Better Writers and Stellar EP's
Featuring Endless Digital Birthdays, Beltez, Eternal Champion and more
I have no idea what happened last week. I completely buried myself in books and music so current events basically mean nothing anymore. That said, the music world continues to give us just barely enough to make it into the winter.
This past week we got some pretty weak music offerings overall, but like always, the will to dig deeper yielded positive returns. We’ve got some weird metal from Germany, some great power metal (always a rarity) and a bunch of other stuff to enjoy. Let’s dive in.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Beltez - A Grey Chill and a Whisper
Thank god this album came along when it did. If it didn’t I was going to have to name Eternal Champion’s Ravening Iron as our album of the week, and while that album is chock-full of great music, its album cover is also chock-full of nudity, which I would prefer to avoid posting. Beltez, a black metal outfit from Germany, is once again pushing the boundaries with a multifaceted and complex concept album. A Grey Chill and a Whisper is a brutal fantasy tale full of musical wonder and intensity. It’s a strong offering in an otherwise meager week, but it would stand out no matter how strong its competition was. If you can’t keep up with the story, they’ve conveniently included a recording of the audiobook in the Bandcamp version of the album. You may need it, considering the screams are… incomprehensible to put it mildly.
Great Metal from this Week
To make sure you stay up to date with all the latest metal, follow our Spotify playlist. We regularly update it throughout the week so you never have to miss out on great new tracks.
Merchandise for Metalheads
If you’ve paid attention to music for more than six seconds you’re no doubt aware of the “joy division shirt.” If you’re unaware, it’s basically that the album cover for Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures is a very good album cover, and it inspired thousands of memes. Well, now we’ve wrapped around to the point where the memes are once again sincere. At least that appears to be where we’ve landed, but getting a sincere evaluation of Soul Glo, a band whose latest album is titled Songs to Yeet at the Sun, isn’t easy. But regardless of intent, the black power fist made out of Unknown Pleasure’s signature soundwave pattern is really cool. I suggest you get after it.
Something from a Better Writer
I’ve spent a lot of time in the past two months of working on this newsletter thinking (and writing) about the presence of fascist and white supremacists in metal. But the truth of the matter is that I’m not an investigative reporter. Luckily there are investigative reporters that have worked on this, and the latest piece in Esquire from Kim Kelly makes me glad that there are.
Taking a slightly more optimistic approach, Kelly alerts us all to the unsavory elements in our scene but instead of languishing in the understandable depression and frustration, she chooses to look on the bright side. In this case, the bright side is comprised of hundreds of vocally anti-fascist and pro-inclusivity extreme metal bands that are reclaiming the space for the outcasts, and kicking out the bastards that have tainted its name.
A Comical Joyride
Endless Digital Birthdays - Becoming a Body
This past week was my first time hearing about Endless Digital Birthdays, but if they keep making music like this it certainly won’t be the last. The band calls to mind bombastic groups like black midi, but has added a far more industrial edge to their sound. The record warps and weaves and brutalizes all in the same breath. A roller coaster ride that demands “one more go” Becoming a Body is well positioned to end up as one of the best EP’s in a year full of amazing EP’s. You won’t regret it, and the second song will make you laugh.
A Non-Metal Offering for Your Ears
Normally this section is reserved for non-metal merchandise, but this past week I heard a song that demanded more attention than any consumer item. The track comes from the group Black Country, New Road. This UK based group blew me away in 2019 with their track “Sunglasses” and have only continued to impress. In advance of their new album For the first time they’ve released a single titled “Science Fair” and it has assuaged any fears that “Sunglasses” was a fluke. Between the storytelling, chaotic instruments and brutally open emotion, this is one of the best songs to come out this year. It’s certainly strange, but give it a go, we promise it’ll be worth the temporary discomfort.
Consulting the Crystal Ball
This is finally a great week we have coming up. While the metal world isn’t exactly brimming with big names, there are a lot of smaller bands that are putting out some top notch stuff. The less brutal world has also come correct with big releases from some perennial favorites. Make sure to keep up with these releases, they promise to be worth your time.
Metal Albums
Mitochondrial Sun - Sju Pulsarer
Dark Buddha Rising - Mathreyata
Thy Catafalque - Zapor
Volur - Death Cult
Soulskinner - Seven Bowls of Wrath
Non-Metal Albums
Tony Velour - 3M
Chris Stapleton - Starting Over
Aesop Rock - Spirit World Field Guide
Amaarae - The Angel You Don’t Know
Molchat Doma - Monument
William Basinski - Lamentations
As always, you can glide right on by the metal releases if you’d like. Just follow our playlist to see which songs end up joining the upper echelon of metal.
Shrinekeeping
That’s everything for this week. Now it’s time for a little announcement. As our more dedicated readers may have noticed, the label highlight section is not present on this edition of the newsletter. That’s not a mistake, I’m temporarily removing that section to focus my time on year end lists. What this means is that I’m stuck re-listening to hundreds of albums, luckily they’re all great albums, it’s just a matter of trying to put them in some sort of order. Oh, while I’m ranting about rankings, pass this along to someone who might like it.
My aim is to have a top 50 metal albums of the year, each with write ups, a top 50 albums of the year (the write ups for shared albums will be identical so you can roll on past them). Hopefully that’ll be enough to sate your curiosity and there will of course be playlists associated with all of these.
Maybe someone shared this with you and the prospect of these lists is enticing. If that’s the case how about you subscribe to see what albums make the list.
That’s about it for today. Stay safe, don’t travel. If you do I’ll sick the shoggoths on you.