“Against the odds, black metal gods
Fight to achieve our goal
Casting a spell, leather and hell
Black metal gods rock `n’ roll
Building up steam, nuclear screams
War-heads are ready to fight
Black leather hounds, faster than sound
Metal our purpose in life.
BLACK METAL
lay down your soul to the gods rock `n’ roll
black metal”
(Venom – Black Metal)
Atmospheric Black Metal – Sorry to say this but I never was a huge fan of the first (Bathory, Celtic Frost, Morbid Angel) and second (Marduk or Satyricon) black metal wave. I do like Darkthrone’s “Transilvanian Hunger” but that’s it haha.
I’m more into that atmospheric emotional stuff and was uttly amazed by bands like Extinction, Der Weg einer Freiheit, Ash Borer, WITTR or Austere over the past years. They really impressed me with their captivating and raw sound.
It’s a trend nowadays. That’s for sure. It’s hip, it’s dark, it’s evil, anti and bla but who cares, the music is still great. Found 3 awesome relatively new bands which I wanted to share with you guys, hope you’ll like them too.
Barbelith – s/t
Let’s start with an 4-piece ambient black metal band hailing from Baltimore, Maryland called Barbelith.
They did a quite splendid work on this first EP. Their sound incorporates post-rockist/ambient parts and crushing raw black metal sounds. I really dig the guitars in “Underfed Limbs of Heritage” (what a beautiful built-up intro) and “Under a Waning Moon”. Vocals are harsh and kinda depressive, which sounds damn fine. “Inward Quest” surprised with some “clean vocals”.
These 5 tracks are sorta mean and fast but also pretty melodic refined with some midtempo parts. Awesome debut.
Tracklist
01 – Intro
02 – Underfed Limbs of Heritage
03 – Under a Waning Moon
04 – Inward Quest
05 – Outro
Social
Facebook: facebook.com/barbelithmd
Listen
Sun Worship – Surpass Eclipse
Great 3-piece band from Berlin/Germany. After a s/t cassette and a split with Earth Chaos, Sun Worship currently released a pretty decent record called “Surpass Eclipse”. It’s by comparison with the self-titled debut by Barbelith more straight forward, more soaring and a bit faster. Taking influences from a lot of USBM bands (mainly Wolves In The Throne Room) to coalesce everything into a stunning hybrid of angry and atmospheric sound-walls. They know to play their instruments very well. Talented guys. What a bummer that “Surpass Eclipse” contains only 2 songs. Waiting for more.
Both “Castle High” and “Eclipse” start with a turbulent beginning. Sounds always like a immense advancing storm. Actually…they got kinda everything a good atmospheric third-wave black metal band needs…the raging components, a plenty of melodic moments, the landscape-nihilism-whatever-feeling, the abrasive voice and both the desperation and distorsion within their tunes.
Looking forward to see them live with Ash Borer on the 9th of april. If they continue like that they could probably be the new deafheaven.
Tracklist
01 – Castle High
02 – Eclipse
Listen
Deuil – Acceptance/Rebuild
Deuil (“mourning” in french) from Liège/Belgium play a more sludgy and doomy version of apolitical and atheist black metal with some shoegaze elements which is very interesting.
If Austere would do a cover of a Explosions in the sky song with Sunn O))) it would almost sound like Deuil. A really really hefty and powerful band. I can’t even describe how intense this record is. This constant contorted riffs combined with great vocals have leave me absolute speechless. “Acceptance” instantly made the way into my “best-of-2013″ list. (also the sound-snippet fits so fucking perfect). “Rebuild” ends up in a tempest and heavy fin after building up for almost 7 minutes. Massive. Just ultra-massive.
They even recorded everything live to have the most authentic and honest athmosphere. This is so rad.
Tracklist
01 – Acceptance
02 – Rebuild
Social
Facebook: facebook.com/wearedeuil
