Grst - Fire Therein

OK, everyone knows how awesome and influential Weakling was right? I don't really have to do the whole song and dance about who they influenced and how they only wrote Dead As Dreams but it shaped the face of USBM to come, blah blah blah. Good. What I will say is that no one really ever attempts to cover them, mainly due to the nature of the material and the fact no lyrics were ever printed. Grst breaks with that tradition on Fire Therein, an EP covering two of those seminal tracks. Josh Vincent really outdid himself with the love and respect this grants the source material; faithful enough to please purists, and varied enough to make you not want to shut it off and just listen to the original. Nathanael Kelley adds additional guitar tracks and Kenneth Parker also deserves note for his usual vocal delivery, rather than trying to ape the original, what he is singing, I have no clue. Kudos guys, you proved you have the balls and the drive. I'm really excited (well, more excited than before, which was pretty excited) for Grst's full length debut, Plague Seed.

Salvaticus - Hidden Manna

HOLY FUCK. These dudes from Virginia aren't fucking around. This is one of the best sounding modern black metal releases I have heard. Killer riffs, dark chord progressions, and melodies that aren't dripping with cheese. Just fucking listen to it and thank me later, assholes.

Emerald Weapon - S/T EP

Oooo, a new band. Emerald Weapon is a two man project from Portland, OR. They describe their music as "Black Metal/Atmospheric/Drone", this really isn't too far off. The first track is a drone-y mess until all the instruments come in, at that point reaching a decent sounding, if all too basic, melody and harmony, then falling apart. Enlightened Womb starts out sounding all too Cascadian, before the drums switch to that polka-esque "oompa" sound that less than stellar programming results in (it happens, I know I have been guilty of it in the past). Self Reliant is my favorite track, coming in with a d-beat and a vicious but melodious riff. The energy in that song makes is the best on the EP, drawing my head from a standstill to emphatically nodding to desk headbanging in the all too short two minute running length. The last track Nothing/Everything is your standard ambient/drone Post/Cascadian instrumental/outro track, it's not bad, its just been done before.

 Its really not bad if you are into the PNW melodic sound, and it is just a first release. These dudes have some talent and some of the melodies are sticky as fuck, they just gotta flesh it out and make it theirs.

Totally random and not at all applicable rating: 5.6 Bags of Organic Free-Trade Cruelty-Free Kale Gummi Bears.

Wholy Failure - An Atropy

New EP combining the electronic elements of Abortion Eucharist with the noisy shoegaze of Carrion and Grime.

Mutter - Grief Songs

I don't recall ever being sent any "depressive blackened industrial" before. Surprisingly, this is a shame, because Mutter's Grief Songs is a pretty fucked up ride. Written in response to a friend's suicide, this debut (and most likely final) record is as cold, inorganic, and dead as it is moving and brilliant. Dark ambient and post industrial fans take special note.

P.S. "Buried You In A Mountain" fuck.

Also between updates.

After releasing all four of the "seasonal" Field of Spears records in a 4 cassette box set in 2012, those wonderful fiends at Colloquial Sound Recordings wanted more. So now, you (yes fucker, that means YOU.) can own your very own copy of the new Field of Spears record, Heathen Youth, if you want. Please direct your internet browsers away from beasttube to this fine website to purchase: http://www.colloquialsoundrecordings.bigcartel.com/product/field-of-spears

Patrick Hasson - Bourbon Reign

In the meantime between new updates, I'm gonna share the second release I've done under my given name. Like "With Apologies", the music here is somewhere between post-rock, singer/songwriter, and indie rock, with my usual touch of black metal influence.

WÖLVEFRÖST - Barbarian Hellstorm

Fantasy oriented blackened crust. Fantasy oriented blackened crust... FANTASY ORIENTATED BLACKENED CRUST Fuck me. Its a good thing the music kills. Great tunes.

Whitby Bay - Unextinguishable Candle

From the band - "Whitby Bay are the malevolent fog surrounding Dracula’s coffin on its arrival at the Yorkshire harbour whose name they bear. Bram Stoker’s Whitby is haunted by myths of a white lady who lurks in the ruined abbey and the ghosts of sailors lost to the sea. Today, middle-aged goths feed seagulls greasy chips on the harbour promenade. The sound of Whitby Bay renders the impossible co-existence of these worlds. They care nothing for subcultural or literary purism. They are Evil and loud as fuck. Crossing the rabid intensity of early Ulver and Ildjarn with the guitar scree of Harry Pussy and Black Dice. Black metal riffs violently accelerate out of control and crash onto the rotting Victorian pier with the force of Cthulhu itself. Lightning speed technical guitar lines drown in swarming fuzz particles as the ferocious assault of battering percussion releases the bats. The three piece recently worked with Weasel Walter (The Flying Luttenbachers, Coachwhips) to commit to blue wax the gristle and blood-clotted sound they have crafted onstage. “Unextinguishable Candle” is the battle cry of the crazed Dane warriors as they pierced the eyes and cut the tongues from the throats of Whitby Abby monks. Flipside “Black Cape” hisses with the miasma of death encroaching on us all. Their as yet untitled début album is due to be released late 2014”. HAIL SATAN" Pretty good and evil in the modern BM sense. Buy it on their bandcamp page

