NUMENOREAN have entered the studio of producer Josh Schroeder (GHOST BATH, FOR THE FALLEN DREAMS, BATTLECROSS) in Midland, Michigan, USA to record the follow-up for their acclaimed debut album, ‘Home’ (2016). The sophomore full-length of the Canadian post-black metal explorers will be entitled ‘Adore’.
NUMENOREAN have released a dark teaser-trailer for ‘Adore’, which can be viewed below
NUMENOREAN’s debut album, ‘Home’ is streaming in full at the link below.
Never judge a book by its cover – this adage might easily be applied to the debut full-length of NUMENOREAN. The Canadian post-black metal act has crafted a musical masterpiece that embraces beauty, harshness, brutality, and melancholy in equal measure and transforms those ingredients into breathtaking melodies and riffs.
NUMENOREAN have achieved far more with their debut than just following a musical path pioneered by DEAFHEAVEN, ALCEST, WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM, and DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT. This album challenges to delve deeper, to get lost in feverish dreams, while its haunting beauty beckons to again and again come… ‘Home’.
NUMENOREAN were founded by Brandon and Byron Lemley in Canada’s most northern major city, Calgary as a sole expression for the discontentment of existence in 2012. The brothers released a two song demo under the title ‘Demo 2014’ to strong critical acclaim. New members were recruited, who shared a closeness to sorrow, nature, and grief. Once their line-up was completed, each member contributed to the making of the forthcoming full-length, which was released on the 22nd of July, 2016.
CHAOSTAR are streaming the second single of their forthcoming album, ‘The Undivided Light’. The Greek avant-garde explorers will release their fascinating fifth full-length on March 23rd, 2018.
The complex track, “Tazama Jua” is now premiering.
CHAOSTAR previously revealed artwork and album details of ‘The Undivided Light’, which can be viewed below.
Track-list
1. Tazama Jua (3:48)
2. Blutbad (4:25)
3. Stones and Dust (4:59)
4. The Undivided Light (5:11)
5. Mέμνησο (6:15)
6. Silent Yard (10:51)
7. Ying & Yang (7:09)
Total playing time: 42:38
‘The Undivided Light’ comes as an invitation to a fascinating musical journey around the globe, which is equally true for space as well as time. CHAOSTAR is far more than just a side-project of SEPTICFLESH guitarist Christos Antoniou.
CHAOSTAR was conceived out of Christos’ longing to create music that reflects more on his aspect as an academy trained composer and go beyond the possibilities that his orchestral arrangements for SEPTICFLESH offer. After all, the guitarist finished his studies of classical composition in London with honours and distinction.
When SEPTICFLESH released their single, “The Eldest Cosmonaut” in 1998, the Greek band took a step towards classical music, which in turn inspired Christos to create CHAOSTAR to pursue this course even further.
Out of a timeless confrontation of different sounds and styles rose an avant-garde concept for emotional music to which vocalist Natalie Rassoulis added a feminine voice. After a first statement of intent via a demo entitled ‘The Underworld’ in 2000, CHAOSTAR released the albums ‘Chaostar’ (2000), ‘Threnody’ (2001), and ‘The Scarlet Queen’ (2004), as well as the ‘Underworld’ compilation in 2007.
After a self-imposed hiatus of both CHAOSTAR and SEPTICFLESH, Christos decided to revive his project as well when the latter reunited. The former returned with their fourth full-length, which was based on a Greek word roughly translating as “sin”. ‘Anomima’ featured the celestial vocals of new singer Androniki Skoula, who also contributed most of the lyrics.
‘Anomima’ brilliantly combined rich, classical orchestration with lush soundscapes and modern textures, and even some elements of extreme music. CHAOSTAR easily adopted a global musical language that induced the listener into a dreamlike trance with geographically unchained sounds.
With the ‘The Undivided Light’, CHAOSTAR take their experimentation another step further. Classic orchestration, traditional instruments, electronica, rock, and more are deconstructed by Christos only to be reassembled into something fresh and exciting. ‘The Undivided Light’ gives new meaning to the term world music.
Svart Records sets April 27th as the international release date for Weathered Statues’ highly anticipated debut album, Borderlands, on CD, vinyl LP, and digital formats.
As the earth turns toward a colder era and humans struggle to adapt to a bleaker autumn breeze, a new music shivers in the shadows. There stand Weathered Statues. The group convened in early 2017 in Denver, Colorado, with three members having previously performed together in the post-doom outfit Cloak of Organs (along with members of Planes Mistaken for Stars and Wovenhand).
