Quarterly Review: Celestial Season, Noorvik, Doctors of Space, Astral Pigs, Carson, Isaurian, Kadavermarch, Büzêm, Electric Mountain, Hush

Posted in Reviews on July 4th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

Week two, day one. Day six. However you look at it, it’s 10 more records for the Summer 2022 Quarterly Review, and that’s all it needs to be. I sincerely hope you had a good weekend and you arrive ready to dig into new music, most of which you’ve probably already encountered — because you’re cool like that and I know it — but maybe some you haven’t. In any case, there’s good stuff today and plenty more to come this week, so bloody hell, let’s get to it.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Celestial Season, Mysterium I

celestial season mysterium i

After confirming their return via 2020’s striking The Secret Teachings (review here), Netherlands-based death-doom innovators Celestial Season embark on an ambitious trilogy of full-lengths with Mysterium I, which starts with its longest song (immediate points) in the heavy-hitting single “Black Water Rising,” but is more willing to offer string-laced beauty in darkness in songs like “The Golden Light of Late Day,” which transitions fluidly into “Sundown Transcends Us.” That latter cut, third of seven total on the 40-minute LP, provides some small hint of the band’s more rock-minded days, but the affair is plenty grim on the whole, whatever slightly-more-uptempo riffy nod might’ve slipped through. “This Glorious Summer” hits the brakes for a morose slog, while “Endgame” casts it lot in more aggressive speed at first, dropping to strings for much of its second half before returning to the deathly chug. The pair “All That is Known” and “Mysterium” close in massive and lurching form, and not that there was any doubt about this group 30 years on from the band’s founding, but yeah, they still got it. No worries. The next two parts are reportedly due before the end of next year, and one looks forward to knowing where the rest of the story-in-sound goes from here. If it’s down, they’re already there.

Celestial Season on Facebook

Burning World Records website

 

Noorvik, Hamartia

Noorvik Hamartia

Post. Metal. Also post-metal. The third full-length from Koln-based instrumental four-piece Noorvik, Hamartia, glides smoothly between atmosphere and aggression, the band’s purposes revealed as much in their quiet moments as in those where the guitar comes forward and present a more furious face. In the subdued reaches of “Ambrosia” (10:00) or even opener “Tantalos” (6:55), the feeling is still tense, to where over the course of the record’s 68 minutes, you’re almost waiting for the kick to come, which it reliably does, but the form that takes varies in subtle ways and the bleeding of songs into each other like “Omonoia” into “Ambrosia” — which crushes by the time it’s done — the delving into proggy astro-jazz on “Aeon” and the reaching heights of “Atreides” (which TV tells me is a Dune reference) assure that there’s more than one path that gets Noorvik to where they’re going. At 15:42, “The Feast” is arguably the most bombastic and the most ambient both, but if that’s top and bottom, the spaces in between are no less coursing, and in their willingness to be metal while also being post-metal, Noorvik bring excitement to a style that’s made a trope of its hyper-cerebral nature. This has that and might also wreck your house, and if you don’t think that’s a big difference, ask your house.

Noorvik on Facebook

Tonzonen Records website

 

Doctors of Space, Mind Surgery

doctors of space mind surgery

Wait. What? You mean to tell me that right now there are some people in the world who aren’t about to dig on 78 minutes’ worth of improvised psychedelic synth and guitar drones? Like, real people? In the world? What kind of terrible planet is this? Obviously, for Doctors of SpaceScott “Dr. Space” Heller (Øresund Space Collective) on synth, Martin Weaver (Wicked Lady) on guitar — this planet is nowhere near cool enough, and while it’s fortunate for the cosmos at large that once shared, these sounds have launched into the broader reaches of the solar system where they’ll travel as waves to be interpreted by some future civilization perhaps millions of years from now that evolved on a big silly rock a long, long way from here and those people will finally be the audience Doctors of Space richly deserve. But on Earth? Beyond a few loyal weirdos, I don’t know. And no, Doctors of Space aren’t shooting for mass appeal so much as interstellar manifestation through sound, but they do break out the drum machine on 23-minute closer “Titular Parody” to add a sense of ground amid all that antigravity float. Nonetheless, Mind Surgery is far out even for far out. If you think you’re up to it, get your head in the right mode first, because they might just open that thing up by the time they’re done.

