US Black Metal innovators NACHTMYSTIUM drop the next advance single ‘A Slow Decay’ taken from their forthcoming ninth album Blight Privilege. The full-length has been scheduled for release on All Saints’ Day, November 1, 2024.
NACHTMYSTIUM comment: “The song ‘A Slow Decay’ concerns itself with the disintegration of society that is going on all around us”, mastermind Blake Judd muses. “It does not even matter which side you are on. We are all being played.”
Listen here:
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The Swedish-Finnish speed and thrash metal quintet Obnoxious Youth’s new album Burning Savage will be out on October 18th and today marks the day of its second single release accompanied by a video.
“Ethereal Termination is an anti-Christian heavy metal switchblade. A 4-minute journey through all the disgusting sounds and weirded out minds of the Obnoxious Youth…. UH!”, declares Affe ”Phantasma” Piran, the vocalist of Obnoxious Youth.
Behold the divine destruction and witness the brand-new Obnoxious Youth video Ethereal Termination here:
The sperm of Satan’s cock AKA the Obnoxious Youth was born in 2005 in Uppsala/Sweden. But the fully fledged and perverted behemoth that stands before you today was an international collaboration brought to life in 2009 by John ”Zeke” Finne, Affe ”Phantasma” Piran and Frans ”Cult” Utterström. But today Edde ”Shit” Aftonfalk and Lukas ”Spine” Häger are added to the live lineup of the band.
The purpose of the band was to break boundaries and to return to the time when extreme music didn’t have any rules or regulations. When there was no ”death metal” or ”thrash metal”, when there was just ”metal” or ”punk”. Just channeling the most insane music that was humanly possible. Using methods that was founded in the 80’s, Obnoxious Youth fully enclose itself and gets swallowed by the power of extreme music and getting influences from a feeling rather than other bands. Taking the listeners back to a time when heavy music was something to fear.
In 2012 the band received a Manifest Award for the debut album The Eternal Void and has since then released two EP’s (Suck on The Cross, 2013 and Mouths Sewn Shut, 2020) and one more full length album Disturbing the Graves in 2017. They have established themselves as a fierce live band that leaves no one unaffected.
Members of Obnoxious Youth has played in or currently plays in bands such as Vorum, Undergång, Endtime, Reveal!, Morbus Chron, Century, Tøronto, Degial, Begravningsentreprenörerna, Entombed and No Future.
In November 2024, Obnoxious Youth will be touring Europe in support of their new album Burning Savage starting off with a release gig together with Norwegian maniacs Nekromantheon at Hus 7 in Stockholm the 9th of November. More live shows to come during 2025: this is the just the beginning.
Svart Records release Obnoxious Youth’s new album Burning Savage 18th of October 2024 on black, transparent red and limited yellow/red/black marble vinyl versions – and of course on glorious CD. Pre-orders are now available on Svart Records’ webstore.
Buñuel recently announced their fourth full-length album Mansuetude, and first release outside their outlandish trilogy of albums. Today, they share a second preview of the album in the form of ‘Fixer’, a track featuring the snarls of Couch Slut vocalist Megan Osztrosits.
Listen here:
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The music on Mansuetude warps and buckles with complexity, freedom, tenderness and primaeval energy all at once. The album includes a handful of exciting collaborations, with ‘Fixer’ being the first taster of this combined energy. About the track the band comments;
“Following a Breaking Bad trajectory and owing this account largely to a friend of his who had been called The Crystal Meth King of Oklahoma by the FBI, the FIXER follows a drug czar’s Man Friday as he cleans up that which inevitably needs cleaning up when you’re living a life of crime.”
Megan Osztrosits of Couch Slut adds;
“When Eugene hit me up to ask if I wanted to do vocals for a track, I said yes without even hearing it. He rules and I am psyched for this absolute ripper of an album.”
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(BUÑUEL, L-R: Franz Valente, Xabier Iriondo, Andrea Lombardini, Eugene S. Robinson | By Annapaola Martin
Christopher Nosnibor
It was in my early teens that I discovered goth, and Mick Mercer’s Gothic Rock Black Book was something of an early bible for me. Mercer has built a career on being a huge authority on the genre, and things in the post-punk sphere. So the fact that the latest release from History of Guns – a ‘maverick’ industrial act from Hertfordshire leads with a quote from Mercer, describing them as “by far, the most inventive UK band to have got their hands caught in the Industrial threshing machine,” is quite a strong sell. The strongest sell, of course, are the wares themselves, and highlighting just how unfettered by convention History of Guns are is the fact that Drug Castle isn’t just another video single, another lyric video, another ‘vizualizer’ (thank fuck). No, this is, they explain, ‘a short film for one of the more experimental parts of their latest album, Half Light, in which they take their instruments to the beach, and experiment with different audio and emotional frequencies, in an effort to contact beings from another world.’
