terraasymmetry Features

SYNCHRONY: Music News, Week in Review, & Upcoming (5/03/2019)

SYNCHRONY is a weekly feature focusing on relevant heavy music news, new releases, upcoming releases, as well as a week in review to help folks keep up with all of the content on GrizzlyButts. This’ll also include a list of upcoming releases and some preliminary notes on upcoming reviews or coverage. Some Seattle, Washington area live shows will be intermittently featured. If you have New Releases, show announcements, or important heavy music news that’ll be relevant or interesting to folks contact me at: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com Priority to PR/label submissions and straight up if I can’t hear it, I won’t cover it.

THIS WEEK IN NEWS

  • The legendary Spanish death metal band UNBOUNDED TERROR have just signed a contract with Xtreem Music for the release of their long-awaited second album, 27 years after their legendary debut, Nest of Affliction released in 1992 by the pre-Xtreem Music label Drowned Productions. This new album is in the process of composition, having planned its recording for this summer and will be released during the autumn of this year! Xtreem Music released a great reissue/remaster of ‘Nest of Affliction’ in 2011, a real classic of Spanish death metal with great atmosphere. Looking forward to this new album! ‘Nest of Affliction’ (original):  [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • METAL SWIM 2 is a massive collection of songs gathered from an array of prominent artists from across the extreme music underworld. Spanning thrash metal, doom metal, and everything in between, the compilation features fifteen diverse, original, new tracks from Alien Weaponry, Akvan, Author & Punisher, Baroness, Botanist, Dark Castle, Dreadnought, Eyehategod, Kat Katz + Andy Gibbs from Thou, Nervosa, Oathbreaker, Sunn O))), The Body, Vile Creature, and Volahn. Metal Swim 2 is completed with striking cover art by comic book creator Becky Cloonan (Batman, The Punisher, Southern Cross) and will be available as a digital-only, streaming-only compilation which is out today Friday, May 3rd at: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Boris Records is excited to announce the reissue of 2011’s ‘Death Conquers All’ from U.S. Black Metal horde HELLGOAT on vinyl LP format slated for a May 31st release. Fans of Profanatica and Havohej will be more than happy with this release. Preview “March of the Corpse Rats” on YouTube:  [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Stourbridge, England born New Wave Of British Heavy Metal pioneers DIAMOND HEAD return to the world stage with a new album, ‘The Coffin Train’, set for release May 24th via Silver Lining Music. They’ve released a second music video this time for “Death by Design”. Founding member Brian Tatler notes: “‘Death By Design’ is the second song from the new DIAMOND HEAD album The Coffin Train. This song began life in my home studio in 2015. I had the opening top E string riff and tried to build a song around it. I gave a demo to [vocalist] Ras [Rasmus Bom Andersen] and he added a new verse riff. We worked on the arrangement and made another demo early 2017 before trying it out in rehearsal. It has a four-bar guitar solo that was recorded in a hotel room on Ras’s laptop while on tour, another first for DIAMOND HEAD!” [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Pulverised Records announces the latest Californian buzzsaw from RIPPED TO SHREDS which arrives on June 14th in the form of a new 12″ EP/MCD entitled ‘魔經 – Demon Scriptures’. The HM-2 death machine continues to burn hot while purposefully weaving dark Chinese horror & folklore into their old school sound that remains heavily influenced by Swedish Death Metal pioneers. Production for this EP was handled at Subterranean Watchtower Studios by Damian Herring (Horrendous, Blood Incantation, Sentient Horror, etc), backed by a grotesquely spellbinding artwork by Velio Josto (Nunslaughter, Cruel Force, Vulture, etc). Pre-order here: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Portland, Oregon gothic heavy metal act IDLE HANDS has released their new single “Dragon, Why Do You Cry” in preparation for the band’s debut album, ‘Mana’, which will be released May 10th via Eisenwald. They seem to be aiming for a bit of 80’s metal that informs an otherwise post-punk/gothic rock sound, something a bit more retro and literal in influence than the popular goth metal out of Finland and Sweden in the mid-to-late 90’s. Listen to “Dragon, Why Do You Cry” here:
