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Relentless total war on metal journalism.
Episodes
Sunday Jan 10, 2021
Sunday Jan 10, 2021
Here it is, our belated Xmas / Yule present to all you loyal Terminators -- our most epic patrons-only bonus show yet.
In this relatively long-awaited episode, The Black Metal Guy does something he's been putting off for at least a decade -- he actually listens to Emperor's In The Nightside Eclipse and Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness in their entirety. Hilarity ensues. Wisdom is attained. Secrets are revealed. Portals are opened. Demons are summoned. The Death Metal Guy gently walks him through the process.
This one's got a different structure from our usual "wall of shame" format, with more extensive audio sampling and ongoing side-y-side discussion of both records. It's a bit more like a collaborative, real-time essay. Or just two old buddies shooting the shit about boomer metal.
If you like these (even more) long-form reviews of old records, and you want to ask us intelligent questions about Brainbombs late into the night, please consider supporting us on Patreon or Subscribestar, which gets you access to bonus shows and - for $5 and up - the Terminus Black Circle discord.
00:00 - General impressions and cool parts
58:23 - Targeted comparisons: vestigial thrash and grind
01:28:35 - Why weren't people trying HARDER to censor this stuff?
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Wednesday Dec 30, 2020
Wednesday Dec 30, 2020
In this last show of the year, The Black Metal Guy and The Death Metal Guy take turns rolling through their top 20 lists, arguing over rankings, and reviewing the year in extreme metal. It takes 4.5 hours, so pour yourself at least 4.5 drinks, put on your special lucky Rites of Thy Degringolade pajama set, and get ready to burst a vein in your forehead as you vigorously disagree with at least 50% of what we say.
Terminus started at the end of this past May, and we've made it seven months. We're taking two weeks off now, so you can expect the first regular show of the new year on January 20, 2021. Thanks for listening, maniacs.
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Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
In this special episode of Terminus, The Black Metal Guy speaks to Kari (vocalist) and Jaakko (guitarist) of Finland's mighty Sepulchral Curse, whose debut album Only Ashes Remain is one of the finest death metal releases of 2020 (reviewed on T12). This interview will give you some insight into the band's history, and how their uniquely sombre, ripping sound fits into the landscape of Scandinavian death and black metal.
But ultimately, it's all about how Sepulchral Curse writes songs. And nobody does it quite like this. Over the course of the conversation, Kari and Jaako reveal the inner workings of a band with not two, not three, but four active voices in the writing process, and a single - very big - brain between the four of them. This interview stands as a testament to a core tenet of Terminus: the irreplaceable value of playing music with real people, real friends, in an actual band.
Note: We were having some issues with audio feedback, so we proceeded in a ritualistic, Japanese-tea-ceremony sort of way, with each of us speaking in turn.
00:00 - Lineup and formation of Sepulchral Curse.
03:55 - "A red line running through the whole album" - What's the secret to SC's hydra-headed songwriting assault? And what even is Finnish death metal, anyway?
32:00 - Walking a fine line - Jaakko on how to write melodies in death metal, without writing melodeath.
39:30 - "I use a lot of power" - Kari on stretching his vocal technique from Solothus (doom-death) to Sepulchral Curse.
44:05 - The million-dollar question - What is the difference between black and death metal? Ft. Jaakko's guide to writing a canned Swedeath revival song.
55:13 - "Into The Sleep of Earth's Ashes" - on writing the album's mountainous closing track, "Maan Tuhkien Uneen."
58:42 - "Into the extremes" - What's the direction for the next full-length?
01:03:02 - Outro - Sepulchral Curse - "Maan Tuhkien Uneen," fr. Only Ashes Remain (Transcending Obscurity, 2020)
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Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
It's our final regular episode of the year, just one week until our long-awaited Terminus Year-End Show, and the revelation of the equally long-awaited Terminus Year-End Lists....
