Gallery – Eternal Night (Savage Night Recordings, 11 May 2018)

We recently heard from a brand-new label based out of Texas, a little mom-and-pop type operation who call themselves Savage Night Recordings. None of those terms are intended as denigratory: the label is literally run by a husband-and-wife team, and when I found their Facebook page I believe they had somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five “likes”…

Surely that won’t be the case for long, though — not if their selection of projects to work with so far is any indication. Their first official release, due out tomorrow, is Eternal Night by Elizabethan (not to be confused with the period of British history, I mean that these guys are from Elizabeth, New Jersey) black metal band Gallery, and checking it out would absolutely be twenty-four minutes well spent!

The five songs that comprise Eternal Night exemplify black metal in its rawest and most primitive form, like the savage noise that was coming out of South America back in the early days of the genre: intense, strained vocals set against drums that are usually fast but never overly complicated (serving the stripped-down and raw vibe) while the cymbals are endlessly attacked like a crazy person; and much of the time the buzzy guitars are floating in the background saturating the whole mix while the bass grumbles its way underneath it all.

As the perfect showcase for such a primal, slightly-unhinged sound, the band has managed to imbue the recording (especially the drums and vocals) with a huge “recorded in a massive underground catacomb” sound, while also having the intimate feeling of a close-knit group that has been recorded live altogether (an impression brought on, for example, by the sound of a snare rattling along with guitar notes during some of the quieter moments found herein).

Each track is like a huge burst of wild energy, followed by brief cooling-down periods (like a long-distance runner or someone engaging in strenuous aerobic exercise), only to rush onward with mad abandon once more; wash, rinse, and repeat, over and over.

The album is currently available to pre-order in digital formats here, while CDs and t-shirts can be found here. Savage Night also promises that a limited cassette release will be coming soon.
 

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http://www.facebook.com/gallerymetal
http://gallerynj.bandcamp.com
 
http://www.facebook.com/savagenightrecordings
http://www.savagenightrecordings.com
http://savagenightrecordings.bandcamp.com