Act of Impalement - Hyperborean Altar

Hell fucking yeah, these dudes call themselves war crust (which apparently is a black/death/sludge crust hybrid). This is the kind of shit I'd love to see live with a bunch of sweaty motherfuckers in a room that smells of asshole and cheap beer. Headbang and spill your $2 tall boy.

Rudemas - Demo

From the band - "Rudemas is a black metal duo from Knoxville, TN. Their style has been described as necro black metal with a d-beat influence, with extremely pissed-off vocals as a defining feature." Pretty accurate. Nothing special, but this is a demo, so they still have room to grow and make it their own. Also bonus points for the Dune reference in the second song.

Ghost Bath - Funeral

So Ghost Bath are back with their first full length of oddball Chinese depressive post screamo. Once again, I think their musicianship is top notch and exceeds the material they are writing. If they were putting out straight up post rock or screamo, this would be excellent but, the black metal elements are the weakest part, most notably the vocals. Fuck me though, this is catchy as fuck and is quite enjoyable for what it is. If you want a catchier lifelover but don't want to give up listening to Deafheaven, then this is probably a good bet for you. Kvltists, you probably want to stick with the Propast record I posted earlier.

Propast - Věstnik Preispodnji

Some decent stuff from a new band out of Serbia. This sounds very slavic in terms of the songwriting, with large nods being thrown out to the more melodic Finnish bands. And a Graveland cover too. Pretty good stuff!

Grst/The Will of a Million - Split

From our friends over at Glossolalia Records sent this over. Like a few of their other acts, both these bands share members with other bands on the roster (like Banewreaker and Earthenwomb). The Grst side is pure post-2000 black metal, but in the best way. Just the right amount of melody mixed with harshness, just enough reverb without sounding atmospheric or depressive. Same goes for the TWOAM side, although that side is a little more indebted to the atmospheric/ds sound of this current era of black metal. Both bands are great and after downloading this you should buy one of the last 8 copies they have over at Glossolalia Records

Field of Spears - Heathen Youth

Fourth full-length by my neofolk project Field of Spears. Heathen Youth sheds the seasonal motif that the prior 3 full-lengths and 1 EP shared. It sounds like a more fully developed, better produced, and confident version of Serpent & Sodom mixed with the less cryptic parts of Pale Eulogies. Broken Limbs Recordings will be doing a tape issue of this soon, so buy that when it comes out.

Golden Milk/Sacramence - Split CS

Honest to goodness, raw bm. Sacramence espouses nihilism and animal rights via their raw BM. Golden Milk likes R. Kelly. Actually I'm not sure what the blackened punk noise that GM is about, but their name makes me think of piss and cum, and, in addition to making me kinda horny, makes me think of the pied piper of RnB. This split is no "Ignition (remix)", so I wouldn't recommend passionate sex with your lover to it. But its still good and would be good for banging some barfly in a fit of bad judgement.

A Land Beyond the Sea - Weltenwanderer

ALBtS is a fucking sweet Finnish Black/Death band. The interesting thing is that they don't have the Finnish sound at all, more like a Norwegian/Swedish hybrid. Add to that touches of Pagan/Viking metal, some random German lyrics, and complete anti-christian attitude (and lyrics). This is a great and great sounding record. One of the best I have received in a long while.

Ghost Bath - Ghost Bath

Chinese dsbm/depressive rock. That's kinda the simplified version, there are parts that seem like they came off an Envy record (so it sounds like Deafheaven), and other post-screamo influences. While the usual hallmarks of DSBMdom (those vocals, thin guitars) are present, this release has some cool moments and some what the fuck moments (in a good way). These guys are also pretty good with their instruments and composition. So if you have ever wanted to know what Austre and Vestiges doing Bajiou shots and covering lifelover sounds like, this is pretty close.

