Shit That Comes Out Today: June 14th, 2019

Happy Friday! This week, I’ll be making my way to Washington (state) for a show in Seattle, then heading down to Pe Ell to spend the summer solstice doing hippie shit at the Litha Cascadia festival. U jelly?

Baroness
Gold & Grey (Abraxan Hymns)
Full Album Stream

From Jeff Treppel’s glittering review: “Although it’s impossible to say if this is their most personal record to date, at the very least it’s an unflinchingly honest snapshot of where they are now. . . Baroness have come a long way since the days of titling their albums numerically. It’s fitting that the chromatic series that started with the blazing Red Album should close with a deep self-examination like this. Spontaneously melancholy and invigorating, Gold & Grey (the title and the album) perfectly encapsulates how Baroness excel at reaching shining peaks and descending into gloomy valleys.”

This Gift is a Curse
A Throne of Ash (SoM)
FFO Cult Leader, Hexis
Full Album Stream

Jesus save me. This is evil. Remember GosT’s Posessor? This may be a stretch, but the newest hellspawn from This Gift is a Curse conjures a simalarly sinister spirit with the creepy, left-hand-path edge. However, that’s where the comparisons end. A Throne of Ash employs a filthy, putrid mass of blackend sludge and hardcore that sounds a bit like if Dragged Into Sunlight and Cult Leader started going at each other with rusty knives in an alley. It’s pretty fucking sick, if that’s your idea of a good time.

Pinkish Black
Concept Unification (Relapse)
Listen “Concept Unification”

I think there’s a pretty considerable chunk of music listeners for whom this kind of music doesn’t “click”, for whatever reason. If you’re one of those people who can’t really vibe with spacey, experimental synth doom, then stay far away from Concept Unification. I love kooky cosmic shit, and this one was even a bit hard for me to digest on my first listen. It’s not that it’s too “out there” — in fact,  I’d say this is one of Pinkish Black’s more minimalistic endeavors. Honestly, I think Concept Unification just needs time to sink in… or maybe you’ll fall in love right away, who knows? Its dark, brooding landscape is the perfect soundtrack for introspective late nights, and/or gettin’ weird with your favorite intoxicant as you drift along the avenues of your inner world.

Temple Koludra
Seven! Sirens! To a Lost Archetype (Transcending Obscurity)
FFO Deathspell Omega, Svartidaudi
Listen “Grey Apparition”

Holy! Fuckstick! Where’d these guys come from? Apparently, Germany, though most might assume they’re from India or something, based on their ritualistic blackened death that borrows from ancient Eastern sonority and spiritual philosophies. Their creative vision is “to create a gateway for the transition between the artificially polished modern spirit and the raw, chaotic current of the primordial consciousness that rests in all things and can never be fully erased — the lost archetype.” Seven! Sirens! is the band’s first full-length, but, again, could’ve fooled me. This sounds way too polished to be coming from inexperienced musicians — it’d take a couple people who have “been there, done that” to take on such an ambitious project. Slithering through the divine narrative of its creators, the music often takes on a mystical, otherworldly quality enhanced with the use of traditional Indian instruments. And also, horns. HORNS.

Ingested
Call of the Void EP (Unique Leader)
Listen “Mouth of the Abyss”

What exactly is slam? Thanks to the top-tier internet memes I come across daily, I’ve been living under the impression that slam is basically the derpy red-headed stepchild of brutal death metal and deathcore. However, I’m also fucking ignorant, so I’ll leave it up to you guys to set me straight on my sub-sub-genre-genres and decide whether Ingested’s latest lives up to their rather bold claims: “Our new EP isn’t just material for material’s sake or a stopgap between albums, this is something we feel is an important evolution in our style and is a piece of music that will again transcend the genre of slam.” Whoa there — transcending the genre of slam?! Well, judging by what little I know about this sort of stuff, Call of the Void does indeed sound rather progressive. Between all the chugg-chuggin’ breakdowns, you’ll be able to catch your breath during acoustic interludes and slower sections that, to me, even sound a bit black metal-y at times. Not bad.

OTHER SHIT THAT COMES OUT TODAY

Serpent Of Gnosis As I Drink From The Infinite Well Of Inebriation (1126) listen
Beheaded Only Death Can Save You (Agonia) listen
Atlas Entity Beneath the Cosmic Silence (Atlas Entity) listen
Domgård Rót (Carnal) listen
Dimmu Borgir Live At Dynamo Open Air 1998 (Caroline International) listen
The Lord Weird Slough Feg New Organon (Cruz del Sur) listen
Ravensire A Stone Engraved in Red (Cruz del Sur) listen
Thank You Scientist Terraformer (Evil Ink) listen
Chaos Magic Furyborn (Frontiers) listen Timo Tolkki’s Avalon Return to Eden (Frontiers) listen
Skelator Cyber Metal (Gate of Hell) listen Catalyst The Great Purpose of the Lords (Great Dane) listen
Yawning Man Macedonian Lines (Heavy Psych Sounds) listen
Açoite Açoite (Hellprod) listen
Hell Bent Apocalyptic Lamentations (Horror Pain Gore Death) listen
Rotted Dying to Rot (Maggot Stomp) listen
Hate Auric Gates of Veles (Metal Blade) listen
Ripped to Shreds Demon Scriptures (Pulverised) listen
Freternia The Gathering (Rock of Angels) listen
Winterwolf Lycanthropic Metal of Death (Svart) listen
Temple of Void / Revel in Flesh  Delivering the Dead (Unspeakable Axe) listen
Sadistic Ritual Visionaire of Death (Unspeakable Axe) listen
Crom Dubh Firebrands and Ashes (Van) listen
Narvik Thghtlss Lght (Van) listen
Irgalom Meditate (Volume 1) (Vision of God) listen
Berthold City What Time Takes (War) listen
Dream Void Divinization (N/A) listen
Haustið Long Lost Ruins Cried Their Black Soot (N/A) listen
Worsen Cursed to Witness Life (N/A) listen

SHIT THAT COMES OUT AGAIN TODAY

Plague Years Unholy Infestation (Vinyl) (eOne) listen
Sarcófago Crust (Greyhaze) listen
Def Leppard Pyromania (Vinyl) (Island) listen
Scorpions Love At First Sting (Vinyl) (Island) listen
The Occult Necropolis (Redefining Darkness) listen
Rainbow Rising (Vinyl) (Republic/Polydor) listen
Bullet For My Valentine Gravity/Radioactive (Vinyl) (Spinefarm) listen

SHIT THAT CAME OUT EARLIER THIS WEEK

Nucleus Entity (Unspeakable Axe) listen