Singer-keyboardist Jennie Mather, guitarist-keyboardist Jason Heller, and drummer Andrew Warner (also of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club) recruited bassist Bryan Flanagan, and the newly dubbed quartet of Weathered Statues began forging songs of mutation, betrayal, dislocation, erosion, and decay, subsequently playing shows with everyone from Boy Harsher to Pelican. Years ago, Mather and Heller had served in a short-lived shoegaze band called Hyacinth with Anthony Couri (previously of Minsk and currently of the Locrian side-project Lake of Violet), and the two of them began to sculpt lush sounds into something far more stark.
Weathered Statues convened at Module Overload Studios in Denver over the summer of 2017 to record with Jamie Hillyer (engineer of Green Druid’s Ashen Blood). An album, Borderlands, coalesced, drawing on the grim futurism of the past: the barren darkness of Skeletal Family, the metallic abrasion of Killing Joke, the crystalline ghostliness of Siouxsie and the Banshees, the icy dreaminess of Xmal Deutschland, and the hollow fragility of early New Order. Then Lol Tolhurst, co-founder of The Cure, agreed to remix “Corpse Candle,” the opening track of Borderlands, infusing it with a sleek dance pulse, while Keith Curts of industrial duo Echo Beds added synthesizer to the album’s slashing final track, “Holy Masquerade.”
Borderlands is an album of peaks and valleys, of shattered beauty and sleepwalking drone, of corroded love and luscious grotesquerie. Mather, a nurse by trade, relays her years of being immersed in illness, injury, and death into her stark lyrics and spectral melodies. Around her, the band veer from glacial pop to savage dirges, summoning the phantoms of post-punk past while peering stoically into an uncertain tomorrow.
In the meantime, hear the original mix of the aforementioned “Corpse Candle” HERE .
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
1. Corpse Candle
2. Betrayal
3. Dark Tides
4. Heather
5. Hypnagogia
6. The Silver Cliff
7. Sabbat
8. The Widow Sunday
9. Ossuary
10. Holy Masquerade
Today, speed metal cult Whipstriker premiere the new track “Calm After Destruction”. The track hails from the band’s highly anticipated fourth album, Merciless Artillery, set for international release on March 9th via Hells Headbangers, in lieu of their US tour next month (dates after the jump).
A cult name in the diehard metal underground, for the past decade, Whipstriker have prolifically pursued an intense and timeless vision of speed metal. All seen under the auspices of selfsame mainman Whipstriker, these Brazilian bastards faithfully cobble together the best and most bellicose elements of classic Venom, Motorhead, Onslaught, Sodom, and Warfare and proceed to level all posers in their path with a personality that’s devilish and debaucherous. And now, following a discography bursting at the seams with split 7″s, Whipstriker are set to unleash their mightiest payload in Merciless Artillery.
Aptly fucking titled, Merciless Artillery kicks in quickly and never lets up. Not for nothing was its cover art done by ROK, the infamous frontman of the legendary Sadistik Exekution: the lawlessness is simply off the charts here. The blackthrashing is maniacal, the headbanging instant and possessed, the classic metal elements grimier and more glorious than ever, even on down to the recording…this is all classic Whipstriker, simply taken to the extreme. The album was produced with a big hand from Leon Necromaniac of Apokalyptic Raids, while the mastering was handled by Toxic Holocaust mainman Joel Grind. Even the band’s logo was redone, also by ROK; in his words, now the logo is more “Ready for War.” Similarly, the song titles themselves should say more than enough – among them, “Enemies’ Leather,” “Bestial Hurricane,” “Rape of Freedom,” and the telltale “Soldier of Sodom.”
Explains mainman Whipstriker, “Merciless Artillery was the first time I didn’t play guitars. Hugo Golon played drums and all the six strings, including the solos. Hugo is an old friend of mine, and we already worked together in our other bands Diabolic Force, Atomic Roar, Farscape, Apokalyptic Raids, and Virgin’s Vomit; me and Hugo also played together on Toxic Holocaust’s Brazilian tour, 12 years ago. So, I invited the guys I like to create a good team in all aspects – artwork, production, mixing and mastering – and Hells Headbangers comes to complete this team!”
About this new partnership, he enthuses, “Signing to Hells Headbangers is a pleasure for us. As I said recently when we did it with Diabolic Force, we are all fans of the label since their early days. Here in Rio, we use to say, ‘If you don’t know the Hells Headbangers bands, you are a fucking stupid poser!”
