Chicago death-doom outfit Novembers Doom released their first album in 1995, nearly 20 years ago now. They weren’t the first American death-doom act, and there were others who solidified around the same time, but Novembers Doom were easily among the earliest adopters of a dramatic melancholy most common then in the European doom scene pre-Reverend Bizarre, bands like Katatonia, Paradise Lost, earliest Anathema and My Dying Bride serving as an influences to be melded with Novembers Doom‘s own Chicago death metal style. Their progression in the years since Amid its Hallowed Mirth has been a steady line in terms of quality but has presented several distinct shifts in sound, into full-on death-doom on records like 2002’s To Welcome the Fade and 2005’s The Pale Haunt Departure, and more recently, leaning back stylistically more to death metal. The Pale Haunt Departure presented a discernible starting point, but the movement has been gradual, and over 2007’s The Novella Reservoir, 2009’s Into Night’s Requiem Infernal (review here) and 2011’s Aphotic, they’ve continued to pursue that direction. Their latest outing, Bled White (released on The End Records, their label of the last nine years), furthers the progression to the point that Novembers Doom have very little of what would commonly be considered doom left in their sound. Instead, they offer 11 tracks/68 minutes of depressive death metal, marked by the growl/clean-vocal tradeoffs and capital ‘r’ lyrical Romanticism of frontman Paul Kuhr and the persistent double-kick of Garry Naples. In its production and execution, Bled White is a metal album, and it retains that status even at its most subdued or melodic points, as on “Clear” or the morose “Just Breathe.”

There seems to be a certain nihilism — or at least fuckall — in how the full-length is put together. Not in the songs themselves, which are rigidly structured, but in how they’re arranged and the overall mentality of Bled White‘s construction. With a strong opening duo of driving, catchy and pummeling metal in the title-track and subsequent “Heartfelt” before the softer “Just Breathe” and acoustic interlude “Scorpius,” it seems reasonable to call it front-loaded. After “Scorpius,” “Unrest” kicks back into Novembers Doom‘s blend of death and melodic theatricality — guitarists Larry Roberts and Vito Marchese and bassist Mike Feldman carefully winding between beauty and brutality as Naples tosses in blastbeats and breakdown grooves and Kuhr self-harmonizes — and from there they set about toying with the balance in their sound over the course of the brighter-toned “The Memory Room,” the blistering “The Brave Pawn,” and “Clear,” which has a feel like what Opeth might’ve turned into had they kept their more inventive rhythm section and dialed back on the prog fetish. But no question the opening salvo is Bled White‘s most memorable. This seems somewhat incongruous with the fact that Bled White is also the longest record in Novembers Doom‘s 19-year tenure. At nearly 70 minutes, it’s as though when they were piecing it together, they said, “Fuck it, we’ll put this stuff up front for the people who are only going to listen to three or four songs anyway, and the rest will be there for anyone who wants it.” That’s not to say the back end of Bled White doesn’t have its high points — the solo in “The Grand Circle” is the best here, and “Animus” digs into satisfying bludgeonry before the nine-and-a-half-minute “The Silent Dark” closes out with a suitable payoff beginning with some standalone raw harmonies from Kuhr — just that by the time they get there, Novembers Doom have already pushed the stylistic bounds they’re going to push this time out. The nihilism aspect comes into play, then, because nine records in, they didn’t decide to hold that material back. It’s there if the listener wants it.

