ABKEHR: German Black Metal duo prepare incredible debut release - track unveiled at CVLT Nation.

Abkehr_Band-1.jpg

We're very pleased to announce the release of In Asche - the debut release by German black metal specter ABKEHR. CVLT Nation has just unveiled the first track from this dark and embittered masterpiece, and you can list to II and read their feature HERE.

Slithering out from the most remote crevices of the German extreme metal underworld, Abkehr's genesis appears to have been sparked by unprecedented emotional and mental collapse and by an unfathomable pull toward absolute, devouring darkness. The band formed in 2015 in Northern Germany by sole masterminds Raash and H. with the intent of unifying under the black looming star of self-disintegration the raw misanthropic grimness of the most praised Norwegian black metal tradition with the atmosphere and desperation of depressive black metal, and the swarming majesty of US atmospheric black metal. Shaped by a diverse and sapient pletora of influences ranging from Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, and Craft, to Cornigr, Mgła, and Ash Borer, Abkehr have funneled the primordial abjection and hatred of traditional black metal through a cascading surge of the most blighted and tormented human emotions, creating something grandiose and ungraspable who’s beauty is matched solely by its own omnipotent wretchedness.

With the "mini album" In Asche Abkehr explore the many manifestations of darkness, hopelessness, evil, and annihilation - condensing them into heathen sonic form to distill their very own expression of actual hell. Hideously and relentlessly crawling across four vast movements of pure incarnated darkness, In Asche is a towering and commanding work in the current underground black metal panorama, which has managed to harness the primordial savagery of bands like Craft and Judas Iscariot, the vast and enveloping hopelessness of bands like Weakling and Ash Borer, and the visionary wretchedness of brilliant black metal anomalies like Twilight and Leviathan, to create their own personal passageway into a tormented and shadow-torn world.

ABKEHR
In Asche

1. I
2. II
3. III
4. IV

In Asche is slated for release on May 19 2017 in tape/digital formats (with an LP version to be announced soon) and is now pre-orderable on our store or Bandcamp. Keep an eye out for more tracks to be unveiled in the coming weeks.

NECROT: Bay Area Death Metal Butchers' Monstrous Debut Album "Blood Offerings" To Get Tape Treatment Through Sentient Ruin - First Track Revealed.

From Earsplit PR: This June Oakland, California-based classic death dealers NECROT will unleash the fetid fruits of their Blood Offerings full-length. Set for release on June 9th, 2017 on CD, LP, and digitally via Tankcrimes and on cassette in partnership with Sentient Ruin Laboratories, the eight-tracks comprising Blood Offerings were captured by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer (Vastum, Graves At Sea), mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (Nails, Gatecreeper), and will come sheathed in the unholy cover craftings of Marald Van Haasteren (Bolt Thrower, Baroness).
 
"Blood Offerings is the result of six years of hard work and is our first full-length record to be released by Tankcrimes," relays drummer Chad Gailey. "The songwriting and performance on these eight songs is a step up from what people have heard previously. We feel that with this album, we have accomplished what we intended to create many years ago. It is always a great experience working with Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer and Scotty Heath at Tankcrimes because of the hard work and care they both put into each project they are a part of. We are thankful to everyone who has supported NECROT to get to this point."
 
Guitarist Sonny Reinhardt agrees, "We made the best album ever made and can't wait to hit the road and kill you all." Adds guitarist Luca Indrio, "This is a death metal classic and you should fucking have it!"

