Hank Wood and the Hammerheads - Use Me 7" (2020)

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Hank Wood and the Hammerheads might be the last bastion of defence in the realms of sonic austerity, in the swirling ether of New York garage punk, amidst the grime of the sewage causeways and alleyways there is definitely a beating heart that still rides under a tattered and torn banner proclaiming rock and roll in all its authenticity, and Hank Wood and the Hammerheads have been a clear, albeit modest, part of that ticking heart.

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Use Me continues along with the bands progression in sound and explores some untrodden territory within its grooves and has moved even further away from the more feral and caustic sound of their earlier releases but what it gives up in speed and ferocity it hits back with equal force in musical heft and the hooks go so deep. If you're unfamiliar with the bands earlier releases and ignorant to the sound they helped pave, stop reading this now and go do a deep dive because it's absolutely worth it. This new record is still crass and charged full of jangling energy, but it's a different energy source, drawing from the well of The Stooges, Richard Hell, MC5, but with an attack plan that's more akin to Germany's Dean Dirg rather than the former studs. Still snotty and shooting out phlegm behind poignant if not potent words is Hank Wood and if you ever saw these guys play live you were enthralled, filled with vim and vigour and you wanted to do something about something… You just forgot what it was. Get into this, or forever accept defeat!

Use Me 7" (Bandcamp)

Warp Chamber - Implements of Excruciation (2020)

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Chris Bruni of Profound Lore Records has always had his hands on the pulse of death metal, feeling for signs of life and then giving that life existence on the planes of sonic annihilation. He's had a few misses during his tenure (my opinion) but other than that, Profound Lore Records is one of the most consistent record labels out in the abyss of all things metal or tied to that which is heavy.

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Warp Chamber come out swinging on their debut full-length, a full-bodied attack of churning and cavernous death metal with a predilection for fetid guitar tones, bloated vocals and a backdrop that sounds nothing short of putrid. You get the point I'm not so subtly making, yeah? implements of Excruciation isn't reinventing the wheel or anything, but the integrity and brute force in which they will pummel you for thirty straight minutes is a thing to behold. There isn't a single second of filler floating around in these caves of churning riffs and vocal belches, it's absolutely filthy, and the way the drumming manages to bob and weave its way around with adept blasts and fills restores a fragment of my faith within 2020's ability to impress upon me. One of the better releases of the year so far, and it's not even close.

Implements of Excruciation (bandcamp)

Spectral Lore / Mare Cognitum - Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine (2020) [split]

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This split is blowing so many releases out of the water – It's less of a split and more of a joined-collaborative of full-lengths between two gladiators in the arena of discordant black metal with a penchant for the esoteric and cosmic – Between the two of them, Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum are punching way over their weight on Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine with a total running time just shy of 2 hours. It's colossal in full sway of the word and It's a lot to digest in one sitting and though it might even be guilty of being lofty at times you should pay attention. If not, you're getting it all wrong.

Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine (bandcamp)

Black Curse - Endless Wound (2020)

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Black Curse seems to be something of an amalgamation from the bands Spectral Voice, Blood Incantation, Khemmis and Primitive Man, which is to say they are in no way strangers to the sonic equivalent to swamp water. This album is a heady trip down into the depths of death metal, raw and smouldering almost to the point of decay, guitars that sound like stuck pigs marinated in reverb and grime and vocals that stylistically remind me of a lot of the Spanish sounds of death metal – bands like Teitanblood, Proclamation, Wrathprayer and glimpses of the neurotic nature of Swallowed.

Black Curse - Endless Wound (bandcamp)

Nox Formulae - Drakon Darshan Satan (2020)

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Dark Descent Records is a label you can set your watch to quite consistently when it comes to digging into something that satiates that filthy hankering you may or may not often get for something putrid, something that exudes fumes of rot from a bloated corpse, with leaking bile and black candles of ceremony. Take that as you will, or as you won't, it's all the same really.

