TERMINUS: extreme metal podcast

Terminus Episode 15 - Prosanctus Inferi, Incantation, Imha Tarikat, Reverorum Ib Malacht

This week on Terminus, "big release" season kicks off with each of us bringing records that the other is sure to year-end. In Part 1, it's the long-awaited return of Prosanctus Inferi, and the less-awaited return of Incantation. There's some common ancestry here, via one of The Death Metal Guy's old favorites, Profanatica -- founded by three defectors from Incantation. Prosanctus starts from the Profanatica template to build fiercely disciplined and fluidly melodic extreme metal, at once "before" and "beyond" the black/death divide -- and "sword-oriented" enough for The Black Metal Guy! Incantation literally rewrites their old songs, with predictable results. TDMG walks us through a side-by-side comparison.

In Part II, we shift gears to two very, very different heirs to the anti-cosmic Satanism or chaos-Gnosticism of mid-00s Sweden. On Sternenberster ("starbursts?" "star-destroying?"), one-man project Imha Tarikat makes good on the promise of his earlier releases, flattening the cosmos with a punkish, high-T take on ultramelodic BM. This is exactly what TDMG wants in a black metal record, but he's even more impressed with the new one by Reverorum Ib Malacht, who started at the heart of the Swedish Orthodox scene, before finding their way to Catholicism. We pore over the details of this literally-frightening 90-minute masterpiece and, in this week's (somewhat abbreviated) Autism Hour, we try to puzzle through what Reverorum means by "Roman Catholic Black Metal." This starts a conversation on religion that we'll carry on in an upcoming, patrons-only episode of Terminus Prime.

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / updates and patronage plug / rundown of bands and labels

11:12 - Prosanctus Inferi - Hypnotic Blood Art (Nuclear War Now)

48:08 - Incantation - Sect of Vile Divinities (Relapse Records)

01:10:07 - Imha Tarikat - Sternenberster (Independent)

01:49:00 - Reverorum ib Malacht - Vad Är Inte Sju Huvud? (Rubeus Obex)

02:23:21 - Autism Hour - Roman Catholic Black Metal: not as crazy as you might think...

02:46:33 - Outro - Reverorum ib Malacht - “Evangeliet går ut,” fr. Vad Är Inte Sju Huvud?

Prosanctus full-album stream on Grizzlybutts.

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Terminus Interview - Oncology (Northern Irish brutal death)

On episode 11 of Terminus, we reviewed Oncology’s “Omniversal Antigenesis,” a brutal death record that stands out from the pack due to its high energy structural variation and devotion to older styles of death metal riffcraft. Today, The Death Metal Guy sits down with Connor Brown, guitarist of Oncology, to pick his brain on brutal death, amp sims, and the Northern Irish scene.

Terminus Episode 14 - Moulderyawn, Crushing The Scepter, Terminal Nation, Verhängnis, Oppress.

Early August is supposed to be slow for new releases, but Terminus never slows. Instead, we hunted over rock and under root for new records that are slow -- not just in tempo, but in pacing and more abstract, "naturey" senses of time. Moulderyawn's entish black metal plows ahead at speeds once thought impossible for trees, but syncs with the seasonal rhythms of growth and death, the millenial life of the Everwood. Crushing The Sceptre tests the limits of patience and pain, rewarding it with a feeling The Death Metal Guy likens to "being stuck at the bottom of the grand canyon."

Terminal Nation prepares for the next mass exinction, reworking powerviolence as a downtempo deathmarch. Verhängnis crawls up from the caverns and the soil itself, filling the Teutoburg Forest with echoes of wardrum-grooving, Gothic death. And last, but not least, our first-ever fan submission from the UK's Oppress. -- psychopathic decadent BM that is the opposite of slow.

