And thus, as 2023 writhes in the final, horrific throes of dying ecstasy,LISTCRUSH season is upon us once again – join with us as eachBMD scribe reveals their own respective venerated apotheosis of the last twelve months. First up is our subterranean avant-gardeist of nightmare vision and vitriol, the Centipede Abyss commander… Pan Inentropy.
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TOP NINE
9. Nirrti – Palindromos
Nirrti’s Palindromos marks the beginning of my top 9. Offering up illusory soundscapes that are horrendously disjointed yet in a flowing manner, with what can only be described as sonic recoil throughout. This was one of the first I encountered in the year and the fact that it has stayed in mind for over six months is testament to its well crafted anatomy.
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8. Ôros Kaù – Thanatos
More vivid than the previous outing and can only be described as impactful and monolithic. Harkening to middle-eastern string work, as you’d expect, and doused in doom-meets-drone feels with some beastly vocals, simply put: Thanatos is Ôros Kaù’s best work to date.
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7. Mórnu- The Unearthly Becomes Inherent
Its deceptive introduction has stuck with me, heavily reliant on atmosphere, but with a rough and ready production that assimilates with its dissonant nature instinctively. Passages come and go, the pace changes up, and those death-doom sections can only be described as otherworldly and commanding.
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6. Domhain – Nimue
This one fills my wants for something haunting and reflectively beautiful. Lots of “post” influence on this, with what can only be described as celestial levels of somber epicness, that just instinctively feel as though they could be emanating from the hills and forests themselves.
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5. Turpitude – Une interprétation de la dissolution glaciale en quatre mouvements
There are a lot of progressive elements on this, the way the composition snakes in and out of sections is what really caught my attention. The sound is by no means “clean”, ‘though; this is nasty, feral stuff that occupies the raw black metal space. Fierce, mid-paced throughout and with enough variance and eerie interludes to give it an almost… cinematic quality.
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4. Blacnk – For This Is The Rot Of Existence
Blacnk manages to assimilate the old school sound of 90s BM with a hefty dose of hallucinogens to offer up for this is the rot of existence. I simply adore this drops’ almost playful but sinister nature. This is an album that really toys with your senses, being at once hypnotic and horrifying.
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3. Astwihad – Gatha 1: Asto-Vidatu
This is like listening to yourself being dragged into a never-ending vortex. The way the sound swirls around you is a joy to behold. Powerful, aggressive and – if you look hard enough – surprisingly melodic; but ultimately the soundtrack to plunging down a never-ending chasm.
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2. Sombre Ciel – Sombre Ciel
This sounds… like the album art. There is generous and well thought out use of composition variance here that gives the dissonance on this an ultimately more menacing form. Its wild production and drowned out vocals lend themselves well to the polarity you’ll experience on this album, going from the disjointedly malignant, to the dizzy ambient washes.
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1. Orbyssmal – Abyssom
Anyone remotely aware of my listening habits was probably expecting something like this as my number 1. Orbyssmal has, simply put, unleashed a masterpiece. Have you ever encountered something so disgustingly horrific that you stare at, getting yourself lost in its draw? Edging closer, only to be fascinated more? That is this album. Dense, suffocating and otherworldly… comparisons to Portal are inevitable, but the energy on this is something its own and separate. The relentlessness of each track, the way every instrument merges with the other to form that punishing tone, and the wails that sound as though they are from a manic beast feasting ravenously on something it killed… all awesome.
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STAY TUNED FOR MORE LISTCRUSH IN THE COMING DAYS. HAILS.
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The bottomless wellspring of Bandcamp is overflowing with great shit just waiting to be discovered. This series aims to shine light on the freshest emanations and foulest incantations from its darkest corners… and this twenty-seventh installment is a special one. I’ve still been receiving a heap of submissions from purely Australian artists, with even more of my own discoveries being banked from earlier Volumes that I juuuust couldn’t squeeze in at the time. So here’s Part Two of our all-Australian Bandcamp Misanthropy – with more music and less words than ever before, so we can fit in even more fetid name-your-price recommendations of the best / most underground releases exhumed from the broiling subterranean caverns down under. You ready for some antipodean filth? Dive in.
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Artist: ANUNG UN RA
Year: 2020
Kicking off with a name that might be familiar to fans of Dark Horse comics. The half-demon Hellboy‘s true name is Anung Un Rama, which means “upon his brow is set a crown of flame” and is a fitting association for the onslaught dished out by the debut album of this solo blackened death project from Adelaide, the city of churches. Phillip Jarrett of In The Burialis behind everything and on Ad Mortem summons an apocalyptic rumble to shake the very core of the earth, switching between deliciously malevolent mid-paced menace and a barrage of cruel artillery fire with ease. Good stuff, melodic and dread-inducing when it wants to be, tears your face off when it doesn’t. Hope he does more. Released back in January at name-your-price download.