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I'm impatiently waiting for more releases as we're already in March and there's only one full length (almost out) to speak of thus far, and one phenomenal split release from Anhedonist and Spectral Voice. To come out at the end of March though, is this promising release from Nox Formulae. I've only heard the one song up on bandcamp but I can already say I'm fully bought in. All in on the pot, pre flop, as some might say. Take a listen for yourself and understand that form isn't always linear, and style isn't always cohesive, but chaos can be beautiful especially when its saturated in that cold sonic sound that often comes out of the scene in Greece.

Here's the thing though, (I feel like I get into this frame of mind every single year) we're approaching the first quarter of the new year and I have yet to be floored by any one release yet in the arena of metal. Which I only bring up because maybe I'm missing something? I mean my ears aren't constantly on the ground, so I hope I am. If anyone has any sources or recommendations please smack me upside the head with them. Forever grateful, Chris.

Nox Formulae - Drakon Darshan Satan (bandcamp)

Raspberry Bulbs - Before the Age of Mirrors (2020)

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Raspberry Bulbs have been quietly lurking around for over a decade dishing out a venomous mix of black metal and lo-fi punk with a considerable amount of grime gunked up between each riff and a penchant for the colour pink, which is of no consequence or importance, I just wanted to prove I'm not colourblind. On their 4th LP, the band sell their souls to Relapse Records (who with full credit to them has made major improvements from their earlier days) which for whatever reason I find daunting when it comes to anything that thrives off a raw and DIY aesthetic, but I don't want to be a defeatist and besides I'm liking what I'm hearing out of 'Before The Age of Mirrors'. More of the same, a ratty marriage of black metal and punk curtained in filth as you would expect from Bone Awl's Marco del Rio. HARK!

Raspberry Bulbs - Before The Age of Mirrors (bandcamp)

Jordablod - The Cabinet of Numinous Song (2020)

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Here's a new one I've just landed on from the Iron Bonehead faction, I'll normally scour the new releases found there as the label has earned its way into my trusting arms (ears, whatever) thanks to a plethora of solid releases – How about that Blot & Bod album last year, a real crusher – So when I saw this new album by Jordablod, a motley trio from Sweden hellbent on pulling from sounds across a wide range of sonic landscapes, but still adamant about the bulk of sound being a mixture of doom, death and black metal. It works, and I'm compelled to enjoy the way in which the drums are recorded,  a thick rumbling, and at times plodding, kick drum, that positions itself between a layer of guitar fog which at times seems to float around old rock n' roll and psychedelia riffs. I might be doing a poor job of describing that, to be fair, I'm surviving off the fumes of a few hours of sleep and a undercurrent of a lingering hangover daze. Listen on, my wayward sons.

Jordablod - The Cabinet of Numinous Song (bandcamp)

Interview; Harassor / Vorpal Sword / Moonknight / Pray For Snow - Horus aka James Brown III

This is an interview, or rather, more of a conversation that I've been meaning to have with James Brown III (His real name) for a long time coming now, and we finally did that sporadically over the summer, (which says a lot about how late I am to posting this up on here). It's more of an organic conversation rather than a set of pre-mediated questions, which admittedly was far more music based than I sometimes go for, so rather than ask 'what is your favourite kind of soup' or 'do you like your Corn Flakes soggy or crispy' or whatever else I might normally contrive.

I digress, I've been a long time appreciator of Horus' work since I first heard Moonknight's Ligeia back in 2012 and I've been subsequently listening to just about everything else out on Rising Beast Recordings ever since, totally ambivalent to the fact that it was all done by a singular human being. Over the course of a few weeks, him and I talked back and forth and I had the privilege of parsing between this bit of meaningless minutia and that. Everything is meaningless.  But I humbly thank James Brown III for his time anyway. An exemplary musician with the coolest name I've ever heard.

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Before we dive into the vast ether that is your music and massage through the fascia of this sound and that, let’s wade through a few icebreakers. What music out there currently has it’s hooks in you and what is it particularly about it that is appealing to you?


