FERAL LIGHT: Savage Black Metal/Crust Punk Mercenaries to Release Debut EP on August 19 - Track streaming at CVLT Nation.

We're proud and honored to announce the release of A Sound of Moving Shields - the debut EP release by three-piece black metal/crust mercenaries Feral Light. Hailing from Minnesota, Feral Light feature ex-members of Wolvhammer, Empires, Manetheren, and Finger of Scorn and play grim and sorrowful black metal entwined with savage and unyielding crust punk.  

After leaving his permanent mark with Wolvhammer's glorious Profound Lore Records debut album The Obsidian Fields, guitarist Andy Schoengrund left the band and retreated to the shadows, a place where he soon began to focus on his next musical endeavor, eventually crafting dark, inconsolable and wretched punk-influenced black metal with collaborator-friends Andrew Reesen (drums), and Jeff Scheuermann (vocals/lyrics). Over the last few years the trio has been hard at work to bring into life their own vision of the sonic bleakness, filth, and misery that was once the essence of  Wolvhammer, but with a more urgent, raw, and deconstructed approach, eventually slowly but steadily molding what would become the backbone of Feral Light.

With the competition of A Sound of Moving Shields - Feral Light's wretched craft has now fully come to life, materializing as a downcast howl of war-torn vocals funneled through lyrical content dealing with warfare and militarism, and shaped by the unholy bond between the savage grimness of ancient Scandinavian-styled black metal, the filth and abjection of British crust and post-punk, and the unmistakeable punch in the guts that comes only from the rawest rock and roll.

FERAL LIGHT
A Sound of Moving Shields

1. Mercenary
2. Hell By Compass
3. Baptized In Shellfire
4. In Glorious Battle Slain
5. Ultima Ratio Regum

A Sound of Moving Shields is a raw and embittered black metal/crust opera influenced by the likes of Darkthrone, Carpathian Forest, His Hero Is Gone etc. where ravaging black metal riffs and rabid and filthy crust punk are thrown against a backdrop of harrowing lyrical and conceptual imagery dealing with human annihilation through the horrors of war, for a final result of absolute and triumphant sonic savagery that will delight the ears of fans of Wolvhammer (of course), Krieg, Nachtmystium, Dead To A Dying World, Cara Neir, Gallhammer, The Howling Wind, Castevet, Caïna, etc. 

CVLT Nation is now streaming the track Baptized in Shellfire - and have labeled Feral Light's scathing music as "music of unequaled bitterness and of unparalleled filth".

A Sound of Moving Shields will be released as limited edition cassette tape and as a digital product through Sentient Ruin on August 19 2016. You can now pre-order tapes through our shop, and over at our Bandcamp page along with digital product preorders.

facebook.com/ferallight
ferallight.bandcamp.com

KARCAVUL: Inhumanly Repulsive Debut Album from French Death Metal/Raw Sludge Monstrosity out on July 8th - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

KARCAVUL
Intersaone

1. Mangepierres
2. Illuminaschichs
3. Crackleurres

All musical decency ends here, in a formless and repulsive descent into complete aural torture. Intersaone - the debut full length album by French death metal/sludge-doom monstrosity Karcavul - takes the listener on a frightening voyage within the murkiest depths of the most inhuman realms of sonic cruelty. A humiliatingly vile listening experience split up among three massive slabs of oozing sonic hatred that perfectly sew together the slow and putrid hatred of sludge metal with the pounding and punishing filth of old school death metal.

Little, to nothing is exactly known about this repulsive and flesh-reaping death metal/raw sludge aberration hailing from Lyon, southern France. While being mostly recluse and cut away from existence, Karcavul have also taken the time to sporadicly scar the underground with some of the most demented, repulsive, abhorrent and completely psychologically fucked music to ever come out of France, as exemplified by an absolutely bestial and plague-ridden debut demo (the gut-wrenching Rawctaver released in 2012), and an equally unsettling and deviated split with Uhl. Presumably a three-piece of mentally-deranged freaks, Karcavul are authors of an absolutely repugnant, vile, and nauseating splicing of death metal, raw sludge, doom metal, crust, and black metal that will find devoted admirers among fans of similarly wretched heavyweights like Dragged Into Sunlight, Coffinworm, Undergang, Coffins, Wolvhammer, Eyehategod, Noothgrush, Arkedeel, and the such.

