Australian death-doom dealers Malignant Aura have recently shared the opening song from their forthcoming debut album, Abysmal Misfortune is Draped Upon Me, which is set for release on May 30th on CD and vinyl via Bitter Loss Records. Titled “Malignant Aura”, this new track is now playing here:
Displaying the artwork of renowned artist Paolo Girardi, Abysmal Misfortune is Draped Upon Me was recorded by Brendan Auld at Black Blood Audio and mastered by Arthur Rizkm and the sees the quintet delivering a devastating, bleak and devilish death-doom that is reminiscent of early Paradise Lost and Hooded Menace.
Gothic death rock pioneers Christian Death have announced their highly-anticipated new full-length album, Evil Becomes Rule.
About Evil Becomes Rule, Valor Kand says the following: ‘Both Evil Becomes Rule and The Root Of All Evilution are pretty much the story of evil. These songs are generally about “The Evil Within Society,” not necessarily stemming from a demon, or a devil, or a God. Instead, it’s about something concerning the evil within mankind. Evil Becomes Rule is a continuation of this theme. We’re going from the present time into the future. When we started writing this album, we anticipated an event like the pandemic; a disastrous event occurring on the earth. So now we’re asking the question, “maybe this is just the beginning of it?”’
Ahead of the album, set for release in May via Season of Mist, the band have announced a string of tour dates and unveiled a video for ‘Blood Moon’, which you can watch here:
Evil Becomes Rule US Tour Dates: 05/05: Akron, OH @ Empire Concert Club 05/09: Denver, CO @ HQ* 05/10: Salt Lake City, UT @ Liquid Joe’s* 05/12: Albany, CA @ Ivy Room* 05/14-15: Pasadena, CA @ Cruel World Festival [TICKETS // EVENT LINK] 05/17: San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar* 05/18: Mesa, AZ @ Nile Theater* 05/20: San Antonio, TX @ Rock Box 05/21: Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall 05/22: Ft. Worth, TX @ @ Rail Club Live 05/24: St. Louis, MO @ Red Flag 05/26: Pittsburgh, PA @ Hard Rock Cafe 05/29: Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus * w/ LUNA13
Forged in the fires of the East Coast underground music scene in the 90s, experimental Hip Hop pioneers, Union City, NJ-based duo Dälek has spent decades carving out a unique niche fusing hardcore Hip Hop, noise and a radical approach to sound. Their brutal sonic temperament pushes rap music’s capacity for noise and protest to some exhilarating conclusions.
Following in the footsteps of their predecessors Public Enemy while drawing from influences as varied as My Bloody Valentine and German experimentalists Faust, Dälek have succeeded in adding completely new textural and structural dimensions to rap music.
A visceral and powerful live act, Dälek spent over a decade touring and bringing their raucous and blistering performances to audiences around the world. During this time they toured with and supported a wide range of acts in the Hip Hop, Rock, Metal, and Experimental genres including Flying Lotus, De La Soul, TOOL, The Melvins, Grandmaster Flash, Pharcyde, Fantomas, KRS One and The Bug.
For their latest and eighth album, Precipice, Dälek unleashes a work that is practically bristling with fury and power. Arriving on April 29th via Ipecac Recordings. Predominantly the work of the core duo, Will Brooks, aka MC Dälek and Mike Manteca (Mike Mare), Precipice features a guest appearance of Adam Jones of Tool on one of the album’s tracks. The band has enlisted Paul Romano (Mastodon) for the striking cover art, and the packaging features the art of Mikel Elam.
Today Dälek are sharing a video for the brickyard boom-bap track ‘Decimation (Dis Nation)’ which was directed by Brooks and can be viewed here:
AA
Initiated before the outbreak of COVID-19, the group briefly put Precipiceon hold before returning to inject a newer, more dynamic energy into the album’s songs. The result is a timely work, that is teaming with immediacy.
“Precipice was a completely different record pre-pandemic.” MC Dälek explains. “We had been working on the sketch of what the album was going to be at the end of 2019. I think me and (Mike) Manteca had narrowed it down to 17 joints out of the 46 or so that we had started with. Me and Joshua Booth had taken the 17 and really fleshed out the joints. The idea was to bounce them back to Mike and then arrange and write lyrics. 2020 obviously had different plans for everybody. We basically put everything on hold. I ended up doing the MEDITATIONS series that year on my own. I think the catharsis of that project, its rawness, the pandemic, all the death, the social upheaval, everything that went down… when I went back and listened to what we had down… it just wasn’t right anymore, it wasn’t strong enough, it wasn’t heavy enough, it wasn’t angry enough. It just didn’t say what I needed it to say.”