Today we've got two massive surprise releases for you, each a likely year-end pick for the guy bringing it to the table. The Death Metal Guy jump-starts the show with the agile and mind-bending melodigrind of Contrastic. They're cornerstones of the highly regarded Czech grindcore scene, but they haven't released a full-length record since 2000! So if you've never heard of them, or the Czech grind scene, don't worry - TDMG will fill you in.
The Black Metal Guy follows through with - you guessed it - the new Hate Forest record that's plummeting down from the aether on December 25. Since this review is out prior to the date, all we can sample for you is the public promo track, which we play in full. Without our usual ritual of sample-and-discuss, we're left wandering the vast Steppe of Opinions, as TBMG tries to convince TDMG that this *is* a significant development in the Hate Forest sound.
We close out with two fun, highly eccentric releases from opposite sides of the world. The Death Metal Guy introduces Montuln, a modern extreme metal band from the little-known Chilean scene. Montuln starts from the Swedish melodic BM/DM riffing style that's so popular today, but anchor it in a manly hard rock sensibility. Finally, The Black Metal Guy introduces Burkhartsvinter, noble - and evil - practitioners of ATGBM (Autistically True German Black Metal). If you like sword riffs, stomp riffs, maniacal energy, and a creative sense of musical time, this is the band for you.
Merry Christmas and Good Yule from the both of us!*
00:00 - Introductory bullshitting
05:12 - Terminus News: new Totenwache EP, Ruho livestream by Behest label/distro/zine, and Luctus livestream on Black Metal Promotion.
16:32 - Rundown of bands and labels
20:06 - Contrastic - Mamun (Independent)
01:07:52 - Hate Forest - Hour of The Centaur (Osmose Productions)
01:50:12 - Interlude - Totenwache - "Aufklärung," fr. Kriegswesen (Independent, 2020)
01:58:05 - Montuln - Arquetipo (Australis Records)
02:40:08 - Burkhartsvinter - Mordbrand (CD on Sturmglanz Black Metal Manufaktur / tape on Worship Tapes)
03:18:10 - Outro - Kerberos - "Impalement of The Messiah," fr. the Plaguestorm compilation (Mass Grave Records, 2002). This is out-of-print as fuck, so here's a Youtube link.
*If you're a Satanist, have a darkly glorious Inverse Nativity Day!
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Wednesday Dec 16, 2020
Wednesday Dec 16, 2020
On Episode 32 of Terminus, we've got another quintessentially Terminus lineup -- some true Finnish BM, some Russian DSBM, some stomping Yorkshire boot-black, aaaaand some technical brutal death metal.
We lead off with an in-depth review of Horna's massive new monument, Kuoleman Kirjo, their first record in 5 years and their most ambitious in 11. We place it in the context of Horna's lengthy catalog, and try to capture what's so new about the songwriting and album structure. Don't worry, it still sounds like Horna! Next up, we check out the melancholy, stripped-down Slavblack of Depths of Despair, which The Death Metal Guy hears as a distillation of how black metal has changed over the last ten years. But are these the changes that The Black Metal Guy loves, or the changes The Black Metal Guy hates?
The second half kicks off with a palm-muted 16th-note run, as we hit the next stop on TDMG's guided tour of that most misunderstood of subgenres, brutal death. He floats an interesting theory about the nature of the nowadays brutal DM band -- what could such a hideous alien assemblage have in common with a jazz quartet? Finally, we close with a lengthy conversation about the taciturn, stoically resistant spirit of White Medal's northern English punk BM. The Black Metal Guy feels like he finally Gets It, but will The Death Metal Guy be equally impressed? Let's find out....
00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / interview plug
03:35 - Terminus News ft. Empyreal (Transylvanian Tapes) and Venus Star (Terratur Possessions)
16:54 - Rundown of bands and labels
21:15 - Horna - Kuoleman Kirjo (World Terror Committee)
01:04:15 - Depths of Despair - Мрак Пожирающий Реальность, or Darkness Devouring Reality (AuToDaFe Productions / Der Schwarze Tod)
01:38:21 - Interlude - Horna - "Merkuriana," fr. Sanojesi äärelle (Debemur Morti, 2009). There's also a 2015 CD reissue from W.T.C.
