MIRAR

I don't know too much about French metal band MIRAR, but their mix of prog, industrial, death metal, and more is pretty goddamn awesome.  New album "Gradus ad Parnassum" dropped a few days ago.  Download it here from the band and listen to the spooky and operatic album opener "Stjernebro" below.

Floating

Sweden's Floating mix elements of darkwave-tinged post punk, death rock, and blackened death metal to delirious, face-melting effect.  And new album "Hesitating Lights" is out this Friday.  Order it here from Transcending Obscurity Records and listen to "I Reached the Mew" below.

Zeal & Ardor

I somehow failed to post about Zeal & Ardor's new album "GREIF" when it dropped at the end of the summer.  I caught them on stage last week and everything, and still managed to drop the ball.  Well, i'm remedying that now.  "GREIF" is the first release as a full band and continues to push the sound into new and interesting directions.  It rules.  Check out "Are You the Only One Now?" below and get the LP here.

GAEREA

Next month, god willing, i'm going to get to see Zeal & Ardor perform in Austin along with opening act Zetra.  The other opening act is the masked Portuguese metal band GAEREA who just dropped their new album "Coma" last month, a blistering mix of black and death metal.  Check out the very appropriately and timely titled track "Hope Shatters" below and get the LP here from Season of Mist.

Daily Jam - Dethharmonic

Last week (or yesterday) got a little heavy, and rightfully so, but this week we’ll ease it back a little bit with my favorite song from my favorite animated death metal band. Imaginary metal…hooray!

I’ve long had deep love for cartoons, starting with the classic shorts from Disney, Looney Toons, and Hanna-Barbera, through Saturday morning lineups and bowls of sugary cereal, afterschool syndicated blocks, feature films, music videos, and onward, culminating in primetime fare and late night oddities. I love all of it, from the smart kids’ stuff to the stoner adult stuff, hours and hours of animated bliss parading before my eyeballs. Aside from a few ups and downs, both in quality and politically, the lineup of shows appearing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim has been pretty consistently great these last three decades, from the early Hanna-Barbera appropriating shows like Harvey Birdman all the way to stuff like Rick and Morty, an amazing program with the most obnoxious and ridiculous fans in the universe, and everything in between.

One of those shows was the darkly comic Metalocalypse, a macabre and violent satire of heavy metal culture that followed the misadventures of fictional death metal band Dethklok in a post-apocalyptic world. While the show was good, it never really grabbed my attention the way its peer programming did, but boy oh boy is the music a lot of fun. The animated headbangers in Dethklok absolutely nail the sound the show’s creators are both honoring and mocking to the umpth degree, and often with riffs and licks to rival any real metal band out there. Just listen to “Dethharmonic,” from 2007’s The Dethalbum, and if you have even a passing affinity for melodic death metal, you’ve got to admit that it’s an utter behemoth of sound, all with satirical lyrical content skewering the wealthy’s aversion to taxes. Credit to writer, comedian, animator, voice actor, and musician Brendon Small, whose work as Dethklok elevates the show to something more than just crude jokes and parody.

“Prepare the laser-beam. I’m gonna use it tonight. Engage the laser-beam. It’s gonna end your life.”

Daily Jam - Heartwork

I'm tired, sore (i turned my ankle on Friday), and also insanely busy for the foreseeable future.  Here's a little death metal from Carcass.  Listen to "Heartwork" below, our Daily Jam.

Zeal & Ardor

It was a pretty banner day for Sub Pop yesterday.  Aside from the new Slift single, the label also released new music from the amazing metal band Zeal & Ardor.  Check out their new crusher "Firewake" below and download it here.

Tribulation

Swedish gothic death metal band Tribulation just released a new single called "Hamartia."  It rules.  Check out the video for the song below and dig on those guitar solos.

Final Light

Before i went to bed last night, i came across the very cool new project from James Kent of Perturbator fame and Johannes Persson from Cult of Luna.  Final Light combines the dark synths and video game techno of Peturbator with the heavy death metal of Cult of Luna, and it works to monstrous effect.  Check out "In the Void" below and pre-order the upcoming self-titled album here from Red Creek.

Zeal & Ardor

Shame on me for not devoting nearly enough and time and space to the absolutely amazing new album from New York's Zeal & Ardor.  The band has been making brilliant music for a while now, but the self-titled album that dropped last month feels like the culmination of it all, a blistering mix of black metal, death metal, soul, gospel, old spirituals, and more.  There's no one else out there that sounds like these guys, nor should there be really.  Check out "Hold Your Head Low" below and get the record here from MVKA.

Zeal & Ardor Remixed by GEIZ

One more remix for the morning.  Back in May, New York's Zeal & Ardor released new track "Run," an intense mix of the band's particular style of death metal and bluesy spirituals.  As per usual with the group, it ruled.  And now it gets an insane remix from GEIZ.  The new version keeps the death metal and adds a bunch of industrial mayhem and synthwave techno.  It also rules.  Check it out below and get both versions of "Run" here from MVKA.

Kataan

Kataan is a new project from Nicholas Thornberry (Vattnet Viskar) and Brett Boland (Astronoid).  The band fuses death metal and black metal into a sonic assault that's simultaneously brutal and soaring, a sound i can find to be really cathartic at times.  Check out "Abyss" below and get the self-titled EP here from Prosthetic Records.

Tribulation

I saw Swedish metal band Tribulation a couple of years ago, and was kind of blown away by how overtly theatrical they were.  Combining aspects of death metal and black metal, but gothed up and played with earnest dramatic zest, the music and performance feels like theater kids aping our metal forebears but without a hint of irony.  They're buying into it, and so should you.  If you're only going to listen to one goth metal band today, make it Tribulation.  Watch the video for "The Lament" below and get the "Down Below" LP at the end of January from Century Media.