Horus) I’m constantly checking out new music. For black metal I really like some of the bands coming out of the Korpsånd Circle in Denmark. Ærekær is fucking fantastic, a really magical blend of dungeon synth and raw black metal. Grifla da la Secta is great too, and I like Jordslået. I also love this band Pa Vesh En from Belarus, it crosses between the later-era Velvet Cacoon / Clair Cassis and the raw hypnotic style of Black Cilice or Candelabrum from Portugal.

Outside of metal I listen to a lot of dreampop and indie pop music. My favorites are No Joy, Tamaryn, Ariel Pink, Barlow, The Cleaners From Venus, Matt Berry, Dum Dum Girls, lots and lots more.

I guess I just think about what draws me to like a band...I seem to always search for some type of beauty in the music-whether it’s pretty and uplifting, or a sad beauty, or even a malevolent beauty. And I find beauty in lo-fi music. The hiss and gritty textures can add emotive power to the atmosphere. It’s all about the atmosphere. I want to drown the world in reverb.


Hahaha drown the world in reverb, nice. You being into the Korpsånd Circle sound makes total sense, I think those interests clearly shine through in your sound, but did you ever go deeper into the dungeon synth side of things?

I can see how influences of dreampop and indie pop have seeped into your music as well, especially in the warmer flourishes of Moonknight or Vorpal Sword. Did you ever fall into John Maus’ work? He's collaborated often with Ariel Pink, especially on his 2006 debut ‘Songs’ (something I’m currently over playing). Finally, What’s your take on Darkthrone’s latest album ‘Old Star'?

Horus) Hmm dungeon synth as a whole hasn’t fully grabbed me, I love Old Tower and Stefan Traunmüller’s ambient work from the 90’s but I don’t return to the style too often, I need to be in a certain mood.

Oh yeah, shoegaze and dreampop have always influenced me. Really the first Moonknight album Toplov, it’s all there, I was trying to blend shoegaze pop and raw black metal. That album is almost a thesis statement for everything I’ve done since then. The seeds of Vorpal Sword are also in Toplov.

I don’t know John Maus, I will have to look him up! Yeah after listening to Ariel Pink I’ve become a fan of many of his collaborators too. This guy Jorge Elbrecht plays in his live band but is also a solo artist and prolific engineer/mixer, everything he touches is gold. He recently released a shoegaze black metal album under the name Coral Cross, it’s great!

Oh man I love the new Darkthrone, which is not too surprising, I’ve really enjoyed the direction they’ve been going in. I think the new album is a little heavier and doomier than the last one, and the songs are simpler too. Fenriz just locks onto these simple and monotonous drum patterns. The riffs are lean, with no-frills and the songs just pummel you.

Likewise, the direction since 'F.O.A.D.' has really done it for me. Would you say both Fenriz and Nocturno’s extensive understanding of music new and old, across all genres can be attributed to how well the two of them can execute a song? * I like to think there's some accounting for taste.

When you’re writing new material,  do you ever take into account the elitism within purist black metal and try not to deviate too far from that path or do you always do what you want with no second guessing?

Horus) Regarding Darkthrone, I think their vast knowledge of music informs them a lot. I come up with a riff sometimes and I have no idea where it came from, or what the hell I was listening too. I get the sense that with Darkthrone there are no accidents, those guys know exactly what they want and their tastes can get really specific.

Wow that last question is a big one for me. The truth is I am constantly wrestling between doing what I want musically and then worrying what other people will think of it. I have a whole batch of Vorpal Sword songs that got cut because I was afraid they went too far in the pretty/dreampop direction and I freaked myself out. I’ve recorded entire albums and then shelved them for years, I have a vast archive. I’m coming around these days and trying to have courage, I want to get some of this stuff out there cause I believe it’s really good… But yeah, releasing music is terrifying hahaha.

I agree about Darkthrone, they seem to exist and operate in a musical realm of their own, and they almost can’t fuck up. On that note, what's your favourite Darkthrone album, song and album cover?

