Feature Article: Silent Night, Deadly Night
March 21 2008 at 02:56:24 AM
What does the year-end bring? Lists, of course, and a few exegetical remarks. A good many of those noted have already been reviewed in Left Hand Path; perhaps a good many remain. Much lies ahead for the Path: We will continue to review obscure and challenging music—as well as interview label proprietors and musicians. But others will be admitted into the fold. String assassin Patrick Delaney and thee metal warlord Dirty Jase will assist the Path in the near future with contributions of their own. We look forward to their unique perspectives. Without further ado, the Best of 2006… [Stewart Voegtlin]
Antaeus, Blood Libels LP [Norma Evangelium Diaboli] Ares Kingdom, Return to Dust CD [Nuclear War Now] Catacombs, Into the Depths of R’lyeh CD [Moribund] Celtic Frost, Monotheist CD [Century Media] Dolorian, Voidwards CD [Wounded Love] Earth, Live Hex CD [aRCHIVE] Images of Violence, Degrade The Shapeless CD [Ossuary Industries] Repugnant, Epitome of Darkness CD [Soulseller Records] Summoning, Oath Bound CD [Napalm Records] Thralldom, A Shaman Steering the Vessel of Vastness CD [Profound Lore] For me, the year of 6-06-06 passes by with all of the sensationalism the omen could entail and little of the fiery aftermath. It was not an uneventful year; Finland's Demilich, remembered through the genius of their only record, Nespithe, completed a tour of the United States and retired with some long overdue notoriety. We celebrated a National Day of Slayer as the evil ones delivered their latest wartime volley—vocalist Tom Araya donning whiskers of a spider-hole era Saddam—and most shocking of all, Jon Nodtviedt blew his brains out in what became a far more solemn affair than the cranial stew soirées of old. Yet the potency of actual releases left something to be desired as all genres struggled for something defining among the ever-increasing flood of copycats, soporific avant-garde collaborations, and conspicuous novelty packaging.
Death Metal was kept alive through an unusual mixture of artists both at home and abroad. In interviews earlier this year, Texas-based tattoo-artist Jon Zig was quick to make a distinction between death in life and in art. Zig is also one of the more recognizable cover artists in the genre, offering his own sick skills to groups like Disgorge, Deeds of Flesh, Averse Sefira and most recently, Suffocation's self-titled album. On Degrade the Shapeless, released by the "Skingraver" and his band Images of Violence, those familiar and often viscous portraits of mortal agony are given an added dimension and intensity, driven by the heated friction of strings, unrelenting drum fills and foaming bark of Zig himself. A blood-red inferno that's finished in just under 23 minutes.
In Stockholm, Sweden, Repugnant sought the posthumous release of their debut record Epitome of Darkness,only to be eclipsed by the Relapse-backed Death Breath, featuring inspirational ex-Entombed member Nicke Anderson. Although they trace back nearly the same influences (Repulsion, Possessed, Nihilist, Celtic Frost, Entombed), it's Repugnant that is most convincing and overwhelmingly heavy in their approach. Ten tracks are filled like a chuffing corpse-train; its witching thrash riffs speeding ahead the bass guitar's industrial wreckage and drums like an angry dinner party of Evil Dead rejects. Although a bit difficult to track down, it is rewarding for those who enjoy their metal (like their women) of a certain vintage...
Back in time we go. A truly historical release out of the pile, Peaceville Record's two-disc Autopsy DVD, Dark Crusades includes several live performances by California's seminal Death Metal group between 1993-94 including their final show together and a home-video recording of the band rehearsing back in 1988. Autopsy was founded by drummer/vocalist Chris Reifert shortly after working on Death's Scream Bloody Gore and helped establish, as much as anyone at that time, modern death, doom, and gore-grind alike—a mutation fomented thoroughly on classics Mental Funeral and Severed Survival, blending hardcore’s short-adrenaline bursts with Sabbath's clambaked jams on classics With gruesome vigor the band plows through their songs inside some jaundice stained bedroom lined with mattresses, passing tin and grass in between the muck of instruments. All of the footage is hand-held which might be a chore for some but it feels appropriate to watch them spill on what are still essentially archaic shreds of tape. Cameos by Dutch maniacs Pestilence, Incantation, and Paradise Lost are seen throughout, along with plenty of goofing around in the studio, tour footage and taking hits off a 'Snowbong" to round out disc number two.
Of the better but only decibel-related discs this year was Archive’s Earth: Live-Hex, which, despite dating the event a year and a day ahead of time, remains magisterially perfect. I remember the show at the Knitting Factory well. Everyone was standing. What for? Drummer Adrienne Davies projected an extreme image of delay behind the kit, glowing in a dense blue crossing into red light, but otherwise, the bass is what you're after and the best place for that is on the floor. There I sat with my back to the wall beside many rolling cups. The angry groan of speakers testifies to an effective recording, only periodically broken up by Dylan Carlson's gentle thanks (if blind-folded, you'd swear it was Crispin Glover issuing the twang and din). And here is thanks returned: happy to relive these in solitude either brooding over a glass of Beam or else unleash them unsuspectingly into the night and murder crickets on my lawn.
