Happy Monday to you, Dear Reader.  It’s time once again for the “Signmeto” Unsigned Band of the Week feature.  As you know by now, this is where I write about a band I’ve discovered on the “Sign Me to Roadrunner Records” website (usually after they’ve written to me asking for a review of their music).  The process goes something like this: I listen to their songs, and I tell you all about them, then you can go listen to them, and bingo! you’ve found a brand new band to fall in love with, and that band has a new devoted fan.  Everyone wins.

Today’s artist is called Barbarian Prophecies, formed over a decade ago by merging two other bands called Barbarianth and Venomous Prophecies.  These gentlemen come to us via Lugo, a town in northwestern Spain which lies in the region of Galicia.  This town has the distinction of being the only place in the world that is still surrounded by fully intact Roman walls.  Although the population of this town generally speaks either Galician or Spanish (or both), this band’s lyrics tend to be in English.  Furthermore, although this area is just a little inland of the Atlantic Ocean (to the west) and the Bay of Biscay (to the north), and therefore generally enjoys a fairly temperate oceanic climate year-round, you’ll find that Barbarian Prophecies concoct a cold, dark variety of death metal that leans in a rather doomy direction, such as you might expect to come from someplace much further to the north…

The songs available on the band’s Signmeto page include “Baptized by Wolves” and “Frozen Winds” which average about seven minutes in length, as well as “Neverending Winter” which exceeds the nine minute mark. All three songs sound cold and depressive, as well as bludgeoningly heavy and oppressive. Stylistically, as I said, this is not far from your typical Scandinavian death-doom metal. Even the song titles (as you can see) conjure images of a barren place much nearer to the Arctic circle. “Frozen Winds” draws some black metal inspiration in spots, as well, particularly in a few of the guitar riffs; at the same time, though, just like the other two songs it’s full of plenty of hard-hitting death metal as well as incorporating enough groove and dynamic contrast to keep the listener engrossed over the full running time.

The band also has an official video available for the song “Lost Souls”:

So go on and check out the tunes at Signmeto Roadrunner Records, then for further information you can also visit the band’s Facebook page and Myspace page.  Unfortunately, their official website (http://barbarianprophecies.es) appears to be down at this time, and consequently so is the webshop (http://barbarianprophecies.es/web/shop).  However, to obtain more information about purchasing their debut CD Remember the Fallen (out now!), I’d suggest you write to barbarianprophecies@hotmail.com to contact the band directly.

I hope you enjoyed this post – please feel free to share your opinion in the comments below!  Until next week… if you happen to stumble across something you’d like to share (or if you are in a band and are trying to get your music heard), just write to me at my Signmeto “scout” page.  Thanks for reading!