Ba'al

After a little break during our recent recording session, we’re back with our monthly selection of tracks we’ve been blasting. Enjoy the misery.

Joe – Vocals

Waldgeflüster – Unter Brozenen Kronen

This song from Waldgeflüsters upcoming EP is just absolute folky black metal beauty. A fine combination harsh archaic battery and mournful introspection, this song has been my jam for the last month or so.

Batushka – Polunosznica

Has it been long enough now that we can actually say that the Hospodi album is actually pretty damn good without provoking the ire of hordes of neckbearded black metal weeaboos for liking the “fake” Batushka? I don’t really care, this track is awesome.

Alghazanth – Under the Arrow Star

Mikko Kotamaki is one of my vocal inspirations because of his range and ability to fit neatly into whatever role he chooses. He excels here in a more straight forward black metal role that has a big sing along chorus.

Sidious – Thy Palace Yond the Threshold

Slight bit of nepotism here considering Hecate Enthroned drummer Matt plays in Sidious, but this track is black metal at its best with such nuance throughout. It was absolutely brilliant to see live too.

Cephalic Carnage – Megacosm of the Aquaphobics

This band has often felt under appreciated and seem to have fallen off the map a bit in recent years. Some songs are genius, some are held together with selotape, but they’re always super entertaining.

Richard – Bass

Conjurer – All You Will Remember

It’s going to be an ArcTanGent-focused list from me this month, and some songs from some obvious big-hitters that really stuck with me. It’s no secret that some of Ba’al adore Conjurer, and this was probably the 6th or 7th time I’ve seen them. It really cemented the Páthos material for me, and the clean vocals and lyrics about dementia on this one really hit me hard.

Deafheaven – Sunbather

Does it get more “I’m in a post-black metal band” than this choice? Probably not. Deafheaven’s full Sunbather playthrough set was plagued by terrible sound issues that you could really tell were upsetting the band, but when it all came together it was still stunning, and I’ve really got back into the album after a long break as a result.

Wiegedood – Nuages

You always know that the Wiggly Doods are going to be solid and tight as heck live, but I didn’t expect to be as blown away as I was by them this time. They sounded absolutely colossal, and the weirder, chunkier cuts off their last album like this one nicely broke up the absolute barrage of unrelenting blasts.

Rolo Tomassi – Prescience

Yet another band I saw at ATG for the umpteenth time but who put on the best set I’ve ever seen from them. Equal parts majestic and biting from start to finish, this track off Where Myth Becomes Memory has ascended to a favourite RT track for me, thanks in large part to its unusual melodic choices.

Cave In – Sing My Loves

I only started my very long overdue dive into Cave In’s discography in the run up to ATG and realised what I’d been missing. This song has been a bit of an obsession for me over the past month, with its magnetic hook calling out from a swirling mass of overlapping guitar loops.

Nick – Guitar

Grin – Apex

Always astounded by 2-pieces having such an oppressive and overwhelming sound. This Berlin-based duo are but bass, drums, vocals and a few bits of arcane sound thrown in, and the result is simply massive. This killer track comes from their 2022 album, Phantom Knocks.

Dead Can Dance – Black Sun

Picked this up from one of my favoured Sheffield record stores, Bear Tree Records (the other of course being Record Collector). I love putting this on whilst I go shopping for grain in my favourite tunic and codpiece.

Bismarck – Oneiromancer

Had the pleasure of watching and photographing this Norwegian sludge outfit at Doomlines several weeks ago. I hadn’t come across these prior and it was a case of rushing to their merch stand immediately after their set to grab a vinyl, which had been on heavy rotation ever since.

Molchat Doma – Клетка

Was introduced to this by someone close and, as a lover of brutalist architecture and what I’m going to crudely coin ‘Sovietcore’, this scratched many an itch. So dark and cold and mechanical, this makes me want to go round Eastern Europe taking pictures of car parks.

Mikko Tarmia – Dark Water

Amnesia: The Dark Descent was a real game changer for survival horrors, and the scariest horror game I’ve ever played. Most of that comes down to the exceptionally chilling atmospheres, dark but dynamic locations, unsettling sound design, and importantly, skin crawling music. If you haven’t played this game and fancy something creepy I cannot recommend enough.

Chris – Guitar

Hanabie. – Hyperdimension Galaxy (超次元ギャラクシー)

This is basically “music for Nick” – a bubblegum metalcore band from Japan, comprised of four Japanese Harajuku-aesthetic girls who were inspired by legendary hardcore punk band Maximum the Hormone. This track has everything you could want from that description – Japanese instruments layered in, harsh metalcore vocals and big riffs. Very UWU indeed. Now I just need them to tour the UK with Babymetal…

Magic Sword/Metavari – OMNI

I greatly enjoyed the dungeon synth/chipwave sounds of the last Magic Sword release, and this is more of the same, with the added weight and heft of electronica legends Metavari added to the mix. Take yourself on an 8-bit trip through a pulsing cyberpunk world for 4 minutes and 26 seconds, and thank me later.

Crypta – Lord of Ruins

All-female blackened death metal from Brazil – I had no clue who this band were until I sat down to write this, but it turns out two of the members were formerly in Nervosa. The vocal range keeps things interesting and this track demonstrates more creative songwriting than the standard “stop, drop and blast” style of some death metal bands. The full album is a smidgeon too long but this is definitely a standout track.

X-Japan – Angel

Yoshiki is back with new music! X-Japan might be one of the most iconic and well-known J-rock bands around (they even showed up as a karaoke track in a sumo wrestling drama I was watching recently) but this track is arguably not rock at all – think a Guns n’ Roses piano ballad but with even more piano and even less guitar. When the guitar does finally kick in though, the pay-off is worth it.

Washed Out – Feel it All Around

If you’ve seen the TV show Portlandia you’ll recognise this track from the intro sequence – a slab of drowsy, distorted chillwave, it manages to pull off the difficult task of being a good full song, and not just having a ten-second bit that’s great and then two and a half minutes of filler (looking at you, “Superman” by Lazlo Bane, a.k.a the theme song for Scrubs…).