‘Woke Frasier’ is the third and final single from the Leeds band’s upcoming second album I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed, out on November 8th via Big Scary Monsters.
They write: “You can think of this as a sort of sequel to the ‘Torture Cube’ video, also by George Chadwick. Who can say whether or not Rodney Fipplecash will make further appearances within the Thank cinematic universe? Only time will tell.”
Check it here. It’s woke gone mad, I tell you!
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Swansea Alternative band ‘Baby Schillaci’ today have shared a blistering new track ‘The Flatliners’ as a thank you to everyone who has supported the band as release date for highly anticipated furious debut album ‘The Soundtrack’ draws closer on the 2nd October 2024
This debut album promises to expand their sonic horizons while retaining the raw, confrontational edge that has become their hallmark.The albums raw and unflinching approach has alerted the attention of National Radio with KEXP, BBC 6 MUSIC, RTE2, BBC RADIO WALES and has provoked positive reviews with Backseat Mafia, God Is In The TV, Listen With Monger, Amplify The Noise, Fame Magazine, Niche Music, Aux Magazine, No Transmission and many many more…..
Hitting the scene in 2023, Baby Schillaci are swiftly carving out their position in the alternative Welsh music scene with their raw, unfiltered sound. Rooted in post-punk and noise, the band’s aggressive yet intricately layered compositions evoke comparisons to seminal acts like Mclusky, At the Drive-In, and Fugazi. Their music is a relentless assault on the senses that challenges and captivates in equal measure.
Baby Schillaci’s reputation has been forged from their ferocious live shows with echoes of Nirvana, Public image & the Manics mixed with their own unhinged, visceral style. The intensity and unpredictability of their shows have drawn a devoted following.
Known for their relentless energy and erratic performances, Baby Schillaci continue to push the boundaries of the craft with an LP that encapsulates their unfiltered essence.
Hear ‘The Flatliners’ here:
The long-awaited new album from Prague gothic cowboys, CATHEDRAL IN FLAMES titled Count To Nine, has finally been unveiled on the Musicraft label! The themes of the songs cover contemporary psychological problems and addictions, Lovecraftian mysticism and magical sexual practices.
The title, ‘Count To Nine’ refers to both the number of songs and the mystical number 9. Nine is the number of fulfilment, closure and completion. It also symbolizes the coming of age and the connection between dimensions and worlds on all levels.
The nine tracks were mixed by the legendary John Fryer (Fields of the Nephilim, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Paradise Lost, Cradle Of Filth and more). The band has significantly tightened up their dark gothic rock on their third album, from the hypnotic and gothic rock purist track, ‘Dreaming In The Witch House’ to the cowboy shuffle of ‘Pale Rider’ to the dark pop of ‘Summertime.’
Vocalist Phil Lee Fall says of the album, “On Count To Nine we tried to cross boundaries. We ventured further and deeper than ever before. Musically, lyrically and sonically. It took us almost three years, but we are extremely happy with the result. Dark, mystical and monumental gothic rock for the 21st century.”
Gatsby adds: “Each track is heavily influenced by the mood and situations in which it was created. That’s why I make music, to get the emotion out. So the fact that it’s dark is probably natural. In a way, it’s a catharsis of the disgust and confusion we live in.”
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Cruel Nature Records – 27th September 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
The scene of microlabels will always give you something absent from the mainstream. I mean it’ll give you many things, but I’m talking about variety. We live in the strangest of times. Postmodernism brought simultaneously the homogenisation of mainstream culture and the evermore extreme fragmentation of everything outside the mainstream. And example of that fragmentation is the existence of Cruel Nature Records, who operate by releasing albums digitally and on cassette in small quantities. Further, the second album by Deep Fade, is typical, released in an edition of forty copies. It’s better to know your audience and operate on a sustainable model of what you can realistically sell, of course, but do take a moment to digest the numbers and the margins and all the rest here. It’s clear that this is a label run for love rather than profit.
