This Toilet Tuesday (6/16/15)
Today is one of those days that seems to keep getting worse. As you tear off your coat and waddle as quickly as you can to your toilet, you think the day must be reaching apex shittiness, but you knew this was coming. In a series of increasingly bad decisions that started two nights ago when you decided not to sleep, you spent most of yesterday morning pounding coffee to stay awake and finished a (mostly full) bottle of rum last night. This morning, trying to dampen your skull-crushing hangover, you pounded six more cups of coffee. You were an absolute wreck at work, and now it’s time to pay the price for your reckless hedonism. You reap what you sow.
The bloating is almost unbearable when your ass finally reaches the seat. It intensifies with a painful gurgle, and you lean forward to try and alleviate the pressure. It seems to work; you can feel the gas shift and almost release. Your bowels swell forth mightily and finally pour forth their pent-up fury. With a thunderous roar, you unleash a blast of rectal ruination upon your unwitting toilet. The force of the explosion blows away the wall and floors, and you begin to fall into a black abyss. Terrified, you look downward, but can see no bottom. Just as you start to panic, thinking you might fall forever, something catches you. Something thick. Something slimy. As your house crumbles away above you, some light finally breaks through. You cast your gaze downwards to a sight that drives you to the edge of madness. For what lies below is a beast of unfathomable size. Pulsing red tentacles reach towards the roof of the cavern and begin to break through the ground. The tentacle holding you begins to lower you to its body, where you see a large gash beginning to form in the translucent pink skin of this amorphous abomination. The dermis splits in a spray of ichor and blood; a giant ring of a mouth forms below, circular rows of teeth gushing from its sides and a single large eye in its center. As it drops you in, goring you with its tremendous teeth and grinding your bones beyond dust, you have only an inkling of the horror you have unleashed. Unbeknownst to you, your ass was the ass of prophecy; an ancient, dark prophecy foreseeing the end of the world at the hands of the old gods.
You cannot escape the lurking darkness. Embrace This Toilet Tuesday.
Shape of Despair – Monotony Fields (Season of Mist) [Funeral Doom]
Listen to “Monotony Fields”
Shape of Despair is finally back. Monotony Fields is a combination of old and new elements. Calm, simple songs building into crushing tidal waves, with a pace that sometimes seems like running considering SoD is still a funeral doom band. If you’re familiar with the genre you probably won’t find much that you haven’t heard and Natalie Koskinen is still criminally underused, but you’ll probably enjoy Monotony Fields thoroughly. For newcomers it’s a good place to jump in, what with being quite simple and “easy.” Based on the teaser tracks at least. (Karhu)
Cailleach – Neverending Winter (Independent) [Black Metal]
Listen
Summer may be upon us, but I know some of your hearts are perpetually frozen chunks of solid, bitter earth. I’ve got just the thing for those of you longing for winter’s sweet, cold caress. Cailleach, although hailing from New Zealand, play frosty black metal rooted in the frozen heart of the North. Mournful shrieks, icy riffs, and lugubrious melodies all characterize a surprisingly fast take on the folkier side of the genre. FFO: Antlers, Early Woods of Ypres, Agalloch (W.)
KEN Mode – Success (Season of Mist) [Hardcore/Noise]
Stream
On their newest album Success, KEN Mode remain as difficult to pigeonhole and place as ever before. Weird spoken vocals reminiscent of Jello Biafra rattle and rail against a fat-bottomed groove and screeching distortion. This isn’t hardcore, but it isn’t really metal either. Labeling it noise rock may be the most accurate, but even that feels a bit disingenuous. This may be one of the most disorienting albums released today, but if you’re open to weirder rock, get on it. FFO: Lard, Mr. Bungle, The Jesus Lizard (W.)