Don’t be a stupid fucking poser and begin preparations for Merciless Artillery!
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Whipstriker’s Merciless Artillery
1. Merciless Artillery
2. Rape of Freedom
3. Calm After Destruction
4. Mantas’ Black Mass
5. Soldier of Sodom
6. Warspell
7. Enemies’ Leather
8. Bestial Hurricane
Next month, Whipstriker will be taking their onslaught to the US again for a 13-date tour. Confirmed dates & venues are as follows:
March 15 – San Diego, CA @ Til Two Club
March 16 – Los Angeles, CA @ Cafe Nela
March 17 – San Francisco, CA Record Shop RS 94109
March 18 – Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial
March 19 – Eugene, OR @ Luckey´s Club
March 20 – Portland, OR @ Twilight Cafe & Bar
March 21 – Seattle, WA @ Highline
March 22 – Detroit, MI @ Small´s
March 23 – Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge
March 24 – Lexington, KY @ Blood of the Wolf Fest
March 25 – Hyattsville, MD @ TBA
March 26 – Philadelphia, PA @ DIY Secret Venue
March 27 – New York, NY @ Saint Vitus
MORE INFO: www.facebook.com/whipstriker www.whipstriker.bandcamp.com
UK death/doom titans My Silent Wake stream the entirety of their highly anticipated new album, There Was Death. Set for international release on February 16th via Minotauro Records, hear My Silent Wake’s There Was Death in its entirety exclusively HERE.
My Silent Wake are a critically acclaimed death/doom band hailing from the southwest of England. In a vast and prolific catalog, their brand-new full-length There Was Death features some of My Silent Wake’s heaviest works to date. Recorded, mixed, and mastered during the autumn of 2017 at 13 Sound in Somerset and Priory Studios in Sutton Coldfield with doom legend Greg Chandler of Esoteric, the album also features guest growls and screams from Greg along with a cover by renowned Finnish artist Juha Vuorma.
My Silent Wake were formed in 2005 by founder member Ian Arkley of Seventh Angel / Ashen Mortality and has featured a variety of musicians over the years. My Silent Wake have toured Europe, including 2010’s tour with Norway’s In Vain, and in recent years have played at various festivals and gigs with Draconian, The Vision Bleak, and Saturnus to name a few.
There Was Death is the tenth studio album from the band. My Silent Wake have also appeared on split albums with The Drowning and Pylon.
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for My Silent Wake’s There Was Death
1. A Dying Man’s Wish
2. Damnatio Memoriae
3. Killing Flaw
4. Ghosts of Parlous Lives
5. Mourning the Loss of the Living
6. There Was Death
7. Walls Within Walls
8. No End to Sorrow
9. An End to Suffering
MY SILENT WAKE lineup
Ian Arkley – vocals and guitar
Addam Westlake – bass
Gareth Arlett – drums
Simon Bibby – keys and vocals
Mike Hitchen – live rhythm guitar
Ukrainian black metal icons, DRUDKH are streaming the second track of their forthcoming new album, ‘Їм часто сниться капіж’ (They Often See Dreams About The Spring), which will hit the stores on March 9th 2018.
The song, “U Dakhiv Irzhavim Kolossyu…” is based on a poem by Ukrainian writer Maik Yohansen, who was murdered by the Soviets in 1937 .
Artwork and album details of ‘Їм часто сниться капіж’ (They Often See Dreams About The Spring) can be viewed below.
DRUDKH are a black metal legend. True to the values of this extreme genre, the enigmatic Ukrainians refuse to follow the rock ‘n’ roll rulebook and provide no answers, no statements, no shows – all that matters to them is their music.
The sound of DRUDKH is equally based on a solid foundation consisting of the by now traditional Nordic variant of this style as on the band’s highly distinct individual “Slavonic” interpretation of it.
Yet at the same time, DRUDKH have constantly evolved, shifted, and morphed their musical approach while holding true to the original course. It is therefore no surprise that their forthcoming eleventh full-length, ‘They Often See Dreams About the Spring’ (which is a translation of the original Ukrainian title) brings another slight correction to the general direction. Where previous album ‘A Furrow Cut Short’ (2015) basically followed on the harsh and old school lead of its predecessor ‘Eternal Turn of the Wheel’ (2012), DRUDKH’s new masterpiece offers a more atmospheric and melodic feel that rather points towards the cinematic soundscapes of ‘Autumn Aurora’ (2004).