The sad aspect of this cultural fragmentation is that so much art worthy of a wider, if not mainstream, audience simply doesn’t get the opportunity. Not that Deep Fade have mainstream potential, by any means. As evidenced on the seven tracks – or eight, depending on format – tracks on Further, Deep Fade are just too weird and lo-fi for the mainstream to accommodate them. They simply don’t conform to a single genre, and with tracks running well over eight minutes and often running beyond the ten-minute mark, they’re not likely to receive much radio airplay either.
Opener ‘Tidal’ is exemplary. Somewhere during the course of its nine minutes it transitions from being minimal bedroom pop to glitchy computer bleepage to a devastating blast of messed-up noise. Yet through it all, Amanda Votta’s vocals remain calm and smooth as she breathily weaved her way through the sludge. The twelve-minute title track veers hard into wild Americana, a mess of country and blues and slide guitar, before tapering into fuzzed-out drone guitar reminiscent of latter-day Earth. Amidst trudging drone guitar, thick with distortion, it’s hard not to feel the lo-fi pull.
We’re immensely proud to present an exclusive premier of the video for the mighty ‘Tidal’:
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‘Surge’ arrives on a raw metallic blast before yielding to a spacious echo-soaked guitar drift and some dense, grating abstractions. Texture and detail are to the fore on this layered set of compositions are by no means easy to navigate.
As the band explain, ‘The album, influenced by Neil Young and Einstürzende Neubauten, was recorded across various locations including St. John’s, Providence, Liverpool, and Edinburgh. Environmental elements play a significant role, with guitars recorded during a nor’easter and vocals captured at lighthouses, incorporating natural sounds like wind and bird calls… Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity and the Cowboy Junkies’ The Trinity Sessions also influenced the album’s sound, adding to its atmospheric and melancholic feel.’
Atmospheric and melancholic it is, although many of the aforementioned touchstones aren’t easy to extrapolate from the mix. Nevertheless, and you feel your stomach enter a slow churn, which is exacerbated by the low-gear drones which sound like low-circling jets – there have been a lot of those lately and the air is filled with paranoia and mounting dread right now. Further, however not only provides a sonic landscape that matches this mood, but runs far deeper into the psyche.
The acoustic ‘Little Bird’ scratches and scrapes over a fret-buzzing acoustic guitar. The fifteen-minute ‘Heartword is simply a mammoth-length surge of everything, occasionally breaking down to piano and deep tectonic grinds.
It’s fitting that Deep Fade should call their second album Further, because this is where they take things. At times it’s terrifying and at times it’s immense.
The lyrics are as breathtaking as the crushing bass on ‘Wake Me’, and the sparse arrangement of closer ‘Fixed and Faded’, with its breathy, folky vocal and crunchy overdriven guitar which drones, echoes, and sculpts magnificent spares from feedback and sustain, brings a sense of finality and offers much to digest.
The digital version includes an additional track, another monumental epic in the form of the eleven-minute ‘Hawk’, a work of haunting, spectral acoustic country: it’s one hell of a bonus worthy of what is inarguably, one hell of an album.
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Blood Incantation have finally released a preview into their forthcoming album, Absolute Elsewhere which sees its release next Friday via Century Media. Its first movement, ‘The Stargate’ is available today in its entirety across digital retailers and comes with an exquisite short film, The Stargate which was directed by award winning cinematographer Michael Ragen (Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities: The Viewing) and features mesmerising analog fluid effects by Chris Parks (The Fountain).
