Tag Archives: Post Black Metal

On The Road… with Deafheaven

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On an unseasonably warm start to the bleak days of November, Deafheaven rode into Boston to play the Royale Nightclub. The band is riding high on the strength of their recent album New Bermuda (Anti Records) and interest in the band, once a cult phenomenon is sky-high. Although not a sellout crowd, the joint was packed with the strange amalgam of fans you might expect by now: hipsters, old school black metallers, pizza thrashers, college kids and more. You might say it was a real melting pot concert goes, and giving way to the usual tribalism less diverse Boston shows sometimes get. The night was kicked off by Swedish blackened prog metallers Tribulation, who put on an amazing show. This is a band that continues to impress following their Children of The Night (Century Media) album early this year. We look forward to catching them again on the 2016 Decibel Tour. It seemed like Japan’s Envy had their own crowd in the house tonight. They were really vocal and made their approving presence known. That Envy is on tour with Defheaven shouldn’t be that surprising. Despite their hardcore roots, Envy is firmly ensconced in the post-rock/shoegaze majesty Deafheaven fans, and the band themselves clearly have an affinity for. Their show was a magical experience, with front man Tetsuya Fukagawa jumping into the crowd several times. It almost felt like they were the headliner themselves tonight. Lastly it was time for Deafheaven’s customary show of aggression, obscene volume, drone for days, bombast, light, shade, and very few words said to the crowd. Many intense glances from front man George Clarke sent the drooling crowd into overdrive. The band played a bunch of new songs, and some gems from the now classic Sunbather (Deathwish Inc.), but sadly nothing from Roads To Judah (also Deathwish Inc.). Despite the bands’ penchant for long, exploratory epic tracks, the set did feel a bit rushed through from my vantage point and ended in under an hour. Still, from tonight’s several minute chant for the band to return and play an encore (they didn’t) you can see why the band has risen so far, so fast. That is no doubt why many shows on the tour did sell out, including the last two this weekend at The Roxy in Los Angeles.

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

 

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

 

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

 

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

 

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

 

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

Deafheaven, by Emma Parsons Photography

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WORDS BY KEITH CHACHKES

PHOTOS BY EMMA PARSONS PHOTOGRAPHY


Audio: Deafheaven – New Bermuda, Full Album Streaming

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Deafheaven. Photo Credit Kristin Coufer

Deafheaven. Photo Credit Kristin Coufer

With a little over a week away until its release, Deafheaven have made their new album New Bermuda available for streaming at NPR’s “First Listen”. You can stream the album at this link or below:

 

deafheaven new bermuda album cover 2015

Deafheaven’s New Bermuda releases next Friday, October 2nd from Anti-Records.

New Bermuda track listing:

01 Brought to the Water
02 Luna
03 Baby Blue
04 Come Back
05 Gifts for the Earth


Audio: Deafheaven – Come Back

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Deafheaven is streaming a new song from their upcoming album New Bermuda (Anti-Records) due out on October 2nd. You can hear the track ‘Come Back’ at this link or below:

 

New Bermuda track listing:

01 Brought to the Water
02 Luna
03 Baby Blue
04 Come Back
05 Gifts for the Earth

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Audio: Deafheaven Releases New Single- Brought To The Water

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deafheaven new bermuda album cover 2015

 

Deafheaven, who recently announced their new album New Bermuda (Anti-Records) have dropped their first single from this highly anticipated album. ‘Brought to the Water’ can be heard at this link or below:

Deafheaven Front man George Clark commented on the track:

“We wanted to share ‘Brought to the Water’ first because it gives a good idea of the overall sonic tone of the record and really evokes feelings that come with uprooting and throwing oneself into the complacent, monotonous routine of adulthood.”

 


Deafheaven Announce New Bermuda Album And Track Listing

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deafheaven new bermuda album cover 2015

On the heels of yesterday’s teaser trailer Deafheaven has officially named their new album New Bermuda and it drops on October 2nd from Anti Records. The artwork is an oil painting by artist Allison Schulnik. Recorded with longtime producer and collaborator Jack Shirley, New Bermuda as recorded live to tape in at 25th Street Recording in Oakland and at Atomic Garden Recording in Palo Alto .

Front man George Clarke commented about the concept of New Bermuda:

 

 

“It’s a new destination in life, a nebulous point of arrival, and an unknown future where things get swallowed up and dragged into darkness.”

 

New Bermuda track listing:

01 Brought to the Water
02 Luna
03 Baby Blue
04 Come Back
05 Gifts for the Earth

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Video: Deafheaven Announce New Album, Premiere Trailer

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Controversial US Post-blackmetal band Deafheaven have announced their highly-anticipated new album, for release this October via Anti Records. In a one minute teaser trailer released by the band they hinted at a possible title of album being New Bermuda. You can watch the video at this link or below:

 

The trailer features serene beach setting followed the band in the studio recording. A bruising track plays behind the video. The new Deafheaven album will be the follow-up to 2013’s Sunbather (Sargent House) album.


