Tag Archives: Norway

Bardus – Solus (2014), Stella Porta (2016); Grizzlor / Barren Womb – Split (2015)

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Bardus – Solus (Wolf Beach Tapes, 21 October 2014)

 

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Bardus – Stella Porta (Solar Flare Records, 01 April 2016)

 

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Grizzlor / Barren Womb – Split (Riotous Outburst Records, 17 March 2015)

 

Hello, and Happy Friday to everyone out there! I hope you’ve had an okay week — and if not, then I hope you have a great weekend to make up for it. Before then, though, I’d like to throw something at you real quick.

At this very moment, there’s somewhat of a mini-tour going on — a handful of regional dates featuring a couple of bands, Philadelphia’s Bardus and New Haven’s Grizzlor, and it just happens that each of them have released something over the past year and a half that I’ve got in my to-do list for sharing with you readers. So it seems like a pretty convenient time to share both of those with you now, and even more so considering the fact that one of them also will have a brand-new album coming out next month — I’ll talk a little about that one, too.

I’ll try to keep this one kind of short (I know I say that a lot and it doesn’t always work out that way, but I promise I’ll try!) because I’m sure all of you are as anxious as I am to get started on those weekend plans. But scroll down to the comments section because I’ll also throw in the remaining tour dates for these two bands — which happens to include a stop in Pittsburgh this Saturday!

 

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Krakow – diin (2012), amaran & genesis (2015)

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Kraków – diin (Dark Essence Records, 14 September 2012)

 

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Kraków – amaran (Dark Essence Records, 09 February 2015)

 

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Kraków – genesis (Dark Essence Records, 07 August 2015)

 

Hey, folks. So last week as you may have noticed, we had a bit of a blast from the past: I wrote about an album that came out in the latter part of 2012, one which I have enjoyed listening to immensely since I first heard it, and one that likely would have found its way onto my list of that year’s best releases if I had just gotten around to hearing it sooner. Well today, we’ll be taking a look at another album that also came out around the same time — late 2012 — and has become one of my favorite things to listen to since I first discovered it. That album is called diin, and was the second to be released by Norwegian post-rockers Kraków. Today we’ll also discuss that band’s third record amaran (and the EP that closely followed, genesis) — and since I’d made the mistake of finding that earlier album too late and excluding it from my 2012 list, I made sure to rectify that when it came time to put together my list for 2015, since those two (jointly) happened to rank among the best things I heard last year.

Anyway, that’s surely enough in the way of introduction — you can just expect that we’ll be covering several entries from this band’s discography — part of which I was sorry to have missed once, and all of which you would be wise not to miss now!

 

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THE TROLLS ARE COMING!! (Finntroll and TrollfesT Announce North American Tours)

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THE TROLLS ARE COMING!!

 
Specifically, the Finnish masters of “humppa” style folk metal, Finntroll, and the originators of “True Norwegian Balkan Metal”, TrollfesT, are both coming to North America later this year — separately, although each of them will be part of a tour package that will surely have any fan of folk/pagan metal salivating with anticipation! Even better, both bands will be making a stop in Pittsburgh!!

 
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Breaking News: TrollfesT Begins Work On Another New Album!

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I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the TrollfesT Facebook page (if not, then you should be ashamed of yourself!), but all this week they’ve been teasing the fact that some sort of major announcement would be made on Thursday. Guess what: now it’s Thursday. And here’s what I’ve just learned…..

 

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True Norwegian Black Metal: Download a Free Blodsgard Video!

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The Blodsgard song “Mentalt Minefelt” was selected by No Clean Singing as one of 2011’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs” and in thanks for that honor the band is giving free downloads of the video for that song. Christianity gets a comeuppance courtesy of the Swedish cult film Häxan‘s Devil, and Blodsgard provides the crushing soundtrack. Click the link below to go to the video page and get the free DL for your computer or your smart phone.

This is the email update that I recently received from Norwegian black metal miscreants Blodsgard (which translates to “blood farm”). If you aren’t familiar with the band, I can’t think of a better way to get acquainted than to check out this video, and then you can grab your very own copy if you’d like.

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Happy/Sad News: Ghost are Coming! But They Aren’t Coming Here!

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So I was totally excited all summer long, anticipating the fall Enslaved tour, because I’d heard Ghost was opening.  Although their debut album Opus Eponymous was released in 2010, I only became aware of the Swedish Satanic hard rock band earlier this year.  But anyway, I grew to like them so much that I didn’t much care WHO else was on the bill; once I found out they were coming to Pittsburgh in September, I was going for sure.

Well, unfortunately, a few weeks before the show was to take place, the band posted an apology on their Facebook page, saying that due to some sort of visa snafu, they wouldn’t be able to make the trip overseas.  So needless to say, I was pretty disappointed.

Then, this afternoon a headline caught my eye, and I was surprised to see that there was a new announcement in the Facebook news feed: the band of nameless ghouls are planning to finally come to North America in the beginning of 2012.  So then I was all excited once more, for approximately 2.2 seconds, or about the time it took to scan through the list of dates and see they’re not coming anywhere near me.  The closest stop on this 13-date tour is just a few hours away, but it’s across the Canadian border, and not having a passport, I’m afraid in this case I would end up with a visa issue of my own.

Anyway, take a peek at the image above and see if perhaps you’re luckier than I, in your proximity to one of the cities listed there.

For more information, check out the official website.

Ghost on Facebook

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Ghost – Opus Eponymous (CD | download)