Imprecation post new track “From Beyond the Fiery Temples”

by Brett Stevens on March 7, 2013

imprecation-satan_and_wenchesLegendary Texas occult death metal band Imprecation released a song from their upcoming album, Satanae Tenebris Infinita. Although the band has been around for over 20 years, this will be their first true full-length, following up on 1995’s compilation of demo material Theurgia Goetia Summa.

This track shows Imprecation tending toward a more stripped down and mid-paced style, with more emphasis on song development than vigorously chorded speed riffs. The result is that songs are simpler but focus more on development, and a meshing of vocal rhythms and instruments. All of these tendencies give the band a more ritual and subaltern feel.

Background keyboards help guide this song but are used tastefully in a way that modern black and death metal bands would do well to note. Vocals emerge from Bahimiron/Morbus 666 throatsman Grimlord with searing distortion and an otherworldly detachment from human rhythms. The result is archly removed from the world of normal and “safe” human interactions.

Death metal fans across the world are looking forward to this album, which will be released on CD and vinyl through Dark Descent Records in the Spring 2013. Cover art by Chris Moyen will grace the front of Satanae Tenebris Infinita, which if it resembles this track, will be one of the highlights of 2013 if not a longer time period.

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A new generation of metalheads rises

by Jay Cochran on March 7, 2013

new_generation_of_metalheadsMetal is not dead, but very ill.  In an age of ironic corpsepaint and essentially overdriven indie rock, it’s understandably difficult to find any one source of this stagnation. Young Hessians such as myself must accept that a finger will naturally be pointed at our generation by those who have performed and contributed during Metal’s greater years. Like it or not, this is a valid concern.

However, we are not our generation. At not one point has Metal ever truly adhered itself to one generation’s ways and trends. There are many trying to assimilate our culture into mainstream acceptance, only to be abandoned and further ridiculed like any passing fad. There have been people like this since the beginning — let’s not lie to ourselves: they are posers.

Yes, you could simply ignore those ironically attending hipsters firmly planted in the back of your local concert venue of choice, faces buried in their iPhones, only moving to order the cheapest canned lager possible (“it adds to the novelty of this angry music!“) or casually bantering with less threatening concert-goers about some acoustic black metal project which “you’ve probably never heard of.” Furthermore, we could shrug off the kids in their Immortal costumes from Halloween, forming grossly intricate mosh pits at Black Metal shows – chalk it up to ignorance? Or you could fight back, starting with the essential actions: distance and better yourself!

This is a call to arms for the youth of Metal. The merciless, yet ultimately heroic art of this music is our culture. We walk alongside the Hessians who formed such a legacy over the past four decades. Any contribution will prove to be more than what is given by the casual and mainstream. Do you enjoy Speed Metal? Start buying those T-shirts and logo patches in bulk, because you’re starting a mail order list. Maybe your town has a history of Crossover, and some open-minded Punks may be willing to help set up D.I.Y. shows for Metal bands. There are many options, and it’s up to you to find your calling.

Many of us were born during the fading times of Death Metal. Give or take a few years, and we are now old as the entirety of Heavy Metal was when we were infants. We cannot let that cycle of decay repeat itself. This our time to pave the way, and if we can set the right conditions? Well, a select few of us are bound to start putting together some strange riffs that sound heavy, yet unfamiliar – exploring new themes of existence, always in a brutally honest light. Next thing you know, Metal has returned.

Jay Cochran is a 21-year-old Hessian insurgent who believes the salvation of metal is not past-worship nor future-worship, but quality-worship. He is in the process of moving to become a fisherman, and draws lyrical inspiration from the terrors of the sea. Jay is a strict and devout Motörhead fanatic, and would love to take a few minutes of your time to talk to you about Lemmy Kilmister.

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Blaspherian vocalist Desekrator rejoins band

by Brett Stevens on March 6, 2013

blaspherian-death_is_my_saviourTexas-based old-school death metal band Blaspherian have rejoined with vocalist Desekrator who was heard on the Allegiance to the Will of Damnation EP and is preparing to release split releases with Imprecation, Godless, Crucifier and In League With Satan.