Hope Drone – Cloak of Ash

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With the Australian underground scene arguably one of the best in the world at the moment, US big-hitter Relapse Records has struck gold with the signing of Brisbane, Queensland quartet Hope Drone, for début album Cloak of Ash. Eschewing the morbid bleakness of fellow countrymen Woods of Desolation, Hope Drone have embraced the quintessentially American sound of post-black metal, with furious riffs, mournful soundscapes and tortured vocals the order of the day. The cover art is fantastic and worthy of mention; an arresting image of cloud and wave merged into an enveloping maelström that threatens to consume all and sundry. It’s the perfect metaphor for the band’s sound.

Starting any record, let alone your début off with a twenty-minute track is a seriously brave move, yet Hope Drone appears to be utterly unfazed. ‘Unending Grey’ begins with a torrent of cascading riffs and anguished howls before the pace stems and the listener is guided through a devastatingly beautiful section of sombre guitar notes and stark percussion. However the respite is short-lived, for when the pace picks up again, it’s utterly ferocious, with the band reaching speeds that the likes of Deafheaven can only dream of. That they do it while maintaining the same feeling of alien bleakness through the entire twenty minutes is nothing short of amazing.

After the devastating fury of pretty much a full EP’s worth of material as a mere opening track; the ten minute follow-up ‘Riverbeds Hewn in Marrow’ almost feels trite by comparison. However any doubts are soon washed away by the soaring guitar-lines and restless, pummeling percussion. This is continued with the billowing darkness that opens ‘The World Inherited’ but the rug is once again pulled from under our feet as the track decays into a tortuous crawl through near-funeral doom territory where release is an abstract hope.

The influence of noisy US black metallers Ash Borer and sadly missed Irish trailblazers Altar of Plagues is keenly felt throughout Cloak of Ash with Hope Drone devoting equal time to the crushing slow section as well as teeth-rattling speed. However, rip-off merchants they aren’t, for there is none of the tree-hugging, ritualistic elements of the former influence and little of the urban, ambient coldness of the latter. Instead, Hope Drone appears to have cultivated a vaguely nautical feel with song titles such as ‘The Waves Forever Shatter Upon Our Shores’ and ‘Carried Apart By the Ceaseless Tides.’ Indeed the overriding feeling is being swept up and torn asunder in the teeth of the almighty ocean; bereft of hope and powerless to withstand the awesome power of nature.

While they need to be careful to avoid falling into the trap of fast bit/slow bit/fast bit, and let’s be honest; seventy-seven minutes is way too long for any album, Hope Drone have done pretty much everything right on their first effort and even in a scene full to bursting, prove that it just takes a bit of imagination and ambition to stand out from the pack. Fantastic effort.

 

8.0/10

 

JAMES CONWAY


Locrian – Infinite Dissolution

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Reaction to Chicago trio Locrian has often been mixed: their melody-infused, Black-edged expression offending as many purists as it delights fans of obsidian innovation. Latest album Infinite Dissolution (Relapse) initially continues that progressive sound with opener ‘Arc of Extinction’ possessing the kind of introductory swell perfected by the likes of Yes and Pink Floyd. The blackened horror soon emerges, however: Terence Hannum’s rasps exploding against the sudden quickening of pace, André Foisy’s Post-black leads “bipping” furiously over a hissing cacophony à la fellow US dark experimentalists Liturgy.

The ensuing ‘Dark Shales’ begins with melancholic twangs, ethereal airs coating muffled tub-thumping, and some emotive soloing from Foisy. Here it becomes clear that Locrian has evolved from its nebulous indecision into a talented outfit, determined to parade all of their influences. ‘…Shales’ truly evokes grey, wash-battered stone beaches yet marries them to an odyssey through space, delicately yet with latent power. The first of the ‘KXL’ trilogy, meanwhile, incorporates industrial sampling into its mournful yet spiky melodies before squalling, ominous feedback reintroduces the band’s edge: a bitterness which infuses the spacier, grandiose parts of the second movement’s eerie, orchestral keys.

Symphonics play a subtle yet important role in Infinite Dissolution’s character. Lush Moogs, at times cosmic, at others Numan-esque, quell the van Eeckhout-style vocal agonies of ‘The Future of Death’. The swelling atmospherics of album centrepiece ‘An Index of Air’ ascend to frostbitten roars and a frenetic gallop, soulful harmonies climaxing the epitome of superior quality, inventive, melodic Black metal.

There are imperfections – it takes time for the pulsing rush of ‘The Great Dying’ to kick in but the heart is eventually piqued; the over-gentle rhythms and electronica of ‘Heavy Water’, meanwhile, are enlivened by the odd venture into harsher territory and more cold, “post” guitar. The main issue here is that the band still fall between two huge stools: still too soft and whimsical for pure Black hearts; whilst possessing too many harsh interludes for fans of melodious Rock.

