Ba'al

We’ve got some very exciting things to talk about just around the corner, but for now it’s another monthly playlist where some of us have picked songs we’ve been listening to and talked about them below.

Joe – Vocals

Heretoir – Golden Dust

An absolutely gorgeous track from one of the finest post black metal bands out there. I’m so grateful to have discovered them playing the Lughole in Sheffield some years ago now. Certainly one to make Alcest fanboys swoon with joy, while still very much having its own identity.

Fires In The Distance – Wisdom of the Falling Leaves

A very fun melodic death doom band from the US, their sound weirdly reminds me of dark 1980’s fantasy TV series and movies. If I still did Warhammer this would be ideal Warhammer painting music.

Predatory Void – Grovel

An early contender for album of the year, this has the ferocity of Venom Prison combined with the sensitivity of Oathbreaker, the latter of which is heavily linked to this band. It’s an uncomfortable listen at times, but an enthralling one.

Dødsengel – Waters of Unravelling

A real oddity here of heavily theatrical black metal that takes some getting used to but is worth your patience. The vocals sound like they could be barked from the stage by some enigmatic thespian, almost like A Forest Of Stars but in fluffy Satanic trousers… yeah, that’ll do.

Portal – Kilter

Who wouldn’t want to listen to a sentient Lovecraftien grandfather clock gurgle otherworldly incantations at them? My neighbours apparently.

Nick – Guitar

71TONMAN – Conquest

Nasty sludge from Poland. Primitive Man is probably an obvious comparison but it certainly bears the same nihilistic sentiment and dissonance. Perfect for shit days and/or curb stomping fascists.

Antrisch – I FESTGEFROREN

The ill-fated expedition of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror is a gnarly and appropriate subject matter for a black metal album (look it up if you aren’t aware of it, or watch the series ‘Terror’ for a fictionalised account of it). Antrisch capture the cold and grim foreboding of the doomed vessels perfectly with this album.

Dødheimsgard – Interstellar Nexus

Every year we are blessed with countless extreme metal releases that astound but there are always one or two that seem ahead of the curve, standing out from an already outstanding plethora. Black Medium Current is absolutely one of those. Totally unlike anything else this year.

Nightmarer – Suffering Beyond Death

Death metal, black metal, and djent in one neat package. I joked that this album has something for everyone in Ba’al but I would push that further, if you dig any of the aforementioned styles, this you shall dig too.

Le Sserafim – No-return (into the unknown)

With tracks like this on albums like this it’s no wonder K-Pop is such a phenomenon. Nuanced production, catchy songwriting, and outstanding vocals, as pop music goes it far exceeds the majority of the Western radio variety.

Richard – Bass

Cicada the Burrower – Herald of Lions

Blight Witch Regalia is one of the weirdest yet most understatedly excellent albums I’ve heard from this year so far. Mixing (post-)black metal with elements of lounge music, jazz and trip-hop and somehow blending it seamlessly into something tasteful, relaxed, avant-garde and yet neither affronting nor fully dreamy, this is something that has to be heard to be understood.

Entropia – Final

Entropia’s progression from Alcest-worshipping blackgaze romanticism to abrasive, angular sludgy black metal assault and then into pitch-black psychedelic krautrock repetition had them already established as one of my top black metal bands over their last three albums. This new one, Total, in some ways feels like the culmination of all of them, taking a very slight step back towards accessibility by adding more atmospheric keyboards, but retaining their singular, aggressive vision of kaleidoscopic monochrome.

Yawn – Chaos I: ISM

I saw these underground Norwegian prog metal masters inexplicably play in Wakefield of all places last month, where they performed to an audience of 7 which gradually dwindled to an audience of 3 (including me). Frankly, everyone in Wakefield who didn’t come to that gig should be arrested, because Yawn brought a Meshuggah-on-an-arena-tour level light show and sound production into a tiny rock bar, and it absolutely blew my head off. Dizzying stuff on every level.

Ne Obliviscaris – Misericorde II – Anatomy of Quiescence

Despite a strange, twangy bass production that we in Ba’al have dissected at length, the songs on the new Ne Obliviscaris album have really restored my faith in a band that I worried were in danger of stagnating. Tim Charles has penned some much more involved, multi-layered violin parts this time around, which both helps accentuate the already great songwriting and provides some timely inspiration to me for the upcoming Ba’al material.

Clark – Roulette Thrift Run

A jazzy, electronic groove akin to Squarepusher, piled high with eccentric sampling and sound design, including my personal highlight: a creaking door hinge positioned to sound like a wild saxophone solo. Clark is a relatively new electronic discovery for me and I’m loving diving in.