This Toilet Tuesday (9/1/15)
The past few days have been excruciating for you. It started innocuously, with a simple bloating feeling after a large meal. However, this feeling never subsided; in fact, it’s only grown worse. None of your bowel movements have been frequent and abnormal as well, coming out in thin spurts of greasy black sludge. Now here you sit, head in hands, on a filthy toilet in a crowded department store’s bathroom. You thought you would have time between death-shits to get something to relax your heaving stomach, but it was not meant to be. Now you just wish your pain was over.
Feeling something stir within you, you sit back and relax. Finally, after days of partial blockage, relief is in sight. You sit back and relax your muscles, hoping to speed the process along. Without warning, you release a tremendous fart and start to panic when it doesn’t stop. Gouts of thick black smoke are pouring forth from below you; no, from out of you. You gasp and bolt upright, taking in a mouthful of the mysterious gas. Your lungs immediately seize up, and you begin coughing and sputtering. You stagger out of the bathroom in a plume of smog, pants still around your ankles and noxious miasma still billowing from your anus. People scream and begin to run away. Some are too slow, getting caught in the plague winds and falling to their knees. Vision turning red and unable to breathe with your swollen lungs, you can manage only a single gurgle as you leave the carnage you have wrought behind. You, the Plaguepooper.
This is Toilet Tuesday.
Mephorash – 1557 – Rites of Nullification (Odium Records) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Riphyon – The Tree of Assiyah Putrescent”
This is one of those excellent situations in which “black metal” is an accurate label, but still falls very short in describing the band’s sound. Mephorash takes their brand of mystical black metal and expands it with a cinematic grandeur, all without crossing the cheese line. The opening of “Riphyon – The Tree of Assiyah Putrescent” is positively menacing; the chant-like screams against the keyboard atmosphere set a ritualistic tone that lasts throughout the first third of 9:30 run time. After a furious blasting middle section, the final third trudges mournfully over Barber’s iconic Adagio chord progression. I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of this album. 9/1/15 (Stockhausen)
Nýr Gata – Seraphim (Narbentage Produktionen) [Black Metal]
Lisen to “Marter,” “Im Flammenregen,” “Cherubim”
Black metal with melodic sensibilities can be hit or miss, but Nýr Gata is a serious hit for me. There’s an underlying fury that doesn’t allow the almost anthem-like qualities to seem insincere, and the vocal variety serves the separate sections very well. Certain riffs, like the opening of “Im Flammenregen” could easily be pasted in a very non-black metal setting, but that sort of diversity is what makes the whole Nýr Gata package work. 8/31/15 (Stockhausen)
Cruciamentum – Charnel Passages (Profound Lore) [Death Metal]
Stream
Charnel Passages, the long-awaited debut album from Cruciamentum, will crush your dick. The doom-influenced riffs will hammer you with a prehistoric precision like the measured, steady stomp of a saurian super predator. The bubbling, viscous vocals will engulf you like a geyser of bubbling pitch from the La Brea Tar Pit. The rhythm section will ground you into dust like the patient, impartial hand of an extinction event. Your dick will be crushed by one of the best straight-up death metal releases you’ll hear all year. FFO: Grave Miasma, Incantation, Dead Congregation 9/4/15 (W.)
Plague Rider – Paroxysm (Independent) [Weird Death]
Stream
Plague Rider is merciless. On Paroxysm, the dissonant tech death body snatchers will infect your body and eradicate your mind from the inside out. The ever-shifting rhythms, mutating riffs, and unpredictable virulent vocals will disarm your body’s natural defenses, rendering you an inert, lifeless husk, driven forth to destruction and enlightenment like the plague-bearing hosts of the cordyceps fungus. Nasty stuff, this EP. FFO: Atheist, Artificial Brain, Pestilence 9/2/15 (W.)
