Live Report: Power of the Riff 2016

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Their name is Bastard Cröss. Their debut EP is called Bastard Cröss. These blasphemous upstarts from Philadelphia might not offer any huge innovations in the realm of blackened speed metal (or naming releases), but one thing is certain: Bastard Cröss fucking bring it. Clearly inspired by the likes of Midnight, Wraith, and too many bands from the eighties to mention, Bastard Cröss is a grim and thrashing recipe for “Total Desaster,” to borrow the term from Destruction. Their debut drools with aggression and evil like werewolf spit. It amounts to an energetic listening experience, with impressive performances on many fronts.

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The EP plunges into battle straightaway with “The Sorceress Beckons”, wasting no time unloading a thrashy guitar lick, with D-beat drums to catapult the pummeling pace. Their vocalist and guitarist Blasphemous Axe screeches out lyrics with enthused venom. The song details a grand and bloody siege, with “hundreds of horses, thousands of wolves,” marching to their demise, against one black magic-wielding sorceress in a castle. It's cool to discern the lyrics from this song simply upon listening, even if Bastard Crössrhyme play is a little basic. But hey, I'll take basic bitch black metal over pretentious barista black metal any day! “The Sorceress Beckons” also sinks into a spooky, medieval breakdown for its chorus, where the guitar melodies seem to mirror its besieged castle theme. Black metal freaks might be pleased to hear flashes of Dissection in this part, and to further the comparison, Bastard Crösscrank it up a level in the solo department. Ambitious dueling guitar leads adorn the finale, delivering wailing, epic high notes like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burns. Bastard Cröss split vocal duties with their second guitarist, Heathen Chevalier, in their second song, “Under The Bastard Cross.” This number continues the rapid fire tempo with an Exodus-style yarn. Chev's vocals contrast his screechy counterpart with gruff, proto death metal growls. I'd compare his pipes to Ventor's yowls on the first three Kreator albums. Chevalier also hits some gleefully out-of-tune falsettos, yet another highlight in this love letter to the old school. By the third song, “Cryptic Illusions” it's obvious this entire EP is content to stay at one tempo: Fast! Sure, it's got a few half speed parts and breakdowns. But Bastard Crösslargely follows the template of the early Bathory albums, with one ripper after another. “Cryptic Illusions” bites with a Middle Eastern thrash riff, perhaps a shade of King Diamond, and follows with a barrage of palm-muted triplets, and a slithering, mosh section thrown in for grave measure. Their closing number “Headless,” is another tempestuous rager, centered on the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow. This might be their most rambunctious one yet, with generous blast beats, and sloppy, punk cymbal crashes to create a fast and loose atmosphere, before it retreats to abrupt feedback and fades out. One of the few criticisms is the mix. This is designed to sound like a raw black metal tape, the kind one might find tucked away in a shoe box that's been left in an attic for decades. However, some of the volume levels could benefit from a more seamless treatment. There's a few moments when the rhythm guitars phase in and out of solos in a jarring manner, and it detracts from the riffs at work. As another side effect of its rawness, the bass is also light. It's hard to listen to Bastard Cröss without hearing glimpses of Motorhead, Sodom, and Venom, who all gave the four string section the space to shine. It seems like the band missed an opportunity to match that heavier low end presence to add another layer of character. But in whole-hearted low-fidelity, Bastard Cröss levels its barrel and fires with everything they’ve got, mostly shredding the target. Their debut EP is an undeniable jolt of adrenaline that deals out memorable hooks, heaping with throwbacks to the black metal and thrash metal pioneers of yesteryear. In the eternal quest to lay down one’s soul to the gods rock and roll, Bastard Cröss excels at excitement.

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Bastard Cröss released October 1st via the band's Bandcamp page.

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Happy October, everyone—hopefully you're finding some time this month to crack down on your horror movie backlog, listen to King Diamond, or engage in some other, equally spooky activities. We're somehow past September and drawing terrifyingly close to ending 2021, so before time slips further through our fingers, let's reflect on some of the best releases from September. Some other things from this month worth noting before we get going: black metal underground darling Lamp of Murmuur surprise-dropped another record, and it owns; writer Tom Morgan compiled a great list of essential Relapse Records releases, and Jimmy Monack drove up to talk to Steve Von Till in person, earning himself a speeding ticket in the process. We also published our first batch of live photos in well over a year—more to come from stages and photo pits soon, I hope. With all that covered, we've got five records we strongly suggest you check out before submerging yourself fully in the firehose of October releases.

—Ted Nubel

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Ted Nubel

Tentation—Le Berceau des Dieux September 24th, 2021 I keep coming back to this record. Beyond the powerful, energetic heavy metal inside, there's just a certain magic to the anthemic French vocals and the exuberance behind them (especially when backing vocals come in) that makes Le Berceau des Dieux a joyfully metallic experience. Drawing from traditional heavy metal with steely twin-guitar action and occasional keyboards, the band excels at getting blood flowing (and spilling) through wild, classic songs with fantastic lead work and headbang-along pacing. The band's approach to traditional heavy metal includes a mix of thrashy, fast riffs as well as slower and simpler, rock-focused riffs as a contrast—and when the double-bass comes in and things get mean, you feel it. With crystal-clear production and a punchy, impactful mix, it's absurdly easy to just turn this up and let it drive my mood for a while. As we spiral desperately closer to 2021's end, this kind of uncompromising fun is what I've been looking for.

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Ivan Belcic

Mastiff—Leave Me the Ashes of the Earth September 10, 2021 Over the past year and a half and for obvious reasons, music-as-escapism has been a heavy theme in much of music writing. I’ve framed music this way, others here have framed it this way — it’s a very valid and often genuinely therapeutic way of both consuming music and processing our feelings about not just COVID, but the myriad other crises currently gripping the world. But sometimes, it’s just as healthy, if not more so, to confront our collective and personal grief, anxiety, and despair head-on. When used in excess or isolation, escapism and other forms of denial kick the can down the road in terms of dealing with uncomfortable realities and the negative feelings they cause. And when it’s time to grapple with the discomfort squirming inside us, there’s Mastiff and their latest record Leave Me the Ashes of the Earth. There’s no respite to be found across this nonstop bludgeoning of resentment and spite. Instead, the band sink their grime-encrusted thumbs into your eyes as they hold you flailing under the surface, your lungs grasping for the clean air of distraction and finding only the cold, dispassionate water of angst and loathing.

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Colin Dempsey

Ars Moriendi—Le Silence Déraisonnable du Ciel September 24th, 2021 The atmospheric component of atmospheric black metal usually entails solitude, which is a limiting approach because atmospheric, by its definition, doesn’t refer to one particular feeling, instead referring to a piece’s potency. Le Silence Déraisonnable du Ciel, from the one-man band Ars Moriendi, is an atmospheric triumph where that atmosphere is a fantastical retelling of the Charles Baudelaire poem Enivrez-vous. For the uninitiated, the poem is an open endorsement to get smashed on all of life’s bounties. While this includes more wholesome indulgences like poetry and virtue, it also supports chucking back some pints to free oneself. Le Silence Déraisonnable du Ciel takes Baudelaire’s sentiments and turns them into a freewheeling medieval celebration. Ars Moriendi carries Baudelaire’s calls for freedom through gothic romanticism, weeping synths, melodramatic vocals, and moments of dark jazz. The album is whimsical like an Arthurian myth while also boasting the finest symphonic black metal this year. It’s a cavalcade of Iron Maiden-esque melodic leads, and a tapestry of compositional liberty. Le Silence Déraisonnable du Ciel is drunk off of its own fumes, and it’s all the better for it.

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Joe Aprill

Unto Others—Strength September 24th, 2021 For anyone who knows me well, it should come as no surprise that my favorite album from this past September was Unto Others' “sophomore” release Strength, given their previous debut album was my favorite album of 2019. Yet, that was under their previous name of Idle Hands which they had to abandon last year due to a prior trademarking that seemingly came out of nowhere. A name change can often be a major stumbling block in a band's career, especially once they've already had some success using the previous name (as their opening spot on the last King Diamond tour showed), but fear not, as in the same period of time the band was picked up by major metal label Roadrunner Records, now a part of Elektra Records and the Warner Music Group. The newly christened Unto Others now has the same team putting bands like Gojira and Slipknot into large amphitheaters behind their back. With Strength as the next musical step in their future, Unto Others certainly are capable of standing confidently on any large stage they are given. The core of the band’s sound remains intact, a triumphant traditional metal sound with touches of the melancholic and lead singer/songwriter Gabe Franco’s expressive baritone that push it towards gothic rock. Imagine a fist-raised hesher draped in denim and leather yet teary eyed, toting under the other arm books from Neil Gaiman and Edgar Allan Poe. All of this is expertly crafted into single-length songs bursting with catchy hooks that will have you singing or swaying in your car or at a festival. Developing on that core, though, is a more crystal clear production than debut Mana managed along with flourishes of more extreme influences like some straight up black/death metal shrieks and riffs straight from a Slayer album as noticed on cuts like opener “Heroin”. Almost every track could work as a radio hit, though the surprise cover of Pat Benatar’s 1980 “Hell is for Children” could easily blow the band up into higher realms. With well-crafted material still dripping out like overflowing honey and the support of deep pockets, Unto Others have the opportunity to conquer the world with their infectious brand of gloom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es4o0t3Z0C8

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Chicago’s Contrition may seem like a new entrant in the field of angry-as-all-hell death metal, but they’re actually the reformed version of the side project Doomsday. Perhaps that’s why their roster, featuring members of Chrome Waves, Wolvhammer, Cobalt, Usurper, and more, are as practiced as they are despicable. Their new track “Diluted” serves as their mission statement. They exude anger over a grimy membrane of sludge and doom, with the only substance able to permeate it being aggression. "Diluted" is Contrition’s latest single off of their upcoming debut album Broken Mortal Coil, and its name is a misnomer as there isn’t a shred of weakness found in Contrition’s muscular death metal. Check out our exclusive premiere of the track below.

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Contrition announce their intentions mid-way through “Diluted” with the refrain “We are not your saviors.” They promise that there will be no salvation on Broken Mortal Coil, pointing an accusatory finger through confrontational guitar tones and a corroded worldview. The track is largely built around Jerome Marshall’s vocals: Contrition build the song’s unfurling introduction around his titanic grunts. Once underway, the group’s tense rhythms soundtrack Marshall’s dismissal of humanity. The wiry guest solo from Leon del Muerte (Impaled, ex-Exhumed) is the only time the instrumentation deviates from its pummeling pace. Considering that “Diluted” serves as Broken Mortal Coil’s opening track, it synthesizes Contrition into one mantra. There’s no empathy, only unrestrained fury. Jeff Wilson (guitars/synth) comments:

"Diluted" was the first song written for this album and is probably my personal favorite, it encompasses all the aspects we were hoping to put forth on this particular record... and what better way to start things off than to include a ripping guitar solo. Leon obviously delivered the goods.

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Broken Mortal Coil releases October 29th via Disorder Recordings.

