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High Fighter Post “Darkest Days” Video

Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 28th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

high-fighter

Among the benefits of the democratization of the digital media apparatus is that it lets bands show what they’re all about on their own terms. It raises the possibilities of what an outfit working DIY to whatever degree can accomplish. One still needs skill, but skill and some editing software can get you pretty far in making your own video, without the need for a cutting room, a floor, scissors, or whatever else might’ve been involved in that process in years gone.

When it comes to showing what they’re all about, Hamburg sludge metallers High Fighter — whose new video for “Darkest Days” was put together by bassist Constantin Wüst as a DIY effort — have little use for ambiguity: They’re about kicking ass on stage, having a good time and occasionally tripping out with some psychedelic edge in their music. That was the case across their 2016 Svart Records debut album, Scars and Crosses (review here), and “Darkest Days” summarizes it well, bringing together onstage and backstage footage with a few visual effects, quick cuts to match the song’s intensity of drive, and a fitting depiction of the energy High Fighter bring to their delivery.

The clip also finds the five-piece of Wüst, vocalist Mona Miluski, guitarists Christian “Shi” Pappas and Ingwer Boysen, and drummer/backing vocalist Thomas Wildelau marking their second anniversary as a band. It’s been a productive two years, to say the least. They made a quick debut in 2014 with the EP The Goat Ritual (review here) and have toured steadily to support their offerings — and, as a result, compiled footage from which to build videos — appearing at club shows and festivals around Europe’s heavy underground alongside the likes of Earth Ship and, most recently, heavy prog forerunners Elder.

Cheers to High Fighter on the anniversary and all the fruits their fervency has yielded thus far. One can’t help but get the sense they’re still just getting started.

Enjoy “Darkest Days” below, followed by PR wire info and some comment from Miluski:

High Fighter, “Darkest Days” official video

The Hamburg based 5-piece sludge and stoner metal band has just returned from a quick tour with Elder in October, a busy festival summer with live appearances at such as Summer Breeze Festival, Desertfest Berlin, Up in Smoke and alongside many more shows and tours around Europe in 2016, with their first and critically acclaimed debut album ‘Scars & Crosses’, which came out this summer on Svart Records, HIGH FIGHTER have just released a brand new video for the album track ‘Darkest Days’!

In the typical High Fighter manner, this new video comes like the previous visual works of the band, in a 100% DIY-production. Fuzzy, dark, lots of headbanging and with a wild soundmix of bluesy stoner riffs, screams you will feel to your bone and some heavy sludge tunes, get on your next trip with High Fighter right HERE.

Mona Miluski, vocalist of the band, explains: “Since we’re releasing this video today, exactly two years ago when we unveiled the band to public & released our first EP that day, so many great moments, shows, new friends and experiences followed for us, I see this new video for ‘Darkest Days’ as some cool and trippin summary. Of two more than amazing years of our short and young band history already. Our bassist Constantin again did such great job on the video! He edited it all by himself and it’s again a pure do-it-yourself production. We used several live footage from our shows the past two years, and took some behind the scenes from tours & when we’ve been on the road…It’s a very dark track and video but also visually weird, wild and psychedelic on the other hand. But that’s what you get with High Fighter and on our album ‘Scars & Crosses’ in general: It’s not an easy-listening record, it’s more of a trip, and there’s also a lot of pain and beauty happening to the same time. Choosing the track ‘Darkest Days’ for a new video of High Fighter has only been a matter of course, soundwise, we all dig that song, from the lyrics’ perspective and its representation of our album vibe, but then this heavy contrast which comes with the visual footage of two awesome years with High Fighter. Seems we love contrasts!”

High Fighter on Thee Facebooks

High Fighter website

High Fighter on Bandcamp

Svart Records website

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Ewigkeit Sign to Svart Records; New Album in 2017

Posted in Whathaveyou on October 28th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

Comprised solely of Mr. Fog, aka James Fogarty, the UK experimental solo-project Ewigkeit released its last album, Back to Beyond, in 2013. I’m assuming that what the PR wire means by “commercially available” in the info below is physically distributed, which is fair enough. In that case, it goes back more than a decade to 2005’s Conspiritus, which came out on Earache. What piqued my interest, aside from the phrase “sign with Svart,” which I almost always take as a sign that something is worth checking out, is the blend of influences Fogarty talks about in discussing the album’s range, from The Doors to black metal. Have to wonder what that all sounds like when brought together, and with the endorsement behind it that it has, it would seem to bode well for the realization to come.