    [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Krakow, Poland doom metal act MONASTERIUM have released a new song from forthcoming album ‘Church of Bones’ which is set to release May 6th on the venerable Nine Records. Expect powerful epic doom metal along the lines of their side-project Evangelist, but with a more traditional doom metal approach. Listen to “Liber Loagaeth” on YouTube: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Nuclear War Now! Productions sets May 15th as the international release date for ARES KINGDOM‘s highly anticipated fourth album, ‘By the Light of Their Destruction’, on CD and vinyl LP formats. Chuck Kellar suggests the catalyst for the new collection of songs was his discovery of some unused song ideas created for Vulpecula, the celestial black metal project that Keller worked on after the dissolution of Order From Chaos. Keller began repurposing the incomplete songs for presentation under the Ares Kingdom banner in a way that is reminiscent of Order From Chaos. Preview the ripping “Eighteen Degrees Beneath” on Nuclear War Now! Productions‘ bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • RED RAZOR presents their new single “Born in South America”, a song that brings their traditional thrash metal while incorporating new influences from death metal, surf music, and Brazilian traditional rhythms. It’ll be included in the band’s second full length, ‘The Revolution Continues’ to be released this July. [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Iron Bonehead Productions sets July 5th as the international release date for black metal heirophants CELESTIAL GRAVE‘s highly anticipated debut album, ‘Secular Flesh’, on CD and vinyl LP formats. Hideous and haunting, Celestial Grave arrive in a league utterly their own. Preview: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • At long last, legendary black metallers DENIAL OF GOD return with a special mini-album titled ‘The Shapeless Mass’! Set to be jointly released by Osmose Productions and Hells Headbangers on June 28th, The Shapeless Mass will be the long-running band’s first new recording since 2012’s Death and the Beyond.The title track will also feature on their upcoming third album, ‘The Hallow Mass’, “The Statues Are Watching,” is a re-recording of the title track from the 1995 debut vinyl 7″ with Bathory and Exuma covers to round out the release. [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  •  United States orthodox occult death metallers DEFIXION have inked a deal with Xtreem Music for the re-issue of their EP ‘Tabella Defixionis’, as well as their debut album that should release sometime during 2020. [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Evansville, Indiana-based fuzz rock alchemists FAERIE RING will release their debut full-length, ‘The Clearing’, June 7th via King Volume Records. Over the course of seven tracks, FAERIE RING effortlessly combine various influences from the pantheons of stoner rock into one singular vision by expanding on the green haze of Sleep and the rocking, desert grooves of Kyuss. [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  •  Chicago’s IMMORTAL BIRD wield their eclectic and atomic savagery with their latest full-length ‘Thrive On Neglect’, the band’s first for 20 Buck Spin. IMMORTAL BIRD takes the perilous road of musical diversity and command it with a bloodthirsty rage. Not sure what the fuck all of that means? Well, think of them like Pyrrhon but with lower quality meth on hand. Check out the first preview track here: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • VICTIMS: Stockholm hardcore crust-punk veterans have signed to Relapse Records and announced a new full-length album ‘The Horse and Sparrow Theory‘ out June 28th. The title track deals directly with climate change and the no-longer just impending doom of the planet, check it out on YouTube: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • “Thrilling, intense and hauntingly expressive to the extreme” RAINER LANDFERMANN‘s signature vocals, that iconically shaped BETHLEHEM’s cult classic “Dictius Te Necare” in 1996, return 23 years later on his new solo album “Mein Wort in Deiner Dunkelheit”, to be released on June 19, 2019. The former PAVOR bassist’s bandcamp also features a preview track: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Norma Evangelium Diaboli announces May 24th as the international release date for MISþYRMING‘s highly anticipated second album, ‘Algleymi’. Little introduction is needed and perhaps little expectations can be granted outside of sheer quality as the Icelandic black metal collective have all matured to unimaginable heights in recent years. With standards high and brazen musical statements the norm, a pre-order is a safe bet for lovers of dangerous music: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Norma Evangelium Diaboli quietly posted pre-order information, cover artwork, tracklisting, several merch designs, and the preview track (with accompanying video) “Ad Arma! Ad Arma!” for the upcoming release of the seventh full-length from influential French black metal stronghold DEATHSPELL OMEGA. Entitled ‘The Furnaces of Palingenesia’, the record was recorded live and mixed on analog equipment, it will see release on May 24th. Preview “Ad Arma! Ad Arma!” here: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • HYPE ALBUMS AT PRESS THIS WEEK FROM: Ares Kingdom, Celestial Grave, Black Seal, Martyrdöd, Power From Hell, Nuclear Revenge, Ripped to Shreds, Evil Angel, Ravensire, Faerie Ring, Barbarian, Pinkish Black, and tons more. Look for coverage in the near future. Don’t see your album listed? Send it to me!