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Not Not Backpatches. Not Not Elbowpatches. Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Black Metal Theory

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There’s a commonly-cited quotation that goes, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” I can’t even recall when or where I first heard it, and it’s been variously attributed to Frank Zappa, Steve Martin, Laurie Anderson, Martin Mull, Elvis Costello, and John Cage. I could see any of them saying it, although it would hit slightly differently in each case, shifting between a certain absurdist humor and sarcastic disdain. In any case, I imagine this quote is popular among music students facing down research papers, and who are therefore in need of an easily Instagrammable way to express their frustrations. In a wider view, what that quote seems to ultimately be referring to is a certain “gap” that always exists between lived experience and the ability of language to ever truly express it. Because music is an art of sound and time, writing cannot *really* ever provide a holistic account of it, but of course we can write about music just as we actually can dance about architecture. The quote also reminds of one of the implicit goals of academic writing and criticism on music: to assert control over musical activities by making them subject to “official” expertise and categorization. I suspect that subtle awareness of this intention is an animating force behind the occasional disdain leveled at critics and others who write on the arts. I begin here because this month I want to dig into Black Metal Theory, a truly esoteric niche of metal academia whose practitioners also might reject the notion that their work is really a part of “Metal Studies” at all...at least as it’s conceived by folks working in fields like sociology, cultural studies, musicology, or music theory. Through a singular set of circumstances, however, Black Metal Theory was also probably how many metalheads first became aware of the academic interest in metal. Black Metal Theory first came to wider attention following a symposium held at a Brooklyn bar in 2009, which received a slightly bewildered but also fairly appreciative write-up in The New York Times. For many black metal fans outside academia, the first exposure to Black Metal Theory was the symposium’s viral essay “Transcendental Black Metal” by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, guitarist and singer for the band Liturgy, which inspired a significant backlash in some circles, as might be expected. Apart from the usual anti-academic mockery, the fact that Hunt-Hendrix positioned Liturgy as standard bearers of a new aesthetic that would save black metal from its own artistic atrophy was also admittedly pretty brazen. However, I also reckon that the provocation was intentional. The proceedings of that symposium were published in a 2010 volume entitled Hideous Gnosis, which was followed by several other books along with further collections of essays, poetry, and visual art. The main organizers of these conferences and publications were Batalliean scholar Edia Connole and Nicola Masciandaro, a professor of medieval literature, who together edited the collections Floating Tomb: Black Metal Theory (Mimesis International, 2015) and Mors Mystica: Black Metal Theory Symposium (Schism Press, 2015). I would also add Scott Wilson’s edited volume Melancology: Black Metal Theory and Ecology (Zero Books, 2014) to any recommended readings list, along with Eugene Thacker’s Horror of Philosophy series (Zero Books, 2011-2015) and possibly also Thomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy against the Human Race (Viking Press, 2010) as supplemental background readings. For starters, anyway. However, Black Metal Theory does not make for light or casual reading; many of the works in this field are baroquely constructed and densely packed with references to various schools of esoteric thought and pessimistic philosophy. It perhaps relates to the broader issue of reader accessibility within academic writing in general due to the use of jargon requiring extensive background knowledge. This cracks open a bigger can of worms involving the fact that academic tenure and promotion systems are set up to reward niche research that often seems opaque to non-specialists. While nobody bats an eye at such things in the sciences, in matters of art and culture it can often feel like a tool of intentional gatekeeping and exclusiveness, or it’s held up as evidence of irrelevance and triviality. But I digress. I have to confess that these issues arise in my mind in relation to Black Metal Theory because of my own personal experience with it. When I first encountered writings in this vein a little bit more than a decade ago, I often found them to be as frustrating as they were compelling. I could tell there were really interesting ideas in play, but they were buried in references to medieval gnosticism, speculative realist philosophy, and metaphysical concepts that I was aware of but far from fluent in, and there were often few explanations or footnotes to bridge that gap. At times it really did seem to me like the authors were purposefully erecting this barrier in their writing. Yet this kind of problem is also endemic to Metal Studies, since any interdisciplinary field is necessarily going to involve multiple discipline-specific vocabularies that might not translate easily. Black Metal Theory (and philosophical writing in general) is just a particularly acute example. To this day some Black Metal Theory articles still leave me humming "Cottleston Pie," but I’ve developed a better sense of their intentions over the years. Black Metal Theory doesn’t really want to create literature about black metal; it wants literature as black metal, creating and inhabiting a liminal space in which theoretical writing collides with (and is contaminated by) the spirit of black metal. Black metal itself, however, manages to continually evade academic definition through a sort of quantum necro-mechanics, thanks to that ever-present gulf between experience and language. While much academic writing on metal seeks to illuminate, categorize, and contain it in the name of institutional expertise, it seems to me that much Black Metal Theory instead aims for the opposite: a re-blackening and re-occultation of metal. Obscurantism thus comes with the territory. As Masciandaro puts it in his essay “On the Mystical Love of Black Metal,” “we will speak in black metal, there, where the secret of black metal is, wherever black metal is the secret of itself.” For my money, there’s a certain comfort in this enduring inexpressible je ne sais quoi of black metal, partly because it means that there can never be a “last word” on the subject, but also because it’s a reminder of what drew us to this path in the first place.

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Ross Hagen is a musicologist at Utah Valley University and is the author of A Blaze in the Northern Sky from the 33.3 series. Fun. Core. Mosh. Trends. Graphic used under creative commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dormeuil_fabric_on_jacket.jpg Toxophilus, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

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Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of October 10th, 2021 to October 16th, 2021. Releases reflect proposed North American scheduling, if available. Expect to see most of these albums on shelves or distros on Fridays. See something we missed or have any thoughts? Let us know in the comments. Plus, as always, feel free to post your own shopping lists. Happy digging. Send us your promos (streaming links preferred) to: [email protected]. Do not send us promo material via social media.

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Things We Missed

Kite -- Currents | Majestic Mountain Records | Hardcore + Sludge | Norway Kite render sludge and hardcore as a cinematic journey on Currents, crafting more than just riffs with their finely-calibrated noise: check out that hypnotic intro track, for instance. Across the rest of the album, explosive sludge and pensive rock play equal roles in telling the story, beset by hoarse screams and, occasionally, some nifty synth textures.

--Ted Nubel

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Upcoming Releases

Melvins -- Five Legged Dog | Ipecac Records | Acoustic + Sludge Metal | United States (Washington) Melvins continue their legacy of doing whatever the hell they please with a two-and-a-half-hour, 36-track, double LP comprised solely of acoustic reinterpretations of their back catalog and various covers. It amounts to Melvins sounding as authentically grunge as possible in 2021 while maintaining their trademark oddities.

--Colin Dempsey

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Hate -- Rugia | Metal Blade Records | Blackened Death Metal | Poland This is blackened death metal that cranks every aspect to its logical conclusion. The vocals are muscular, the solos are unhinged spirals, and there's particular darkness that comes from undivided anger.

--Colin Dempsey

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Alcatrazz -- V | Silver Lining Music | Heavy Metal + Rock | United States (Los Angeles, CA) Doogie White (Michael Schenker Group, Cornerstone) replaces long-term vocalist Graham Bonnet on this fifth album just a year after their comeback with Bonnet—little bit strange of a situation, I think, but White does great here. Despite the name and album art feeling like the last gasps of a vanity project long past its prime, V is actually pretty good. Maybe I'm just jonesing for good guitar/organ heavy metal, but the swirly organ textures and fun shredding does it for me here.

--Ted Nubel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGlNo1TQrhk&ab_channel=AlcatrazzOfficial

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Necromantia -- To the Depths We Descend... | The Circle Records | Black Metal | Greece The long-running Hellenic black metal band returns after 14 years to issue their apparently final record; it's definitely serviceable but doesn't sonically have all that much in common with the band's lauded early work.

--Ted Nubel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lKHwsGVeTA

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Noltem -- Illusions in the Wake | Transcending Obscurity Records | Atmospheric Black Metal | United States From Jon Rosenthal's full album premiere:

Though some might refer to Illusions in the Wake as a "progressive metal" album and others imbue Noltem with the "atmospheric black metal" tag, both these genre operators feel incomplete given this album's special character. The calm and introspective "neofolk metal" which defined Hymn of the Wood and Mannaz which preceded it might make appearances throughout, but Noltem's singular take on a more generally defined atmospheric metal proves the content is more important than its classification.

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Deviant Process -- Nurture | Season of Mist | Progressive Death Metal | Canada (Quebec City, Quebec) Melodic and driving basslines add another layer of intrigue to the thoughtful progressive technicality at work here; the band is exceptionally skilled at creating different textures within their sound and making the most of every element, not just jamming angular riffs down listeners' throats.

--Ted Nubel

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Destinity -- In Continuum | Crimson Productions | Black + Death Metal | France Rich and vibrant, In Continuum comes after a nine year gap for the band and shows their genre allegiance shifting again into melodic black metal with slight hints of death metal scattered within.

--Ted Nubel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OebUvPJ2rgg&ab_channel=DESTINITYOfficial

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Sol Sistere -- Sol Sistere | Cult of Parthenope | Atmospheric Black Metal | Chile Resplendent in all its atmospheric, multi-layered black metal beauty, Sol Sistere also holds a plunging darkness within it that takes some peering through the gilded façade to really appreciate.

--Ted Nubel

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Superstatic -- Glimmering Veil | Solitude Productions | Black Metal + Ambient | Ireland (Dublin) This bridges a gap I wasn't aware of, connecting black metal to industrial, ambient synth-enhanced misery. Black/ambient is a thing, of course, but the non-black-metal moments retain an incessant rhythmic aspect that's unusual and keeps it all connected. Tackling themes like Morrowind (still the best Elder Scrolls game), System Shock II, and literary sci-fi, it's a spooky ride through black metal, nostalgia, and horror alike.

--Ted Nubel

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Crystal Coffin -- The Starway Eternal | Independent | Black Metal | Canada How often does black metal crossover with sci-fi? Crystal Coffin balance both with melodic black metal hallmarks atop progressive synths and tasteful acoustics, a surprising combination for an album about interdimensional travel and the Chernobyl meltdown.

--Colin Dempsey

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NŪR -- Negative Transfer | Suicide Records | Sludge/Post-Metal | Israel NŪR's take on the sludge/post-metal hybrid balances gargantuan riffs and full-throated shouts with periods of embryonic introspection. Neither component overtakes the other, meaning the momentum never dips nor does the tension ever ease up.

--Colin Dempsey

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Gravesend -- From the Gutter / To the Grave | Decibel | Death Metal/ Black Metal/Grindcore | United States (New York) Gravesend began the year by dropping one of 2021's filthiest releases, and are following that up with this two-track Decibel Flexi Series exclusive EP. Expect to feel like you're getting ran over by a New York subway again, much like you did when you listened to January's Methods of Human Disposal. No public stream yet, but it will come with the November issue of Decibel.

--Colin Dempsey

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Shi - 死 -- Basement Wizard | Independent | Doom + Stoner Metal | United States (Kentucky) This is stoner metal that's as southern-fried as buttermilk chicken, but you'll only catch 死's Kentucky roots in the way they peel their riffs. The vocals are akin to a goblin after a fat bong hit, and of course, 死 include some Sabbath-worship as a finishing garnish.

