🌶️ To The Teeth newsletter: Portal, At The Gates, Ghastly, Noctule, Cirith Ungol, Zeal & Ardor, Poppy and Dee f'ing Snider
Four albums you need to hear
🌶️ Portal - Avow (experimental death from the USA)
If you've never heard Portal, get ready for a ride. It's dark and mysterious, malformed and intricately designed death metal. Overwhelming and intense. And there's a bonus ep out, too.
🌶️ The Flight of Sleipnir - Eventide (doom/black/stoner from the USA)
Big, epic, sweeping metal that still stands firmly on the ground. Quite a unique sound that reminds me of all kinds of bands, but is strictly their own.
🌶️ Ghastly - Mercurial Passages (death from Finland)
This is not your grandpa's death metal, and it's not quite modern either. Ghastly sits in that comfortable vacuum of space between old school death and experimental, more progressive metal. They sound like the first, and write like the latter. A heavier Morbus Chron, or a lighter Vastum.
🌶️ Noctule - Wretched Abyss (black from the UK)
This is a record inspired by a game I've never played, Skyrim, made by Svalbard-singer Serena Cherry, and I really like it. It goes to prove that it doesn't really matter if you have played the game. Great performance on all instruments by Cherry, and I love the atmosphere (which is, luckily, not videogame-y).
There's more: Cirith Ungol (heavy/doom from the USA - ep), Svneatr (black from Canada), Stormruler (black from the USA), Silver Lake by Esa Holopainen (prog from Finland - solo project from the Amorphis guitarist, with guest vocals), Impaled Nazarene (black from Finland), Dödsrit (🌶️ black/crust from Sweden), Silver Talon (heavy/power from the USA), Burning Witches (heavy/power from Switzerland), Bloodbound (heavy/power from Sweden), Alluvial (atmospheric death from the USA), Eisenhand (heavy from Austria), Khandra (black from Belarus), Mortal Vision (thrash from Ukraine), Bleeth (doom/post from the USA), Unfathomable Ruination (technical brutal death from the UK - ep), and a compilation from Norwegian black metal label Terratur Possessions.
New singles
There are new songs, singles and advance tracks out from: At The Gates (🌶️ melodeath from Sweden), Zeal & Ardor (post/black from Switzerland), Dust Mountain (🌶️ pysch/folk from Finland - feat members of Oranssi Pazuzu, Dark Buddha Rising, Hexvessel), Dee Snider (!!!), Poppy (🌶️ groove/nu/pop from the USA - a Jack Off Jill cover), Year of No Light (doom/post from France), Meat Wave (post-hardcore from the USA), Urne (progressive sludge/metalcore from the UK), Gadget (grind from Sweden), Thy Catafalque (avantgarde from Hungary), Pestilence (thrash/death from the Netherlands), Chelsea Wolfe (dark stuff from the USA), Red Fang (stoner from the USA), Lost in Grey (symphonic from Finland), The Great Discord (prog from Sweden), A Pale Horse Named Death (doom/gothic from the USA) and live tracks from Destruction (thrash from Germany) and Enslaved (prog black/viking from Norway).
Next week
Non-metal album of the week: Natalia Lafourcade - Un Canto Por Mexico vol. II (this was an easy pick, since Vol I. was one of my favourite records of last year)
I’m looking forward to next week because of: Boss Keloid, Hannes Grossmann & Sojourner.
Have a great weekend! - Peter