Horus) Man, this question sent me into a frenzy of revisiting all the old Darkthrone albums and artwork haha. Favorite album would have to be Under a Funeral Moon with Panzerfaust a close second. Those early albums can’t be beat. The artwork too, the high-contrast black & white, classic. But I always thought the original art for Total Death was great too, that sci-fi landscape sticks out from all their other cover art.



This segues into my next question. Across all of the music you release, there seems to be more than just a modicum of thought on the layout design and artwork itself, where does all of that come from?


Horus) I’ve always done my own layouts and most of the art. One of my best friends in Louisville, Kentucky is this artist William David Pollard, he’s been my regular Moonknight cover artist since Ligeia. He  and his partner Eric Rakutt started Ghost Cat Studio here and they are always throwing art shows and local events. 

Anyways yeah, I learned how to use Photoshop pretty much so I could do my own layouts. I really enjoy it, it’s another part of the creative process for me. All my life whenever I got a new cassette, CD or LP I always studied the art and layout, looking at all the pictures, reading all the credits and lyrics etc, so yeah that’s an important part of it for me.


Going back to what we were saying before, about the vulnerability of putting your music out there and it being terrifying is a fair point. Whenever you put anything out there it's wide open for critique, but I’m thinking you should find a way to release those unreleased songs.

Horus) I am actually working on a lot of archival music now, starting with my old shoegaze project PRAY FOR SNOW. I have a “lost” album of neofolk/dreampop songs called “Inheliopic”, I just finished mixing and mastering it after it had sat on a shelf for nearly 12 years. There is a TON of unreleased Moonknight material too, and I’ve got a batch of that in the pipeline. As for VORPAL SWORD, I will either eventually gather up the balls to release the really pretty stuff or I will come up with another name for it, I dunno yet, haha.


I’m trying to wrap my head around what a mix of neofolk and dreampop would sound like - good I imagine - any band recommendations there? I'm equally trying to wrap my head around how you manage to be so prolific… What's the secret sauce of productivity, Horus?

Horus) Soon I’ll be sending you a DL code for that PRAY FOR SNOW “Inheliopic” album. I don’t exactly combine neofolk and dreampop on it; it’s more like there are some neofolk songs and some shoegazey electronica songs. I’m imagining myself what neofolk and dreampop combined sounds like. There is a band I can point to as a reference - KEY from Finland, it’s a side project of one of the Circle of Ouroboros guys. Gothic folky songs, almost a medieval vibe, with these snappy beats and a hazy, lo-fi production. It crosses into 60’s psychedelic pop for me. There are two albums of really wonderful and catchy songs, they have been on my regular rotation.

There was a piece of advice I read from an artist somewhere, he said, when it comes to your art, "you have to immerse yourself to the point that it hurts you to be away from it." I definitely go through spells, but when I’m really excited about working on music it’s all I can think about. And if I’m going to work, or out with friends, or shopping or whatever, in the back of my mind I’m editing song arrangements, or coming up with song titles, and thinking about what I’m going to work on when I get  home. But also I work very fast. I have my writing and recording process streamlined, it’s very efficient.


Haha that quote sounds like something Bukowski would say, only with a less fatalistic tongue.  What things non-musically would you say inform and inspire your sound?

Horus) I draw inspiration from all sorts of places, I have a wide range of interests. I’m always borrowing titles for songs or lyrics from somewhere.

What releases specifically out in 2019 (and within the walls of metal) had your full attention? Any unequivocal end of year favourites? Also, anything on the horizon for Harassor?

Horus) Man, I had to go back and review the last 6 months of releases to see what stood out to me. There have been a lot of good ones and I don’t even cast as wide of a net these days. In no particular order:

Vaal - Ondood Rehearsal

Golden Ashes - Gold Are the Ashes of the Restorer

Ærekær - Avindskjold

Pa Vesh En - Cryptic Rites of Necromancy 

Psychotomimetic - Delirio Dimensional

Mork - Det Svarte Juv 

Wishfield - Wishfield

Måneskygge - Untitled MMXIX

Sadness - Circle of Veins

Phobonoid - La Caduta di Phobos

Coral Cross - 002

Trübsal - Verfehlte Entsagung

Harassor is on an “extended hiatus” of sorts as I left Los Angeles last fall and moved back to my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. The other two guys Sandor and Pete are still in LA. So that has slowed us down but there are still a few unreleased songs kicking around, and I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of playing live again in the future. 