--Colin Dempsey

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[caption id="attachment_74717" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Image Credit: Jonathan Carbon[/caption]

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Dungeon synth moves at an incredible pace. It can be overwhelming to try and keep up with the amount of new releases, even when only focusing on high profile labels. This prolific output can also be very charming in that one may look away for a few months and then come back to two or ten new releases from their favorite artist. I began this dungeon synth digest as a way to keep up with new releases and this time, instead of doing a theme or a special article, I am devoting space to just catching up on the releases that have piled up on my desk. This digest will continue to explore the many facets of dungeon synth but first we have to get through all of these new releases.

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Fableglade Records has been putting out fantastic music since 2020. Every quarter this label releases a series of tapes from mostly new or lesser known artists that often skirt the very definition of dungeon synth. Neofolk, ambient, and experimental all inhabit the world of Fableglade, and to most loyal members these series have been a source of discovery and happiness. The Autumn bundle from Fableglade was recently released with tapes from Draconic Regicide, Verdant, Abysa, Black Epheria, and finally the Canadian artist Sprites of the Wood. Faeries I from Sprites of the Wood is a 2020 release, which was released on tape in 2021. The record uses forest ambient and symphonic melodies to explore the nature of faeries and the mystical qualities of woodland enchantments. While dungeon synth can sometimes be dreary and oppressive it can also be blinding with its radiance. In the spirit of artists like Erang, Sprites of the Wood captures that mystical bedroom quality, which brings the listener to many places beyond their own walls.

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I was not aware of this release until putting together a small vote on Reddit's r/dungeonsynth regarding the top releases of dungeon synth in 2021. Mahr G'Didj is from the US and for three albums they have been crafting an outlier style of dungeon synth that merges comfy synth, video game music, and off-kilter electronic sounds into a pastiche of wonder and delight. Crane & Crescent Pt. 3 : Fate's Bottomless Well, E'er Churn her Waters is the third installment of the Crane and Crescent series, which began in August of last year. These releases only saw nominal attention with this last one being the most popular of the series. This three part trilogy concerns itself with the Lore of Iduin created by someone named David R.R. Vance. At the time of writing this, I could find nothing about the story nor writer, which makes this whole endeavor even more mysterious. What we are left with are three dungeon synth records brimming with creativity. At this point, I have no idea where Mahr G'Didj is going and what they are about to do, as the artist is a gleeful driver on a boat that is heading into unknown territory while they cackle maniacally.

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Old School or classic dungeon synth is not only a time period for the style, but also a style that evokes a time period. Return of the Ancients is a fitting title, since US based Mirthquell uses this historic style to paint a landscape of a time long past. While this artist only has one debut to their name, the craft and care that comes to Return of the Ancients speaks of a creator who has a strong knowledge of the historic style. Mirthquell is a creator who also goes under the name the Labyrinthian Tyrant, and utilizes a sound that invokes acts like Depressive Silence, Mortiis, and Solanum. Mirthquell remembers a time when dungeon synth was solemn and fully steeped in mystery, and this mood resonates in a release that is dour in its appearance yet is entirely excited for the possibilities that could lay ahead. Mirthquell channels two realms of time by not only harkening back to the days of yore with its sound but also making it entirely relevant for 2021.

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Neverwood Records has always been special to me. I remember getting such releases from Chanterelle, A Good Mage Is Hard To Find, and Covered Bridges and thinking that this label was perhaps run by pixies. Following a slight pause in the summer of 2021, the last few months for Neverwood have been magical, with an outpouring of enchanted tapes from Empyrean Woods, Moonboil, and Divinafollia.. Taor Belkor is a Polish artist who is experimenting, with much success, through chip and experimental music. Portal is the first demo for the artist and, oddly enough, sounds like a complete and realized sound. Firmly rooted in the themes of fantasy with both a sense of sadness and optimistic resolve, Portal shows a firm foundation for an artist who has a whole magical realm to experiment on.

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The experience of listening to Battle Chamber is wonderful, as you are first greeted by a low key chip dungeon synth act, which then leads you into the weird world of the Unmapped Zones label. Unmapped Zones is a laboratory of weird and leftfield ambient and experimental and also the place where Battle Chamber hails from. The self titled debut from Battle Chamber is a perfect gateway drug into the rest of Unmapped Zones discography. Much like an Atari adventure game, the self-titled album Battle Chamber is the sound of a computer game being played on a rainy day in between reading comic books. It is both raw and unrefined and still has edges of utter magic. The tape for Battle Chamber comes from the very venerable Moonworshipper Records, which always seems to be hanging around and associated with anything weird coming out. They are in good company as this weird sound is home to me and others who share the same interest.

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I actually do not have time to fully get into crypt hop now as it would take way too long to explain. To be brief, there is a fascinating confederation of horror rap, dungeon synth, phonk, and dark ambient that creeps around the edges of Bandcamp and Soundcloud. DCCCVIII is the work of dungeon synth / black metal artist Elminster, and they have dedicated Spellfire In The Booth to the "fans of dungeon synth, hip hop, Digga D, and Pop Smoke." This bizarre combination may be a surprise to some and a confirmation of a future for others. With both lo-fi hip hop beats and dungeon synth samples, DCCCVIII is evidence in the continual creep of crypt hop into a future where it sits at the table of other horror sounds. For now, enjoy the sounds of the crypt and the chill party that is raging inside that you now have an invitation to enter.

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It was difficult to pick a new release from Vicious Mockery each article, as each time this label drops new releases, there is a batch of wonderful material. If I could make a suggestion, it would be to listen to everything this label has released, as they are always surprising in the direction they take. Grim Father is a US based artist who chooses dungeon synth as a portal to mystical and dangerous lands. Rather than resting on low key ambience, Endless takes an adventurous approach to making music and crafts dynamic lo fi landscapes, which take the listeners to peaks of craggy mountains and to the depths of dark and iridescent caverns. The sound of Grim Father not only incorporates the expected medieval sound of dungeon synth, but often lapses into neoclassical and Berlin School electronics. This tour around the universe includes not only the music but also lengthy descriptions of each of the tracks that makes the experience an immersive, if not oddly abstract, journey. In the tradition of Fen Walker, Scrying Glass, Hole Dweller and other progressive dungeon synth artists, Grim Father takes travel logs in places that may exist outside of this time and space, and these releases are their notations from another world.

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If there is anyone who I think could hold a discussion on esoteric philosophy it would be Maiden Hair. I have discussed this artist in the past due to their phenomenal 2020 split with Portcullis, as well as their 2021 dark ambient / radio drama presentation Ancient Borders. Maiden Hair has always concerned themselves with the strange and supernatural, and the most recent release Trewanmead finds the artist at their most focused. Using sounds of classic dungeon synth, Trewanmead continues the theme or story found in Ancient Borders, which details a mystic wedding between a tree and meadow and ends in the coming of a dark adversary known as "The Terrible." This story of Trewanmead lingers around both present and past releases from the artist and makes the experience of listening to their releases an esoteric investigation where the listener is peicsing together an investigation on the occult.

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Wrought Records have released some stellar material over the past few years including Warm Smial, Redhorn Gate, and Eldritch Wizardry. Ghulin fits into the catalog of Wrought Records in so much as they are another misfit incorporated into a league of misfits. Styled after lo fi chip music, Overlands is the second release from Ghulin and it is catered to a very specific audience. Imagine the sounds from a Nintnedo adventure game on the pause menu, but you are hearing it from another room. If that sort of thing is exciting, then the world of Ghulin and the rainy day ambience of mornings spent inside is going to be for you. The craft and care that comes with doing a project like this is evident, as Ghulin has all the enthusiasm and joy that comes with spending days inside reading strategy guides to get treasure.

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This is perhaps the weirdest thing I found in the last few months. While there exists a plethora of raw noise on the edges of dungeon synth, there were few that were this catchy. With the aesthetics of a punk rock house show and the devotion to lo fi psychedelic nightmares, Hauntefaerie exists outside the sphere of many genres like a specter that floats just out of reach. I have already professed my love for low fidelity and anything weird many times and A Spectral Soiree for the Faeries and Goblins is perfect for the coming Halloween season, where one can dress in a trash bag and run down the street yelling for candy. Hauntefaerie's use of raw synth combined with an upbeat joyful mood makes the release a combination that is both infectious and unnerving. Happy Holidays and feel free to celebrate as long as you like here, as you can be weird all year if you want to.

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Metal’s unsung prestige is its international yield. There’s a wealth of powerhouse nations beyond the Anglosphere. Consider how Scandinavian black metal refers more to a time period than it does one specific location. Sweden -- Gothenburg in particular -- defined melodic death metal. Japan outpaced everyone’s theatrics and speed with visual-kei, and its noise scene ruptures eardrums unlike anywhere else. Germany shrieked to the heavens with power metal, and Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Thailand host some of the hungriest grindcore and screamo acts today. Perhaps the most slept-on region is the Middle East, renowned more for its iconography than its homegrown talent. If I said Egypt, you’d say Powerslave. If I repeated myself, you’d say Nile. Neither of these answers are Egyptian in the vein of how, for example, Orphaned Land are emblematically Middle Eastern. To find a better representation, let’s go back to the 31st century to study the Narmer Palette, an ancient Egyptian relic. The tablet details the first Egyptian king’s reign over a newly unified nation. Blackened death metallers Crescent took this tablet as inspiration for their latest album Carving the Fires of Akhet, released this past July. The album, as much as any of their other records, finds them recalling the past to traverse the unsure future.

