"Heirs of Sisyphus" by Gutter Instinct

Heirs of Sisyphus

You may recall Gutter Instinct's debut record, Age of Fanatics.

It's possible you've forgotten, because it has been a few years since we discussed that record.

To catch you back up to speed. They're a death metal band from the other side of the Atlantic where everything is pretty cold all of the time.

Gutter Instinct seems to be bolder and stronger than they were a few years back.

Their primal urge seems to countermand their gutter instinct as it were.

Many extreme bands, some of them on quite popular farewell tours at present, are comfortable making the same albums over and over. The Swedes from Helsingborg have chosen a different path and they've made a spectacular follow up album.

Now let's see what they've got to say about the matter shall we?

Vinyl Review: "Unzip The Horizon" by Moira Smiley

Unzip The Horizon

There was once a time in my life that I could only listen to the most extreme music.

Or at the very least that it would be wrong to listen to music that didn't have the right instruments in it.

Could you possibly picture someone like me listening to a banjo album?

Why the very idea!

(Don't worry Twilight Fauna, Sam Gleaves, Tall Tall Trees, and yes, Steve Martin, I'm leading up to something.)

Even more repellent would be listening to acoustic music that wasn't folk music and by folk music, naturally we mean songs like If I Had A Hammer and the what not.

Foods We Love With 20 Watt Tombstone

20 Watt Tombstone

Well, this has become a rather popular series hasn't it?

Apparently, there's one thing bands all have in common: They need to eat.

But, as for our friends from Wisconsin, 20 Watt Tombstone....I'd like to relate a small Wisconsin story that actually happened this weekend past.

If you're on my Instagram, you've already seen this, but I acquired some New Glarus Beer in a charity auction.

Look, I didn't say my Wisconsin story was cool now did I? Being as I've only been to the state on the Amtrak on the way to the Twin Cities and driving through it for the same purpose, my Wisconsin story pouch is kind of empty...

Anyway...let's see if they say anything about New Glarus Beer.

LP Review: "Bones In The Fire" by Thought Eater

Bones In The Fire

Do you ever have the problem of not knowing where to start?

It's kind of like that feeling I have now. In my early 40's, I'm trying to get more active.

After living the life I have, now it's about finding a way to improve the quality of my life without causing serious harm to my already harmed knees.

So, that's kind of where I'm at with my review of Thought Eater's full length debut. (They did a split with Iron Jawed Guru a couple of years go as well.)

Nothing of what I've said up there, to me, is a statement on Thought Eater's record, but it's harder to take my standard approach with this album than with others. Listening to Bones In The Fire is different than most other instrumental albums out there.

LP Review: "It's Hard To Have Hope" by Svalbard

It's Hard To Have Hope

It's becoming a mission of mine to get my daughter into eating Asian foods of some variety. I've gotten her to agree to try a Chinese Buffet.

It's not my personal favorite Asian food, but one of my all time great loves is Chinese food. Honestly, I'm not as well versed in the authentic fare as I should be, but the stuff they serve in restaurants here is a really wonderful thing.

To the best of my knowledge we don't have any Vietnamese, Thai, or Japanese buffets here in St. Louis. My daughter is horribly picky and eats with her eyes, so a buffet is necessary so she can try each thing.

Buffet restaurants are interesting things. Say what you want, but as a parent to a picky child eater and the husband to a very picky eater, they're kind of a godsend....

DLP Review: "Devoured" by Amarok

Devoured

Last year I finally read Shogun by James Clavell.

Folks who are about my age may recall the mini-series TV event, but won't remember it terribly well without having revisited it.

It's hard to believe, as a card carrying otaku, that I hadn't read this novel or seen the mini-series, but here we are.

The novel is based around a Englishman who sailed from the Netherlands to South America and then on to, as they called them, The Japans.