In their ongoing metamorphosis, DRUDKH seem to have abandoned the slightly progressive and lighter tone of ‘Handful of Stars’ (2010) for the time being. This does not mean it can never return… The Ukrainians have for example revisited their early legacy from the Nordic black metal inspired debut ‘Forgotten Legends’ (2003) several times, but also occasionally brought back the folklore influences that had characterised ‘The Swan Road’ (2005). On ‘Blood in Our Wells’ (2006) some progressive elements surfaced clearly for the first time, while the instrumental and partly acoustic ‘Songs of Grief and Solitude’ (2006) was followed by a sharp turn on the bleak and brutal album, ‘Estrangement’ (2007). DRUDKH’s celebrated highlight, ‘Microcosmos’ (2009) finally appeared to tie up the different strands of their previous works, before a new cycle started with the next albums.
DRUDKH’s latest albums and split-singles have drawn heavily from 20th century Ukrainian poetry for lyrical inspiration and ‘They Often See Dreams About the Spring’ continues this trend. Poetic gems from Bohdan Ihor Antonych, Maik Yohansen, Vasyl’ Bobyns’kyi and Pavlo Fylypovych have been unearthed by the band and brought back to life on this album. ‘They Often See Dreams About the Spring’ delivers black metal poetry at its best. Let your ears hear and your mind wander…
Blood Harvest Records sets April 13th as the international release date for Black Mass Pervertor’s highly anticipated new mini-album, Life Beyond the Walls of Flesh, on CD, 12″ vinyl, and cassette tape formats.
Hailing from the infinitely fertile Finnish black metal underground, Black Mass Pervertor is one of that scene’s best-kept secrets. Although their discography is sparse so far, the band’s history stretches back to 1998; some demo recordings were circulated privately during the mid-2000s until their first public release, the One-Way Pleasure EP, saw release in 2007. Back then, the Black Mass Pervertor sound was crude and grinding; it was their long-awaited debut album, 2016’s Phanerosis, where their aesthetic started to shape into being. That recording certainly retain some crudity from the early days, but saw the trio shape their filth into a finely honed war-machine.
Now, with the successive Life Beyond the Walls of Flesh, filth and finesse reach a fever pitch. Bowing reverentially to their oft-overlooked forebears Belial, Barathrum, and especially early Impaled Nazarene whilst nodding to the early-Noughts work of Horna, Sargeist, and Behexen, Black Mass Pervertor create a veritable time-machine tornado of Finnish black metal history. Across seven deceptively catchy mini-anthems in a compact 20 minutes do the power-trio work their black magick, whipping forth a fury that nevertheless manages to evoke an atmosphere most sulfurous; indeed, not for nothing is a track like “Unorthodox Methods of Magick” titled the way it is. And yet, there’s simultaneously a sense of Satanic glee here – you could call it “fun” – that fortunately manages to sidestep the cornier connotations of such a word.
Want to find Life Beyond the Walls of Flesh? Then let Black Mass Pervertor strip you bare! Start “Imbibing the Seas of Darkness” HERE
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Black Mass Pervertor’s Life Beyond the Walls of Flesh
1. Imbibing the Seas of Darkness
2. The Golden Spears
3. Suffering, Our Everlasting Bliss
4. Unorthodox Methods of Magick
5. Behind All His Atrocious Deeds
6. Chains of Guilt
7. The Forbidden Path
Signal Rex sets April 30th as the international release date for a special compilation from Ljáin, Endasálmar og klofnar tungur, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Hailing from the white-hot Icelandic black metal scene, Ljáin is a relatively newer work of the prolific H.V Lyngdal, most known for Icelandic scene-spearheaders Wormlust. Indeed, some similarities between that band and Ljáin can be heard across the two EPs that comprise Endasálmar og klofnar tungur – spiraling, almost-improvisatory songwriting, bleary atmosphere, bug-eyed performance – but Lyngdal definitely shows a new side of himself here. In many ways, Ljáin is the alpha to Wormlust’s beta, foregoing the smoother, more ambient-intensive moments for hideous, hallucinogenic overload. Blown-out and bellicose, reveling in the murk and chaos whilst navigating a clear-cut path to oblivion, the seven songs comprising Endasálmar og klofnar tungur are grim, black metalled abandon taken to their penultimate end.
