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Khost – Many Things Afflict Us Few Things Console Us (2024)

Finally there will be a new Khost album, and an album it is! Unlike many releases nowadays, the band (and label) did not settle for a ‘vinyl length’ of 37 minutes. Or did they? There actually will be two different vinyl versions with 11 tracks (40 minutes), but also a cd version with 18 tracks (70 minutes)! The cd not only has more tracks, but the tracks are also in a different order.

The sound is largely what we know and love Khost for. Very slow and dark doom metal with deep grunting vocals. There appears to be less use of electronics, except on the somewhat technoish/poppy “Face”. Some of the tracks do sound very industrial.

Among the extra tracks there is a somewhat more ‘normal doom’ track called “Define the Edge of Someone” which is more moody and with normal vocals. Also among the extra tracks is one of the dark ambient tracks with film samples that the band makes more often and two remixes.

I particularly like the slow, dark tracks. Perhaps “Many Things…” is not really surprising, but I still do not know much music in this style, while I like it a lot. You will have to wait until 20 September though, or go over to the label’s website or Soundcloud to have a listen in advance.

Links: Khost, Cold Spring

Khost – Buried Steel (2020)

Every once in a while I feel like playing “funeral doom metal”. Yet slower and darker than much doom. I prefer the music to be without vocals (and with electronics), but there are a few bands whose vocals are good enough.

I was somewhat surprised when I found two such bands on the not-exactly-a-metal-label Cold Spring, Sutekh Hexen and Khost. Khost have made a few excellent albums, very dark, very slow. And here is their latest.

“Buried Steel” opens with more of a Godflesh-type industrial metal track, slow, but not as slow as Khost can get. A good track though. The second track is like that too. Then comes the magnificent track “Intravenar” with a slow techno beat, extremely low vocals and minimalist background sounds. The next few tracks are more comparable to earlier material and “funeral doom” is a good description. Great tracks to. I like the long ‘sample tracks’ in between less so though.

As closer off there is a remix of “Intravenar” by Mothboy! Not a better version than the original, but an amusing reference to another kind of music.

A wonderful new album. I am not yet sure if previous albums are better, but the new album is slightly different.

Links: Khost, Cold Spring

Sutekh Hexen – s/t (2019)

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I do not listen to metal a whole lot. There are a few styles that I (sometimes) enjoy, such as old-school thrash, but for a while I have been sifting through doom metal a bit. I am no fond of the depressive type, but the (often even slower) “funeral” genre (and related) have some bands that I enjoy every once in a while.

There are also bands that blur the lines between electronic music and doom metal which sometimes results in interesting music. Khost, The Body, Author & Punisher, these type of bands.

Of course the name Sutekh Hexen came along in these searches. I never really listened to them though. I remember hearing tracks that are ‘too metal’ for my liking and more interesting tracks with electronics, or at least a noise-type approach. And then Cyclic Law sends a promo of a forthcoming album (end March 2019). A good excuses to listen to this American outfit a bit more attentively.

There are black metal like vocals, high-pitched guitars, but then to make ‘noisescapes’, “ambient metal” so to say, but dark and oppressive. When compared to industrial or noise music, the sound is pretty ‘wall-of-noise’.

There are several such bands whose vocals I do not like (those of The Body are downright annoying), but in Sutekh Hexen they fade a bit into the guitar noise most of the time. In doom metal I best like instrumental tracks still, but this new album of Sutekh Hexen is a good one in the style. I need to listen to some more material of this band. I now see that they even have a split with Trepaneringsritualen.

Even though there are over a dozen of previous releases, this latest album is “self titled”. It will come on CD and 2LP and batter your ears for almost 55 minutes.

Links: Sutekh Hexen, Cyclic Law

Pryapisme ‎* Diabolicus Felinae Pandemonium (cd 2017)

It has been quite a while since I was looking for music similar to Igorrr. Igorrr makes completely mad breakcore with elements of any type of music imaginable, including metal. Pryapisme does something similar, but here the metal seems to be the basis and the breakcore elements ‘additions’.

Pryapisme is also completely insane. They go from extremely fast metal to jazz, orchestrations and classical music. They are even weirder than Carnival In Coal. There seem to be more of these weird metal outfits, but none are as strange (and good!) as Pryapisme. Their latest album is not their best in my opinion, but here is an album to try if you want something weird and different.