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Band members Ismaeel Attallah and Youssef Saleh are ambiguous about details during our email conversation. Like oracles, their answers usually come with trepidation. Most of the time they beget interpretation about the future. One conviction they’re certain about is Crescent’s place in metal. "There is technically no Extreme Metal band in our scene that sounds like us, or really in the global death/black [metal] scene." The originally-Cairo-based group formed in the late 1990s, but didn’t release their own music until 2009’s The Redemption EP. However, their output over the past half a decade eclipses their academic interest in Egyptian mythology, Death, and Dissection by employing Eastern musical scales, modes, and haunting spoken word summonings. There are as many scarabs scuttering about a Crescent track as there are diabolic machinations, gruff textures, and mummified exhalations. That being said, Crescent tampered down the overt Eastern touches on Carving the Fires of Akhet from their earlier albums. This wasn’t a conscious deviation as much as it was a natural expression. Egyptian mythology still permeates Crescent, to the point that it’s their compositional ground zero. "The theme/story/belief/topic or whatever it is comes first; afterwards Ismaeel composes based on how he sees the topic in terms of sound. Without exaggeration, each riff or melody tells a story or plays a certain role in the narrative," they say. References to archeological engravings stand alongside invocations of the Egyptian gods as a means to anthropological analysis. Yet, that’s not what distinguishes Crescent. Mythology is everywhere in metal. There are subgenres whose defining features are their folklore flirtations more than their sonic distinctions. What separates the Egyptian myths Crescent interprets from, say, North mythology, are, in the band’s words, the "character, tone, historical outcomes and social dynamics of the cultures and times." These myths are more than interesting aesthetics. Crescent translate them by treading the common thematic ground between Ancient Egypt and personal reflections. As they put it, "It has to do with divinity, royalty, expansion, evil in the historical/traditional/religious sense, unknown threats, and our inevitable and ultimate demise." If you read that and think that Crescent uses Egyptian iconography as a means to explore modern Egyptian society, the band agrees. "The parallels are inescapable!” Carving the Fires of Akhet’s artwork is a representation of one’s "...struggle to shape the future of one’s self and, consequently, of everything around them.” These reshaping efforts assume new meanings in the context of modern-day Egypt. Crescent weren’t bragging when they said they were the only band in the world that sounded like them. Metal is highly suppressed by the Egyptian government; the Musicians Syndicate controls the country’s music medium. It provides its members guaranteed employment and education so long as the musicians do not disrespect the Syndicate. This has led to the Syndicate suffocating Egypt’s organically-grown popular music scene. The Syndicate’s regulations state, "no person is to work in the musical arts unless they are a working member of the Syndicate." In 2016, the then-Syndicate head Hani Shaker canceled two heavy metal concerts to prevent "Satanic" performances. This isn’t the first time metal has been associated with Satanism in Egypt either. An early 90s state newspaper article drummed up Satanic accusations towards teenagers who wore black and listened to metal, sparking concert shutdowns and government arrests. The stigma against metal came to a head in 1997 when 100 metal fans were arrested and charged with promoting Satanism. There was no evidence any of the teens were advocating for the devil, by the way. Also of note is Egypt’s shaky political footing following a 2013 coup. Mass disappearances and other forms of state violence continue to deter political dissonance, like supporting the toppled President Mohamed Morsi. This follows the deadliest usage of state violence in Egypt, wherein 817 protestors were slain by state officers in August 2013 during the Rabaa massacres. In the band’s eyes, these factors recontextualize Egyptian mythology and heritage. "Egyptians have a habit of reconciling the present with the past, and we are people who reminisce about the past and all its glories… We went through massive changes as a people and we do not know until when and to what extent this will continue. Egyptian mythology deals a lot with the unknown, so you can imagine the connection between the philosophies, principles, and real-life unfolding itself along the parallels of the past." It’s then vital that Crescent are so proud. By their own words, death metal has to exist by shattering mundanity and conformity. "[Extreme] metal conveyed more strong and radical feelings and ideas." If they want to forge a future they have to be radical. Their Egyptian myth and burly blackened death metal alloy teeters towards an unknown future, but it is always evolving. It’s why when asked about the definition of "akhet" (meaning "horizon" or "the place in the sky where the sun rises," according to Wikipedia) they replied: "Our expression of it goes far beyond that, it has a lot to do with the divine will, and the human will to reach certain heights within and without that divine framework." Tellingly, the most important aspect of Egypt to them is "divine justice."

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Carving the Fires of Akhet released July 30th, 2021 via Listenable Records.

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Dark Souls is a franchise perhaps best known for its difficulty—even if people have been able to beat it with steering wheels, it takes a certain type of patience and mastery. It's also got incredibly deep lore that requires some reading between the lines. But beyond all of that, and perhaps sometimes not stated enough, it's just kind of badass. You don't have to read a scrap of flavor text or crack open the wiki to notice it: there's no boring enemies or fodder to fill space, the environments are a stunning take on dark fantasy, and every new boss is weirder and mightier than the last. Even getting killed in these games can be pretty awesome, if infuriating. Illyrian, a Calgary-based thrash metal band, tackles Dark Souls on their new Aegis EP in a markedly more aggressive and up-front way than darker, gloomier musical takes on the game's lore have in the past. Following the story of Gwyn, Lord of Cinders, Aegis is a sword-rattling assault full of spark and fire, mixing thrash metal with melodic death metal to evoke the bizarre extravagance that lies beneath the somber miasma. I'll add that you don't need to know a damn thing about Dark Souls to enjoy the polished, steely riffs here, so stream the EP in full now below before it releases Friday:

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Aegis has a sort of video-game-boss quality to it—fitting, since Gwyn is a boss, and the EP holds its own as would befit the Lord of Cinders. The screamed and occasionally growled vocals have an odd charm to them, full of more eccentric character than menace. Like progressing through phases, each track on Aegis pushes the sound forward, culminating in "Age of Dark Master," a seven-minute closer with absurdly detailed lead work and probably the grimmest mood on the album. With a heavy emphasis on technical skill and preserving momentum, the EP is full of clever surprises: as the band runs their devilish riffs through melodic progressions, they jam in sudden start-stops and unpredictable twists. Interlocked, byzantine segments break up the more straightforward technical thrash parts, and flashy solos are often unexpected highlights, like a brief midpoint bit on "Age of Fire." As much as getting wrecked by an innocuous-looking skeleton is a common happening in Dark Souls, once you've got the hang of that and put in the time, the player becomes the aggressor, hewing through hordes of weird foes with murderous precision. Combining technical skill, lethality, and eccentric charisma, Aegis pays apt tribute to this aspect of its source material, showcasing the fury and deadliness that awaits within. The band comments:

Aegis is a concept EP about the popular video game series, Dark Souls. At a high level, it follows the story of one of the game’s more prolific characters, Gwyn - a being who rises from nothing to godhood, builds civilizations, falls to his hubris and dooms everything, and finally sacrifices himself to stave off total desolation of the world he’s built. Plus the game’s about slaying demons - how could we not write a metal album about it?

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Aegis releases October 15th and can be pre-ordered/pre-saved here.

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The musical output by some of the most prolific bands during this pandemic has been absolutely incredible to watch take shape, especially when some of these musicians do something very different stylistically. Dream Unending is an example of this in particular, being a new project from Derrick Vella (Tomb Mold) and Justin DeTore (Innumerable Forms, many others) that's self-described as “doom metal Postal Service”. Or, to this listener, it sounds like heavy doom with an emphasis on atmosphere and slowly-churned beauty. At times their debut album Tide Turns Eternal feels like funeral doom without completely buying the farm before kicking back to the warm tones evoked by the album cover’s wonderful hues. "The Needful," which we're premiering a visualizer for below, opens in a dreamlike state with guitar riffs seemingly coming in from another plane of existence before DeTore’s vocals enter the fray and begin to erode some of the beauty from the track. It progressively tugs at your heart strings with doom metal riffs, with gothic hints of My Dying Bride and Anathema sprinkled throughout for good measure. The guitar work is incredibly heavy and joyful, yet somber and crestfallen: an excellent dichotomy in sound. Below, find an interview with Derrick Vella where we got down to just what this whole Dream Unending business is all about.

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https://youtu.be/OHFFn0SFM5s

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How have you been during these last 18 months? Derrick Vella: I've been ok, thanks! Mostly invisible, not taking horse dewormer. Grateful to have my health. Dream Unending marks a much different style than on your Tomb Mold records, what was the idea for the different direction? It was sort of organic. We both love doom, goth rock, and Gary Moore. The rest sort of just wrote itself. I think we knew more of what we didn't want to be, and that sort of set the tone. How did Justin and yourself come up with the Dream Unending concept? I'm not even sure we knew the concept until nearing the finish line of writing. A lot of it came out in the recording process. The end result was something warm yet bright, and colourful. Definitely spiritual. I found the less we talked about doom metal and more about everything else we liked, it started to take form. What is behind the color scheme on the album art? You can thank the artist Matthew Jaffe for that. I gave him some reference material but he truly made the cover into something of his own. We nailed down the colours from multiple drafts and honed in on what resonated the most. Those blazing reds/orange and turquoise. We wanted something to match the warmth of the album sound. What was the recording process for Tide Turns Eternal like? Justin tracked his drums with Arthur Rizk in Philadelphia. He tracked them to my garage band demos. We are very pro. Once he was finished, I hitched a ride to Hamilton, Ontario and tracked the guitars and bass with Sean Pearson at Boxcar Sound. We sort of just worked through each song one by one, layering each guitar as we went. I think it took 3 days. Sean is always an absolute joy to work with. Justin and I were never in the same room for it. I haven't seen him since February of 2020. I didn't even know what the drums would sound like until he tracked it. Nice surprise. What bands and/or records inspired the both of you for this project in particular? The first 6 Anathema albums, Disintegration, Victorialand by Cocteau Twins, Pacific Ocean Blue by Dennis Wilson, No Other by Gene Clark, Richie Sambora, Pink Floyd, Bruce Hornsby (That should be obvious), Hats by The Blue Nile (the GOAT). A lot of other ones too. What is "The Needful" about? The needful is about facing your fears and finding the strength to overcome personal adversity. It's a nice little disorienting song. Ends beautifully, sets up what's left to come perfectly. Musically it's a 3 way tribute to Esoteric, Alice in Chains, and Joe Satriani. Is this planned to strictly be a studio project, what more does the future hold for Dream Unending? I imagine we'll be trying to book studio time to make another by the time Tide Turns comes out. One day we'll make it a real band, once someone builds me a lefty double neck 6/12 string guitar or else there is no point in trying to play these songs live. We'd also have to find people willing to put up with Justin and I. I don't know why anyone would ever subject themselves to that. What are you up to besides music these days? Aside from working to keep the lights on, I spend my time annoying my wife and talking to Justin about "Throwing Copper" by LIVE. Always writing songs though. Anything else you would like to add? Support Matthew Jaffe, Jesse Jacobi, 20 Buck Spin, McKenna Rae, Richard Poe, and be kind. Thanks for taking the time to anyone who has listened.

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Tide Turns Eternal releases November 19th via 20 Buck Spin.

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It might be considered a kind of brutalist minimalism: Norna's post-metal-meets-sludge assault boils its acerbic components down to the rusty iron girders that scaffold them, eschewing pretenses in favor of shattering concrete. Though the Swedish/Swiss band's debut album Star Is Way Way Is Eye is a full-bodied onslaught, the noisy and harsh textures that comprise it merge together into an enthralling singularity that leaves a marked silhouette, like a blocky skyscraper lurching into the sky. The sheer scale and might here is hard to fathom at first, but with each painstaking iteration of each colossal riff, the picture grows a little clearer. Listen to the new single "The Perfect Dark" now with our premiere below.

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https://youtu.be/c-x4prMIMaI

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Bulldozing drums and a monstrous low end provide the rumbling, inevitable progression behind "The Perfect Dark," but a jangly guitar line also repeats throughout much of the track: it's a simple melody, but one that seems to trail off, hinting at some unseen entity or occurrence. But forget any potentialities: the throat-shredding screams lay absolute waste to any pretense of harmony here or on the rest of Star Is Way Way Is Eye. About halfway through, the song shifts gears, grinding into a new, more atmospheric segment where things fall into place one by one: drums, melancholy chords, bass, and then the throaty roar of the main guitar assault. Norna emphasizes kinetic impact in their songwriting, making each chunky chord and fill resonate with an electrifying jolt of energy. Neither unnecessarily overwrought, nor inclined to keep things brief, journeying through the intriguing, apocalyptic ruin of Star Is Way Way Is Eye is a harrowing but rewarding trek. The band explains "The Perfect Dark" as follows:

A sonic and lyrical journey in the vast space of light and darkness. A complete reboot of body, mind and soul in absolute silence without any perception of time. We need the perfect dark and the endless light to ascend and the contrast is our journey. In silence we speak, in darkness we truly feel.

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Star Is Way Way Is Eye will release next year via Vinter Records.