Obviously I don’t know this. The case could just as easily be that Novembers Doom loved each of these tracks so much they couldn’t live with the thought of not including them. Frankly, I don’t think the cases are mutually exclusive. Novembers Doom, however, are a viciously underrated band. For all their early pursuit of death-doom, they’re left out of nearly every conversation of pioneering metal, and while they’ve always been too in-between stylistically for an American metal audience — which, admittedly, is probably the most open-minded it’s ever been right now — for a long time they were likewise too American for Europe. They’ve enjoyed success, played fests, found a loyal following, but they’ve never been the kind of influential touchstone they easily could’ve been. The reasons for this are undoubtedly complex –it’s not the kind of question one asks in an interview: “How come you guys aren’t huge?” — but if the result is that on Bled White, Novembers Doom have cast aside genre considerations and made their longest outing to date because it pleases them to have done it and they believe (rightly so) in the strength of their songwriting, that only makes Bled White a more honest and admirably sincere album. It can be a challenge if you’re not already a fan of the band in terms of the consistency of mood and structure, but they’ve thought of that and accommodated. For those who have traced their progression, they’ll find Bled White fits along the directional line, and that nine albums on, Novembers Doom continue to push their sound into new places in their subtle way and at their own pace. To look back on the vast stylistic terrain they’ve covered all these years is to be reminded of just how far they’ve come and to catchy a glimpse of where they might go.

Novembers Doom, “Bled White” from Bled White (2014)

Novembers Doom on Thee Facebooks

The End Records

Here’s a way to start the week. Touring in support of a recent The End Records deluxe edition of their final album — 2001’s Hymns — reunited British industrial metal legends Godflesh have announced their first round of US tour dates in more than a decade. The tour kicks off Oct. 18 in Philly and hits major markets thereafter. No word as yet on a new Godflesh studio outing, but Justin Broadrick has a Spotify playlist you can link to in the PR wire info below:

GODFLESH ANNOUNCE US FALL TOUR

AMERICAN SHARKS & PRURIENT TO OPEN @ IRVING PLAZA

HYMNS DELUXE IN CD AND GATEFOLD VINYL OUT NOW ON THE END RECORDS

The time has finally come: Godflesh will be touring the USA this coming October hitting all key national markets along the way.

In celebration of this upcoming tour, Justin Broadrick has created a special Spotify playlist of songs that have influenced and inspired him over the years.

LISTEN TO JUSTIN’S SPOTIFY PLAYLIST NOW

GODFLESH TOUR DATES
10/18/13 – Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of Living Arts
10/19/13 – New York, NY – Irving Plaza
10/20/13 – Boston, MA – Royale
10/22/13 – Chicago, IL – Metro
10/24/13 – Seattle, WA – Neumo’s
10/25/13 – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre
10/26/13 – Oakland, CA – Oakland Metro Opera House
10/27/13 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre
10/29/13 – Austin, TX – Mohawk

Newly signed to The End Records, stoner punk rockers American Sharks to open at Irving Plaza in NYC along with influential noise musician Prurient.

Godfelsh is classic, ballsy, catchy, and mean. Justin Broadrick (the band’s frontman, leader of the band Jesu, and ex member of Napalm Death) manages to craft catchy riffs and choruses into the mix without losing a drop of originality. Often called their finest album, “Hymns” was released on 2001, and has now been re-issued by The End Records as a Special Edition 2CD Deluxe Remaster with Bonus Tracks, Liner Notes, Lyrics and Never Before Seen Photos and Images. Always a few steps ahead of the pack, Godflesh have once again reinvented themselves, providing their audience with a challenging and inspirational slab of crushing industrial metal.

DOWNLOAD ‘HYMNS DELUXE EDITION ON ITUNES

Godflesh, Hymns (2001)

In 2011, Oslo acid folk rockers Spirits of the Dead marked their arrival with the release of their sophomore outing, The Great God Pan. The follow-up to a 2010 full-length, The Great God Pan (review here) was striking in aesthetic as much in performance, the four-piece showcasing a rare ability throughout to blend classic ideology and modern sonics to both the benefit of the material and any and all ears who might hear it and be tired of the retro cultism and post-Coven candlelit Satanic silliness that so often accompanies.

Happy to say, the forthcoming third release from Spirits of the Dead, Rumours of a Presence follows suit and sees the returning lineup of frontman Ragnar Vikse, guitarist Ole Øvstedal, bassist Kristian Hultgren and drummer Geir Thorstensen keeping to a sense of warm tonality without losing sight of either clarity of sound or purpose. In anything, Rumours of a Presence is even more rock-based than was The Great God Pan. Some of the pagan mentality remains — see the “Dance of the Dead” interlude or the earlier “Golden Sun” — but Spirits of the Dead part ways with some of their folkish roots in favor of classic rock swagger and thematic linearity, the album dealing with mortality and the sea lyrically while tracks like “Wheels of the World” nod at Rush and “Song of Many Reefs” mounts an 8-track ready psychedelic apex.