If this sounds utterly deranged, the context counts for a lot, and to provide this, I shall quote at length:
‘Drug Castle was the nickname given to a facility in England where they used to conduct experimental, often unethical psychological procedures during the 60s and 70s. No one’s quite sure of its exact location, other than it was near the sea, and some of the sessions happened out on the beach. Different psychologists and psychiatrists could effectively book it out, and then take patients or unwitting volunteers down there for however long, and do whatever they liked. There are stories from people who received really helpful, life-changing treatment there, but it’s probably more famous for the awful horror stories and reports of extreme abuse and deaths. Apparently, there was very liberal use of experimental drugs and techniques, hence the nickname. One of the experimental treatments was called Frequency Therapy which involved using sonic frequencies to match or harmonise with emotional frequencies, which would cause a third frequency to be created which caused some quite profound healing and bizarre experiences. One survivor of a group of a group reported making contact with alien creatures.’
Sourcing information about ‘Drug Castle’ is virtually impossible, but then, that’s hardly surprising given the nature of the operation. We know that the CIA’s operation MK Ultra ran from 1953 well into the 1970s – but there’s also a lot we don’t know. This is how conspiracy theories are born – though the known existence of government conspiracies. While most of the documents relating to MK Ultra were destroyed, those which survived and were declassified, despite heavy redactions, contained staggering and truly terrifying revelations.
‘Staggering and truly terrifying’ happen to be fitting descriptors for this dark, challenging audiovisual excursion. Scaping, droning, groaning, tectonic-plate-shifting heavy industrial churns and grinding metallic noise and dissonance provide the sonic backdrop to a menacing spoken-word piece. The vocals layer upon on another and the experience grows increasingly uncomfortable. Strings swirl and build, but what may, done differently, be a soothing experience, creates nothing but tension.
The guys looks like they’re participating on some ritual as they sit, cross-legged, on a beach. That beach becomes the location of a washed-up emptiness further on, and then transition to acoustic-led neofolk-tinged darkness in the later parts of thee tune a dramatically alters the trajectory of this work. The pleasantry of the surroundings transition to unsettling territory.
It’s quite apparent that History of Guns have gone way, way deep into their excavations in shaping dark domains of Drug Castle. Dark and uncomfortable, this is remarkable art.
You can see it all here:
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Human Impact, the New York-based outfit founded by Chris Spencer (Unsane) and Jim Coleman (Cop Shoot Cop), who recently announced their sophomore album, Gone Dark (Oct. 4, Ipecac Recordings), have released the final preview of the album in the form of ‘Corrupted’.
The track is a jeering stab at the power hungry corporations who leave destruction in their wake in pursuit of something material and useless, featuring see-sawing guitars and a call to action in the form of Spencer’s instructions to "Follow the sound … the future is now". About the track, the bands says;
"Corrupted: The insatiable greed of big pharma which has forced a large segment of the population into addiction, homelessness, mental illness, and desperation.
While the track was written looking at this endless dehumanising vampirism on a more widespread level, the video for Corrupted specifically looks at the opioid epidemic, and its evolution into the prevalence of Fentanyl and Meth. This crisis was created by corporate design, aggressively sold to medical professionals, health insurers and patients, and has permanently altered our society, culture and families. Additionally, our history of criminally prosecuting addicts rather than providing treatment provides cheap labor for a privatised prison system – yet another inhuman method of generating more profits."
Watch the video here:
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Photo credit: Jim Coleman
28th June 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
There are many reasons I’ve long been drawn to the obscure, the underground, the DIY – and many of those same reasons are why I try, wherever possible, to use my platform to champion those acts who fall within these broad brackets. And another thing I endeavour to use my platform for is the broader topics which relate to the releases – because during my life, I’ve become acutely aware of just how personal a thing music is, both to artist and listeners.