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Though the members of In Aphelion are collectively in a variety of successful bands, with both past and present members involved from groups such as Necrophobic, Nifelheim, Black Trip/VOJD and more, they've have never been content to rest on the laurels of a single well-liked band: they have a long history of new projects and collaborations in a variety of styles. Their newest endeavor is a powerful short-length titled Luciferian Age that serves as an early introduction to the group ahead of an upcoming debut album titled Moribund. Backed by a songwriting history that goes all the way back to early demos at the start of the ‘90s, Luciferian Age is bold and well-conceptualized despite the age of the new band itself. Though the material itself is founded on the concepts of classic Swedish-styled black metal that’s been done before, the execution is near-flawless; mesmerizing repetition, catchy vocals, beautiful lead guitar, and big riffs carry the torch through the short playtime of the EP. Two of the three originals from Luciferian Age, including the title track whose video we're premiering below, are also going to be on Moribund and given how strong they are here I have nothing but the highest expectations for it.

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https://youtu.be/uq4xe1FQx-8

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Read the band’s statement on “Luciferian Age” below.

"Luciferian Age" was written in the 11th hour to complement the album. We needed a straight forward, no frills song. The idea was to build the whole song around a killer riff that could carry the message from the start to the end. We were so pleased with this oddball although it sticks out from the album that we decided to release it both as video and title track for the EP.

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Luciferian Age releases November 5th via Edged Circle Productions.

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Swedish Death Metal. Norwegian Black Metal. American Thrash. NWOBHM. These are all metal niches that have been deeply rooted and perfected in each country. Europe and North America lay claim to many of these popular genre localizations, but Hispanic countries, despite fielding a huge amount of influential bands, are oddly missing. Whether political, personal, or civil, any kind of unrest has been a breeding ground for some of the best angry music, and there’s plenty of that to go around in most Hispanic countries (e.g., Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, etc.) Cartels, corrupt presidents, crumbling economies, conservative agendas, and ever-present religion contribute to both the suppression and exaltation of Hispanic metal simultaneously. But as continuous suppression turns into aggression, the result is music as an outlet, a tool, a protest. So, as many of these countries begin to stand on the brink of progressive revolution and metalheads find a way to come out of the woodwork, the presence and rise of metal becomes all the more inevitable. The aforementioned brings us to this point—Hispanic Heritage Month might be over, but heck, it’s always a good time to check out some kick-ass bands that are making metal happen despite societal norms in their respective countries and helping to define an uprising scene. Check out these bands and who knows—maybe in a couple of years, you’ll be that guy that gets to say, “I knew about them before they were big,” and for that, you’re most welcome.

—Karen Espronceda

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Demoniac (Chile) Bless the face of my friend who sent Chilean Demoniac my way after discovering their latest 2021 release, So It Goes. A quick Spotify search later and you’re instantly knee deep in a storm of unadulterated thrash, but it doesn’t stop there. Sure, we all collectively went banana sandwich after Rivers of Nihil gave us what we’ve all been missing—saxophone in our metal. But what about the clarinet?! After 3 previous releases via various international labels, the band has finally hit their mark by incorporating experimental elements in their songwriting, among them a spooky scary piano intro and an unforgiving soul-seduction via clarinet in the third track "Extraviado". The track, nestled in the middle of the album, lends an oasis of instrumental jazz serenity that’s immediately followed up by more unrelenting thrash. That’s not all, though: the final 20 minute minute title track "So It Goes" weaves the clarinet amidst the riffs, somehow finding its place amongst the chaos. This band is just getting started and with their recent jump onto Edged Circle Records, they’re bound to keep making some album of the year lists.

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Question (Mexico) If there was a band I had to immediately choose to include in this article, it’s Question. After a six year hiatus, the band has returned with the 2020 release of Reflections of the Void which is an adventure offering technical death metal for the soul. This Mexican quintet offers a sound akin to a mashup of Gorguts, Death, and Suffocation, and geez, I think I just named the perfect child. There’s something to appreciate about an album that thoughtfully sends you on a journey—and that’s exactly what this album feels like. There are waves of melodic respite in their riffs but without ever sacrificing heaviness: that’s still brought to the forefront with thrash inspired drums and a classic take on death metal vocals. As the album progresses, Question offers palette cleansers of short, instrumental interludes in “Sunyata” and “Mysteries (About Life & Death)” that rope in the chaos that precedes and follows. In a nutshell, if you’re down with riffs, you’re down with Question, and if you’re not going to take it from me, take it from Mr. "Gojira Blume" on Bandcamp who so expertly writes: “Rich, dense and full of turns. Like a bowl of spaghetti. Metal spaghetti.” Their album has yet to be released on any major streaming platforms yet, so be sure to show your support via Bandcamp or YouTube.

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Majestic Downfall (Mexico) With thrash and death metal already accounted for in this list, featuring a solid doom metal band seems only natural. The answer to this is Majestic Downfall, another Mexican duo feeding off of bands like Forgotten Tomb and Shining for inspiration. After several releases as a one man project, the band has found their sound on their latest 2021 release, Aorta. The 19-minute introductory song "Roberta" goes on a journey complete with slow, suffocating riffs that are intertwined with pockets of epic and uplifting melodies. This is death doom taken off course and into the beyond, and the opening track quickly provides an insight into their sound. Slow and sluggish riffs, melodic tremolo picking to send your heart soaring, and the gloomy ambiance to match.

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I completely missed Cherokee's early material, so the band effectively came out of nowhere for me this year. It’s a pleasant surprise in the best of ways, with the German rockers' upcoming debut album Blood & Gold (out November 19th in full) representing some of the best hard rock that I’ve heard in years. Feel-good dual leads, 1970s rocking bliss, and an extremely cool vocalist all melt together with blues and a surprising Western aesthetic (not something I’ve seen from a German band, personally!) to pull together an album that’s as pleasantly grooving as it is gorgeous and compelling. Not satisfied to write cool music alone, Cherokee also have loftier ambitions and Blood & Gold is special and ambitious in every sense of the word: it’s a 15 song double album, and it’s here (soon) to rock you to hell and back. Today, we're premiering the official music video for album opener "Bill Pullman." Catchy leads, driving rhythms, and a mesmerizing vocal assault come together to make it clear that Cherokee know exactly how to kickstart an album, and the band's eccentric (almost an understatement) charm makes the video hard to forget as well.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA3J7GNplpU

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The band comments:

This song is meant to cheer people up. At times everyone has a minor or major downer, struggling to find one's own self and strength again. We believe in you, you'll rise again. To all the others already having a great time: just go with the flow and enjoy the riffs.

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Blood & Gold releases November 19th via Dying Victims Productions.

[caption id="attachment_74600" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Photo Credit: Jimmy Monack[/caption]

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By simply witnessing the sonic power and his grip-tight command of ear-shattering guitar riffs, plenty of wrong assumptions could be made about hardcore’s most commanding presence, Steve Von Till, singer/guitarist of the legendary Neurosis. Yet, the master of grit, grind, and grace manages to look back at over thirty years in the music industry with humble appreciation because of a very simple notion; he never forgot his roots.

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“Steve was always the coolest of guys,” says Mark Tippin, who connected with Von Till through the 1980s San Francisco punk scene, when Von Till recorded a four-track demo for his band Anxiety. “He was three-fourths earnest human, one-fourth fucking crazy, and always 100% creative.” That three-fourths earnest human was probably more like 100% with “crazy” as a bonus, as he has managed to keep his humility and gentle nature from the time of community shows at Berkeley, California’s famed Gilman Street club to the biggest rock festivals in the world. So, the question becomes how someone of Von Till’s stature in the hardcore community never burned-out and managed to be successful in his personal life in a way that would equal his creative life. The answer seems to always be in the question. Why does one lead a creative life in the first place? If stardom or riches is the answer, he and his bandmates might just offer blank stares. It also involved making a brave choice.

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[caption id="attachment_74601" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Photo Credit: Jimmy Monack[/caption]

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“I kind of won the lottery on both of my jobs,” says Von Till about music as well as his work as a fourth-grade teacher in northern Idaho. With the decision he and his bandmates made to take steady jobs, they didn’t so much as walk away from an artistic life but create insurance for it. Answering to no one financially, Von Till will make the music he wants. Full stop. “It wasn’t premeditated. It just evolved,” he says. But the fact remains that the story of Neurosis and Von Till’s solo work are the product of freedom. After so many years, most musicians either call it “quits” or carry on until there is no choice. But he was never going to find himself in a position where expectations from either fans or a record company would dictate his output. Can Lynyrd Skynyrd get off stage without playing “Free Bird?” Von Till has no such tether. Consider his latest contribution entitled A Deep Voiceless Wilderness. The product of jetlag on a trip to Germany, Von Till cranked out sonorous tones and then matched them with words from his daily routine of reading and writing poetry. (In fact, he admits to having a journal tucked under the desk in his elementary school classroom for when an inspiration might arrive). The result is a beautiful tableau that contains not one guitar. That’s right, there is no guitar on this record, and it is outrageously entrancing. With certainty, he states, “The most inspiring thing… is always the next thing.” Again, not a “Free Bird” in sight.

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That unencumbered stimulus is the product of his decision to take steady work, but also a work ethic that was forged as a teenager in a community of artists who were committed to art for art’s sake. “Commerce” was probably a word they couldn’t pronounce at the time. “It was such a unique community of doers and makers and supporters. Everybody had a part,” he says. “What I walk away from is an eternal sense of gratitude. I had the opportunity to grow up with punk rock and it allowed me to become who I am.” Surely there are younger musicians who would love to find some key to becoming a pivotal figure like Steve Von Till, but he is a rather taciturn fellow. The most he can offer is, “Give everything. Expect nothing. If it pays for itself… there you go.”

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[caption id="attachment_74602" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Photo Credit: Jimmy Monack[/caption]

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Stoner rock and blues have a long history together, but it's rare that the combination truly hits home. I drove around with Radio Moscow's self-titled CD in my car for the entirety of college and never wore it out, but if I'm being honest, few records in the decade or so since then have connected as deeply. Albums that manage to capture the heart and soul of the blues but also bring their own loud, heavy magic to the proceedings are uncommon—but, as it happens, not extinct. Chicago-based Canyyn is set to release their self-titled debut at the end of October, and the new album is a powerful reminder that rock has never actually lost its soul. As fervent disciples of heavy metal and jam bands alike, Canyyn brings heavy tones and primeval, proto-metal-like riffing along with expansive bluesy rock, all anchored by weighty emotional subjects to drag you all the way down. Wade into "In Deep Water" now with our premiere, and check out an interview with the band as well.

