Sangraal - Sangraal 7"

 

13 years later, the resurrection of Gehenna brought a new Sangraal 7" too. Nothing has changed, only Mike Cheese's throat has become more coarse, but apart from that expect galloping black metal hardcore. 2011 7" on Rock Cocaine.

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Sangraal ‎– Gemini Wars

 

 A more chaotic version of the Wolves Of Armageddon album of Sangraal, the black metal alter-ego of Gehenna. 1998 self-released tape.

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Arnaut Pavle - Arnaut Pavle

What better way to spend your Saturday afternoon by moshing around your apartment on some awesome black thrash punk? Finnish band Arnaut Pavle (the name of a Serb vampire from the 1500s - nice story on wikipedia) on their debut LP (after a demo six years earlier) punch out a headbanging-crazy mix of Darkthrone's Under A Funeral Moon, old Aura Noir, and Craft, with loads of German-thrash-inspired hammer-on riffs filled and punishing d-beats, and with amusing song titles to boot ("Unholy Black Balsam," "Carpet Bombing Nazareth"). As a comment said on bandcamp, "Radio Fenriz material." You can download this for free on their bandcamp, (along with their ultra-raw demo). 2019 LP on Mystískaos.

Sangraal ‎– Wolves Of Armageddon LP

Fuck yes. Side project of the unforgiving Gehenna from San Diego/Reno, one of the most legendary metallic hardcore punk bands of the 1990s alongside Integrity, Ringworm, Catharsis. They played raging nuclear warfare black metal with generous measures of hardcore and thrash; in fact they're very similar to the recordings Gehenna did in the late 90s and early 00s, Negotium Perambulans In Tenebris and Upon The Gravehill (especially the latter one). Mike Cheese's gnarly nasal delivery takes on an even more characteristic tone when he sings in black metal rasps, and the music is as violent as it gets to start a moshpit in your living room with Celtic Frost-via-Darkthrone-via-Infest riffs. Speaking of Da Frost, there's also a really cool cover of "Morbid Tales," filled with blast beats and spacey wah leads. Awesome! 2000 LP on Wicked Witch Records.


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Daniel Gregory - Kebab Shop Will Sell Ice Cream / Gardbuk - Fantasy of Dying Lights

In my town there's a kebab restaurant run by political refugees of the important Turkish undeground communist party DHKP-C, who have been waging an urban guerilla struggle against the oppressive Turkish state for decades. These people have come to the country where I live to escape certain death and they run this amazing kebab shop as a family. Every time I go there it's a feast with beydi kebab dishes, ezme salad for starters, and sometimes we also order their homemade deserts. I definitely would find it a great idea if they also offered some ice cream post-feast to calm down the spice, and the immense amounts of fat received via the doner meat-red tomato sauce-yoghurt-pita bread-melt butter-all-over of the poem that is iskender.

This ain't relevant though with the music hereby, which is none close to Turkish music. Daniel Gregory does guitar improvisations mainly on prepared acoustic guitar, with his sounds trying to stay as away as possible from actual music, which makes it quite similar to the also great Chow Mwng. What I like in musique concrete, and it is also present here, is the urgency; it's very live and very active. The last track is an unstructured atonal blues dedicated to Neil Campbell, and it's a nice melancholy ending to a short trip to essential no-audience underground music. 2018 tape on Structured Disasters

The tape can be bought in a bundle with the incredibly lo-fi mid-tempo black metal epic tape Fantasy of Dying Lights by Gardbuk, which is ideal for letting your waist-long hair hanging while you also keep your head down and move it slowly in a circle while walking in the local park while snowing. Xasthur fans will definitely dig this.

Inverted Pentagram ‎– Thee Astral Sign of War tape

Continuing in the Xmas festive spirit, here's an ultra rare promo tape by obscure Dutch black/death metal band Inverted Pentagram, who ran for a few years in the early 1990s before changing their name to Omnihierophantom (anyone heard their album?) before reverting back to the original name quite recently, and put on real fun corpsepaint and clothing, as you can see here. While this starts out in a typical early 1990s sloppy fast Beherit/Von fashion with heavily echoed vocals, there are a few surprises under their belt. There's ultra slow dirge black/doom with nice heavy bass (lovin' the continuous bell effect on "Ritual of the Black Woods", there's fun ritual improvisation with entertaining gurgling/water bloop effects on "Nyarlathotep...The Messenger" on an attempt to fascimile a Dagon effect, there's heavy organ. Nice!! Quite close in the more experimental aspects of early 90s black metal such as Necromantia, and with the obligatory clumsy-as-fuck and almost comical musicianship of that era, this makes a really cool listen on a night when you have come back home with your metal buddies to continue the drinking. 1993 tape on Black Flame Produxions.

