Best Underrated Releases of 2012 Pt.I

Well, better late than never, right? I know... sorry for the delay. You know that end of the year lists are a major pain in the ass, so last year i really thought about it and after seeing several "copy-paste" type of Lists, that really basically licked every major band and their labels asses, i thought to myself: "Fuck...". So i focused my attention on releases (and as releases i understand: Demo, EP, Split's, Album, whatever the band puts out. If you don't agree then get your own blog, fuck off) that are as good (or even better) than some titles found on most of those "mainstream" lists that flooded the web last year.

I've been planning this for ages, but (now for the rehearsed speech) time is the enemy and i can't make blogging out of a living. So cut the chat, let's get to the music. Boys and girls i give you my first part (of two) of my favorite underrated releases of last year. This first compilation is essentially made out of doom, hardcore, sludge, etc. I can lift up the veil a little bit and tell you that Part II is dedicated to the blackest side of metal.

Get into this. If possible check the whole album where the track comes from, burn it into a CD to hear on your stereo, car, etc. Cook it with some peas, i don't care. Just listen to it. Hope you enjoy.

Note: The playlist has been updated. I fucked up and in the first .zip file there was one track that was from 2013. Sorry for that. You can check out the setlist below.

Forever in the shadow

Setlist

1. Column of Heaven - After the Mission (taken from the album "Mission From God")
2. Column of Heaven - Buried Secrets (taken from the album "Mission From God")
3. Aksumite - Angel Strike Animal (taken from the album "Prideless Lions")
4. Ascetic: - Uroboros (Up From Eden) (taken from the album "Self Initiation")
5. This Gift Is A Curse - Att hata allt mÑnskligt liv (taken from the album "I, Guilt Bearer")
6. Hexis - Seputus (taken from the EP "Seputus | Fatum")
7. Torch Runner - Committed to the Ground (taken from the album "Committed To The Ground")
8. Godstopper - Blame Them (taken from the album "What Matters")
9. Dephosphorus - Uncharted (taken from the album "Night Sky Transform")
10. Nekromantheon - Cast Down to the Void (taken from the album "Rise, Vulcan Spectre")
11. Fister - Violence V: Megabolide (Return to The Heavens) (taken from the EP "Violence")
12. Drowning Horse - Of the Wild (taken from the album "Drowning Horse")
13. Anguish - Book Of Fox (taken from the album "Through the Archdemon's Head")
14. Faustcoven - Hellfire and Funeral Bells (taken from the album "Hellfire and Funeral Bells")
15. Bereft - Ethereal Dispersal (taken from the album "Leichenhaus")
16. Faal - My Body Glows Red (taken from the album "The Clouds Are Burning")
17. Hell - Decedere (taken from the album "III")

The Lion's Daughter "Shame on Us All"

Hell yeah! The latest effort of the St. Louis band, The Lion's Daughter, one of the most underrated bands out there, is now available as "name your price". Nevertheless, that's no reason for you to no support them. Buy some of their shit here. "Shame on Us All" is a powerful storm of apocalyptic, dirty and furious decibels. Prepare to get your ass kicked.

Apocalyptic visions

Pendulous "Mirrored Confessions"

"Mirrored Confessions" is the debut EP of LA's doom band Pendulous. Pendulous play that style of doom that i enjoy a lot. Heavy, slow, mournful and depressing. It mixes some contemporary doom elements with some classic ones. Basically although "Mirrored Confessions" features 4 tracks in its alignment, only two of them are really songs. It starts with "Disheveled" an intro that is served as a very introspective monologue, it instantly brings to my mind "Weathering The Blight" the intro track from Loss taken from the magnificent album "Despond". If you hear both track, you will probably find some resemblances. It has that same cold and gloomy atmosphere where we imagine this character, alone in a very dark room looking to its own reflection in a old mirror that stands before him, as we hear his thoughts loudly echoing through the room.

"Reflections" begins with some shy, distant guitar notes that don't stretch too long until this avalanche of doom collapses right before us. The anguished and "clean" side of E.R.M's voice you either gonna love it or hate it, the thing is that fits really well here. The bipolarity of the vocal work varies between a more clean, but still tortured enough, kind of voice, carrying out that tone we are used to hear within a more classic doom outfits like, for example, My Dying Bride or (pulling out a more contemporary act) Pallbearer and a guttural, cavernous voice in the vein of a Loss, Lycus or Aldebaran. Moreover,  throughout the nearly 10 minutes that this track lasts, it's pure funeral doom. Slow rhythms that move at a almost a funeral pace exalting nothing but sorrow and grief.

"Seeds" is clearly my favorite song here. Tearing out under a more dynamic pace, this track surprises us in its middle with a short instrumental moment. Sounding quite introspective and minimalist, it gives this track another energy, making it more interesting and not so boring ("boring", a very dreaded word when it comes speaking of doom metal where the songs usually have, at least, about 6 or more minutes long). Despite being a song that contains such different tempos, in the end, the result comes out very nice and quite enjoyable. The variations of the voice, the background howls and echoes turn out to be quite a decisive factor that make this track so good.

"Mirrored Confessions" closes with the outro "Mislaid". That creepy old grandfather clock sound brings me back to my childhood where my neighbors had a clock like that and i was constantly awaken in the middle of the night due to its noise. Urrghh... Here we hear the same kind of monologue we heard in the opening and with this another page of this depressing diary is closed. For now.

I really enjoyed this EP from Pendulous, the tracks are really great, the whole production sounds quite good and it's well performed. It seems we have another player in the US doom scene. Look forward to hear more of this band. Great release.

