Knowledge comes second to doing what you’re told …
House Rytkonen is slowly but surely getting back in order! Maestro Marty returns with a vengeance, presenting you with a plethora of reviews and an interview with Midwestern Black Metallists Canis Dirus. But that’s not all on tap for his return to the world of electrons; oh no, our need for e-companionship surges forward with our inclusion of another exclusive stream of heaviosity this week: presenting Necrocurse (see below)! The memorable and maniacal come together in equal measure upon this album’s helping of heathen hellaciousness, take our charred and ashen word for it. Welcome back Marty’s full-fledged reappearance, and publish your own playlists and ramblings below, all while enjoying a healthy dose of mid-week extremity – pure courtesy of the wordsmiths of WG \m/
Marty Rytkonen – Playlist
Paul Stanley – Solo album (what is this you say? A blast from my childhood, that is by far the best Kiss album NOT written by Kiss. So much atmosphere, GOOD hard rock, AND the bass lines are crushing!)
Darkthrone – The Underground Resistance
Darkthrone – Transylvanian Hunger
Forlorn Chambers – Unborn and Hollow Demo
Necrocurse – Grip of the Dead
Dawn – Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy)
Manilla Road – Mysterium
Destroyer 666 – To the Devil His Due
Khors – Return to Abandoned
Morbid – December Moon
Jim Clifton – Playlist
Immortal – Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism
Necrocurse – Grip of the Dead
Sacred Reich – Ignorance
Angelcorpse – The Inexorable
Agalloch – The Mantle
Cadaross – So Pale Is The Light
Portishead – S/T
Lustre – Glimpse of Glory / Night Spirit / Welcome Winter
Bob Marley and the Wailers – One Love
Mayhem – Ordo Ad Chao
Worm Gear 
Lots of great choices there dear sirs! I’ve been noticing the playlists opening up to some non-metal more often lately (yours and those of other posters). Very comforting to see Bob Marley and Mayhem on the same playlist… Let’s Get Together and Rape Humanity With Pride!!!
My audio pollution these days:
Suffocation – Pinnacle of Bedlam
Suffocation keep kicking my ass. HARD! Great record.
Drudkh – Forgotten Legends, Autumn Aurora, Swan Road
Epic. Hypnotizing, mesmerizing and soothing in a strange way. Thanks for reminding me Zahler!
Cannibal Corpse – The Bleeding
I haven’t got a clue what Chris Barnes has been doing the last decade or so but he seems to get a lot of flak these days. No clue what for. Don’t care either, his work with Cannibal Corpse still rocks. Corpsegrinder rocks too though, and the band’s skills got even sharper after he joined.
Arckanum – Helvítismyrkr
Still falls a bit flat comparing to earlier work. Maybe the dry (to my ears) production is to blame for that. I miss the Magick. There’s a new one coming soon on Season of Mist, hopefully Shamaatae will deliver the goods this time.
Mogwai – Les Revenants
Fumiya Tanaka – Unknown Possibility vol. 2
Fleetwood Mac – Mr. Wonderful
Falls of Rauros – The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood
Miles Davis – Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2
Rattenfänger – Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum
Yes, the Necrocurse sounds pretty good! The Devils Cobra chant has infected my mind. I had to listen to it this morning after I woke up to get it out of my head. I’ll be buying this one.
Playlist this week – a bunch of newer post 1995 Black Metal that is on random all week long. Don’t feel like listing it all. hehe…
Playlist for the Week:
Social Distortion- Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell. Mike Ness: a country-fried punk road warrior if ever there was one.
Rise Against- Siren Songs of the Counter Culture. Fun ‘punk-pop’
VNV Nation- Automatic. Ich Bin Ein EBM-Futurepop. I think these guys have peaked over the past couple of albums, displacing perennial favorite Assemblage 23 at the top of the heap.
Dawn- Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy). One of the all-time greats- swirling melody lines, seething vocals, and pummeling drum work. It’s so relentless!
