarian to tour the USA for the first time

To coincide with a full tour of the United States this August, on July 21st internationally, Hells Headbangers will release a new 7″ EP from Italy’s Barbarian. Simply self-titled, this new two-song banger presents Barbarian at their roughest, rowdiest, and arguably heaviest yet. Riding high on the critical acclaim afforded their first album for Hells Headbangers (and third overall), Cult of the Empty Grave, Barbarian go from strength to strength, taking the blackened traditional metal of that album and here firing it full of a dangerous octane. Both tracks – “Simulacra of the Ageless Need” and the telltale “Stench of God” – are both brand-new and exclusive to this release, featuring the band’s new lineup, so get ready for summer slaughter with the Barbarian 7″!

A statement from the band reads: “Barbarian are ready to hit US soil for the first time and defile stages all over the country! Our axes are already honed and our bone knives sharpened, so if you want it ugly and obtuse, join us for the absolute Regressive Metal desecration!”

The updated list of full dates & venues for Barbarian’s summer American tour are as follows :

August 4 – Chicago, IL @ LiveWire Lounge
August 5 – Milwaukee, WI @ Frank’s Power Plant
August 6 – Minneapolis, MN @ Hexagon Bar
August 7 – Rapid City, SD @ West Dakota Improv
August 9 – Seattle, WA @ Highline Bar
August 10 – Portland, OR @ Twilight Cafe
August 11 – San Francisco, CA @ RS94109
August 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ Five Star Bar
August 13 – Las Vegas, NV
August 14 – Lost Lake, Denver, CO
August 15 – Kansas City, MO
August 16 – St. Louis, MO @ Fubar
August 17 – Cincinnati, OH @ Rake’s End
August 18 – New York, NY @ Metal Kingdom
August 19 – New Carrollton, MD @ El Gran Chaparral
August 20 – Worcester, MA
August 21 – Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar
August 22 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Rock Room
August 23 – Nashville, TN – The East Room
August 24 – Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter
August 25 – Philadelphia, PA

Further updates to follow shortly. Currently, the track “Simulacra of the Ageless Need” is streaming at Hells Headbangers’ Bandcamp HERE, where the Barbarian 7″ EP can be preordered. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Barbarian (Italy)’s Barbarian EP
1. Simulacra of the Ageless Need
2. Stench of God

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/barbarianmetal

Portuguese black metal cult ORDEM SATANICA stream Debut album SIGNAL REX

Today, Portuguese black metal cult Ordem Satânica stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut album, Monte da Lua. Set for international release today via Signal Rex, hear Ordem Satânica’s Monte da Lua in its entirety here

Hailing from the rawest core of the thriving Portuguese black metal scene, Ordem Satânica are possessed by a hideous grimness that’s utterly hypnotizing. Despite not belonging to Portugal’s Black Circle (Mons Veneris, Vetala, Irae), Ordem Satânica’s sound is comparably chaotic and necrotic, bleary and blown-out. And yet, the trio possess a deceptive sense of melody, malformed and miasmic, dissonant and distressed, that favorably reminds of France’s immortal Black Legions from the dark days of the 1990s. For verily, this BLACK METAL from an ancient time – AGAINST the modern world, and against the modern “black metal” scene.

To date, Ordem Satânica have built a coveted canon of thoroughly underground works, each more challenging and cantankerous than the last. Just earlier this year, this enviable escalation of aesthetic antagonization reached its apotheosis with Signal Rex’s release of the In Aeterna Crudelitate cassette – like the old ways/days, limited to only 66 copies and selling out almost immediately. But alas, Ordem Satânica transcend all prior with Monte da Lua, the most mesmerizing distillation of their crude-yet-cultivated art. Stripped completely bare and blown out in an almost brittle manner, Monte da Lua is a windswept travail across desolation and disgust, ever inwards and maybe even backwards. Modernity doesn’t exist here; there is only the past, which passed before it began. Time stands still here, and the listener is powerless against Ordem Satânica’s evocations of a better/worse world.

When there are still revisionist reveries for the early ’90s boom of black metal, which inevitably died a slow death, there are bands in this millennium who harness that very real, very primordial power, and the raw Portuguese scene is currently at the forefront

Tracklisting for Ordem Satânica’s Monte da Lua
-LADO A-
1. Belial os Bosques e o Pentagrama
2. Monte da Lua
3. Lagoa da Serpente Eterna
4. Pelo Misticismo…

-LADO B-
5. Negras aparições
6. Tempestades Nocturnas e Invocações Satânicas sob os céus de Sintra
7. Solstício de Inverno
8. Entre Árvores Sombrias

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

Canadian black metallers Kafirun premier new song from their Debut Album

Canadian black metallers Kafirun premier a new song “Eschaton” off their highly anticipated debut album, of the same name, Eschaton. Set for international release on June 26th via Seance Records.

A deeply occultic work, Eschaton explores the end of the manifested world – an apocalypse that brings the end of all life and begets the opening of a new beginning through death – and opens this portal through thoroughly dizzying, manically majestic black metal. Finding that elusive balance between the resolutely raw ‘n’ primitive and the dynamically complex, Kafirun create a constantly shapeshifting maelstrom of macrocosm-crushing chaos and (dis)order. Across seven tracks within a concise ‘n’ cutting 42 minutes, the quartet portray a bold vision, and one whose maturity belies the band’s brief existence so far.

Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, Kafirun sprung to deathly life in in 2014. The band’s first release was an EP titled Death Worship – a title which has served to guide Kafirun’s prevailing principles – and was released on cassette format that same year, garnering a strong and positive response across the worldwide metal underground. A year later, another EP followed, titled Glorification of Holy Death – again, another telltale title – which released by the band digitally and as a very limited CD. This release brought the band further in their sinister journey towards total cosmic death. Alas, just last year, both EPs were jointly reissued as The Worship and Glorification of Holy Death compilation, which was quickly followed by a split 7″ with Austria’s Transilvania.

Now, with that swift ‘n’ decisive experience behind them, Kafirun are set to unleash their first full-length work, Eschaton, under the auspices of Seance Records. Sonically painting the eternal void of death, Eschaton perversely brims with an illuminating light, devouring the cosmic light of life and everything within, scurrying through the sort of black metal whose radiance is so obsidian as to consume energy as austerely as it expends it; verily, it is death of the self and all reason. In this moment which is eternal yet transitory, a new and pure energy grows within the womb of chaos, and which ignites the source of a new aeon, a flame needless of air to exist. A new true god that breeds its new self, purified and sanctified in chaos without an end nor a beginning: here stands Kafirun.

Although the moniker Kafirun stems from Islam – meaning disbelievers or infidels and is mentioned over a hundred times in the religious text and verses – the band state that “in our lyrics, we do not have anything about Islam at all. Our concept is about death and nothingness. We try to not use generic occult notions. Surely, we are influenced by the old beliefs, the occult, myths, esoteric ideas, and the Luciferian path, but we try to create our own concepts. Death is the only true god, and it is the only god that reveals itself to living things. So we explore death, nothingness, and what lies beyond the boundaries of the flesh. Some things are incomprehensible to a man and can only be experienced through death. So Kafirun is against the monotheistic dogmas and submission to their teachings on a philosophical level. It is a flame, an idea for a total chaotic new beginning on the individual level.”

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Kafirun’s Eschaton
1. Lord of Blessed Murder
2. Eschaton
3. Omega Serpent
4. Divine Providence
5. Prophetic Death Trance
6. Ephemerality of the Flesh
7. Omnipresence

www.kafirun.ca
www.facebook.com/KafirunBand