Baazlvaat - An Old Forgotten Text (Self-Released)
Baazlvaat appeared as if from nowhere (Flint, Michigan) during 2021 with The Higher Power, a record that owed as much to Bathory as it did to Thin Lizzy (despite the band not really knowing the latter), as a home-recorded full-length that quickly caught the imagination of many in the black metal scene. Having looked into the band (an interview was done with yours truly for another online entity), it became clear that this was a band of great potential. Initially founded by one member, Declan, with a guest vocalist here and there, the line-up was more or less solidified with the addition of Nlorgpipe on vocals for The Higher Power and again on An Old Forgotten Text. It’s worth mentioning that these two musicians are young, high school young, and the prowess they already have with songwriting, recording and promotion is far beyond their years. It helps when the right people notice you, of course, but Baazlvaat seem to be moving away from their first steps as somewhat of a hobby into something slightly more serious.
With songs as engaging as the first track, “The Master,” An Old Forgotten Text takes the foundations of their last album and builds on the Celtic influences and old school feel. While pulling from several different influences, Baazlvaat are creating a unique sense of self and are unafraid to play with genre boundaries. “Three Heads From The Black Depths” is a curious meshing of cold black metal vocals and groove while the psychedelic structures of “Crumbling” evoke an era long since passed, only to be found through the opium-laced haze of the underground. “The Iron Lung” takes those elements further with guttural vocal lines that are laid over curious dungeon synth-esque keys and the occasional clean singing voice that peeks out from the shadows adds a new dimension to the song. It’s magic, in a way, that this duo are able to pull together so many different aspects of their favourite sounds and create something as intriguing as An Old Forgotten Text. It’s not a sound that will be for everyone, but it is a sound that is fascinating and worth investing some time.
Esoctrilihum - Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh (I, Voidhanger Records)
French band Esoctrilihum continue to hone their sound with Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh, an album that follows its predecessor’s curious time signatures and hulking sounds to create a land of nightmares. Led by one person, Asthâghul, Esoctrilihum is a project that channels visions of hell – both physical and metaphorical – to build a world that is unique and terrifying in its construction. Asthâghul has a mind of unhinged genius in that Esoctrilihum often forms whole new cosmoses and lore within the music to funnel their thoughts into something twisted and fascinating, albeit still somewhat impenetrable for the listener.
For Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh, Esoctrilihum lands on a concept that sees frantic black metal married with torturous vocal approaches and off-kilter beats to shape a vast wasteland filled with monsters that have the sole purpose to provide suffering and inflict pain. This is manifested in the radiant heat of the screams that permeate “Thertrh” and its furious drum lines that push the song forward at a pace that is excruciating. You are almost waiting for a break, a moment to take a breath and wipe the sweat off your brow and while such a pause does come it is not long for this world as the fiery hells of “Shohih” are ready to shatter the peace that was so hard fought for.
As the album pushes onwards, it melds claustrophobic and overwhelming guitars with moments of structured melody. “Tharseîdhon” is bizarrely reminiscent of industrial metal with its mechanical pulses for most of the song, yet the unusual rhythms that escape during its latter stages are mind-bending enough to divert your attention from the horrors that lie slyly underneath. Esoctrilihum is adept at creating passages that lean heavily away from its initial steps, so much so that the shock that’s felt when the next song begins is real and tangible. “Scaricide” is frightening in its rage and as Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh moves towards the finality of “Aath” and its truly insane shrieks, the chilling aggression of Esoctrilihum is unleashed for all to hear.
Old Nick - Ghost O' Clock (Grime Stone Records)
What time is it? It’s Ghost O’ Clock!
Only Old Nick could release an EP with this title and not have it be laughed off as a silly exercise in trying to be clever/funny. There’s something particularly smart about Old Nick in that their tongue in cheek style is embraced so wholeheartedly and, while the songs have funny titles and the albums have artwork that could have been made circa 1996 on MS Paint, the charm is so real that Old Nick are a band people have come to adore in spades. Old Nick are old friends of this column as several of their releases have featured here over the last two year. But when the music is this good and fun and interesting, it becomes an obvious one to include if something coincides with the writing of the piece. And as luck would have it, Ghost O’ Clock came along at the perfect time.
As with all Old Nick releases, this EP is full of fun synthy breakdowns, Abysmal Specter’s raspy voice and more melodies than should be possible when it comes to raw black metal. The aim of the band is not to darken your days (as many within the same realm of black metal prefer to do), but to brighten the shadows that you might find yourself in. More than once there’s a riff that is so devilishly catchy that it’ll be stuck in your head at all hours – this also includes when you wake up at a stupid time in the morning. Thanks, “Curse Of The Vampire’s Fedora” and “A Witch’s Bike In The Forest.”