Might be one to look out for, is all I’m saying. That’s all I’m saying.

From the PR wire:

ewigkeit

EWIGKEIT sign with SVART for next album, features In The Woods… vocalist

Fresh from contributing vocals/guitars/keys to the recent, widely acclaimed In The Woods… album pure, James Fogarty is now completing work on a new album for his long-running solo effort Ewigkeit – the first commercially available release since 2005’s Conspiritus album, on Earache Records.

“I have been working on a collection of songs which has a wide-ranging inspiration from the past 45-50 years of rock/metal, from The Doors, Hawkwind, and Sabbath, through the NWOBHM era and the extreme metal of the ’90s, right up until today,” says Fogarty. “It’s the most guitar-centered material I have ever recorded, and certainly owes a lot to my all-time favourite bands, from classic rock through to black metal.”

Of the album’s themes, Fogarty reveals, “Lyrically, I have been greatly inspired recently by the literary works from the psychedelic underground – authors such as Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Dr Rick Stein. So, it’s basically a mish-mash of personal philosophy, scientific conjecture, stoned ramblings, and the schizophrenically esoteric, which, all in all, unintentionally, verges on the outrageously pretentious.”

To release the as-yet-untitled album, Fogarty has decided to team up with much-respected left-field and experimental metal label Svart Records of Finland. “For Svart Records to work with me on the new Ewigkeit material is great,” he beams. “This is a new beginning for Ewigkeit, and I am excited to be working on new material. They are the perfect label, owing to their embrace of the more experimental and psychedelic underground metal bands from over the last 10 years, and having a good understanding of music from the past, present, and future – that’s the new Ewigkeit material in a nutshell.”

The new, as-yet-untitled Ewigkeit album is nearing completion and will be released by Svart Records in the spring of 2017.

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Ewigkeit, Back to Beyond (2013)

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Green Meteor East Coast Tour Starts Nov. 9

Posted in Whathaveyou on October 27th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

green-meteor

Philly heavy psych fuzzblasters Green Meteor are currently looking for a home for their five-song debut album, Consumed by a Dying Sun. To herald its arrival, they’ve posted a rough version of the gleefully blown-out “Acute Emerald Elevation,” which I think is just fancy verbiage for getting high and which opens the record. One will find it preaching lysergics to the converted in a manner that should serve Green Meteor‘s spaciousness well as they hit the road next month for what I’m pretty sure is the first time, running part-way down the Eastern Seaboard and back up just in time to round out with a gig alongside none other than Hawkwind at Philadelphia’s rightly-esteemed Kung Fu Necktie.

Not a bad show to open by any means, and as they’ll also share stages with Virginian weirdos Buck Gooter and Nate Hall of U.S. Christmas, among others, they seem intent on making the trip worthwhile all the way through. May it be the first of many.

Also they’re willing to play your house on Nov. 11 if it’s between Asheville and Wilmington, North Carolina. Just saying.

Info, dates and audio follow:

green-meteor-tour

Green Meteor tour in a few weeks.

Climb aboard the mothership with us!

We have no show on Friday 11/11 and will be in travel distance between Asheville and Wilmington, NC. Anyone wanna have a ridiculous house party and have us play? Hit us up.

Green Meteor live:
11/09 – Harrisonburg VA @ Golden Pony w/ Buck Gooter, etc
11/10 – Asheville NC @ The Odditorium w/ Nate Hall, etc
11/11 – South Carolina
11/12 – Wilmington NC @ Reggies 42nd st Tavern w/ City of Medicine, etc
11/13 – Richmond VA w/ US Bastards
11/14 – Baltimore MD @ The Ottobar
11/16 – Philadelphia PA @ Kung Fu Necktie w/ HAWKWIND

GREEN METEOR IS…
Leta: Celestial Summonings & 6th Level Sonic Complexities
Amy: Explorations of the 6 Degrees of Freedom
Tony: Anti-Gravitational Percussive Reverberations Through Time Space Continuum
Algar: Anti-Cosmic Astral Verses & Journeys into the 4th Dimension

https://www.facebook.com/Green-Meteor-183210485410192/
https://greenmeteor.bandcamp.com/releases

