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Hail the Void to Release Memento Mori Feb. 17

Posted in Whathaveyou on December 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Hail the Void

It’s catchy, it’s well done and it sounds really cool, but at the risk of being perfectly honest sometimes I wish doom could be about something other than killing women. You’re more than two minutes deep into the video for Hail the Void‘s “High and Rising” by the time the song starts, and when it does, it’s a positive if delayed first impression from the British Columbia trio’s upcoming second album, Memento Mori, which Ripple will issue on Feb. 17 as part of the series curated by Blasko. The dude in the clip is digging a grave for a lady he killed, he’s got another lady in the house he’s gonna kill, they do quickie visual reference to The Seventh Seal on the way to him slowdancing with ghosts and it all seems kind of easy.

I’m sorry. Maybe I’m too old. Fine. I’ll be too old. Maybe I’m too sad. Maybe I’m a bought-in woke keyboard warrior trying to tread on somebody’s something or other. Maybe I’m bored. Burnt out. Tired. Or maybe I just don’t understand some roundabout way in which an act of violence against a thing is a celebration of it. Not big on hunting, either. Whatever.  We weren’t gonna be friends anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t cover it — if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything, even though I already said the song is good — but yeah. Cool tune, just the clip — also well made — was a bummer. And it’s really fucking sad that saying something like that feels like ‘taking a stance’ in this genre. I would’ve hoped maybe we’d all grown up a little bit these last few years.

Okay.

Here’s the PR wire info you came for. Thanks for reading:

hail the void memento mori

Canadian doom and psych trio HAIL THE VOID to release new album “Memento Mori” on Ripple Music; new video and preorder available!

British Columbia’s doom and heavy psych trio HAIL THE VOID unveil all details about their forthcoming sophomore album “Memento Mori”, to be issued on Ripple Music as part of Blasko’s special curated series. Watch their disturbing “High and Rising” video now!

Their new album and Ripple Music debut “Memento Mori” is even more ambitious than their critically acclaimed self-titled and self-released debut. Through eight powerful songs that draw from the colossal heaviness of Electric Wizard and Windhand, while also reaching magic rock realms worthy of Pink Floyd and All Them Witches, HAIL THE VOID produces a remarkably cohesive record brimming with finely crafted melodies, intense build-ups, and soaring vocals from frontman Kirin Gudmundson. A towering multi-faceted sonic journey that has everything to stand the test of time.

Ozzy Osbourne bassist Blasko, who signed the band to Ripple Music under his exclusive partnership with the label, comments: “Hail the Void released one of strongest debuts I have ever heard. The lead single ‘Parasite’ was one of my most listened-to songs of the year. I am beyond excited to work with these dudes on their sophomore release. Expect to see big moves from Hail the Void in the years to come!”

“Memento Mori” will be released in various vinyl editions, CD and digital on February 17th, 2023, with preorder available now on Ripple Music. Artwork was designed by Welder Wings.

TRACKLIST:
1. Mind Undone
2. Writing On The Wall
3. Goldwater
4. Talking To The Dead
5. High and Rising
6. 100 Pills
7. Serpens South
8. The Void

HAIL THE VOID is
Kirin Gudmundson — Guitar & Vocals
Dean Gustin — Bass
Lucas McKinnon — Drums

https://facebook.com/hailthevoidmusic/
https://www.instagram.com/hailthevoid_music/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/38X56uz4Ur7QIqDJN2IACZ?si=KoGNWKjcReydANxYXYTPgA&nd=1
https://hailthevoid666.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://www.instagram.com/ripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/

Hail the Void, “High and Rising” official video

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Review & Track Premiere: Shrine of the Serpent, Entropic Disillusion

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on April 11th, 2018 by JJ Koczan

shrine of the serpent entropic disillusion

[Click play above to stream ‘Rending the Psychic Void’ by Shrine of the Serpent. Entropic Disillusion is out April 23 on Memento Mori.]