01:45:15 - Focal Dystonia - Descending (In)Human Flesh (Comatose Music)
02:21:19 - White Medal - Elmet (Altare Productions / Legion Blotan)
03:14:30 - Vrîmuot - "Wolffsangel," fr. O Tempora, O Mores! (Prophecy Productions, 2020)
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Friday Dec 11, 2020
Friday Dec 11, 2020
Today we've got something special for you! It just so happens that Warg from desertified black/death metal band Heretical Sect is a longtime Terminus listener, so he's come on the show to crack a few very loud beers with the boys, and give us some insight into Rapturous Flesh Consumed, out today on Gilead Media.
In this free-flowing but focused conversation, Warg talks us through the historical and religious inspiration for the ghastly Southwest landscapes of this album, and tells us how a band started as a break from real life acquired an inexorable momentum of its own. A common theme throughout is Warg's commitment to the people and places of New Mexico, especially his beloved hometown, Santa Fe. This thoroughly colors Heretical Sect's lyrical themes and music, which Warg sums up as "a focused concept in relationship to environment."
00:00 - Brief introduction and origins of the Sect.
06:12 - "A serial killer going crazy" - Inquisitorial terror in the Southwest.
18:26 - "I can't wait to cover myself in blood" - why "Warg" put on the gallows hood.
24:32 - The Santa Fe scene - the city, the bands, the musical infrastructure.
31:15 - Warg turns the tables -- "What genre is Heretical Sect?"
40:42 - Heretical Sect - "Degradation Temple," fr. Rapturous Flesh Consumed. We talk over the track, then open up into a discussion of the album as a whole.
01:05:30 - Parallel universe metal scenes -- underground vs.... middleground?
01:12:30 - "A focused concept in relationship to environment" -- Southwest black/death and the Pueblo distro.
01:17:30 - Outro - Dysphotic - “Aether and Chaos,” fr. The Eternal Throne (Independent, 2018)
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Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
As the days grow short and the nights grow long, The Black Metal Guy drags himself out of bed to Storm of The Light's Bane and Welcome My Last Chapter, pulls up the hood on his wizard's cowl, and prepares for a Terminus write-up.....
Though this week's show tends towards all sorts of swirling, low-end chthonic gloom, we lead off with a flash of sunlight on plate armor, and the gleam of a witch's eye from a scrying stone. After two years of silence and preparation, along with a pivotal line-up change, Mongrel's Cross return with a mighty work of effortlessly flowing, magisterial black thrash. The Death Metal Guy is a longtime skeptic of the Aussie sound -- can the soaring leads and viciously jabbing vocals win him over?
We follow that up with a close listen to a split from two German bands with intensely complementary takes on High IQ War Metal. Hadopelagyal channel their obsession with the ocean's deepest nightside zones into the "cavernous black/death" aesthetic, but show a greater interest in composition than guitar tone, and treat their extended atmospheric passages as real music rather than filler. Thorybos plays more minimalistic, barbarian attack riffs, but with equal if not greater influence by ritual-industrial sampling procedures. Between these two bands, there's real potential for a new sound.
On the second half of the show, we check out the debut EP from a rumbling, droning black/death band that bills its sound as "Hate Forest meets Bolzer." But if that's the conceptual starting point, what is this project actually doing? The Death Metal Guy has some interesting advice. Finally, we close with an even bleaker record, the blastbeat-driven funeral doom of Sweden's Gravkväde. I try not to call things "crushing" in these writeups, but it's pretty damn crushing -- and not in the way you expect. This leads us into a broader discussion on the coolness of classic 90s funeral doom, a sound yet to be processed by the modern underground.
