New Music Roundup: Scorched, Midnight Odyssey, Shape of Despair, The Dead Goats, & More!
The gods of metal send their gifts hidden deep within entire heaps of horrible, horrible shit. It’s up to us to sift through the putrid mess and seek the precious few worthwhile kernels.
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Though aware of the meh-to-decent black metal band of the same name, Delaware death metal upstarts Scorched are news to me, and good news at that. Their being signed to the excellent Unspeakable Axe Records (go “like” that Facebook page) set the expectations, and their groovy, old-school riffing met them with a classic rebound clothesline to the trachea. If you like death metal and the last 30 seconds of “Caverns of Catharsis” doesn’t do it for you, I’d be, like, really confused. Listen below and watch for their self-titled EP this summer.
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Get that permission slip signed and that bag lunch packed, because Midnight Odyssey is about to take you on an 18-minute feel trip through the cosmos. This one might make the more impatient of you lot a little antsy; it’s a slow build, but it’s one that pays off immensely. Does anyone remember the album from their I, Voidhanger label-mates Mare Cognitum from a while back? Out of laziness, I’ll quote myself: “Though nothing novel, Phobos Monolith’s true strength is in the blooming development of its songs, expertly organized to become more than the sum of their parts.” It wasn’t novel because they were borrowing from Dis Pater of Midnight Odyssey’s affecting formula, which can only very loosely be considered “atmospheric black metal”, and which he has perfected in his new song “Starlight Oblivion”. It’s part of the upcoming double album Shards of the Silver Fade, out June 8th.
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Last time, our bear pal Nordling Rites ov Karhu shared the first single and title track of the upcoming album by funeral doom maestros Shape of Despair. If you were into that, you can check out No Clean Singing‘s exclusive stream of “Descending Inner Night” right here. About this song, the band says:
We have played this song under its working title ‘Unresolved’ only in the Ukraine and Russia so far. To compliment the existing live recordings, we are now presenting the album version, titled ‘Descending Inner Night.’ This was the second track that emerged for the new album and combines both the old and new elements of Shape of Despair.
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As the leading authority on dumb names, The Toilet ov Hell can officially say that The Dead Goats is a dumb name. Don’t get me wrong, death is pretty metal and goats are pretty metal, but The Dead Goats is a dumbarse name. I think it’s the “The”. Dead Goats would be decent, and if you were to drop the “s” and sit with Dead Goat, that’d be even better. I’d personally pay them $1,000 to change their name to Dead Goat*. But what the fuck do I know? Nothing except this – their Ferox demo from 2014 was awesome regardless of their name, and I still listen to it. Now you can stream their new EP Don’t Go In The Tomb (May 10, Arachnophobia Records), again courtesy of the chaps at No Clean Singing. Click play below for a deadly dose of rompy Swedish death metal. Bonus: there’s a Repulsion cover.
*of Toilet ov Hell’s money
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Additionally:
- If you dug the Serpent Noir song from Erotomysticism that we shared a while back, you can stream the whole album over at Cvlt Nation. Go.
- Check out two new Vattnet Viskar songs that multiple people very much like right here and here.
- From Dawnbringer‘s Facebook: “The newly-mastered version of our first album Unbleed (1997) is now available for listening and download. (Not technically a remaster since the original was not mastered at all — we did not know at the time what mastering was.)” — Check that out at their Bandcamp.
- You can listen to a song from Cult Leader‘s newest EP right here (it’s a cover of some sort).
- Stream a new Entrails song called “Obliterate” right here.