If death-doom’ had boxes, Shrine of the Serpent would put a big ol’ check mark next to just about each one. The band, founded by Portland-based guitarist/vocalist Todd Janeczek (also Aldebaran, Roanoke, etc.) took shape out of the prior, sludgier outfit Tenspeed Warlock, and Shrine of the Serpent‘s debut full-length, Entropic Disillusion (on Memento Mori), follows a 2015 self-titled EP and a 2016 split with Black Urn and shows an unmistakable turn toward the darkness. At nearly an hour long and marked by grueling atmospheres like a scar across the face, overwhelming waves of filthy distortion, and the general sense of being coated in a brew that’s equal parts filth and misery, its seven tracks, like any semi-responsible hunter, consume in its entirety, leaving no part of the listener to waste away.

By its very nature, the extremity of lumber brought to bear by Janeczek, former Uzala and Graves at Sea drummer Chuck Watkins and bassist/guitarist Adam DePrez (ex-Sod Hauler, etc.) seems to seek to overwhelm, the ambience as crushing as the riffs themselves, and no doubt that for some listeners, they simply will. Entropic Disillusion, reveling in the muck of “Hope’s Aspersion,” the chugging penultimate cut “Epoch of Annihilation,” and the earlier malevolently-conveyed solitude of “Hailing the Enshrined,” is not at all an easy listen. If it was, the band would have just about completely failed in their mission, which pretty clearly is to steamroll the hearts and minds of those who’d dare take them on. Sounds like hyperbole? It is. That’s the point. Entropic Disillusion, even unto the fact that its intro, “Descend into Dusk,” runs six minutes long before giving way to “Hailing the Enshrined,” is meant to be a work of extremity. It’s supposed to provoke a strong response, to pull one out from behind their mental blockade, and to toss them down a well of ultra-depressive thud.

That’s the thing, right? To celebrate the darkness, rather than be repelled by it? Or maybe to celebrate defying that sense of repulsion to embrace it? Either way, the result is a viciousness of purposeness that Shrine of the Serpent meet head on. Not nearly so lush as some in the style on songs like “Hope’s Aspersion,” with the aforementioned six-minute intro and materia generally so slow, there would almost have to be an emergent atmosphere, though it’s worth noting that even the intro — which one on paper might expect to be piano or something of the like, is stood-out by its foundation-crumbling riff. Bookended on either side by quieter guitar, “Descend into Dusk” indeed lurches forth, leading the listener down the spiraling path that bleeds into the soft opening of “Hailing the Enshrined.” This, like some of the other titles, like the band’s moniker and the name of the record, seems like it might be more derived from death metal, but even at their fastest, Shrine of the Serpent remain decidedly doomed in their pacing. “Hailing the Enshrined” unfurls itself patiently but bursts to full-boar tonality at 2:37 into its 9:47, and flows into an ever-noisier cacophony of pummel before once again dropping out the heavier push and ending on quiet guitar.

shrine of the serpent

The subsequent “Hope’s Aspersion,” though it’s 10 minutes long, immediately establishes its central march and holds to it for most of the first five minutes while also teasing the speedier progression still to come in the second half, in trades back and forth between faster and slower parts, ending with what’s arguably the most brutal stretch on Entropic Disillusion before the weeping guitar of centerpiece “Desecrated Tomb” takes hold, its full, not-to-be-understated heft kicking in before the first minute is out. Something of a roller, it reminds a bit of some of YOB‘s slowest crawls, but of course the stylistic context is different, and Janeczek‘s overwhelming distortion once again holds the day. Watkins‘ drums are effective in punctuating the roll and holding the proceedings together, and DePrez, whether he’s harmonizing on guitar or adding low end, fills out a sound that manifests a mood of disaffection and disdain universally without chestbeating or trying to tout its own righteousness. The only way it goes is down.

That is to say, if you’re looking for that sign of light that many of the bleakest records offer, Shrine of the Serpent aren’t giving. The 4:34 interlude “Returning” is a channel-swapping drone pulsation — I’ve had to stop it a couple times because it feels like pressure in the ears — met with spoken whispers, vague and echoing over other emergent noise. Affecting in terms of its brooding sensibility, it’s further reinforcement of the grim atmosphere that pervades throughout and cedes ground to “Epoch of Annihilation,” which calls back to the more uptempo stretches of “Hope’s Aspersion” eventually, but cakes itself in mud before getting there. It’s linear, forward build in terms of pace, and as the song is instrumental except perhaps from some vague and possibly imagined chants, the movement is all the more at the center. Shrine of the Serpent execute it well and cap with a wash of noise, a slowdown and, for the last 90 seconds of so, a quiet moment (there’s the piano!) that resonates even as it fades into the crash at the start of closer “Rending the Psychic Void.”

