Shit That Comes Out Today: April 26th, 2019

I guess the big news today is Avengers: Endgame? I dunno. I haven’t seen an Avengers movie since I slept through the midnight premiere of the first one in high school. Be civil and keep those spoilers out of the comments.

Smoulder
Times Of Obscene Evil And Wild Daring (Cruz Del Sur)
FFO Khemmis, Atlantean Kodex
Full Album Stream

This might be the nerdiest thing I’ve heard all year. I mean, just look at that album art. It’ll tell you everything you need to know. Times Of Obscene Evil And Wild Daring is a massive undertaking for a debut full length from Smoulder, but hawt damn, these Canadian doomers know how to shake shit up. Your face will melt. Your sword will glisten in the sunlight. A dragon will burn down your village. Hell yeah!

Vaura
Sables (Profound Lore)
FFO Ulver, The Black Queen, Depeche Mode
Listen “Basilisk – The Infinite Corpse”

While their debut album could definitely be considered metal, Vaura’s sophomore release Sables is more along the lines of post-prog-avant-black-garde-new-retro-synth-gaze-wave. “Kosmiche,” if I must be concise. But not metal. However, the gloom and melancholy of the band’s roots have carried over into their new venture, with plenty of goth rock and blackgaze influences to kindle the fire beneath this ’80s nostalgia machine.

Belzebubs
Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods (Century Media)
FFO Deathklok, Emperor
Listen “Cathedrals of Mourning”

While I know many of us are still salty about Dethklok’s demise, maybe this new record from Belzebubs will hold you over till Adult Swim’s copyright claim to Metalocalypse expires in a few decades. Belzebubs started as a light-hearted comic strip parody of black metal kvltvre, but since then, they’ve become a full-fledged virtual metal band. However, while the band may only exist in the digital realm, that clearly didn’t stop them from creating a record that those of us here in the material world can delight in, too. Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods is awesome in its own rite — if you’re one to gloss over the lore of this sort of band, you’ll still love the record for its distinctive Scandinavian vibe and nods to the classic greats.

Sunn O)))
Life Metal (Southern Lord)
Full Album Stream

On their first of two releases for 2019, Sunn O))) match their unfathomable heaviness with spine-tingling delicacy, turning time upon itself, simultaneously embodying both everything and nothing. Don’t be like me and listen to this on your phone speakers. Experience Life Metal as it’s meant to be experienced: MAXIMUM VOLUME. Or better yet, take part in one of Sunn O)))’s upcoming live ceremonies.

夢遊病者
Ѫ (Sentient Ruin)
FFO Lurker Of Chalice, Ornassi Pazuzu
Full Album Stream

Yuuuuuussss! That’s what you’ll be exclaiming when you hear 夢遊病者’s fresh-off-the-press new EP, Ѫ. If, for whatever reason, you can’t read Japanese or archaic Cryllic script, it’s called Yus by Sleepwalker. From their Bandcamp page: “While in Buddhism, the zen concept of 無 signifies ‘nothingness’, ‘not having’ and the ‘absence of something’, it’s obsolete variant Yus (Ѫ) or modern ‘У’ in Cyrillic, implies ‘to be near’ or to be ‘in possession of’. In Traditional Chinese, the symbol denotes “shaman” or ‘sorcerer’, while in Eastern Mari ‘У’ connotes the idea of the ‘new’. This sometimes contradictory cross-cultural phenomenon of dying language and obsolete literary systems taking on new meaning and symbolism was the inspiration for this short EP.” Great. Now that we’re all on the same page there, I can do the thing where I describe the album and then you go listen to it because my description was so good. Actually, this is getting pretty long already, so I’ll just say that I never thought hallucinatory psychosis could be so goddamn gorgeous.

OTHER SHIT THAT COMES OUT TODAY

Blyh Awake to Emptiness (Crawling Chaos) listen
The Lumberjack Feedback Mere Mortals (Deadlight) listen
Vagrants Separation (Equal Vision) listen
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Fishing For Fishies (Fightless / ATO) listen
Fortune II (Frontiers) listen
Hardline Life (Frontiers) listen
Leverage Determinus (Frontiers) listen
Nighnacht Christophila (Hells Headbangers) listen
Banco Del Mutuo Transiberiana (InsideOut) listen
Spotlights Love & Decay (Ipecac) listen
Oceanwake Lights Flashing In Mute Scenery (Lifeforce) listen
Zaum Divination (Listenable) listen
Nine Shrines Retribution Therapy (Mascot) listen
Danko Jones A Rock Supreme (M-Theory) listen
Manegarm Fornaldarsagor (Napalm) listen
Murg Strävan (Nordvis) listen
Enforcer Zenith (Nuclear Blast) listen
The Damned Things High Crimes (Nuclear Blast) listen
Lost In Kiev Persona (Pelagic) listen
Lord Dying Mysterium Tremendum (Prosthetic) listen
Varaha A Passage For Lost Years (Prosthetic) listen
New Years Day Unbreakable (Red) listen
The Well Death and Consolation (RidingEasy) listen
Steel Prophet The God Machine (Rock Of Angels) listen
Helms Alee Noctiluca (Sargent House) listen
Hypoxia Abhorrent Disease (Selfmadegod) listen
Sabbath Assembly A Letter Of Red (Svart) listen
Árstíðir lífsins Saga á tveim tungum I: Vápn ok viðr (Van) listen
Absalom Absalom (self-released) listen
Void Terror / Swampbeast Holocaust of Terrestrial Empires (self-released) listen

SHIT THAT COMES OUT AGAIN TODAY

Decrepit Birth Polarity (Agonia) listen
Azaghal Of Beasts And Vultures (Moribund) listen