Infinite Dissolution, however, is arguably the band’s strongest to date: a stirring, inventive work that will undoubtedly win Locrian much admiration.

 

7.0/10

 

PAUL QUINN


Conan – Space Witch – Khost – Corinth: Live at Star and Garter, Manchester, UK

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Conan. Photo by Paul Quinn

Opening up this latest night in the attic of Manchester’s ‘Old Lady’, the UK’s biggest Doom secret laid waste to a criminally small gathering. Download Festival sadly took the country’s photographers away from the crushing, hypnotic groove that is Leeds’ Corinth; Ben Corkhill and Tom Clayton roaring out, the former painting Post-Black leads through a titanic swamp of bludgeoning power and monolithic rhythms, his fellow protagonists looking out laconically as if they had no idea of the monstrous effect of their sound. One day, and it’s coming, these will be the new darlings of the Low-end. They are THAT good.

With a laptop centre-stage, and cavernous crashes of bass and distorted riffs either side, Birmingham’s Khost held court between those who didn’t understand it, and the majority who were mesmerised by the cacophonous, spectral sounds. The duo appeared like a hooded, homeless Godflesh, boys from the gutters of Piccadilly, but their crashing ambient power was impossible to ignore. The intermittent entry of bass notes over the cascading squall was positively bowel-clearing. A staggering, imploding feedback of Industrial noise, I could have walked away at this point knowing I’d seen the most important metal gig in Manchester for years.

Picking up my shattered nerves, I predicted that the occasionally more pedestrian Psych-Doom of Stoke’s Space Witch would be dull in comparison. Sequencer Peter Callaghan is often the sole focal point yet they turned out to be the most animated band of the evening; their booming, spaced-out grooves maintaining interest without the spark of the previous two bands. More powerful than I’ve seen them before however, the crowd were bewitched and, loving the pounding oscillations, seemingly forgot everything that had gone before.

Conan is the most crushing experience you’ll ever have live. Jon Davis delivered screams from a small stage that may as well have been the tip of Everest, his pulverising riffs threatening to destroy part of the city. Latest drummer Rich Lewis was mobile, frighteningly powerful, eviscerating his kit with unfettered ferocity whilst the building buckled under the titanic mass of ‘Total Conquest’. Captivating, oppressive, yet hypnotic, it’s impossible to convey the effect this band have in a live setting. The whole night was one obliterating, skin-itching, unfathomable blow to the soul after another; but with closer ‘Satsumo’, the headliners proved themselves an indescribable, barrelling monstrosity. In a Mancunian attic, a church for support musicians and fans alike, sometimes weight is everything.

 

Conan on Facebook

 

PAUL QUINN

 

 


Vattnet Viskar – Settler

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Although emotive, the dark harshness of Vattnet Viskar’s sound seemed a strange choice to accompany the heavier, more melodic Pallbearer on last winter’s US tour. Look deeper, however, into the very British blackness of Settler (Century Media), the New Hampshire quartet’s second album, and the melancholy shines through.

Brutal stickwork permeates the tremolo riffs of ‘Colony’ until a wholly unexpected mid-point breakdown of slow, deliberate Shoegaze, reappearing at the track’s coda, marks the band out as a different breed. ‘Yearn’ begins with a portentous yet evocative passage, building with delicate synth effects into vocalist Nicholas Thornbury’s colossal yet almost whispered, dry bark; a more Doom-laden pace seeing lead shimmerings emerge only in a Post-style underpin. It’s a savage track, yet pregnant with emotion: the layered, twisting chicanes sending the sound into the more inventive horror of Inter Arma’s Blackened spin-off Bastard Sapling, rather than that of the band’s core which is heavily influenced by Winterfylleth, Fen et al. ‘Impact’, for example, evokes images of rolling, furze-heavy hills in winter, as is expected from that UK Pagan contingent: yet a Viking element adds punch to this truly moving track.

This is an album giving true meaning to the ‘Atmospheric Black Metal’ tag: expertly blending the hostile, hissing tundra with chest-swelling passion and, in doing so, creating a living monster. Seamus Menihane’s pounding, resonant tubs return as the direction for the aptly named ‘Glory’, more sadness wrought from that lead guitar as an initial Trad metal rhythm gives way to dual Post wails, crushing riffs returning at the height of the ensuing explosion, an emphysemic roar coating the whole in a wonderful disease. The brutalised, throbbing heartbreak of both the title track and ‘Heirs’, meanwhile, where those expressions of angst remain constantly on the right side of Metalcore to emit sincere feeling, are supreme examples of the band’s organic versatility and heart of fire.

Closer ‘Coldwar’ melds elements of Black, Melancholia, Post-metal and Rock in a swelling, distraught yet euphoric finale. A refreshing, ambitious effort whilst remaining faithful to the dark core, Settler shows Vattnet Viskar to the stage of serious contenders.

 

8.0/10

Vattnet Viskar on Facebook

 

PAUL QUINN