They always tell you to “think outside the box,” as if having everyone focused on non-conformity will result in anything but a new variety of conformity. So much of life comes back to the mirror image, where we are staring at a representation of ourselves, and trying to change how it looks, despite everything happening in reverse since left is right and right left.
Foundational proto-black metal band Sarcófago announced today that its 1987 classic of blasphemy, I.N.R.I., has been re-issued in a “woke version” by Washington, D.C. label Dischord and will be in stores shortly, packaged with a commemorative Satanic Lust N95 face mask.
Easily a candidate for album of the year, Het Zwarte Dictaat from Kaeck makes a form of war metal that incorporates the subtle melodies of black metal and the longer atmospheric riffs of later death metal, melding a primitive assault along the lines of Zyklon-B and Blasphemy with the type of elaborate construction we might expect from Emperor or Demigod.
With use of precise riffs, this album creates atmosphere in the classic underground metal style that contrasts loping hypnotic riffs with bursts of fury, allowing the song to emerge from a smoldering inner conflict like a car shooting out of a darkened tunnel into the light, looking for clarity within a shifting landscape of ambiguity and violence.
In its blend of war metal, doom-death, and black metal, Kaeck runs the gamut of tempi and rhythms over the course of this album, transitioning from the primitive to the almost reverentially mood-driven. By blending current methods with the most ancient of metal traditions, Het Zwarte Dictaat keeps a foot in the past while stepping into the future.
Jason Kiss of Goatcraft has reinvented himself again with a podcast called Necropolis, and he graciously invited me on to talk about ANUS, Dark Legions Archive, the classic underground, and the nowadays internet and corporate/hipster metal.
In addition to tape trading, compilation albums back in the day allowed a label to sell you one track from each of its most promising bands for a few dollars total, making them both a good way to find new bands and a cross between the mix tape and a radio show when you wanted varied listening.
We warned years ago that assimilation by the ancestor is a common fate of breakaway genres; rock, consumerism, and popular culture have been trying since the early days to turn metal into a variation on their basic formula.
For most listeners, the core of Pazuzu can be expressed as an Autopsy-inspired take on grindcore, with the slower doomy riffs like the tug of a scalpel through flesh alternating with bounding hardcore riffs much as the Bay Area band applied, but with elements of black metal and doom metal filtered in.
Melodic war metal band Kaeck has issued forth a mysterious new video from its new album Het Zwarte Dictaat due out on Folter Records on October 15, designed to shock and awe the metal community with fierceness from the old school:
Texas post-death metal band Condemner — which seems to combine Celtic Frost, Incantation, and Blasphemy in its sound — posted its latest rehearsal track yesterday, showcasing its desire to stack primitive chromatic riffs against rumbling discursion in order to make wandering, melancholic tracks with an undertone of violent Nietzschean-Galtonian “might is right” conflict.