BAIKAL is excited to announce the release of their new music video for the track ‘Rorschach,’ the first single from their upcoming project. At the origins of BAIKAL are guitarist Jérôme Colombelli (formerly of Uneven Structure and Cult Of Occult) and singer Matthieu Romarin (from Psykup and Uneven Structure). The project was initiated by Jérôme, who began crafting the first compositions in 2020.
Amid the global pandemic and a time characterized by confinement, the duo, along with other contributing musicians like bassist Julien Turrin, combined their diverse influences and backgrounds. This collaboration resulted in a unique sound that blends dark trip-hop atmospheres with powerful post-metal guitars driven by Sunn amplifiers, accented by electro-industrial elements and hints of post-black metal. In 2022, the band officially took on the name BAIKAL and made their live debut in Lyon, performing alongside Céleste.
The video created for ‘Rorschach’ vividly illustrates the imagery present in the lyrics and develops the aesthetic BAIKAL aims to present. Jérôme adds, “For us, music is inseparable from visuals. When I listen to music, images always come to mind, and when I watch a film, I need music that truly complements what I see to fully immerse myself in it.”
Brooklyn alternative rock outfit The Giraffes presents their new single ‘Million Year Old Song’, a caustic zipper from their self-released eighth album Cigarette, accompanied by an adventurous video, conceived and directed by Damien Paris, featuring a crass tongue-in-cheek modern depiction of America the wild.
Cigarette is a hypnotic hard-edged psychedelic rock score for our current age of decay and disappointment, fear and fury, idiocy and hope. Previewed by the singles ‘Pipes’ and ‘The Shot’, this long-awaited and loaded 7-track offering is full of surprises, taking new risks with subject matter and composition while maintaining the intensity and dexterity fans know and love.
Recorded and engineered by Andrew Totolos at Apesauce Studio, this was mixed by Grammy nominated producer Francisco Botero (Matisyahu, Odesza) at the iconic Studio G Brooklyn and by James Dellatacoma (Bill Laswell, Herbie Hancock, TS Monk, John Zorn, Angelique Kidjo) at Bill Laswell’s famed Orange Music Sound Studio.
Since forming in 1996, The Giraffes have been crafting a hedonistic soundtrack that is loud, agile, dangerous, funny, sick, complex and satisfying. Known for their trademark menu of metal-tinged scuzz-rock, The Giraffes offer a tasteful mixture of heavy rock, punk, post-punk, surf and whatever else they find interesting. With lead singer Aaron Lazar and guitar maestro Damien Paris as its core, drummer Andrew Totolos provides the locomotive rhythm section with Hannah Moorhead anchoring the bass. This year marks the beginning of a new era for the band, with Moorhead now also contributing backing vocals and songwriting. With the line-up no longer in flux, the focus is now largely on songwriting.
Aaron Lazar explains the origins of this song: “One of Damien’s most ‘badass’ style cartoon bad guy riffs deserved some extemporizing. The phrase “a million year old song in twenty year old lungs” caused me to remember how I was at that age. The first verse is a picture of that time in my life – the feeling of invincibility along with my backward looking cultural tastes (obsessed with blues explosion and old soul and punk from the 70s). The smoke everywhere at all times. No phone culture. It was a world that kids today would not believe existed. I wanted to not be a total old man stuck looking back at my youth so I imagined someone my kid’s age hitting 20 and what the world will look like for them for the second verse. This protagonist has the power of youth but in a much more dire world. I believe that the animating spirit of “rock n roll” or whatever is that self-destructive imperative for fun at all costs. Interesting to think of what that will look like later on down the line. The song remains the same – just the world changes.”
Greek post-metal collective Spineless is thrilled to announce the release of their new music video for the track ‘Me,’ taken from their highly anticipated second full-length album, Dysphonia, out on Submersion Records.
As the 26th offering from Submersion Records, Dysphonia represents a bold step forward for the project, led by the renowned vocalist and musician Chrysa Tsaltampasi, alongside a talented collective of musicians from the Greek music scene.
Watch the video here:
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Dysphonia follows the success of Spineless’ 2018 debut Speaking of Chaos and Relative Peace, and sees the band evolve into an even more potent and gloomy force. Drawing influences from a wide spectrum of artists such as Chelsea Wolfe, Godflesh, Ulver, and Mike Patton, Dysphonia delivers a unique sonic landscape that balances calculated anger with haunting melodies and brutal honesty.
Internationally recognized for her powerful voice and as a teacher, Tsaltampasi has been involved in high-profile collaborations in recent years, including working with Ben Frost on the soundtrack for the Netflix series 1899 and recording with artists such as Sofia Sarri, Beyond Perception, Mother Turtle, and Bella Fuzz. These experiences have shaped the rich and experimental nature of Dysphonia, where monolithic post-metal meets melodic songwriting in a way that recalls the swirling dynamics of Neurosis and Mono, with a touch of 90’s alternative edge.