Amorphis – Under the Red Cloud (Nuclear Blast) [Progressive Metal]
Listen to “Death of a King”
This is one of those bands that will probably never get back into their original style, but still have traits of the old days incorporated in their sound evolution. Under the Red Cloud shows us the Finnish entity known as Amorphis remembering with nostalgia the first era of the band, while pointing to the future at the same time. In this new record, the band construct circular vocal melodies with a softer approach and a more emotive speech. The folk vibes of the entire career of the band are encapsulated into the strings, keyboards and flutes, mesmerizing the listener with the exotic and mythical storytelling. With a clean production and varied songwriting, this new album from Amorphis could be a record to listen over and over again. 9/4/15 (Link)
Morphinist – Goepfert (Independent) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Reinigung”
Remember when the good doctor Dubz asked you to not miss Morphinist? The north remembers. If “Reinigung”, shortest of Geopfert’s four songs is anything to go by, in the year of our lord 2015, Morphinist delivers almost brutally furious black metal but with a much stronger emphasis on the Walknut-like atmospherics than grim riffage. But the drug-fueled madness that never lets go is what sets Argwohn’s one-man project apart from his ilk. 9/1/15 (Karhu)
Purtenance – …to Spread the Flame of Ancients (Xtreem Music) [Blackened Death]
Listen to “Invocatio,” “Level XI”
When a band from ancient times decides to reunite the air always becomes thick with more than just anticipation – concern on whether or not they shall live up to their heritage is often the strongest of thoughts. As if holding up a legacy was the most important thing to do. Purtenance did well with Sacrifice The King but not everyone was thrilled about Awaken From Slumber’s more brutal direction. It is apparent that Purtenance now seeks to return to the morbid sentiments of their classic debut. I can’t help but feel that the opening track, and first single, “Invocatio” is as much an intro as it is a song of its own but it promises suitably nasty old school death metal massacre with a doom-y edge. I know I wouldn’t mind if the band played to it more but whatever the case it will hardly leave any OSDM fans hungry – except for more. 9/1/15 (Horton Hears a Karhu)
Abysmal Growls of Despair – Between My Dead (Satanath Records) [Funeral Doom]
Listen to “Wake Up”
Ancient Altar – Dead Earth (Black Voodoo Records) [Death/Doom]
Listen to “Dead Earth”
Astoryas – Mystery (Darktunes Music Group) [Heavy Metal]
Barreleye – Urged to Fall (Independent) [Melodeath]
Listen to “From the Inside”
Battlestorm – From Hell (Warhemic Productions) [Blackened Death]
Preview
Beneath the Storm – Devil’s Village (Argonauta Records) [Sludge/Doom]
Listen to “Starting the Ritual”
Bevar Sea – Invoke the Bizarre (The Mighty Riff Records) [Doom]
Listen to “Sleeping Pool”
Birkabein – Malevolence & Glory (Narbentage Produktionen) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Schicksalsfaden”
Black Majesty – Cross of Thorns (Pride & Joy Music) [Power Metal]
Preview
Black Salvation – I Am Pretended/Avaunt (H42 Records) [Doom/Sludge]
Stream
Chaos Frame – Paths to Exile (Nightmare Records) [Power Prog]
Listen to “Paper Sun”
Clouds Taste Satanic – Your Doom Has Come (Kinda Like Music) [Doom/Sludge]
Listen to “Beast From the Sea,” “Out of the Abyss”
Curse of the North – Curse of the North: I (Static Tension Recordings) [Doom]
Listen to “Sleep While You Can”
Dalriada – Áldás (Nail Records) [Folk Metal]
Listen to “Amit ad az ég”
Deprivacija – Dugne (Independent) [Sludge]
Stream
Doomshine – The End Is Worth Waiting For (Metal On Metal Records) [Doom]
Listen
Engendro – In the Throne of Chaos (Independent) [Black Metal]
Listen to “In the Throne of Chaos”
Eternal Rising – Sleep Forever (Independent) [Power Metal]
Grime – Circle of Molesters (Argento Records) [Sludge]
Hell:On – Once Upon A Chaos… (Ferrrum) [Death Metal]
Listen to “Curse of Flesh”
Hellsight – Fighting the Hell (Independent) [Speed Metal]
Listen to “The White Wolf”
Inhuman – Conquerers of the New World (Satanath Records) [Tech Death]
Stream
Iron Maiden – Book of Souls (EMI) [Heavy Metal]
Listen to “Speed of Light”
Mgła – Exercises in Futility (Northern Heritage) [Black Metal]
Stream
Miasma – The Ancient Fallacy (Sickness Productions) [Death Metal]
Preview
Midnight/Shitfucker – Midnight/Shitfucker (split- Hells Headbangers) [Black Metal]
Morbid Slaughter – A Filthy Orgy of Horror and Death (Boris Records) [Black Thrash]
Listen
Necrocosm – Damnation Doctrine (Independent) [Melodeath]
Listen to “Force Fed Progeny”
Necromancy – Ancient Wrath (Nuclear War Now!) [Black Metal]
Stream
Opensight – Ulterior Motives (Independent) [Progressive Metal]
Stream
Ordinul Negru – Sorcery of Darkness (Loud Rage Music) [Black Metal]
Listen to “Sorcery of Darkness”
Phlegein – From the Land of Death (Northern Heritage Records) [Black Metal]
Listen to “From the Land of Death”
Primigenium – For the Children of This World (BlackSeed Productions) [Black Metal]
Preview
Promethee – Unrest (Lifeforce Records) [Metalcore]
Ramming Speed – No Epitaphs (Prosthetic Records) [Crossover Thrash]
Listen to “Choke Holds and Bullet Holes,” “Walls”
Riverside – Love, Fear and the Time Machine (InsideOut Music) [Prog Metal]
Listen to “Discard Your Fear”
Silver Fist – Todavía Vivo (Leyenda Records) [Speed Metal]
Tungsten Axe – Power Rock (Swords and Chains Records) [The Heaviest Metal]
Tyrant’s Kall – Gla’aki (Witches Brew) [Death/Doom]
Stream
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – The Night Creeper (Rise Records) [Doom]
Listen to “Waiting for Blood”
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, VIA, VIA, VIA, and VIA)
