Not that very long ago, I got in touch with Chris, a nice person who runs the amazing label Depressive Black Ambient Records. I was surprised by what this label did release as from the start: great works through obscure and oppressive, ominous and odious sounds from beyond the putrid abysses. Destruction and self-mutilation, hate and self-hatred, fury and nostalgia; this label doesn’t share joy or happiness…
I won’t go way too deep into the matter, but RS-28 Sarmat has to do with a quite young intercontinental nuclear missile manufactured in the Russian Federation, able to devastate vast areas all around our oh so beautiful and beloved planet. Boom!
It would be too easy to call Withered Land a side-project of Bleeding Malice, but take notice that this Belarussian act was formed very recently by a member of Bleeding Malice, bassist / keyboardist / lyricist / composer / visual artist Olga Kann (she’s also the woman behind the intriguing Space / Drone / Noise / Ambient project Cryo Depth). For this project, she has been assisted by Bleeding Malice colleague and vocalist Alexander Rabets.
Two years and a half after their debut Blood Oath, Dunkelheit Produktionen do release the sophomore full-length album With Hoof And Horn by Flemish act Rituals Of The Dead Hand, part of the sweet collective The Nox Entity. This band was formed in 2016 by Hemelbestormer members Filip ‘Lykaios’ Dupont and Frederik ‘Isangrim’ Cosemans.
I will not go too deep within this Flemish band’s history this time; I’d rather like to refer to one of the reviews I did write for their former full-length releases – see below for the links on Burden (Satanath Records, 2015) and Bleakness (Symbol Of Domination Productions, 2018). So, I will go almost immediately to the aural content of this newest effort by this act from Antwerp-based soil. But first a small introduction…
Recently I same in touch with Alexey ‘Curche’ Pyshkin, a member of the crew behind Wroth Emitter Productions. That Russian label was formed almost three decades ago, releasing demos of (cult) acts like Scald or Crrombid Traxorm, but somehow they did remain in mist, veil and underground.
When the Hasselt (Flanders) based act Quaedt disbanded, a couple of its members, in collaboration with colleagues from Natan (also put to rest in the meantime), wanted to continue somehow. They created a handful of songs, which they gathered under the new band-name Ill (‘ill’, not the Latin number ‘3’). The purpose was to combine the blackened approach from the past with elements from Doom and Psychedelic influences.
After several digitally self-released tracks, the Australian outfit MaziKeen (an archaic Hebrew word meaning something like deleterious soul or detrimental spirit) signed to Satanath Records from St. Petersburgh in order to release their first official full-length album; it’s a cooperative happening with Iron, Blood And Death Corporation from Mexican soil.
Well, it is almost incredible to notice that new labels can still make it during these weird eras of existence. I think it is the core of ‘our’ genre(s), the essence of our beloved raison d’être, the purity of the happy few that do know what Sonic Supremacy and Aural Art are all about.
Some might recognize the name of Ryan Scott Fairfield from his activities in Terrible Old Man / Toxic Cross, but he used to be the guy behind Hallowed Butchery as well. ‘used to be’? Well, no no no, for Hallowed Butchery apparently have not faded away yet into the one true reality, death. It took a decade or so, but this project resurrected from oblivion with a new pièce d’art sonorique, called Deathsongs (From The Hymnal Of The Church Of The Final Pilgrimage).