And here is something you never thought of before: A troupe based out of Estonia has taken 12 songs by the original Black Sabbath lineup and covered them in the austere style of Medieval/ Renaissance music. Rondellus’ daring work, Sabbatum achieves its goal with awesome proximity and faithfulness to the originals, even while exchanging sweet leaf for frankincense. The picks are intriguingly broad, spanning at least one cut of every release up until Never Say Die! Replacing the Gibson SG with harps, lutes, frame drums and the hurdy gurdy renders Sabbath’s older, more blues-inspired work into a sort of Celtic mood, while the epic movements of “War Pigs” and other mystical suggestions on “After Forever” and “Symptom of The Universe” become brooding meditations—projections of an eerie light through shaded cloisters. Aside from the music, my favorite part is that every song is transcribed in that most metal of all languages: “Plenetarium Vegatio,” “Rotae Confusionis” and ” Magus.” Fuck yeah!
Lesser, but greater still, listeners with more symphonic tastes are urged to find Oath Bound from the long standing duo and career-purveyors of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Summoning. Although it’s their sixth full-length, it’s as good an introduction as any, focusing on dramatic choral passages, balmy synthesizers that evoke both ancient woodwinds and a Kingly march forward with wonderful but not altogether “pleasant” confluence of goblin voices against strings at the frontier. Similar to Dead Can Dance in their fantastic quasi-new age approach and underlined by a Wagnerian idyll that expertly forges the aesthetics of Heavy Metal and Black Metal together, Summoning are unwilling to “grow up” as it were, but sets forth a vision that storms the mundane and feeds the Romantic heart.
Although the mighty Antaeus, spreading the diabetes, perpetually downed the year’s end, Finland’s Dolorian has created the more seductive invitation towards nothingness. Masterminded by Anti Haapapuro (Halo Manash, I Corax) Dolorian’s third album, Voidwards is born from constellations of liquid Doom. It has a kind of Lynchian ideal of cool that drips from jazzy counterbalance of monstrous bass acoustics, guitar reverberations and susurrant voices which emphasize fragmented dream-scenarios doubling as lyrics. Protracted tempos move from electric into classical guitar pieces and ambient conceits of pouring water, conveying a theme of death and rebirth in contrasts of sound and force that finds total release through the final track's invocation of a mythic sea-serpent. A lucid if repetitive album, it marries its concept to image and sound with a grace and earnestness that leaves you completely in lure of its terrifying idea.
[Todd DePalma]
Antaeus, Blood Libels LP [Norma Evangelium Diaboli] Earth, Live Hex CD [aRCHIVE] Hallows Eve, History of Terror CD Boxset [Metalblade] Heresi, Psalm II: Infucso Ignis CD [THR; Hydrahead] Kylesa, Time Will Fuse Its Worth CD [Prosthetic Records] Negative Plane, Et in Saecula Saeculorum CD [The Ajna Offensive] Nominon, Recremation CD [Deathgasm Records] Repugnant, Epitome of Darkness CD [Soulseller Records] Unearthly Trance, The Trident CD [Relapse] Villains, Drenched in the Poisons CD [Aurora Borealis] Wolfe, Wolfe CD [Fire of Fire]
Battletorn, Burn Fast 7” [Mad at the World] Darkthrone, Too Old, Too Cold EP [Peaceville] Drifting Collision, External Paranormal System CD-R [Humanless] Villains, Live at CBGBs CD-R [Humanless] Graves At Sea, Documents of Grief CD Reissue [20 Buck Spin] Reencarnacion, 888 Metal Picture Disc Reissue [The Ajna Offensive] Throne of Katarsis, Unholy Holocaustwinds CD Reissue [Paradigms]
Battletorn is another post-punk anomaly that would rather completely fucking destroy that spend time deciding if it’s more Metal or Punk. Omid and William make music as it should be made—with relentless verve and power. Whereas most “duo” bands are either cleansed by technique’s bland loofah or “heavy” by way of studio tinkering, Battletorn works wonders with what it has at its disposal. A basic drum kit, electric guitar, Marshall stack, and a lot of lungpower gives standard thrash-punk structures new life. “Songs” are brief blasts; vocals, guitar, drum and cymbal collide like Karp covering Black Flag’s “Thirsty and Miserable” over and over again at twice the speed. Omid shreds chords under William’s trucker speed stomp. Hi-hat and snare shatter around implorations: Remember! Let It Ride! Let Go! This is the tenor of early D.R.I., Aggression, and SSD filtered through the unruly sensibility of thrash metal—a sound often mimicked but rarely proffered so convincingly and so devastatingly well. The candle that burns brightest burns quickest: Burn Fast.
[Left Hand Path tips its collective hat to Nordic Cave-Artist Kalle Runeson - http://www.kalleruneson.com - for permitting use of his “Ritual” drawings in this article.] |
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