‘The Stargate’ Side One: A violent storm invokes the familiar before a grand cosmic key turn for a hint of sweeping scope to come with spiritual acknowledgement and accompaniment by Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning on synths on the song’s second tablet. Musically as violent as it is mediative, with subtle spoken passages flitting between Nicklas Malmqvist’s (Hällas) busy synthesiser keys and Mellotron strings invoking both the modern and ancient, and it is all given sharp focus by Arthur Rizk’s powerfully dynamic and enveloping mix. Blood Incantation depart Extreme Metal’s traditionally antiquated way-station, warping their way towards ‘Genre of One’ stature, as ‘The Stargate’ intones the disembodiment of consciousness itself, careening through the stargate towards Samsara-like reincarnation, punctuated by the occasional growl from Sijjin/ex-Necros Christos main-man, Malte Gericke.
‘The Stargate’ short film is unlike anything you have experienced before. It presents the saga of a mysterious artefact and its victims in a hallucinatory synthesis of science fiction and folk horror, where mind-bending imagery and unsettling atmospheres converge in a surreal tale of primeval blood magic, inter-dimensional travel and grotesque otherworldly technology beginning in the Dark Ages and journeying into voids of deep space.
Watch the video here:
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Absolute Elsewhere hovers at nearly 45 minutes, their longest full length recording yet, the album’s two movements – ‘The Stargate’ and ‘The Message’ – are as confounding as they are engaging, exponentially expanding upon the formulas laid down by their scene-shattering debut Starspawn (2016) and landmark follow up Hidden History of the Human Race (2019).
As Blood Incantation’s Paul Riedl tells, “Absolute Elsewhere is our most potent audial extract/musical trip yet; like the soundtrack to a Herzog-style Sci-Fi epic about the history of/battle for human consciousness itself, via a 70s Prog album played by a 90s Death Metal band from the future.” For inspiration, the group looked to the mid-70’s progressive rock collective, Absolute Elsewhere (best known as a celestial stopover for King Crimson drummer, Bill Bruford) as the album’s namesake. For the uninitiated, Absolute Elsewhere’s obscure 1976 album, In Search of Ancient Gods, was constructed as a musical accompaniment to the works of Chariots of the Gods author, Erich Von Daniken, and his theories of non-terrestrial humanoid prompts towards mankind’s evolution. The subject matter of which should serve as no surprise to anyone familiar with Blood Incantation’s cosmically philosophical leanings. But make no mistake, the four musicians working under the Blood Incantation banner for the past decade – guitarist and vocalist Paul Riedl, drummer Isaac Faulk, guitarist Morris Kolontyrsky and bassist Jeff Barrett – have successfully left the microgravity of genre behind and are re-writing the Rosetta Stone of extreme music with a new language entirely. Demonstrations like their 2022 all-synth show or 2024’s Roadburn Festival headlining appearance where they played back-to-back death metal and ambient made it clear: Blood Incantation have honed their abilities to go boldly where few bands have gone before, and reveal no signs of slowing down.
Absolute Elsewhere’s release comes alongside a 73 minute feature film All Gates Open: In Search Of Absolute Elsewhere which tells the story of their time in Berlin during the summer of 2023, while recording at the legendary Hansa Studios. It will be available on Blu-Ray with the album’s deluxe mediabook package and will also include the documentary’s original soundtrack, All Gates Open (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) which includes 60 minutes of exclusive new music distinct from the new album. This special edition will also include Blood Incantation’s 2023 maxi-single, ‘Luminescent Bridge’ for the first time ever on CD, and of course, Absolute Elsewhere in both standard and Dolby Atmos / 5.1 mixes, alongside exclusive liner notes, exclusive interviews, behind the scenes photos and a forward by Ross Dolan of Immolation.
Photo By Julian Weigand
‘Pagan Synth’ band, ESOTERIK has just dropped the latest single from their forthcoming EP, Archetypes.
For their latest single, ESOTERIK brings light to the archetype known as the ‘Shadow.’ The silent observer always watching from behind the scenes, waiting with indifference for what comes to pass. They say you must make peace to move forward, but isolation has always tasted better. Nothing is inherently good or bad and imbalance provides perspective. Without a light to shine the subconscious feeds eternally. However, in absence of light a shadow cannot exist.
