UNYILEDING LOVE: Northern Ireland-based Blackened Noisegrind Band to Release Horrific Debut EP on September 30th - Track Streaming at Decibel Magazine.

What you are about to witness in our next release is, simply put, total fucking bedlam. When Decibel Magazine (click HERE to read their feature) first encountered the scathing and torturous sonic depravity of Northern Ireland's Unyielding Love 's upcoming debut EP The Sweat of Augury they stated in utter amazement that the band “have blasted so hard towards the realm of harsh noise that their song structures are framed around icepick feedback and a layer of pedal abuse that makes it seem like every song they playing is the last they'll manage before their equipment disintegrates”, and then further exclaiming that Unyielding Love are “a goddamn nightmare of grind and discord that may have a few of you shitting teeth”.

It comes as no surprise that anyone who is first exposed to this band’s skin-peeling music remains completely baffled and speechless in front of the enormous amount of violence and senseless antagonism that bleeds out of Unyielding Love’s crazed homicidal songs. Birthed in the pits of Belfast, Northern Ireland and seemingly not responding to any laws of any kind in existence in the universe, Unyielding Love create impossible to believe noise-infested blackened grindcore of absolutely boundless and lawless depravity - music that is apparently built with the sole purpose to blind-side, ambush, and slay human ears with an unbelievably torrid and vile blend of lightning-fast grinding hatred and a scathing mauling of harsh-noise insanity. Blending grindcore, black metal, noise and power electronics in a firestorm of abhorrent sonic chaos, Unyielding Love have perfectly bridged the gap between the aesthetics of bands like Full of Hell, Nails, Column of Heaven, Knelt Rote, Sutekh Hexen, and Gnaw Their Tongues, creating something so heinous and sonically wretched that the human brain will ever only partially be able to fully grasp the full extent of this band’s immeasurable madness and vision.

The Sweat of Augury will be released as a limited edition cassette tape and digital product on September 30th 2016 - and preorders are now live on our store and on our Bandcamp. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Sam Thredder in the Cro's Nest, London, and bearing amazing artwork by the band's vocalist, The Sweat of Augury is already set to become one of the most extreme, entrancing, and prohibitive listens of the year.

VRTRA: Unbelievable Debut by Californian Blackened Death-Doom Behemoth Out On September 2 - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

VRTRA
My Bones Hold a Stillness

I. Perpetually Hag Ridden
II. The Cold Suffocating Dark Goes on Forever
III. My Bones Hold a Stillness

A cornerstone release of this year that has appeared virtually out of nowhere - VRTRA’s debut album My Bones Hold a Stillness is already an instant classic and a colossal achievement in 2016 extreme metal for this young and mysterious Californian blackened death-doom band that creates music of unbelievable character and unparalleled vision that can crush the listener with the force of an infernal cataclysm. Seemingly birthed in the most forbidding depths of hell, My Bones Hold a Stillness is a visionary record that evokes impossible to believe scenarios of aural torment, materialized through the construction of dismal doom treads, scathing blackened-death chaos, and unbelievably evocative and sinister atmospheric compositions. 

Formed in Sacramento CA and with its unnamed members now spread between Sacramento and San Francisco, VRTRA forge colossal songs of unimaginable darkness and of suffocating intensity. Their hell-spawned music is a nightmarish and horrific kaleidoscope of sound that seamlessly brings together the brooding wretchedness of black metal bands like Deathspell Omega, Dragged Into Sunlight, and Blut Aus Nord, the cavernous and heathen below of the blackest and most abstract death metal as seen in behemoths like Dead Congregation and Diocletian, and the abysmal moods of atmospheric doom and black metal that come straight from the teachings of bands like Neurosis, Disembowelment, Winter, Unearthly Trance, and Altar of Plagues. The end result comes to life in the form of massive and swirling compositions of levitating dark matter that devour the listener in a firestorm of boundless and foreboding sonic magnificence.

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".

My Bones Hold a Stillness was recorded at Earthtone Studios in Sacramento, CA by Pat Hills, mixed at Earhammer Studios in Oakland, CA by Greg Wilkinson, mastered at Audiosiege in Portland, OR by Brad Boatright, and features beautiful artwork layout crafted for the band by View From The Coffin. The album will be released by Sentient Ruin on as digital product + limited edition cassette tape and can now be pre-ordered on our Store or on our Bandcamp.

vrtrachasm.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/vrtrachasm

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.