It’s the latter song that I have the pleasure to premiere today from Rumours of a Presence, which is out June 25 on The End Records in North America. “Song of Many Reefs” offers not only one of Spirits of the Dead‘s most memorable grooves, but also an excellent example of their crisp modern approach, which when combined with Øvstedal‘s classic lead work and the stomp of Hultgren and Thorstensen makes for a potent brew not to be taken lightly.

You can check out the track on the player below, followed by some words from Ragnar Vikse about the song’s origins:

Ragnar Vikse on “Song of Many Reefs”

“Song of Many Reefs” is one of our favorite tracks on the album. We had a clear vision about the first part of the song before we went into the studio, while we left the rest more open and loose to unfold as we were there. Lyrics were also made while we were in the studio. It is a song open for interpretation for everyone, but I would say it’s more or less about a traveler with a highly “driven” desire to travel.

Spirits of the Dead on Thee Facebooks

Album Preorder at The End Records

Norwegian acid folk rockers Spirits of the Dead return on June 25 with their third album, Rumours of a Presence. Their last album, The Great God Pan (review here), came out in 2011 and successfully touched on pagan sensibilities without sounding either redundant thematically or silly in its forest worship — which as any number of artists who’ve crossed that line probably won’t be able to tell you — isn’t easy. Those in perpetual search for “something different” would do well to take note of the following, which came down the PR wire yesterday:

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD SET TO RELEASE ‘RUMOURS OF A PRESENCE’ JUNE 25, 2013 ON THE END RECORDS

ANNOUNCE EUROPEAN TOUR WITH KADAVAR

PRE-ORDER ‘RUMOURS OF A PRESENCE’ EXCLUSIVE BUNDLE PACKAGES

When “Norway’s finest psychedelic-stoner-folk-band” Spirits of the Dead, released their eponymous debut album in 2008, few could have been more surprised than the band of the album’s overwhelming reviews.

Crowned with a place in Classic Rock Magazine’s “The Best Albums of the Year”, their second album ‘The Great God Pan’ somehow evoked a both retrospective and futuristic quality and made it clear that something was in the making. The band claimed they were “mixing the Sound of the Past with the Sound of the Future”. Well…

Now it’s 2013, and Spirits of the Dead are about to raise the stakes. “Rumours of a Presence” digs deeper and goes to even more profound places than the band has ever been before. Recorded in remote districts of Norway, this grand record lingers on the big questions: Life, Death and the Sea. Well, to be honest…Death and the Sea, really.

Dom Lawson gives us an insight to the record in his liner notes, which can be read here.

Having just announced a European tour with Kadavar, the band looks forward to crossing the ocean to embark on a US tour later in the year.

TOUR DATES WITH KADAVAR
05.10.2013 – DK Copenhagen – Beta
05.11.2013 – DE Hamburg – Klubsen
05.12.2013 – DE Dusseldorf – Stahlwerk
05.13.2013 – DE Nurnberg – Zentralcafe
05.14.2013 – DE Munchen – Backstage
05.15.2013 – DE Frankfurt – Das Bett
05.16.2013 – DE Koln – Underground
05.17.2013 – BE Brussels – Magasin 4
05.18.2013 – NL Rotterdam – Rotown
05.19.2012 – NL Nijmegen – Doornroosje

‘RUMOURS OF A PRESENCE’ TRACKLISTING
01. Wheels Of The World
02. Song Of Many Reefs
03. Golden Sun
04. Dance Of The Dead
05. Rumours Of New Presence
06. Red Death
07. Seaweed
08. Oceanus

Spirits of the Dead, “Fields of Gold”

The final album Godflesh issued before breaking up in 2001, Hymns marked the point of transition between the groundbreaking industrial heft of the now-legendary UK outfit’s earlier work and the more inward looking melodic ethereality that Justin Broadrick would bring to light over time with his subsequent project, Jesu. In an interview last year, Broadrick confirmed that Godflesh had new songs in the works, and while those have yet to materialize, it was announced today that Hymns will be reissued in February and that remixed and remastered demo recordings of Hymns tracks would be included as a bonus disc and incentive for fans.

