Misþyrming - Hof (2017) [single]

One song will have to do to satiate my lust for Iceland's Misþyrming. This is different than what we heard in 2015, but this shouldn't comes as a surprise. As far as generalizations go within the Icelandic musical cloth, Icelanders get bored with playing it safe and sticking to the working formula. "If it's working, we gotta change it" I can hear someone saying. Good, fuck your comforts.

I'll let you listen to it rather than me telling you to expect a couple Hatebreed riffs and a Teitanblood 'Purging Tongues' type of dialogue. Nah, I won't.

Misþyrming (bandcamp)

The Coltranes - Everything I Dream B/W Let's Keep Our Fingers Crossed (2016)

The Coltranes come in heavy and with both feet planted in weird juju, noisy and wonky garage punk territory. Not a bad work ethic for a group of slime punks, they keep thier bandcamp nobly active with a handful of LP's, EP's, splits, etc. Better yet, nothing not worth your time.

Throw a couple bucks at these dudes if you're thoroughly inspired, you can have their whole discography for the cost of a pint, dink.

The Coltranes Bandcamp

Ljå - Til Avsky For Livet (2006)

Frostbitten black metal from Stavanger, Norway. This album becomes a decade old next month, which doesn't really matter but then again, neither do you, and neither do I. Til Avsky For Livet is the only full-length Ljå have released and may ever release for that matter as they have become about inactive as a Nun's cunt for the last 5 years.

Black metal elitists and puritans can release a collective and weighty sigh; Til Avsky For Livet follows the black metal ethos incredulously without sacrificing any ferocity or competency. The album in it's entirety is draining to listen to, through it's blistering pace it aims to sap your energy and rob you of all positivity. Winter is for black metal.

Ps; good luck snagging this on vinyl for under a $100, as expected.

Ljå - Til Avsky For Livet (Zippyshare)

Sumac - What One Becomes (2016)

Leave your whimsy in your grandmothers panty drawer, forget about happiness, abandon all faith and hope, disregard your well-being and submit to the sonic nihilism of Sumac's What One Becomes. I'm going to compile a small best of 2016 list soon; Small because I seemingly spent more time last year listening to podcasts and old records that I simultaneously and unintentionally tossed up a big fuck you to all new releases in the process.

One thing you can count on like you can count on shit smelling foul is that What One Becomes will be on that list. Sumac improved on their debut album, The Deal in every conceivable way; They bulked up the production so when it's plodding, the air is thick and the form glacial. The drums are mixed with tact, the snare pop is mega satisfying and the cymbals are spot on in the fray, a feat studio-headphone wearing shitters tend to fail at.

In it's entirety this album is a towering monolith in the world of doom and sludge, bang on.

Doom on my Wayward sons,

What One Becomes