NECROT
Blood Offerings

1. The Blade
2. Rather Be Dead
3. Shadow And Light
4. Blood Offerings
5. Empty Hands
6. Beneath
7. Breathing Machine
8. Layers Of Darkness
 
Forged in 2011, NECROT features current and past members of Acephalix, Vastum, Saviours, Watch Them Die, and Atrament. The band unleashed the audio bone-crush of their The Labyrinth full-length last year via Tankcrimes and Sentient Ruin. Spewing forth eight tracks amassed from three hard-to-find and long out-of-print demo tapes, the record reaped critical acclaim from fans and media alike compelled by the band's unrepentant Autopsy, Bolt Thrower, and Sacrilege worship. Decibel Magazine hailed NECROT's, "classic, bursting-at-the-seams, crawling-from-the-grave-still-decaying sound," while Invisible Oranges wrote,"NECROT are as old-school death metal as old-school death metal gets. Their songs would have been welcome presences on early classics by Master, Bolt Thrower, and Autopsy and yet, NECROT has a punk rock soul that refuses to die." Last Rites concurred noting, "Death by pitiless decimation is the principle mandate here."

Blood Offerings preorders for the tape we are releasing are currently available at our store and Bandcamp. The vinyl, CD and digital editions are available from Tankcrimes. Check out the first cut - Empty Hands - right here on the left.

MIND MOLD: Canadian Avantgarde Black/Doom Crushers Prepare Debut - Stream Track At Decibel Magazine.

Decibel Magazine is now streaming Antipath - a song extrapolated from Mind Mold’s debut EP which we will release on April 28 digitally and on cassette - you can check out their feature HERE. Decibel have described Mind Mold as a band that “sounds like a mash-up between Gorguts and Deathspell Omega if someone chopped and screwed parts of the song at random”, and that their music is “so off-kilter you'll wonder how the band plays it without tipping over - and before it's over they manage to add in a dour melody line that tries to make you forget you were on the verge of retching misery just a minute ago”.

We could not agree more, as this band’s absurd and genre-defying music truly sounds like a warping and time-dilation of some of the most discordant and technically bezerk black and death metal bands out there, just as in the case of Gorguts and Deathspell Omega - as if those bands' music was indeed subjugated to an hallucinating stasis or to a temporal collapse in which the rhythms and tempos slow down to a lucid coma. But there is more to the band’s ungraspable DNA - so much more...

Spawned by the minds of Calgary, Alberta-based musicians Robert LaChance (guitarist of Canadian dark grind devastators WAKE), Will Bjorndahl, and Ryan Kennedy (of Calgary-based avantgarde grind anomaly Seminary), Mind Mold’s debut self-titled EP is a morbid study, excavation, and rupturing re-incarnation of 90’s noise rock, shoegaze, hardcore, and experimental metal, embodied as five tracks of mind-shattering and flesh-ravaging blackened doom - plagued by oozing striations of noise rock, industrial, and the darkest strains of hardcore. A dark and hopeless descent into total crush depth where the aesthetics and primordial intents of bands like Neurosis, Red Harvest, Blut Aus Nord, Today Is The Day, Rorschach, Jesu/Godflesh, and Swans coexist in majestic and torturous harmony, incarnated through a surreal and suffocating kaleidoscope of sound made of haunting atmospheres, puzzling and mind-crushing guitar harmonies, blood-chilling screams, pulsating baselines and pulverizing drums. Look out for more streams to hit the airwaves soon and pre-order tapes and digital products from our Bandcamp and or store.

COMMON EIDER, KING EIDER: San Francisco Dark Ambient Sorcerers Ready New Full-Length Release - Stream Massive Ritual at Heathen Harvest.

We are honored and proud to announce the release of Shrines for the Unwanted, Respite for the Cast Aside - the triumphant reawakening of San Francisco’s masters of behemoth ritualistic blackened drone Common Eider, King Eider (band info here). Within the boundless vastness of this new work - bone, antler, and voice produce connective threads between the worlds, as guitar and percussion punctuate  shifts in mood. Voices call to the spirits, and the spirits call back in return. Recorded in 2016 during four private, collective only rituals, the pieces pull the listener through the darkest and most overgrown trails of the blackest forest, Shrines for the Unwanted, Respite for the Cast Aside is a colossal specter of monumental and horizonless ritualistic black ambience that will entrance fans of Sunn O))), Halo Manash, Wardruna, Arvo Part, and Lustmord alike. Vocal visitations have been also performed on track 3 - Litha - by by A.C. Way of Sutekh Hexen .