00:00 - Introductory bullshitting
02:58 - Terminus News ft. a Filipino band called Asgardsrei (Hessian Firm)
16:38 - Rundown of bands and labels
19:44 - Mongrel’s Cross - Arcana, Scrying and Revelation (Hell’s Headbangers)
01:01:58 - Hadopelagyal / Thorybos - Conjuring Subterranean Vortex (Amor Fati Productions)
01:33:43 - Interlude - Ayat - "Raw War (Beirut Unveils Her Pussy Once More)" fr. Carry On, Carrion! (Moribund Records, 2017).
01:41:31 - Catherine Wheel - The Procession of Flagellants (Blood Boiler Studios)
02:17:40 - Gravkväde - Grav|Ruin (Transylvanian Tapes / VGDK Records)
02:51:30 - Outro - Thergothon - "Everlasting," fr. Stream from the Heavens (Avantgarde Music, 1994). LP and CD reissue available from Peaceville.
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Thursday Dec 03, 2020
Thursday Dec 03, 2020
Damn, well, it's the 30th installation of Terminus. That means 30 x 4 reviews / wk for a grand total of 120, plus a few 5-band shows and what we've started covering in Terminus News. Oh yeah, and the bonus episodes and interviews. At this point we're well out of The Shire, wandering towards Moria on our ill-advised quest to detonate the all-seeing Eye of professionally-credentialed metal journalism. And boy, do we have a show for you today, with a couple dark-horse last-minute candidates for year-end lists.
The Black Metal Guy leads off with two bands with Slavonic roots, both with pretty original takes on the idea of "black metal as heavy metal." Milwaukee's Prezir ("Scorn" or "Contempt" in Serbian) write ripping blackthrash songs shot through with floridly melodic machismo, and your hosts butt heads over exactly how to define it. Is Prezir the lordly scion of Ares Kingdom, or the underground answer to honest yeomanry like Skeletonwitch? Could it be both? We're more able to agree on Panychida, a veteran band from the mountain woods of southern Czechia. Though this record soars with the folk-black passion of a Drukdh or a Kroda, it often riffs like another beast entirely, with headbanging leads that'll make you want to slam 8 warm beers at a massive European festival.
In the second half we've got a dramatic, kinky role-reversal, as The Death Metal Guy answers with a brace of.... intensely Norsk BM bands?? He leads with some oddly faithful Unblack Metal from that hotbed of early Protestantism, the Netherlands. Duister Maanlicht revives a largely forgotten version of the one-man kvlt aesthetic, his hyper-minimal two-riff structures conjuring the bleakness of a forlorn winter shore. Finally, we're both left awestruck by the return of Norway's Gjendød, whose Angrep is a blistering and noble distillation of everything that made them -- and the masters of the Second Wave -- cool in the first place. Through this radical fidelity to origin, however, they've given form to something new and vital. The show culminates with TDMG waxing eloquent on Angrep's folkloric vision of the world, as TBMG sits back, grinning ear to ear.
00:00 - Introductory bullshitting
01:56 - Terminus news ft. Spider God (Death Kvlt, release in Jan 20201) and Dyfliza (Rat King Records)
18:15 - Rundown of bands and labels
21:33 - Prezir - Depredation (Independent / tape on Dread Records)*
01:00:30 - Panychida - Gabreta Aeterna (Folter Records)
01:38:13 - Interlude - Die Saat - “Sonnenzglanz,” fr. Niedergang (Independent, 2001 / Ewiges Eis, 2002)
01:45:58 - Duister Maanlicht - Over Zwarte Kunsten, Hekserij en Andere Dienaren van het Kwaad (Vision of God Records)
02:18:40 - Gjendød - Angrep (Hellthrasher Productions)
03:11:08 - Outro - Gjendød - "Når sårene er renset," fr. Krigsdøger (Darker than Black, 2018 / Hellthrasher, 2019)
*CORRECTION: In the first segment, TBMG erroneously suggests that Prezir is / was on Folter Records. There's a clear connection to that scene / aesthetic, but none of their stuff has come out on Folter.