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / thanking fans and podcast plans / rundown of bands and labels

17:23 - Moulderyawn - And What Lie 'Neath Its Shade (IV) (Independent - Old-Mill-associated)

01:01:22 - Crushing the Scepter - Echoing Screams of Madness and Delusion (Transylvanian Tapes)

01:31:31 - Terminal Nation - Holocene Extinction (20 Buck Spin)

02:02:21 - Verhängnis - Verhängnis (Indp, tape by Fucking Kill! / Kellerassel)

02:25:23 - Oppress. - No. Pity. (K.V.N.T Kolektiv)

02:58:26 - Prophecy of Doom - "Insanity Reigns Supreme," fr. Acknowledge The Confusion Master. Pretty sure it's way out of print, so to support the band, consider the Total Mind War comp on the quality Polish grind label, Selfmadegod. Cover is pretty dank, too.

Terminus Episode 13 - Induced, Siege Column, Disavowed, Mortum

After last week's wall-to-wall death metal special, we return to our normal BM/DM balance, but with a BM slant. This time, we've placed our featured bands first (Induced) and last (Mortum) on our lineup. Induced's ultra-brutal, drum-driven "mecha-death" is so stripped-down and abstract that it's got a lot in common with the lunatic fringes of black/war metal. This section gives us a chance to build on our notion of "music-adjacent" extremity, with some help from Finland's Concrete Winds.

Mortum's rugged, mountainous Atlantean Ouroboros sparks an extended conversation (and/or autistic rant) on how to make authentically American-sounding black metal. This section doubles as a guide to some of the best USBM projects currently going. Between these two longer segments, The Black Metal Guy and The Death Metal Guy review new records that are solidly in their respective wheelhouses, but come in for some substantial (constructive) criticism.

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

10:21 - Induced - Coproporeal (New Standard Elite)

39:31 - "Music-adjacent" riffing - Induced and Concrete Winds' Primitive Force

48:45 - Siege Column - Darkside Legions (Nuclear War Now)

01:17:10 - Disavowed - Revocation of the Fallen (Brutal Mind)

01:39:41 - Mortum - Atlantean Ouroboros (Independent / Folkvangr)

02:31:51 - Outro - Mi'Gauss - "Open Fire," fr. Open Season

Terminus Episode 12 - Draghkar, Sepulchral Curse, Defeated Sanity, Embryectomy

It's time for some death metal. Nothing but death metal. Ripping death metal. Crushing death metal. Brutal, technical, gut-busting death metal. And of course, the monstrously inbred, three-headed stepchild... slam. The Black Metal Guy leads off with debut full-lengths from Draghkar and Sepulchral Curse, two strikingly original takes on oldschool sounds. For Draghkar, it's 80s proto-death filtered through epic speed metal. For Sepulchral Curse, it's Stockholm death metal filtered through a thoroughly Finnish sensibility. But will The Black Metal Guy's picks pass muster with the famously picky Death Metal Guy??

In the second half of the show, the Death Metal Guy brings us to the vanguard of weird brutality, with the new one from German masters Defeated Sanity, and the return of the Hellenic slamophiles, Embryectomy. DS's The Sanguinary Impetus is their most out-there yet, leaving both your hosts' jaws on the floor. Embryectomy work at the total opposite end of the spectrum, perpetrating an almost unthinkable atrocity -- a slam record without all those pesky trem riffs and blasts. And you know when the slams are hot and heavy, The Death Metal Guy can't control himself. So strap yourself in for the latest spasm of Autism Hour... the Grand Unified Theory of Slam.

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

12:11 - Draghkar - At The Crossroads of Infinity (Unspeakable Axe - imprint of Dark Descent)

52:56 - Sepulchral Curse - Only Ashes Remain (Transcending Obscurity Records)

01:27:30 - Defeated Sanity - The Sanguinary Impetus (Willowtip Records)

01:59:35 - Embryectomy - Flamethrower Ecdysis (Morbid Generation Records)

02:20:06 - Autism Hour - The Grand Unified Theory of Slam

02:44:37 - Outro - House Of Atreus - "Oath of the Horatii," fr. From the Madness of Ixion

CORRECTION: Early on in the show, The Black Metal Guy accidentally combines Azath's Andrew Lee w/ his bandmate, Brandon Corsair, to make "Brandon Lee." That's Bruce Lee's son, who starred in - and made the ultimate sacrifice for - The Crow.

