New York death metallers, Pyrrhon, recently released their latest album Exhaust, via Willowtip Records. The band has now shared the single “Stress Fractures” as a video, directed by Frank Huang of Max Volume Silence. Watch it below and find out more.
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Tag Archives: Pyrrhon
Pyrrhon Drop Their Full New Album “Exhaust”
Working with Willowtip Records, NYC death metallers, Pyrrhon, recently released their latest album Exhaust. The band has chose to forego the standard press cycle so that fans could experience the full recording immediately upon announcement. Exhaust is available now on CD, vinyl, cassette, and digital format. Keep reading below to find out more.
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ALBUM REVIEW: Scarcity – The Promise Of Rain
Second album from Scarcity, the Brooklyn based avantgarde Black Metal collective, who have managed to create a sound like no other on a record that well and truly bends the mind. This is black metal, but not as we know it. True, the blackened-screams of vocalist Doug Moore (Pyrrhon / Seputus) are delivered with a typical dark venom, but they are perhaps the most conventional aspect of the sound Scarcity purvey.
GUEST POST: Omar of Moths PR Top Albums of the Year 2020
Ghost Cult continues our “End of Year Guest Post Extravaganza” with a slew of posts from bands, industry, PR pros, and more! We’ll be sharing lists, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the globe. In this edition, Omar of Moths (PR) chips in his Top 10 list. The band shared their recent split EP with The Stone Eye, which you can buy and stream now!
NEW MUSIC FRIDAY: June 26th New Music Releases
Lighting Bolt, Pig Destroyer, Goatwhore, TR/ST, Alcest, Panopticon booked for Austin Terror Fest
Austin Terror Fest has announced their full lineup for 2019! Lighting Bolt, Pig Destroyer, Goatwhore, TR/ST (Canada), Alcest (France), Panopticon, Bongzilla, Bongripper, Church of Misery (Japan), Full of Hell, Dalek, Black Cobra, Street Sects, Unearthly Trance, Dorthia Cottrell, Machine Girl, Pyrrhon, Genocide Pact, Dreadnought, Crowhurst, Echo Beds, Temple Of Angels, Mountain Of Smoke, Terminator 2, Deep Cross, and Taverner. Austin Terror Fest (ATF) takes place Friday, June 7 through Sunday, June 9 in Austin, Texas, Three-day GA badges are on sale now for $150 through ATF’s Official Facebook Event page, below.
Baring Teeth – Transitive Savagery
Ehnahre – The Marrow
Let’s be honest – for all its talk of “extremes”, Metal is largely a pretty conservative genre. Few bands experiment beyond the controlled combination of rigorously defined subgenres, and even those who do truly push the boundaries are normally content to do so only once. Ehnahre – formed with the stated intention of creating the most horrible and perverse music imaginable – have been a dedicated exception to this rule from the beginning, to the extent that they frequently don’t sound like a Metal band at all.Continue reading
Psalm Zero – Stranger To Violence
What exactly is going on in New York? The city has a long musical history, of course, but in recent years it seems to have become a focus point for challenging, original and distinctive Heavy Metal. We’re not talking about some forced “scene” with three or four decent bands setting the tone for a horde of bland followers, either – though Psalm Zero share a certain spirit with their neighbours in Pyrrhon, Krallice and Artificial Brain, musically they’re as distinctive as those bands are from each other.
Not that the music on Stranger To Violence (Profound Lore) is especially easy to describe. The label blurb makes much of their Pop influence, but this is hardly the chorus-heavy cheese-fest that word may suggest – the song-writing somehow marries catchiness to a genuine sense of unease and strangeness. The Metal elements shouldn’t be overlooked, either – the use of synths often calls to mind the darker side of eighties Pop, but just when you think you’ve got them in a box they’ll shift to a surging bombast that has more in common with Emperor than Depeche Mode. The extremely sparse use of harsh vocals in the most aggressive sections create a real sense of dislocation, too, hitting with an impact that they lack in music which uses them more regularly. It’s Pop Metal, but nothing like any other band that’s been given that name before.
If the music is hard to describe, the aesthetic behind it is no less so. The artwork suggests urban dystopia, and though that is certainly present on tracks like ‘Real Rain’ and ‘Stolen By Night’, there’s also an undercurrent of dark fantasy and strangeness to it that can’t be described easily. It’s frequently as uplifting as it is sinister, as dark as it is catchy.
In a genre with so many offshoots and sub-types that it seems as though every possibility has been thoroughly explored, Psalm Zero have genuinely succeeded in carving their own little niche – and it’s a strange, fascinating little place indeed.
8.0/10
RITCHIE HR
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VIII – Decathexis
The PR notes accompanying Decathexis (Third-I Rex), the second album from Cagliari firebrands VIII, advise comparisons with Extreme experimentalists Deathspell Omega and Manes. The reality, however, is a progressive aural violence full of invention.
Opener ‘Symptom’s early exchanges see a stripped down, Blackened underpin, quirky in its structure and graced by WLKN’s snarled growl, suddenly tempered by maudlin drops which lend themselves to a Shoegaze feel. That Manes comparison manifests itself with a Jazzy sax, which introduces a dream-like sequence: a piano-led ambience; a street walk followed by a nightmarish descent through rapid atonal chords, Freeform pace changes and hostile growls, with those ivories beginning the road to a sample-laden coda in hair-raising fashion.
The early stages of the ensuing ‘Diagnosis’ beautifully blend an emotional, atmospheric Doom with more of that wistful saxophone and the kind of Deathly, downward spirals perfected by the likes of Pyrrhon. A meander through eerie gentleness is followed by a rampant, horrific explosion, the throat morphing from growl to Blackened rasp in a terrifying escalation of anger. This is the depiction of a war zone yet, replete with a subtle piano centrepiece, the apocalyptic, heartbreaking aftermath of battle is gloriously displayed also.
There’s a Blues-Punk edge to the bludgeon of closer ‘Prognosis’ which lends a more traditional edge but the experimentation is still evident: the sparing, neurotic riffs given a tremolo effect; the atmospheric blast of classical acoustic; the brief, gradual drop once again full of melancholy and portent. It’s WLKN’s voice which again provides the savagery, especially in the tolling, Avant-garde atonality of the second movement: his screams and whispers demonical in accompanying the hydraulic Industria and Marco Porcu’s staggering stickwork.
This constant movement through disparate fundamentals can lead to ‘Prognosis’ occasionally feeling a touch difficult to engage with, its cosmic yet serene finale an ineffectual end to the urgency of the previous 45 minutes. The whole is nevertheless an absorbing tour de force, its manic nature running in perfect tandem with a moving ambience to incite all manner of emotion. By no means an easy listen, Decathexis is nevertheless a hugely rewarding journey.
8.0/10.0
PAUL QUINN