Being last in the catalog (to date) and well after their mark had been made with albums like 1989’s Streetcleaner, the preceding self-titled debut EP or 1992’s Pure, Hymns is often overlooked in Godflesh‘s highly populated discography, but definitely worth a revisit, and it should be interesting to hear how its tracks have been reinterpreted by the band more than a decade later.

Details courtesy of the PR wire:

Godflesh To Release Hymns Deluxe Remaster

Available In Deluxe 2CD/2LP Packaging – Remastered With Bonus Tracks, Liner Notes, Lyrics And Never Before Seen Images

Out February 19th On The End Records

Godflesh is classic, ballsy, catchy, and mean. Justin Broadrick (the band’s frontman, and ex member of Napalm Death) manages to craft catchy riffs and choruses into the mix without losing a drop of originality. Even though ”Hymns” is the band’s swan song, it still sounds just as passionate as their first record “Streetcleaner”. Often called their finest album, “Hymns” was released on 2001, and is now being re-issued by The End Records as a Special Edition 2CD Deluxe Remaster with Bonus Tracks, Liner Notes, Lyrics and Never Before Seen Photos and Images. Always a few steps ahead of the pack, Godflesh have once again reinvented themselves, providing their audience with a challenging and inspirational slab of crushing industrial metal.

Click Here To Pre-Order ‘Hymns’ Deluxe Remaster

‘Hymns’ Deluxe Remaster Tracklisting

Disc 1: 2012 Remaster

1. Defeated
2. Deaf, Dumb & Blind
3. Paralyzed
4. Anthem
5. Voidhead
6. Tyrant
7. White Flag
8. For Life
9. Animals
10. Vampires
11. Antihuman
12. Regal
13. Jesu

Disc 2: Bonus Material

1. Voidhead (Demo 2012 Mix)
2. Vampires (Demo 2012 Mix)
3. Deaf, Dumb & Blind (Demo 2012 Remastered)
4. Anthem (Demo 2012 Remastered)
5. Paralyzed (Demo 2012 Remastered)
6. For Life (Demo 2012 Remastered)
7. If I Could Only Be What You Want (2012 Remastered)

Released by The End Records at the end of April (it would be awesome if they only put out records the last week of every month, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it actually works), the debut full-length from Los Angeles death/doomers Bereft, Leichenhaus, tells a lot of its story in its title. The German word for “funeral home,” Leichenhaus immediately lays out a lot of the thematic the band is working with, and one is perhaps left wondering if they went with the German instead of the English to avoid comparisons to the Norwegian band Funeral, who were among the pivotal acts in this genre – hence “funeral doom.” Similar flourishes of melodicism persist, though they’re hardly unique to these two acts – the band also shares its moniker with an Esoteric song – and Bereft’s influence from the extreme end of metal comes through in the pedigree of its members. Guitarist/vocalist Charles Elliott comes to Bereft via death metallers Abysmal Dawn (full disclosure: he’s also a publicist at Nuclear Blast with whom I’ve had dealings for years now), and bassist Derek Rydquist is formerly of Summer Slaughter Tour veterans The Faceless. Drummer Derek Donley and guitarist Sacha Dunable shared a tenure in Graviton, who released an album called Massless last year on Translation Loss, and Dunable is also of jazzy neo-prog metal technicians Intronaut. As complex as the history if its players might be, the sound of Bereft is equally cohesive, each member clearly well versed in plodding tempos and sorrowful melodies. If I’m honest, I’ve been kind of hoping a band like Bereft would come along for a while now and contrast all the cleaner-sung blues-derived doom that seems to be the staple of the genre these days. Nothing wrong with that stuff, but death/doom’s extremity is like a touchstone for how much misery you can actually pack into a song, and as Leichenhaus – at seven tracks/40 minutes – feels about twice as long, it’s pretty clear the foursome are doing something right.