Green Meteor, “Acute Emerald Elevation”

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Mos Generator, Lies of Liberty ’87 & The Firmament: Direction of Years

Posted in Reviews on October 27th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

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mos-generator-the-firmament

It’s not often that a band issues their most forward-thinking and backward-looking releases back-to-back, let alone within a month of each other, but for Port Orchard, Washington, three-piece, there’s very little that’s out of their reach at this point. Lest we forget, the outfit led by its perpetually restless founder, guitarist/vocalist/engineer Tony Reed, already also issued a new studio full-length, Abyssinia (review here), earlier this year on Listenable Records.

Working with the same rhythm section of bassist Sean Booth and drummer Jono Garrett, the two new EPs, The Firmament (vinyl on Stickman Records) and Lies of Liberty ’87 (as yet a digital-only self-release) show opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum mentalities and foster two very, very different sounds while still retaining character as Mos Generator. In a manner bold and frank, they push the boundaries of what that character means, and respectively give fans an at-least-partial look at where Mos Generator came from and where they might be going.

The timing couldn’t be more convenient for both to arrive, especially after Abyssinia found Reed and company delving into more progressive fare on its B-side, and thereby moving forcefully beyond the kind of heavy rock proffered on their last two full-lengths, 2014’s moodier Electric Mountain Majesty (review here) and their 2012 return album, Nomads (review here), that woke them from several years of hiatus — but to have Mos Generator dive headfirst into live-recorded hardcore songs from 30 years ago at basically the same time they bring in two guest members to play second guitar and Rhodes on a Joy Division cover and reworked original material, also tracked live?

I don’t know if Reed had a master plan or if it’s just serendipity, but it would be harder to conceive of a clearer demonstration that, now well past the 15-year mark and having emerged since 2014 as a significant touring presence, Mos Generator feel free to do just exactly whatever the hell they want. All the better.

The Firmament was released earlier (Sept. as opposed to Oct.), but since the material on Lies of Liberty ’87 dates back further, it seems fair to tackle that first. Taking its name from Reed‘s early hardcore band, Lies of Liberty, and culling songs from a period between 1986-’87, the 17:47 blaster comprises 11 songs that brim with the adolescent fervor that no doubt drove their creation at the time and in so doing make for the rawest material Mos Generator have ever released.

Maybe that’s not a fair comparison, since it’s not like they’ve ever taken on hardcore punk so directly before, but minute-long shots like “The Smell of Death,” “Social Termination” (actually the shortest track at 44 seconds long), “A Pig’s Job is Never Done,” “Gore Reality” and so on plow by, one after the other, as they no doubt did three decades ago in some local VFW hall, Reed and his Lies of Liberty bandmates giving their friends a valid excuse to lose their minds and worry their parents. As they’re recorded now, those cuts and longer pieces like “Bring it Forward” (1:42), “Push Comes to Shove” (2:42) and the slower closer “Holocaust America” (a sprawling 3:36) benefit greatly from having been tracked live.

Can’t help but wonder how much Reed rehearsed the songs with Booth and Garrett before rolling tape, since the performances are tight, but for the kind of aesthetic with which they’re working, they could easily run the risk of becoming too much so at the sacrifice to the intensity with which they were written. That is, one wouldn’t want them to sound too adult. Mos Generator strike a fitting balance in giving their audience a feel for where “World of Hate” or “Negative Change” come from without necessarily cleaning them up so that they lose their edge. It’s a quick shot, but one imagines Lies of Liberty ’87 surprising a lot of listeners who happen upon it without the context of knowing the origin of the tracks included. Likely that’s part of the fun for the band.

mos-generator

As you’ve probably already gathered, The Firmament is an altogether different beast. Recorded as the audio portion of a live video called Songs for the Firmament taped by Chris Mathews (now also of Ancient Warlocks) of Joonior Studios, the five-song outing spans a decade of Mos Generator‘s catalog (and beyond) but ultimately boasts a quieter, more melancholy feel.

