When iconic Norwegian vocalist Gaahl, revived TRELLDOM he did the only thing that could ever be expected from this exceptional artist: the unexpected. Hardly anybody could have predicted the stylistic shifts and the twists and turns of the forthcoming new full-length: …by the shadows…
A few weeks back, TRELLDOM opened their set at this year’s edition of Bergen’s Beyond the Gates festival followed the introduction via By the Shadows with the new opening track ‘The Voice of What Whispers’. This avant-garde jazzy yet relentlessly driving song conjured looks of confusion, fascination, and even rapture onto many faces in the crowd. Now the band releases ‘The Voice of What Whispers’ as the third single in the shape of an equally unexpected yet fascinating video. Who would have thought to see a Japanese horror style clip from a Norwegian band with deep roots in the black metal scene?
Having founded the industrial-electro act genCAB in 2006, David Dutton put the group on hold following the release of their debut album II transMuter two years later. A forward thinking record in the genre, it had blended elements of EBM and synth-pop into song arrangements perfectly suited for aggressive rock.
genCAB eventually returned in 2022 with a long-awaited follow-up entitled ‘Thoughts Beyond Words’, as well as the genre-bending ‘Everything You See Is Mine’ EP. These were promoted on a US tour with Aesthetic Perfection, for whom both Dutton and genCAB drummer Tim Van Horn had spent the intervening years playing live. 2023 saw genCAB sign to Metropolis Records, with the album ‘Signature Flaws’ appearing in the autumn. A meditation on one’s own demise, it introduced elements of shoegaze and post-hardcore to an already dense melting pot of disparate sounds.
‘Let It Rip’ is a new EP that precedes the cryptically entitled album III I II (THIRD EYE GEMINI), due out in late September 2024. Half of the full-length record is a modern day update of the best material contained on their 2008 debut, with the remainder consisting of brand new songs inspired by the re-recordings.
An improvement in the genCAB sound was already apparent via a recent rework of the 2008 track ‘Perish The Thought’ released as a single in 2023, but everything else is also now amped up to 11. Although retaining a raw and fresh feel that is faithful to the original renditions, the songs have been completely restructured and are sung with more confidence and conviction than ever by Dutton.
Buñuel return with Mansuetude, the band’s first release outside of their outlandish trilogy of albums (comprising A Resting Place for Strangers, The Easy Way Out and Killers Like Us). A co-release between SKiN GRAFT and Overdrive, arriving 25th October 2024.
BUÑUEL boasts the singular vocals and razor sharp lyrics of Eugene S. Robinson (ex-Oxbow) and a powerhouse Italian trio comprised of guitarist Xabier Iriondo (Afterhours, A Short Apnea), bassist Andrea Lombardini (The Framers) and drummer Franz Valente (Il Teatro Degli Orrori). Mansuetude was produced by Timo Ellis, and features guests including Jacob Bannon (lead singer of Converge), guitarist Duane Denison (the Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk,The Denison Kimball Trio), vocalist Megan Osztrosits (Couch Slut), cellist Andrea Beninati and David Binney on alto saxophone and vocals.
The music on Mansuetude warps and buckles with complexity, freedom, tenderness and primaeval energy all at once. A prime example is the lead single "Drug Burn," crunchy, melodic and harder than a lot of hardcore. About the track the band comments;
“One of the steadfast rules the Hells Angels used to tout to members, NO DRUG BURNS. Which just goes to show, there really IS honour among, well you know. Following a wayward path to an even more wayward song, BUÑUEL’s rendering of said BURN will make your ears (and eyes, if you’re lucky enough to see the video) burn.”
Listen here:
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The title, Mansuetude – meaning “meekness” or “gentleness” – might seem like a juxtaposition when listening to the record that is, in Eugene’s words, “extreme but articulate”, however the record aims to convey a balancing of different forces and shades of being which make up the human experience. Throughout Mansuetude, Buñuel take every given opportunity to stretch out their musical tendrils towards discomfort, surrealism, and the deconstruction of tradition, as they reach absolute abandon. They go well beyond the realm of noise rock, encompassing many moods from post-hardcore to avant-noise, hard-blues to post-industrial, symphonic to trash metal and even free-jazz.