When streaming the closing track from the record - Crackleurres - CVLT Nation described the music as "almost ten minutes of unrelenting sonic torture built with the sole purpose to humiliate and punish human ears with unimaginable violence".

Intersaone will be released on July 8th 2016 as a 12" vinyl LP and as a digital product on Sentient Ruin in North America, and through a collective of european labels overseas: Crustatombe, Deaf Death Husky, Et mon cul c’est du tofu, No Way Asso, Repulsive Medias, Saka Čost, Underground Pollution Records, and Witch Bukkake Records. The record was recorded live by Karcavul themselves, and mixed by Lizard. Mastering was done by Guillaume "Commissaire" Odile, while the cover art is by Rafaël Houée, and the LP will also feature and insert designed by the band.

Pre-orders are now live on our shop or on Bandcamp.

karcavul.bandcamp.com
Karcavul Official Site

LEATHER GLOVE: Bay Area Renowned Sound Engineer Greg Wilkinson To Release Devastating Debut Solo Demo, Track Streaming At CVLT Nation

Listen as the oscillations rattle your ears and crawl under your skin. If life is the waiting room to hell, then this is the bellowing sounds encapsulating every molecule in the room...

Leather Glove is a new one-man death/sludge metal/crust violence machine masterminded by renowned San Francisco Bay Area-based sound engineer Greg Wilkinson of Earhammer Studios in Oakland. Throughout the years Greg has consolidated himself both as leading force behind the sound and vision of now legendary heavy albums he recorded and engineered by bands like Noothgrush, Atriarch, Pallbearer, Vastum, Iron Lung, Lycus, Graves At Sea, High On Fire, etc., and as a pioneer in the local Bay Area underground heavy music scene, having played, starting as early as in the late 90's, in such notable Bay Area bands as Laudanum, Graves At Sea, I Will Kill You Fucker, and currently being the long lasting leader, bassist, and vocalist of the mighty Brainoil and the guitarist of grind/powerviolence juggernauts Deathgrave. Debuting with the Skin On Glass Demo, his first release as Leather Glove, Greg's solo music comes to life as a bestial and dismal amalgamation of many of his long-lasting musical influences, ranging from Autopsy, Coffins and Noothgrush, to Corrupted, Bolt Thorwer, and Doom - materializing an aural onslaught of abrasive, barbaric, and heavy as fuck old-school death metal riffs, sludgy, punishing crust punk-influenced rhythms, and cavernous caveman growls.

When streaming the colossal release closer Conduit to Misery, CVLT Nation has labeled Leather Glove's music as "a massive and snarling amalgamation of all his primary death metal, sludge, and crust punk influences", and "a bloodthirsty death/sludge metal beast that will not relent in front of anything as it deploys its viscous attack on the listener", and calling it in the end "a sonic punishment that will be hard to forget".

The Skin On Glass Demo will see the light on May 20th as a limited edition cassette tape as the only physical medium available and as a digital product - Pre-orer are already live on both our store and our Bandcamp page. The Skin On Glass was entirely written, performed, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Greg Wilkinson himself at his own Earhammer Studios in Oakland CA. The drums on the recording were performed by Chad Gailey (Necrot, Atrament, Rude, Ex-Vastum), while the artwork is by Boo Boo Danger Art.

leatherglove.bandcamp.com

ALARIC: New Album from Reunited Dark Punk Masters Coming on May 6th. Track Streams Available.

Claustrophobic, gloomy, and epically grandiose, with their new album End of Mirrors we find the four members of Alaric coming together at the height of their powers. As with their previous offerings, End Of Mirrors was recorded and mixed by Skot Brown at his Kempton House Studios. Brown’s contributions have been crucial to realizing the vision of the band and expanding upon it to manifest a soundscape that can be dark, creepy, and complex while giving the songs a chance to breathe and shine with extraordinary clarity. Shane Baker’s lyrics (also in Pins of Light) are deeply personal yet universal in scope, reflecting hard times in a fallen world at a moment of monumental change in the lives of the band members. Each track and movement provides an emotional and deeply physical journey through inky, blackened sonic murk, devoid of all hope. Jason Willer (also in Cross-Stitched Eyes) pummels the drums, driving the band forward with power and finesse and then dropping down into a roiling boil of tribal toms. Bassist Rick Jacobus deals in woozy but solid lines that often carry the melody while filling out the sonic space with riding drone notes. Russ Kent's guitar playing (also the legendary spine-bender in Noothgrush) creates scintillating, cascading moments of beauty – what he calls "sheets of electric rain" - that open into crushing and aggressive distortion. It all comes together and twines around the atmospheric explorations of newly enlisted sound artist and experimental electronic musician Thomas Dimuzio who utilizes a Buchla Polyphonic radio tuner, modular analog synthesizers, and other non-traditional methods to create his art. Make no mistake, this is not passive listening. These songs are instant classics for a new dark age.