Anyone who has been paying attention will know that the human race is in a perilous position. We inhabit a planet that is overheating and being drained of the resources needed to sustain a healthy balance for the life which exists upon it, while our politicians indulge in pointless regional wars, or blinkered domestic bickering; anything to avoid having to make the unpopular decisions which may help mitigate the effects of humanity’s selfish excesses. We can’t last forever, so what happens after we’re gone?
Williams’ new single is a journey (literally, in the case of its dazzling video) – hard, hyperactive synthetics melt into Duane Eddy guitar licks, before the choirs and orchestras (several of each) join the stampede to a coruscating climax.
The earth will heal just fine without us. That’s what will happen after we’re gone.
In the debate of nature versus nurture, it’s noteworthy how many artists find themselves influenced in no small way not only by their formative years, but also the place or places where they grew up. There’s an entire thesis to be made from this, but here I make the observation because on Allens Cross, Empty Cut – a duo consisting of Douglas Fielding-Smith and Robert Bollard – have forged a work ‘Inspired by their childhood growing up in Birmingham they blend together all their experience and inspirations to create a noise that holds a heavy solid groove mixed with harsh noise and fuzzed out reverbed bass, topped with psychedelic synths, and chopped and screwed vocals.’
Birmingham, the city which gave us Black Sabbath and UB40, the second largest in England, with a population of over two and a quarter million, and has long been renowned for its diversity, and is a truly multicultural melting-pot. It’s perhaps unsurprising that cities like this – in contrast to so many predominantly white, often middle-class towns – are the source of musical innovation: throw in an element of social deprivation, the frisson of frustration driven by class and cultural disparity, and inevitably, this backdrop will fuel the fires of those with a creative bent.
Allens Cross is exemplary: as the blurbage summarises, ‘mixing together drums, bass, samples, effects and vocals they have created a sound that incorporates punk, hardcore, electronica, jazz, drum’n’bass, experimental-industrial and shoegaze.’ It’s one of those that on paper probably shouldn’t work, but thanks to the dexterity if its creators, works far beyond imagination.
It grinds in on a sample looped and echoed across a dirty bass and slow-building beat… and then everything slides into a doomy, sludgy sonic murk. ‘Bloodline; makes for a dank and difficult opening, five minutes of feedback and dinginess sprawling and lunging this way and that, culminating in a manic howl driven by frantic percussion and driving bass.
‘Fidget’ whips up a howl of feedback against a juddering stop/start bass, and with shouty vocals low in the mix, it brings a quintessential 90s Amphetamine Reptile vibe with a hint of Fudge Tunnel… until things take a detour into dub territory in the mid-section. When the noise blast returns, it hits even harder.
With none of the album’s eight tracks running for less than five minutes and the majority straying beyond six, it feels like there’s an element of slog, of punishment, inbuilt. ‘The Well Beneath’ certainly mines that dark seem of metal that plunges underground, but with the contrast of jazz drumming and some quite nifty bass work, at least until they hit the ‘overload’ pedal and everything blows out with booming distortion.
If ‘Fluff’, by its title sounds cuddly, like a kitten, or a bit throwaway, like that which you’d sweep up from the corner or the room, the reality is quite the opposite: a six-minute seething industrial sprawl, it’s slow-burning, dark and menacing, and a clear choice of lead tune… Not, but then again, with an echo of Eastern promise and a certain ambience, and the strains of feedback a way in the distance, it perhaps is the most accessible cut on the album.
We’re proud to share a video exclusive of ‘Fluff’ here:
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Elsewhere, ‘Hymn to Then’ pitches cold synths and rolls of thunder to conjure dark images, a stormy backdrop to an eye-opening hybrid of prog rock, industrial, and krautrock: the result isn’t only epic, but conjures images of Dracula and unseen horrors with its icy atmospherics, while the last track, the eight-minute ‘Shatter’ begins with an eerie take on Celtic folk
Allens Cross is a highly imaginative work, an album that draws together a broad range of styles in a cohesive form. Its impact lands by stealth, building as it does across a range of styles, often creeping under the skin, unexpectedly, to register its effect. Sparse synths laser-cut across distorted, arrhythmic percussive blasts, as a low-level crackle and hum of distortion hovers around the level of the ground. Fractured vocals add to the disorientation, and the experience is uncomfortable. You cower, and will for release, not because it’s bad, but because it’s intentionally claustrophobic, torturous, and so well executed.
This is perhaps a fair summary of Allens Cross as a whole. It is not, by any means, an easy listen. Enjoyable would be a stretch. But it is utterly compelling.
Having just embarked on their European tour, RATS OF GOMORRAH also drop the video single ‘Swarming Death’, which is also the opening track of the German death metal duo’s forthcoming debut full-length Infectious Vermin. The album is scheduled for release on January 17, 2025.
RATS OF GOMORRAH comment: “This track is an amalgamation of everything that we have to offer: a lot of ‘blegh’, grooves, hard hitting drums, and a catchy chorus!”, frontman Daniel Stelling writes. “The lyrics of ‘Swarming Death’ spin a tale that began with the track ‘Rats of Gomorrah’ on the 2021 Oblitherion EP of our predecessor band Divide. It deals with no less than world domination!”