Drummer Franz comments that “Buñuel is a name that embodies a certain cultural and literary reference, which evokes an entire world. Like his films, our Buñuel is surrealism. We take the listeners into a place that’s suspended between dream and reality.”
“What we’re doing with Buñuel is to carve out a very specific glimpse… partly into hearts of darkness, but more specifically into the depth of our secrets,” says Eugene. “Secrets we keep from each other, ourselves and whatever futures we’ve imagined for ourselves. We are ultimately trying to communicate something direct and deadly about the human condition.”
Buñuel makes music for those of us willing to take a closer, unflinching look at the depths of human instinct, and on Mansuetude the band extend their reach farther than before, creating an album that is akin to a powerful impulse, or perhaps even an exorcism.
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(BUÑUEL, L-R: Franz Valente, Xabier Iriondo, Andrea Lombardini, Eugene S. Robinson | By Annapaola Martin
Following hot on the heels of his new album ‘Red Room’ (released in May 2024), industrial rock mainstay Raymond Watts aka PIG has today reissued a fully remastered version of his seminal mid-‘90s album ‘Sinsation’ via
Following hot on the heels of his new album ‘Red Room’ (released in May 2024), industrial rock mainstay Raymond Watts aka PIG has today reissued a fully remastered version of his seminal mid-‘90s album ‘Sinsation’ via Metropolis Records (CD, digital) and Armalyte Industries (deluxe 2xLP vinyl). Out of print for almost three decades, it makes a timely reappearance just ahead of a North American tour.
‘Sinsation’ was originally released in 1995 on Nothing Records, the label established by Nine Inch Nails kingpin Trent Reznor, and not long after PIG had opened for NIN at a number of shows. Nothing was an influential and commercially successful label with a cult underground following that also issued records by Marilyn Manson, Squarepusher, Autechre, Meat Beat Manifesto, Pop Will Eat Itself, Einstürzende Neubauten and Plaid, as well as NIN themselves.
(CD, digital) and Armalyte Industries (deluxe 2xLP vinyl). Out of print for almost three decades, it makes a timely reappearance just ahead of a North American tour.
‘Sinsation’ was originally released in 1995 on Nothing Records, the label established by Nine Inch Nails kingpin Trent Reznor, and not long after PIG had opened for NIN at a number of shows. Nothing was an influential and commercially successful label with a cult underground following that also issued records by Marilyn Manson, Squarepusher, Autechre, Meat Beat Manifesto, Pop Will Eat Itself, Einstürzende Neubauten and Plaid, as well as NIN themselves.
The collective of renowned musicians from Norway’s west coast known as WHISPERING VOID is releasing the single ‘Vinden vier’ (‘The Wind Sanctifies’) that features ABBATH guitarist Ole André Farstad. The track is taken from their forthcoming debut album At the Sound of the Heart, which has been chalked up for release on October 18, 2024.
Hear ‘Vinden Vier’ here:
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WHISPERING VOID comment: “This song began to form when I repeated the words ‘Vinden vier’, which is kind of a play on words”, vocalist Kristian Espedal explains. “This can mean ‘The Wind Sanctifies’ but it can also be read as: ‘The Wind Unites’. As the lyrical loop goes on, it also becomes ‘Vi er vinden’, which means ‘We Are the Wind’. Then Lindy added her wonderful vocals in a 70s or even 60s style. At first, she just sang the ghost vocals, but once we had set the lyrics for the song, she also gave her voice to them. We all felt that this song also needed more of an Eastern energy, which is the very reason as to why we invited Ole André Farstad to play guzheng and Indian slide-guitar. This has added even more of that late 60s vibe to the song and I really like the result.”
APTORIAN DEMON have announced the details of their sophomore full-length Liv tar slutt (‘Life Ends’), which will be released on November 15, 2024.
The underground Norwegian black metal act from Trondheim also unleashes a first advance track taken from Liv tar slutt. The single ‘Når livet tar slutt’ (‘When Life Ends’) is available here:
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PTORIAN DEMON hail from Trondheim, Norway. They were founded by vocalist, guitarist and sole member Storhetsvanviddets Mester, who has also been known as Ghâsh.
