This is the first Editors’ Picks introduction that I’m writing from quarantine. Will it also be the last? No one really knows but the odds are heavily against it. Sure, it seems like we in Israel have a better handle on this pandemic than a lot of other places. But…
Welcome, once more, to Kvlt Kolvmn. It’s… I mean, the world is the fucking worst right now. If a global pandemic of unprecedented modern proportions wasn’t enough, widespread unemployment, looming global economic catastrophe, and a complete exposition of the failures of the US healthcare system have made March one of…
Heavy Pod Is Heavy Cast! This week we talk about the live stream by Code Orange, then new material by Sutrah, Svengahli, Black Crown Initiate, Scarab, Lychgate, and Aversions Crown. Then, Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Altered Carbon. Enjoy!
Maybe it’s the quarantine or just my usual propensity for the odd flaring up but I’m in a real avant-garde right now. Lychgate is providing my fix quite well but I’m hungry for me; something about the unique and twisted sounds of the genre are just calling to me right…
Editor’s Note: Longtime reader Remi VL is a regular guest contributor to our Release Day Roundup posts! He submitted several of the albums listed below. Join his Facebook group for more recommendations. Each month, we always seem to come to the same conclusion when it comes to our Editors’ Picks column: Friday release days open the floodgates and…
The semantic field which lies between the Gothic, the future, metal, and the avant-garde is fertile with meaning. First, the Gothic, which we define here as the literary or “artistic” Gothic. It’s a sub-genre or modifier which deals with death, anxiety, and the body. Frankenstein is of course the prime…
Heavy Pod Is Heavy Cast! This is a week of salt, sadness, and questions. The Safety Fire are coming back? The new Lychgate is awesome? Devin Townsend reacts to Fountainhead? Then a bunch of discussion about metal’s self-image in the mainstream spurred by the recent article about Atypical star Keir Gilchrist being in a death metal band. Then we have a series of trains of thoughts about the evolution of an artist’s rendition of music through time, Sumeriancore bands, and more. Then, cool people time with Picard, Void Bastards and Samurai Jack. Enjoy!
Welcome once more to Kvlt Kolvmn. It’s that time again. The year has shed its final layer, curling itself into a corner and awaiting its imminent demise. Though, thankfully, not without plenty of bite left. It’s been a doozy of a year for all things metallic, with black metal being…
I love that I’ve written so much about avant-garde music lately that I don’t have to once again start with an intro about how weird of a genre it is. The Lychgate review I recently wrote is a pretty good summary of how I feel about the moniker. Actually, referring to that review is a statement about avant-garde in and of itself since there’s little in common between that album and the band we have in mind today, Ghostbound. The first has more black metal on it and a lot more abrasiveness, whereas Ghostbound’s All is Phantom draws more on the epic nature of progressive rock and the dramatic thrill of bands like Marillion. But it also layers those ideas on top of frequent blast beats, prominent strings, thick guitars and much more that comes from metal and its approach to the avant-garde. In short, it’s a wild ride of an album which leaves us beggared for an exact definition.
Metal, usually black metal, that’s made under the avant-garde auspices tends to have this grandiose flair to it which seems to come from opera and from the theater, in vocals and instruments both. In that sense, Lychgate are perhaps not the best example of the genre. While enough touches of the avant-garde style exist on The Contagion in Nine Steps to merit the moniker (like the synths on “Republic”, which open the album or the vocals on the selfsame track), those touches are enveloped in so much sounds from atmospheric black metal and doom that they often lose definition. But this might not be a bad thing; it makes The Contagion in Nine Steps a more approachable album than, let’s say, Dødheimsgard’s A Umbra Omega and less overbearing than album like Aenaon’s Hypnosophy.