I suppose I first really tuned into this when I was around the age of fifteen: I’d started getting into goth and alternative stuff when I was twelve or thirteen – back when the weekly singles charts and Top of the Pops rules, and the likes of Killing Joke and The Sisters of Mercy and The Mission would make incursions into these realms – and was getting into live music. None of my mates were into the same stuff, so my choices were, go on my own, or don’t go. I decided I didn’t need my mates, but I did need to see the bands. This essentially set the template for my life, taking a position of a willing outsider.
Not everyone gets to be so willing in the place they find themselves, and while Rip Space’s biographical info is sparse, there’s a clear sense that they’re here as much out of compulsion as choice, describing themselves as an ‘anonymous autistic Scottish multi instrumentalist’. They outline how ‘Thank These People is an EP inspired by the catharsis of overcoming otherisation, public humiliation and otherwise targeted acts of evil that resulted ultimately, in official diagnosis in 2021… So this EP is called Thank These People. We make lemonade from the lemons life gives us. And in ways, we can decide to be thankful for the lemons.’
It’s hard not to find this apparent level of positivity and optimism quite staggering and more than a little overwhelming, as I fight the personal urge not to frame my own experiences as, rather than ‘thank these people’, but ‘fuck these cunts’. Ripspace has already demonstrated that they’re a better, less bitter human being than I before I’ve even heard a note… And then I heard a note, and I love Ripspace all the more. Amidst a roaring blast of lurching, distorted black metal guitars and crashing percussion there’s that anguished vocal howl. This… this is the sound of rage, of fury. Thanks? Yeah, right. This is a throbbing middle finger. This is what you’re thinking, what you want to say but muzzle because you don’t want to rile your boss. Because your boss is a twat.
Thank These People contains just three songs, and has a running time of under ten minutes – meaning it would fit comfortably on a 7” in old currency (when a 7” cost a couple of quid, although I’m not about to embark on a nostalgia trip, not now of all times, when nostalgia for the time of £1 pints costs £350 a ticket).
‘The Green Ripper’ really captures the vibe of Touch & Go and Am Rep in the 90s, but with a keenly Scottish lilt, and transitions from spoken word to full metal fury in a blink. And you feel the fury as it seethes and rages and roars, a pure, splenetic outpouring. ‘Welcome to Mother Earth’ is a noise-rock math-mash thrash-frenzy, Metallica in a three-way high-speed collision with Shellac and And So I Watch You From Afar. Thank These People spits, roars, foams, burns. And I have to agree when they add that ‘also, the music video is really good.’
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Phoenix-based metal band Buried has just released a gripping lyric video for their single ‘No Saviors,’ off the band’s forthcoming debut EP, Infect and Replicate.
‘No Saviors’ is just a taste of what’s to come from their debut EP, set for release in early 2025. With this powerful introduction, Buried is poised to establish themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the metal world.
Watch the video here:
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Founded by the creative forces of Preston Wilson (bass) and Alex Valdés (guitar), they sought to channel their vast array of influences into a sound that melds multiple genres. In search of like-minded bandmates, they brought on Erik Scott, a powerful drummer with a diverse style, and Ben Rosputni, a fierce vocalist who had shared the stage with Preston in a band 15 years prior. Their reunion added a layer of depth and history to the band’s formation, grounding Buried in both experience and renewed passion.
Buried’s music can be described as a mix between the heavy, doom-laden riffs of Black Sabbath and the aggressive intensity of Burn the Priest. Infect and Replicate is set for release in early 2025, promising to introduce their powerful sound to metal fans everywhere.
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Photo Credit: Fargone Productions, Mikel Pickett
Huge Molasses Tank Explodes will release their new album III on 6th September via Tidal Wave Records.
They have now shared ‘Distant Glow’, a track that starts with a slow and soothing mood reminiscent of 60’s psychedelic pop, accompanied by layers of mellotron and Farfisa, and it later evolves into space-rock, where fuzzed-out guitar echoes and trippy synths take over. The song’s soundscape is simultaneously melancholic and colourful, creating a perfect canvas for its themes of isolation and distance.
Listen here:
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‘Distant Glows’ follows previous singles ‘Bow of Gold’, a track built upon contrasting kraut-derived sequenced synth lines, spacy textures, jangly guitars drenched in reverb and full psych fuzz-driven drone walls, and ‘Indeterminate’, a song driven by a motorik rhythm sustained by a stubborn synth bass sequence on top of layers of synths, spacey guitars and vocoder vocals.
