TERMINUS: extreme metal podcast

Terminus Episode 22 - Trident, Mysthicon, Panzerwar, Encephalic

On this fine new episode of Terminus, we focus on a trio of bands returning to pre-00s roots, reactivating the potential of ancestral styles. And then.... as always.... some brutal death!

In the first half of the show, we focus on two bands formed by honored veterans of their respective scenes. The Black Metal Guy leads off with Sweden's Trident, descended from Dissection and Lord Belial, now returning from a decade's hoary slumber. They've chiseled out a mountain of a record, cut from the old stone with a new shape! We study their synthesis of two late-90s sounds that have rarely been successfully imitated, let alone integrated, and talk over where they could go from here. Not to be outdone, The Death Metal Guy counters with Poland's Mysthicon, composed of members of Vader, Hate, Batushka, and Lux Occulta. This record hearkens back to a forgotten constellation of gloomy gothic-fantasy bands from across the spectrum of 90s extremity. At first we don't know what to make of it, but as the show goes on, it works its strange spell....

In the second half of the show, it's back to our usual roster of deep-underground projects. The Black Metal Guy returns to his icy onslaught with Panzerwar's Warlord, a reverent reawakening of the True Norwegian Black Metal -- with a rabid spirit rooted in early demos and hardcore punk. You think you've heard this before, but you haven't! Finally, The Death Metal Guy spins the globe to sunny Andalusia, where two mad motherfuckers with gnarly punk piercings make basement-shaking, dungeon-rattling brutal death. Encephalic has a surprisingly melodic, textural approach to a sound that's often full frontal eardrum demolition (see last week's bit on Insalubrity) -- could this be the future of real death metal?

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / rundown of bands and labels

09:13 - Trident - North (Non Serviam)

48:18 - Mysthicon - Silva - Oculis - Corvi (Witching Hour Productions)

01:24:05 - Interlude - Behemoth - "Wolves Guard My Coffin," fr. Svantevith (Storming Near The Baltic) (Pagan Records, 1995). 2018 LP reissue by Back on Black available from Plastichead.

01:29:19 - Panzerwar - Warlord (Cold Sword Productions / Kult of Belial Records)

02:10:10 - Encephalic - Exalted Perversity (Sevared Records)

02:27:42 - Trident, "North," fr. North (see above)

CLARIFICATION: Jon Nodtveit (R.I.C.) has songwriting credits throughout Storm of The Light's Bane. Johan "Reaper" Norman has songwriting credits alongside John for the three tracks mentioned - "Soulreaper," "Thorns of Crimson Death," and "Unhallowed." TBMG clears this up at the beginning of the Mysthicon section.

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Terminus Episode 21 - Into Oblivion, Sammas’ Equinox, Insalubrity, Just Before Dawn

Right after recording the Serpent Column interview, we hurled ourselves into Episode 21.

We lead off with a vast, majestic 50-minute review of Into Oblivion's vast, majestic new EP, Winds of Serpentine Ascension. If you've wanted to hear a whole new style of riffing and song-construction, pointing death and black metal toward a glorious New Dark Age, this is it. It's one of the most important records to come out this year, and issues the same challenge issued by Serpent Column -- to make metal that parts the swirling wind and fog, bringing forth a higher, more abundant mode of life.

And with that out of the way, we're onto Finland: Sammas' Equinox took four years refining their eccentric, esoteric-pagan black metal before releasing a full-length, and The Black Metal Guy is stoked to see how it turned out. We talk over the record's formidable high points, and meditate on the balance between wizard and warrior aesthetics.

The second half of the show sees The Death Metal Guy at full Death Metal Guy. He leads off with Insalubrity's foul breed of brutal death, full of pinch harmonics and slippery trem. The Black Metal Guy has been learning to listen to this sort of thing -- but will this one be a bridge too far?? To close out, TDMG brings a sick new find we can all agree on: sombre Swedish death metal about tanks. Just Before Dawn nimbly dodge the "retro Swedeath" trap by lining up an unexpected set of influences, and following an invisible through-line. Two of these are bands we mention all the time on this show...

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / rundown of bands and labels

11:13 - Into Oblivion - Winds of Serpentine Ascension (Hessian Firm)

01:01:37 - Sammas’ Equinox - Tulikehrat (Signal Rex)

01:29:11 - Interlude - Miserycore, "Merciless March," fr. the Civilization Torture demo (Pure War, 2005). Looks like Invictus distro has a CD reissue in stock.