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Unearthly Trance ‎– Season Of Seance, Science Of Silence cd

It was on a cold December day of 2003 that I bought the debut of Long Island's faves Unearthly Trance, after having already been mindblown by the Frost Walk With Me 7" and the amazing Beast Eye Open To The Sky LP by side project of singer/guitarist Ryan Lipinsky, Thralldom, and I remember listening to it non-stop during the Xmas holidays. While in later albums Unearthly Trance would adopt a crustier and tighter approach, with more elements by black metal and hardcore, in this one they are in a spiral of heavy-like-hippo-shit doom/sludge, with undertones of black metal and drone, doses of Celtic Frost goodness, and even ritual black ambient. Coupled with a lo-fi, but strong on the bass, production by Stephen O' Malley, this is one of the best doom/sludge albums of all time, and one that again arguably proves that Relapse can turn otherwise promising bands into more mediocre outfits when they manage to get their little corporate hands on them. The slow crushing riffs, the spacious production, and Lipinsky's desperate clean vocals, as well as his sinister rasps, proved an ideal showcase for one of this blog's dictums on your right hand, the one saying that good music is the music that makes you fall asleep, and this is what this album did many a time during cold and bleak wintry days. Highly recommended, up to par with Electric Wizard's Let Us Prey, Cathedral's Forest of Equilibrium, and Winter's Eternal Frost. 2003 cd on Rise Above Records.Download

Acrimonious - Perdition Gospel tape

Cool Greek black metal in the vein of Swedish "orthodox" black metal, that is, Casus Luciferi-era Watain, Ondskapt, Ofermod. Frozen arpeggios, good musicianship, excellent slower marching parts, what else do you want bruh? 2006 tape on Nuclear Winter Records.

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Erimos - Koilada Tis Monaksias

If you liked the side of Epithanatios Ronghos from the previous post, this is also gonna appeal to you. Erimos was the band some of their members had before Epithanatios while they still lived in provincial Greece. Their style is almost identical: epic wintry black metal-tinged crust punk based on seventh chords, gruff vocals and relentless pounding on the drums, close to Greek crust legends Himeria Narki, dark melodic crust like Ambulance or Ekkaia, as well as the early - and good - Greek bm material like Rotting Christ (pre-Triarchy of the Lost Lovers), Varathron and Septic Flesh. 2004 DIY release.

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Sun Of Nothing ‎– Rehearsal Tape

Sun Of Nothing is a band from Athens, Greece mixing sludge, post-punk, post-metal and black metal into a cauldron of noise and urban toxic pox. They've released three full-length albums, all of which can be downloaded for free on their bandcamp. This is their first rehearsal tape from 2002, which I was lucky to grab during a gig of them I saw in Thessaloniki when I was doing my university visit there more than a decade ago. What is more striking about them is their vocalist Ilias; his delivery is a shriek that is not exhaled but inhaled; what damage he must have done to his lungs is unknown to me but it sounds great. Think of their music as a mix between Eyehategod and Godflesh; third track also includes the final riff from Electric Wizard's anthem "Funeralopolis" so you know these dudes have good taste. 2002 self-released tape.

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Necrovation / Corrupt ‎– Curse Of The Subconscious split 7"

Insanely tight and violent old-school Swedish death metal by the ever-awesome Necrovation, beginning with some really nice atmospheric arpeggios before morphing into thick devastating riffs; their second track is a cover of the classic Morbid track "My Dark Subconscious." Corrupt is another Swedish band, and they play less interesting trebly black/thrash metal with very fast drumming; their most noteworthy part is the vocals which remind me a lot of Altars of Madness-era David Vincent, the guy from the Peruvian band Mortem and Jeff Bechera of Possessed. The second track is a faithful cover with nice solos of Mercyful Fate's "Curse of the Pharaohs." 2005 7" on Blood Harvest.