Alaric (who feature members of stalwart Bay Area long running acts like Noothgrush, Cross-Stitched Eyes, and Pins of Light) began their voyage in 2008 with an eye toward creating moody and compelling music unlike any other, that would seamlessly sew together a daunting sonic arabesque made of desolate and heart-splitting deathrock, gloomy and drooping post-punk, and a tension and hopelessness akin only to certain moods found in the most disinheriting doom metal aesthetics. Beginning with influences from such progenitors as Killing Joke and Christian Death to the darkest, heaviest punk bands and the most epic psychedelia, the band has dedicated itself to creating a singularly shadowy electric guitar-driven music. Proclaimed Zero Tolerance Magazine of their self-titled debut, “Morbid, threatening, and obsidian… Album of the Year by a long shot." In a review of the band’s split with Atriarch, Cvlt Nation wrote, “…one experiences an immersion in watery black textures as if drawn welcomingly into a drowning, slowly swirling, abyss.” Alaric’s previous releases include their debut single Animal/Shadow Of Life (FYBS/ Buried In Hell Records, 2010) and the aforementioned, self-titled LP (20 Buck Spin, 2011) and split 12” LP, with Atriarch (20 Buck Spin, 2012).

In streaming the track Angel CVLT Nation has labeled End of Mirrors as "a magnificent aural monolith to gloom" and "and amazing deathrock masteripiece", while No Clean Singing in streaming the title track defined the album "expansive in the way that it haunts you." 

Bearing beautiful artwork by Kevin Gan Yuen, End of Mirrors will be releaed on May 6 with the cassette tape version coming from Sentient Ruin (pre-orders here), while the LP, CD, and digital versions will arrive through none other than the mighty Neurot Recordings.

 

NECROT: Debut Album by Bay Area Old School Death Metal killing Machine Out Now.

Formed by Luca Indrio on bass and vocals (Acephalix, Vastum, ex-Lawless), by Chad Galey on drums (Ex-Vastum, ex-Bruxers, Atrament, Caffa, Rude, Mortuous), and by Sonny Reinhardt on guitar (Saviours, ex-Watch Them Die), Necrot are one of the most punishing, savage and treacherous death metal acts to ever tread Californian soil. Formed in 2011 initially as a side-project of Acephalix, Necrot have since then built a devoted following in their native Bay Area and beyond, and have become known as a merciless and bloodthirsty death metal killing machine thanks to their bulldozing live sets and their savage and butchering recordings. Since inception the band has only made their music available as very short and hard to find demo tapes that are now completely sold out, impossible to find and have become something of a cult object or collector’s item, elevating the band’s reputation to that of absolute cult and DYI monument in the Bay Area underground metal scene.

Today Tankcrimes and Sentient Ruin bring you these early and long sold out demos of the band unearthed, resurrected and mutated into something more devastating and savage than ever before. Bundled up into an enhanced and comprehensive listening experience under the form of a compilation of sorts which serves as the true debut full-length album of the band, The Labyrinth comprises of remastered versions of all the band's songs recorded to date, courtesy of Dan Randall of Mammoth Mastering Studios, and is a punishment in aural form that will be hard to forget - a barbaric and bestial onslaught of riffs that never loosens its grip, stomping and crushing the listener like a bulldozer from hell, that all fans of old school death metal, crust, stenchcore and the such can not miss for any reason in the world. While Tankcrimes released this monstrous slab of rabid death metal on LP, CD and digital formats, Sentient Ruin has brought The Labyrinth to you in the form of a limited edition cassette tape featuring a monster landscape J-Card with amazing artwork by Kyle House (Acephalix) and Lukas Krieg.

Taking queues from legends like Asphyx, Bolt Thrower, Grave, Discharge, early Sepultura, early Morbid Angel, and Entombed, Necrot have thus far existed as a power trio with the build and attitude of a bloodthirsty tank. Necrot’s music is a literal onslaught of buzz-sawing death metal riffs and bone crushing rhythms - an authentic sonic bludgeoning that can batter the listener’s flesh into complete submission within seconds, and which owes much of its crude heaviness and primitive ferocity to old-school death metal just as it does to (crust) punk.