Doctors of Space on Facebook

Space Rock Productions website

 

Astral Pigs, Our Golden Twilight

Astral Pigs Our Golden Twilight

Pull Astral Pigs‘ second album, Our Golden Twilight, out of the context of the band’s penchant for vintage exploitation horror and porn and the record’s actually pretty cool. The title-track and slower-rolling “Brass Skies/Funeral March” top seven minutes in succession following instrumental opener “Irina Karlstein,” and spend that time in nod-inducement that goes from catchy-and-kinda-slow to definitely-slow-and-catchy before the long stretch of organ starts the at least semi-acoustic “The Sigil” and “Dragonflies” renews the density of lumbering fuzz, the English-language lyrics from the Argentina-based four-piece giving a duly ceremonious feel to the doomly drama unfolding, but long song or shorter, their vibe is right on and well in league with DHU Records‘ ongoing fascination with aural cultistry. The Hammond provided by bassist/producer Fabricio Pieroni isn’t to be ignored for what it brings to the songs, but even just on the strength of their guitar and bass tones and the mood they conjure throughout, Our Golden Twilight, though just 25 minutes long, unquestionably flows like a full-length record.

Astral Pigs on Facebook

DHU Records store

 

Carson, The Wilful Pursuit of Ignorance

Carson The Wilful Pursuit of Ignorance

No question, Carson have learned their lessons well, and I’ll admit, it’s been a while since a basically straightforward, desert-derived heavy rock record hit me with such an impression of songwriting as does their second full-length, The Wilful Pursuit of Ignorance. Issued through Sixteentimes Music, the eight-track/36-minute outing from the Lucerne-via-New-Zealand-based unit plays off influences like Kyuss, Helmet (looking at you, title-track), Dozer, Unida, and so on, and honest to goodness, it’s refreshing to hear a band so ready and willing to just kick ass musically. Not saying that an album with a title like this doesn’t have anything deeper to say, just that Carson make their offering without even a smidgeon of pretense about where they’re coming from, and from opener “Dirty Dream Maker” onward, their melody, their groove, their transitions and sharper turns are right on. It’s classic heavy rock, done impeccably well, made modern. A work of genre that argues in favor of itself and the style as a whole. If you were introducing someone to riff-based heavy, Carson would do the trick just fine.

Carson on Facebook

Sixteentimes Music website

 

Isaurian, Deep Sleep Metaphysics

Isaurian Deep Sleep Metaphysics

Comprised of vocalist Hoanna Aragão, guitarist/vocalist Jorge Rabelo (also keys, co-production, etc.), guitarist Guilerme Tanner, bassist Renata Marim and drummer Roberto Tavares, Brazil’s Isaurian adapt post-rock patience and atmospheric guitar methods to a melody-fueled heavy purpose. Production value is an asset working in their favor on their second full-length, Deep Sleep Metaphysics, and seems to be a consistent factor throughout their work since Matt Bayles and Rhys Fulber produced their first two EPs in 2017. Here it’s Muriel Curi (Labirinto) and Chris Common (Pelican, many others), who bring a decided sense of space that’s measurable from the locale difference in Aragão‘s and Rabelo‘s vocal levels from opener “Árida” onward. Their intensions vary throughout — “For Hypnos” has “everybody smokes pot”-esque gang chants near its finish, “The Dream to End All Dreams” is a piano-inclusive guitar-flourish instrumental, “Autumn Eyes” is duly mellow and brooding, “Hearts and Roads” delivers culmination in a brighter melodic wash ahead of a bonus Curi remix of the opener — but it’s the melodic nuance and the clarity of sound that pull the songs together and distinguish the band. They’ve been tagged as “heavygaze” and various other ‘-gaze’ whathaveyou, and they borrow from that, but their drive toward fidelity of sound makes them something else entirely. They should tour Europe asap.

