Anarchist Wolves - "Kill the Fascist Seed EP" (2017)

ANARCHIST WOLVES - "Kill the Fascist Seed EP"

Year: 2107

Genre: Blackened Crust/Grind/Thrash

Country: USA

Tracklist:

1. Smash the Fascist
2. Malignancy
3. Smoke Out the Rats
4. Interlachen
5. No Empires
6. Post Truth
7. Plight of Insurrection

Bandcamp

Another brilliant solo project, this one from anonymous artist "Wolf Boy" in New Mexico.According to the artist, the album is intended to "fuel your outrage, to soundtrack your organizing and agitating, and to propel you into the streets to stop fascism." Worthy goals all round. 

The album is aggressively lo-fi and anti-commercial in all the finest traditions of the punk and black metal scenes that spawned it, paying homage to the greats of the genre with a clear influence from the Norwegian second wave. The dark tremolo picked intro to "Interlachen", resolving into furious crusty riffing, perfectly enacpsulates the violent mood of the album, along with its wide range of influences. The longest track on the album, "Plight of Insurrection" similarly utilizes mournful minor key ambience before shattering the atmosphere into shards of raw crust punk and militaristic drumming.

What I found particularly interesting was the blend of hardcore elements into the mix, with breakdown-esque sections surrounded by blast beats, punky riffing, gurgling screams, and the kind of tremolo picking in minor keys that is normally found in much more traditional black metal. That being said, this is clearly a black metal release, not a punk one. The warlike aggression in the music, the militant drumming, the incredibly provocative and threatening lyrics, and their vicious delivery all combine to make Anarchist Wolves an expression of not just antifascist rage, but the kind of revolutionary art this genre is so exclusively brilliant at producing.

T.G.

Kosmogyr - "Quiescent" (2017)

KOSMOGYR - "Quiescent"

Year: 2017

Genre: Black Metal
Country: China/ Czech Republic

Track List:

1. Quiescent

Bandcamp / Facebook

Kosmogyr is a black metal project made collaboratively by two people from Shanghai and Prague.

Blight - "Basidium" (2017)

BLIGHT  "Basidium"

Year: 2017

Genre: Black Metal
Country: USA

Track List:

1. Side A - Theocratic Mujahidin, blight
2. Side B - Goodbye horses

Bandcamp 

Blight is an 'anarchist black metal' band from Chico, California with primitivism related lyrics and a blasphemous and political context in their background. Their music has a raw with a lot of rage in it. I don't really have more information about this project, but it has definitely a space in our blog...

Abkehr - "In Asche" (2017)

ABKEHR  "In Asche"

Year: 2017

Genre: Black Metal
Country: Germany

Track List:

1. I
2. II
3. III
4. IV

Bandcamp / Facebook 

"From the most remote crevices of the German extreme metal underworld come Abkehr, a new black metal entity from Northern Germany who’s genesis appears to have been sparked by unprecedented emotional and mental collapse and by an unfathomable pull toward absolute, devouring darkness. Abkehr were formed in 2015 in Northern Germany by sole masterminds Raash and H. with the intent of unifying under the black looming star of self-disintegration the raw misanthropic grimness of the most praised Norwegian black metal tradition with the atmosphere and desperation of depressive black metal, and the swarming majesty of US atmospheric black metal."

Fuatha - "Oblivion" (2017)

FUATHA  "Oblivion"

Year: 2017

Genre: Black Metal
Country: USA

Track List:

1. Abandoned
2. Cataclysm
3. Ashes
4. Prophetic dreams
5. Oblivion

Bandcamp / Facebook 

Fuatha is an atmospheric black metal band from Chino Hills, California. This band focuses its thematic in the existence of the human being and the nature that survives around the progress.

Secreto público - "Demo" (2017)

SECRETO PÚBLICO  "Demo"

Year: 2017

Genre: Punk
Country: México

Track List:

1. La masacre del cuerpo (The massacre of the body)
2. Hora de enfrentar (Time to face)
3. Condenadxs (Condemned)
4. Cara de culpable (Guilty face)
5. Paranoia inducida (Induced paranoia)
6. Premio al mejor actor (Best actor award)

Bandcamp

"Secreto Público" is a punk band from Mexico City. Among the violent times that are surrounding this place, this band talks about feminist postures between all this constant struggle; they also talk about life in the city (polution, overpopulation...) 

This is their first demo and it's free in bandcamp.

Domini Canes - "Ethereal Flesh Conduit" (2017)

DOMINI CANES "Ethereal Flesh Conduit"

Year: 2017

Genre: Blackened Punk
Country: UK

Track List:

1. Mortality
2. Part I
3. Part II
4. Veil
5. Part III
6. Obsidian Temple Liturgy
7. Shackles

Bandcamp

"Domini Canes is a one man project from the UK playing crust influenced black metal that deals with mans place within existence and the individuals place within society while taking influence from observing everyday life and the institutions which dictate life such as religion, government and popular (and not so popular) culture, hoping all the while for a time when people can be truly responsible for governing themselves"

We have already shared two of it's demos, and you can check them out here. 