Known for their dedication to old school death metal standards like Immolation, Deicide, Incantation and Obituary, Blaspherian make earth-shaking death metal with hints of doom metal. Strictly occult, the music portrays a darker side of humanity that most would rather repress.

After the highly-acclaimed Allegiance to the Will of Damnation EP attracted interest in the underground, Blaspherian recorded a full-length entitled Infernal Warriors of Death in 2011 which received wide praise. The underground awaits their next moves with bated breath.

European fans will get to experience Blaspherian when the band plays the Kill-Town Death Fest (KTDF) in Copenhagen, Denmark. For more information, please visit the band’s Facebook page.

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Birth A.D. – I Blame You to see release in 2013

by Brett Stevens on March 6, 2013

birth_a_d-i_blame_youDark Descent Records has formed a new sub-label called Unspeakable Axe Records which will release thrash band Birth A.D.‘s first full-length, I Blame You.

Birth A.D. formed in 2008 and released their first EP named Stillbirth of a Nation in 2009, creating their music in a continuation of the original 1980s thrash style pioneered by DRI, COC, DBC, Cryptic Slaughter, MDC and Fearless Iranians From Hell.

Produced by legendary thrash-era knob-twister Alex Perialas, I Blame You shows the band at their most vitriolic and powerful. The band has this to say: “Joining forces with Unspeakable Axe and Dark Descent proved to be the best choice for Birth A.D., as they are about the bands, the music, and doing things the old way (that is, the right way). We plan to cause even more problems with their support!”

I Blame You is scheduled to be released late spring/early summer 2013.

Evil Army/Birth AD live dates, 2013:

Thursday, April 4 – O’Briens Pub, Allston, NY
Friday, April 5 – The Acheron, Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, April 6 – Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia, PA
Sunday, April 7 – The Sidebar, Baltimore, MD

For more information, check out the Birth A.D. website and Facebook page.

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Repo Man re-issued on Blu Ray

by Brett Stevens on March 6, 2013


Repo Man
dir. Alex Cox
92 minutes, Criterion, $28 (Blu Ray)

alex_cox-repo_man_blu_rayImagine yourself in 1984. No, not the anti-totalitarian novel 1984, but the year. Ronald Reagan is president; the economy is struggling. It’s uncertain whether at any minute the US and USSR will exchange nuclear weapons with one another, annihilating life on earth.

They’ve stopped doing the nuclear drills in schools because even the dimwitted teachers have finally realized what ICBM means. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile: it gets here so fast they won’t tell you it’s coming. There will be no warning, only an artificial sun eating your cities, evaporating your friends and family, obliterating your memories.

Even more, American society is in free-fall. 1968 brought a huge upheaval and now it’s hippies versus people in suits every day but the hippies are more popular. The media generally takes their side; industry sides with the suits. Average people are squeezed in the middle, just trying to find food and lodging in a world that now thanks to technology demands more of them and costs more just to survive.

Those are the obvious challenges. Underneath the skin, there’s a great deal of doubt. We fought wars to end wars; we got a Cold War. Society seems to be falling apart. People in general seem to lack a reason to live except a fear of poverty and death. As a result, the nervousness grows and people become more slavelike to jobs, ideologies, religions, drugs, sex, alcohol, corporations and lifestyle justifications. It’s a Nietzschean feast of schadenfreude and a vast fear and trembling.

Into this mess explodes the hardcore and thrash movements. The formative elements of hardcore punk floated around in the late 1970s between Motorhead, the Sex Pistols, and thousands of nameless two-chord bands, but the genre really blew up in the early 1980s with Discharge, the Exploited, and Amebix in the UK and Black Flag, the Cro-Mags, and Minor Threat in the USA. Riding that wave came the punk rock bands, like Circle Jerks and Dead Kennedys, who offered a softer and funnier version of the same. Following as well were the thrash bands, like Suicidal Tendencies and DRI, who mixed hardcore songs with metal riffs to make short fast bursts of fury and discontent with society.

