terraasymmetry Features

SYNCHRONY: Music News, Week in Review & Upcoming Releases (5/08/2020)

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 Grizzly Butts. This’ll also include a list of upcoming releases and some preliminary notes on upcoming reviews or coverage. If I can’t hear it, I won’t cover it! 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

THIS WEEK IN NEWS (5/02/20 – 5/08/20)

  • Witching Hour Productions have announced three lux (never before on) vinyl issues for release on June 15th starting with VADER‘s infamous live album ‘The Darkest Age – Live ’93’ which has been remastered with updated inserts featuring band photos from the era, it’ll also feature a cassette, CD, and digipack versions in limited numbers. The other two first time ever on vinyl issues come from the death metal era of AETERNUS with ‘Hexaeon’ and ‘…And the Seventh His Soul Detesteth’ in both die-hard gatefold editions and regular black vinyl choices. These are -very- limited and hand-numbered at just 100 copies each. Click the name of each band to view pre-order details on Witching Hour‘s store. Otherwise you can listen to the whole remastered version of ‘The Darkest Age – Live ’93’ over on Bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Blood Harvest Records have set July 17th as the worldwide day of release for NEKUS‘ debut EP ‘Death Nova Upon the Barren Harvest’, on CD and cassette. If you’re wild for vinyl you’ll have to wait for on August 28th. Cavern cough’d and battered out at a shambling, zombified blast pace the first preview track from the EP, “Putrid Harvester” is kind of incredible for its weighty thud and horrific atmospheric death metal sound. I’m loving their sound and if the rest of the EP whips out a few more riffs it’ll be golden with me. Check out “Putrid Harvester” over on Bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • A second preview track has release for PALE DIVINE‘s upcoming sixth full-length ‘Consequence of Time‘, and hoo-boy “Satan in Starlight” is an up front showcase for the ease which Pale Divine approaches the innovation of a dual vocalist arrangement to their sound. It is one of the most refreshingly 70’s tinged pieces on the new album and a bright standout for an album full of gems. Though these guys are known for their use of all sorts of guitar textures this one is just over the top cool and the light use of organs in the background is a brilliant detail one might not notice right away. ‘Consequence of Time‘ releases June 19th on Cruz Del Sur Music. Check out “Satan in Starlight” over on Bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Is that a bloody *cough* vagina bleeding into a surrealistic hallway? And this right after Ulthar’s penis album, quelle horreur! Actually, horror is a good place to start when describing the violent-thrashing prog-death creep of freshly ascended VOIDCEREMONY who signed up to gig with 20 Buck Spin last year. This year, or basically next month (June 26th) we’ll get the hotly anticipated debut full-length from the Ramona, California-based death metal duo entitled ‘Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel‘. The preview song we’ve gotten thus far finds the band massively evolved beyond their last EP. Goddamn that bass tone is frickin’ magical, go check out “Desiccated Whispers” right away over on Bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Los Angeles traditional (I’d say ‘epic’) doom metallers STYGIAN CROWN have their self-titled debut full-length ready to land this June 26th and in the meantime they’ve released a brief video documenting the making of the band’s self-titled debut album. The record will be out through Cruz Del Sur Music as planned with the digital version releasing early on June 19th. Check out the video over on YouTube: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]

  • The ever regal and defiant Sepulchral Productions have set June 24th as the release date for SERMENT‘s debut album, ‘Chante, Ô Flamme de la Liberté‘. Serment  is a relatively new solo project from Moribond (Forteresse) and this first album arrives as an ambitious symphonic black metal concept album, weaving a tale of a pact with the devil and a quest to regain the provenance of the self. So far the pre-order for a CD version is available but I am sure a vinyl version will follow at some point. Pre-grab it over on their webstore: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]

  • Nick Barker left long-running deathgrind supergroup LOCK UP a few weeks ago and this week the band announced their new drummer would be Adam Jarvis of Misery Index. This is a fine choice as Jarvis is a ridiculously good performer, very consistent at every show I’ve attended. A line-up change isn’t such a huge deal for the band, who’ve swapped legends for other legends over the years but this is the first time the drummer’s seat has opened up since 1998. I figure the reason they’ve announced all of this is they’ve got something in the works in the next year or so? Follow Lock Up on Facebook if you’re curious or a fan: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]