The latter is a supremely entertaining piece that wouldn’t be out of place at a discotheque held in a haunted house at the end of the local cursed lane. Of course, you want to attend that party and Old Nick makes music that is ripe for dancing. The electronic elements are really pushed to the forefront on this release as the band embraces the joyful melodies to their fullest. Choruses are huge and all tracks are engaging throughout — from the doomy and short “Wrinkling Crinkling Sounds In Your Room” to the final track, “Ghost of Sourdough Bread and 2% Milk.” By Old Nick standards, this seven-minute epic is long, yet it doesn’t stop you from wanting to hit play on the album once again as soon as it’s over. The jaunty keyboards do much of the heavy lifting here and allow the band to explore their creative side to its fullest. Spooky riffs and heady brass round out a complement of ideas that in lesser hands would be hard to decipher, Old Nick, though, are masters of this kind of curious amalgamation of sounds and the song is a rollicking ride to the end.
Saidan - Onryō II: Her Spirit Eternal (Self-Released/Jems Label)
Nashville’s Saidan take much of their influence from Japanese culture as their first album showed and its follow-up continues. Featuring gorgeous cover art that evokes the themes of death and haunting that is contained within, Onryō II: Her Spirit Eternal evolves their sound to a higher ground as the riffs become more melodic and the music more rounded. The band has expanded to a duo and the overarching black metal sphere where Japanese folklore and J-Rock elements were more prominent before, has now expanded into other aspects too. The rowdy pace of “Queen of the Haunted Dell” calls to mind old school hardcore and punk bands in its drum patterns and deeper bellows and the overall concept of the album tells the legend of the Bell Witch. It passes through a modern lens in lyrical terms and composition, yet the underlying, eerie tone pulls from the band’s local myths quite succinctly.
Ghosts and vengeful spirits make up a large part of Saidan’s sound as they seek to extrapolate fact from fiction in their retelling of history’s greatest myths, both from an American perspective and that of their much-loved Japanese influence. “Yuki Onna” is the tale of a snow spirit who comes to offer you the thing that you most desire; however, this want is tinged with a sliver of fear. So Saidan filter melancholy longing that whirls with ice-cold riffs and sadness. As vengeance features several times during the album, it may be remiss not to mention “Pale Imitation” and its lyrics that are slightly off-topic but still within the realm of revenge, in that they call out, quite clearly, detractors of the band that have in the past questioned their commitment and path that led them to black metal. The worst thing about the black metal scene is often the fans who gatekeep the genre and feel that anyone who doesn’t share their own journey is “false,” a “poser” or in it for a quick buck. I’m sure that unless you’re backed by a major label, that not very many black metal bands are out there living off their music.
Anyway, I digress, as Onryō II: Her Spirit Eternal is majestic album that sees Saidan embracing their sound and identity and creating music that is thrilling, haunting and possessed by the spirits of old. “I Am The Witch” closes the record with frantic drums and supremely catchy guitar work that showcases black metal as a genre that is pushing the previously defined boundaries further every day.
Silent Thunder - Thousand Hammers (Demo II) (Self-Released/Out Of Season)
Written in homage to LAM (Simón Santana), who was an artist in more than one sense of the world and who sadly passed away at the beginning of 2021, Thousand Hammers is Silent Thunder’s second demo to be released. Headed by M. otherwise known as Lamp Of Murmuur, Silent Thunder takes its inspiration from the early ‘90s second wave of black metal rather than exploring the gothic route that his “main” band has been doing over the last few years, relishing in the improvised/automatic sphere of recording music. Silent Thunder is more raw than Lamp Of Murmuur as it is not rehearsed or rehashed in the process of recording and instead follows the path of channeling its creators innermost emotions in their most pure of forms. This is heartbreak at its most intoxicating, pain at its most illuminating and Thousand Hammers is all the more devasting for its vulnerability.
“Countess In The Fog” is immediate in its rage as the song moves with a death grip on its relentless pace. M’s vocals never stray from hoarse shrieks as the songs warrant as much passion as is humanly possible. There is no moment here for beauty as LAM’s memory is served by the purest black metal in all its deadly glory. As the demo/EP proceeds there is a palpable tension during the title track: between the light that is sought through death and the hopelessness that is felt at the passing of another. The relationship between artist and influence is a delicate one and it is clear that M. held LAM in extremely high regard, so much so that he felt he must exorcise his confusion through the vessel of music. Music is therapy for many and for artists it is a place to explore feelings of frustration, guilt and anger and so Thousand Hammers is certainly the sound of a musician pushing through a time of turmoil to find some semblance of peace.
Spider God - Ett främmande språk/A Foreign Tongue (Death Prayer Records/Repose Records)
The last release that Spider God had before this was their Black Renditions covers album which featured a host of popular music songs rendered through the lens of British underground black metal. After hearing those songs, it’s not a stretch to think that Spider God gets their melodic inspiration from places other than the black metal they listen to. As we move through the darkness of Ett främmande språk (A Foreign Tongue), the harmonic elements of the music are laid out clearly in riffs that are energetic are absurdly catchy while the shadows climb the walls through Spider God’s harsh delivery of lyrics. The theme of this EP follows its predecessors Den Inre Borgen/The Interior Castle and Skugglösa ljuset/Shadowless Light as being based on Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy of films that are overall entitled Faith, with each EP taking its inspiration from one of the three films that follow its protagonist’s path through loss of faith through various settings.