Shrines for the Unwanted, Respite for the Cast Aside will manifest itself incarnated as a brand new and massive sixty minute full-length album in digital and cassette tape formats. The cassette version can be now-pre-ordered as a bundle option coupled with a majestic seventy-five page book of photographs and writings, and includes in its B side a cassette version-only exclusive bonus track of a 30-minute live recording of the band performing in Vienna, Austria, during their 2016 European tour. The cassette art is rendered with a blend of black, white and golden inks, while the photos featured in the book were taken by the band members them selves during their 2016 European tour - preserved memories of various hand made shrines as objects of power and contemplation.

Heathen Harvest is now streaming Antler Tongue - the first ritual extrapolated from this towering dark ambient masterpiece, and have stated that Common Eider, King Eider are "great at evoking the mysterious, primal experience of connecting with the unknown, in the vein of Halo Manash and their label mates on Aural Hypnox". Look out for more tracks streams and a full album stream closer to release date.

Shrines for the Unwanted, Respite for the Cast Aside drops worldwide as tape, tape+book, and digital formats on April 7 2017 and can now be pre-ordered on our store and or Bandcamp.

COMMON EDIER, KING EDIER
Shrines for the Unwanted, Respite for the Cast Aside

Side A (60 min):
1. Cast Aside for the Wolves to Devour, They Were Instead Embraced
2. The Dark Winter (Sing Out Into the Night Sky!)
3. Antler Tongue
4. Litha

Side B (30 min):
5. Common Eider, King Eider Live in Vienna (Cassette Tape Only Bonus Track)

VRTRA: Colossal Debut Album by Mysterious Californian Blackened Death-Doom Behemoths Now Available On 12" 180gr vinyl.

VRTRA's monumental blackened death-doom masterpiece My Bones Hold a Stillness, finally has found its new, final, and ultimate form, on 180 gr black vinyl.

We opted for heavy black wax and a super DIY packaging presentation for this crushing record. Inserts were printed with metallic inks on black thick matte card stock, and jackets screen printed by hand by the band members them selves with metallic inks on semi-gloss black jackets. The band also folded and glued each jacket by hand one by one. The US version was printed with silver inks, while the EU version (released by Dawnbreed Records and comprising of only 20 copies available in the US through us) were printed with golden inks.

Initially released by Sentient Ruin on September 2 2016 as digital product + limited edition cassette tape (which sold out in record times) - My Bones Hold a Stillness has been hailed by many fans and media outlets across the globe (ranging from CVLT Nation to Invisible Oranges, to No Clean Singing to Wonderbox Metal and beyond) as an unchallenged masterpiece and one of the greatest blackened doom/death-doom albums of 2016.  The My Bones Hold a Stillness vinyl can now be ordered on our Store or on our Bandcamp.

Comprised of three colossal movements of oozing negativity for a total of over thirty minutes of completely abhorrent blackened death-doom chaos, VRTRA have crated an opera of abysmal imagination and of fathomless destructiveness that will delight the fine palates of all fans of bands like Dragged Into Sunlight, Primitive Man, Ulcerate, Altar of Plagues, Diocletian, Portal, Abyssal, Inverloch, Old Man Gloom and Lord Mantis.

In streaming the track The Cold Suffocating Dark Goes on Forever, CVLT Nation has labeled the release as "one of the strongest debuts of 2016" and "ULTRA INTENSE" - and eventually went on to put it at #3 on their best 10 death-doom releases of 2016.

BUIOINGOLA: Italian Darkwave/Neocrust Shadowdwellers To Release Final Mesmerizing Album "Il nuovo Mare" on March 31st - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation and Metalitalia.com.

