TERMINUS: extreme metal podcast

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?)

Terminus Episode 6 - Irae, I'm In A Coffin, The Ghost Inside, Basic Torture Procedure

In our most contrarian and combative show yet, we take a tour through three of metal's most maligned, marginal subgenres -- DSBM,"melodic metalcore," and goregrind. But first, we check out the new record by Irae, one of the forefathers of today's formidable Portuguese black metal scene. This is the most we've disagreed about anything so far. We argue the uses and abuses of Mayhem riffs, and struggle over the border between the "minimalist" and the "boring." After this, we plunge into an abyss of teen angst, where we find a work of strange and challenging beauty, and relive our high school days of shitting on pop-punk bands. So pull up your black hoodies, tighten your studded belts, and meet us in the abandoned church parking lot... I hear Tim has weed, yo.

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

05:06 - Irae, Lurking in the Depths

36:53 - I'm In A Coffin, Waste of Skin

01:04:04 - The Ghost Inside, The Ghost Inside

01:23:15 - Basic Torture Procedure - Domination Through Torture

Terminus Episode 5 - Axis of Light, Old Corpse Road, Gravedigger, Basement Torture Killings

This deluxe 2.5 hour edition of Terminus revolves around two extended segments. For the first half, we take the excellent new records by Axis of Light and Old Corpse Road as our portals into the bleak, windswept world of Northern English black metal. Here, we return to a question raised in our first episode, on Winterfylleth and Paradise Lost - is there a UKBM sound? After a (relatively) quick look at the surprisingly strong new Gravedigger record, we follow Basement Torture Killings on their virtuosic, corpse-littered romp through grindcore, hardcore, and (melodic!) Swedish death metal. This gets us talking about how grind "works" as a genre. Finally, we follow BTK's roots back to the more "epic" strains of 00s crust and grind.

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

07:20 -- Axis of Light, Axis of Light

42:31 -- Old Corpse Road, On Ghastly Shores Lays The Wreckage Of Our Lore

01:13:30 -- Gravedigger, Fields of Blood

01:43:15 -- Basement Torture Killings, Lessons In Murder: An interactive audio course in homicide.

Terminus Episode 4 - Xibalba, Centinex, Odraza, Yfel 1710

Easily our most digressive, most aggressive episode yet. For the first time, both of us agree 100% on something: the new Xibalba is a masterpiece, the chugging elegy for a USA in flames. But what we can't agree on is Odraza vs. Yfel 1710. We use these two new releases to talk over the state of Polish black metal in the wake of The Mgla Effect. What are its strengths and weaknesses? Where could/should it go from here? What effect are these bands having on the BM scene at large? Eventually, one of your hosts succumbs to his ancestral curse... Full Black Metal Autism (pictured above).

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

05:51 -- Xibalba, Anos en Infierno. Intro to Xibalba -- death metal heaviness in hardcore form / Beatdown reborn as funeral doom / Ambitious album-based composition, where individual songs only "make sense" as parts of the whole.

37:15 -- Centinex, Death in Pieces. Early Centinex - unique and underrated Swedish DM / This album - death metal trying to 90s hardcore / Centinex vs. Demonical / resentment born from love.

56:47 -- Odraza, Rzezcom. Mgla and The Mgla Effect / Odraza's place in the Polish scene / "Urban grit black metal" / Peste Noire and Lugubrum / Playful experimentalism and dynamic, "open" playing / Autistic Ranting.

1:34:45 -- Yfel 1710, Willa Wisielcow. Intro to Malignant Voices / What happened to Plaga?? / Promising use of guitar feedback in BM / more Autistic Ranting, from the other guy this time.

Terminus Episode 3 - Forgotten Tomb, Putrid Pile, Azath, Ancient Gate

Third run of a new podcast focusing on extreme metal. This time, we get into DSBM's rocknroll problem, obsess over the finer points of death metal riffing, respond to Rauta's review of Azath, and reveal the future of mystical kvlt BM. Features Malazan's draconic Eleint (Azath) and Lovecraft's cavern-lurking Ancient Ones (Ancient Gate).

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

04:05 - Forgotten Tomb, Nihilistic Estrangement. Awkward hard rock vs. graceful art-goth.

29:02 - Putrid Pile, Revel In Lunacy. Die-hard one-man death metal from before everyone had a one-man metal band.

50:11 - Interlude: "Chicken Walk," Hasil Adkins

52:18 - Azath, Through A Warren of Shadow. Celtic vs. Gothic font. Reply to Rauta: the glories (or perils?) of high-speed stock riffage and really loud snare.

01:14:55 - Ancient Gate, Empire Beyond Dusk. Reawakening the spirits of early Blut Aus Nord and Judas Iscariot. Necrotic BM mastery -- blending bite and beauty.

01:40:25 - Hellenic BM, meet... melodeath?? Ft. Varathron, Crowsreign ("There Is No God"), and a lot of rambling about melodeath, Fear Factory, Napalm Death, etc.