Isaurian on Instagram

Isaurian on Bandcamp

 

Kadavermarch, Into Oblivion

Kadavermarch Into Oblivion

Hints of Kadavermarch‘s metallic origins — members having served in Helhorse, Illdisposed, as well as the Danish hip-hop group Tudsegammelt, and others — sneak into their songs both in the more upfront manner of harsher backing vocals on “The Eschaton” and the subsequent “Abyss,” and in some of the double-guitar work throughout, though their first album, Into Oblivion, sets their loyalties firmly in heavy rock. Uncle Acid may be an influence in terms of vocal melody, but the riffs throughout cuts like “Satanic” and “Reefer Madness” and the galloping “Flowering Death” are bigger and feel drawn in part from acts like The Sword and Baroness, delivered with a sharp edge. It’s a fascinating blend, and the recording on Into Oblivion lets it shine with a palpable band-in-the-room sensibility and stage-style energy, while still allowing enough breadth for a build like that in the finale “Beyond the End” to pay off the record as a whole. Capable craft, a sound on its way to being their own, a turquoise vinyl pressing, and a pedigree to boot — there’s nothing more I would ask of Into Oblivion. It feels like an opening salvo for a longer-term progression and I hope it is precisely that.

Kadavermarch on Facebook

Target Group on Bandcamp

 

Büzêm, Here

buzem here

The violence implied in the title “Regurgitated Ambition Consuming Itself” takes the form of a harsh wall of noise drone that, once it starts, continues to unfurl for the just-under-eight-minute duration of the first of two pieces on Büzêm‘s more simply named Here EP. The Portland, Maine, solo art project of bassist/anythingelse-ist Finn has issued a range of exploratory outings, mostly EPs and experiments put to tape, and that modus very much suits the avant vibe throughout Here, which is markedly less caustic in the more rumbling “In an Attempt to Become the Creator” — presumably about Jackson Roykirk — the 10 minutes of which are more clearly the work of a standalone bass guitar, but play out with a sense of the human presence behind, as perhaps was the intention. Here‘s stated purpose is meditative if disaffected, Finn turning mindfulness into an already-in-progress armageddon display, and fair enough, but the found recording at the end, or captured footsteps, whatever it is, relate intentions beyond the use of a single instrument. Not ever going to be universally accessible, nonetheless pushing the kind of boundaries of what’s-a-song that need to be pushed.

Büzêm on Facebook

BÜZÊM on Bandcamp

 

Electric Mountain, Valley Giant

Electric Mountain Valley Giant

Can’t mess with this kind of heavy rock and roll. The fuzz runs thick, the groove is loose (not sloppy), and the action is go from start to finish. Electric Mountain‘s second LP, Valley Giant digs on classic desert-style heavy vibes, with “Vulgar Planet” riffing on Kyuss and Fu Manchu only after “Desert Ride” has dug headfirst into Nebula via Black Rainbows and cuts like “Outlanders” and the hell-yes-wah-bass of big-nodder “Morning Grace” have set the stage for stoner and rock, by, for and about being what it is. Picking highlights, it might be “A Fistful of Grass” for the angular twists of fuzz in the chorus, but “Vulgar Planet” and the penultimate acoustic cut “At Last Everything” both make a solid case ahead of the eight-plus-minute instrumental closing jam “A Thousand Miles High.” The band’s 2017 self-titled debut (also on Electric Valley Records) was a gem as well, and if they can get some forward momentum going on their side after Valley Giant, playing shows, etc., they’d be well placed at the head of the increasingly crowded Mexico City underground.

Electric Mountain on Facebook

Electric Valley Records website

 

Hush, The Pornography of Ruin

Hush The Pornography of Ruin

Also stylized all-caps with punctuation — perhaps a voice commanding: HUSH. — Hudson, New York, five-piece Hush conjure seven songs and 56 minutes of alternately sprawling and oppressive atmospheric sludge on their third full-length, The Pornography of Ruin, and if you take that to mean the quiet parts are spaced and the heavy parts are crushing, well, that’s true too, but not exclusively the case. Amid lyrical poetry, melodic ranging, slamming rhythms — “There Can Be No Forgiveness Without the Shedding of Blood” walks by and waves, its hand bloody — and harsh shouts and screams, Hush shove, pull, bite and chew the consciousness of their listener, with the 12-minute “By This You Are Truly Known” pulling centerpiece duty with mostly whispers and ambience in a spread-out midsection, bookended by more slow-churning pummel. Followed by the shorter “And the Love of Possession is a Disease with Them,” the keyboard-as-strings “The Sound of Kindness in the Voice” and the likewise raging-till-it-isn’t-then-when-it-is-again closer “At Night We Dreamed of Those We Were Stolen From,” the consumption is complete, and The Pornography of Ruin challenges its audience with the weight of its implications and tones alike. And for whatever it’s worth, I saw these guys in Brooklyn a few years back and they fucking destroyed. They’ve expanded the sound a bit since then, but this record is a solid reminder of that force.