An immersive psychedelic reverie. This is what Huge Molasses Tank Explodes has to offer: a liquid continuity of landscapes, as envisioned by the minds of Fabrizio De Felice (voice, guitar, synth), Giacomo Tota (guitar), Luca Umidi (bass) and Gabriele Arnolfo (drums, now played by Michele Schiavina). The Milan, Italy-based band offers us a kaleidoscopic experience, ranging from rugged and evocative beats to dreamy soundscapes, inspired by post-punk and psych-wave. With a hypnotic and almost serene sound in mind, transfiguring humanity with new electronic streaks and vocal blends, the brand-new album ‘III’ showcases ethereal, yet powerful, musical canvases that celebrate the band’s influences, taste and psychedelic vision.
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Buzzhowl Records – 27th September 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
Once again, following the release of a four-way split showcasing local talent a few months ago, Stoke proves the be the spawning ground of more off-kilter noisy noise, this time from no-wave duo Don’t Try with their second EP. As an additional point of note, and also something of a recommendation / hype point, the EP’s artwork is courtesy of Dan Holloway, of USA Nails/Eurosuite/Dead Arms fame, who worked with the band previously on their 2018 single ‘JWAFJ’. To accompany the release, Dan has also realised a video in his own inimitable style.
Like ‘JWAFJ’, their first EP, Elvis Is Dead was released in 2018, meaning it’s been a full six years since they last released anything, suggesting that on the output stakes at least, they’ve been living up to the band’s name.
Lead track ‘my grazed knee’ with its gritty yet poppy synths and urgent, determined beats isn’t actually a million miles from the sound of The Eurosuite. It reminds us of the proximity of new wave to punk, and the reasons why new wave and post-punk are essentially interchangeable terms. And while punk did, undoubtedly, spawn some great tunes (I’d perhaps contend less great bands, in that many punk acts, with a few notable exceptions like The Ruts and Adverts, produced only one or two outstanding or even memorable sings, and were unable to deliver the entirety of a solid album, let alone a career), it was post-punk where things got interesting, after things had evolved from three-chord stomps. If punk was predominantly pissed-off, railing against boredom and just off the rails, what followed explored a greater emotional range, and was more articulate, both musically and lyrically. For all its rebellion and antagonism toward conventions and norms, punk very quickly established its own conventions and norms: post-punk broke down those definitions to explore in myriad different directions, fragmenting and evolving into countless new genres.
It’s been a long time since the advent of both punk and new wave now, and in theory, any contemporary exponent of either is liable to tie themselves to certain tropes. But contemporary punk bands, more often than not, seem to be so limited in their scope, whereas many current acts who align themselves with post punk / new wave offer a broader range – even the ones who have been lazily lumped into the bracket of Joy Division imitators. I mention this as I discovered both Interpol and Editors because they were constantly being compared to Joy Division, and while I came to like both bands very much, my first reaction was dismay laced with disappointment over how unlike Joy Division either act sounded.
And so, circuitously, we arrive back with Don’t Try. ‘my grazed knee,’ as I was starting to say before I embarked on my obligatory and epic detour, is a fuzzy, low-fi keyboard-driven cut that boasts a monstrous throbber of a grindy synth bass groove that lands between Suicide and Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Nag Nag Nag.’ But it’s a lot harder, harsher, noiser, more aggressive, more antagonised. Punkier? I suppose it’s representative of the point at which that nascent industrial sound began to evolve, but there’s also a manic hardcore edge to it, which is more apparent on the harsh assault of ‘climax in the imax’. Here, everything is ratcheted up in its volume and intensity, there’s a clattering metallic snare sound that crashes like a bin lid through the song’s duration, and about two-thirds in, it sounds like someone’s started up a drill and it all suddenly goes slower and heavier and you start to feel like things are getting dark and tense. This is very much a positive, in case you’re wondering.
There’s a clear trajectory to this EP, a sonic evolution which moved forward with each track, and things turn full-on industrial on the third track, ‘ritual’, which manifests are a monstrous, relentless rhythmic pounding reminiscent of mid-80s SWANS and the heavy grind of Godflesh. The crazed, anguished vocals are howled, yelped, drawled, hinting at the manic howl of the Jesus Lizard (and so, equally, Blacklisters). After hitting what feels like a locked groove around the mid-point, everything explodes and the track – and EP – climaxes in a slamming wall of ear-blasting noise. None of it’s pretty. All of it’s good.