Next up we have one that dropped last year in August but that I really wanted to squeeze in here, because the project’s debut EP Ritual was in one of the very first Bandcamp Misanthropy articles back in 2017. Ah, memories. Anyway, Ergerlig is another solo project from Adelaide but this time we’re dealing with pure, distilled black metal straight from the heart of the second wave – Virulent Hag is six tracks of blasphemic, abyss-scraping wretchedness, rasping and blasting its way from Scandinavian origins all the way to Australia.
Whoever is behind it has come a long way in the songwriting and general performance areas too because this is a big improvement over an already neat debut EP. Tracks like ‘No God Awaits’ are killer, then it seamlessly slips into the filthy black & roll-esque swagger that opens ‘Heathen Lust’ and you totally believe it – very nicely done.
I’ll put it simply: you like Darkthrone‘s discography? De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas too? Of course you do, so check this shit out. There’s even a ripper cover of the Celtic Frost classic ‘Into The Crypt Of Rays’ as an added bonus. Name-your-price.
Newcastle duo Imperfectionist play post-black that isn’t always yearning melodies and melancholy memories. Sure, they do that sort of thing too (and they do it as well as anyone) but their sound isn’t afraid to head to some very dark places, constricting and tightening around your chest and throat until you can barely breathe through the pain. This also dropped late last year but fuck it, Nausea is their debut album and honestly deserves your full (if belated) attention – it does more in even half an album than others can manage in their entire discography. Plus Forge of Norse, Somnium Nox, Convulsing, The Amenta and a dozen others is on the drum throne here too, if that helps convince you to check it out. Name-your-price.
Another Adelaideian solo project, Månen Skygge released a fucking great demo towards the end of last year that I intended to squeeze into one of these pieces and never did – happily (or unhappily, this is DSBM after all) he dropped his second demo To Rot In A Shallow Grave a few months back, so I can’t neglect this one. Eschewing the stereotypical shrieks usually associated with the sub-genre the vocals here are misanthropic loathing incarnate whilst the music itself almost plays a secondary role, inducing heavy catatonia through glacial-paced atmosphere and ponderous melodies. It’s produced almost perfectly for what it needs, too – these two tracks sound fantastic.
Name-your-price, so dive headlong into the misery and fuel your hate.
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Artist: BURIER
Year: 2020
THE GRAVE RECEIVES YOU. Born somewhere in “the eastern swamplands of Australia”, mysterious solo deathworshipper Burier had released two excellent demos before this, a debut album entitled In Communion With Death… and this blows even those two previous works clean out of the water. Experimenting with and expanding his corrosive sound to further harrowing depths of mesmerizing malady and malignancy, the final product ends up somewhere in the void between a rawer Burzum and the pure nightmare of incomprehensible terrors from beyond, and is my personal favourite release in this entire batch of antipodean greatness.
In Communion With Death symbolizes an ultimate realizing of potential and vision. Name-your-price, also on physical formats via GoatowaRex. Bury yourself deeply… for you are already rotting.
From Townsville, northern Queensland where it’s hot as fuck comes the boiling, war-driven madness of Moonkrafft. After an introduction of combat sounds that goes for far too long (seriously, it’s the second longest track on the EP) the melodic depression/aggression on display for the following three tracks might be fairly rudimentary at times, but has a great atmosphere that feels like diggers slowly going insane in battle trenches and makes On A Barbed Wire Fence definitely worth the price of admission. What is that price? Free download. Hails.
“Music made while reflecting. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t meant to be.”
So says sole member Joel about Solitary Remedies, the debut EP of his depressive (but not DSBM, this thing has more fire to it) outlet Mortem In Aeternum. Released just over a week ago, three compelling original tracks and a neat Woods Of Ypres cover comprise this journey of imperfect art; the variety between each weaving an enjoyably textured, atmospheric tapestry to lose yourself in for a few moments. Honest and unassuming, created somewhere in Victoria, available at name-your-price.
The throat-shredding vox from frontwoman Alora are just one of the highlights as Perth hellions Dying Kings rip out their second full-length in as many years. Melodic, rockin’ and grim in all the right measures, the material on Salted Earth, Ashen Air sounds like the kind of thing that would sit just right listening to it with a few beers/mates in a pub, so I hope they make it over for an east coast show or two soon. I quite like the organic-sounding mix here too; everything has its own space, nothing is too distorted or obscure. Solid stuff, grab a self-released CD or name-your-price download.
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Artist: LEGE SI ORDENE
Year: 2020
Black/death/punk/grind/war/kill/fukk/die from Brisbane. Grooves like a bastard, will also chew your face. Two tracks only. Just over three minutes long in total. First demo. Name-your-price, also out on tape via Miseria Records. What more do you wanna know?