Hush on Instagram

Hush on Bandcamp

 

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Quarterly Review: Novembers Doom, Abrams, The Grand Astoria, Hosoi Bros, Codeia, Ealdor Bealu, Stone Lotus, Green Yeti, Seer, Bretus

Posted in Reviews on July 13th, 2017 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-summer-2017

So, after kvetching and hemming and hawing and all that other stuff that basically means ‘fretting and trying to shuffle a schedule around’ for the last several days, I think I’ve now found a way to add a sixth day to this Quarterly Review. Looking at all the records that still need to be covered even after doing 50, I don’t really see any other way to go. I could try to do more The Obelisk Radio adds to fit things in, but I don’t want to over-tax that new server, so yeah, I’m waiting at the moment to hear back on whether or not I can move a premiere from Monday to Tuesday to make room. Fingers crossed. I’ve already got the albums picked out that would be covered and should know by tomorrow if it’s going to happen.

Plenty to do in the meantime, so let’s get to it.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Novembers Doom, Hamartia

novembers-doom-hamartia

Look. Let’s be honest here. More than 20 years and 10 records in, one knows at least on a superficial level what to expect from Chicago’s Novembers Doom. Since their first album arrived in 1995, they’ve played to one side or the other between the spectrum of death-doom, and their work legitimately broke ground in the style for a US band and in general. After a push over their last couple albums including 2014’s Bled White (review here) into more deathly fare, Hamartia (on The End Records) brings 10 tracks and 58 minutes of the melancholy dramas – special hello to the piano/acoustic-led title-track – and gut-wrenching, crushingly emotive miseries – special hello to “Waves in the Red Cloth” and “Ghost” – that have defined them. One doesn’t expect a radical departure from them at this point and they don’t deliver one even as they turn to another side of their overarching aesthetic, but whether it’s the still-propulsive death gallop of “Apostasy” or the lush nine-minute finale “Borderline,” Novembers Doom reinforce their position as absolute masters of the style and give their longtime fans another collection of vital woes in which to revel.

Novembers Doom on Thee Facebooks

The End Records website

 

Abrams, Morning

abrams morning

Not a hair out of place in the execution of Morning, the Sailor Records second long-player from Denver three-piece Abrams (interview here). That has its ups and downs, naturally, but is suited to the band’s take on modern progressive heavy rock à la newer Mastodon and Baroness, and with production from Andy Patterson (of SubRosa) and Dave Otero (Khemmis, Cephalic Carnage, etc.), the crisp feel is both purposeful and well earned. Their 2015 debut, Lust. Love. Loss. (review here), dealt with a similar emotional landscape, but bassist/vocalist Taylor Iversen, guitarist/vocalist Zachary Amster and drummer Geoffrey Cotton are tighter and more aggressive here on songs like opener “Worlds Away” (video posted here), “At the End,” “Rivers,” “Can’t Sleep” and “Burned” (video posted here), and “Mourning,” “In this Mask” and closer “Morning” balance in terms of tempo and overall atmosphere, making Morning more than just a collection of master-blasters and giving it a full album’s flow and depth. Like I said, not a hair out of place. Structure, performance, delivery, theme. Abrams have it all precisely where they want it.

