This Toilet Tuesday (5/15/18)
It’s once again Toilet Tuesday, and it’s a pretty damn good one this week. Hessian Hunter and Hans have loaded us up with tons of sweet recommendations, and there’s a ton of good stuff in the bigger list as well. Be sure to check that out for more, and let us know what else we should be listening to this week.
Poney – Pagan Nouveau (Independent) [Happy Stoner Prog]
Listen to “Pagan Nouveau,” “Cube”
Also a movie!
Wisconsin partymongers Poney have produced a characteristically ambitious and triumphant piece of work with Pagan Nouveau, a six song album/movie created by the band and filmmaker Derrick Edmondston. Musically, Pagan Nouveau is a rainbow-belching beastmachine fueled by sidewinding dual-drummer shenanigans and a zealous appreciation for the healing power of the amplifier. Earnest vocal harmonies wrap the whole package in a mist of serene joy, and somewhere in that chromatic miasma lies the connection between Pagan Nouveau’s blissfully chaotic music and the hypnotically psychedelic nature of the film’s imagery.
The film’s protagonists manifest to the viewer as a pair of adorable ghosts navigating life’s innumerable joys and disappointments together as the world of the living spins on freely around them, uncaringly vast despite its seductive warmth. When not lost on a harrowing metaphysical journey through the non-Euclidean spaces between recognizable planes of existence, they engage in even the most mundane tasks with the joie de vivre of precocious children and the naïve confidence of teenagers halfway through their pre-college summer break.
As viewers, we are led to wonder if we could ever be those rambunctious plane-traveling spirits, or if we are simply an anonymous thread in the dull fabric of the physical realm those toast-loving ghosts float through so freely. 5/15/18 (Hessian Hunter)
Alkaloid – Liquid Anatomy (Season of Mist) [Progressive Metal]
Listen
Spear already gave the debut his approval way back when, and I thought I’d add mine as a not-tech-person (not a word person either, apparently). The intro here already makes it plenty clear that you’re not in for standard death metal. While some of the riffs seem a little too bouncy or djent-y to me, stuff like the weird demon-conjuring quiet bit and the part right after it that slowly winds back up to the song proper are awesome. The amount of shit happening at the same time is rather high throughout, but never overwhelming or wanky, and the singer (for all I know it’s only one) has a cool range from rasping growls to mystifying cleans. Mind-boggling in a pleasant way. 05/18/18 (Hans)
Fragments of Unbecoming – Perdition Portal (Apostasy Records) [Melodeath]
Listen
Not usually a fan of melodeath, but I’ve greatly appreciated these guys for years, and the two tracks here feel like I’m right back in the thick of it. Neverending melodies flow effortlessly from the guitars, interweaving beautifully with both the blasting and the slower parts, and always keeping up with the tempo changes, seeming to already be waiting round the corner with more melancholy goodness. It also helps that the growls fit incredibly well, the two singers sometimes mingling to create an inhuman effect and never bothering with shitty cleans. The end result is brutal throughout without foregoing beauty. Just like every rose has its thorns… but this one’s like 85% thorns and goes around impaling the weaker roses. 5/18/18 (Hans)
Morgengrau – Blood Oracle (Unspeakable Axe) [Death Metal]
Listen to “Wolves of Thirteen”
Is it just me or does the term “OSDM” conjure images of Boss pedals and Scandinavia for everyone? [“Swedeath?” – Lizard Note] If so, what do we call this? [USDM? – Lizard] It’s definitely old school, but entrenched firmly on the other side of the Atlantic, harking back to the evil, eeeevil vibes of Death and Morbid Angel. And doing so with a straight, no-nonsense approach. No satanic shtick, no faux-grandiose intros, not a lot of technical wizardry. To-the-point death metal with a clear sound, raspy vocals, and a dash of blackened thrash. Did I mention it sounds evil? 5/18/18 (Hans)
Acherontas – Faustian Ethos (Agonia Records) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Sorcery and the Apeiron”