01:34:14 - Insalubrity - Salacious Putrescent Psychopathy (New Standard Elite)

02:05:00 - Just Before Dawn - An Army At Dawn (Raw Skull Recordz)

02:29:18 - Grundhyrde, untitled track-in-progress w/ no vox yet.* Check the Grundhyrde / Klagesturm split (sold out) on Greg Biehl's channel.

*CORRECTION: On air, The Black Metal Guy confuses this w/ another track, soon to be released.

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Terminus Interview - Serpent Column (ft. track premiere: "Offering of Tongues")

In this Terminus exclusive, the core songwriter of Serpent Column joins your hosts to take stock of his six-part cycle, now drawing to a close with Kathodos and its forthcoming followup EP. This interview will not give you a guided tour of the album, or an archive of key influences. It will not give you a behind-the-scenes look at the recording process, or a glimpse into the artist's daily life. What it will do, is show you how Serpent Column thinks about art -- his relation to his own works, his relation to the works of others, his hopes for his own audience, and his understanding of art itself. Over the course of the conversation, he makes the case for intensive, long-form listening, clarifies some fundamental aims for the project, and reflects on the role of mystery and misinterpretation in propagating vision. What emerges is a sense of Serpent Column's struggle for "infinitely replenishable experience, even in late modernity."

00:00 - Brief lead-in

02:24 - Premiere - "Offering of Tongues," fr. Kathodos, out 9/30 on Mystiskaos (LP / digital) and Iron Bonehead (CD).

42:54 - Conclusion w/ sample of "Desertification," final track on Kathodos.

Those with an interest in Serpent Column's panoply of reference-points -- musical, philosophical, literary -- should check out his text-based interviews with our good friend GrizzlyButts. These form a solid base for anyone who wants to learn more about the project:

On Ornuthi Thalassa (2017)

On Invicta (2018)

On Mirror In Darkness (2019)

And here, at last, is our usual load of links:

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Terminus Episode 20 - Slavland, Khors, Cranial Contamination, Forgotten Tomb (Chile)

In this festive 20^th episode of Terminus, each one of us leans into his personal subgenre specialties and finds a year-end pick! We warm up by hopping on the "Six Feet Under 'Zodiac' reaction video" trend, and keep the loose and riffy vibe going throughout.

In Part I, The Black Metal Guy leads us through the majestic golden fields of Slavonic Heathen Black Metal, and - as always - we sort the wheat from the chaff. First, Polish master Slavland returns from four years in the wild with a set of passionate folk-black battle songs, freely ranging from "peasant wedding brawl" to "charge of the winged hussars." This project is an old favorite of both your hosts, and we find plenty to sperg about. Second, Ukrainian mainstays Khors dramatically revamp their sound, embracing the latent pop tendencies of their scene and coming up with something pretty original – but is it good?

In Part II, The Death Metal Guy takes us to two extreme opposite ends of nowadays DM. Cranial Contamination follow in the footsteps of their fellow Englishmen (and Englishlady!) in Bolt Thrower, but without cloning their style -- for in the grim darkness of the 2.1st Millenium, there is only fully automatic, grenade-launching slam. And to wrap things up, TDMG unearths a deeply obscure debut LP by a band called Forgotten Tomb. No, not that Forgotten Tomb! (For them, see Terminus Ep. 3.) It's Forgotten Tomb from Chile, a one-man project playing ultraprimitive, artistically advanced 80s death that goes far beyond the usual old-school fetish.

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting

07:00 - Six Feet Under, "Zodiac" - Autists react!!!

13:12 - Rundown of bands and labels

20:51 - Slavland - Stal Biała, Krew Czerwona (Eastside)

01:02:07 - Khors - Where The Word Acquires Eternity (Ashen Dominion)

01:34:54 - Interlude - "Jet Black Metal Art," Lutomysl (Лютомысл), fr. Catharsis (Катарсис), reissued by Drakkar.

01:41:34 - Cranial Contamination - Into the Warp (Realityfade Records)

02:19:12 - Forgotten Tomb (Chile) - Death is Just Another Path (Cadaverismo)

02:55:50 - Outro - "Nuclear Spear," Veriluola, fr. new S/T demo, self-released on Bandcamp!