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Unkerd Wood / Pact Of Ash / Gammal Sed ‎– Northern Retaliation split tape

3-way split tape by three projects with overlapping memberships: Lee Stokoe's Pact Of Ash begins the program with a 9-minute instrumental slow barrage of black metal riffing and dead-slow drums that somewhat reminds me of that awesome Murmuüre album in 2010. Unkerd Wood consists of Mike Simpson (Xazzaz, Oppenheimer, Dark Bargain, and Satanhartalt - all of which have been covered here) on bass & vocals, Jamie Stewart (Wrest, Fuckin' Amateurs Records, Oppenheimer, Dark Bargain, and Satanhartalt) on drums, and George Proctor (Legion Blotan/Turgid Animal Records, Mutant Ape, Inseminoid, ex-Skullflower) on guitar & vocals. I already liked their ultra-lo-fi, dungeon-sounding, black-hole black/doom metal, but this track is just UNBELIEVABLE,. It's a 16-minute epic of slowly grinding drums and bass, wailing and dissonant guitars, and some of the most seriously scary vocals I've heard invoking terrible swampy creatures and seems to me like a more structured version of the ritual darkness of Satanhartalt. At the 9-minute mark, everything stops and an ominous ritual dark ambient drone takes over, only to give its place after 2 minutes to one of the best riffs black metal has ever experienced, a reverbed cacophonous arpeggiated anthemic thing sustained by crushing drums and noise and a blurry psychedelic doom/blues vibe behind it that simply crushes everything. I think that this tape must be bought/listened to even just for this track. Finally, there's Gammal Sed, a solo (I think) project of George Proctor, where he plays catatonic, depressive but loud and noisy black metal revolving around a great arpeggiated riff eventually morphing into a noisy industrial/ambient chaos. All three of these groups are great, and they have released other stuff on Legion Blotan and Matching Head that deserve listening/buying. 2017 tape on Legion Blotan.

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Pact Of Ash - Demo tape (2012, Legion Blotan)

Yet another solo project of the ever-active Lee Stokoe of Culver/Matching Head, this time playing instrumentral, guitar-only black metal noise. This is a both sinister and mournful mix of cacophonous, oft-kilter fierce tremolo riffing with layers of fuzzy noise/drone in the background, not too dissimilar of early Burzum, but without the metally attitude. Late 2000s Skullflower is an obvious reference, as Lee played in that incarnation of SF, along with George Proctor who has released this tape. Highly recommended, as is the case with most of Stokoe's oeuvre. 2012 tape on Legion Blotan.

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Sonichaos Aeon - Symposium Lex O' Tanil tape

 

The next Sonichaos Aeon takes all the black metal and electronic elements of the previous demo and combine them with a lot of expired psychedelic narcotics to create a severely damaged trip. First four tracks alternate between fucked up black metal/industrial acting as a primitive version of Dodheimsgard (even the vocals are reminiscent of Aldrahn's) and unsettling beat-driven tranced-out dark electronica, as if the black metal tracks had been removed from Mysticum's In the Streams of Inferno. This is followed by two super-distorted tracks of garage/rock 'n' roll, and ending by two electronic remixes of "Satan Am I" from Hellel Benshahamar. The last one is pretty hilarious; it's a cheap club trance remix based on Spanish-sung distorted vocals and flamenco melodies. This is super fun but darkly toxic at the same time. 2002 self-released tape.

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Sonichaos Aeon - Hellel Benshahamar tape

 

Sonichaos Aeon was a weird Greek band playing a mix of black metal and industrial/electronica, but with a satirical bend. The tape starts with the music from John Carpenter's Children of The Corn (thinking this is an Asphyx record) and their black metal side sounds like a primitive, low-level playing skill Hellhammer-ish and rock-'n'-roll-ish distorted mess with alternating shouted and high-pitched damaged vocals filled with delay that almost always end with some sort of mocking black metal seriousness, whether that is crowd applause or Spanish singing over Middle-Eastern scales. The electronic track here is kinda similar to the late-1990s black metal bands' take on industrial, accompanied by discordant guitars and the like. It's not that it's something innovative, but their delivery and mocking mood makes it something nice to hear. As a bonus, there are three more tracks coming from earlier demos, which were included in a compilation cd called Heavy Metal Antichrist, that sound like a cripple man's attempt to play Ved Buens Ende or Dodheimsgard; the last of the three, "Haunted," is a industrial noise ritual cover of the track by Old Funeral, the first band of Abbath and Varg Vikernes. 1999 self-released tape.

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Death SS ‎– The Story Of Death SS 1977-1984

I come from a mixed Shia/ Orthodox Christian, but secular, Lebanese Arab family that migrated to the West due to its communist links during the 1970s. My family never forced me to observe any faith, nor were my parents interested in any of that, and most of my extended family for that matter. But I spent a lot of time with my two grandmas that were the only faithful people in my family and so I got a little bit of superstition, both on the Muslim and the Christian side.