On the upcoming EP, Archetypes, ESOTERIK examines the tropes that have weaved a thread across societies for centuries. “It’s such an interesting topic and really highlights the power of language whether written or passed down via word of mouth. The legends hold a commonality that span through time and culture. Before the world was connected by technology, these stories held the experiences and wisdom for generations to come. Whether they are steeped in symbolism or ritual, the lessons are still infused and if sensational that only ensures the survival beyond our limited life spans.”
Watch the video here:
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Venamoris, the duo of Paula and Dave Lombardo, has signed with Ipecac Recordings, prepping a 2025 sophomore release, with a glimpse of what’s to come with today’s release of the entrancing track, ‘In The Shadows’.
“’In The Shadows’ is a song that arose from real-life feelings,” Paula Lombardo shares. “The pulsating drum wholly evocative of marching forward even when internal unrest is still close-at-hand. It is a call for self-acceptance with the heaviness of a life well lived.”
“Venamoris is such an intimate project for the two of us,” adds Dave Lombardo. “To have our sophomore album in Ipecac’s exceptionally skilled hands is a dream realised. We are ecstatic to be a part of this audacious label.”
Venamoris captures the essence of a sound that is alluring and deeply emotional, blending sultry vocals with mesmerising instrumentation to create an enveloping experience that is as hypnotic as it is emotionally charged. Like a whispered secret, there’s something seductive yet provocative about the noir-tinged songs they create. Brooklyn Vegan, describing an earlier single, adeptly said Venamoris has “Portishead meets David Lynch vibes."
Watch the video here:
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Summer has come to an end, all swallows have left the north, and autumn is already knocking on doors and windows with gusts of wind and rain. When the first leaves are falling, it is also time for melancholic tunes. WHISPERING VOID has the perfect offer for this darkening season: the eponymous song that gave the collective of renowned musicians from Norway’s west coast their name. ‘Whispering Void’ is taken from their forthcoming debut album At the Sound of the Heart, which has been scheduled for release on October 18, 2024.
WHISPERING VOID comment: “Lyrically, ‘Whispering Void’ combines all the elements of this album”, vocalist Kristian Espedal reveals. “The slow, gracious movements of the music evoke the innocence of natural beings moving through a forest, as acted out by the vocals in the verses. This song also features our third ‘outside’ collaborator, Matias Monsen from the band DROTT is playing the cello.”
Listen to this gloriously epic tune here:
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Straight out of the Virginmays songbook ‘There Ain’t No Future’ is the next chapter in the duo’s heart felt message to the world, with their hearts on their sleeves and a fire in their belly this new single delivers the unashamed raw power of Rage Against the Machine with the swagger of peak Kasabian.
Frontman Ally states, “This is a track for the uninspired, for the unheard, those who crave truth and all that’s real. Those struggling day to day to make ends meet, yet still have love in their hearts to fight the good fight. Those who see the system is broken and choose not to punch down.
We’re really proud of this track, musically, we haven’t released a song like this before, it’s a further glimpse into an album we consider our best work to date.”
The House Beyond The Fires is the band’s first album since they reformed as a two piece in 2021, teaming up with Dave Draper to produce the drums and guitars (Terrorvision, The Wildhearts) and Karl Daniel Lidén from Sweden for the mix and mastering – an instant go-to after hearing his work (Dozer, Greenleaf) and this approach has certainly paid off.
Ally continues, “We have always been renowned for the power and energy of our live performances and strived to recreate that intensity through the production and mix of the records. I feel like we’ve really turned a corner with this album.”
The official video was the brainchild of Drummer Danny Dolan shot with Joel Gardner.
Watch it here:
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6 years in the making, and a worthy follow up to their previous Top 10 ‘Heatseekers’ Charting album Northern Sun Sessions – The House Beyond The Fires brings a collection of anthemic, hard hitting Alt/Rock tracks with a punk edge.
