Good morning! I’d like to share with you a couple of records that were re-released in 2021.
In case you missed these the first time around, I’d hate for you to miss them again…
Hello out there, readers! Today our mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly grab our headphones and listen to some cosmic death metal and cosmic black metal!
Happy Tuesday! As we muddle our way through this final week of 2021, I’ll continue to try getting as much stuff written as possible to wrap up the year, culminating with the revealing of my highly-anticipated Top 21 of 2021 list.
While the exact details of that list are currently secreted away in a locked vault in an undisclosed location, but one thing I can absolutely guarantee is that it will include THIS record, which answers the question, “What if Body Void but slower, and perhaps — just maybe — a bit more emotionally devastating?”
Hello there! Just in time for Christmas — well, the eve of Christmas Eve — I’d like to gift your ears with some carols performed by a MacBethan trio of weyward musicians…
All right, y’all — today I’ll be treating you to two heaping helpings of fuzzed-out instrumental goodness, courtesy of la famiglia italiana who constitute the trio Prehistoric Pigs.
Good afternoon. Now comes the part where I would like to draw your attention to Texan ‘postgazecore’ (or something like that) band, Glassing — specifically the last album they released in 2019 and the one that just came out last month.
Enjoy!
Once upon a time; many, many years ago, there was a kid named Lonegoat who lived in the land of Florida. And as was tradition for Floridian young people around that time, he played in death metal bands. He showed a real talent for playing the piano and keyboards and, in the words of one former bandmate, “brought a much more classical piano sound to the band rather than someone playing chords and some strange sounds here and there […] and it made all of us in the band have to step up our level of playing to a more classical orchestral sound.”
Well, as is often the case, this kid grew up and went on to do grown-up things like serving in the US Air Force for a while. But after coming back and relocating to Texas, Lonegoat struck out as a solo pianist — calling the new musical venture Goatcraft. A few years back, I wrote about Goatcraft‘s 2013 and 2016 albums.
But before that, in 2011 he had put together a CDR demo to hand out at shows. Here we’ll discuss Mephistophelian Exordium which collects those demo recordings and made them available to the broader public for the first time ever, just a little over a year ago. While we’re here, we’ll also take a look at brand-new album Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, and in the process treat our ears to a full decade worth of “Necroclassical” music.
My first exposure to Rebreather, from Youngstown Ohio (right across the state border from here via the turnpike), was August 2013 in neighboring Kent Ohio — where they performed at that summer’s Blackout Cookout.
Unfortunately no images survive from that performance, because all my show photos were stored on a Facebook account which no longer exists. But it was a pretty eventful day, where roughly a dozen different bands alternated sets on stages at opposite ends of the venue. Rebreather closed out the night, at which point we were all so completely exhausted and dead to the world, that we could hardly even focus on what was happening. But damn. Even now, eight years later, I can still remember badly wanting to hit the road to get back home, but being sucked in and transfixed by the abject heaviness emanating from that stage.
Luckily, I would eventually see the band multiple times in Pittsburgh and Ohio, so at least once or twice got to experience them while fully awake and slightly more lucid. Anyway, fast-forwarding to 2021, the band has just put out a brand-new record that any fans of noise-rock or grunge or fuzz or post-rock should have on their wish list for Santa!
Hey folks, happy Monday! The end of December is really sneaking up upon us, and there’s a distinct chill in the air — like winter has finally (almost) arrived.
For your listening enjoyment today, here are two albums that just came out this month, each living somewhere in the spectrum of atmospheric black metal.
Good morning. Kind of gloomy today, feels like a blackened-death-sludge kind of day. Join me for a brief trip down memory lane as we reminisce about the last two Beldam records, in preparation for their first-ever live album coming this Friday!
Valley of Steel 