It’s Halloween weekend, and that means there’s more metal records and shows than you can shake a King-Size Kit Kat at. I mostly find myself wishing metal would be more off-brand than on it these days, but today I’m willing to make an exception.
WHAT TO HEAR: Leading us into haunted house this week are Florida death metal legends Hate Eternal and their first full-length since 2015, Upon Desolate Sands (Season of Mist). Helmed by Erik Rutan as always, Desolate Sands should remind everyone what we somehow always seem to forget: That in a flood of throwbacks and reboots and tributes, Hate Eternal are trendless, godless, and peerless. Sleep on this one and have your cvlt card revoked. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, I only enforce them.
After that, dig into in Hissing’s more contemporary death metal varietal Permanent Destitution (Profound Lore), a scatchy blanket of noise wrapped around some seriously cavernous death metal. Like a lot of stuff in the Profound Lore death metal catalog at the moment—Portal, Infernal Coil, etc.—Permanent Destitution can fade into the din if you let it, but stay sharp and you’ll find one hell of a ride bubbling just beneath the surface.
If you’re the resume type, meanwhile, then Bloodbath—featuring Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes on vox, as well as members of Craft, Katatonia, and Opeth—and their new LP The Arrow of Satan is Drawn (Peaceville Records) might be just your cup of tea. While their pedigree gets them through the door of any metal label on earth, it’s the riffs that keep them there, a relentless, thrashed-up blend of Scandinavian death metal grandeur and modern brutality. Remember how I casually dismissed throwback death metal like two paragraphs ago? Well forget all that and go check this out.
Wisconsin’s finest importer/exporter of extreme metal goods, Gilead Media, also have a pair of wild ones out today, starting with Glacial Tomb’s self-titled debut, a blackened death/doom bruiser featuring members of Khemmis. Think the inverse of Gatecreeper’s Nate Garrett forming trad-doom outfit Spirit Adrift and you’re on the right track. After that, get well and truly weird with Pandiscordian Necrogenesis’s Outer Supernal, the fully-improvised one-man black metal project of Ephemeral Domignostika—who plays everything, including drums and guitar, by himself, all at once. You will find nothing else like it in metal right now, and love it or hate it, that’s saying something.
If you’re looking to get a headstart on your November brooding meanwhile, check out Avast’s Mother Culture (Dark Essence Records)—post-black metal with a punk ethos and Norwegian roots that’s sure to get it dusty up in here. Once you’re done drying your eyes, check Devouring Star’s entirely different take on tremolo-tinged blast beat-acolypse’s with their death’d-up new LP, The Arteries of Heresy (Dark Descent). As always, we have both sides of the misanthropy coin covered.
Elsewhere, in the metal borderlands, long-dormant noise rockers Daughters return with their much-anticipated comeback record, You Won’t Get What You Want (Ipecac), today. Unless it’s a new Daughters record, I guess. After that, check out a band I’ve been stupidly sleeping on, Street Sects, whose second full-length of crazy catchy industrial post-hardcore, The Kicking Mule (The Flenser), is revved up and ready to go. If you’re into recording and stuffs, you’re not going to find a more intricate production job on offer this week than this tangled beauty. Finally check out Super Unison’s sophomore effort Stella (Deathwish), a straight-up hardcore band featuring Punch’s Meghan O’Neil on the mic.
Finally, dive head first back into the grime with Ophidian Forest’s wonderfully ambitious slab of underground black metal, votIVe (code666), and a pair of cortex-purifying tech-death workouts in Serocs’ The Phobos/Deimos Suite (Everlasting Spew) and Cognitive’s Matricide (Unique Leader). See, isn’t that better than listening to The Misfits for the 10,000th Halloween running?
WHAT TO SEE: After a quiet-ish show week last weekend, things gain some much-needed momentum tonight with Arsis at The Kingsland, BILE at Stimulate, Eternal Black at Lucky 13 Saloon, The Dickies at Bowery Electric, Trü at The Meatlocker, Clutch at Irving Plaza, Skrawl at Brooklyn Bazaar, and Vatican Shadow at Saint Vitus. The pre-“holiday” weekend push then continues on Saturday with more of The Dickies at Coney Island Baby, Wastelands at The Meatlocker, Sycarian at NJ Beer Co. Blood Massacre, a second helping of Clutch at Irving Plaza, a serious booking conflict for that one featuring Monster Magnet at Gramercy Theatre, The Undead at Blackthorn 51, Metal Allegiance performing Black Sabbath at Brooklyn Bowl, Coven at (le) Poisson Rouge, Michael Angelo Batio at All Music Inc., and a Filthy Familia benefit show at Shakers Pub featuring a ton of local hardcore metal acts, including Leeway backed by Silence = Death. If you thought the Sabbath was gonna let up after that, you were wrong, with Carach Angren at Gramercy Theatre, Bold and Breakdown at Brooklyn Bazaar, and Medjugorje at Lucky 13 Saloon leading us into a fresh new work week.
Monday, meanwhile is a little spotty, with Tantric at The Kingsland and Wilson at Vitus being the only “metallic” shows of note, before Tuesday comes through with Darkwing at Berlin NYC and Guerilla Poubelle at The Kingsland. Halloween night will net ya an Azar Swan DJ set at Vitus, October Rust at Lucky 13 Saloon, Murphy’s Law at The Kingsland, Boys of Fall at Gold Sounds, Christian Death/Pawns at Brooklyn Bazaar, Deafheaven at White Eagle Hall, World Inferno/Friendship Society at the Warsaw, GWARoween Pt. II The Bloodening at Irving Plaza, headlined by, you guessed it, GWAR. Finally Thursday wraps things up with Korpikklaani at Gramercy Theatre, Psilocybe at The Meatlocker, Emmure at Starland Ballroom, and Rochester psych-rockers King Buffalo at Vitus, touring in support of their killer new full-length, Longing to Be The Mountain.
WHAT THE FUCK: This week I’d like to point you all in the direction KCBC HQ in Bushwick, where Kings County Brew Co. has official collaborations with Behemoth—the Wolf Ov Siberia double IPA—and Gatecreeper—the fittingly titled Gatecreeper Lager—just sitting in their cooler ready to slammed. If you’re not familiar with KCBC, they’re also the brewers of Vitus’s de-facto house ale, the Morbid Hour black pilz, and one of an increasing number of craft brewers (TRVE, Barrier, Burial, Unibroue, etc.) who have begun liquefying their love of metal in recent years. The Wolf Ov Siberia double IPA is quintessential KCBC—a bright, hazy/juicy IPA exploding with pine-centric hop aromatics—and while I haven’t had a chance to the try the Gatecreeper collab yet, it’s the weekend, so you can bet that I will have soon enough. So yeah, support local beer, support local metal, and especially support local metal beer.