The Labyrinth tapes are now available in our store, while LPs, CDs and digital downloads can be grabbed from Tankcrimes.

 

PALACE OF WORMS: Visionary Third Album by Eccentric One Man Black Metal Act Out April 8.

We are honored and proud to announce the release of the cassette tape version of the new full length album by eccentric Bay Area-based one-man black metal project Palace of Worms. Titled The Ladder - Palace of Worm’s new record is over forty five minutes of lightless, dismal, and soul-draining aural misery. A bleak and lonesome descent into endless starless night and into bottomless aural agony. A voyage into the depths of a wretched soul where melody and bitter aggression coexist in eternal pain, and where hope is just a cold, minuscule, and dying flickering light lost far away in the distance, forever beyond grasp. Seamlessly blending black metal, post-rock, deathrock and gothic elements The Ladder is a shapeshifting and unsettling listening experience where genres are bent and blended into a dark and tenebrous blur of melody, rage, despair, and pitch black atmospheres, all contained within the spiraling movement of seven eccentric and and winding compositions of stunning beauty and unsettling magnetism that will captivate the senses of those who have loved similar works by bands like Lychgate, Enslaved, Tombs, Drudkh, Agalloch, Winterfylleth, Taake, Shining and the such.

Palace of Worms is the brainchild of sole mastermind Balan, a staple fixture in the Bay Area’s extreme metal underground since at least the last decade. Throughout the years Balan has also militated in notable Bay Area heathens as Larvae, Ordo Obsidium, Botanist and more, and has shaped Palace of Worms to become one of the most raw, unforgiving, visionary and genre-bending black metal acts to ever tread  West Coast soil. Constantly yielding a prolific and steady flow of splits and records released for the most part by San Francisco-based genre-defying label Flenser Records, Palace of Worms has always showcased a noticeably curved stylistic trajectory, that far from following black metal in a straight line and by the book has instead always escorted the listener into unusual, strange, surreal and bizarre realms of the craft, as seen for example in other similarly eccentric black metal bands such as Peste Noire, L'Acephale, Yellow Eyes, and Leather Chalice. Listening to Palace of Worms’ music means taking a deep dive into Balan’s mind. A place of wretched visions and collapsing emotions. A place where emptiness devours everything and where the notions of loss and hopelessness are taken to a totally new level of aural atrocity.

The Ladder  - which will also see a vinyl release through Broken Limbs Recordings - was recorded by Eric Iverson, mixed by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios (Graves at Sea, Noothgrush, Iron Lung), and was  mastered By Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Whirr, Grayceon). The gorgeous artwork was made for Balan by Raven Exner, while the design and layout was done by Kevin Gan Yuen (Dead to A Dying World, Lychgate, Sutekh Hexen). The Ladder  also features guest performances by Ephemeral Domignostika (Mastery, Pale Chalice), Bezaelith (Lotus Thief), and Mattia Alagna (Abstracter, Atrament).

You can now stream the track Nightworld courtesy of Stereogum, while pre-orders are now available here on our website as well as on our Bandcamp.

 

 

UNRU: Devastating Debut Album by German Black Metal/Crust Heathens Out March 28 2016 - LP coming May 13.

After having surfaced with an unbelievable demo in 2013, along with two incredibly ruinous and visionary splits with Paramnesia and Sun Worship in 2014, german black metal/neocrust heathens UNRU have finally prepared the ground to unleash their harrowing debut album upon the unexpecting masses of the underground. Titled Als Tier Ist Der Mensch Nichts (which translates to "even as an animal, man is nothing" in german) the debut album by UNRU is a vast, abyssal, and soul-disintegrating black metal/crust odyssey that will plunge the listener into an aural hell that will not be easy to forget, dragging them into a frightening voyage through the blackest depths of human failure and of existence's darkest torments. Comprised of four massive movements clocking in at an average of ten minutes each, Als Tier Ist Der Mensch Nichts showcases the band digging further into their ancestral black metal roots while also developing a sinister and punishing aspect to their music that draws straight from old school death metal, while also retaining that bestial and uncompromising punk edge that derives from the bands unmistakeable and ever-present crust punk DNA. 

