New Release Radar: Transient Conscious Torment
A few short reviews featuring Atrexial, Convulsing, Oberst, Glassing, Dödsrit, Hamferð, and Givre
I am in physical pain today. Thank God for the common grace of music that corroborates the pain of the postlapsarian human condition with which I can genuinely commiserate. Let’s get right to it then, shall we?
Atrexial – The Serpent Abomination
Release Date: 22 March 2024
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Label: Non Serviam Records
This is black metal that’s true to itself. But Atrexial is not afraid to mix it up. They nuance their true-to-genre with hints of death metal and progressive metal, employing intricate guitars to give contrast to the shadowy, bestial underbelly. Adroit percussion, vomitous vocals, bombarding bass, and ghastly effects shine faint hints of light on this otherwise unilluminated hellscape of aural assault. This is one of the best black metal albums of the year so far.
Convulsing – Perdurance
Release Date: 1 March 2024
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Label: independent
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while because, as outstanding as it is, it’s not an easy one to evaluate. The band’s name says all you really need to know going into it. The bass is in your face at every turn. The guitars are all over the place, from monotonous heaves to labyrinthine leads. The drums will leave your head spinning as you try to follow where the whole apparatus is going to carry you off to next. Difficult to categorize, the band gyrates somewhere between technical death metal and progressive metal, with nods to melodic black metal and experimental avant-garde metal. Whatever you want to call it, it’s worth your time for multiple listens.
Oberst – Toil
Release Date: 26 April 2024
Location: Oslo, Norway
Label: Indie Recordings
If you are firmly ensconced amid the overlap of Converge and Baroness in the Venn diagram of musical tastes, man, do I have a band for you! Norwegian rockers, Oberst, have carved out a niche that is hardcore at heart, but borrows capital from progressive metal, post-metal, classic rock, and (somehow tastefully, and of their own admission) from modern pop. Warm tones, chunky riffs, and resounding bass lines are incorporated with stereotypically-hardcore vocals and drums. The guitars will tickle the fancy of fans of another Norwegian fusion metal band, Kvelertak. There’s something uniquely Norwegian about the music and composition that’s hard to pinpoint. If anyone knows what that “it” factor is that I’m missing, please leave a comment on this post! I hear it and I recognize it, but I cannot explain it. Some of the chord progressions will make you wonder if these guys have injected something of John Dyer Baizley straight into their veins. Kudos to them if they did; it’s working well for them!
Glassing – From the Other Side of the Mirror
Release Date: 26 April 2024
Location: Austin, Texas, USA
Label: Pelagic Records
Calm pandemonium, soothing bedlam, peaceful chaos, Glassing is a conundrum, and I love whatever it is you want to call what they do. Ferocious vocals distort a palette washed over with a robust, resonant soundscape of melodic shoegaze and raucous post-hardcore. More than that, the band imports elements of black metal, doom, noise rock, and ambience to craft something that is potent and weighty, balanced yet disheveled. Highlighted by thunderous bass, harried drums, and vivid guitars, the album is wonderfully produced, delivering the ride in its purest and most turbulent form. It is a sonic marvel that is sure to rewire your brain.
Dödsrit – Nocturnal Will
Release Date: 22 March 2024
Location: Borlänge, Sweden
Label: Wolves of Hades
Fantastical NWOBHM-style melodies bleed into crusty d-beat, and those are just the parenthetical meanderings that are woven into the atmospheric black metal that defines Dödsrit. When you hear the first three minutes of a track like “As Death Comes Reaping” in isolation, you won’t expect what comes next. That’s part of the beauty and intrigue of it. When it all comes together, it’s not contrived. Rather, it’s an organic amalgamation of what we should have expected all along. The songwriting is exquisite. The next descriptor will seem odd if you haven’t heard the album yet, but I think it apropos, this is probably the most luxurious black metal you’ll ever hear. Now, stop reading and indulge yourself.
Hamferð – Men Guðs hond er sterk
Release Date: 22 March 2024
Location: Faroe Islands
Label: Metal Blade Records
Have you ever asked yourself, “what if Queensrÿche did doom metal?” I haven’t either. But after hearing Hamferð, I now know how that might sound. The production value of this album is impeccable. The strings give an air of a slowed and subdued Gojira. The music plods along hauntingly as the vocals shift from a low death metal growl to a clean, soothing croon that puts me in mind of the great Geoff Tate, but at times goes into a slightly gravelly high register à la the great(er) Mike Scheidt. There’s musical treasure in the Faroe Islands, and it’s no longer hidden away in obscurity. Prepare your ears to receive something truly sublime!
Givre – Le Cloître
Release Date: 29 March 2024
Location: Rouyn Noranda, Québec, Canada
Label: Eisenwald
Per their Bandcamp, the “lyrics are taken from the hagiographies of six saint women and explores freely their relation to [G]od through suffering, from the symbolic poetry of Hildegard Von Bingen (1098-1179) to the disturbing and factual depictions of Marthe Robin (1902-1981).” Well, I’m not a Roman Catholic. So, I am often flabbergasted by some of the biographical information of their “saints,” but if my translation of the French is accurate, Givre relays some pretty weird stories here on Le Cloître. They go on to say that, “[m]usically, this album explores a variety of extreme genres while maintaining a suffocating and tormented atmosphere.” While it’s rooted in atmospheric black metal, you can certainly pick up on lots of other influences (e.g., post-metal, blackgaze, doom, avant-garde metal, and progressive sludge) in the maelstrom of sound as it assaults the eardrums. It’s hard not to read some psychedelia into it, as well, if only from the lyrics and subject matter. A common theme in this post may be well-produced black metal, and this album follows along nicely with pronounced, hefty bass laying a foundation for glimmering guitars, rousing riffs, scintillating cymbal crashes, resounding drums, and rhapsodic vocals. This is a mesmerizing 41 minutes of music.