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The ever-enigmatic Godspeed You! Black Emperor have announced their new album in suitably oblique form – only, their message is loud and clear here. There’s no press hype for the album in their accompanying statement, but no explanation is required when it comes to the their focus: the album’s title alone speaks for itself. NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD. This is, of course, the number of Gazan casualties since 7th October 2023. That number now stands at in excess of 41,000.
The final track on the album, ‘GREY RUBBLE – GREEN SHOOTS’ is an expansive seven-minute piece which balances darkness and hope.
The accompanying statement reads as follows, and you can hear the track below:
THE PLAIN TRUTH==
we drifted through it, arguing.
every day a new war crime, every day a flower bloom.
we sat down together and wrote it in one room,
and then sat down in a different room, recording.
NO TITLE= what gestures make sense while tiny bodies fall? what context? what broken melody?
and then a tally and a date to mark a point on the line, the negative process, the growing pile.
the sun setting above beds of ash
while we sat together, arguing.
the old world order barely pretended to care.
this new century will be crueler still.
war is coming.
don’t give up.
pick a side.
hang on.
love.
GY!BE
Tour dates:
UK/EU
SEP/OCT 2024
27 Sep 2024 • Dublin IE • National Stadium
29 Sep 2024 • London UK • Troxy
30 Sep 2024 • Glasgow, UK • Barrowlands
01 Oct 2024 • Manchester UK • Ritz
02 Oct 2024 • Bristol UK • Marble Factory
03 Oct 2024 • Coventry UK • The Empire
04 Oct 2024 • Tourcoing FR • Le Grand Mix
05 Oct 2024 • Esch-Alzette LU • Kufa
06 Oct 2024 • Paris FR • Le Trianon
08 Oct 2024 • Nantes FR • Stereolux
09 Oct 2024 • Nancy FR • L’Autre Canal (Jazz Pulsation Festival)
10 Oct 2024 • Zürich CH • Volkshaus
11 Oct 2024 • Lausanne CH • Les Docks
12 Oct 2024 • Frankfurt DE • Zoom
14 Oct 2024 • Berlin DE • Huxleys
15 Oct 2024 • Amsterdam NE • Paradiso
16 Oct 2024 • Brussels BE • AB
18 Oct 2024 • Athens GR • Floyd
NORTH AMERICA
NOV 2024
04 Nov 2024 • Hamilton ON • Bridgeworks
05 Nov 2024 • Toronto ON • History
06 Nov 2024 • London ON • London Music Hall
07 Nov 2024 • Grand Rapids MI • Elevation
08 Nov 2024 • Chicago IL • The Salt Shed
09 Nov 2024 • St Paul MN • Palace Theater
11 Nov 2024 • Lawrence KS • Liberty Hall
12 Nov 2024 • Fayetteville AR • George’s Majestic Lounge
13 Nov 2024 • Nashville TN • The Basement East
14 Nov 2024 • Knoxville TN • Bijou Theater
15 Nov 2024 • Atlanta GA • The Masquerade
16 Nov 2024 • Charleston SC • The Music Farm
17 Nov 2024 • Saxapahaw NC • Haw River Ballroom
19 Nov 2024 • Washington DC • 9:30 Club
21 Nov 2024 • Brooklyn NY • Pioneerworks
22 Nov 2024 • Norwalk CT • District Music Hall
23 Nov 2024 • Boston MA • Roadrunner
24 Nov 2024 • Philadelphia PA • Union Transfer
25 Nov 2024 • Montréal, QC • MTELUS
NORTH AMERICA
APR/MAY 2025
25 April 2025 • Austin, TX • TBA
26 April 2025 • Dallas, TX • Granada Theater
28 April 2025 • Denver, CO • Ogden Theater
30 April 2025 • Los Angeles, CA • The Bellweather
01 May 2025 • Santa Ana, CA • The Observatory OC
02 May 2025 • Tijuana, B.C., Mexico • Cine Bujazán
03 May 2025 • Ventura, CA • Ventura Music Hall
04 May 2025 • San Francisco, CA • Curran Theater
06 May 2025 • Portland, OR • Wonder Ballroom
07 May 2025 • Portland, OR • Wonder Ballroom
08 May 2025 • Seattle, WA • The Neptune
09 May 2025 • Seattle, WA • The Neptune
10 May 2025 • Vancouver, BC • Vogue Theatre
12 May 2025 • Kelowna, BC • Revelry
13 May 2025 • Calgary, AB • Palace Theatre
14 May 2025 • Edmonton, AB • Midway
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Aural Aggravation 