Abrams on Thee Facebooks

Abrams on Bandcamp

 

The Grand Astoria, The Fuzz of Destiny

the-grand-astoria-the-fuzz-of-destiny

Dubbed an EP but running 29 minutes and boasting eight tracks, The Grand Astoria’s The Fuzz of Destiny is something of a conceptual release, with the St. Petersburg, Russia-based outfit paying homage to the effect itself. Each song uses a different kind of fuzz pedal, and as the ever-nuanced, progressive outfit make their way through the blown-out pastoralism of opener “Sunflower Queen” and into the nod of “Pocket Guru,” the organ-inclusive bursting fury of “Glass Walls” and the slower and more consuming title-track itself, which directly precedes closer “Eight Years Anniversary Riff” – yup, it’s a riff alright – they’re able to evoke a surprising amount of variety in terms of mood. That’s a credit to The Grand Astoria as songwriters perhaps even more than the differences in tone from song to song here – they’ve certainly shown over their tenure a will to embrace a diverse approach – but in giving tribute to fuzz, The Fuzz of Destiny successfully conveys some of the range a single idea can be used to conjure.

The Grand Astoria on Thee Facebooks

The Grand Astoria on Bandcamp

 

Hosoi Bros., Abuse Your Allusion III

hosoi-bros-abuse-your-allusion-iii

Oh, they’re up to it again, those Hosoi Bros. Their 2016 full-length, Abuse Your Allusion III, from its Guns ‘n’ Roses title reference through the Motörhead riffing of “Saint Tightus” through the stoner punk of “Topless Gnome” and the chugging scorch of the penultimate “Bitches are Nigh” offer primo charm and high-order shenanigans amid the most professional-sounding release of their career. Across a quick 10 tracks and 36 minutes, Hosoi Bros. readily place themselves across the metal/punk divide, and while there’s plenty of nonsense to be had from opener “Mortician” onward through “Lights Out” (video premiere here) and the later swagger of “Unholy Hand Grenade,” the band have never sounded more cohesive in their approach than they do on Abuse Your Allusion III, and the clean production only seems to highlight the songwriting at work underneath all the zany happenings across the record’s span, thereby doing them and the band alike a service as they make a convincing argument to their audience: Have fun. Live a little. It won’t hurt that much.

Hosoi Bros on Thee Facebooks

Hosoi Bros. on Bandcamp

 

Codeia, “Don’t be Afraid,” She Whispered and Disappeared

codeia-dont-be-afraid-she-whispered-and-disappeared

There’s actually very little that gets “Lost in Translation” in the thusly-titled 22-minute opener and longest cut (immediate points) of German post-metallers Codeia’s cumbersomely-named Backbite Records debut album, “Don’t be Afraid,” She Whispered and Disappeared. With heavy post-rock textures and an overarching sense of cerebral progressivism to its wash underscored by swells of low-end distortion, the three-piece of guitarist/backing vocalist Markus L., bassist/vocalist Denis S. and drummer Timo L. bring to bear patience out of the peak-era Isis or Cult of Luna sphere, sudden volume shifts, pervasive ambience, flourish of extremity and all. Nine-minute centerpiece “Shaping Stone” has its flash of aggression early before shifting into hypnotic and repetitive groove and subsequent blastbeaten furies, and 16-minute closer “Facing Extinction” caps the three-song/48-minute offering with nodding Russian Circles-style chug topped with growls that mask the layer of melodic drone filling out the mix beneath. They’re on familiar stylistic ground, but the breadth, depth and complexity Codeia bring to their extended structures are immersive all the same.

Codeia on Thee Facebooks

Backbite Records website

Mountain Range Creative Factory website

 

Ealdor Bealu, Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain

ealdor-bealu-dark-water-at-the-foot-of-the-mountain

“Water Cycle,” the 13-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) of Ealdor Bealu’s debut full-length, Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain, introduces a meditative feel and a breadth of sound that helps to define everything that follows. The ostensible side B leadoff of the self-release, “This too Shall Endure” (11:04), offers no less depth of atmosphere, and the graceful psychedelic expanses of the penultimate “Behind the Veil” continue to add to the overall scope with interplay of tempo variety and acoustic and electric guitar, but even earlier, shorter cuts like the wistful indie rocker “Deep Dark Below” and the linear-building “Behold the Sunrise” have an underlying progressivism that ties them to the longer form material, and likewise the particularly exploratory feeling “Ebb and Flow,” which though it’s the shortest cut at just over five minutes resonates as a standout jam ahead of “Behind the Veil” and subtly proggy seven-minute closer “Time Traveler.” The Boise-based four-piece of guitarist/vocalist/spearhead Carson Russell, guitarist Travis Abbott (also The Western Mystics), bassist/vocalist Rylie Collingwood and drummer/percussionist/saxophonist Alex Wargo bring the 56-minute offering to bear with marked patience and impress in the complexity of their arrangements and the identifiable human core that lies beneath them.