CLARIFICATION: Sepulchral Curse only shares two members with Solothus - Kari Kankaanpää (vocals) and Aleksi Luukka (guitars). Both also play in Yawning Void (Finnblack death-doom) with Tommi Ilmanen (drums and vocals).

Terminus Episode 11 - Ruin, Well of Night, Oncology, Life

We're back with a more eclectic show, as a palette-cleanser between last week's all black metal special, and next week's all death metal special. We lead off with a couple strong picks from the US underground -- first, the new comp from Ruin, a punkish doom-death band who are rapidly chopping their way to the top of the pile of limbs; second, a formidable debut from Well of Night, a Swedish-style black/death band with some jaw-dropping riffs and an original, distinctively American take on the tradition. Then we shift gears to Northern Ireland's Oncology, who play top-shelf brutal death without compromising on death/thrash kicks and sick pit riffs.

It's been a minute since we did a straight-up hardcore record, so we close with an in-depth review of Japanese crasher-crust veterans Life, who fuse the usual ripping, noisfvkked speed with more metallic, epic chug. The Death Metal Guy -- an avowed crust-skeptic -- grills the Black Metal Guy with some tough questions about his other favorite genre. What is "arena crust?" What's the proper role of "epic"/"melodic" parts in crust songs? And eventually, the million-dollar question -- what makes a great crust record? Prepare for Full Metal Autism... with d-beats.

 

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

13:06 - Ruin - Plague Transmissions: Vol. 2 (Blood Harvest / Horror Pain Death Gore)

44:40 - Well of Night - The Lower Planes of Self-Abstraction (Independent)

01:22:37 - Oncology - Omniversal Antigenesis (Rising Nemesis Records)

01:47:22 - Life - Ossification of Coral (Not Enough / Desolate)

02:27:27 - Autism Hour - What makes a great crust record?

Terminus Episode 10 - Black Funeral, Kult Ofenzivy, Carnal Misanthropy, Laetitia in Holocaust

This week we bring you an all-BM special with new releases from four vital regional scenes, each with its own variant of the mainline black metal tradition: 90s USA, Czechia / Slovakia, Greece, and Italy. Black Funeral (US) gets us talking about "cool wizard music," and that concept keeps coming up with Kult Ofenzivy (CZ) and Laetitia in Holocaust (ITL), too. Carnal Misanthropy, on the other hand, are the barbarian warriors of the bunch, brandishing Atlantean swords upon the flesh-heap of the slain. All these bands have distinctive, even slightly "weird" songwriting styles, working far beyond the major trends in nowadays BM. If you're a bit tired of Sargeist or Mgla riffing, you'll appreciate this. And in a first for the show, it turns out we both love every one of these records. So we get really stoked -- hopefully you do, too.

CORRECTION: "Laetitia" is Latin, not modern Italian, and is the proper name of the *goddess* of happiness, as well as a name for the concept itself.

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / thanks to supporters / rundown of bands

12:43 - Black Funeral - Scourge of Lamashtu (Iron Bonehead)

56:00 - Kult Ofenzivy - Tak jsem Ji přizval k sobě  (Hexencave Productions)

01:35:51 - Carnal Misanthropy - Release The Wolf (Askio Productions)

02:04:58 - Laetitia in Holocaust - Heritage (Niflhel Records)

Terminus Episode 9 - Grundhyrde, Klagesturm, Violes Par Les Cygnes, Bell Witch, The Funeral Orchestra

This episode divides into two pretty distinct chunks -- noisy black metal and funeral doom that doesn't sound like "normal" funeral doom.

First, we've got selections from two new labels in the vanguard of the American raw BM scene -- Nithstang and Nihilistic Noise Propaganda (N.N.P.). Grundhyrde and Klagesturm both bring a distinctly American -- nasty, necro, vaguely hardcore-ish -- take on the classic French sound, and give us an excuse to talk over the massively influential French guitar style. Violes Par Les Cygnes take up the difficult but necessary task of fusing black metal with power electronics, without compromising on either side of the equation. How successful is it? And how does it fit in to the history of industrial / noise music?