Second in length only to “Hope’s Aspersion” at 10:07, the finale of Entropic Disillusion underscores and summarizes much of the purpose of the records as a whole, which is geared toward the wretched and the vicious in intent. Unlike “Epoch of Annihilation,” there’s no surge waiting to happen, and instead, after plodding and growling their way through the first half of the song, the second turns to a long guitar lead that in turn shifts into a final verse and the noise that actually closes out. The rhythm holds together underneath for the most part, but after a few crashes the drums and bass drop out and guitar feedback is the last sound before it, too, fades out. As Janeczek has been arguably working toward this release for a decade since he got started with Tenspeed Warlock, it must be somewhat cathartic to see it realized. Another result of that time, however, is that Entropic Disillusion is also resoundingly sure in its approach, all the more so as a “debut,” and if this is the begging of an exploration of the darkened recesses, Shrine of the Serpent show themselves here of being more than capable of leading the way down.

Shrine of the Serpent on Thee Facebooks

Shrine of the Serpent on Bandcamp

Memento Mori on Thee Facebooks

Memento Mori website

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Sahg to Release Memento Mori Sept. 23

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 22nd, 2016 by JJ Koczan

sahg (Photo by Anna-Julia Granberg)

If you’re not familiar with the phrase memento mori, which also serves as the title of Sahg‘s upcoming album, out Sept. 23 on Indie Recordings, it’s basically a reminder of death. The actually-Latin equivalent of Game of Thrones‘ “valar morghulis.” Similar to the cover art below, a memento mori often appears in paintings as the top of a skull, either in the background or foreground, sometimes acknowledged, sometimes not, but like death itself, always lurking. You get the idea.

For the Norwegian band, Memento Mori will serve as their fifth full-length after a numerically-numbered initial trio of records between 2006 and 2010 and 2013’s Delusions of Grandeur, and with the touted progressive feel and more metal vibes this time around, it should be interesting to hear how far they’ve come since their more classically rocking earlier works.

From the PR wire:

sahg memento mori

SAHG – MEMENTO MORI – NEW ALBUM SEPTEMBER 23RD

In a time when threats of religious hostility and environmental decay loom heavily over the world, we have no choice but to acknowledge the inevitability of death. Not only does it spread fear, stigma and hatred, but it also reminds us of the grasp our own mortality has on us. Death is just a heartbeat away and our fear of the unknown is apparent now more than ever. Thus the title Memento Mori (Latin: remember that you must die).

For a long while, the album title remained undecided.

“Memento Mori was one of several options that we had on note for a long time. But then Lemmy died. And Bowie died. And all of a sudden, all these rock icons disappeared, one by one. People that have made their imprint on history and influenced us musically since childhood. It made a great impression on a personal level, and started a grieving process that influenced the making of the album. Suddenly it was very clear what the album title would be. ‘Remember, you must die.’ Even immortal legends like Bowie and Lemmy don’t live forever”, comments singer, guitarist and songwriter Olav Iversen.

Musically the album dwell in a heavier landscape than its predecessor, Delusions Of Grandeur, with metal infused heavy rock containing clear progressive elements. The voices of Olav Iversen and Tony Vetaas are more present and insistent than ever.

Tracklist:

1. Black Unicorn
2. Devilspeed
3. Take It To The Grave
4. Silence The Machines
5. Sanctimony
6. (Praise The) Electric Sun
7. Travellers Of Space And Light
8. Blood Of Oceans

The new Sahg album, Memento Mori, will be out on Indie Recordings, September 23rd.

www.facebook.com/sahgband
www.sahgband.com
https://www.facebook.com/indierecordings/
http://www.indierecordings.no/

Sahg, Memento Mori teaser

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