NECROLUST: WARNING ARE REBORN AS 40 WATT SUN, AND NEGATIVE PLANE DON’T GIVE A SH*T ABOUT AMERICAN BLACK METAL
Hey dudes and ladies, here are a couple bands I’ve been listening to damn near nonstop over the past week or so – traditional English doom lords 40 Watt Sun, and iconoclastic black metallers Negative Plane. They are both highly respected and well-loved within their respective corners of the underground, and each have sweet new records either available or forthcoming. Start saving your lunch money and buy ‘em on vinyl, nerds!
I’ve also been listening to a shit ton of Nuclear Desecration, Steve Von Till, Abaddon Incarnate, Pallbearer, Razor of Occam, and Drowned lately. Fight me about those, too.
40 WATT SUN
Traditional doom has been enjoying a resurgence in popularity as of late, thanks in part to the strength of young blooded old souls Hour of 13, The Wounded Kings, Griftegard, The Gates of Slumber, and the truly excellent Pallbearer ,as well as the resurrections of legends like Pentagram and Saint Vitus. Those who worship the likes of Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, and Pagan Altar may already count Warning amongst their favorite bands, and anyone with an ear for melody and appreciation for gloomy atmospheres, crushingly heavy riffs and raw, emotional lyrics would do well to follow suit. While they ride as slow and heavy as any proper doom band should, the band’s true power lies in Patrick Walker’s aching vocals. His clear, quivering voice personifies a soul laid bare, and his relentless sorrow is almost overwhelming in its naked honesty. The English trio are still much beloved, and deeply mourned as the fallen high kings of UK traditional doom. Their second album, 2006’s Watching From A Distance, was Warning’s last breath, and still stands as one of the most hallowed slabs of wax within the modern doom pantheon. Now, after years of silence, Walker has returned with a new project, after keeping legions of doom fans pissing themselves with anticipation for ages. Finally, 40 Watt Sun have arrived. The band (which is rounded out by Christian Leitch and William Spong) will be releasing their debut album, The Inside Room, on Cyclone Empire on March 4, 2011, and brother, it was worth the wait. Fans of Warning will be wholeheartedly satisfied and doom ‘heads of every stripe owe it to themselves to check this out. Happily (did I mention I’m a massive Warning fan?) there are a great deal of similarities between 40 Watt Sun and its predecessor, but The Inside Room features a greater emphasis on atmosphere and acoustic passages as well as a cleaner, more modern-sounding production than Watching From A Distance. Walker’s voice is as strong and emotive as ever, though this time around, it sounds as if he’s found a shred of hope shining through the darkness. He deserves it.
For fans of: Warning (duh), The Wounded Kings, Candlemass
NEGATIVE PLANE
A decade past the band’s inception, Negative Plane have only four releases to their name – two demos, two full-lengths – and up until this time last month, they didn’t even have that. In spite of that, the sheer power of those releases and of the band’s aesthetic shows in the reverence and respect that they’ve been given since that first demo in 2002. Their second LP, Stained Glass Revelations, has been greeted with an incredible amount of anticipation by the band’s ravenous and dedicated following, and the album itself is nothing short of a triumph. The album’s sixty minutes offer up ten twisted, uneasy odes to despair and seething hatred, bathed in a macabre, almost gothic atmosphere, augmented by eerie organ interludes and ringing church bells. Negative Plane look forward without ignoring black metal’s eternal call to the grave, and manage to create something as new and innovative as it is unorthodox and uncompromising. Though they are currently based in New York City, it’s an accident of geography as much as it is anything else – Negative Plane have no interest or ties to the NY scene whatsoever, and the same generally goes for the American black metal scene at large.
To quote drummer/vocalist Bestial Devotion from an interview I did with them recently,
“I generally can’t stand this new wave of American pseudo progressive, hippie post-rock sounding fake Black Metal with agriculturally themed lyrics that’s cool with all the shit commercial Metal magazines right now. It’s a vile degradation that should croak quickly. People should listen to something like Morbid Angel’s Abominations Of Desolation or Cult Of Daath’s Triumphant Holocaust demo if they want to hear American Black Metal and stop with this Whine-Core nonsense already.”
I personally enjoy the direction American black metal has been taking over the past few years (with a few glaring exceptions), but I can see where homeboy’s coming from. There is more to American black metal than Wolves in the Throne Room…
Stained Glas Revelations is now available from The Ajna Offensive (USA) and my comrades at Invictus Productions (Europe).
For fans of: Mortuary Drape, Bathory, Throne of Katarsis
Until next time…
-KK
Kim Kelly (or Grim Kim, if we’re being formal) scribbles for a number of sweet metal publications (Terrorizer, Brooklyn Vegan, Invisible Oranges, Hails & Horns, and tons more), promotes wicked records with Catharsis PR, and road dogs for your favorite bands. Keep up with her exploits & numerous band recommendations on Twitter, or peep her blog Ravishing Grimness.