Links: Pryapisme, Apathia Records

Igorrr ‎* Hallelujah (cd 2012)

There are many breakcore artists who simply throw a whole lot of samples in the blender, put some extreme rhythms over this and thus create their albums. Initially the French project Igorrr seems to be one of those, but on closer listening, there is something in Igorrr that I miss in a lot of breakcore: dedication and detail. Try to imagine a combination between classical music (orchestral and opera), folk, breakcore, grindcore, jazz, heck, is there music that Igorrr does not use? There are flinches of Venetian Snares, not in the last place the brilliant “Rossz Csillag Alatt Született” album, but Igorrr goes way off into the extreme sound of breakcore, but at as many moments he also employs very moody orchestrations and creates the weird beats according the music. There are piano parts with accompanying beats at the speed of the piano, the same with Spanish guitar. The music goes from breakcore maddness right into some folksong and on to opera; oftentimes metal and allways with a breakcore basis. On this new album Igorrr also seems to sing himself more and his vocals are as varried as his music, from opera to screaming and death-grunts, sometimes in one track too. I am sure that this music is not for anyone. You have to be able to stand complete musical maddness and extremity, but when you can enjoy breakcore and not just the noisy side of it, you might want to check out Igorrr. In a way Igorrr falls something between Venetian Snares and Arcturus with its orchestral metal with varried vocals. Hard to describe, but if you like humour and extreme electronics… Sometimes brilliant, sometimes just good, but certainly something you have never heard.
Links: Igorrr, Ad Noiseam

NDE * Krieg Blut Ehre Asche (cd 2009)

Yet another project of Dead Man’s Hill, Alle Sagen Ja, Eisengrau, etc. NDE makes a mix between black metal, martial industrial, bombastic orchestrations and noise. The result is a heavy pompous sound with distorted screamed vocals and raging guitars. Quite extreme, quite original, not alway quite good. There are some nice orchestral noisy tracks, but as soon as the guitars set in, I loose my interest. I think this album will appeal to people who like the later sound of Karjalan Sissit with the noisy orchestrations and screamed vocals, but then with guitars added.
Links: NDE, Cold Spring

Der Blutharsch * Our Survival Depends On Us (7″ 2009)

I Will Not ObeyThe latest effort of Der Blutharsch is not a very good one. Their track is instrumental and not very interesting and what is worse, the other band is some kind of boring metal/rock thing (“sludge doom” in their own words) with an awfull track. I guess the text on the single itself (“I Will Not Obey”) means that Herr Julius just keeps doing what he wants. I suppose I cannot always like it. The package is nice though.
Links: Der Blutharsch/WKN, Our Survival Depends On Us

v/a * The Cold, The Silent (compilation cd 1999 dragon flight recordings)

Well, this is a strange compilation cd. The first time I listened to it, caused quite a stir. This cd starts with a couple of very descent dark orchestral tracks of Nocturath, Dream Into Dust, Chants for the Fallen, 4th Sign of the Apocalypse and As All Die. Then there’s a doom metal track by Skepticism and I wondered what was the use of that. But the next track of Krieg is a boring black metal track! Next up is Ember who make quite nice melodic black with horrid vocals (or is it Gothenburg-style death?). Then we have Novembers Doom bringing (as the bandname suggests) doom metal. Ningizzia make …eh… black metal? Well, their homepage url says “darkmetal”, so I guess you can call it that. After this we return to some more moody music with Shellyz Raven who play atmospheric metal with female vocals. The pre-last project is Veinke, this is dark ambient again. The Cold, The Silent closes of with the known gothic/doom metal band Canaan.
All in all I’m not happy with this compilation. The first tracks are really worth buying a compilation, but they should definately have left these shitty metal tracks. I suppose the aim of this cd is building a bridge between the gothic and metal audience, but I don’t know if this will ever really succeed.

v/a * Neo-Form 2 (online compilation 2006 neo-form) + v/a * Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense (online compilation 2006 neo-folk.it)

When the first online compilations were published by these two websites late 2004 and early 2005 it was in a way still new to offer music like this. A good way to get to know new bands though. More bands and websites started to release online compilations, but it is not really that this took a really high flight. After Ny Regret De Passe, Ad Perpetuam Gloriam and Neo-Form 1, I never really checked the websites where I found these compilations anymore. Recently for some reason I stumbled upon both and both proved to have new compilations available. In the case of Neoform, both old (Allerseelen, Tribe Of Circle, OTWATM) and many new bands. “Honi…” presents ‘two cds’ with mostly smaller or completely new bands. Like I said before, the website names suggest neofolk music, but obviously the websites are maintained by people who use this term to catch the whole scene. There is not much neofolk on the compilations, but more ambient, industrial, a bit of noise, military pop (but not as much as you may expect) and indeed, also a bit of neofolk. Both compilations are pretty good again, especially Neo-Form 2. Happy downloading! Oh, you may have to find software to unpack the files, but nothing that the internet can’t solve. <12/1/07><4>

In Slaughter Natives / Voice Of Hate * split ep (7″ 2006 temple of darkness)

ISN made a very ‘Ordo-like’ track for which Tomas Petterson made the lyrics and does the vocals. That may be why I could buy a copy of this 7″ yesterday on the Ordo (and IRM) show in Arnhem (Netherlands). “Consume My Burning Darkness” is a nice, orchestral, repetative track with -like I said- vocals of Tomas Petterson. I didn’t know the band Voice Of Hate from Spain, but the line-up suggests that this is a metal band. Their track is a weird one with accoustic guitars and odd vocals, ending in ‘something metalish’. The label is new, this is their first release. There is no internet address, so I suggest you just contact either band to see if you can get one of the 666 copies. <19/2/06><3>