Kremator - "Return" (2017)

KREMATOR "Return"

Year: 2017
Genre: Atavistic Mulchcore
Country: USA

Track list:

1. Decrepit
2. Agency
3. Wander
4. Permeated
5. Thirst
6. Together
7. Sustenance
8. Return
9. Espere

Bandcamp // Facebook

Kremator is an undeniably unique project, and is almost entirely unlike anything I've heard before. Aiming to create nature-inspired atmospheric grindcore (christened "atavistic mulchcore" by the band's solo member), the highly experimental music makes heavy use of drums and guttural vocals in a style reminiscent of traditional grindcore, but differs in that generally no other instrumentation is used, save the recorded sounds of the artist breathing into a microphone. The only instance of traditional instrumentation in "Return" is acoustic guitar on the final track. 

Lyrically, the aim was to create "a mixture I would call atavistic anarcho-communism. The idea was to "Return" to a forest to get away from the destruction of life in a capitalistic hellhole of a post-industrial city." It charts the flight from civilisation at a personal level, escaping from "this decrepit city" in the first track, and slowly exploring and discussing the artist's ideology through the rest of the album. Most of the music was inspired by trips to the Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, and it reads as an acutely intimate piece of art, with a tangible sense of, to use his own word, "atavistic" longing, a desperate desire for simpler life in a rain-shrouded forest, away from the choking filth we are surrounded with by modern society.

The final two tracks present, in very different ways, an impassioned and profound cry directed at those of us who cling to civilisation - in "Return", the lyrics provide the call directly; "The fires shall burn for you /Won’t you come and be with us /To be back in the wild". Once the echoes of "Return" fade away, the final track, "Espere", (a name which, I discovered after extensive Googling, is a first-person form of an old French verb meaning "to wait", "to hope", or "to expect") holds not only the lovely allusions in the title, conveying layers of meaning plain English couldn't hope to accomplish, but also the song itself is the only instrumental track on the album, 40 seconds of gentle acoustic guitar closing the album in a soft kind of melancholic hope for a greener future.

The music is extremely experimental, and is a long way from stereotypical easy listening, but despite the challenging sound the message beneath is heartfelt, deeply personal, and beautiful. Definitely worth a listen if you're looking to broaden your horizons.

T.G.

Nidstang - "Retribution Will Come" (2017)

NIDSTANG "Retribution Will Come"

Year: 2017
Genre: Raw Black Metal / Crust
Country: USA

Track list:

1. Bind
2. Ergi
3. Nidstang
4. Without
5. Infans Solaris
6. Envenomation
7. Alucinari
8. Cloaked in Emerald
9. Abstruse Existence
10. Bound

Bandcamp

The impressive debut of this solo project, created by one of the members of Huldrekall and influenced by the ideals of DIY punk, opens softly with "Bind", an ambient soundscape of synthesisers grinding through slow changes and gritty texture, before tearing into raw black metal aggression and hardcore riffing in "Ergi", and the shorter track "Nidstang". The album builds in speed, becoming a juggernaut fast, heavy, raw black metal, the kind of lo-fi staticky goodness any crust punk worth their patches will be left swooning over.

Vocally it's uncompromising stuff, with pure ferocity howling through the mix in a boiling overflow of ruthless aggression directed at a corrupt and complacent status quo. At times the pace varies from blistering aggression to slower and heavier, more reminiscent of particularly rough metallic hardcore than crust or black metal. This is particularly developed on the fourth track, "Without". These pace changes allow the album a kind of freshness to each track, rather than stagnating in an identical format; it hits hard and fast, and leaves you reeling.

The album closes with another ambient track, this one with a subtly different mood and feeling to "Bind", more sorrowful and final, and called "Bound", a simple and direct end to an interesting and well-developed album. Overall it's an extremely impressive first effort, and there are few similarities to the artist's main band, Huldrekall - Nidstang is most definitely its own project, not a pale copy. Can't wait to see where this debut leads.

T.G.

Amethyst Falls - "Amethyst Falls EP" (2017)

AMETHYST FALLS "Amethyst Falls"

Year: 2017

Genre: Post-Black Metal / Shoegaze
Country: USA

Track List:

1. Reflections in the fog
2. Exposure

Bandcamp / Facebook

Amethyst Falls, a band from Oakland, USA. They play a mix between Black Metal, Dark Wave and Shoegaze. Personally i found this very interesting and it's an impressive project.
This came from "Orb Weaver Collective" who define themselves as "wild-seeking artist on the western coast of the United States, unified, living together at the edge of civilization, bout to their craft as musicians, painters, poets and performers" You can follow this collective here.

Also, if any of you are interested they gave me two downloading codes for this EP, so, write me in case you want to oiseau@riseup.net 

From this collective you should also check this bands:
Latona Odola ( Dark Ambient / Folk)
Leadeater (Black Metal)
Loam (Dark ambient)