It's hard to conceptualize their voyage in our highly connected age. These men climbed aboard sailing vessels armed only with incomplete maps and sextants. In those days, sea travel was perilous. Most of the men who set off on that voyage died.

Food Sessions with Body Void

Body Void

The fine people from Body Void are talking to us today in order to help us understand what they put in the empty spaces in their corporeal forms.

If you're unfamiliar with the Doom/Sludge fellows check this out:

Body Void originally formed in the spring of 2014 as Devoid with the aim to combine the most extreme elements of hardcore punk and doom metal, bridging furious crust salvos and the crushing stillness of drone doom. 

This is the kind of music that will get your blood pumping.

1. For me, lunch is usually the meal where I don't have to deal with the Napoleon of Food. So it's my favorite meal. What's your favorite meal of the day?

Video: "Skull Session" by SKINLESS

Finally, someone has taken aim at the smelly hippies in Southern California and Grateful Dead Fans. It's honestly been far too long.

But, I'm going to take offense at taking pot shots at Cats and Sushi. That's just beyond the pale, SKINLESS. Also, I'm going to point out that all of you in fact HAVE SKIN. How can you be anything but posers if you have skin?

Either way, keep rockin' in the free world.

LP Review: "Occulta religiO" by Abhor

Occulta religiO

It's amazing what a small piece of flair can for something otherwise mundane.

At Glacially Musical we abhor (get it) the mundane, save for those moments when milquetoast music just gets it done. That is a rare occurrence.

In any type of art, the out of place piece of the work can take many forms. Progressive rock and metal bands have been spending their whole lives mind melding flamenco and psychedelic guitars...with mixed results.

What about a black and white movie or photograph, but there's one small piece of color. One can't help but think back to the infamous red coat in Schindler's List. How much time is there in our lifetimes to unpack the seemingly out of place?

Video: "Eternal Clash" by Ancient Oak Consort

In times such as these, it's critical that we are able to turn off our negative feelings.

Were you aware that science has concluded that metalheads are the most rational, best smelling, and best handlers of their negative emotions? Well, it's true, because of science.

If you're thinking about how you don't like metal as much as others, but you'd certainly enjoy being one of the best smelling people on planet earth, here's a great way for you to improve your personal musk: Ancient Oak Consort.

This song is appropriately metal and exceedingly melodic. Also, for you Literature Majors, I'm going to give you a hint, the change from color to black and white footage, that means something.

In the meantime, PREORDER Hate War Love.

Vinyloscopy with Francis of Old Man Wizard

Old Man Wizard...what can I tell you that I didn't already tell you when they were telling us about the foods they love.

So, we'll let Francis do the talking. Here are some comments on the new record.

This album is the result of a years-long winding (and fairly bumpy) road. I started writing it before we released our first record (I think “Never Leave” actually almost made it onto Unfavorable), after which my old band, The Dread Crew of Oddwood, devoured a great deal of my creative attention and time for a few years (and I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have to Old Man Wizard). 

 

We actually almost recorded Blame It All On Sorcery at some point in 2014 or 2015, but Kris developed pretty bad tendonitis and we had to replace him on drums for a couple of shows. We all wanted him on the album so we decided to take a break until he was able to play again. I think that at the end of the day, all of those hurdles led to a more creative display of the songs, which have been on the back of my mind the whole time. I didn’t change any of them too much, but the time away from the band allowed me to really think about production choices and the presentation of the songs as a cohesive album. 

 

We went out on a limb with the whole Kickstarter thing, but enough people came through that we got the money to finish putting the album out on our own, and I can’t thank everyone enough for that. To the few of you who have been patiently waiting years for this, I apologize for the delay, and to everyone else, I really hope you love this thing as much as we do.

Video: "Shadows" by ZaRRaZa

Well, let's see about something new. How many things can you name that starts with a Z? Well, get ready to that to that very long list right in front of zucchini!

ZaRRaZa.

What is ZaRRaZa?