False – Untitled 2015 (Gilead Media) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Hedgecraft”
If you’re like me, then you have missed the False hype train thus far. The band first made waves in 2011 with a 2 song EP that spanned a monstrous 25 minutes. Kept within was a journey of Homerian proportions, a musical tale that brought you to high highs and the lowest lows you can reach without watching Game of Thrones. Now, with the release of their first full length, it is time to jump aboard this train because it isn’t all hype. False delivers some of the finest, most adventurous black metal you’re likely to hear this year. Listen to False, because everything you’ve heard about them is true. (Mustache Bear)
Abrams – Lust. Love. Loss (Independent) [Sludge]
Listen to “Manic”
Adrana – Foreshadow (Brennus Music) [Symphonic Metal]
Listen to “Time to Win, Time to Cry”
Alfar – Twilight of the Gods (Soundage Productions) [Viking Metal]
Listen to “March of Dead”
Arcana Opera – De Noir (Nemeton Records) [Folk Metal]
Preview
Blizzard Hunter – Heavy Metal to the Vein (Pure Steel Productions) [Speed Metal]
Listen to “Heavy Metal to the Vein”
Borealis – Purgatory (AFM Records) [Melodic Metal]
Listen to “My Peace”
Consecration – Grob (Geenger Records) [Sludge]
Listen to “Debeli Leptir”
Dark Wisdom – Seven Sins of Seven Demons (Chivo Negro Productions) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Infernal Oath”
Distruzione – Distruzione (Jolly Roger Records) [Death Metal]
Listen to “Il Signore Delle Mosche,” “Verita’ e Autorita”
Dream Master – Point of No Return (Independent) [Power Metal]
Listen to “Unfinished Business”
E-Force – Demonikhol (Mausoleum Records) [Thrash]
Preview
Elyose – Ipso Facto (Independent) [French Epica]
Listen to “Rédemption”
Enter Obscurity (Independent) [Thrash]
Listen to “Extinction Parade”
Falgar – Viento y Fango (Independent) [Neo-Folk]
Listen to “Hojas de Abril”
Forces United – III (Metalism Records) [Power Metal]
Listen to “We Fly Away”
Graveworm – Ascending Hate (AFM Records) [Melodeath]
Listen to “Blood/Torture/Death”
Helde – Suaren Gerizpea (Negra Nit) [Black Metal]
Stream
Helslave – An Endless Path (Revalve Records) [Death Metal]
Listen to “Devourers of Light”
Humanity Defiled – The Demise of the Sane (Independent) [Death Metal]
Listen to “The Demise of the Sane,” “1%”
I.C.O.N. – The Blacklist (Metalbox Recordings) [Heavy Metal]
Listen to “Welcome to my War”
Klingsor – Realm of the Shade (Narbentage Produktionen) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Under a Million Burning Moons”
Lady Beast – II (Inferno Records) [Heavy Metal]
Listen to “We Are the Witches”
Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody – Prometheus, Symphonia Ignis Divinus (Nuclear Blast) [Power Metal]
Listen to “Rosenkreuz (The Rose and the Cross)”
Mass Burial – Soul’s Necrosis (Pathologically Explicit Recordings) [Death Metal]
Max Pie – Odd Memories (Mausoleum Records) [Power Metal]
Preview
Myon – Vitalworks (Germusica) [lolbuttz]
Listen to “Otra Vez”
Negacy – Flames of Black Fire (Jolly Roger Records) [Dark Power Metal]
Listen
Nekromanteion – Cosmic Horrors (Iron Bonehead) [Blackened Death]
Orbeth – Space Themes (Sorcery Studios)
Pale Chalice – Negate the Infinite and Miraculous (Gilead Media) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Weltering Depths of the Carrion Wave”
Panikk – Pass the Time (Xtreem Music) [Thrash]
Renacer – Alas de Fuego (Icarus Music) [Heavy Metal]
Response Negative – The Essence of Murder (Independent) [Death Metal]
Sphere – Mindless Mass (Deformeathing Productions) [Death Metal]
Listen to “Society Foetus”
Stonebirds – Into the Fog… and the Filthy Air (Pink Tank Records) [Post-Metal/Sludge]
Listen to “After the Sin,” “Into the Fog”
Suicide Movement/Mount Depression/Shaitan – A Thousand Years of Selfdestruction (Cvlminis) [DSBM]
Sypsis – Playground of the Dead (Independent) [Thrash]
Listen to “Sypsis”
Tempel – The Moon Lit Our Path (Prosthetic Records) [Instrumental Doom]
Stream
Interview
Total Negation – Zeitzeuge (Temple of Torurous) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Kronzeuge”
Ultimatium – Vis Vires Infinitus (Underground Symphony) [Power Metal]
Preview
Vattnet Viskar – Settler (Century Media) [Post-Black Metal
Listen to “Colony,” “Settler”
Violent Eve – Devourer (Sobry Music) [Deathcore]
Listen to “Devourer”
Virgin Steele – Nocturnes of Hellfire & Damnation (SPV) [Power Metal]
Listen to “Lucifer’s Hammer”
VoidCeremony – Dystheism (Blood Harvest Records) [Black Metal]
Stream
The Vomit Arsonist – Only Red (Malignant Records) [Power Electronics/Death Industrial]
Listen to “It Just Is”
Review
Zygnema – What Makes Us Human Is Obsolete (Independent) [Thrash]
Preview
Did we forget a new release? Is there a way we could improve this list? Let us know in the comments below!
(Images VIA, VIA, VIA, and VIA)
