New Elegiac Just Dropped! He Continues To Be One Of My Favorite American Black Metal Projects.

New Elegiac just dropped! He continues to be one of my favorite American Black Metal projects.

You can pick it up from the band, Sacrificial Sounds Records, or Red River Family Records.

"Extermination Front"

Black Jackal

The next single from my favorite Texas band has been released. Half as long as the first single (Hunter-Killer), this is a ripping piece of blackened thrash that is all forward momentum. It evokes classic thrash with the guitar tone, a frantic wild ride with sharp edges. And the guitar solo in the middle is pure old-school heavy metal glory: violent, fast, wailing. To my knowledge there's no established release date yet, but the new album will be titled "Forever War".

You can pick up the single on the band's Bandcamp page, as well as the rest of their material.

Chicago, Illinois band FIN released this roaring black metal album a few years ago, and if you slept on it, well, you missed out. This band is intense, all wailing riffs and warlike battery.

If raw black metal is your thing, give this album a spin.

The first track, Manias, is probably my favorite, based mostly on the riff. It's a high pitched whine that's almost too much, yet is definitely just enough, and it will get stuck in my head for days.

I was lucky enough to see them perform live at Red River Family Fest III, and they had the whole crowd moving.

Finnish band Grave Pleasures bring the classic deathrock sound to the modern day. The Funeral Party 7in is from 2016, and its so much fun to listen to. Macabre echoes of the 80s, these 2 songs are simultaneously rocking and somber, and I've been listening to them a lot this past month.

My favorite is the first track, Deadenders, which maintains a dark yet upbeat tempo and overall sounds exactly like the 7in title: a funeral party. Wailing vocals elicit apocalyptic imagery while blending exceptionally with the guitar melody to pull you along for the ride. The second track, Cold War Funeral, is a slower dirge, the rainy morning after the party in the cemetery. I strongly recommend checking them out if you are a fan of the genre, or just dark music in general.

Also, if you're familiar with the band Beastmilk, this is the project that rose from those ashes.

Adversarial Light

Lothric

There's not much I can say about this album just yet, except that I bought it after just one song. So far it has been a fantastic modern homage to second wave black metal, and I found the riffs to be exemplary. The vocal work is really well done as well, it has a sort of lilting quality to the harsh bellows before transforming into fiery damned roars. And the drumming remains consistent even while galloping at full pace with the guitar, making nice complex transitions to underline vocal and riff changes. As I explore more of it I'm also finding some superb Viking/Folk metal forays with the guitar riffs and overall song pacing that pleases me greatly. Overall, I strongly recommend checking out this project.

The album can be picked up digitally from the artist on their Bandcamp page, unfortunately it looks like physical copies are currently all out of stock, not that I can blame people for snatching them up.

Listening to this again and it's safe to say, still one of the best black metal releases of 2020.

Tundra-Demo

Boreal Hymn

Just released on US label Sacrificial Sounds, this little demo is stunningly beautiful. The duo contains a member of Wormwitch, whose album Heaven That Dwells Within was one of my favorite black metal albums in 2019. It's the raw, aggressively beautiful pagan black metal I've come to expect from Sacrificial Sounds releases, and it is done exceptionally well. This reminds me of a mix of the stellar Gaahl's WYRD album released last year and the aforementioned Wormwitch album. It's haunting, ritualistic, animalistic, and powerfully evocative of it's namesake.

You can pre-order the cassette, or just pick up the digital version, from the Sacrificial Sounds Bandcamp.