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From the deep woods now emerges Birna, Wardruna’s sixth studio album. Through his restless dialogue with nature, main composer Einar Selvik has been searching for the voice of the bear, resulting in this upcoming release, scheduled for January 2025.
Birna – the she-bear in Old Norse – is a work of art dedicated to the guardian of the forest, nature’s caretaker, and her battles here on earth. Slowly driven out of her habitat by modern day societies, she has entered a stage of permanent hibernation. As a result, the forest is gradually dying, longing for its pulse and heart – its shepherd. Birna calls for her return.
“Where the previous album Kvitravn was a step conceptually from the past to the present, Birna even more so seeks to address the here and now and the way forward,” states composer Einar Selvik.
Alongside the album announcement is a new single and music video for "Himinndotter," the song constitutes a search and a calling for our lost sister of the woods. Composer Einar Selvik states “Himinndotter (Sky-daughter) is part of a six-song exploration of the bear on Wardruna’s upcoming album Birna (She-bear). The title plays on the globally common notion of the bears mythical origin as a celestial being. Himinndotter features a guest appearance of the Norwegian choir Koret Artemis.”
The video for ‘Himinndotter’ is filmed in Rondane National Park in Norway and is once again directed by Wardruna’s longtime collaborator Tuukka Koski, and produced by Breakfast Helsinki and Ragnarok Film.
Watch the video for ‘Himinndotter’ here:
Wardruna live in 2024/2025
USA & Latin America 2024:
03 Oct – Morrison (CO), USA – Red Rocks Amphitheatre with special guest: Chelsea Wolfe
06 Oct – Mexico City, Mexico – Auditorio BB – SOLD OUT
09 Oct – Santiago de Chile, Chile – Teatro Caupolican
12 Oct – São Paulo, Brazil – Terra SP
Europe 2024:
07 Nov – Milano, Italy – Teatro Degli Arcimboldi
08 Nov – Zurich, Switzerland – The Hall
09 Nov – Paris, France – Salle Pleyel with special guest: Jo Quail – SOLD OUT
11 Nov – Hamburg, Germany – Laeiszhalle – SOLD OUT
12 Nov – Berlin, Germany – Tempodrom
14 Nov – Lyon, France – Amphithéâtre 3000
15 Nov – Frankfurt am Main, Germany – Jahrhunderthalle
16 Nov – Nürnberg, Germany – Meistersingerhalle – SOLD OUT
17 Nov – Wien, Austria – Konzerthaus
19 Nov – Brussels, Belgium – Cirque Royal – SOLD OUT
20 Nov – Halle, Germany – Händelhalle
21 Nov – Prague, Czech Republic – Forum Karlin
23 Nov – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli Vredenburg – SOLD OUT
24 Nov – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli Vredenburg – SOLD OUT
26 Nov – Düsseldorf, Germany – Tonhalle – SOLD OUT
Australia & New Zealand 2025:
23 Jan – Melbourne – Palais Theatre
25 Jan – Sydney – Enmore Theatre
27 Jan – Brisbane – Fortitude Music Hall
30 Jan – Auckland – Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre
UK & Ireland 2025 (with special guest Jo Quail):
17 Mar – Liverpool –Philharmonic
18 Mar – Birmingham – Symphony Hall
19 Mar – London – Royal Albert Hall
21 Mar – Bristol – Beacon
22 Mar – York – Barbican
23 Mar – Dublin – Olympia Theatre
25 Mar – Glasgow – SEC Armadillo
Norway 2025:
26 Apr – Oslo – Operaen – SOLD OUT
27 Apr – Oslo – Operaen – SOLD OUT
29 Apr – Trondheim – Olavshallen
02 May – Kristiansand – Kilden
03 May – Stavanger – Konserthuset
04 May – Bergen – Grieghallen
Europe 2025:
07 June – Reyjavik – Harpa
30 Jul – 03 Aug – Rasnov – Rockstadt Extreme Fest
Photo credit: Morten Munthe
Aural Aggravation 