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Now, stoner rock indulging in blues and heavy metal at the same time isn't a new concept, but it's usually not this seamless: where the heavy metal on Canyyn ends and the heartfelt blues begins is hard to say, because both imbue the other. Drawn-out, minimalist licks hit with the impact of fully-revved-up amplifiers and pounding drums, while even the quickest, meanest riff on the album comes wrapped in warm tones that eagerly invite repeated listens. None of this works without a band strong enough to make it work, and Canyyn, a power trio, has no weak link in sight. Bassist Dan Rovak's passionate lyrical delivery, tinged with a hint of grit, sells the album's messages of struggle, strife, and a need for change, while his bass lines drive the rhythm and accentuate guitarist Mike Fetzer's melodic work. Fetzer's emotional solos are captivating all on their own, often holding their own for large stretches of songs, but he's never lacking for a big riff when needed. Daniel Schergen ties it all together with relentlessly in-the-pocket drumming and strategic, dynamic fills. There's never a moment on Canyyn where too little or too much is going on: the three-piece's chemistry has been honed and refined into one of their strongest assets. A stark injection of reality also tips the scales in the album's favor: though the artwork and band aesthetic are imaginative, the band's songs focus on the all-too-real pains of existence, which is much harder to pull off convincingly. That might be one reason why it all hits so hard; Canyyn taps into the darker moments and thoughts that plague us. Not just lyrically: in between the verses on "Wages of Sin" (which you'll have to wait a little longer to hear this album's version of), we feel the narrator's all-too-real dismay intensely, and on "In Deep Water," the rising tide is a real threat. Heavy in sound and spirit, Canyyn's stoner rock is authentic and immersive; the type of music you'll carry around for a long time. Below, read an interview with Mike Fetzer and Dan Rovak—we discuss the band and album's creation, their thoughts on live albums, and more.

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Canyyn, you guys are from the Chicago area, a city with a pretty large scene for heavy music. How did you guys find each other and get started as a band? Mike Fetzer: Me and Dan Rovak have been playing together for ten years, almost, I want to say—maybe 8 would be the real thing. We were in a band called Tusken before, he played with my buddy Pete who's a real good drummer, he's in a black metal band, a black/grind band called Gaunt now, they're excellent. So, me, Pete, and Dan had started a band called Tusken which was supposed to be like a sludge metal band when I was real into Mastodon and all that. It ended up not working out and me and Dan moved on and started Canyyn with this guy Eric, who's no longer in the band—our first drummer. That was about two years before we kicked him out and went on a break for like eight months. Then we came back and we were looking for drummers, and we got Dan Schergen who I used to work at Guitar Center with back in the day. We brought him into our tryout and he just, like, nailed it. So that's how we ended up this current iteration, I guess, but yeah me and Dan Rovak have been playing music together for a while. We've talked in the past and I've seen a couple of your shows -- previously you'd described Canyyn, roughly, as "Allman Brothers meets Black Sabbath" -- still kinda weirdly accurate, but to refine on that, what kind of sound are you aiming to create with Canyyn and is that your vision, the band's, how you ended up jamming together, or what? Dan Rovak: It is interesting, and actually I think it's something that as a band we are kind of still navigating a little bit. For the most part, I feel like when we started we knew we kind of wanted to do like doom, stoner rock type things. Fetzer: I feel like we went into Canyyn, after the failure of Tusken, the sludge metal and being more complex, we went into this with the aim of like doing more of a stripped-down rock and roll type thing to simplify the process and get tight faster instead of trying to play crazy hard music. Just to play something a little bit more toned-back in terms of speed and time signatures and stuff. We were really into Kyuss, Earthless... Rovak: It's been cool, because I guess we all came from some different musical influences. The three of us all bond over Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers and stuff, but you have Mike who in high school was super into prog, and for me I was super into garage rock, and just kind of like smashing it all together -- it's just like, rock and roll, man. I feel like as we're moving forward, especially now that we have Dan as the drummer, really is influential in the way we're kind of progressing. Fetzer: Yeah, he has like a songwriting background too, so when we added that element to the band, he really makes an impact on songwriting and understands it and plays to everybody's strengths. Some of the sound has even become like, like, we have some newer songs post this LP that are a little bit even more refined than like what you've heard. But I think in general we wanted to take this approach with the sound where it's like approachable rock and roll that has the stoner/doom thing but also, we all love jam bands, so like having improvisation there in certain sections, the ability to kind of go off into space and do some of the stuff that Hawkwind did but in a more like Jimi Hendrix/Black Sabbath vein, where it's more formed and not just... I love Hawkwind but it's all Pink Floyd's first record for two hours, you know? So trying to find that balance between the more expansive, bluesy jam structure and actually getting out there and riffing. I think you guys hit that on this album. When you're writing songs, do you feel like you have to consciously steer things in one direction or the other, or do you think you just kind of found that balance between the two sides? Fetzer: I think it's a little bit of both, probably. I feel like since Dan Schergen joined the band, three of the songs were done, and we have like since revised them and shaped them a little more. But "Bring Me Down", "Crush Your Bones" and Through The Leaves were the first Canyyn songs. JTB -- it's not called JTB, it's called, uh, "In Deep Water" -- you know, inside band practice names for songs -- was written partially before Dan was in the band and partially after. "Wages of Sin" was written totally with Dan in the band. We struggled for a while with what our sound was gonna be when Dan came into the band as ideas started flexing back and forth. We probably went for like a year where we had written a lot of stuff -- a lot of riffs, a lot of little concepts, just trying to figure out how we worked together. At some point, things just start like clicking and you figure out how you're gonna do like some of these jam things where you can take it out and really, really, write some stuff. On the newer stuff that you'll hear at some time, obviously this is very new right now, but you're gonna start to hear stuff like The Sword coming in, with songwriting influence, where we can really have like ten riffs stacked on top of each other and drop into a jam session after that. I think it took a lot of work of both natural jamming and writing and figuring out what we are, and actual, methodical "Okay, this doesn't work. This doesn't work. This doesn't work. These are the things, this is where we're falling." Speaking of In Deep Water, that's the song we're premiering along with this interview. Could you tell me about the meaning of that song? Fetzer: This song is mostly centered around my previous cocaine use. That's straight up what the song is about; I've been in recovery for like three and a half years, that was the breaks that the band took between drummers. The song is mostly just about addiction, and being stuck inside those walls, and what it feels like. The song is actually written sorta on it, musically, and then the lyrics were written after I had gone to rehab. It's interesting, from that perspective. Are there any other songs on the record that had a significant meaning or that stand out? Fetzer: "Wages of Sin" is about things along similar lines, I think - that's more about the wake of like, being addicted to a hard drug for nine to ten months before you realize that you're tearing everything apart. Then you realize you're tearing everything apart, and how awful life is now, and how much damage you've actually done, hurting most of the relationships in your life and stuff like that. Those are the two significant lyrical values, to me at least. Rovak: Again, this is something I really appreciate about being in this band. Everyone's contributing. For me, the ones that stand out personally are "Bring Me Down" and "Crush Your Bones" because for me around the time we were writing those songs, I was going through a lot of crazy personal stuff with relationships and this and that, so those songs are actually like kind of toxic love songs, in a way. We go back and forth, and if someone has feelings about something, it just kinda happens. That's a big differentiator against a lot of stoner rock. You guys are really staying away from the occult stuff and talking about more tangible, real things. Fetzer: Yeah. It's definitely interesting because I'm a dork, right? In the room we're doing this interview from, I've got Warhammer minis all over my desk and like, D&D stuff. I love to sing songs about like Excalibur and knights and dragons and stuff. Part of me wants to write music about that, but when we actually sit down to really write lyrics, we end up kind of having real things front and center. We may take our lyrical direction towards some of those more fantasy or sci-fi or Tolkien elements, but even if we did I think the lyrics would still be a metaphor for real, normal life challenges and things. That's just kind of where we end up as songwriters. Rovak: I think you could even say that "Through The Leaves" kind of starts to take more of that direction, the thematic layout of that song lyrically, but again I think in the same way that somebody could listen to "In Deep Water" and not necessarily recognize right away what it's about, there always is an underneath message and purpose behind what the lyrics are. Fetzer: Yeah, absolutely. Going back to Wages of Sin, you also released a version of that on your Live at DZ Records live-session EP back in 2019. I noticed the version here is a different length - were there any changes you made to that? Fetzer: [Laughs] So, the guy who recorded that actually said something to us: he was like "That song's kinda long." And I remember I had some snarky fuckin' response to him like, uh, "Blues songs are always long, have you looked into Albert King?" or something like that. And then, as we were preparing for the record, we were all sitting there like, you know what? This song is kind of long [Laughs]. So we just took a verse out of it, a vocal verse, you know? It's a slow, twelve-eight blues, or six-four blues, or whatever you want to call it—I think it's a six-four, actually—but because of what that is, every verse is almost two minutes of length, or a minute and a half, so we were just like with two guitar solo verses and three vocal verses, that's enough, with the bridge and the ending. We don't need an eleven-minute blues song. Don't we? Fetzer: Well, you come to the live show, maybe it'll be 45 minutes.