Check the video here:
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Here they come: a crawling, sprawling, gnawing mass of vicious rodents on a rampage. RATS OF GOMORRAH unleash their debut full-length "Infectious Vermin" onto a horrified world.
If the image of a malicious horde of rats does not give you the creeps, maybe the fact that "Infectious Vermin" is the result of the German duo’s frustration with the metal scene and its reluctance to any change does. No worries, although RATS OF GOMORRAH are averse to simply regurgitating all the tired clichés of an average death metal album, they have not completely abandoned that ship. They just took some detours into heavy and speed metal territory, kept vocal pitching varied, and added some hot spices such as crust-infused riffs and catchy choruses.
As with their previous releases, RATS OF GOMORRAH diabolically wrapped environmental, social, and even political issues into Lovecraftian horror themes. A gnawing feeling that there is a rat in everything does also persist. And for the first time, some lyrics are even intimate and personal.
RATS OF GOMORRAH are one of those bands that have a much longer story behind them than their emergence under that name suggests. Strictly speaking the German duo only crawled out of their hole with a new rodent moniker in 2023. Yet they also started out with over a decade of death metal experience under their pelt.
Guitarist and vocalist Daniel Stelling and Moritz Paulsen on drums had already been a part of the internationally active Northern German death metal trio DIVIDE since 2009, which had become a duo in 2016. In this formation the musicians that have claimed BOLT THROWER, CARCASS, and VADER as major sources of influence managed to establish an excellent name in the death metal underground. In fact their standing in this scene grew to such an extent that DIVIDE was able to tour not only throughout all of Europe, but also in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and even in India. In 2022, they even won the German competition of the Wacken Metal Battle and were awarded a slot at the largest and most famous metal festival of this planet.
Despite their legacy and all the hard work that it took to establish their name, the duo was not content to remain within the limitations of their stylistic mould. Although they stayed true to death metal, they already started to make their music more rough and dirty, expanded their horizon with elements from black, thrash and other influences from extreme music, and even added a healthy dose of weirdness. Out of respect for their previous works and acknowledging the changes, the two Germans decided to change the band name to RATS OF GOMORRAH. As befits such rodent vermin, you may expect deep growls, thrash-infused riffs, blast beats and of course: rat-like shrieks!
Hopefully, by now there is an itchy feeling on your skin, and rustling noises from behind your walls, while a sense of dread and panic is spreading. The best antidote: blast Infectious Vermin on ten – and never a rat will you ever see more. Well, maybe a neighbour or four knocking on your door. So what?! Tell them all that RATS OF GOMORRAH rule supreme!
The innocence mission is releasing ‘Midwinter Swimmers,’ the second single, video and title track from their first studio album from the innocence mission in four years. The album sounds immediately like an old friend. At the same time, it’s a new kind of adventure for the beloved Pennsylvania band of high school friends Karen Peris, Don Peris, and Mike Bitts, having both an expansive, cinematic quality and the strange, lo-fi beauty of a newly discovered vintage folk/pop album, brimming with melody. Midwinter Swimmers is being released November 29 by Therese Records in North America, Bella Union in the U.K. and PVine in Japan.
Watch the video here:
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‘Midwinter Swimmers’ is the second in a trio of songs on the new album (the second being the title song) about missing a loved one who is away, and of how love can transcend distance, Karen says. Piano melodies and high electric with strummed nylon string guitars make a glimmery soundtrack for this tune. Karen Peris thinks of this as ‘a small song of looking ahead to the arrival of a loved and dear person.’ In part of the landscape, swimmers are seen from a distance and are refracted through tears and made more beautiful that way. The contrast of swimmers in the winter is connected with early flowers that, though fragile in appearance are especially hardy, enough to appear when it is still snowing. And this connection in turn becomes linked with the bravery of the person who has been away and will soon return.
This attentiveness to small detail typifies the way the innocence mission’s songs look closely at everyday moments as miraculous worlds of their own. Karen’s words stand on their own as poetry, with a particular sense of place and color, of the visual, that communicate universal experiences of change and loss, and of love, hope, and gratitude.
‘Crippled Crow’ is the final single by Norwegian band Mayflower Madame’s much anticipated upcoming album Insight, out on 1st November via Night Cult Records/ Up In Her Room/Icy Cold Records.
Compared to the album’s previous singles, this newest track expands on their distinctive fusion of edgy post-punk and dreamy shoegaze, incorporating aspects of noise-rock and darkwave. Driven by a driving bass line and dynamic drumming, the song leads you on a captivating journey – from the haunting verse melodies to the intense guitar passages in the choruses, culminating in a powerful ending. It evokes feelings of longing and remorse amidst the wintry streets of Oslo, intertwined with a burning desire for transformation and catharsis.
Check the video here:
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Mayflower Madame return to the UK and Europe for a tour in November. Tickets are available here.
‘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.”
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.
Aural Aggravation 