ReedBooth and Garrett are joined by second guitarist Bo McConaghie and Rhodes pianist Andy Sorter to make what I’m reasonably certain is the first five-piece incarnation in the band’s history, and the songs they run through — “Fall of Megiddo” and “Zero to Infinity” from 2006’s The Late Great Planet Earth, “Wicked Willow” from Abyssinia, the Joy Division cover “Dead Souls,” and “Outlander,” also from Abyssinia — set an atmosphere that is as righteous in its patience as Lies of Liberty ’87 was in its furies.

In fact, it’s not until “Wicked Willow,” here presented with acoustic and electric guitar side by side, that Reed even steps forward with vocals, and by then the first 10 of The Firmament‘s 26 minutes have passed. The roll from the album version is recognizable, but the veneer has changed, and so too the context in which “Wicked Willow” is framed, so that even when the chorus kicks in it seems to be a gentler more wistful delivery, marked out by Booth‘s runs on bass, a final wash of crash, and a round of applause from those lucky enough to be at the recording.

“Dead Souls,” which children of the ’90s will recall Nine Inch Nails taking on for the soundtrack to The Crow, turns out to be the most active track of the bunch, pushed forward by Garrett‘s toms and the cyclical riffing that going along with them. Mos Generator‘s version might be a little faster than the original, but they settle into it fluidly, and the final comedown, followed by more applause, makes an easy transition into the Mellotron and Rhodes combo that begins “Outlander,” those and the harmonized vocals that accompany ensuring the finale is the highlight of the short set.

There’s room in the six minutes for a build into a fervent guitar solo to answer the Rhodes, and the last chorus’ gradual ending only seems to underscore the entire spectrum of stylistic development in Reed‘s songwriting over the last 30 years. That’s really what it’s all about. One release purposefully regressing, another brazenly embarking on new territory. Again, I doubt it was a conscious decision on Mos Generator‘s part to put Lies of Liberty ’87 and The Firmament out in such proximity to each other, but in so doing, they’ve not only given further evidence of the apparently ceaseless productivity that has become a defining aspect of their approach over the last half-decade or so, but shown creative range to match.

One usually feels pretty comfortable in one’s expectations when it comes to a Mos Generator release — they regularly deliver high-quality songcraft and crisp performances of traditionally-styled heavy rock — but after these two, I’m not sure I’d even dare to predict where they might go next. Reed played drums at one point in death metallers Woodrot, so who knows? Their future’s more open than it’s ever been.

Mos Generator, Lies of Liberty ’87 (2016)

Mos Generator, “Outlander” from Songs for the Firmament

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Geezer Premiere “A Flagrant Disregard for Happiness” Video; Announce Self-Titled LP Details

Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 27th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

geezer

On Nov. 18, and 19 New York heavy psych-blues trio Geezer will release their self-titled third album on Ripple Music and STB Records, thereby taking the next step in one of the most satisfying progressions of the last several years on the East Coast. They’ve worked steadily since making their debut in 2013 with the in-need-of-a-reissue-if-only-on-tape-so-I-can-stop-feeling-guilty-about-not-having-gotten-to-review-it-at-the-time Electrically Handmade Heavy Blues, and this follow-up to 2014’s EP-turned-LP Gage (review here) codifies a lot of the loose and jammier impulses they’ve shown in interim releases like the limited cassette Live! Full Tilt Boogie (review here), the “Long Dull Knife” digital single (discussed here) or even last year’s split with Washington D.C. heavyweights Borracho (review here), taking the heavy rock bounce, effects spaciousness and languid vibes and giving them a purpose around which to swirl.

I’ll have more on the record itself closer to when it’s out, but today I’m happy to be able to bring something special out from the band. As they unveil the final pressing details for geezer-a-flagrant-disregard-for-happiness-coverthe STB vinyl (Ripple handles the CD end), with that comes the news that the die-hard edition of Geezer‘s Geezer will include a bonus live album not available anywhere else. This is a separate LP — you might recall STB did something similar for Ancient Warlocks‘ 2016 outing, II (review here) — and will only be available for those who really want it. It’s called A Flagrant Disregard for Happiness, and it’s comprised of basically a half-hour-long jam recorded April 1, 2016, at Hudson Valley Psych Fest in Kingston, NY. The entire recording, parts improvised, parts plotted, all of it gloriously immersive, is being premiered below in a manipulated live video put together by Crazy Gringo.