Age of Taurus – The Colony Slain (Rise Above Records) [Doom]
Listen to “In Dreams We Die”
Airborn – Lizard Secrets: Part One – Land of the Living (Fighter Records) [Heavy/Power Metal]
Stream
Amorphis – Queen of Time (Nuclear Blast Records) [Melodeath]
Listen to “The Bee,” “Wrong Direction”
Apocrophex – Æternalis (Independent) [Progressive/Tech Death]
Listen
At the Gates – To Drink from the Night Itself (Century Media Records) [Melodeath]
Listen to “To Drink from the Night Itself,” “Daggers of Black Haze”
Aurora Borealis – Apokalupsis (Beverina/Casus Belli Musica) [Black/Death Metal]
Stream/Review
BornBroken – The Years of Harsh Truths and Little Lies (Independent) [Some Core]
Listen
Bottom – Epidemo (Deformeathing Production) [Death Metal]
Preview
Chanid – Lucifer (Beverina) [Black Metal]
Listen
Chordotomy – Subjugated into Obedience (Ultimate Massacre Productions) [Slam]
Listen to “Generic Aftermath”
Cryonic Temple – Deliverance (Scarlet Records) [Power Metal]
Crystal Tears – Decadence Deluxe (Pride & Joy Music) [Power Metal]
Listen to “Evil vs. Evil”
Display of Decay – Art in Mutilation (Gorehouse Productions) [Death Metal]
Listen to “Forced Frontal Lobotomy”
Dunnock – Little Stories Told by Ghosts (Acephale Winter Productions) [Static, with a little black metal]
Listen
Ephyra – The Day of Return (Volcano Records) [Thrashy Melodeath]
Listen to “The Day of Return”
Flame Acausal – Contra Mundum In Aeternum (Blood Harvest) [Death/Black Metal]
Stream
Fotocrime – Principle of Pain (Auxiliary Records) [Post Punk]
Listen to “Nadia (Last Year’s Men)”
Frosttide – Decedents (Independent) [Melodeath]
Preview
Gates of Doom – Forvm Ivlii (Independent) [Melodeath]
Listen to “Forvm Ivlii”
Gateway – Boundless Torture (Pulverised Records) [Death/Doom]
Listen to “Famished Below”
Grayceon – IV (Translation Loss Records) [Prog Doom]
Listen to “Scorpion”
Hammered Overkill – All Hell Breaks Loose (Independent) [lolbuttz]
Listen to “Napalm to the Bone”
Incalm – Noir (Slovak Metal Army Records) [Death Metal]
Listen to “Icon of Malevolence”
Ihloosuhree – Analysis Paralysis (Babylon Doom Cult) [Black Metal]
Stream
Kekal – Deeper Underground (Independent) [Weird Prog]
Stream
Kenos – Pest (My Kingdom Music) [Death Metal]
Listen to “My Wooden Frame”
Khasm – Trinity (Sliptrick Records) [Hardcore/Death Metal]
Listen to “Deathstroke”
Killborn – Theodicy (Independent) [Deathcore/Melodeath]
Listen
Little Dead Bertha – Age of Silence (Independent) [Symphonic Metal]
Listen
Morag Tong – Last Knell of Om (Independent) [Stoner Doom]
Listen to “We Answer”
National Napalm Syndicate – Time Is the Fire (Iron Shield Records) [Thrash]
Listen to “Bringer of Pain”
Necros Christos – Domedon Doxomedon (Sepulchral Voice Records) [Black Metal]
Preview
Nihil Eyes – Black Path (Ultraje) [Death Metal]
Listen to “Treachery and id”
Obliterate – Impending Death (Unique Leader) [Buttcore]
Listen to “Impending Death”
Ripe – The Litany of Fantasy (Independent) [Heavy Metal]
Preview
Rotten Sound – Suffer to Abuse (Season of Mist) [Grindcore]
Listen to “Harvester of Boredom”
Šarlah/KK Street Bangers/Shovel/Emetica/Gemišt/Princip – 6 Way Split (split- Grindwar) [Grind/Thrash/Punk]
Stream
SDreamExplorerS – Ephemeral I: Letters and Longings (Independent) [Instrumental Prog]
Listen
Second to Sun – The Black (Independent) [Melodic Black Metal]
Listen
Sect Pig – Crooked Backs (Nuclear War Now!) [Pig Noises]
Stream
Spiral Skies – Blues for a Dying Planet (Art of Propaganda) [Rock/Doom]
Listen to “Danse Macabre,” “The Prisoner”
Toledo Steel – No Quarter (Dissonance Productions) [Heavy Metal]
Listen to “No Quarter”
Valyria – Into the Dying of Time (Independent) [Melodeath/Power Metal]
Listen to “Steel Inquisition,” “The Crossing”
Verberis – Vorant Gnosis (Pulverised Records) [Blackened Death Metal]
Stream
Vomitself – Unhinged (Independent) [Sludge/Doom]
Listen to “Fucked Up”
Wilt – Ruin (Vendetta Records) [Black Doom]
Listen
Xael – The Last Arbiter (Test Your Metal Records) [Progressive Death Metal]
Listen to “Apathy of the Immortal,” “The Last Arbiter”
Did we forget a new release? Is there a way we could improve this list? Let us know in the comments below!