GRIZZLY BUTTS‘ WEEK IN REVIEW (4/27/19 – 5/03/19)

WEEKLY FEATURES:

  • Ten From the Tomb 4/29/19: The burden, the flock, the masters and I.
    • Black/heavy metal hybrids next to extreme sludge metal hybrids.
    • Highlights are: Vigilance, Blind Monarch, Bloodlust, and Vous Autres.
  • Thrash ‘Til Death #18: Num Skull (United States)
    • Num Skull’s story is easily one of the most interesting things to come from Midwest US thrash metal from their speed metal demo, their Dark Angel-esque first album, and then the shift to death metal that left an unfinished album on the cutting room floor and a pure death record in 1996.
  • Metal of the Month: April’s 15 Finest Releases (2019)
    • A fantastic month of metal and other things. Includes: Waste of Space Orchestra, Troll, Inculter, Inter Arma, Vitriol, Lord Dying, Ceremony of Silence, Protector, Deathwomb, Altar of Oblivion, Devoid of Thought, Warchest, Gold, Suffering Hour, Doombringer and a bunch of honorable mentions.

REVIEWS: Not my most productive week of reviews ever but it was due to extra features in the works. Each of these releases were worth talking about all the same but Lord Vicar, Zig Zags, and Defecrator are especially good..

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UPCOMING SHOWS: [That I’ll likely attend]

  • GREAT FALLS 5/03/2019 Substation – Seattle, WA w/ Sourvein, -(16)- headlining
  • BRAINOIL 5/04/2019 Highline – Seattle, WA w/ Bell Witch, Fetid
  • LORD DYING w/ Year Of The Cobra 5/08/2019 Substation – Seattle, WA
  • THE WELL 05/10/2019 Seattle, WA @ Substation
  • Northwest Terror Fest 5/30/2019 – 6/1/2019 – Seattle, WA [Cirith Ungol, Spirit Adrift, Inter Arma, Thantifaxath, Wayfarer, etc.]
  • POISON IDEA w/The Derelicts, Acid Teeth and Victims Panel 6/13/19 @ Jazzbones – Tacoma, WA

RELEASED/OVERLOOKED THIS WEEK (4/27/19 – 5/03/19)

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NOTE: This small sample includes overlooked releases that are not yet reviewed or covered but are recommended. Some of these will still be featured in other coverage. An asterisk (*) indicates that a review is drafted or in preparation. Click/Tap on RECORD LABEL name for preview, stream, or store.

  • CLOUDS TASTE SATANIC – Evil Eye [Kinda Like Music/Self-Released] INSTRUMENTAL POST-DOOM, Kinda explains itself and its just as evil as it sounds. Two huge tracks that are heavy as Hell.
  • DEIPHAGO – I, the Devil [Hell’s Headbangers Records] BLACK/DEATH METAL*, An insane war metal album that follows its own violent path. Deiphago strikes far enough from tradition that they stand out without coming across cheap or imitative.
  • BLOODLUST – Black Mass [Iron, Blood & Death Corp.] SPEED METAL, A ripping speed metal album that is traditional as hell with some of my favorite speed metal riffs in recent memory.
  • MURDRYCK – Födelsen [Leviaphonic Records] BLACK METAL
  • NORDEN – Z Popiołów i Krwi.​​.​​. [Casus Belli Musica] BLACK METAL
  • THROAT – Decade of Passive Aggression 2009-2019 [Kaos Kontrol] NOISE ROCK, A collection of non-album, EP, and split tracks from this Finnish noise rock troupe. A nice look into their sonic evolution. Check out their album ‘Bareback’ from last year, too, as it was one of the better records in that style.
  • AMIENSUS / OAK PANTHEON – Gathering I & II [Casus Belli Musica] BLACK METAL
  • VERWUSTUNG – Gospel ov Fury [Handful of Hate] BLACK/THRASH, Unorthodox black metal that has an eerie first wave mania to it that I love so far.
  • MAVRADOXA – Nightmarrow [Hypnotic Dirge Records] BLACK METAL, A very fine release that deserves a bit more time to consider.
  • SINS OF THE DAMNED – Striking the Bell of Death [Shadow Kingdom Records] BLACK/THRASH/SPEED, This is a great album I’m just burnt out on black/thrash for a minute. I’ll come back to it very soon.
  • SORGELIG – Devoted to Nothingness [Iron Bonehead Productions] BLACK METAL
  • BASTARD DISCO – China Shipping [Antena Krzyku] ALT/NOISE ROCK
  • MOS GENERATOR – Live [Devil’s Child Records] HEAVY ROCK, A 2017 live album recorded from a soundboard in the UK.
  • SICK GAZELLE – Odum [War Crimes Recordings] JAM
  • THE SHRINE – Cruel World [Eliminator Records] METALLIC SKATE PUNK* Another awesome release from The Shrine, their sound changes a bit with each release. This one is far less mid-Rollins Black Flag and more post-2000 Zeke if you ask me.
  • KAMPFAR – Ofidians Manifest [Indie Recordings] BLACK METAL* A fine return for the band that finds them sounding a bit like ‘Theogonia’ era Rotting Christ at times but largely resembling a more aggressive take on their sound compared to the last two records. A review will pop up for this in a few days.
  • DUNE SEA – Dune Sea [All Good Clean Records] STONER/SPACE ROCK, Norwegian psychedelic stoner rock trio that bring a chill, heavy rockin’ trip. Very listenable and smooth as fuck.
  • KOLLAPS – Mechanical Christ [Cold Spring Records] POST-INDUSTRIAL
  • THRONEHAMMER – Usurper of the Oaken Throne [Church Within Records] EPIC HEAVY/DOOM METAL, An enormous doom metal album that I will need another week to listen to more closely.
  • PA VESH EN – Cryptic Rites of Necromancy [Iron Bonehead Productions] BLACK METAL, I continue to not like anything Pa Vesh En releases. So, if you like his other work this is pretty much on par.
  • APPALLING – Inverted Realm [Redefining Darkness Records] DEATH METAL
  • BODY HARVEST – Parasitic Slavery [Comatose Music] DEATH METAL, Incredible second album from this UK brutal death metal act. Its exactly as ugly and brutal as it looks!
  • STELLAR MASTER ELITE – Hologram Temple [Unholy Conspiracy Deathwork] BLACKENED DOOM/DEATH
  • SXUPERION – Endless Spiritual Embodiment [Bloody Mountain Records] DEATH METAL, Blackened death metal from one of maestros that bring Valdur to life. This is the fourth solo release under this name and continues the violent thread he’d refined with ‘Cosmic Void’ a few years previous.
  • NYT LIV – Ensomhedens Kolde Kald [Indisciplinarian Records] MELODIC HARDCORE
  • MOLLO RILLA – Mollo Rilla [Seeing Red Records] HARD ROCK
  • TIME LURKER / CEPHIDE – Split [Les Acteurs de L’Ombre] BLACK METAL