APTORIAN DEMON embody black metal in its original bleak and raw form. Their mastermind is neither apologetic about this, nor about the hateful, misanthropic, and satanic content. This is what black metal is about. Storhetsvanviddets Mester is a lone wolf, who does not want to be associated with previous bands or the Nidrosian scene.
APTORIAN DEMON have previously released the EP Angst, jammer og fortvilelse in 2005 and the debut album Libertus (2012), which gained the band a dedicated following in the underground. Naturally, there are no social media outlets.
APTORIAN DEMON have deigned the time to be right for their sophomore full-length. Entitled Liv tar slutt (‘Life Ends’), this album keeps every ‘promise’ of a strong black metal statement made by the previous releases and will delight dark souls with its cold, harsh, and razor-edged songs. This is Norwegian black metal! Take it or leave it!
For those unfamiliar with ShitNoise, their bio describes them as ‘a noise punk band hailing from Monte-Carlo (Monaco). Formed in February 2022, the band has undergone several lineup changes. Currently, it consists of Aleksejs Macions on vocals and guitar, Vova Dictor on guitar, and Paul Albouy on drums.’ What’s more, they reckon their third album, I Cocked My Gun And Shot My Best Friend, ‘showcases their most energetic and mature work to date… Departing from their previous noise-centric style, the band blends grungy guitar riffs, metal-influenced double-kick drums, and a more polished production. The album explores themes of confronting the harsh realities of society and the lasting psychological impact of traumatic events. Through gritty soundscapes and stream-of-consciousness lyrics, it paints a raw portrait of present-day existence and the enduring human spirit in the face of adversity.’
I’m often wary of bands and artists who claim to have matured: all too often it means they’ve gone boring, that they’ve lost their fire and whatever rawness, naivete, edge, that made them stand out, drove them to make music in the first place. But these things are relative, and ShitNoise isn’t just a gimmicky moniker, but a fair summary of what they do. Here, they’ve stepped up from no-fi racket to lo-fi racket and evolved from the trashy punk din with dancey and electronic elements that at times sounded like a Girls Against Boys rehearsal recorded on a Dictaphone, toward a more wide-ranging and experimental approach to noisemaking. As for the album’s title… well. Was the act an accident, one of stupidity, gross negligence, or intentional? Either way, as the adage goes, with friends like these… ShitNoise are certainly not the friend of sensitive sensibilities, or eardrums.
So sure, they’ve ‘matured’ inasmuch as they’ve broadened their palette, but in doing so, they’ve discovered new ways of creating sonic torture.
‘Ho-Ho! (No More)’ launches the album with shards of shrill feedback and distortion: it’s two and a quarter minutes of nails-down-a-blackboard tinnitus-inducing frequencies and deranged yelping that’s somewhat reminiscent of early Whitehouse, minus the S&M / serial killer shit. Not that I have a fucking clue what they are on about, and the noise is so mangled it’s impossible to differentiate any of the sound sources from one another – guitars sound like screaming synths, and there’s so much dirty mess in the mix everything sounds so broken you begin to wonder if your speakers are knackered.
Proving just how much they’ve ‘matured’, ‘Brown Morning’ barrels into churning noise driven by thunderous beats as the backdrop to a rappy / spoken word piece, after which the arrival of the fairly straightforward punk tune ‘Gum Opera’ feels like not only light relief, but somewhat incongruous. But then, in the world of ShitNoise, anything goes, as long as it’s noisy shit. And keeping on with the noisy shit, there’s the gnarly Jesus Lizard meets Melvins gone rockabilly slugging sludgepunkfest of the oxymoronic ‘Pleasant Guff’ to go at, and it’s abundantly clear that they’re absolutely revelling in following their curiosity in every direction when it comes to exploring any and all avenues of racketmongering. I Cocked My Gun is wild, and wildly divergent, stupid, chaotic, and fun.
If the off-kilter grunge of ‘X-Ray Phantom’, with its incidental piano tinkling along behind crunchy guitars hints at something approaching a kind of sensitivity – and a closet ability to write songs – ‘Endless Void’ demonstrates their capacity to step back from noise completely, and venture into near-ambient territories, and with remarkable dexterity.