The best way to chronicle this punk scene would not be to focus on the music, because then you end with a standard rockumentary in which musicians reveal that, if articulating things were their real skill, they wouldn’t be musicians. Instead they express themselves through sound, which is generally more reliable in that it’s harder to cleverly re-define its root terms and subvert it. To chronicle this scene, you have to show what they see, and then play the music so that the two join in the middle.

If any movie showed hardcore for what it was, and also explained the era to those who were not aware of it, Repo Man is that movie. Like its inspiration Naked Lunch, it is a collage of nihilism and post-modern boredom, mixed with the terror of a new kind of totalitarian society based on consumer choice (more like 1984‘s inspiration, Brave New World). The fundamental vapidity of the people around you is what dooms you to conform yourself, or be smashed beneath the grinding wheels of the industrial apparatus. It is a paranoid, unstable time. Repo Man shows us this world through the eyes of a teenage Otto, who is an everyman of the era in that he has connected to fundamentally nothing. His parents are aliens, jobs are pointless and ruled by petty tyrants, school was a blow-out, and even his fellow punks let him down with their selfishness and lack of vision. Adrift, he wanders through the rusted mechanical ruins of L.A. until he is rescued by a mercenary-minded repossessor.

“Repossessor” was a dirty world back then, much like we might view organ harvesters now. Repo men were the people who took your car when you couldn’t afford the payments, and this happened to a good number of people. It could happen in front of your friends and family, announcing to the world your failure. In a society basing itself on capitalism as a means of differentiating itself from the socialist East, this type of failure was emotionally crushing. As you can imagine, a repo man was not the sort of person anyone looked up to. Society’s lepers, they fed off the scraps in the dump of society’s excesses. You can imagine how for most people, a transition to repo man is like living death. But to a punk, society is already a dead man walking and existing in it is already offensively zombie-like. So what’s to lose?

Otto joins the repo team with his mentor, Bud, who is outwardly selfish but ultimately more dedicated to expression of his own frustrated emotions. Together, they raid the L.A. basin for overdue car notes and in the process, encounter a prize beyond their wildest dreams — a car worth $20,000 (now probably $80k). Like the white whale in Moby-Dick, or the holy grail, this car divides people against one another and reveals what characters are really made of. In a world dedicated to self-interest, the question is whether self-interest will win out, or whether a higher (or lower) principle will be found to save the day.

Splashed throughout with energetic punk music from Suicidal Tendencies, the Circle Jerks, The Plugz, Black Flag and Iggy Pop, Repo Man brings punk culture to a wider audience by showing us the absurdity of our time and the helplessness of the characters within it, so long as they adopt its values and behave in the ways it teaches them to. Disturbing, funny, nuanced and accurate in its portrayal of a society that has lost the path to health, Repo Man will explain to you why you walk on the other side of the street from mainstream society, and suggest an esoteric path that will lead you all of the way away.

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Geezer Butler attacks sadistic food

by Brett Stevens on March 5, 2013

geezer_butler.jgBlack Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler threw his support behind PETA’s campaign against Foie Gras, a fatty liver paté made by force-feeding ducks and geese.

“I’m not afraid to make some noise, especially when it comes to issues of cruelty to animals,” said Mr. Butler in a press release supporting the animal rights group and calling on UK grocery Fortnum & Mason to cease selling the delicacy.

This is not the first time that metal musicians have stood up for nature. In addition to all of black metal, which praises nature over humanity and expresses disdain for human ecocidal practices, metal has endorsed care for animals and avoidance of ecocide through many songs and albums over the years. A few highlights:

  • Testament – “Environmental Holocaust,” “Nobody’s Fault” (Aerosmith cover), “Greenhouse Effect”
  • Nuclear Assault – “Game Over”
  • DRI – “I Want My Taxes Back”
  • Obituary – World Demise

This is in addition to many songs about nuclear war, the shallowness of humanity, the endless race for consumer products and self-importance, and many songs in praise of nature and the natural, including its “scary” attributes like disease, predation and violence.