Ealdor Bealu on Thee Facebooks

Ealdor Bealu on Bandcamp

 

Stone Lotus, Comastone

I can take spicier foods than I ever could before.

One might consider the title of “Mountain of Filth,” the second cut on Stone Lotus’ debut album, Comastone, a mission statement for the Southwestern Australian trio’s vicious ‘n’ viscous brand of rolling, tonal-molasses sludge. Yeah, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Dave Baker, bassist Samuel Noire and drummer Reece Fleming bring ambience to the interlude “Aum,” the slower loud/quiet shifts in “Anthropocene” and the subsequent “Umbra” that leads into the creepy launch of the title-track – in fact, quiet starts are something of a theme throughout Comastone; even the thudding toms that begin opener “Swamp Coven” pale in comparison to the volume swell of massive distortion that follows closely behind – but it’s the rhythmic lumber and the harsh vocals from Baker that define their course through the darker recesses of sludged-out misanthropy. No complaints there, especially on a first long-player, but Stone Lotus are right to keep in mind the flourish of atmosphere their material offers, and one hopes that develops parallel to all the crushing weight of their mountainous approach.

Stone Lotus on Thee Facebooks

Stone Lotus on Bandcamp

 

Green Yeti, Desert Show

I'm not sure if that's an effect of dropping carbs or how it would be, but it's strange.

Even before it announces its heft, Green Yeti’s Desert Show casts forth its spaciousness. The second offering from the Athens-based trio in as many years dogwhistles heavy riffing intent even unto its David Paul Seymour album cover, but the five track rollout from guitarist/vocalist Michael Andresakis, bassist/producer Danis Avramidis and drummer Giannis Koutroumpis, as it shifts from the opening salvo of “Black Planets (Part 1)” and “Black Planets (Part 2)” into the Spanish-language centerpiece “Rojo” (direct homage perhaps to Los Natas? if so, effectively done) and into the broader-ranging “Bad Sleep (Part 1)” and 15-minute closer “Bad Sleep (Part 2)” builds just as much on its atmosphere as on its newer-school stoner rock groove and fuzz riffing. It is a 41-minute span that, without question, speaks to the heavy rock converted and plays to genre, but even taken next to the band’s 2016 debut, The Yeti has Landed, Desert Show demonstrates clear growth in writing and style, and stands as further proof of the emergence of Greece as a major contributor to the sphere of Europe’s heavy underground. Something special is happening in and outside of Athens. Green Yeti arrive at the perfect time to be a part of it.

Green Yeti on Thee Facebooks

Green Yeti on Bandcamp

 

Seer, Victims

seer victims

Let’s just assume that Seer won’t be asked to play at Dorney Park anytime soon. The Allentown, Pennsylvania, three-piece dig into largesse-minded instrumental riffing someplace between doom and sludge and do so on raw, formative fashion on the two-song Victims EP, which features the tracks “Victims… Aren’t We All?” and “Swollen Pit,” which is a redux from their 2015 debut short release, Vaped Remains. Some touch of Electric Wizard-style wah in Rybo’s guitar stands out in the second half of the opener, and the closer effectively moves from its initial crawl into post-Sleep stonerized idolatry, but the point of Victims isn’t nearly as much about scope as it is about Rybo, bassist Kelsi and drummer Yvonne setting forth on a stomping path of groove and riff worship, rumbling sans pretense loud enough to crack the I-78 corridor and offering the clever equalizer recommendation to put the bass, treble and mids all at six. Think about it for a second. Not too long though.