Air burns like fire, entrails scream. Breathing is so difficult that any driving vital force is apparently overwhelmed by the temptation of letting oneself fall deep down in water, the same water that has enveloped, warmed and blinded us throughout our life. Through fears, conflicts, uncertainties and discomfort, Buioingola’s music tells of a journey that leads nowhere, but which finds its meaning in its own becoming. Driven by the core duo of guitarist and vocalist Diego, and drummer Thomas, and hailing from Pisa, Tuscany, central Italy, Buioingola (literally "darkness in my throat") are one of those bands that attempting to define or pin down is simply both impossible and futile. After having debuted in 2012 with an imposing three track demo that has redefined the quality and aesthetic of Italian neocrust, the band have steadily pushed their way to fore-front of Italian atmospheric metal thanks to their unusual creativity, stoic work ethic, and their completely unheard of and genre-defying music - a textured alloy of blackened doom, post-punk, darkwave, and crust. Drawing influence from legendary crust and post-punk bands like Amebix, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Killing Joke, and Joy Division, and driving this amalgamation of goth and gloom into an icy and lifeless wall of industrial overtones, the Italian trio has then taken everything to next level of aural trauma, injecting their dark, withdrawn and inconsolable sounding darkwave and post-goth aesthetic into a devouring maelstrom of bleak, monolithic and crushing doom riffs.

Perhaps now reaching the end of their obscure but unparalleled existence, Buiongola present their swansong to the world in the form of a brand new monolith of obsidian black sonic affliction. Titled “Il nuovo mare” ("The New Sea"in Italian), this brand new - and perhaps final - full-length player by the now dissolved tuscan three-piece is an ulterior step the band has taken toward an unfathomable abyss, shaped once again by the band’s signature strain of agonizing, shoegazy crust and haunting post-punk, interwoven with dismal dark wave dirges, towering black/doom passages, and martial industrial tapestries. Over the span of thirty-five suffocating minutes of darkness-clad misery Buioingola show us once again their mastery in weaving together something unique and unlike anything else: a doomed sonic shrine of crestfallen dark punk-metal magnificence where the core essence of bands like Planks, His Hero Is Gone, Godflesh/Jesu, Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, Neurosis, Amebix, and Altar of Plagues sublimate into the arms of omnipotent gloom.

CVLT Nation and Metalitalia.com are now streaming the darkness-clad sonic affliction of second track "Latenza" - look out for more track streams to surface on other media outlets in the weeks leading up to release date.

“Il nuovo mare” will be released worldwide March 31 2017 digitally and on black and clear 12" vinyl in the US by Sentient Ruin, and in Europe by an alliance of local labels: Unquiet Records from Poland, and Shove Records and Sangue Dischi from Italy. Pre-orders are now up on our store and Bandcamp.

FRIENDSHIP: Enigmatic Japanese Powerviolence Devastators to Release "I&II" on February 17 - First Track Streaming at No Clean Singing.

FRIENDSHIP - I&II

1. Jerusalem
2. T.R.Ø.Y
3. Bill Evans
4. €ompton
5. Represent
6. Bottomless Pit
7. Abuse
8. SB
9. Hype
10. Slaughterhouse
11. Law
12. El Chapo

We are extremely proud and honored to announce the release of "I&II" - a full-length release from elusive and mysterious experimental powerviolence terrorists Friendship (also known as the Friendship Collective).  "I&II" is a compilation of tracks previously self-released by the band as two separate EPs (the I EP and the II EP) now both condensed by Sentient Ruin into a single castigating long player of maximum auditive torture that will come to life as a cassette tape + digital release. The I&II compilation masterfully showcases the full extent of the band’s absurd formula: a maelstrom of bleak and punishing powerviolence/grind ferocity colliding with the suffocating weight of the most abject sludge-doom, and further enhanced by the iconic and completely mindless approach to extreme metal and punk which has always characterized Japanese bands as being the most absurd and unpredictable out there.