You might notice as you make your way through the molten, rolling ebbs and flows of the sprawl that Geezer conjure on their most triumphant jam to-date that there are four people on stage. The trio lineup of guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington, bassist Richie Touselle and drummer Chris Turco here moves Turco to baritone guitar and brings in Dan James Goodwin to handle drumming. Flexibility and fluidity extends beyond the sound of the band itself, it would seem. Fair enough.

Once again, stay tuned for more on the self-titled, but for now, go ahead and lose yourself in the premiere of “A Flagrant Disregard for Happiness” and check out the vinyl specs for the album that follow.

Please enjoy:

Geezer, “A Flagrant Disregard for Happiness” official video

Geezer’s new self titled album is already creating a huge buzz and it hasn’t even been released yet. The CD/digital release is on Friday, November 18th through Ripple Music and the vinyl release takes place on Saturday, November 19th via STB Records.

STB Records is proud to announce the long awaited details about the upcoming vinyl release.

Vinyl info:
Geezer: self-titled full length album
3 Sided Double LP – gatefold jacket
All jackets come with matte finish and spot UV effect

Die Hard Edition – Limited to 100 units.
Double LP 180g vinyl. A/B is yellow and pink swirl with blue splatter. C/D is yellow and blue swirl with pink splatter. Die Hard comes with an extra foil stamping detail. Side D will contain a silk screened image and the album will be hand numbered.

** Also included is an additional 12″ vinyl record with its own jacket and artwork with an exclusive live track on random color vinyl. No two records are the same. This is exclusive ONLY to the Die Hard Edition.**

OBI Series – Limited to 125 units.
Double LP 180g vinyl. A/B and C/D is a clear vinyl variant with black and multi colored splatter. Comes with the exclusive STB Records hand numbered alternate art work OBI Strip.

(Not So) Standard Edition – Limited to 175 units.
Double LP 180g vinyl. A/B and C/D are a nice blue cosmic swirl. Hand numbered.

World Wide Distro Edition – Limited to 200 units.
Double LP 180g vinyl. A/B and C/D is white and clear variant mix.

WW Edition will be sold exclusively through Cobraside Distribution domestically, Kozmik Artifactz in Europe and Underground Records in Australia.

All variants come with download code.

Live Album Info: Includes one 33 minute instrumental (and mostly improvised) track called “A Flagrant Disregard For Happiness”, recorded at BSP in Kingston, NY at this year’s Hudson Valley Psych Fest.

Filmed/Edited by “Crazy Gringo,” Liz Paradise and Zach Thomson
Live LP artwork by: Geddes Jones, Layout by: Kim Zangrando

The band says: “We wanted to do something different. As the ideas developed, Turco decided that he wanted to play baritone guitar for this, so we got our friend Dan Goodwin to sit behind the drums and we just let it rip. It was basically a one time thing and came out beautifully. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever done before and we’re extremely excited for people to hear it.”

Geezer on Thee Facebooks

Geezer on Bandcamp

Ripple Music on Thee Facebooks

Ripple Music website

STB Records webstore

STB Records on Thee Facebooks

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Battle of Mice to Release All Your Sympathy’s Gone Discography 2LP Dec. 23

Posted in Whathaveyou on October 27th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

battle-of-mice-vinyl

Brooklyn post-metallers Battle of Mice had three releases out between 2006 and 2008. There was their stunning debut full-length, A Day of Nights (discussed here), which in my opinion continues to stand as one of the finest outings of its genre, offering a rare emotional resonance often cast aside in favor of ultra-cerebral chug and ambient interplay, as well as a preceding split with Red Sparowes and Made out of Babies and a following 2008 split with Jesu. That’s it. The band came to an unceremonious finish, and they were done. No talk of a reunion. No farewell show. No second album. Nothing. It was a cold ending.

Belgian imprint Consouling Sounds gives Battle of Mice their (over)due with All Your Sympathy’s Gone: The Complete Recordings, a 2LP that takes its title from the first lyric of A Day of Nights opener “The Lamb and the Labrador” and will be out Dec. 23. The package, which you can see above, is available now to preorder and for me, I’m just happy to have the excuse to revisit the band’s work, which though it’s a shock to think it’s been a decade since it came out, remains as powerful as it was when it was first released.

