Truth be told, May has been a month where Minneapolis has already hosted an almost excessive amount of the unbelievable shows from psychedelically minded metalheads and rockers — the must-see Mastodon/Kylesa/Intronaut bill that ended last month, a stellar Mogwai performance at First Avenue, Thrones desecrating the Triple Rock, and even the expansive progressive death metal of Gojira at Station 4. And now Wolves in the Throne Room and Krallice come to the city for a gig with local favorites Zebulon Pike and Empires? Really, someone needs to thank some booking agents.
Still, even with such a crazy amount of awesome shows going on, the crowds were still strong last Friday (May 15, 2009) for a night of all types of psych-metal (with a heavy emphasis on the black metal). The performances that night were spotless and were definitely just as mind-blowing as I expected they might be, each band immersing the crowd beneath their own monstrous demonstration of ear-splitting blackened, progressive waves of noise. If that sounds enticing, then you really should’ve been there.
Anyway, the Triple Rock was surprisingly pretty packed, so I wasn’t moving around much once I took my spot, but I tried to capture some photos and videos when I could — something rather difficult for a dude with a point-n-shoot and a flash and plumes of fog billowing from the stage throughout Wolves in the Throne Room’s entire otherworldly set.. Either way, enjoy.
VIDEO: Wolves in the Throne Room, Live at the Triple Rock Social Club, 5/15/09
(Wolves in the Throne Room)
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VIDEO: Zebulon Pike, Live at Triple Rock Social Club, 5/15/09
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(Empires)
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More blackened photos for you after the jump… Continue reading
Underground ambient US black metal entity Xasthur has finished putting together the All Reflections Drained LP that has been recorded throughout 2007 and 2008
(with M.H. as guest vocalist), and Hydrahead is now prepared to release the album on May 26th in 2xLP, 2xCD, and even as a cassette tape. As with all Hydrahead releases, the packaging is looking very impressive for the vinyl with cover art from Tim Lehi and photography by Faith Coloccia – the 2xCD is encased in a DVD style digipack and features a second disc of bonus material, including alternate versions, unreleased material, and several covers. Knowing how reclusive Xasthur’s Malefic (Scott Connor) is, I didn’t expect that we’d get to hear much from the release before Hydrahead officially sent it out, but thankfully there has been some media uploaded from the release. If you’re in the mood for new Xasthur, head over to the newly launched, HH-run MySpace Preview page for the release here to listen to all but two songs from the All Reflections Drained!
1. Dirge Forsaken (5:38) – LISTEN
2. Maze Of Oppression (5:12) – LISTEN
3. Achieve Emptiness Part II (4:56) – LISTEN
4. Masquerade Of Incisions (15:30)
5. Damage Your Soul (4:50) – LISTEN
6. Inner Sanctum Surveillance (6:58) – LISTEN
7. Obfuscated In Oblivion (5:22) – LISTEN>
8. All Reflections Drained (7:44)
The thrash legends in Slayer have planned to issue their newest song, “Pyscopathy Red”, as a 7″ vinyl release as part of the annual Record Store Day on April 18th! Only 5,000 of these limited edition blood-red vinyl 7-inch vinyls will be made available, the first sounds that were recorded in a Los Angeles studio last October for Slayer’s forthcoming untitled full-length record of back-to-basics RiB thrash. So don’t forget to get out to support Record Store Day on April 18 and listen to the new “Psychopathy Red” online now while you wait. The list of participating stores is here.
LISTEN: Slayer, “Psychopathy Red” (from Psychopathy Red LE 7″)
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I’m a total Isis nut. I’m following the release of Wavering Radiant closely (and not allowing myself to listen to a leak until its sent to my doorstep), and have been anticipating every minute. The new song “20 Minutes / 40 Years” has me confident that this album tops their most recent ouput, and now they’ve got a new in studio video that making me just itch when I wonder if it’s true. The clip sounds more like House of Low Culture than Isis, but it serves to prove that the band has only further fell in love with their art of heady psychedelics.