Foie Gras (pronounced PHUA GRA), according to StopForceFeeding.org, is created by the following charming process:

Two to three times a day, a worker grabs each bird, shoves a long, thick metal tube all the way down his throat, and an air pump shoots up to two pounds of corn mush into his esophagus. The industry always refers to the dry weight of the feed, which is about one pound per feeding. Adding oil and water doubles this weight, making it 20-30% of the bird’s healthy body weight. Picture 30 one pound boxes of dry pasta and then add water. This is proportionally how much a 150 pound human would be force fed using this formula.

A duck’s liver naturally weighs around 50 grams. However, to qualify as foie gras, the industry’s own regulations require ducks’ livers to weigh an absolute minimum of 300 grams.

The vast amounts of feed pumped down the ducks’ throats causes enormous internal pressure, and the pipe sometimes punctures the esophagus, causing many to die from choking on the blood that fills their lungs. Some birds literally burst, choke to death on their own vomit, or become so weak that they are unable to fend off rats from eating them alive.

This description sounds like something straight out of a Carcass song, or an apocalyptic death metal anthem. It even reminds us of Quorthon’s warning about the Ragnarok lurking inside of modern society:

In this age of utter madness
We maintain we are in control
And ending life before deliverance
While countries are both bought and sold

Holy writtings hokus-pokus
Blaze of glory and crucifix
Prepried costly credit salvations
TV-preachers and dirty tricks

Don’t trust nobody
It will cost you much too much
Beware of the dagger
It caress you at first touch
O, all small creatures
It is the twilight if the gods

While most people seem to focus on how annoying PETA is presumed to be, we’re going to focus on the metal angle: death is real, and failure is real, and most people are in denial of both. It’s easy to ignore the consequences of our actions and instead live in a bubble world of happy thoughts, advertising, political speeches and documentaries.

In reality, what we do has consequences and for these small creatures, those are very real. We should consider what being aware of these cruelties and doing nothing about them does to our souls, because ultimately, we all must face the reaper and have him sit in judgment over us — even if only in our own minds.

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Lifeless – Godconstruct

by Brett Stevens on March 5, 2013

lifeless-godconstructSwedish-style death metal remains one of the high-water points of underground metal. Both brutal and insightful, semi-popular and alienated, it united melody and deconstruction into a single package which made death metal epic and adventurous.

With so much history behind the genre, it’s a hard act to follow, since any future releases will inevitably get compared to classics like Carnage, Therion, At the Gates and Nihilist. Following in the footsteps of countrymen Fleshcrawl, Lifeless are Germans who make Swedish death metal with an ear toward brutality, but inside of it, a melodic heavy metal core.

As you might expect, a prominent feature of the sound is the electric buzz-hum of Sunlight Studios production, including the distortion that takes a death metal pedal racked to the limit and pumps it through a dimed amp to create that fuzzy ultra distortion that brings out the melody in even the crunchiest power chord riffing. In rhythm and riff shape, Lifeless hit like heavyweights Dismember, but in use of guitar harmony and melodic leads, this sounds more like Unanimated’s Ancient God of Evil or even Dissection under the skin.

The result is a pulsating journey through metal of the last three generations but also a sense of supreme normalcy. This band know how to make death metal with a childlike sense of wonder at the world, both a destructive outlook at a broken adult society and a hopeful outlook at the possibilities of an awakening human spirit. Nietzsche would be proud.

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Metal Photography

by Mike Arsenyev on March 4, 2013

“There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless. What is this quality? What quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? What quality is common to Sta. Sophia and the windows at Chartres, Mexican sculpture, a Persian bowl, Chinese carpets, Giotto’s frescoes at Padua, and the masterpieces of Poussin, Piero della Francesca, and Cezanne? Only one answer seems possible — significant form. In each, lines and colors combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions.“ – Clive Bell, Art

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falk

Metal photography often slides off our radar because we have no point of reference. We are familiar discussing the metal scene, but not the metal photography scene. In addition, it’s hard to separate the serious from the casual in this realm.