How does this connect to Death SS. Well, Death SS were one of the very very very very first metal bands I heard, and actually I bought this cd at the age of eleven and a half, way before I had bought any Black Sabbath cd. Until then I mainly listened to Deep Purple, The Doors, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, and I only had a vague idea of metal, and particularly its satanic side. So, despite not really believing in gods, devils and such, when I showed this cd to my Christian grandman she cringed a little bit. What I got from her disapproval was to erase any satanic symbols (pentagrams, inverted crosses and such) in the booklet of the cd, which can easily be seen in the pictures above. Well, fortunately I never got prevented from buying black metal later, fortunately, so I managed to listen to Mayhem, Darkthrone and Marduk quite early, but the Death SS incident taught me not to show again to my grandmas what I bought. Fortunately, because that Deicide Once Upon The Cross cd would have flown out the window!

Anyway, Death SS is considered one of the early Italian metal bands, and for me they were one of the most undeservedly underestimated and unrecognized bands of all time, given their pioneering horror imagery. Their sound was equally mysterious as Black Sabbath's, and closer to metal, without the blues and proggy influences, albeit more trebly and less earth-shattering due to production and finances I guess,  not to mention creepier than Alice Cooper, whom I never liked. Their songs contain very early traces of dark speed metal, of which Venom would be heralded as the originators just a few years later. But frankly, Venom was always too rock'n'rollish and happy for me, like a slightly heavier Motorhead; Death SS's sinister was way closer to black metal than Venom and Paul Chain was/is really a riffmaster. I think it's just that the production values and the greater focus on atmosphere rather than intensity, plus their Italian origin, is what keeps them from beingi recognized as the true precursors of Bathory, Hellhammer and the 80s black metal sound. And their image was way creepier and serious than most horror metal bands, and I think they owe this to their Italian Roman-Catholic background, which always guarantees a greater obsession with horror and the Great Horned One. Some of the songs here are unbelievably good, such as "Black and Violet," "Horrible Eyes," "Murder Angels" (first thrash metal song of all time!); the post-Steve Sylvester tracks sung by Sanctis Ghoram are more accomplished technically and contain traces of epic and doom metal, and the last two track "The Story of Death SS & Gilas part 1 and 2" are two Eastern psychedelic doom metal prayers sung in Paul Chain's phonetic language he would use extensively in his solo career. Generally I think this is one of the most important releases of the early metal underground; it is a very sad fact that post-Paul Chain Death SS became a stupid goth/industrial/Eurometal horror version of Modern Talking.

Originally released in 1987, this is the 1992 second press by Minotauro that contained the two "Gilas" tracks.

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Thralldom

Thralldom is a NYC-based black metal band with a lot of noise and ambient elements and occult thematology. What sets them apart from run-of-the-mill BM is their very noisy approach which has influences from Swans, Godflesh and paranoid riffs which avoid the typical Norwegian-style tremolo riffing. Responsible for this are Jaldagar on drums and Killusion (Ryan Lipynsky) on guitar and vocals, who is the frontman of dark sludge band Unearthly Trance, whose debut Season of Seance, Science of Silence is one of my all-time favorite doom/sludge albums. Below is part of their discography, minus their EPs and their reunion cd Time Will Bend Into Horror which I didn't really like.
  
2002 - A Murderous Magus Of The Morphogenetic Grid 7" (Regimental Records)



Lo-fi black/doom metal with cool Darkthrone/punk riffs.

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2003 - Beast Eye Opened To The Sky LP (Parasitic Records)



 Demented, radioactive noisy evil with great off-kilter guitar work and vocals.

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2005 - The Seven Heads of The Lion Serpent 7" (Deathstrike Records)



 Yo, isn't that Celtic Frost's heptagram? The Celtic Frost references doesn't stop there as the first track is a very groovy and danceable Celtic Frost-meets-Motorhead-meets Darkthrone anthem. The two other tracks are equally great.

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 2005 - Black Sun Resistance LP (Profound Lore Records)

 

More occult metal awesomeness, with more 80's metal influences like Bathory, Hellhammer and Sarcofago, but with great atmospheric guitar work similar to Godflesh and motorik rhythms.

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2006 - A Shaman Steering The Vessel of Vastness cd (Profound Lore Records)

The last Thralldom before their break-up was their most experimental but also their heavier. Thick death/black riffs mix with chaotic drums/guitar improvisations and battle with misanthropic noise and ambient moments of unnerving calm. Majestic. 2006 cd on Profound Lore Records.

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