This Toilet Tuesday (2/9/16)
You’re awakened by the grating tone of your alarm clock. You fling your arm across your chest, knocking the offensively loud machine to the floor. Groaning, you shuffle out of bed and prepare for work. Your head is still hazy from a long night of celebration; you recently got a job offer that’s going to pull you from the purgatory of the retail world. A good night to be sure, but the aftereffects are only just beginning. I’ve done worse, you think to yourself as you haphazardly pull out of your driveway and head to the store.
Four hours later, you wish you were dead. Your drunkenness has turned into a nightmare of a hangover, and the store is only just opening. You silently mutter a prayer for minimal customer interaction to whomever might be listening, fighting back the overwhelming urge to vomit. The gods are clearly punishing you, however; a young woman with a baby basket approaches you shortly after the doors open. She hurriedly asks you if you have any of the sale diapers, and you bring her to the empty shelf. She immediately lays into you: “What’s the point of putting them in the ad if you’re not going to sell them?” Her tirade only intensifies as you try to explain that items like this go quickly, and things escalate further when the baby wakes up and starts crying. Your concentration broken by the compounding stress, your stomach flips over. Before you can react, you feel the bile spew forth in a fountain of filth straight into the baby basket, filling it to the brim. The woman stops shouting, horrified, and you hurry out the door. Maybe you’ll skip the two week’s notice.
Make your weakness your weapon. This is Toilet Tuesday.
Lamentations – Echoes in the Wind (Metal Helm) [Progressive/Tech Death]
Listen to “Fortress,” “The Battle Is Not Yours”
Somebody needs to tell Lamentations that they’re doing tech wrong. This type of music isn’t supposed to make me feel things, unless those things are… I dunno, whatever space swirls feel like. I don’t know what made them think that an emotionally charged, sometimes even vulnerable performance was a good idea, because there’s obviously no place for that in this genre. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be over here thinking about awesome TECH stuff, like aliens and guts and sweep picking and not self-reflection upon what a shallow and pointless person I am. *cries* 2/13/16 (Spear)
Sorrow Plagues – Sorrow Plagues (Independent) [Atmospheric Black Metal]
Listen to “Fade,” “Aspirations”
This is the second time I’ve covered Sorrow Plagues for Toilet Tuesday, which is pretty rad. If you aren’t familiar with this band, they play a fusion of black metal and shoegaze that is ethereal, pained, and often spellbinding. And like the very best bands in the genre, their heaviness is derived from the emotional weight rather than the extremity of the music itself. If you aren’t scared to get a little vulnerable and see what sort of torment lies beneath, don’t miss this. FFO: Violet Cold, Alcest, So Hideous 2/8/16 (W.)
Hands of Despair – Bereft (Deathbound Records) [Death/Doom]
Stream
Want a second dose of vulnerability and emotional turmoil? Hands of Despair have just the thing, though their take on the torment is decidedly different from that of Sorrow Plagues. In this death/doom assault on your senses, you’ll be treated to clean acoustic passages, pensive singing, and heart-string yanking riffs. There’s a beautiful balance of light and shade that makes for a wholly convincing and authentic take to heartache. I’m feeling things, and I hope you start feeling things too. FFO: Opeth, Shape of Despair, Katatonia 2/9/16 (W.)
Camel of Doom – Terrestrial (Solitude Productions) [Sludge]
Stream
I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when clicking play on an album by a band called Camel of Doom, but I couldn’t resist. Luckily for us, any sense of novelty ends with the name. The music is serious, heavy, and thoughtful. Large doses of death metal and hateful sludge make this an immensely enjoyable brand of doom, and I was very pleased with the variety and experimental edge. This camel knows what it’s doing. 2/8/16 (Stockhausen)
Abysse – I Am the Wolf (Independent) [Progressive Metal]
Listen
Atretic Intestine – Trail of Entrails (Coyote Records) [Death Metal]
Listen to “From Within”
Beyond the Black – Lost in Forever (Airforce1 Records) [Symphonic Metal]
Listen to “Lost in Forever”
Bloodbound – One Night of Blood (live album- AFM Records) [Power Metal]
Caverna – Abismo (Independent) [Black Metal]
Crossing Rubicon – No Less than Everything (Pavement Entertainment) [Hard Rock]
Listen to “Unhinged”
Cultus – Gezeteld in zegeruïnen (Heidens Hart Records) [Black Metal]
Listen
Doom Architect – Sententia Prima (Independent) [Death/Doom]
Flummox – Selcouth (Tridroid Records) [Weird Doom]
Listen to “The Ghost of Ronnie Dio”
Gabriels – Fist of the Seven Stars Act 1 – Fist of Steel (Independent) [Heavy/Power Metal]
Listen to “Seven Stars”
Gehennah – Too Loud to Live, Too Drunk to Die (Metal Blade Records) [Black Thrash]
Listen to “Too Loud to Live, Too Drunk to Die”
Holy Grail – Times of Pride and Peril (Prosthetic Records) [Heavy/Power Metal]
Listen
Human Parasites/Mortuus Sum – Shadows of the Forthcoming Devastation (split- Profanorum Productions) [Black Metal]
Stream
Illusions Dead – Celestial Decadence (Indpendent) [Blackened Death Metal]
Stream
Lost Society – Braindead (Nuclear Blast Records) [Thrash]
Listen to “I Am the Antidote”
Mindtech – Edge of the World (Tritech Music) [Prog Metal]
Myrath – Legacy (Nightmare Records) [Prog Metal]
Listen to “Believer”
Ravensire – The Cycle Never Ends (Cruz Del Sur) [Heavy Metal]
Stream
Rotting Christ – Rituals (Season of Mist) [Ritualistic Heavy Shit]
Stream
SkeleToon – The Curse of the Avenger (Revalve Records) [Power Metal]
Preview
Throne of Heresy – Antioch (The Sign Records) [Death Metal]
Listen to “God Delusion”
Ulgard – From the Northmen’s Cry (Endless Decrepitude Productions) [Ambient Black Metal]
Listen to “From The Rocks”
Unbowed – Dogma (Black Element Productions) [Blackish Melodeath]
Listen to “Besieged”
Urgehal – Aeons in Sodom (Season of Mist) [Black Metal]
Listen to “The Sulphur Black Haze”
Vingador – Let the Hate Flow (Dark Sun Records) [Thrash]
Listen to “Let the Hate Flow”
Vipassi – Śūnyatā (Indpendent) [Instrumental Prog/Tech]
Stream
Within Destruction – Void (RNR) [Death Metal]
Listen to “An Unforseeable Anomaly”
Zephaniah – Reforged (Tribunal/Divebomb Records) [Power Metal]
Stream
Did we forget a new release? Is there a way we could improve this list? Let us know in the comments below!