UPCOMING RELEASES (5/04/19 – 5/10/19)

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NOTE: This is not a comprehensive list, some titles are already reviewed and/or covered and some have yet to enter the final queue for consideration and processing. An asterisk (*) indicates that a review is drafted or in preparation. Click/Tap on RECORD LABEL name for preview, stream, or store.

  • ARMAGEDDA – Ond Spiritism [Nordvis Productions] BLACK METAL, (Reissue)
  • THE AVIATORS – Flowers and Moonshine [Self-Released] ROCK
  • MONASTERIUM – Church of Bones [Nine Records] DOOM METAL*
  • TEMPLE OF THE STARS – Nightspirit [Inverse Records] FOLK METAL
  • BEWITCHER – Under the Witching Cross [Shadow Kingdom Records] BLACKENED SPEED METAL*
  • WARFORGED – I: Voice [The Artisan Era] PROG-DEATH
  • DREADNOUGHT – Emergence [Profound Lore Records] PROG-DOOM
  • SUSPIRAL – Chasm [Sentient Ruin Laboratories] BLACKENED DEATH
  • TIR – Metal Shock [Gates of Hell] HEAVY METAL
  • IDLE HANDS – Mana [Eisenwald] HEAVY/GOTHIC METAL
  • ZAUM – Divination [Listenable Records] RITUALISTIC DOOM*
  • SPIRIT ADRIFT – Divided by Darkness [20 Buck Spin] HEAVY METAL*
  • FIXATION – Into the Pain [War Records] HARDCORE PUNK
  • SWAMP WITCH – Dead Rituals [Transylvanian Tapes] SLUDGE METAL
  • DOOMSTRESS – Sleep Among the Dead [Ripple Music] DOOM METAL
  • HANDFUL OF HATE – Adversus [Code666] BLACK METAL
  • KULL – Exile [Black Lion Records] EPIC BLACK METAL
  • BIG|BRAVE – A Gaze Among Them [Southern Lord] EXPERIMENTAL ROCK
  • INANIMATE EXISTENCE – Clockwork [The Artisan Era] TECH-PROG DEATH*
  • PULVER – Kings Unser the Sand [Gates of Hell Records] HEAVY METAL*
  • VULTURES VENGEANCE – The Knightlore [Cruz Del Sur Music] EPIC HEAVY METAL
  • ENTRAPMENT – Imminent Violent Death [Dawnbreed Records] DEATH METAL

Did I miss something important this week? Send me an e-mail and tell me about it. It is always worthwhile to speak up for the lesser known stuff. Please remember you can contribute to my Patreon @ only $1 USD per month ($12 a year) to help keep me in front of the computer writing about metal. Thanks.

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