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Terminus Interview - Oldowan Gash

On Episode 16, we reviewed the ripping new record by Oldowan Gash, whose punkish, Western-outlaw black metal captures all the strengths of the emerging North American underground. In this followup interview, we knock back some e-beers with sole member Forlorn Spirit, who walks us through his deliberately intuitive songwriting process, his wide-ranging influences, and his unhinged, immediate vocals, along with a closer look at a few songs off the new record. One theme runs throughout: F.S.'s insistence on unchaining his own hubris, recklessly striving for completion and clarity in an age of lowered expectations and diminished returns.

Hubris Unchained on the Drakkar Productions Bandcamp (CD and digital - LP sold out).

CD version on the Drakkar webstore.

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Terminus Episode 19 - Evaporated Sores, Dephosphorus, Katavasia, Sale Freux

On this week's Terminus, we bring you some properly gnarly and eccentric sounds, punctuated by what may be the most catchy, accessible record we've yet covered. And as with Ep. 17, the whole batch gets the Terminus seal of approval!

The Death Metal Guy leads off with Evaporated Sores' industrial-grade skronk attack, a serious bid to up the ante in the extremity wars. These guys play all the wrong notes in all the right ways, with an open-form approach to writing that makes a virtue of collapse. The Black Metal Guy answers with Dephosphorus, a long-running Athens band who push their self-created subgenre, 'astrogrind',  toward its most epic, atmospheric potentials -- without compromising on sick riffs.

And the Greek streak continues with Katavasia (ft. mem. of Varathron), whose Magnus Venator may be the ultimate Hellenic BM party record, fully embracing the scene's proud heavy metal roots without forsaking core black metal riffing and belief. Finally, in the longest segment of the day, your hosts wander through the windy, rainsoaked fields of Sale Freux's native Brittany, clinging for dear life to bottles of cheap booze, and loving every second of it. Melancholy tremolo abounds, and the ravens flock to the eerie sound.

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / rundown of bands and labels

12:46 - Evaporated Sores - Ulcerous Dimensions (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

51:39 - Dephosphorus - Sublimation (Nerve Altar, 7Degrees Records, Selfmadegod)

01:23:20 - Interlude - Antigama, "Division of Lonely Crows," fr. Depressant (Selfmadegod)

01:26:09 - Katavasia - Magnus Venator (Floga Records)

02:04:03 - Sale Freux - Le Dernier Corbeau Du Monde (France d'Oïl Productions)

02:50:45 - Outro - Mutiilation, "To The Memory of The Dark Countess," fr. Remains of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul (reissued by Osmose)

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Terminus Episode 18 - Meslamtaea, Cultum Interitum, Hymn, Dumal

After two episodes of virtually nothing but sword-and/or-sorcery-oriented pagan black metal (no bad thing!), we're back to a more eclectic lineup. The Death Metal Guy sets the tone with a couple great choices, both black metal bands remaining faithful to the basic impulse of the genre while pushing toward weird new horizons -- exactly the kind of originality we want to promote. Meslamtaea (ft. mem. of Asgrauw) blends the windswept Northsea melodies of traditional Dutch BM with authentic screamo and post-punk, seeking traces of green growth in the 21c city. Cultum Interitum (ft. mem. of Lunar Ascension??) bring the ugliness and evil back to BM, stripping it down to a skeleton and making the bones dance -- a ghastly, lurching march through Satanic industrial wastes.

In Part II, The Black Metal Guy checks up on two promising bands that last released full-lengths in 2017. First is the young Norwegian band Hymn, who play rhythmically dynamic extreme sludge. We've virtually ignored sludge so far, and this gives us a chance to talk over the perils and potentials of the genre. Last but definitely not least is Dumal, who've taken their sweet time distilling triumphant Norse and Finnish BM into 100-proof Pennsylvanian forest riffs. The Terminus USBM squad will want to check this one out for sure!

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / thanks to Grizzlybutts et al. / rundown of bands and labels

12:24 - Meslamtaea - Geketend in de Schaduw van het Leven (Babylon Doom Cult Records)

55:32 - Cultum Interitum - Poison of Being (Godz of War)

01:21:05 - Interlude - Archgoat - "Whore of Bethlehem," fr. Whore of Bethlehem, reissued most recently on Debemur Morti.

01:25:25 - Hymn - Breach Us (Fysisk Format)

01:57:44 - Dumal - The Confessor (Folkvangr/Vigor Deconstruct)

02:34:40 - Outro - Bak De Syv Fjell - "From Haavardstun," fr. From Haavardstun EP, available digitally from the original label, Edged Circle Productions in Norway.