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That was my next question - when you're playing these live, how tightly do you stick to the structure, what level of improvisation is there? Fetzer: There's a lot live, usually. Sometimes we'll decide to take stuff out a little longer. Usually not blues songs, because it's a more traditional structure, yeah, maybe once in a while, but usually it'll be "Bring Me Down" or "Through The Leaves" we'll decide to really dig in on a section in the jam and just kind of take it out. We've started playing to clicks and stuff, so we will be rehearsing some of that stuff to clicks. I don't think we're gonna play it live to clicks, just to leave that improvisation element, but we've just found that our tempo variance and everything is like—playing with click tracks, you just end up so much tighter, it's ridiculous. So yeah, there'll be quite a bit of improvisation and I think that if you guys come to the release show, you'll see. We've got some weird improv stuff planned for sure, so it should be a good time. Dan, do you get to improvise too or is it all Mike? Rovak: [Laughs] Yeah. I feel like when we really start digging into those sections, especially when it's like, some of what we do is kind of like structured improv, and then there's things that end up like completely pure improv. So when that's going it's just all of us kinda going for it, but we follow each other, you know? Fetzer: Yeah, and I think everyone brings like a different layer of that improv to the band. Depending on the directions we take things in, we'll kind of like end up in different places. It's cool because I listen to Dan and Dan; without the Dans, there is no three-minute guitar solo, or whatever I'm doing. I tend to think those things, actually, as I get older, unless your rhythm section is very interesting, those things get very boring to play and listen to, once you're not 20 years old anymore. There is that element of, if they're not continuing to drive rhythmically an evolution, there is stagnation in the jam. I think they're just as important as I am to improvisation myself, if not more important. You guys recorded your debut LP here in Chicago at Bricktop Recording. What made you pick Bricktop, and how did you track the album? Fetzer: This is gonna be an expansive question. I hit up my buddy Paul Aluculesei who graduated from Columbia for production a while back. When I was at High School, Paul and my buddy Alex were playing in this prog band Fathoms, and they were so good at playing prog metal. They ripped, they were nuts, especially for like 17-18 year olds, they were incredible, opening for Periphery and Abstract. Paul ended up working at Lab IV for a while before that shut down. When we got to this, I'd done production and been playing, never like super-super seriously, but I'm decent. I didn't wanna do this record, I didn't want the responsibility, I didn't want to struggle with it, so I hit up Paul because Paul did the most recent Warforged record, he did the drums on it. I knew I couldn't get the drum quality that Paul could get, so initially it was like a drums conversation: "Hey dude, could you do the drums for this record?" and then it turned into "Hey, let's do the whole thing" because it would just benefit from it all around. The drum sound makes your record, so I wasn't really willing to compromise on that. So, we hit up Paul and we spent about a year in pre-production, metronoming stuff up, tightening the song structures down. Some things like Blues Song—uh, which is "Wages of Sin" I guess, but not Blues Song, it'd be more like "Through The Leaves" and "Bring Me Down," which had like lengthier structures that were less put together at the time. So we ended up nailing those down, and the tempo transitions, where they're at and everything. Paul was looking at multiple studios, but he had a connection with Pete Grossman, so he said "Hey, let's go to Bricktop, we'll get this price on it and pay this." We took two days, we spent 14 hours a day, basically a Friday and a Saturday, or a Saturday and a Sunday maybe, and we recorded the whole thing. First thing we did was we live tracked every song. All the solos except one are from the live tracks, initially. I think it's "In Deep Water", that's the only one I ended up doing over. All the bass tracks are from the live band session, and at least one rhythm track for guitar, unless I really screwed up, which was only like once or twice, was from a live section. There's an additional rhythm guitar overdub and sometimes a third overdub when I was trying to do the Sleep thing and I used the Orange amp with the Matamp circuit. So, like, on "In Deep Water", "Wages of Sin", "Bring Me Down"—"In Deep Water" has it the whole time. We have a third guitar track with that Orange on it to add some extra fuzz and heaviness. Then Dan did vocal overdubs, I think there's drum overdubs just on "Wages of Sin", and that was pretty much it. We did the vocal overdubs, I went and did backing after Dan did his main vocals. The first day was all live tracking, and all the big solos—everything you're gonna hear from "Bring Me Down" and "Through The Leaves," the long ones. Those were all done live in the studio with the band just playing. Everything except Wages of Sin, those are going to be those drum tracks as well, and all the bass tracks. So it gave us kind of a live feel, which is really cool and I think really important to, especially, how these songs on this record sound, but it also allowed us to get like the tightness of a studio and really hammer things out. Rovak: I definitely think it's important for us, and maybe we weren't conscious of it during this initial record, but maintaining that live element is important for Canyyn because before this record, basically the goal was just play, play, play, play. That's really what helped us create how we sound and really helped us build everything, so that's just an element—it's just part of who we are, what our sound came out to be. Fetzer: Yeah, absolutely. So you guys right now, you're a power trio. How do you tell your Dans apart? Fetzer: [Laughs] It ends up being like, last names, for me, and I'm the only one that has to differentiate. The Dans refer to each other as Dan. It's clear who's talking. But I end up deferring to last names usually when I'm talking to both of them in a situation. There's not eye contact made or something like that. Rovak: If I'm not mistaken, I feel like usually when we're introducing ourselves in person, Dan Schergen will opt for Daniel. So I'm Dan, and he's Daniel. Nice. Follow up question, do you have any thoughts on expanding the lineup or is this where you want to sit? Fetzer: I think the biggest thing is that a three-piece is really easy to work with. Less band members is less bullshit, man. It really, really is. And the three-piece thing, I love it, you know, I love Jimi Hendrix and like Rush and all that, so I've always thought a three piece itself was cool. And Sleep is a three piece, you know. It's very possible to have a big sound as a three piece: Earthless is a three piece. We have talked about it, and it is like an interesting direction—it would have to be the right person is what it comes down to, and it would be for certain reasons. I tend to lean more toward we would get a keyboard player, in some aspects, or we would get a rhythm guitarist that could also play leads so we could do like some Thin Lizzy style harmonies. We all love Thin Lizzy, and the Sword, and that kind of stuff. Even the Allman Brothers, all that guitar harmony stuff is really cool. Whoever we add will have to be able to stay pretty toe-to-toe with me, melody wise. There's been talk about Dan's original guitar player, who plays bass, we've talked about, well if it's the right bass player, we could bring a bass player in and have Dan play guitar with me. I think it comes down to the right person. That's the most important thing in that scenario. We don't want to add nonsense to something that's ready and firing on all cylinders. Rovak: It also depends on where we end up. I feel like where we're sitting in this particular moment, nothing is calling for it, but as we keep writing, as we keep developing, who knows? Mike, when we talked before this interview, you mentioned that I should listen to the Allman Brothers Band's At Fillmore East, and I did, and it's good. What do you think makes these classic live albums so great and do you think that there's opportunities for those to be good in modern day versus a studio recording? Fetzer: Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big proponent, I love live music. I think some bands are live bands and I think your live performance is a lot of things, especially in rock and roll, and I think it was a lot of things back in the day. Even in this like stoner/doom genre we play, you're still not experiencing the band, in a lot of situations, just by listening to their record on the stereo. There's magic, especially with improvisation and stuff like you get on that Allman Brothers recorRovak: the crowd, the band, just being on stage together and there's some type of thing that happens when a band is tight where you can just go through these sonic walls. You can really hear it on that Allman Brothers record. If you've ever seen Sleep when they're really on, I think they have that kind of thing too. It even sounds a little Allman Brothers-y at times, when Matt Pike would be rolling up his guitar knob or something like that. But there's a thing about live music, and I think live records can be done well, and I think they should be, you know? My favorite Thin Lizzy record is Live and Dangerous, even though some of that record's not live [laughs]. Regardless, you hit these transcendent moments—when you're playing in a studio, your goals are different. Playing live, I'm more like to explore and expand and be myself as a guitar player on stage, and we're more likely to be us versus -- not to say that the album is a product, but a more product-y version of your songs that are really reeled in and controlled and made to be consumed. Especially in the digital age, I think it's important. Rovak: To add to that, thinking about live recordings, there's something like—I'll never sell anyone short, it takes work to go in the studio and make a record no matter what. But even for me, I can listen to a record and I can really love it and know that it's super good, but when you see a live show that is so tight, and the live show is good, that's what makes your jaw drop. Fetzer: Live recordings are still a viable thing. I think the modern age, we maybe don't see it as much up front, especially in like more mainstream pop music, it's kind of gotten away from that a lot and everything is about the big production stage show. This is partially probably Pink Floyd and Roger Waters' fault—don't get me wrong, I play music to some degree because of Pink Floyd, I love Pink Floyd, but The Wall is kind of the beginning of that kind of thing where we have moved away from it being about the band and the music and more about the giant stage show. I don't know, man, I'm going to see the Grateful Dead on Saturday and they're still, I guess it's Dead & Company, but like, never in my life did I think I'd enjoy John Mayer, but the last time I saw them they were incredible. I've never a band just play music like that before. Are we going to get a live record for Canyyn any time soon? Fetzer: Well, we're talking about filming the release show if we can find someone to do it reasonably. That venue has really good sound, so if we can get a decent stereo mix off that board or even a multi-track mix, I may be able to do some things with that and get it out. But yeah, as long as we keep going, there will be a live record from us at some point.

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Canyyn releases October 30th and can be preordered via the band's Bandcamp page.

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For nearly 20 years, if you ever attended a concert performed by Norwegian progressive black/viking metallers Enslaved, then you probably witnessed a long-haired, fairly ripped, and shirtless (or at least sleeveless) man wailing away on a guitar. He's the key musical figure of the group, providing most of the guitar solos and the type of lead guitarist showmanship that links the band to the rock god heritage of Jimmy Page and yet also has the stone-cold, ethereal cool of a David Gilmour. That figure, standing like a Nordic god of ice and riffs, is the one and only Arve “Ice Dale” Isdal. Isdal, born in 1977, made his first mark in the metal world by joining industrial black metallers Malignant Eternal in 1998 where he eventually performed on the group’s last album 1999’s Alarm (and he still plays with the group since they reunited in 2017). His big break came simultaneously in 2002 when he helped found hard rock act Audrey Horne, and, more significantly for metalheads, replaced Enslaved’s Roy Kronheim on lead guitar. He left an immediate mark on the band, helping make mid-period Enslaved records like Below the Lights and Isa absolute classics, but he’s continued in the group to this day where he’s now the longest-serving member of Enslaved besides its two founders, Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson. That hardly completes all of Isdal’s resume, however, as he’s contributed to numerous acts including Demonaz, I, Ov Hell, God Seed, Paul DiAnno and even more along with numerous production and engineer credits on albums across the Norwegian metal scene. Some might feel this is plenty enough musical outlets for one person, but recently Isdal forged a brand new venture, this time with drummer Ivar Thormodsæter of Ulver along with cellist Matias Monsen. That project is Drott, an eclectic mix-up and curation of various forms of music—metal, progressive rock, post-rock, electronica, jazz, classical, ambient, folk music, and more—into a witch’s brew that goes down smoother than one might expect given the group’s lack of boundaries. It’s an essentially entirely instrumental performance where the only vocals that show up have no lyrical content, so instead press materials describe a story of a hero’s journey of a particular character, named after the group, traversing the underworld to encounter its lord, the purifier of souls Orcus, which gives the band's full-length debut its title. Reading the narrative does help turn the varied performance of the album into a convincing score for an imagined film. I might be suggesting that too strongly after listening to this album in full the first time immediately after seeing the recent film “The Green Knight,” another atmospheric hero’s journey, but regardless I think others will feel the same impression even without that cinematic thought put in their head A few days after listening, I called in across the Atlantic and chatted with Isdal himself. We talked about how the creation and construction of Drott came about, what plans there might be for it in the future, plus the attempts to make plans in the future while keeping COVID in mind, and the finer points of non-rainy days in Bergen. I did mention my mental note for “The Green Knight” connection as well, and while I guess it's not available in Norway yet, Isdal seemed certainly interested in catching it when possible. How long have you known your bandmates in Drott, Ivar Thormodsæter and Matias Monsen? Well me and Ivar go way back actually, because we studied music together in a school like, I don't know, 25 years ago or something. Yeah, that's a long time. Yeah, so we started to play a lot together back then actually. The funny thing is that after I think two or three years that we knew each other and started hanging out my father actually found out that we are related. Oh, wow. So cousins in some way? Not cousins, what's called the next step? Like a second cousin? Yeah. Second Cousin, I guess. So you'd have maybe the same great-grandparents? Yeah, well actually I’m like a step behind. So Ivar and my father are like second cousins. So Ivar's son and I are the next step again, I think. Gotcha. That's interesting. So with Matthias, have you known him for a long while as well? No, I think it’s been like, six or seven years probably. I'm teaching part time when I'm not on tour at a sort of music production school. So that's actually where I met him as he started to work there as well and we started to hang out. So we actually have been talking about starting this band for almost five years now. Oh wow. So I was gonna ask what finally brought you guys together but that seems to answer that, somewhat. The press release mentioned you started last year so I’d assumed COVID had something to do with it. [chuckle] Well, not really, because we talked about starting this band a long time ago, but both Ivar and I have been touring a lot and really busy with other bands. So it was kind of difficult to meet to practice or get started. So actually, I think, my New Year's Eve resolution in 2019 was that, “okay, this year we're gonna get started with the band.” We almost made it because we talked about release, or rehearsing during the Christmas holidays, because then everybody had time, but then Ivar got sick. So we started actually in January 2020, so it was a little bit before the COVID or at least before it blew up in Europe. Do you think if the lack of touring and the opening of your schedule, if that hadn't happened would the project have still been on the same trajectory it's had up to now? Yeah, I think so because when we first got started we didn't know what kind of music we were gonna play or anything. We just kind of started to play together and we recorded every rehearsal. We’d just jam for like, I don't know, 10 rehearsals or something, though we have some long sessions. I mean for a couple of days I think we just played for 15 hours. So when we listened back to it we found out we had a lot of good ideas and sketches for songs. Most of the material on the EP and also on the album was kind of made from those jam sessions. When we first started recording it went pretty fast because we play a lot of it live and then do some overdubs and work on the arrangements after. Were the sessions that resulted in the EP and the full length very separate or did they all bleed into each other? They kind of bled into each other because it was all recorded like in two sessions, and on the first session we also recorded some of the songs on the full length album. When we talked to the record label, By Norse, we agreed it would make sense to just release an EP first to kind of get started and then work a bit more on the album, add some songs that we kind of needed to make it have a better flow. So yeah, there could easily have been some songs on the album that could have been on the EP instead and the other way around. The music is very interesting and wasn't exactly what I expected at first but it's definitely got its hooks in me after giving it a couple of listens. It's definitely got like, progressive rock and some dark folk to its sound but if you look at the press release it mentions a bunch of different things. How would you characterize the music that you guys made? [chuckle] I don't know, to be honest. I mean it's like you say a mixture of a lot of stuff. I think a lot of it has to do with the different backgrounds we have. I mean even though I play mostly metal, hard rock, and progressives kinds of music I have always liked a lot of other music like jazz, folk music and other things. Ivar has played a lot of jazz music along with a lot of hip-hop stuff and pop. While Matias has played a lot of classical music. I think then we haven't really thought too much about what to incorporate. We just have kind of one room where if someone has an idea, and you’re not allowed to say no to it, you just have to follow the idea. See where it goes and what comes out of it. But I don't know how to describe it [laughs]. It's a mixture of a lot of things. Just a lot of music. It's definitely different. For as much as Enslaved definitely has certain elements of progressive rock and some darker folk it feels very different from that and certainly compared to Audrey Horne. So do you feel this is a very different outlet for you creatively compared to those two bands? Yeah, absolutely. Also the fact that a lot of this music with Drott is purely instrumental. Was that a conscious decision that you guys didn't want to have much vocals? I mean except for like one part, I don't think on the album there's any vocals really. Well there are some vocals on four tracks, but they're subtle.