Second, we compare two diametrically opposed versions of funeral doom -- Bell Witch's accessible, rockish laments, and The Funeral Orchestra's implacable, black-metalized rumblings. Bell Witch take some serious compositional risks -- will they pay off? The Funeral Orchestra use focused, ritual repetition to deadly effect. This segment leads us back to USBM forefathers, funeral doom foundations, and the dreaded legendary subgenre, "torture doom."

LINK: Check out Greg Biehl's Youtube channel for Nithstang and N.N.P. releases, and lots of other well-chosen underground shit.

CORRECTION: NNP is *not* from Pennsylvania, just works with some PA bands (Silvanthrone, Swarming, etc.).

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / rundown of bands and labels (more rambling than usual)

09:08 - Grundhyrde / Klagesturm - Split EP (Nithstang)

42:07 - Violes Par Les Cygnes - I (Nihilistic Noise Propaganda)

01:14:17 - Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough Volume I (Profound Lore)

01:51:15 - The Funeral Orchestra - Negative Evocation Rites (Nuclear War Now)

Terminus Episode 8 - Oppressive Descent, Sickening Horror, Thecodontion, Fluids

In black metal and death metal, it's always been a mark of excellence to push things to "inhuman" extremes. But what does that even mean? And why do we find beauty, truth, even inspiration, in the music of inhumanity? This week, we bring you four strong, inventive underground releases, each with its own inhuman aesthetic. Oppressive Descent (black metal) soars over WWI hellscapes on wings of elegiac, Old World song. Sickening Horror (tech death) sequences crystalline riffs at the heart of the void. Thecodontion (black/death) uses only bass and drums to channel the rumbling of tectonic plates, and the swirling of elemental force. Fluids (brutal death/grind) peels back the shiny plastic skin of our all-too-comfortable iWorld, revealing the blood and guts beneath. Towards the end of the show, in a segment we've begun to call "Autism Hour," we delve deeper into the ideas of inhumanity behind Fluids and Oppressive Descent.

If you're interested in this stuff, we suggest going back to check out the end of Episode 2, where a review of Encenathrakh spirals into our first take on the difference between DM and BM inhumanity. (Episode 2 is currently podcast-only -- coming soon to Youtube.)

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

06:40 - Oppressive Descent - Alchemy and War (Red Door Records)

51:55 - Sickening Horror - Chaos Revamped (Pathologically Explicit Recordings)

01:18:08 - Thecodontion - Supercontinent (I, Voidhanger / Repose Records)

01:43:39 - Fluids - Ignorance Exalted (Maggot Stomp)

02:17:14 - Autism Hour - inhumanity and power

Terminus Episode 7 - ...And Oceans, The Committee, Haljoruna, Kommodus

This week, Terminus goes full Joe Rogan with an epic, 3-hour black metal special. We lead with a face-off between two new takes on polished, melodic BM. Will Finland's late-00s veterans ...And Oceans surf to victory on the recent tidal wave of symphonic-BM-worship? Or will they fall to the Machiavellian machinations of The Committee? I bet you can guess. Our segment on The Committee builds to an exploration of Utopian Deception's thoughtful, strategically ambiguous politics, which may interest fans of last year's DSO and Mgla. (As well as Laibach, who we *should* have mentioned.)

After that, we hurtle headlong into two very modern takes on pagan primitivism. Haljoruna make a sullen but ecstatic midwinter racket, full of authentic Scandinavian folksong. Is it black metal or neofolk? Does it sound like Summoning? How could this very promising project solidify their sound? Finally, we turn to the new one by Kommodus, a prolific project that deserves serious attention. We debate the strengths and weaknesses of Lepidus Plague's relentlessly savage songwriting, and follow his esoteric reference points far afield, from Holy Terror hardcore to the Roman wolfcult and the worship of speed.

CORRECTION: "Haljoruna" doesn't have a "thorn" in it. My cohost comes closer to pronouncing it correctly. My bad, dudes.

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

06:15 - ...And Oceans, Cosmic World Mother (Season of Mist)

35:00 - The Committee, Utopian Deception (Folter Records)

01:25:00 - Haljoruna, Midvinterblot (Old Mill Artifacts)

02:00:06 - Kommodus, Kommodus (Independent/Goatowarex?)