Hello there. It’s Monday morning. It’ll be a shorter week than usual, for me, because I’ve got a couple vacation days leading into the three-day holiday weekend (Labor Day is Monday in the U.S.A.). So, I suppose the knowledge that I’ll only have to suffer through a few days (rather than a whole week) makes it easier to bear, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s Monday morning.

So the best thing to do, that I can think of, is to go grab a cup of coffee, and blast some music into our ears until we can’t feel feelings anymore. I like my metal like I like my coffee: black, and strong enough to tear your soul apart.

 

 
For starters, here’s a treat that Welicoruss recently shared with me. The symphonic black metal band from Novosibirsk (Siberia) has recently posted two live videos — each featuring a new song that will be included in a future album. It’s been quite some time since we’ve had a new release out of these guys, so that was pretty exciting news. Both videos are included below for your viewing and listening pleasure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Welicoruss: website, Facebook, Youtube

 
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Next, Norway’s Ragnarok recently created their first-ever official music video, while also announcing that work has begun on their forthcoming seventh album.

The video, for the title track of their last album, Collectors of the King, was produced by William Brovold, directed by Stefan E. Pedersen and the cinematography is by Lasse Roed.

 
Drummer/founding member Jontho said:

It’s the first official video we’ve done for the band, and for a band that’s been around as long as we have, you could say it’s been a long time in coming. It’s a very dark piece in every sense of the word and perfectly conveys the atmosphere and subject matter of the track itself. We’re very pleased with the result, and now we’ve got a taste for it, it certainly won’t be the last video we make and you can rest assured that the new album will provide plenty of material for the next one.

 
I wish I could come up with a better description than that, but I have to agree: the song is very dark, the subject matter dark, and the video itself is visually quite dark. Check out “Collectors of the King” here:

 
The band, which was founded in 1994, recently signed a deal with Agonia Records and began work at Sweden’s Endarker Studios in June of this year on their as-yet untitled seventh album, due for release later this year.
 

 

 
Ragnarok: website, Facebook, Soundcloud, ReverbNation, Youtube

 
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Denmark’s Blodarv (“Blood Legacy” in Danish) have put out a brand new video too, one which they made for a track set to appear on their upcoming fourth full-length. They’ve also released another new song, giving fans an extra taste of their first new album in several years.

The video, for “I Blaek Og Blod” (“In Ink and Blood”), was filmed in Hammerknuden and amongst the evocative ruins of Hammershus on the island of Bornholm, home of vocalist/guitarist/founder Hugin, who also filmed, edited, and produced the video.

 
Commenting on the video and the new album, which will be titled Gâst and is set for release towards the end of 2012 on Selfmutilation Services, Hugin said:

As always with Blodarv we have used both Danish and English lyrics on the album, and on this particular track the lyrics happen to be in Danish. Gâst itself contains material that is a lot darker than perhaps you would expect when you listen to “I Blaek Og Blod,” so the track is definitely not representative of the entire album itself. Metaphorical speaking, it’s just a chapter extracted from a complete book.

 
Point your eyeballs (and your ears) in this direction:

 

 

 
Also, as promised, the band have debuted a second track from the forthcoming Gâst. Unlike the previous track, the lyrics to the song “Surrounded by Dust” are in English.

 
According to Hugin, “Surrounded by Dust” is a bit more representative of the album as a whole:

The “I Blaek Og Blod” video caught some of our fans by surprise as the track is not as dark as they have come to expect from us, but as always in Blodarv we create various atmospheres, to fit the music to the lyrics, and “Surrounded by Dust” takes us firmly back into the darkness. It is, in fact, one of the slower tracks on the album and is one of my personal favourites. We finished recording the guitars for the track on the 5th of August and mixed and engineered it over the next few days, so it’s “smoking hot” in every sense of the word.

 
Enjoy “Surrounded by Dust” through the band’s Soundcloud:

 

 

 
Blodarv: Facebook, ReverbNation, Soundcloud, Youtube, webstore

 
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And finally, we have a new video from Oakland California blackened crust band Embers. As you may or may not recall, I featured a review of the band’s 2011 album Shadows back in May of this year when it was released on vinyl. The first track from that album, “Eucharist,” has now been incorporated into a “beautiful video montage of stellar bodies, abandoned places, microbiology, oceanic depths, insects, time-lapse decay and more.” According to the band, all of the images and pieces of video used here are “part of the open source, creative commons footage found on Flickr.”

 

 

 

 
Shadows can still be downloaded for free from Bandcamp or via Torn Flesh Records. The vinyl copy is also available for purchase (along with t-shirts, patches, etc.) at Bandcamp.

 

 

 
Embers: website, Facebook, Myspace, Reverbnation, Bandcamp