Hailing from the Chiba prefecture of western Japan, Friendship are one of the most vile, antagonist, and visionary grind/powerviolence acts to have ever emerged from The Land of the Rising Sun. Their absurdly devastating music comes together as a collapsing black hole that devours everything with maniacal ferocity, sparing nothing from the plain of existence. In perfect adherence to the tradition of Japanese extreme music where everything is always taken to ridiculous and mindless extremes, Friendship's music is like a chain reaction that can not be stopped - the devastating consequence of an uncontrolled nuclear fission of Japan's most praised and iconic musical extremities: the mindless chaos of bands like Endon and Zeni Geva, the pulverizing blunt force trauma of bands like Unholy Grave and Death Side, and the cataclysmic sludge-doom aberrance of bands like Corrupted and Congenital Hell. Of course this hell on earth envisioned by the band far from stops to their sole Japanese roots. Instead their sound goes beyond, encompassing and embracing the full scale auditive terror of legendary American powerviolence bands like Nails, Column of Heaven, Man Is The Bastard, Iron Lung, and Hatred Surge, and the tormented sludge dirges of masters like Swans, Godflesh, Noothgrush, and Dystopia. 

To be released on February 17 2017 Friendship's I&II comprises of twelve tracks of absolutely unfathomable violence, that will plunge the listener nt an authentic plight for survival, as they desperately try to survive the utterly senseless chaos unleashed upon them by these Japanese masters of complete sonic terror. 

No Clean Singing is now streaming the first song extrapolated from I&II called Bottomless Pit, saying that “what you’ll find on Friendship I & II is a combination of blighted, crushing, sludge-doom and vicious powerviolence and grind. It may sound like a schizophrenic combination, but you get the sense that Friendship have deployed these contrasting styles as one more particularly effective strategy in service of their main goal of unbalancing and terrorizing their listeners.” You can check out their feature and stream HERE. More track streams will soon follow at various other outlets.

Pre-orders for I&II cassettes and digital products are now live on our store and on our Bandcamp.

 

GATEWAY: Belgian One-Man Death-Doom Monstrosity Releasing "Scriptures of Grief" on February 3 - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

GATEWAY
Scriptures of Grief

Tracklising:
01. I
02. II
03: III

Sentient Ruin is proud to announce the release of Scriptures of Grief, the colossal new album from Belgian one-man death-doom destruction machine Gateway.

Coming as limited edition cassette tape + digital product, Scriptures of Grief is a death-doom odyssey incarnated into a single twentynine minute behemoth song, split up in three separate movements to give the listener the chance to gasp for air, and is already slated to become a cornerstone release in 2017 extreme metal and one of the most crushing and inhumanly heavy underground releases of the year. 

Over the course of a handful of 100% self-produced DIY recordings sole perpetrator Robin van Oyen has established Gateway as a true passage to the underworld, just as the project's name intelligently suggests. Every recording assembled by this visionary rot-monger has been a sonic key to unlock a new door into the kingdom of the dead. Constructed upon colossal and skull-crushing progressions of ancient and mummified death metal, Gateway's music then takes shape through a harrowing time-warp of completely doomed sonic rot. Tempos collapse to an agonizing slither, rhythms seem to stretch ad infinitum transfiguring into a lucid coma, all while the sheer tonnage of every riff is fully revealed through this slow motion decay in all its putrid glory, revealing a beast whose mass and ugliness is of unparalleled magnificence.

Masterfully re-evoking the completely doomed and rotting atmospheres of legendary death-doom masters like Disembowelment, Undergang, Coffins, Winter and Thorr's Hammer, Gateway have created an authentic omnipotent sonic underworld in which death rules everything, endlessly reaching beyond the unknown like a massive and rotting black hole, and dragging every living thing to its inevitable and tormented conclusion.

Slated for a February 3 2017 release - CVLT Nation is now streaming the opening track from the record (read the article and listen to "I" HERE), calling Scriptures of Grief as an "inhumanly toxic and devastating death-doom masterpiece". 

Pre-order Scriptures of Grief cassettes on our store and cassettes and digital products on our Bandcamp.