Seer on Thee Facebooks

Seer on Bandcamp

 

Bretus, From the Twilight Zone

bretus-from-the-twilight-zone

Doom! Horror! Riffs! Though it starts out with quiet acoustics and unfolds in echoing weirdness, Bretus’ new album, …From the Twilight Zone, more or less shouts these things from the proverbial cathedral rafters throughout its seven tracks. The Catanzaro, Italy, foursome weren’t shy about bringing an air of screamy sludge to their 2015 sophomore outing, The Shadow over Innsmouth (discussed here), but …From the Twilight Zone shifts more toward a Reverend Bizarre trad doom loyalism that suits the Endless Winter release remarkably well. Those acoustics pop up again in expanded-breadth centerpiece/highlight “Danza Macabra” and closer “Lizard Woman,” and thereby provide something of a narrative thread to the offering as a whole, but on the level of doom-for-doomers, there’s very little about the aesthetic that Bretus leave wanting throughout, whether it’s the faster-chug into drifting fluidity of “The Murder” or the nodding stomp of “In the Vault” (demo posted here) and crypto-NWOBHM flourish of “Old Dark House” (video posted here). Not trying to remake doom in their own image, but conjuring an eerie and engaging take in conversation with the masters of the form.

Bretus on Thee Facebooks

Endless Winter Records

 

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Novembers Doom to Release Hamartia April 14; New Single Streaming

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2017 by JJ Koczan

novembers doom

Just to put something the band says below to scale: Novembers Doom trace their roots back to 1989. They’re coming up on their 30th anniversary before the end of this decade, and there’s nothing to make one think they won’t get there. So when vocalist Paul Kuhr notes that the upcoming Hamartia is the first time they’ve ever had the same lineup from one album to the next, it’s a pretty striking statistic. By my count, it’s their 10th album. That’s 10 records, each marked out by some change in personnel. It’s a wonder they’ve managed to survive, let alone progress through the darkened extremities they have as one of the US’ groundbreaking death-doom acts.

The lineup that Hamartia shares last appeared on 2014’s Bled White (review here), also released through the band’s longtime label home, The End Records. April 14 is the appointed issue date for Hamartia, cover art is by Eugen Poe, there’s a gloriously gloomy new single streaming, and more album details follow here, courtesy of the PR wire.

Dig it:

novembers-doom-hamartia-eugen-poe

NOVEMBERS DOOM IS SET TO RELEASE NEW STUDIO ALBUM HAMARTIA ON APRIL 14 // PRE-ORDER

NEW TRACK & ALBUM DETAILS

Novembers Doom is set to release their tenth full-length album entitled Hamartia, out April 14 via The End Records. Formed in 1989, this release marks the band’s 28th anniversary year, and is a sonic testament to their legacy as one of the earliest U.S. dark & doom metal bands still active today. The album is available now for pre-order on iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play.

Considered by the band to be their best work to date, Harmartia’s mastery is due in part to the synergy of its lineup, who constituted their previous album Bled White: Paul Kuhr (founder/vocalist), Larry Roberts (guitars), Vito Marchese (guitars), Mike Feldman (bass), and Garry Naples (drums).

Recorded at Belle City Sound in Racine, WI, this album sees production from long-time Novembers Doom producer Chris Djuricic (Jungle Rot, Malevolence), and Mix Master metal legend Dan Swano (Opeth, Dissection, Katatonia). The album also sees guest appearances from Ben Johnson on keyboards, Rhiannon Kuhr on backing vocals (“Ever After,” “Miasma,” “Zephyr”), Andrew Craighan (My Dying Bride) on guitar melody (“Waves In The Red Cloth”), Bernt Fjellestad (Susperia) on backing vocals (“Borderline”), and Dan Swanö on backing vocals (“Borderline”).

Says vocalist Paul Kuhr, “For the first time in this band’s existence, we have the same line-up on two consecutive albums. Without the need to focus on a new element, we could concentrate on the writing process more clearly, and the synergy between the group is apparent in the end result. I actually mean it when I say in my own humble opinion, I truly feel Novembers Doom have created our very best work to date. From the writing, to the captured performances, to the overall mix and sound of this album. Hamartia is a logical evolution from Bled White but adds some of the darker elements from The Pale Haunt Departure. It’s a Novembers Doom album, through and through, and hopefully others will share my enthusiasm once they get a chance to hear it.”

The first single “Plague Bird” is available now for download and streaming. CLICK HERE to reserve your copy today!

Official Tracklist

01. Devils Light
02. Plague Bird
03. Ghost
04. Ever After
05. Hamartia
06. Apostasy
07. Miasma
08. Zephyr
09. Waves In The Red Cloth
10. Borderline

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Novembers Doom, “Plague Bird”

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