The album is sandwiched by crushingly atmospheric instrumental pieces. First of them, “Corpse Flower” is a suitable lead-in, caked in feedback and ploddingly drummed, long sustained, detuned guitars ringing out a wash of noise and eyes-to-the-ground riffing. We’re still a ways off from Elliott’s first vocal, which arrives almost a minute into the second track, “Mentality of the Inanimate,” and begins to show more of where Bereft’s balance between death and doom metals lies on their debut album. His and Dunable’s guitars are quick to harmony, which would seem to be an indication both of melodic influence from classic European doom, and the technical awareness that current American extreme metal mandates. They know how to play guitar, is what I’m saying, and it’s just that here they’re doing it slowly and letting the parts breathe, rather than cramming scales in where they need not be. Perhaps most telling of all the elements in conveying the band’s death metal roots, though, are the vocals. Not just that they’re growls, but also how those growls are executed. Elliott’s guttural rasp on “Mentality of the Inanimate,” on “Withered Efflorescence,” which follows, and almost everywhere else it appears on Leichenhaus, is sharply ended. Rather than hold them in sustained defeat, he cuts his lines off cold. Dunable, Donley and Rydquist are all credited with backing vocals, and sure enough, there are variations in the types of screams and growls used – “Withered Efflorescence” is more complex in general and also features the first of several acoustic guitar parts, but especially around the three-minute mark it’s apparent that there’s more than one singer in the band. If that kind of vocal turns you off outright, Bereft won’t change your mind, but with mid-period Akerfeldtian clarity in his growl, Elliott is more than capable of conveying emotion and acting as more than just another member of the rhythm section. The natural shift from the return of that muti-vocal interplay to a sustained melodic guitar solo speaks to the emotionality of the vocals and indeed the song as a whole.

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More than 20 years into their career since starting in 1990, Anathema are nothing if they’re not divisive. Even among the most dedicated, loyal members of their fanbase (more of a cult, really) one will often hear arguments in favor of or decrying this or that era of the band – their death/doom beginnings as one of the Peaceville three alongside My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost, the semi-gothic dramatic melody of what’s now their mid-period work, or the melo-prog elements that have surfaced in their sound since 2008’s Hindsight found them revisiting and rearranging older material with a decidedly new look. Their new studio album, Weather Systems, follows another such revisiting, last year’s Falling Deeper (review here), which in a fascinating process took musical and lyrical pieces of their death/doom songs and breathed new life into them – somewhat more complex than the rearrangements of Hindsight, but also further from what the songs originally were as a result. Before Falling Deeper, Anathema had what was then their first studio outing of new material in seven years. That was the long-awaited We’re Here Because We’re Here, released through Kscope Music in 2010 with eventual North American issue by The End Records last year. Kscope and The End align again with the band to release Weather Systems, as Anathema dives deeper into the rich melodic and progressive course that We’re Here Because We’re Here seemed to be steering toward.

And as ever, it’s an album that no doubt will spark and continue many a debate about which Anathema era is the strongest. Tracks based on the weather thematic like “Lightning Song,” “The Gathering of the Clouds,” “Sunlight” and the nine-plus-minute exercise in contrast, “The Storm Before the Calm” speak to some thread running throughout, but as much as guitarist Vincent Cavanagh’s vocals shine here as they always do and Lee Douglas has stepped up her presence in the band’s songwriting, there are parts of Weather Systems that simply sound over-produced and that ultimately take away from the emotion Anathema is trying to convey, which has always been at the center of what they do no matter what the material might actually sound like or which genre it might be aligned or not aligned with. On “The Storm Before the Calm,” for example, the first half – presumably “the storm” – features dated-sounding electronic drums that gradually build amid a cloud-swirl of vocals repeating the line “It’s getting colder,” reminding of something A Perfect Circle might have been able to convince themselves was groundbreaking more than a decade ago, building gradually to a mash of abrasive noise that eventually gives way to silence – i.e., “the calm.” That back half of the track is one of Weather Systems’ finest moments, with Danny Cavanagh’s piano backing his brother’s and Douglas’ gorgeous, lush and fully-engaged vocals amid strings, drum punctuation from John Douglas, a triumph of guitars and melodic delivery taking hold and swaying the song to its finish. It’s a beautiful, stunning stretch, and I’d gladly point to it as an example of the kind of dramatic potency this era of Anathema can produce at its best – one can’t help in listening but be affected by it – but the more I listen, the more I wish “The Calm” and “The Storm” had been two separate tracks so I could skip the one to get to the other.