  • Extreme progressive doom metal band SELF HYPNOSIS have announced their debut full-length ‘Contagion of Despair‘ will release this August 21st by way of ever-opening lotus Svart Records. Self Hypnosis began as an offshoot of Camel of Doom’s Kris Clayton who’d soon recruit Greg Chandler (Esoteric) for this first record which features session drums from Lychgate’s drummer. Challenging, spiraling avant-doom insanity and respite can be witnessed already via the first preview track, “Contagion”, over on YouTube: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Washington, D.C. psychedelic doom metal quintet SORGE have announced their self-titled debut EP for self-release on June 5th. The band have shared a gloomy, fuzz’d jogger in the form of “Astral Burnout” the final track on their very fine first release. Soaring vocals, swirling synths, chunking road-burning guitar grit and plenty of damned soul make this a swift kick in the ass for a tired Friday afternoon. Check it out over on Bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Austin, Texas’ sludge/noise rock act DINING WITH DOGS have a slick new record out next week entitled ‘The Problem With Friends’. This one is a creeper, some big sludge grooves and sour easy-flung noise rock spirit in there too. I’m a fan of anything Tobin and Boatright hit the knobs on too so, this one sounds really slick and punchy if you’re into it. It’ll be out on Dirt City Records if you want the vinyl. Otherwise grab it on Bandcamp and check out the music video/performance on YouTube: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Rip the padlock off the basement door and follow the bloody trail of severed fingers clawing at the walls, the dank stench of mold and putrid human waste will make your eyes water but — You need to know what SIEGE COLUMN did… And you’ll find out around August 15th when their second full-length album ‘Darkside Legions‘ chunks out on Nuclear War Now! Productions. Who the fuck are Siege Column? They’re basically Slaughter meets Deathstrike levels of chain-to-face jaw ripping 80’s death metal, their first album killed and this one sounds even more wretched and hateful than before. Do-it-yourself production values, hellish echoing growls, and brazen extreme thrash gouging abounds.  Check out the first preview track, “Funeral Fiend”, over on Bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • Insisting upon creation of archaically entombed black metal “outside of time” and space, the return of Auckland, New Zealand’s VASSAFOR reminds me that I’d just not really ‘gotten’ their previous album ‘Malediction’ back in 2017. Now that Iron Bonehead Productions has set August 7th as the release date for their third album, ‘To the Death‘, I think I’ve enough experience with the band’s sound to approach this one with fresh ears and unclouded mind. The first preview track from the album, “Eyrie” is distant and most definitely classic in its inspirations enough that I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of the album. Fantastic cover artwork as well. Check out “Eyrie” on Iron Bonehead’s SoundCloud: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]
  • If you loved Solothus’ fine Finnish brand of death/doom on their latest record a couple of months back check out their vocalist & guitarist’s death metal band SEPULCHRAL CURSE which also includes members of the underrated Yawning Void. Transcending Obscurity Records have announced they will release the band’s debut full-length album ‘Only Ashes Remain‘ on July 31st of this year. Kankaanpää has one of the darkest death metal vocals in the game right now and I really like his contributions to the first preview track, opener “From Within the Bowels of the Earth”, check it out on Bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]

  • Calling out to space from the clearest of skies in Mammoth Lakes, California cosmic death metal project SXUPERION have announced the coming release of ‘Omniscient Pulse’. This is the fifth full-length from the project and I am really liking what I hear on the first preview song “Betrothed Catacombs”. The album self-releases on June 15th and you can check out “Betrothed Catacombs” over on Bandcamp: [Click/Tap HERE for more info]

  • NOTABLE ALBUMS AT PRESS THIS WEEK FROM: Vader, Disabled, Tristwood, Iku-Turso, Walpurgia, Serment, Black Funeral, Poccolus, Airbag, Enshadowed, Sombre Heritage, Gridfailure, Witnesses, Sanctifying Ritual, Dining With Dogs, Paradise Lost, -(16)-, Northern Crown, Nemesium, Scent of Darkness, Lesser Glow, Akolyth, Maud the Moth, Omination, Ormskrik, Sxuperion, Fornicus, Witching, Feral Light, and several more. Look for coverage in the near future. Don’t see your album listed? Send it to me: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

GRIZZLY BUTTS‘ WEEK IN REVIEW (5/02/20 – 5/08/20)

FEATURES:

  • …From the Tomb 5/04/20: “The clarity of the mirror, already waiting.”
    • This year Ten From the Tomb changes to …From the Tomb and is no longer limited to ten releases. It will post every Monday with a list of at least ten new releases coming out during that current week and a short review will be included for each one. This week I chose to cover 14 new releases from March 1st-8th.
    • Favorites: Keverra, Boreal, Grave Circles.

REVIEWS: Big releases this week from Cryptic Shift, Goden, Forgotten Tomb, Mekong Delta, Naglfar, …And Oceans and Brant Bjork. The one that really stuck for my own tastes was definitely Cryptic Shift.  

RELEASED/OVERLOOKED THIS WEEK (5/02/20 – 5/08/20)

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

UPCOMING RELEASES (5/09/20 – 5/15/20)

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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. A plus (+) indicates that the album has already been reviewed. Click/Tap on RECORD LABEL name for preview, stream, or store.

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 donate to help keep me in front of the computer writing about metal. Thanks.

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