By some miracle, I’m actually managing to do one of these per month; I can only assume it has something to do with the sheer volume of quality music available on Bandcamp, because it isn’t like I’ve gotten any less lazy. For those of you that might not have been too terribly keen on last month’s all-slamming edition of this here series, I think you might just find this one more to your liking. This month sees Bandcamp Band Crap skewing back toward black metal and there are some real gems here that should please fans of all the genre’s wondrous guises. So without further ado, let’s dig in.
Back in 2012, South Africa’s Wildernessking came seemingly out of nowhere with The Writing of Gods in the Sand, an album that combined the progressive black metal maelstrom of Enslaved with the sweeping, epic attack of Primordial to create music that was as uplifting and cathartic as it was dark and heavy. After releasing a follow-up EP that same year, the band went quiet; a surprising move given the notoriety they’d quickly gained on the strength of those two excellent releases. Fast-forward to 2014 and the Cape Town-based quartet have broken their silence with The Devil Within, an EP that showcases the band at their most scathing; I got in touch with bassist/vocalist Keenan Oakes to discuss this new release and find out what the future has in store for the mighty Wildernessking…
To say that God Seed’s debut was one of my most anticipated albums in a long time would probably be a massive understatement. The relentlessly abrasive, highly Satanic assault of Gaahl/King ov Hell era Gorgoroth is in my humble opinion some of the best black metal ever put to tape, so needless to say I was frothing at the mouth awaiting the duo’s next move. Finally, Gaahl and King have emerged from the Norwegian wilderness with I Begin after a long, strange trip that included a protracted legal battle over the rights to the Gorgoroth name, Gaahl temporarily “quitting” the metal scene and King releasing a solid and unfairly maligned collaboration with Dimmu Borgir’s Shagrath (Ov Hell’s The Underworld Regime). But is God Seed’s first outing worth the six-year wait? In a word: absolutely. Continue reading “God Seed – I Begin (Indie Recordings, 2012)”
Wildernessking’s The Writing of Gods in the Sand is one of the most mind-boggling debut albums I’ve ever heard. How did a band that’s only been together since 2010 (they were previously known as Heathens) manage to craft something so stunning, so epic, so complete sounding, on their first time out? Sure, there have been some great metal debuts throughout the genre’s history, but let’s be honest, more often than not, especially these days, it takes the average band a couple of albums to hit their stride and release something truly great. Wildernessking is no average band; after listening to The Writing of Gods in the Sand, I’d say they’re bonafide prodigies. Continue reading “Wildernessking – The Writing of Gods in the Sand (Antithetic Records, 2012)”
According to a recent post on their Facebook page, Bay Area black metal quintet Ludicra have called it a day.
Admittedly, I came to Ludicra a bit late. I first started listening to them in 2006, when Fex Urbis Lex Orbis was released. At the time I was living in a suburb just outside Los Angeles, working as a publicity intern at Metal Blade Records in exchange for college credit. Although I worked in a small yet busy office and lived with two other people, I still felt utterly alone and isolated for much of the six months I was there. Back then (and now), I have a tendency to be shy and awkward around people I don’t know and making friends is difficult for me. I would often stay up until ungodly hours sitting in front of the computer, chatting with my friends back home and abroad or writing bizarre, rambling diatribes on myspace (I know, I know…). I was homesick and frequently depressed. More often than not, Ludicra was my soundtrack to these late night self pity parties.
The quintet’s music, especially Fex Urbis…, projected the same “alone in the crowd” despair I was feeling much of the time. Ludicra’s black metal wasn’t trudging through the frostbitten forest at midnight, it was walking down an empty city street at 3am after a night of debauchery, smoking a cigarette, and waiting for a dawn that feels like it will never come. It is gritty and urban, scathing and serene, a truly American take on the genre. Looking back, it seems fitting that I discovered them while lonely, depressed, frustrated and impossibly far from home.
Indeed, Ludicra was an endlessly unique and complex entity, a combination of musical personalities that only comes along once in a lifetime, crackling with the juxtaposition of masculine and feminine energies, bursting at the seams with metal’s chops and punk rock’s attitude. They were progressive and barbaric and crusty and rocking… I can only imagine what their live shows must have been like and I’m deeply disappointed that I’ll never get to experience one. Fortunately I have their four albums, each of which is goddamn electric in its own unique way.
So here’s to ya Ludicra. You were one of a kind, and metal has lost a very special band. See you on the dark side, motherfuckers.
Black metal re-cast as demented dream/death-pop. Layers of nebulous guitar haze drawing you deep down into the bottomless well of despondency. Robert Smith and Kevin Shields in corpse paint. Indeed, the music of the sadly defunct Brown Jenkins evokes a wide arrray of seemingly contradictory images with a musical approach that encompasses not only extreme metal at it’s most suffocating and depressive, but a veritable pandora’s box of disparate genres. British shoe gaze, old school gothic rock (I’m talking Cure, Bauhaus, Sisters, et al here, for the record) and vintage psychedelia are just a few of the sounds that band visionary Umesh has successfully harnessed into Death Obsession, the final statement from Brown Jenkins.
With drums buried way down in the mix and fairly sparse vocals, Umesh wisely lets his penchant for layers upon layers of distorted nightmare guitar-swarm be the focal point of Death Obsession. The sound has a vintage 1960’s fuzztone feel, but this is fuzz buried by time and dust, infused with a creeping Lovecraftian malevolence that is positively mesmerizing. The guitars alone make this the type of recording that begs to be listened to in a pitch black room with a good set of headphones, so that the myriad details of the mix can be properly allowed to ever-so-slowly unfurl and seep into your brain.
But Death Obsession is about far more than just guitar tone. Brown Jenkins even further separates itself from the hordes of cookie cutter black metal bands out there by writing actual songs. Tracks like opener “Breathless”, “Lords of Suicide” and “Blue Bird” could be pop rock gems funneled into your speakers directly from the sub-basements of hell, such are the catchy, hypnotic qualities Umesh infuses them with. In fact, if it weren’t for the rough-around-the-edges production and Umesh’s Cthulhu-with-bronchitis vocal delivery, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine these songs showing up on modern rock radio. Of course, with most of the tracks clocking in around the 9 minute mark, Brown Jenkins demands more of the listener than the average 3:30 radio nugget, but there are enough change-ups in dynamics and pacing to keep each song compelling.
Unfortunately, a posthumous album like Death Obsession is an extremely bittersweet listening experience. One can’t help but wonder how far Umesh could have taken Brown Jenkins with this utterly enthralling mix of sounds, what dark dimensional doorways could have been opened through such esoteric distortion rituals. Indeed, followers of everything from Circle of Ouroborus to Slowdive are advised to seek out the epitaph of Brown Jenkins.
[Note: Brown Jenkins mastermind Umesh is working on material for a new project called The Ash Eaters. According to him, the new band will be a continuation and progression of the sound being explored on Death Obsession. THKD will continue to provide coverage as this develops.]
THKD 