Pentagram- Last Rites. TBH it’s not a great album,and that’s a hard thing for me to say about one of my all-time favorite bands (Et Tu, Running Wild ‘Shadowmaker’?). Victor Griffin saved this from being a total write-off (note to self: check out Victor Griffin’s In-Graved). With so many good songs in their back catalog needing a proper release, the track list on this album befuddles me, as it contains many of the weakest songs they ever penned. Why did I buy it if I don’t like it, you ask? When you’ve already got about three dozen Penta- releases on the shelf, well, sometimes the Completist Bug bites you. I did hold out ’til it hit the used bin, some some points for self-control are warranted 🙂 And to be fair I must say they destroyed minds & reaped souls when I saw ’em live a couple of years ago.
These Just In (Coming Soon to a Playlist Near Me):
Witchcraft- s/t. b/c they do some cool songs and it was in the Used Bin.
Wolves in the Throne Room- Black Embrace. b/c i’ve enjoyed ‘Celestial Lineage’.
That’s what’s great about this audience; we’re all primarily extreme music aficionados that, conversely, remain unafraid to experience all sonic emotions, and that can only be done by listening to a wide variety of styles. Reading about the non-metal choices on these lists help me discover ways to fill differing voids, and intrigue me equally as much as the dark sounds. Also: The Bleeding destroys \m/ Great choice on Falls of Rauros as well; that band just gets better and better …
Just listened to Victor Griffin’s In-Graved again this morning and I gotta say, I love the album. Far bluesier than classic Pentagram, but done with authenticity and pinache (the Hammond organ playing is perfect). Shameless plug: if you haven’t seen it already, my review of it is here: https://wormgearzine.com/2013/02/13/victor-griffins-in-graved-st/
For WITR, I’d definitely recommend Two Hunters as well …
And right you are, Sir Jim!
Just found the time to listen to Error by belgian band Emptiness for the first time and wow… This is great! Mostly midpaced blackenend doom death with a progressive touch and a nice brooding atmosphere. Out on Dark Descent, check it out!
Sounds right up my alley; will do!
nightsblood & cliff—I’m a big Pentagram fan, and although Last Rites is not their best, the run of tracks 3, 4, 5, & 6 is my favorite consecutive bunch of tunes on any album of theirs, except (career highlight) Day of Reckoning. Yes, the riffs are key (eg. Into the Ground), but the vocal melodies are substantially better crafted (read: less drone style) than usual (eg. Everything & Windmills). The album takes a turn for the worse with American Dream and never recovers, but the first half is half great once you get past the okay opener.
Also a big fan of Day of Reckoning. I give Relapse a lot of credit for the comp release in the early 00’s. Although I was familiar with the Pentagram name, being able to have all these obscure recordings made me an instant fan. I haven’t picked up Last Rites as I was just so so on the last few albums. I’ll check it out soon.
Has anyone seen the documentary on Bobby L. from a few years back? I never knew he had such a drug problem.
Day of Reckoning is a classic but I like Relentless even better; even more doomy in atmosphere IMO and I love the sound which is more lo-fi (in a good way). Plus it’s got Sign of the Wolf which feels like an anthem to me. It’s the first Pentagram song I ever heard (on a Peaceville compilation) and it stuck with me ever since.
Will spend some time w/ Two Hunters when I get a chance.
Re: the Pentagram documentary- yes, I saw it. VERY messed up/disturbing how out of it Bobby was.
Re: Last Rites, IMO it’s just not a really strong bunch of songs. They have tons of old tunes that are really good (e.g., the ’76 demo material is killer, there are some lost tracks on two jam sessions from December of ’73 that are really cool, etc) so it just baffles me that they dredged up so-so material like ‘Windmill & Chimes’. To be fair some of the songs did get a nice, modernized tune-up. ‘American Dream’ is a total clunker for sure.
Re: the older albums, the s/t (sorry, I knew it long before the ‘Relentless’ reissue) is one of those truly legendary albums, damn near perfect from start to finish. An old friend who ran a small, indie record store up on the Ohio-Michigan line found me a copy years ago and held it ’til I came in the store. And while ‘Day or Reckoning’ is also strong stuff, I gotta send some love out for ‘Be Forewarned’. I missed that album when it was released and an e-friend sent me a copy of it a few years after-the-fact and knocked my socks off.
Hahaha there goes my metal credibility, I didn’t even know Relentless wasn’t the original title…