Yeah, yeah… Melbourne’s Carcinoid are more firmly entrenched in the old-school rotting metal of DEATH on this split that released a few months back, but Adelaide denizens Charnel Altar‘s absolutely obliterating blackened death-doom onslaught more than guarantees this superb split a spot on the pages of Black Metal Daily. Carcinoid crunch your bones, Charnel Altar slither inside your empty skull and lay eggs… that probably spawn those things on the cover art. One of the top splits this year, suss it at name-your-price because the tape from Headsplit Records and 10″ by Seed Of Doom are probably long sold out by now (edit: couple of 10″ left on the Charnel Altar Bandcamp).
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Artist: SOLIPSISM
Year: 2020
Solipsism: The view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. Does that dictionary definition explain a little about misanthropic Sydney spectre Solipsism? Possibly, as the introspective raw miasma emanating from every cursed note of Whispering To The Strange… is certainly a solitary one. With a sound both deep and haunted the ghostly synthwork and rasping vocals reach spindly, twisted fingers to the fore; the hollowed space between them and the drums/guitar imbuing this midnight ritual with a disembodied and deliriously detached quality akin to retreating deep within your own mind. Having dropped on Atrocity Altar a few months back, you already know it’s going to be excellent…. but you know what else is excellent? The split he also just put out with Kudlaakh a few days ago. Check out both at that name-your-price goodness, or get your hands on a tape when the next Atrocity Altar batch goes live.
Now we’re getting a bit weird. Vile Crone is the project of Adelaidian warrior Tom G, Apostle is its debut that dropped back in January… and it’s a genuinely surprising melting pot of whatever the fuck Tom wanted to throw in on top of the solid black/death backbone of the project. Falsetto shrieks? Check. Eurobeat-esque electronic bits? Why not. Oddball cleans? Chuck ’em in. Fucking awesome doom numbers (‘Writhe In Decay’ particularly slaps)… do you even have to ask? Underneath all these inventive elements is a neat album however, so you should check it out at name-your-price and inspire the bloke to make more – I want to hear him get even stranger. Oh, and there’s one single tape left too. Snap it up.
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Artist: ORBYSSMAL
Year: 2020
…and now we’re getting really fucking weird. Brisbane avant-garde black death maniac Orbyssmal has been absolutely churning out the releases this year – Gloatthe released last month and it’s his fourth offering since January. Good thing they’re all great, right? Eleven portions of pure sonic abuse borne of schizophrenic, dissonant black death abrasiveness and noise then delicately adorned with vocals halfway between a roar and a strangulated bat shriek, this is not an easy listen by any means and is definitely not for the faint hearted – but fuck if it isn’t fantastic. Dig in at name-your-price, it’ll give you anxiety or a headache. Or both.
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Artist: CELESTIAL CONJURATION
Year: 2020
The first demo from this obscure Australian revenant was nothing short of fantastic, so of course the follow up had a fair chance of being great – but I couldn’t foresee that it would be this good. Demo II sees a more melancholic, somber side arise, one that seems to come from the cosmic expanse that the project name implies rather than scrabbling up from the grave… although there’s a fair amount of that as well, of course. Superlative raw black/DS. Name-your-price.
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Artist: THE PEREGRINE
Year: 2020
Up for some beautifully arranged, progressive post-black? Self-released a few months back (and also available on 2LP), I’m a little surprised Rust And Dun by Melbourne’s The Peregrine didn’t get more attention – I guess people looking for this sort of thing prefer it to be more polished and pretty. Expansive and epic yet maintaining a slight ruggedness and relatable realness that’s probably about what you’d imagine from an Australian project, everything about this is subtly superb; from the intermittent clean vocals to the guitar tone to the songs themselves, the more time you spend with this album the more it will settle within and remain with you for quite some time. NYP for this undiscovered gem.
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Artist: Opium Grave
Year: 2020
And to take us out, the latest EP from an artist I follow fairly regularly but don’t seem to post about often enough – Melbourne blackwave maestro Opium Grave. One of THE premier blackwave artists in the world right now, sole practitioner Siliniez gets better with every release and The Omega Era sees his bleak, misanthropic, blackened retro stylings near perfected into hypnotic waves of synth hell – plus he utilizes my favourite The Matrix quote in the closer ‘Titans Of Malignancy’, so I’m all in. Check it out for a dollar… it’s worth the money.
“We are all living in an age of decline, of spiritual degradation and of rampant materialism. Humanity has happily chosen its current path and it is one that leads to eventual oblivion. However, it also leads to eventual reawakening and rebirth of the Earth. May our ugliness forever fade.“
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Submissions for inclusion in future volumes are welcomed.
Black Metal Daily 