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https://youtu.be/zZ6v8iMXXdQ

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Yeah, I’m not expecting it's all that long of a lyric sheet. No, no. Probably no lyrics at all or at least none you can't sing along to. I think it was just because in the beginning we felt we had really good communication musically and the atmosphere when we played together was great. So we didn't want to bring in another person yet to say fuck things up or potentially make it more difficult to rehearse. So that's why I guess.Some of the vocals were kind of by accident almost because the girl that sings was actually a student of mine and Matias at the school. She was just dropping by the studio one day when we worked on the album and to have a coffee. She was sitting on the couch while we worked on a song and she started humming. We were like, "hmm, this sounds cool. Can you please sing it into the microphone?" and so it just happened like that. We haven't decided where to go next in terms of that. I mean we could bring in more vocals and that would be interesting as well, of course. I mean, those are always fascinating stories where, well I guess the right word in English is serendipity, where something totally unexpected but very pleasant happens. Yeah, it's been like that with this band because we haven't really planned too much like "okay, now I'm gonna do this and that." We just go with it. If something comes up, an idea or whatever, like I said, you just follow it and see what happens. So that's very different from how I work with Enslaved and Audrey Horne, for example, even though Enslaved have had some instrumental songs over the years as well. I think they're more like written out. Yeah, rather than improvisational. Yeah. It certainly has a very soundtrack-like quality to it, like, “oh, this would go really well with a movie.” On that note the press materials basically provide a narrative where each song is a different chapter in the story being told. That narrative being Drott, the band as the character, descending into the underworld to meet Orcus, the Lord of the realm. Conceptually how did you guys come about this story especially since from what you said earlier the music kind of came organically first?strong> Yeah, I think at least some of the songs came first because the last song “Orcus” was kind of one of the first songs we made. Also, I think the sketch name for us was like, well translated to English would be like the axis of evil or something [chuckle]. The drummer thought that up because he thought he was so evil or had this scary feeling. So then we thought let's make a concept out of that one, and then we had some other songs that kind of fit into it. And then we actually made some more to complete this journey or travel to the underworld. So I think actually, the “Psychopomp” was probably the last song that we made for the album but for the journey itself that's a pretty important song. Well, a lot of the titles used for the songs come from Greek and Roman myth along with Jungian and psychoanalytic studies. Was that very much intentional in wanting to try something very much in mythology but at the same time very Jungian and related to the human mind? Yeah, absolutely. When we first started digging into the concept and what we wanted to achieve or describe, that actually kind of came pretty fast and started to all make sense. It starts with you lowered down into somewhere on the first song and then you go into a maze or labyrinth. Then you come out and a kind of journey starts with the “Katabasis”, which describes a hero's journey to the underworld and coming back. So we kind of build it around that and after there you travel by the sea with the Psychopomp to the other side, a kind of quiet place before we get dragged into the most scary part of the journey with the murderers and stuff. It was fun and kind of a new experience to work like that, even though Enslaved has a lot of concept centered albums, which kind of is the same but maybe a little bit different than them since you don't have the lyrics to back it up. So we’ll have to use pictures and catch the atmosphere with the songs. Well, another thing too with Enslaved is how they use the Norse and Viking mythology as a route to look at psychological ideas whereas in Drott you’re working with very much Greco-Roman terminology. Yeah, actually at one point we were like, "are we using it too much?" [laughs] That wasn't intentional to just have like Greek and Roman but at the same time we didn't we didn't want the Norse stuff to be too obvious at least. For me it wouldn't be interesting since we already have been doing that with Enslaved. For sure. Since the Greco-Roman myths are the ones certainly Jung used the most, the Drott album’s narrative definitely feels very close to a Jungian psychological outlook. Another aspect from reading the story in the press release is that it's kind of left open ended, with at the end Drott meets Orcus and I’m like, "Okay, well, what happens next?" [laughs] I mean, I suppose the idea of what happens next could be the next album or you want it to be open ended so your audience has to use their own imagination? Yep. I don't know what to say. We've talked about that and we’ll just have to see what comes next. Fair enough. The world is still trying to figure out how to deal with COVID, so that's a big unknown. With that in mind do you see Drott as a project you would like to play live or something you guys are just going to keep in the studio? No, we definitely want to play live. We were planning to have a release concert for the EP and stuff, but at that time it was impossible. So hopefully this autumn or sometime before next year we can play. That's definitely the current plan. Of course we still need to figure out how to do it [laughs]. If it's just gonna be the three of us, if that makes sense, or if we have to add some instruments and musicians because there's a lot of overdubs on at least some songs. So yeah, I imagine if it's just the three of you, you'd probably have to use electronic samples and things like that. Yeah, I also bought a loop station. So we could use some of that but I don't know yet. Then again, we're a very organic band because everything is played on the album on either the cello or the guitar and we kind of want to keep that as well. So we haven't quite figured out how we're going to do it but probably we want to try first with just the three of us and see how that works. Well I definitely wish you much luck on transitioning Drott to a live setting as I would love to see it. Thank you.

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https://youtu.be/cGOEk5CnarU

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Speaking of the pandemic, one thing that your other band Enslaved accomplished was the cinematic broadcasts, the three concerts you guys did, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching all of them. Some time now removed and now that you’ve recently released them as a collection of live recordings, what do you think about those performances now? I mean, at first it was very strange, because we did the first one kind of right after the lockdown started. I remember I was actually on tour with Audrey Horne in Europe when it all happened. It became impossible to continue so we had to cancel the end of the tour and just go home. Then we were in quarantine for like two weeks or something. So I remember when we planned the video concert they gave us some dates and I was like, "okay, I can only do the last date here because I'm in quarantine,” and we obviously had to practice some before playing. It was all kind of strange at that time. I remember thinking that because everything was so strict, for example at the venue we had to have separate toilets for each band member and we couldn't be near the production team. So it felt pretty strange and even when playing it was weird because between the songs it was dead silence with Grutle just talking to a camera [laughs]. So yeah, it was all very strange. Then we had some time to plan the other performances with the production, camera crew, and everything. So those were quite fun and I think they went really well. I definitely look back at it as something I'm proud of and I'm glad we were able to do that during the difficult time. I think we ended up with something really cool with the releases and hopefully the fans appreciate it as well since we can't come out on tour just yet. It was definitely nice seeing you guys perform some varied sets, including all of the last album Utgard and before that all ofBelow the Lights, which is an all time favorite of mine. The production you had for that performance was quite something in my opinion. I think I actually interviewed Grutle not too long after that and mentioned to him how struck I was not only with the performance but the production work that went into it. Yeah, I think it looks really good. We also had some help for those sets, especially for the Below the Lights set with the Beyond the Gates, as we were supposed to play the whole album that year at the festival. I was actually supposed to attend that festival, so those tickets are now postponed to 2022 where you guys are still performing. With luck I hope it happens this time. I certainly expect that to happen next year. They’re actually doing this week a mini version of Beyond the Gates festival but with local bands along with stricter capacity and other rules. Though next year in Norway it should be possible to have a more traditional festival again. Yeah, hopefully. I'm really looking forward to the sets in Grieghallen and it just sounds amazing with the full line-up. You, Mayhem, and Emperor all performing together on the same day and of course on another day Mercyful Fate and Candlemass are playing. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that so fingers crossed. Yes, exactly. While speaking about Beyond the Gates, that's a very important festival in Bergen. And I think you and all the other guys in general live in the Bergen area. Some of us live in Bergen, but actually none of us, in Enslaved or Audrey Horne, are originally from Bergen. Well maybe a couple of the guys in Audrey Horne are from Bergen. If not, we're from places around. I live in Bergen but I'm originally from an island like two hours away. Grutle is almost from the same place as me but a little bit further. Have you lived in Bergen for long though? Yeah, for like 21 or 22 years, I think. That’s definitely a long time. I've visited Bergen a number of times for music festivals like Beyond the Gates and it's probably one of my favorite cities I've ever visited. Now that's as a tourist and visitor but as someone who's lived there for so long I want to ask what is it about Bergen that really attracts you? Well, it's not the rain to be honest [laughs]. I could use that here [at the time I was living in southern California]. No, Bergen is really beautiful. At least I love it in the summertime. I also like the difference we have between summer and winter, even though it feels like we have more autumn the whole year, but yeah it's a really nice and beautiful place. I like the fact that you can go on different mountains here. All the nature and stuff is awesome though there’s also the fact that it is raining a lot here, which makes it not always so good to be outside. That does make it easier to focus on music, I guess. Instead of outside playing sports. Yeah because that's everyone in Bergen. At least that's from Bergen or the west of Norway, where it actually rains that much. When it's sunny outside, we just feel like we have to go outside. When it’s bright outside then working indoors or staying in the studio just kind of feels wrong because it’s like, “okay, now it's finally sunny and it's not raining. We have to go outside!” It’s a use it or lose it situation. Yeah, it's strange because a lot of the guys I know and play with that are not from like the west of Norway, more from the east or south, they never understand that. They're often like, "it's probably gonna be sunny tomorrow as well", but really you never really know. So we have to go outside today [chuckle]. Orcus released September 24th, 2021 via By Norse Music.