That specific kind of unevenness persists, and Weather Systems seems to be executed in movements of it. Opening duo “Untouchable Part 1” and “Untouchable Part 2” offset overdone vocal arrangements in their first part (the “prog” influence comes out as well in fast-picked guitars and double-time drumming) with a simple, piano-driven hook in the second, Vincent and Lee turning in one of the album’s most impassioned vocal performances complemented by characteristically swirling guitar melodies and the effective underlying bass of Jamie Cavanagh. Right away, Weather Systems, like life, like the meteorology for which it’s named, has its ups and downs. “The Gathering of the Clouds” takes the frenetic picking of “Untouchable Part 1” and partners it with a more effective vocal build, layers piling on so that by the time John’s bass drum comes in to provide extra push, the song almost doesn’t need it for the energy it conveys, cutting with strings to the more subdued but still in-motion “Lightning Song.” Lee takes the fore on vocals here and proves able to carry the track on her own without any trouble, but when a distorted guitar introduces itself at 3:16 with two quick chugs before taking full hold of the song, the tone sounds thin and doesn’t produce the same kind of chill up the spine as it otherwise might, or as the subsequent “Sunlight” does almost with John’s drums alone as its build pays off toward the end. Nonetheless, that’s one of Weather Systems’ heaviest movements and something fans clamoring for that side of their sound – which so effectively propelled standout tracks like “Panic” from 2001’s A Fine Day to Exit and “Pulled Under at 2,000 Metres a Second” from 2003’s A Natural Disaster – will cling onto in listening.

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I guess they’re making up for lost time, and who can blame them? It was seven years between A Natural Disaster and 2010’s We’re Here Because We’re Here, and with a label behind them that’s apparently willing and able to give the band some tour support (thanks, The End), no reason for Anathema not to put out a new record this year. I grew to appreciate We’re Here Because We’re Here over time, and since each Anathema album is nothing if not a progression from the last — it’s also usually masterful songwriting and gut-wrenchingly honest emotionality — I look forward to hearing what they do with Weather Systems when it’s released in April.

Dig the news and the art:

Anathema will return in April with Weather Systems, their brand new studio album. Weather Systems is the follow-up to 2010’s We’re Here Because We’re Here, which has been featured prominently in numerous end-of-year polls and the producer, Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree), has described it as ”definitely among the best albums I’ve ever had the pleasure to work on.”

The bar for Weather Systems has been set pretty high, but Daniel Cavanagh from the band is certain that the album will exceed these lofty expectations, stating, “it feels like we are at a creative peak right now, and this album reflects that. Everything from the production to the writing to the performances are a step up from our last album.”

He continues, “This is not background music for parties. The music is written to deeply move the listener, to uplift or take the listener to the coldest depths of the soul.”

The album was recorded in Liverpool, North Wales and Oslo, each place significant to Anathema past, present and future. The record was produced and mastered by five-time Norwegian Grammy nominated Christer-André Cederberg (Animal Alpha, In the Woods…, Drawn), who Daniel has described as “a revelation. His calmness and brilliance has helped to bring about the greatest inter-band chemistry that Anathema have experienced together in their career.”

Weather Systems will be available on The End Records on April 24, 2012.

Weather Systems track listing:
1. Untouchable, Part 1
2. Untouchable, Part 2
3. The Gathering of the Clouds
4. Lightning Song
5. Sunlight
6. The Storm Before the Calm
7. The Beginning and the End
8. The Lost Child
9. Internal Landscapes