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Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
On Terminus 29, we named Pneuma Hagion's Voidgazer one of the best death metal albums - maybe the best death metal album - of 2020. On this special episode of Terminus, The Death Metal Guy sits down with his old friend R., core member of Pneuma Hagion (and Intestinal Disgorge, and The Howling Void, ad infinitum), to try and trace the origins of this record's blastbeat beatdown onslaught. R. reveals much about his recording and riffing process, and shares a wealth of extreme metal reference points. But as the interview unfolds, the details gather inward round a center. There stands R., listening, contemplating "the sublime nature" of things that hover just beyond the gateways of perception.
00:00 - Introductions
01:45 - Evolution of Pneuma Hagion - what makes Voidgazer sound like an abyssal titan?
17:50 - The Voidgazer / hardcore connection - why does it sound so much like beatdown?
23:05 - Gateways to Annihilation - the influence of Morbid Angel and H.P. Lovecraft.
30:41 - "The well where I draw the riffs" - origins of P.H.
37:10 - Interlude - Pneuma Hagion - "Timeless Darkness," fr. Voidgazer (Nuclear War Now!)
41:00 - Subsumption of the self - R on his many, many projects.
47:34 - Working in the wake of "caverncore" - what is the difference between black and death metal?
57:14 - Gazing onward - where does P.H. go from here?
01:00:28 - Now listening - R shares what's on rotation.
01:07:57 - Outro - Noisy Neighbors - "Dead Serious," fr. the Competitive Victimhood split w/ Shit Life (Independent, 2020)
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Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
It's almost Thanksgiving in the USA, and to celebrate we've brought you a rich bounty of big new releases! If you listen exclusively for the cryptic demos, don't worry -- we've got one of those for you, too.
The Death Metal Guy fires up the festivities with something that knocked us both on our asses. If the somnabulant haze of 2013 gave us Sunbather (lmao), the miasmal tempest of 2020 could only give us.... Voidgazer. On this supermassively dense, furiously grinding record, Pneuma Hagion seriously up the brutality wars, fulfilling an ancient Terminus prophecy regarding the future of death metal.
The only way to follow this is with something just as insane, and The Black Metal Guy does his damnedest with the return of Brazil's one and only powerlifting flamethrower death squad, GOATPENIS. We compare new tracks side-by-side with their old work, and try to figure out the secret of their unhinged energy.
And then, for something completely different, as The Death Metal Guy introduces us to Black Horizon Ancient Belial, a new necro-symphonic BM project from Japan. BHAB fires off blistering mid-90s Swedish riffs over song structures that sprawl like ruined cathedrals.... but might have something to do with hardcore?
Finally, we get to the thing you've all been waiting for: "what Terminus thinks of the new Inquisition record." Here, we lose all discipline, and a simple album review rapidly snowballs into an energetic back-and-forth on Inquisition's work thus far, their abiding influence by hard rock, and their central place in the canon of American black metal. Sick ultra-kvlt namedrops include AC/DC, Blink-182, and, uh, Bruce Springsteen?
00:00 - Introductory bullshitting
01:13 - Terminus News ft. Azanul (Heidens Hart) and Zygote (Sunshine Ward).*
17:10 - Rundown of bands and labels
21:02 - Pneuma Hagion - Voidgazer (Nuclear War Now)
01:00:32 - Goatpenis - Decapitation Philosophy (Nuclear War Now)
01:36:00 - Interlude - Truppensturm - "Gustav, the Great," fr. Salute to The Iron Emperors (Van Records, 2010)
01:41:52 - Black Horizon Ancient Belial - A Winter Dead Wandering Forever (Under the Fog Records / Victim Records)
02:25:00 - Inquisition - Black Mass for a Mass Grave (Agonia)
03:03:45 - Outro - Arkha Sva - "49 Evil Spirits," fr. Gloria Satanae (Aura Mystique, 2007)
*TBMG accidentally says "Sunlight Ward" on air.
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