Info follows. Don’t miss this one:

battle-of-mice-all-your-sympathys-gone

It’s with tremendous pride we can announce the preorder for “All Your Sympathy’s Gone | The Complete Recordings”, collecting all of Battle of Mice’s music on a lavish gatefold double vinyl set.

It has been 10 years that Battle of Mice released their groundbreaking album “A Day of Nights”. The band, consisting of Josh Graham (A Storm of Light, IIVII, ex- Neurosis, ex- Red Sparowes), Julie Christmas (ex- Made Out of Babies), Joel Hamilton (Book Of Knots), Tony Maimone (Book of Knots, Pere Ubu (Official)) and Joe Tomino (Fugees, Dub Trio, Peeping Tom), was heralded as a post-metal supergroup. Battle of Mice unfortunately existed only a few years, but their musical legacy is tremendous. The album, previously released on Neurot Recordings, never saw a vinyl release. For this 10th anniversary, Consouling Sounds wants to pay homage to this seminal album by releasing it on vinyl for the very first time, augmented with the music from their split album, collecting all of Battle of Mice’s music on a lavish 2LP set.

The music has been especially remastered by Doug Henderson (also Swans, The Necks, Insect Ark, …), who revisited the original master recordings for this vinyl reissue.

To commemorate this special occasion, none other than Dehn Sora designed a special shirt. You can get this shirt from size S to XXL as a stand-alone order, or you can buy it as a package deal together with the 2LP.

Preorder now for a December 23 release here: http://consouling.be/album/battle-mice-sympathys-gone-complete-recordings/

https://www.facebook.com/battleofmice/
https://www.facebook.com/ConsoulingSounds/
http://consouling.be/

Battle of Mice, A Day of Nights (2006)

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Primordial Live Album Gods to the Godless Due Nov. 25

Posted in Whathaveyou on October 27th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

If you’ve never seen Primordial live, it’s among the great pleasures that modern heavy metal has to offer. Alan Averill is among the most charismatic frontmen that whatever subgenre you want to put his band in has to offer, and when it comes to the long-running Dublin outfit’s first-ever live record, Gods to the Godless: Live at Bang Your Head Festival Germany 2015, I can’t help but wonder how the vigilant energy he brings to the stage will translate to a recorded reproduction. Not like you can hear him pumping his fist, putting his foot up on the monitor, or leading the band like they’re a military regiment coming over a hillside in some ancient battle against all that which sucks. Or maybe you can. Hence my interest.

The opening title-track, originally from 2000’s Spirit the Earth Aflame, is streaming now below, if you’d like to get a taste of what’s to come. Album is out Nov. 25 on Metal Blade.

Averill offered comment via the PR wire, which also brought forth the preorder link:

primordial-gods-to-the-godless

Primordial announces live album, ‘Gods To The Godless (Live at Bang Your Head Festival Germany 2015)’; launches title track online

Irish pagan metallers Primordial have announced the release of the first live album in the band’s history: Gods To The Godless (Live at Bang Your Head Festival Germany 2015), due out November 25th via Metal Blade Records. To hear the title track and pre-order Gods To The Godless (Live at Bang Your Head Festival Germany 2015) in various formats, please visit metalblade.com/primordial now!

Primordial’s A.A. Nemtheanga comments: “It might seem like an unusual move, a double live album. Especially within the scene we are from, but the live album was once a staple of most bands’ careers and something we all grew up with in our collection. Pouring over tour dates, gear information and killer live pics. Ok so it’s not ‘Live After Death’ but you can see the attraction and taste the romance involved, right? Fact is though we hadn’t planned it, it was basically a happy coincidence, the good people at Bang Your head who took such a risk booking us the first time on a more traditional old school rock festival had us back for the fourth time, gave us a proper headlining set length and happened to mention afterwards that they had a mobile recording device rigged up and ready to go. When we listened back to the tapes we found something we could work with and the idea took shape. If you love the band, you will know what to expect: blood, guts and passion – and believe us, the double vinyl will look beautiful! If we’ve been in your orbit, but you’ve never trained your sights on us properly, this might be a good place to start as the sound is massive, the old songs have some added muscle and the planets aligned to make ‘Gods to the Godless’ perhaps a great introduction to the band. From our side, it felt like something important to do, like taking advantage of an opportunity to make not only a standalone album in its own right, but also add something rich to the heritage and tapestry of metal that once hinged on the live album. The tradition reaches back into the 70s and 80s and we are proud to have our own small place in that pantheon! And for the record…not one single over dub. This is truly Live and Dangerous…”