Ett främmande språk takes its themes from the final film in the trilogy, The Silence and Spider God filters its story through their own lens and life experiences. Being a one-person recording band allows Spider God to explore a more personal aspect to inspirations that come from outside and so Ett främmande språk and its accompanying EPs shed a little light onto this enigmatic artist, although that is of course up to the individual to decide. For this listener, it seems as though Spider God has struggled with their own faith or loss of it in the past and uses Bergman’s films to create a world in which they can channel those emotions in a structured manner. The EP certainly touches on anger and alienation in a world that cannot understand and Spider God realises these elements in throaty vocal lines and raging guitars. Melody plays a large part in the music, especially during the fantastically imposing “Omfamna fortvivlan/Embrace Despair,” as it moves through beautiful patterns of sound that form around otherwise heavy subject matter.
Ett främmande språk is at once both radiant and despairing and Spider God are one of the most interesting acts within the UK black metal underground currently. With thought-provoking EPs such as this, they will surely become much more widely known in short time.
Sunrise Patriot Motion – Black Fellflower Stream (Self-Released)
Some music defies labels — an easy way to describe what you’re hearing or a tangible reflection of what the album sounds like so that you can talk about it with others. Sunrise Patriot Motion is a band that defies labels. Sometimes sounding like post-punk, sometimes like the black metal that is the background of some members, sometimes like a nightmare that’s been filtered through the uneasy moments between sleep and wakefulness. It is not a band that is easily categorised and for those reasons Black Fellflower Stream is one of the most interesting releases of 2022 so far. Featuring the brothers Skarstad of Yellow Eyes on guitars and writing duties, and Andy Chugg on vocals, Sunrise Patriot Motion is a luminous collection of songs that are placed firmly in the fields of summer, the sun hanging low as it sets over the madness within. As the band themselves state:
[The album is] a portrait of obsession and torment set entirely in a single isolated field where a man in the throes of mania believes he is capable of digging a hole deep enough to reach oil.
That mania is apparent in the quick changes in guitar riffs of “Oil Dream Field”, the jagged textures of the song and the curious synth lines that peak through the haze to create a cloying atmosphere. The protagonist peers through the grasses of the field to examine their work as the songs are told from his perspective and sang in the first person. Chugg’s vocals are tinged with gothic melodies as well as sharper tones to create the ebbs and flows of the work done by our narrator as he tires and renews his energy. The heat of the summer sun lies heavy across the album and the simmering earth becomes an enemy in itself during “I Search For Gasoline.”
The song moves with bizarre steps towards its goal as the guitars build in angular patterns and Sunrise Patriot Motion create a visible picture of this man’s descent into total madness. It’s felt through the affected vocals and the sickly twists of sound that pour through the instrumentation. A breather is taken with “Antigleam,” yet is it not a moment of peace. The strange atmosphere of the album is continued during this instrumental as choral voices are laid over unsettling chimes and beats before the post-punk vibrations of “My Father’s Christian Humidor” are felt.
It’s an unusual shift as the synthesised side of the band makes itself known and Chugg’s vocals become almost a ghost of their former self. Sam Skarstad’s lyrics are twisted through the veil of death and the realisation of our storyteller of his purpose in life. Black Fellflower Stream ends on the morbid tones of “Drippings Of God” as the protagonist finds death in the fields. Whether they found the much sought-after oil is open for interpretation as they are not the most reliable of narrators, for obvious reasons. Sunrise Patriot Motion have created a fascinating musical journey with their debut and delivered much to think about along with it.
Tomb Mold – Aperture Of Body (Self-Released)
Are you ever sitting there, wondering – “What are Tomb Mold up to?” – and then surprise! Tomb Mold drop a demo EP and you’re left wondering – “How are Tomb Mold so good?” It’s probably magic but Tomb Mold are ahead of the death metal game with Aperture Of Body, a short release that only whets the appetite for more of their down-tuned, filthy sound. The abyssal vocals of Max Klebanoff draw you in to their world of star-gazing, metaphysical questioning as the cosmos builds itself to be a playground for Gods while humankind is doomed to become lost in the darkness. Tomb Mold’s sound may be dredged from the depths but they reach for the stars, and answers, in their music.
Aperture Of Body is a short release of only three tracks, one of which is entirely instrumental, but it is a punchy showcase of what makes the band so interesting. The introductory piece “Final Assembly Of Light” is a celestial beam that touches on synthesised structures and loops before “Aperture Of Body” splits the peace in two with a burst of sound that signals a new beginning. The track is immediately engaging as Klebanoff’s guttural voice bridges the technical instrumentation with themes of death and its purported finality being called into question. Tomb Mold are playing with the cycles of life on this release as Aperture Of Body moves from the light that is promised, towards destruction and eventually to the “Prestige Of Rebirth.”
This third and final song is a beautiful reminder of the pain that surrounds hope and the heavens and Tomb Mold find the bittersweet decay that comes for us all in the delicate guitar leads that colour the final moments of the track. There is much to be understood about what we face at the end of our lives and with Aperture of Body, Tomb Mold are putting their own expectations at the forefront of their music. The light will devour us all.