But mostly, these deviances only serve to bolster the impact of the manic racketmaking which dominates the album, which brings us to the epic penultimate track, ‘Hashish (The Yelling Song)’ – a ball-busting seven-and-a-half-minute stoner-doom slammer that slaloms its way through some heavy drone and some explosive psychotic episodes… and we’re immensely proud to be able to present an exclusive premier of the video which accompanies this mammoth slab of sonic derangement right here:
Get it in your lugs. Let it permeate every cell. Bask in the insanity. With I Cocked My Gun And Shot My Best Friend, ShitNoise have really gone out on a limb, and while teetering on a precipice of madness, have proved that artistic fulfilment lies on the other side of mania. It’s a far more enjoyable place than the everyday in which we find ourselves of late, so why not dive on in?
Portugal’s heavy hitters, Vaneno, have returned with a vengeance, unveiling the video for ‘Necropotent,’ the first single from their highly anticipated new album, Chaos, Hostility, Murder. This track marks the band’s first release since their 2020 offering, Struggle Through Absurdity, and it’s nastier, louder, heavier, and darker than anything they’ve done before.
“‘Necropotent’ is a caustic and maddening vision of a world that intertwines with our own. We all know who you are. The real necro lords who thrive in misery, pestilence, and chaos, forever feeding the abyss with the eternal rest of the fallen.” Says the band. This powerful and unsettling message is matched by the song’s crushing riffs and relentless rhythms, delivering an intense auditory experience that will leave listeners reeling.
Watch the video here:
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The upcoming album, Chaos, Hostility, Murder, was mixed and mastered by Pedro Mau at SinWav Audio, who also worked on the band’s debut EP. The album is set to be released through Raging Planet Records, further solidifying Vaneno’s place as one of the most promising Portuguese metal bands of today.
Vaneno’s journey began in 2017 when three friends — Miguel Nunes (drums), Eduardo Cunha (guitar), and António Tavares (guitar) — started jamming together, laying the foundation for what would become their distinct sludge-infused sound. By late 2019, the band expanded to a five-piece with the addition of Pedro Fernandes on bass and Alexandre Fernandes on vocals, marking a turning point in their commitment to bringing their music to the masses.
Since then, the band has undergone a lineup change, with Eduardo Cunha stepping down and Felipe Peraboa taking over on guitar.
Their previous release, Struggle Through Absurdity, showcased four powerful tracks that blend sludge, stoner, and death metal influences, creating an aggressive sound full of heavy, muscular riffs and pummeling rhythms. Vaneno’s raw, unrelenting style continues to evolve, and Chaos, Hostility, Murder promises to take their music to even greater heights.
‘The Witness’ is the first video released from Love Spells , the debut album from Death Doula, a dusky Art-Rock band hailing from Portland, Oregon. The new album was recorded at Jackpot Studios by Adam Lee (Built to Spill, Sleater-Kinney) and mixed by Bob Cheek, (Deftones, Band of Horses). It’s being released as a digital download and via streaming platforms by Death Doula Records on October 11.
Check the video here:
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Kerry Jones had a crush on his best friend. Kyle List didn’t mind, he asked her to come collaborate at his tiny home studio anyway. By the end of the night, they were in love and had created a demo of ‘Disembark’, which would be lead single from Love Spells. Three weeks later, he moved to Portland to live with her, with no plan beyond an intuition that the music would take them somewhere.
Fast forwarding two years later, they recruited the veteran rhythm section of Keith Vidal on bass (Marjorie Faire, Nyles Lannon) and Adam Kozie on drums (Pollens, Crystal Beth) and adopted the name Death Doula. The music they’ve created shows their shared love of artists like Can, Television, Jeff Buckley, The Cranberries, Deerhunter, Kate Bush, The Sundays and Deftones, while remaining altogether sonically new.
After having their lives dramatically reshaped during the pandemic, the members of Death Doula approach music with an intensity that can only come from having spent a lifetime wanting it. Kerry and Kyle have an 11 year age difference. Keith and Kyle have a 22 year age difference. Each member pours their lifetime of experience into performances that place emotion and groove first.
“In a world so algorithmized it’s numb,” says Kerry “we just want to make people feel something again.”
Aural Aggravation 