Sandor is very active these days with his solo project Andorkappen, he plays out a lot and is always recording new material. Pete has a new doom band called Qaalm, they just released their first demo and started playing live, it’s pretty exciting stuff.


Damn, that’s a big list of names I’m unfamiliar with. I thought Ærekær, Mork, Pa Vesh En and Coral Cross were great though! You familiar at all with Void Eater from Norway? Real ugly stuff.

Ahh right on, so it’s a matter of proximity. Unfortunate for everyone but it happens. Is Living in LA on your radar again or are you happy not to uproot out of Kentucky?

Horus) I haven’t heard Void Eater! I’ll have to look them up.

I miss Los Angeles a lot, I have really great friends there and it’s an epicenter for all sorts of art, culture and food. But I was perpetually frustrated with the crowds and traffic. Being back in Kentucky is a big change. Louisville has grown as a city and there’s a lot more going on here than I remember. I was away for 17 years and enough has changed that it feels new again. My family is here and it’s good to be with them now.

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We'll end it all there, thanks for engaging, and equal thanks to anyone reading. 

"I'm currently going through a prolific phase" - Horus, aka James Brown III

I hope to enter into my prolific phase real soon, with more of these to come in the future, if the future ever gets here. Stay heavy, brothers and sisters.

Moonknight (bandcamp) * The new EP 'Discernment' was one of my favourites last year
Vorpal Sword (bandcamp)
Pray For Snow (bandcamp)
Harassor (bandcamp)

Fetid - Steeping Corporeal Mess (2019)

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This record to me stood out most last year, not to say it was my favourite release in 2019, but without a shadow of a doubt one of them anyway, it stood out for how swept under the rug this release was. Why? Erstwhile Blood Incantation and Tomb Mold lap up the hungry attention from hordes of mouth frothing neanderthals. Both those bands released great records, so thats cool, but what Fetid released was better wasn't it? Churning death metal that managed to dip its greasy paws into every primordial soup the genre has to offer with uncanny poise and precision, sounding like weathered vets rather than a three-piece releasing a debut album.

I can go on at length as to why this is such a good album, but rather than reading some carefully chosen adjectives that have been thrown around (here especially) a thousand times before I'll just say this in lieu of all that, if you have a penchant for death metal, listen to this and see why this monolithic albums towers over almost everything else. I've got to give credit to how good this whole album sounds too, drums are perfect. Immaculate even. Sounds so much heftier than the sum of its parts. Okay, I'm rambling and fumbling and my second coffee is starting to dance around in my soul and I'm starting to pass off my opinions as fact…

Fetid - Steeping Corporeal Mess (bandcamp)

Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir (2019)

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I've been waiting a long time for Teitanblood to unearth another full-length album. I don't know, is 5 years a long time? I guess so.

Whenever the conversation of bestial death metal should come up, Teitanblood should be one of the first bands uttered, along with a choice few. Purging Tongues still might be one of my favourite EP's of all time (I put some words to it back in 2012) and everything else that has been put forth by the band has gallivanted with ferocious cadence over anything else riding under the same banner. There is a certain gravitational immensity behind the atmosphere, an elemental force that churns its way through each track with such barbarity that it invokes something palpable – I'm not talking the same animality that a band like Revenge or Irkallian Oracle emit – but something cut from the same cloth  with a similar signal stretching upward, it's all together crushing and it's energy is a necessary force in this world of polarities. It's no mistake as to why Fenriz and Nocturno put a Teitanblood patch on the album cover of Darkthrone's Circle The Wagons.

The Baneful Choir has solidified it's spot as one of the albums to be reckoned with this year, all whirlwind heat and spiralling death metal. This album will appear somewhere on my albums of the year.

Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir (bandcamp)