Gods To The Godless (Live at Bang Your Head Festival Germany 2015) track-listing
1. Gods to the Godless (Live)
2. Babels Tower (Live)
3. Where Greater Men Have Fallen (Live)
4. No Grave Deep Enough (Live)
5. As Rome Burns (Live)
6. The Alchemists Head (Live)
7. Bloodied Yet Unbowed (Live)
8. The Coffin Ships (Live)
9. Heathen Tribes (Live)
10. Wield Lightning to Split the Sun (Live)
11. Empire Falls (Live)

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http://www.primordialweb.com
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metalblade.com/primordial

Primordial, “Gods to the Godless” live

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Condenados to Release The Tree of Death in Jan.

Posted in Whathaveyou on October 26th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

condenados-700

One can definitely hear where the PR wire is coming from with the Bathory reference below when it comes to Chilean doomers Condenados. Their new streaming track, “Sea of Fire” has plenty of that grand, fist-pumping roll and howling-into-Viking-oblivion vibe going on, let alone the tom rolls and chants, but there’s a more rock-based side to it as well that comes across in bass fills and classic heavy-style guitar leads. I’m reminded of the early work of another post-Bathory aficionado act, Ereb Altor, as well as the masters themselves, and Candlemass for sure — traditional doom with an edge of underlying power thrust. No complaints here.

Dig it:

condenados-the-tree-of-death

CONDENADOS set release date for new SHADOW KINGDOM album, reveal first track

It’s been five long years since Condenados’ cult debut album for Shadow Kingdom Records, A Painful Journey Into Nihil, but at long last, the wait is over: on January 13th, 2017, the Chilean doom-lords return with their highly anticipated second album, The Tree of Death! For over a decade now, Condenados have been expertly crafting ancient, ’80s-style European DOOM METAL that’s proud and pure, poignant and provocative, and everything that made A Painful Journey Into Nihil a scene classic is amplified here on The Tree of Death.

The lumbering grooves, the transcendent lead work, the emotive vocals, even a newfound swagger, and just the consistently bursting energy across their forlorn stomp…Condenados are reverential of the form, but masters all the same. As such, The Tree of Death is very likely to appeal to fans of classic Candlemass, old Cathedral, the UK’s Solstice, compatriots Procession, and even those who worship Bathory’s Viking era. And at six songs in a swift 35 minutes, Condenados succinctly make their point and compel repeat spins of The Tree of Death.

Musically and aesthetically, The Tree of Death has strong symbolic art that manifests the most basic instincts of human beings, lyrically channeled through Goetia’s demonology. The cover art was crafted by esteemed Italian artist Paolo Girardi, who has worked with such bands as Manilla Road, Inquisition, Cauchemar, and Blasphemophager among others. The artwork for The Tree of Death is already being acclaimed across social media networks as one of the most incredible works done by Girardi.

The Tree of Death features special appearances of well-known metalheads like Olof Wikstrand, vocalist of Sweden’s Enforcer, who was in charge of the mixing and mastering process. Also, the recording of the album took place in Equinox Studios in Rancagua, Chile, assisted by the guitarist and vocalist of Wrathprayer and Oraculum.

Simultaneously with the album’s release, Condenados will soon reveal a video for “Demon’s Head,” whose theme will address the adverse effects of playing with black magic without having the knowledge of the art. In the meantime, hear “Sea of Fire,” the first track to be revealed from The Tree of Death, exclusively at Shadow Kingdom’s Bandcamp HERE, where the album can also be preordered. Tracklisting is as follows:

Tracklisting for Condenados’ The Tree of Death
1. Star of Punishment
2. The Lamb
3. Burn
4. Demon’s Head
5. Sea of Fire
6. Marchosias Oath

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Condenados, “Sea of Fire”

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