It appears that every musician’s girlfriend automatically becomes a band photographer. Usually the result of their concert shooting culminates on social networking sites to flaunt to their friends, or possibly provide evidence that the night before existed before they all blacked out drunk.

However, there are professionals that meddle in this field. New York photographer Peter Beste distinguished himself after releasing his acclaimed book True Norwegian Black Metal which documented his trek across Scandinavia for 7 years in the black metal scene.

Others have taken different paths. Swedish photographer Daniel Falk from Framednoise.com and Close-Up Magazine is often in contact with the protagonists of Scandinavia’s music scene. He’s become well-known for his work in Europe and is spreading in fame to the USA.

Luckily, he’s agreed to shed some light on his craft and motivations:

What inspired you to get into music/metal photography?

I’ve always liked music. I bought my first album (ABBA!) when I was 6 years old, then I started to play the drums at 8 and saw my first Iron Maiden concert back in 1983.

The photography was more or less by coincidence though. In 2004 I bought myself a DSLR for the holidays and some months later I was invited to a friends concert and took the camera along. I was absolutely crap, got pissed, read a ton to find out WHY I sucked, bought better lenses and shot more gigs. By summer I applied as a photographer at Metalnyheter; a now defunct Swedish metal webzine and I have been shooting ever since.

I guess I just discovered something about myself; that I have a good eye for capturing moments and that I could combine it with my love for metal to create something that others appreciate.

Outside of music photography, what other projects have you shot in the past?

I really don’t shoot much else than music. I do wedding photography every now and then when people ask me to, and I went on a photo trip to Chernobyl a few years ago, but that’s basically it. I’m not the kind of person that photographs my whole life and brings heavy gear with me everywhere, I need to have a purpose in order to be inspired. I have a few projects in the pipeline but it’s hard to find the time and energy, especially since I already have to turn down requests from bands.

Have you exhibited your art anywhere?

I had an exhibition at a café/concert venue called Musikens Hus in Gothenburg back in 2008, but nothing since concentrating on my work. I had several large canvas prints at the Gothenburg Sound-exhibition back in January, but it’s kind of hard to find places that want photos of sweaty men on their walls and find sponsors for the prints.

You’re known throughout Scandinavia for event photography. How do you overcome obstacles such as poor lighting, moving subjects, ect?

I can’t lie, I have GOOD gear. I use expensive cameras that can keep noise levels down and bright lenses that allow me to shoot at the smallest clubs with piss poor lighting. Other than that it’s just down to experience. You learn by shooting A LOT. Of course, there are times when nothing works and you feel like you don’t have a single usable shot, but I still very much prefer shooting small bands that I like; to larger bands at better venues that I don’t care for. I’m not a fame-whore and have skipped several headliners at large festivals just to see/shoot a small band at another stage.

Since you started Framednoise.com, you’ve been enlisted to shoot for Close-Up Magazine. Has this opened up more opportunities for projects that you haven’t thought you’d do?

Absolutely. Through the magazine I can apply for accreditation/photo permits to concerts/festivals around Europe that otherwise wouldn’t be very interested in me as a freelancer. I also get opportunities and assignments that force me to push my own limits and step outside of my comfort zone. It also works as a kind of “seal of quality” and obviously spreads my work to new potential contacts. I have made lots of new friends.

What advice would you offer beginners that are interested in music photography?

Know your gear and its limitations. That’s my main advice. The more experience you have; the less you need rely on the automatic functions. If you have a DSLR with a simple kit lens stand close to the stage and use the bright wide end of the lens. The next step is to buy a bright lens for those small clubs, such as a cheap 30mm or a 50mm f1.8. Always shoot in RAW-format for maximum flexibility. Flash? Nopes, not until you REALLY know what you’re doing.

Start out by shooting friends and local bands, you need experience and if you can handle the small clubs, you can handle bloody well about anything! Be nice. And LOVE the music. The more you like the music you shoot; the better your photos will be and the less you’ll care about the countless hours you will spend in front of the computer editing the photos. And yeah, learn the editing part too. It’s one thing to snap a photo and another thing to push it to its full potential.

