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Cara Neir's Digitized Black Metal Exploits Continue on "His First Daemon" (Early Track Stream)


Being a long time Cara Neir fan, I’ve come to expect the unexpected. As a band that began their career as a punk-tinged black metal act but have since gone on to craft material in the vein(s) of post-black metal, deathgrind, blackgaze, and a myriad of other sub-subgenres, supporters of Cara Neir practically live on their toes. Even so, the pivot they made last year into chiptune influenced (chiptuned?) black metal with Phase Out caught many of their followers unaware. 8-bit remixes of existing black metal songs have littered the internet for years, and sound fun if not a bit incomplete and after the fact. To hear Cara Neir incorporate glitching bleeps and bloops into the foundation of their music elevated it beyond a humorous late-night Youtube detour to something a bit more legitimate.

As the first song released from their forthcoming 8th full-length album Phantasmal, “His First Daemon” is a continuation of the electronic blackened grind stylings we first heard on Phase Out. More recently, the band has not been shy about their love for zany early-aughts Myspace-core, and this track has that influence on full display. Garry Brents’ repertoire of discordant riffs oscillate between chugs, panic chords and math-y displays of technicality. His playing is ripped right out of 2004, but feels refreshing in its urgency. Shaping his frenetic riffs are a collection of chaotic electronic chirps, giving the impression that this song exists within the confines of a memory card getting its data wiped. Meanwhile, Chris Francis’ vocals sound omnipresent and like they’re coming from everywhere at once, surrounding you in a circle of frenzied shrieks and gutturals. He is one of the more versatile and underrated vocalists active in the scene today and his performance here only solidifies that thought.

“His First Daemon” is a track that indulges in the wackiest of Cara Neir’s impulses, and though only mere 40-seconds long, it encapsulates everything about the band during this phase (pun-intended) of their career. It is an excellent primer for the audial insanity of Phantasmal, which releases July 29th through Zegema Beach. Listen below.