Total Roadburn hype edition, featuring three new releases of artists that will perform at the festival.
Black Decades release two-song demo
Last year, we caught the first Black Decades show with current vocalist Johan Van Hattum and pointed out that the main “take-home idea was the infusion of punctual death metal leanings” in the new material then performed. This Thursday, the band is set to perform in Tilburg’s Cul De Sac during Roadburn. Because of the aforementioned stylistic sway, the band has decided to give their audience a chance to listen to their new material before the show and therefore has put out demo versions of a pair of songs to be featured in their next full-length. Below, listen to «Promo RB MMXVIII».
The artwork featured above is by S.W. / Unknown Relic and was commissioned specially for the digital demo release. During the Roadburn performance, a t-shirt featuring the artwork will be available. «Automaton Incarnate» and «Asphyxiate» were recorded, mixed and pre-mastered by Pat Delabie at Studio 195 and will feature in the upcoming Black Decades’ full-length «Never A Word», set for release sometime after the summer (the record will feature a different artwork).
Project Nefast release «NEE»
What was it that you were supposed to say to so and so after hearing the last Gnod record? You were supposed to say no, or in Dutch say «NEE», which is what Project Nefast is doing with this special release to commemorate their appearance at this year’s Roadburn. Below, you can stream this special EP, an act which in principle should justify our choice of reference to start the piece. In what might sound like a strange turn of events, it does not look like we’ll get to see «NEE» being played live any time soon, Roadburn or no Roadburn. As the band stated upon it’s release, «NEE» is “about disappointment in no one but yourself, a feeling that overwhelms all three of us sometimes,” explaining that they won’t play it live “because on stage we are always celebrating.”
The «NEE» will be available in a cassette edition limited to 50 copies throughout Roadburn festival through both Project Nefast and Tartarus Records. Regarding the record, fellow Utrecht musician Johan van Hattum from Black Decades and Terzij de Horde had the following to say.
“We’ve been punching the mirrors for so long that the shards can only reflect themselves. When the void is all that’s left, and it is still screaming at you, what else is there? We’d been losing ourselves in celebratory maelstroms as if running away could solve some riddle that was buried deep by our own hands. Feel the metaphorical hand rise from the mud, and quietly tug the heartstrings? We answer with a grey form of violence, undirected, unknowing, unabashed.
This was never meant to be enjoyed, there is no glory or empathy in staring at disappointment. There is disappointment, a yoke placed there by all of us. A joke there played by all of us.”
Sangre de Muerdago stream «Noite»
Galician collective Sangre de Muerdago is streaming their beautiful new full-length record «Noite» (meaning “night”) ahead of its official release on April 20, which also happens to be the date in which they play Roadburn. The record’s concept as well as the vast majority of its composition are the work of the multi-instrumentalist and band’s mastermind Pablo C. Ursusson.
«Noite» will be officially released on April 20 by Música Máxica, Neuropa Records, and Sick Man Getting Sick. It can be ordered here (digital), here (vinyl), and here (cd). Below, find also the gorgeous animated video for the album’s seventh track «A Danza das Ánimas», created by Henning Einheit.
Finally, note that Pablo C.’s atmospheric black metal band Antlers has recently returned with their second album «beneath.below.behold», which you can hear below.
«beneath.below.behold» was jointly by Totenmusik in collaboration with Ván Records, from whose store the record can be ordered in both cd and vinyl formats (here).
Nether 