With Precipice, Dälek have once again tapped into the heartbeat of the day and used that energy to create a vital statement about the world we live in. Continuing in the long tradition of revolutionary Hip Hop, Precipice builds new cadences born out of tumultuous times.
After decades of challenging and expanding the sonic fabric of Hip Hop itself, giving way to new approaches and possibilities, Dälek is set to take their rightful place as one of the culture’s true innovators.
Postpunk-darkwave-electro trio VONAMOR presents their pulsating and enthralling new single ‘You the People’. Recalling the best dark pop of the ‘80s, this is the second taste of their impending debut VONAMOR album, an 8-track collection produced by Lucio Leoni and being released via Time To Kill Records (TTK).
The hypnotic fast-paced videoclip features dystopian imagery depicting the messed-up and borderline world in which we live. The sound weaves together stories of men, power and protest worldwide to sharp dialogue between male and female, voiced in English and Italian. Colours and pounding images mesh with archive footage of clashes between people and power, men and progress, technology and freedom, as flashes of our modern world strike your retina.
“Through our darkwave music and words, we search for the question, the ambiguity, the multiform influence of a variety of demons. We feel the urgency of questioning ourselves, our fellow human beings and the reality around us," says Giulia Bottaro.
“At first it may seem you are watching the videoclip for ‘You the People’, but the more you go on, you may feel that the video itself is watching you – and you are there, at the very intersection between we and you, between past and present, between desire and fear, between sound and colour.”
‘You The People’ underlines VONAMOR’s dialecticism and style, as well as their will to convey originality and sensuality, even when menacing, with passion and intensity. Eternally playing with words and sounds, they never lose sight of the rhythmic, Dyonisian and captivating soul of their electro dark, post-punk vision.
This single follows the lead track ‘Take Your Heart’, which has been met with international acclaim, and its intriguing video, directed and edited by Fabio Santomauro. Last year, the trio released the singles ‘Never Betray Us’ and ‘Fast-Forward Girl’.
VONAMOR is made up of sisters Giulia Bottaro, Francesca Bottaro and Luca Guidobaldi, with Francesco Bassoli and Martino Cappelli joining the trio for live performances. The band’s roots date back to 2016 in Rome. Initially focused on communicating images and composing scores for short films, they morphed into the trio we know today with their style, literary echoes, imperious art-pop and enigmatic aesthetics.
“VONAMOR is an escape plan, our treasure island, a thick and savage jungle that gives you the chance to let your prayers and whispers reverberate like a church. We used the music in this album to walk paths that we hadn’t known before, to connect Rome to Paris to Berlin to Beijing, to mix techno music with folk, to let our voices and bodies mingle and dance to an incredibly weird yet familiar beat, and finally to search for a boom of love and light into the dark of our everyday life: yes, VONAMOR is a boom!” says Luca Guidobaldi.
Brisbane-based death-metal act Cryptivore have recently unleashed a new track from their forthcoming debut album Celestial Extinction due out on March 15th via Bitter Loss Records.
Listen here:
Five years on from their debut demo “Unseen Divinity”, which was later reissued by Blood Harvest/ Dawning Septic, Cryptivore are now ready to release their first album Celestial Extinction, an effort that remains deeply rooted in old-school death metal, yet also shows the Australian outfit developing and refining their sound.
This song will make you feel alive as it delves into the ironic lyricism of feeling alone while being at a party. It’s somewhat of an anthem for the introverted free spirits of the world who like to have their own idea of a good idea. It’s the heaviest song FRND CRCL has to offer to date and aligns with aspects of Nirvana and UK art-pop purveyors, Blur.
The band says, “This one is for anyone who ever felt like an outcast; For anyone who ever found themselves at a party and thought wtf am I doing here?; For anyone that felt alone in a room full of people. I hope this song speaks to you as it does for us.”
Yes, it’s ‘Song 2’ meets ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, and we dig it here at AA. Check it here:
Ghosts Of Torrez released their first single (The Return) during the second lockdown in 2021 to critical acclaim and the follow up ‘Closer’ following later in that year.
In 2022 the band will release their debut LP and have already started taking their cinematic style, psychedelic, electro-folk to the live arena (more live dates TBC).
Their new single ‘The Wailing’ is due to be released on the 11th February on all streaming services, followed by a limited free, Flex-Disc release in early March.