French black metallers Glorior Belli just announced the release of their next album, Meet Us of the Southern Sign last week, and now they have graced us with a new track of aural psychosis entitled “In Every Grief – Stricken Blues”. Taking a page from the book of Opeth, they play one of the more alluring adaptations from black metal that I’ve heard recently; a far different approach than much of the very raw BM that has been predominant the last few years. This song is a slow, gorgeous, heavily-layered buildup (with clean vocals!) rather than the blasting chaos you might expect, and could find a welcome audience outside BM in the same way that their fellow Frenchmen in Gojira have found crossover appeal outside of death metal. Give it a listen at MetalKult, and don’t forget to catch them on tour at Station 4 with Absu in June!
LISTEN: Glorior Belli, “In Every Grief – Stricken Blues” (from Meet Us of the Southern Sign, available 6/2)
NEW CONVERGE MUSIC!! FULL SONGS LIVE!! My buddies over at MetalInjection were kind enough to bootleg the recent Converge show in Brooklyn, and were able to record the entire set. Every day they’ll be posting more videos online, and they start with two brand-fucking-new still-untitled songs of brilliant hardcore. Chicago, here I come!
WATCH: Converge live at Club Europa in Brooklyn, NY 03/28/09 (exclusive from MI)
LISTEN: ZAO, “What Will You Find?” (from Awake?, available 5/5)
WATCH: War From A Harlots Mouth, “Crooks at Your Door” (from In Shoals, available 4/28)
WATCH: In Flames, “Delight and Angers” (from A Sense of Purpose)
LISTEN: God Dethroned, “Under a Darkening Sky” (from Passiondale, available 4/24)
I already clued you all in on the fact that we’re having some brilliant black metal tours coming to the Twin Cities this summer, but now things are just getting 
ridiculous. This week, the announcement was made that the visionary BM minds of Wolves in the Throne Room and Krallice would join together in what is sure to be THE “must-see” underground metal tour to pass through Minneapolis this spring. On May 15th, Wolves in the Throne Room will be playing at the Triple Rock Social Club with Krallice supporting. While I’ve already mentioned the scathing-yet-epic majesty that is WITTR on the site, Krallice is a band that has not gotten enough attention from me so far (besides the one sentence I gave them in my end of 2008 honorable mentions list). Reading descriptions of the band, you might think that their entrancing style of progressive black metal would already have an established predecessor. However, upon hearing Krallice’s fervent, psychedelic, rampaging, technically superior sound, it doesn’t take long to pick up on the freshness of this band’s delivery. Metal has never sounded so simultaneously brutal, ferocious, and atmospheric, which is certainly saying a lot. Krallice is a underground band that is literally pushing the limits of sound. This is a band to watch out for, and the free “Wretched Wisdom” track we have linked below will show you why.
MP3: Krallice, “Wretched Wisdom” (from Krallice, 2008)
Keep reading for all the Krallice and Wolves in the Throne Room spring tour dates (including several shows with A Storm of Light)… Continue reading
It’s not often that Satan blesses this state with prestigious black metal tours (despite many of our resident’s strong Norwegian ancestry), but it appears that someone downstairs has some particularly evil plans for the region in early June. Just this week, two massive underground metal tours were announced, both headlined by some of the most feared band’s BM has to offer.
The most noteworthy show announcement is the Mayhem, Marduk concert on June 9th at Station 4 that is being opened by Cattle Decapitation, Cephalic Carnage, and Withered. Honestly, there will be so much awesome packed into this night that I’m having a hard time getting my head around it. I have not had the chance to see Norway’s Mayhem yet, but the well published details surrounding their gruesome history and sickening live show has me really intrigued. Marduk is equally imposing, and are sure to satisfy the many in Mayhem’s legions. Of all the performances, Cattle Decapitation is the “must-see” band; they are always very impressive live, and this year they are going to be supporting what I believe to be the best release of their career. The hilarious dudes of Cephalic Carnage will most likely incite a great brutal tech mosh fest to get things going, and the Withered performance will surely be an eye-opening starter for those who have not yet caught wind of their incredible technical black metal meets grindcore on their recent Folie Circulaire.