Formed in 2010, ZARRAZA is one of the hardest working metal bands in Central Asia.  They independently released two EPs (Bullets & Beliefs in 2012 and Cutting Meat, Fast & Loud in 2013 ) and have travelled across Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan to bring their virulent brand of death metal to hungry audiences.

If that's not enough for you, check out their video below.

Vinyl Review: "Sorry For Being Sexy" by Formosa

Sorry for being sexy

It's time to bring you into my process a little bit to help differentiate my regular reviews from the vinyl ones.

The vast majority of the albums I review are via digital promos, i.e. downloads, streams, whathaveyou and obviously, that's totally cool as you may have noticed how many have been posted over the nearly Six Years of Glacially Musical.

When the digital reviews are done, I'm sad to say, the records are typically streamed through my shitty desktop PC speakers.

As Glacially Musical isn't paying my bills, concessions have to be made and it's important to balance my life. This site is an avocation and a labor of love.

When we started the vinyl reviews back in 2016, it never occurred to me how different it might be listening to these bands' albums on my personal stereo system. If you've been reading the vinyl interviews, you know about my home setup.

Foods We Love with Witchkiss

Witchkiss

There's a new kind band out there in the metal scene looking take a bite out of the ether. Witchkiss are smart with a sense of swagger.

From their bio....

From the antediluvian shores of the murky Hudson arises a new force in the world of metal. Articulate, elegant and ridiculously fucking heavy, Witchkiss are part of a growing movement coming out of upstate New York in the world of crushingly loud and punishing music. 

Built around raw emotion, sonic poetry and a sense of longing for a life lost, there is a haunting majesty to the work of Witchkiss. These Beacon, NY natives are fusing the sounds of bands like Subrosa, Yob and Isis to craft songs that contemplate the neverending cycle of life and death.

There's a lot to process here, but today we're going to talk about what they eat.

Video: "Ignus Fatuus" by Lelahell

There are few things cooler than a great juxtaposition. Like who doesn't love a good jumbo shrimp? To me that's both an oxymoron and a juxtaposition.

Deal with that.

One of my favorite juxtapositions is African Death Metal. There's naught wrong with any of those things, but it's different when we get extreme metal from that continent.

Lelahell's Redouane Aouameur is one of Algeria's death metal pioneers. It's been a few years since we've heard anything from them, but if Ignus Fatuus is any indication of what's to come, this may be Aouameur's best metal to date.

LP Review: "Blood Oracle" by Morgengrau

Blood Oracle

In four or five years, it will be interesting to look back on this time to see what the reviews were like.

Full disclosure, my cat died this past week.

This is the first thing I've written since then. Yes, she was just a cat, but she was my cat. My special cat.

So, there's a hole in my soul that's cat shaped right now.

The best thing right now to do with this information, naturally, is to think about brutal death metal and submerge myself into that realm of black death right?

Well, in true metal fashion, that's precisely what we are doing today. The great beyond and the grim reaper, they can go to hell, fuck right off, or use your particular favorite euphemism.

Video: "Mora" by Mascharat

There are times when you need to watch a lyric video for a song written in Italian and then see if your tenth grade Spanish classes will help you  understand the words.

Personally, I'm just grooving out to the classic black metal sounds of Mascharat, who interestingly enough is from Italy.

Their debut album came out last year and you can get it on the Bandcamp.

LP Review: "Absence of Light" by Dying Awkward Angel

Absence of Light

As an American, I often think about what I can do to emulate what other nations have done.

That's the biggest part of our culture. Bringing traditions from our old countries. There's honestly not much in this world that's uniquely American.

Today after listening to Stuff You Missed In History Class, it occurred to me that it's time to learn how to cook some French food.

It is after all, delightful.

Being a native St. Louisan, Italian food is in my blood. My family doesn't go back to that delicious, boot shaped nation, but check out St. Louis's most famous neighborhood, The Hill, and you might find a couple of folks whose families do.