Look at photos that you like and try to figure out WHY you like them; what mood they capture and why they make you feel like if you really were that at that concert.

Are there any historical metal events, like particular concerts or locations in time, that you wish you could have been present to shoot? How would you approach such shoots?

Personally, I would have LOVED to see/shoot Rainbow back in the Stargazer era with Cozy Powell on the drums since he was one of my idols as a young drummer. More recently, I wish I had been at the last Dissection concert in Stockholm, they’re such an iconic band that have influenced so many others and considering what happened later those photos probably would have been very emotional and significant for many fans.

And Iron Maiden during the Powerslave tour. I REALLY wanted to go but my sister wasn’t too keen on having to look after her younger brother and I had to stay at home ;-( And the stage production was AMAZING! I would have loved to stand there with a really wide angle lense and capture the action. The closer the better!

Feel free to check out Daniel Falk’s photography at Close-Up Magazine and Framednoise.com.

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Cenotaph – Gloomy Reflections of Our Hidden Sorrows re-issue

by Brett Stevens on March 4, 2013

cenotaph-the_gloomy_reflections_of_our_hidden_sorrowsOn March 11, a classic returns to print: Cenotaph‘s Gloomy Reflections of Our Hidden Sorrows, which was a sleeper hit back in the early 1990s when by combining crepitant American heavy death metal with esoteric hymnlike melody, Cenotaph invented a national sound for Mexican death metal and stimulated the imagination of many.

Two albums followed, both in the “At the Gates style” of melodic death metal, but fans never forgot the moody and eloquent first album from this talented band. Members later went on to The Chasm and other projects, but over time, Gloomy Reflections of Our Hidden Sorrows has remained a favorite.

Chaos Records is taking pre-orders ($10) now for the CD version of Gloomy Reflections of Our Hidden Sorrows. This version contains an eight page booklet with artwork and lyrics for all tracks, along with original artwork by the Polish artist Ryszard Wojtynski in a new layout. As bonus tracks, the CD edition contains the Tenebrous Apparitions 7″ and The Eternal Disgrace 7″. The reissue has been fully remastered by Roberto Granados at Seismic Sound Studios. Vinyl editions are already available through Chaos Records.

Ideally, this re-issue will have done nothing much to the original production, which while primitive, suited the music perfectly. Along with other innovative classics of the death metal movement the epic slab of creative greatness that is Gloomy Reflections of Our Hidden Sorrows should takes its place among others of its caliber.

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Expurgate – Dementia Tremens (Comatose Music, 2013)

by Brett Stevens on March 4, 2013

expurgate-dementia_tremensIn the style of blasting gurgling death metal that filled in after bands ran out of ways to pay homage to Suffocation, Expurgate unmoor a first album that is genre-consistent but shows promise in that these songs do not fade into a wall of noise.

Most bands in this style are unable to differentiate between riffs or songs very well, and so produce large amounts of very similar material. Much of that occurs because the style demands it; as a subset of death metal, it rewards only some of its techniques. The result becomes to the listener a vast flat space composed of necrotic vocals and chugging, blasting riffs with no real variation.

Dementia Tremens does not assault this basic tendency but injects an individuality to Expurgate into these songs through the distinctiveness of each song, and the tendency to vary pace just enough to allow some tension to build before its release in blasting, slamming, chugging and gurgling guttural mayhem.

While this is a strong first effort, it is going to hang out at metal’s second tier because while it is more distinctive than most of this genre, it is still relatively limited in technique and as such, songs are very similar. Expurgate are great at charging riffs and chugging tempo shifts, but would benefit from some of the fast-fingered phrase riffs that gave death metal much of its imaginative power. It also might help if this vocalist changed up his two vocal styles periodically, or toned them down to allow the song to expand around him.

Despite those small glitches, Dementia Tremens is a strong first effort that presages a great possible future for this band. If they keep developing, they’re going to hit on something interesting that can rise above the rest of this niche sub-genre. If they go further into being more like the other bands, they will be a reasonable option but not stand out more than that. Since they clearly have the ability, let’s hope they shoot for the higher goal.

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