Skumlord - Die Galle

Skumlord is a band of dudes from Salt Lake City, and if I was surrounded by such oppressive conditions (both with the desolate desert/rock landscape of the area, as well as being in the heart of Mormonism on Earth), I could see how you'd be inspired to write some pretty deranged and kick-ass black metal. Die Galle feels like the band really loves Sargeist's Satanic Black Devotion album, which is definitely a good thing. Usually I won't post anything up that isn't at least a free download, and leave it up to you to support the bands, but these dudes have a good thing going and the tape/download is worth the $4. Check them out!

Wholy Failure - Carrion and Grime EP

New WF. Noisy shoegaze this time around. Check it out.

Auspicium/Sangre Y Tierra - somewhere, I hear the falling dawn

So after knowing Marv from Sangre Y Tierra for almost 6 years now, we finally decided to do a split release. Two new tracks per artist. Auspicium features a pretty straightforward black metal track and a drone track, while Sangre Y Tierra delivers two powerful drone/ambient tracks.

And one final note for today....

As part of this having the internet again thing, I have uploaded the entire Auspicium catalog to bandcamp. If you for whatever reason want to listen (maybe you hate yourself I don't know), go for it: http://auspicium.bandcamp.com

Banewreaker - Banewreaker

Ferocious blackened crustcore! This is fucking tight. These dudes from Oregon are doing it right when so many other bands miss out on one part of the equation or the other. Well done.

Circsena - Circsena

A German band that sounds like a lighter version of Agalloch circa Pale Folklore and The Mantle, singing songs about dryads murdering humans out of revenge and confused dryad princesses? Yeah, that's pretty much the story. But whereas on paper you might shake your head and utter sounds of disgust, the actual music is pretty damn good. It definitely owes a HUGE debt to Agalloch, as the opening salvo of I Am Here shows.But Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If you are into the style, definitely check this one out.

P.S. The art may be the cheesiest/worst/lamest I've seen in a while, but it doesn't distract too much if you don't look at it...

Kaneq - Spectral Walls of Captivity

Hey cumquats. We finally have internet again. Lots of cool shit to share with you. Lets start with Kaneq. In the words of the man himself:

"Kaneq is a one man Native American black metal project hailing from the Sacaton Native American Reservation in Arizona, USA. Spectral Walls of Captivity is the debut album."

This is the third NABM record we've received here (the prior being Frontier and Sangre Y Tierra), and while it doesn't match up to those bands in Originality or execution, it is very good atmospheric/depressive black metal. My one complaint is that its trying too hard to sound "nordic." If your culture inspires you enough to note it on your email, try to include it in the music. Other than that, this is pretty fucking cool.

Novambr - Wild Flower Garden

From the band:
"Novambr is ambiant, shattered, crippled and fragile music. Musically, we love Black Metal, drone, doom, shoegaze and post-things. But we don't think we are metal music. Wild Flower Garden was composed in three days, while hanging out in our native town, into the forests around, on the top of some mountains while sharing pot and booze. "


Pretty cool stuff for listening at night with all the lights off.

Sangre Y Tierra/Limbs Bin - The Call of Death is a Call of Love

Hey again, sorry for the delays in posts. Living without internet will fuck with updating your site I guess. Fuck it though.

Here is a new split from two Western Mass. bands. SYT needs no introduction here. Two great new tracks from Marv. Limbs Bin brings the noise on two of their own tracks.

Wholy Failure - Abortion Eucharist

Just so I can say I fucking warned you and don't have to deal with the usual deluge of bullshit which comes with the territory:

!!!!NOT BLACK METAL!!!!!!!!!!NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!!!!!!NOT BLACK METAL!!!!!!

That said, I thought I'd give you fuckers a look at the new Wholy Failure album. If you liked the last record (Avalon and Everything After), you might like the second half of this record, as it's the dark, moody post rock/post punkish vibe of the prior. The first half is just fucking weird. Beats, electronica, nods to noisy dance music, and what sounds like Swans joining forces with a martial band to make music to make babies to. Again, its not even close to black metal (excluding the vibes of the second half), but I know some of you all really liked the weirder shit that WF does, so there you go.

Sangre Y Tierra - En Los Arboles Que Florecen

So here is the newest Sangre Y Tierra EP. He specifically asked to have it posted here before anywhere else, because, due to the more personal nature of this recording, wanted to share it with the people who first noticed his music and gave support. Another great release from one of the most inventive and refreshing black metal artists currently making music.

Sorry for wait/Sangre Y Tierra audio documentary

I know. You've sent demos and records. And I work 39 hours of the day. Rest assured, my friends, we will forge on. I'd add one of you to help me but only Khaos can do that and he is AWOL.

If you've read any of our blog, you'll know we love Sangre Y Tierra. This is a radio piece that was done on Marv by a friend of his. Nick from Disguster features some thoughts too. Listen to it and gain some insight on the most unique USBM musician.

Listen Here