Hailing from Bielefeld, North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, UNRU are among the strongest and most vital entities in modern day European blackened crust. UNRU have taken the precious lesson taught by forefathers His Hero Is Gone, Madame Germen and Iskra and have run with it into an abyss of black metal-plagued sonic misery, seamlessly drowning the two genres in a blurred disfiguration of rage and malevolence and have been set since their inception on a full-frontal quest for total sonic obliteration, crafting music that in its masterful, sweeping, and levitating interweaving of punk and black metal has shown it self to be an authentic abyss of shadows - a frightening sonic mosaic of disembodied visions and of complete aural torment. Brilliantly blending the icy and lifeless atmospheres of Scandinavian black metal, and the solemn and swelling dirges of epic US "Cascadian" black metal with the fury and ferocity of crust punk, UNRU have depicted a sonic landscape of absolutely stunning beauty and of completely spellbinding cruelty, that will surely please the demanding palates of fans of similar bands like Ash Borer, Skagos, Fell Voices, Celeste, Wolves in the Throne Room, Altar of Plagues, and the such.

Als Tier Ist Der Mensch Nichts will see the light digitally on March 28 2016 through Sentient Ruin (US), Monotonstudio Records (DE/EU), and Supreme Chaos Records (DE/EU) with Monotonstudio Records also releasing a tape version of the record on the same date and Supreme Chaos releasing a CD. All three labels have also set the release for the 12" vinyl LP version of the record coming out on May 13 2016 in three different vinyl color configurations: classic black vinyl, marble vinyl with included a hand screen-printed patch, and a clear vinyl option.

Pre-orders for Als Tier Ist Der Mensch Nichts are now available through our Bandcamp page.

ATRAMENT: Debut Album by Blackened D-Beat Horde Out on March 4 - Track Streaming At CVLT Nation

After having given humanity a taste of their unquenchable ferocity with 2015's debut Demo MMXV, Oakland CA-based blackened d-beat butchers Atrament have now prepared to unleash the full extent of their sonic cruelty through the imminent release of debut full-length album, Eternal Downfall, a work that has raised the bar of "punk" music to a whole new level of aural atrocity and pushed the genre of crust over the edge, devouring it into unseen new extremes of darkness and heaviness. Based in Oakland, California, Atrament features current and former members of Moral Void, Black September, Necrot, Abstracter and Vastum and have simply delivered the heaviest d-beat album we've heard in years. Eternal Downfall stays true to the band's hardcore punk DNA, having unmistakably taken its primary source of inspiration from british crust, anarco-punk and d-beat, but is equally influenced and disfigured by the sound and the aesthetic of the bleakest 90's Norwegian Black and of the most vile Swedish Death Metal, creating a punishing wall of aggression that never relents - something that stands between Doom, Bolt Thrower, Amebix, early Napalm Death, early Dismember, Darkthrone, and Discharge all fused into a frightening onslaught of darkened, filthy, and pissed-off rage. Greg Wilkinson's production (Graves At Sea, Iron Lung, Noothgrush, Vastum, Pallbearer) and Brad Boatright's mastering have then pushed the sound of the band to its limit creating a low-end monster that will devour your speakers.

Boasting beautiful artwork crafted for the band by the master of visionary darkness Stephen Wilson, Eternal Downfall will see the light on March 4th 2016 as a limited edition cassette tape and digital product through Sentient Ruin, and as a 12" vinyl LP available in multiple color options through Broken Limbs Records (US) and Argento Records (EU).

CVLT Nation is now streaming exclusively the album's opening track - No Beyond - HERE.

A pre-order for the tape, LP and digital formats has been set up on the band's Bandcamp page.

Eternal Downfall is an absolute triumph of punk and metal hybridization, and a raging and barbaric sonic monstrosity that will delight all fans of bands like Wolfpack/Wolfbrigade, Skitsystem, Tragedy, Unkind, Disfear, Young And In The Way, Nails etc.

ATRAMENT - Eternal Downfall

Track listing:
01. No Beyond
02. Sunken Reign
03. Aberration
04. Consumed
05. Hericide
06. Wretched Apparition
07. Rotting Twilight
08. Aeon of Suffering
09. World of Ash
10. Circle of Wolves
11. Dusk Abuse

Find out more about Atrament by visiting their band page

We have previously released Atrament's debut release - Demo MMXV - check it out here.