Hopefully the Mayhem show won’t wear out the local black metal fans too much, because on June 15th, Station 4 will be home to the CIII tour featuring long-running and revered USBM band Absu, with support from their labelmates Glorior Belli, Averse Sefira, and Sothis. Right now Absu is only a few weeks from releasing their highly antipated new self-titled album, and by the time this show hits St. Paul I’m sure it’ll still be on my heavy rotation playlist. Even after nearly 20 years as a band, their profile is still clearly rising, and for good reason.
Keep reading for the full tour schedules… Continue reading
Besides hearing a song or two on a mix from a friend in the past, I’m really not familiar with much from Wolves in the Throne Room’s previous output and didn’t really know what to expect when I was introduced to this album this week. However, with that said, after hearing this two-song EP a couple of times, I think I’m going to have to go check out their earlier releases. Malevolent Grain is the Olympia, Washington-based “ambient black metal” band’s second EP, a prelude to their third long-player Black Cascade which is due later this year.
Right off the bat, I want to acknowledge how much I reallllly love the sound on this album. One reason I’ve never gotten into black metal so much in the past was because the production always (for better or worse) sounded so thin and gritty that the musical appeal was totally lost on me. In the last few years, many black metal bands have overcome this trait and have released albums that are much more heavily layered than the cheap recordings of the early years, and I think the current activity in the USBM scene is evidence of this. Wolves in the Throne Room this approach of density and orchestration to another level entirely, Malevolent Grain has a sound that is as thick as ever with ferocity that is unmatched to boot. In fact, in many ways this album reminded me as much as (or possibly even more than) my favorite orchestral post-rock innovators like GY!BE as it did of the scathing black metal of Mayhem, Gorgoroth, or Burzum. To be fair though, many of these bands are now dead or dying. Wolves in the Throne Room are now in a league of their own, following their own vision and innovating on the headbanging classics of these greats with some unparalleled epic blackened rockers of their own.
The album is divided in half, with the first song “A Looming Resonance” beginning the vinyl with a natural, folksy, brooding ambience. Eventually the orchestral buildup is aided by vocals from Jamie Meyers, and as her strong vocals resonate with a Celtic tinge, the song segues into a more viscious psychedelic black metal groove. The entire mix feels more removed from black metal than I could have imagined. By the end of the song, the increasingly intricate dynamics and dense layering have taken this epic a soul-stirring peak that could replicated by few bands in the world (honestly, only GY!BE comes to mind..). “Hate Crystal” begins in much more tradtional black metal fashion with a blasting rhythm section, sinster riff, and wraith-like vox. As majestic as it is brutal, “Hate Crystal” was the perfect cap to my introduction to this band and faded this sinister EP out brilliantly.
(thanks to Bryan for borrowing the album!)
DIG DEEPER: Buy Malevolent Grain online! – Official Website – MySpace
Death metal, black metal and doom metal – to an outsider of metal, there’s little distinction between any of these labels. To a knowledgeable listener, though, these terms take on a new life. These are weighty words known to describe the most extreme of all metal music. Each of these underground breeds of metal specialize in their own flavor of assault – from the brutal riffing of death to the overwhelming atmosphere of black metal to the bleak, plodding heaviness of doom. In recent years, metal fans have benefited from a sea of bloodthirsty new bands that are pushing the extremes of these styles to an incomprehensible degree while each is trying to make their own lasting mark on genre. One of of my favorite recent releases of this kind is Horoskopus, by Seattle’s Book of Black Earth, an album of chaotic headbanging metal anthems balancing on an ungodly trinity all of the extremes – death, black, doom \m/
Whether it’s a crushing groove, a spine-tingling solo, a wall of noise, or an addictive hook, Book of Black Earth connects the dots seamlessly. The focus behind the attack is powered with massive, layered soundscapes and brutal death metal riffing. When it comes to death metal albums like this one, if it’s big & beautiful, I’m all for it, and thankfully Book of Black Earth never forgets this. However, despite all of the albums maniacal power, the true beauty of this album is rooted in the band’s ability to simulataneously contrast the deadly brutality with blackened, psychedelic soundwaves and doomy tonal ambience. It seems to find a very unique marriage between what I enjoy in all of my music – both catchy and extreme. Horoskopus is an intense, demanding, fun, and eye-opening release and a definite buy for any fan of extreme metal.
MIND INVERSION 