And yet, sombre delicacy nevertheless exists within Ljáin’s soundworld; tracks occasionally dip and disintegrate into forlorn lullabies, all before the inevitable jet-propulsion into another miasmic vortex. And underneath it all reside strange reverberations that, in the skillful hands of Lyngdal, are anything but accidental: haunting ghosts of fractured memory, wandering endlessly in search of a home. All is sonic confrontation – and there is simply no escape.
Compiling both the Endasálmar and Klofnar tungur EPs from 2016, Endasálmar og klofnar tungur is a convenient and above all compelling introduction to the upside-down world of Ljáin. Light a candle and embrace the shadows…
In the meantime, hear the track “Svartigaldur” HERE
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Ljáin’s Endasálmar og klofnar tungur
1. Eilíf þjáning
2. Svartigaldur
3. Hlekkir holdsins
4. Endasálmar
5. Klofnar tungur
6. Úr vansköpuðum draumum
7. Með blóði þínu
Tracks 1-4 from Endasálmar
Tracks 5-7 from Klofnar tungur
Season of Mist are proud to announce the signing of CIRCLES. The Australian progressive extremists will release their highly anticipated next album through the label in 2018.
CIRCLES guitar player Ted Furuhashi comments: “We’re stoked and honoured to be teaming up with Season of Mist. It’s been great vibes all round and we know they’re invested in our music as much as we are. It’s been a while but we’re ready to smash it and show you guys what we’ve been up to!”
On further news, CIRCLES have joined label mates NE OBLIVISCARIS on their Australian tour at Fowler’s Live in Adelaide last night. A list of all remaining shows can be found below.
CIRCLES Australia
+NE OBLIVISCARIS
09 Feb 18 Adelaide (AU) Fowler’s Live
10 Feb 18 Melbourne (AU) Max Watt’s
14 Feb 18 Canberra (AU) The Basement
15 Feb 18 Newcastle (AU) The Cambridge Hotel
16 Feb 18 Sydney (SU) Manning Bar
17 Feb 18 Brisbane (AU) The Triffid
24 Feb 18 Perth (AU) Jack Rabbit Slim’s
CIRCLES are pushing forward the evolution of heavy music. Their intricacy, the emotional heart-string pull of their lyrics, precision, and the sheer force of their output, places them in a class all of their own.
With guitarist Ben Rechter assuming the role of melodic vocalist and fellow band members Tetsuya Furuhashi on guitar, bassist and master of screamed vocals Andrew Patton as well as drummer David Hunter providing a maelstrom of musical brutality, CIRCLES are a force to be reckoned with.
Throughout their two releases, ‘The Compass EP’ (2011) and ‘Infinitas’ (2013), CIRCLES constantly broke new ground and introduced fresh elements to heavy music and djent as a genre. They have gained unanimously positive reaction from fans and critics across the globe via these records as well as their remarkable live performances, which have seen them take the stage at some of the most prestigious festivals and on tours alongside some of the world’s finest.
CIRCLES’ previous European tours have included Euroblast Festival, as well as supporting slots for THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, MONUMENTS, and AFTER THE BURIAL. In Australia, the band toured as direct support to acts such as PERIPHERY, FEAR FACTORY, NE OBLIVISCARIS, and TWELVE FOOT NINJA.
Fast forward to 2018, Melbourne alternative progressive rock and metal powerhouse CIRCLES are set to circumnavigate and conquer the world with their new signing and a brand new record in hand will see its release in the latter half of this year.
Iron Bonehead Productions sets May 4th as the international release date for Death. Void. Terror.’s striking debut album, To the Great Monolith I, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
NO ORIGIN. Received from the ominous, great monolith and expressed in pure sound. NO ORDER. The recordings presented by the entity Death. Void. Terror. transcend the conventions of “composition” and “performance” in modern music culture and instead reduce the creation to its essence, stripped of convolution and excess, until all that remains is a singularity of blackness, harvested from those who have engaged in its creation.
The recordings contained on To The Great Monolith I are not songs. This is not music that has been rehearsed, honed, and tailored to fit a preconceived notion of what is acceptable in humanist genre confines. Instead, the aim is to achieve the most pure expression of the “unconscious” and to confront the listener with authentic ritual experiences, captured directly as they were conducted by the practitioners involved. These are sounds completely hostile to man, an exploration of the surreal.
Like resonating cries of the void piercing through the air, as incandescent stone upon human skin. No origin. No order. Death. Void. Terror.
Tracklisting for Death. Void. Terror.’s To the Great Monolith I
1. (——-) [24:16]
2. (—-) [16:46]