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Terminus Episode 17 - Macabre Omen, Nihil Obstat, Ikotka, Svederna

This week on Terminus, we continue reaping this fall's bumper crop of pagan black metal, punctuated by some extremely catchy brutal death. And it's one of those rare shows where we both really like every record!

We start by singing the praises of the new Macabre Omen, which easily transcends its unusual format -- one vast but tightly-woven epic, plus a bunch of tracks from raw 90s demos and splits you almost certainly haven't heard. You'll hear missing links to the early Hellenic scene, strange relics of Nordic influence, and forays into psychedelic pastures -- all still as bright as they day they were forged. After this sprawling, Bathorian segment, The Death Metal Guy leads us through Nihil Obstat's catchy, streamlined evolution of early-00s Colombian brutal death. The songwriting here is killer, and it's more like Greek black metal than you might think....

On Part II, it's all Slavonic spellcraft and Swedish steel. We start with a fan submission of sorts -- the debut of Ikotka (Икотка), from the wilds of the Ural Mountains in northeastern Russia. Their actually-ritual summoning songs draw freely from Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish sounds, but don't really sound like any of them. Finally, we close with the return of Svederna, who don the grim hauberk of full-spectrum 90s black metal, striving for the title of Most Swedish Band of All Time. This is the chance The Black Metal Guy has been waiting for to sperg out about forgotten late-90s Svensk BM, and especially one of his all-time favorite bands....

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / social media plug / rundown of bands and labels

12:57 - Macabre Omen - Anamneses (Van Records)

55:56 - Nihil Obstat - Antimatter (Rotten Cemetery Records)

01:26:26 - Ikotka - Zagovor (SoundAge Production)

02:08:53 - Svederna - Hard (Carnal Records)

02:57:35 - Outro - Sorhin - "Skogsgriftens rike," fr. I det glimrande mörkrets djup, reissued most recently by Helter Skelter Productions (a top-shelf underground sublabel of Regain).

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Terminus Interview - Crushing The Scepter

On Episode 14, we explored Crushing The Scepter's disciplined and demanding new record, which drifts forlornly through the vast expanse between funeral doom and black metal. Today, The Death Metal Guy gets in touch with Taylor, the lone anchorite behind Echoing Screams of Madness and Delusion (out now on Transylvanian Tapes), to talk abstract cover art, black metal influences, and the grueling toil of composing and recording extremely long, slow songs.

Echoing Screams of Madness and Delusion on Transylvanian Tapes

Crushing The Scepter on Bandcamp

Terminus Episode 16 - Precambrian, Encoffinized, Borda's Rope, Oldowan Gash

On this week's fukkin sikk episode of Terminus, we've got a whole lot of stern heathen black metal, and... some punked out brutal death from the Maggot Stomp scene. The Black Metal Guy leads off with the reincarnation of one of his all-time favorite bands as a rabid, ripping power-trio called Precambrian. We contextualize it alongside Roman Saenko's other projects, and link it back to forgotten influences on the margins of the Nordic Second Wave. Then, The Death Metal Guy comes in caveman arms a-swinging with Encoffinized (not Encoffination!), whose promising debut channels the most ignorant strains of primordial NYDM through shamelessly grooving mosh breaks.

In the second part of the show, each of us contributes a raw, stomping USBM record. First, we take the measure of Borda's Rope, weighing BR's considerable strengths -- stunning Big Riffs and ambitious long-form songwriting -- against the self-imposed limitations of this rapidly developing project. Then, we check out Oldowan Gash, and Hubris Unchained unchains our brains, bringing us back to the idea of American BM we explored in our Mortum review (Ep. 13). It's worth sticking around for this one, dudes.

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / plug for Patreon and Subscribestar / rundown of bands and labels

17:58 - Precambrian - Tectonics (Primitive Reaction)

01:03:50 - Encoffinized - Chambers of Deprivation (Maggot Stomp / Sevared Records)

01:33:42 - Borda’s Rope - Nearer the Shores of Kothal (Black Gangrene Productions)

02:24:12 - Oldowan Gash - Hubris Unchained (Drakkar Productions)

03:10:22 - Outro - Hate Forest - "Cenotaph" (live Bolt Thrower cover!), fr. Dead But Dreaming, also on Primitive Reaction.

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