‘The Wailing’ is accompanied by a Manga style video, “The Legend of Billy The Whale” (The Wailing/Whaling – who doesn’t love a play on words), which depicts the desperation of a broken, Captain Ahab type figure, vengefully taking on the beast he holds responsible for the death of his loved ones.
Taking their lead from bands such as Explosions in the Sky, Joy Division, Sigur Ros and Mogwai, GOT build their songs from soft, slow beginnings into cinematic style wonders.
Los Angeles-based industrial/rock band, HEAVENLY TRIP TO HELL has just unveiled their new video and single, ‘Pumpkin Man’. The song is a shout to the ‘safety rockers’; those who are rock and roll only part time. They are just playing the part.
‘Pumpkin Man.’ brings with it a message that rock and roll music should be dangerous; that it should belong to the streets. The band says, “The song was inspired by bands like Kettle Cadaver, GG Allin, and Danzig. With ‘Pumpkin Man’, we wanted to push the limits to break boundaries and not be confined by rules in the music world. Safety rockers run and hide!”
Here at AA we’re not so sure about GG Allin or Danzig, but we’re digging this while at the same time being disturbed by the dangling earlobe…
To accompany the release of their Tragica EP, Crimson Brûlée have unveiled a video for ‘I Came Back to You’, ‘when exploring a haunted house leads to the adventure of a lifetime…’
Influential psych innovators Gong have shared a new live video for ‘If Never I’m and Ever You’ as the group prepare for an extensive UK & EU tour between Feb – Sept 2022.
Performing the song, taken from their acclaimed 2019 album ‘The Universe Also Collapses’, this new video captures the band in the intimate setting of their rehearsal space, performing together in early 2019. A mind-melting and incredible sonic experience, a Gong live show is something all fans should experience and as they prepare to embark on their massive ‘This Is The Moment And Now Is The Time’ tour, this new video offers a glimpse for fans of the magic to come.
Formed in 1969 by Daevid Allen, one of the founding members of Soft Machine, classic albums such as Camembert Electrique, Flying Teapot and You established Gong as one of the most unique, innovative and experimental rock groups of the Seventies.
Before he sadly passed away in 2015, Allen laid out his hopes for a future Gong, that it should be uplifting, exploratory and a positive force. Kavus Torabi, Fabio Golfetti, Ian East, Dave Sturt and Cheb Nettles, chosen by him, continue his vision.
The band will release a new live album Pulsing Signals on 18th Feb via Kscope. Recorded live across three shows at The Wardrobe in Leeds, The Cluny in Newcastle and Rescue Rooms in Nottingham in 2019 as the band toured ‘The Universe Also Collapses’, this live record finds the group in spirited form as they undertake, unbeknownst to them, their final tour before the global pandemic took charge.
With touring now set to recommence and bookings going long into 2022 and beyond, Daevid Allen’s vision for the future looks set to be fulfilled.
Watch the video here:
AA
GONG LIVE IN 2022
FEBRUARY
Sun 27 – FLETCHING – Trading Boundaries
MARCH
Tue 01 – BRIGHTON – Chalk
Wed 02 – SOUTHAMPTON – 1865
Thu 03 – READING – Sub 89
Fri 04 – GUILDFORD – Boileroom
Sat 05 – COLCHESTER – Arts Centre
Mon 07 – LEICESTER – Musician
Tue 08 – MANCHESTER – Gorilla
Wed 09 – GLASGOW – Oran Mor
Thu 10 – CARLISLE - Brickyard
Fri 11 – WIGAN – The Old Courts
Sat 12 – STOCKTON-ON-TEES – Georgian Theatre
Sun 13 – NORWICH – Arts Centre
Mon 14 - BURY St. EDMUNDS – The Apex
Tue 15 – BIRMINGHAM – Hare & Hounds
Wed 16 – NOTTINGHAM – Rescue Rooms
Thu 17 – NEWCASTLE - Cluny
Fri 18 – YORK - Crescent
Sat 19 – HEBDEN BRIDGE – Trades Club
Sun 20 – BETHESDA – Neuadd Ogwen
Tue 22 - EXETER - Phoenix
Wed 23 – BRISTOL – Thekla
Thu 24 - STROUD – Sub Rooms
Fri 25 - HITCHIN – Club 85
Sat 26 – RAMSGATE – Music Hall
Sun 27 – TUNBRIDGE WELLS - Forum
Mon 28 - LONDON – The Garage
AUGUST
Sun 7 – Love Summer Festival 2022 – Plympton, Devon
Aural Aggravation 