Highly Recommended for fans of Lycus, Loss, Pallbearer, Aldebaran. My Dying Bride and other doom outfits that may fit in this bag.

Pendulous

No Fealty "In the Shadow of the Monolith"

No Fealty are a Copenhagen based crust/hardcore band formed by current and ex-members of Hexis & Thought Police Brutality that, as they say and I quote: "We care about fast, loud, abrasive and aggressive music, politics, DIY and nice people." So when I got the email by one of the band members, Søren, I decided to take a quick listen and after immediately recognizing the cover that shows Ruben's painting of Saturn Devouring His Son, it only took one listen to the opening track and I was instantly hooked into it. Fast, pissed as hell, abrasive and powerful hardcore fueled crust is what you get here.

"Deprivation" the opening track, is literally a hand grenade that explodes in our hands. Powerful, fast and chaotic crust bridged with some slower parts where the band uses background voice samples i guess taken from a movie although i don't know which one, but that isn't the most important here. The most important is the music, and judging by the tone of this first track, these guys aren't willing to take any prisoners. The next track, "Kadavergehorsam (Do And Die)" sounds like those classic crust tracks that brings to my mind bands like Wolfbrigade or Tragedy and is a track that could've easily been made by one of these two bands. In total "In the Shadow of the Monolith", features 12 explosive tracks that mixes perfectly the viciousness of crust with the most angry side of hardcore resulting in the most savage and violent formulas within' this genre, that you can hear this year.

You get fantastic tracks like "Strict Seawater Diet", "The Emperor Is Laughing (While You Are Making Plans)" that are some of my personal favorites here and on the other hand you get these blasting short fused tracks like "Animalism", "Iron Triangle", "Savior" and the closing "Rabies God" that are short tempered and extremely explosive creating destruction wherever they pass by. No Fealty's "In the Shadow of the Monolith" introduces great lyrics, it's extremely well played, the sound is very muscled and abrasive very well wrapped in this excellent sound production.

If you're into the kind of modern crust bands like Alpinist, Masakari and Early Graves or even if you're into the real and classic crust type bands like Wolfbrigade, Deathraid, Tragedy or His Hero Is Gone then you must, you shouldn't, let this band pass you by. If you like what you hear, the least you can do is to support these youngsters. Head over to their Store and buy some of their shit. In their Bandcamp you'll find several links to several stores, just choose the one who's closer to you. Support.

Feed The Leviathan

Hoax "LP"

"After a relentless string of EP’s and tours, this release marks a new standard in DIY hardcore punk. Taking their pummeling, mid-tempo sound and expanding it into something far sicker and hideous, they have leveled the horizon with a brand new series of anthems. Masterfully engineered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air studios, this huge collaborative effort features contributions from 14 of the underground’s finest artists: Cali DeWitt, Mark McCoy, Matt Adis, Shaun Fillley, Sugi, Heather Benjamin, Sam Ryser, Emma Kohlmann, Guillem El Muro, Alex Heir, Colin Swanson-White, Jaybo Gardner, and Tony Pasquarosa and an introduction by Pharmakon. This LP comes housed in a full-color, double-scored folder enclosing 6 double-sided poster sized inserts."

Hoax are a band that at this point need no kind of introduction. This new latest LP introduces an even more rotten, distorted and vicious-as-fuck kind of sound into Hoax music. The download link was kindly given by the band itself. Get into it, drink beer like there's no tomorrow, start a fight, get nuts, end up in jail. Hoax!

Hoax

Moonknight "Senmorta"

"Senmorta" is the brand new EP from Moonknight, the solo project of Horus aka James Brown III, who you might know from the band Harassor who also runs Rising Beast Recordings. For these 5 new songs, Horus has stepped away from the atmospheric black metal style established on releases like "Ligeia", "Toplov" and the recent split 7" with Ukraine's Moloch, opting instead for a vicious blackened death/thrash approach. Featuring live drums from Andorkappen aka Lord Time, these songs carry the Moonknight aesthetic into new territory and will serve as a precursor to the next full-length. 

Indeed, this slight turn in Moonknight's sound is a challenge, specially to Horus. The songs on "Senmorta" may have acquired new dynamics and new structures but they haven't lost their essence, well hidden in its core. In other words, when we first hear these new tracks we quickly recognize that we are face to face with Moonknight. Like in "Street Rot City" and "Usurpers", the first two opening tracks of the EP, they clearly have a strong thrash and punk vibe behind, treated here with that special and unique touch that only Horus can give. The guitar still sounds incisive enough while the vocals clearly pull to an almost old school death metal territories. Just like "Usurpers", "A.R.S." is a short track, they almost reach the two minute mark, but that's more than enough to state that this new turn, in terms of sound, will certainly extend in future records of Moonknight. Short but effective. Done. 

But then there are tracks like "A Dying Star" that seem to peek into the past where Moonknight still manages, amidst this blackness, to embody in his music elements of such beautiful, almost romantic melancholy making it to sound so special and unique. I really love this (not so) softer side of Mooknight's music. But not all here is roses, well.. it can be, but they are black and have big and sharp thorns. 

"Phantom World", the track that closes this great EP in all of its glory, carries those same romantically dramatic elements that swirl around frenetic and chaotic rhythms. It's almost as if Mooknight grabs that kind of romantic sadness that we only hear in genres like post-punk or shoegaze and reinterprets here in his own way. I can only describe the weight of drama on this track in one word: Beautiful.

With "Senmorta", Moonknight opens a new passage to new, well-known territories but always with one eye in the past. Honestly, I really enjoyed this EP, it left me begging for more. The sound here is sharp and cohesive with moments that can go from the most frenetic thrash/punk style to a more atmospheric/melancholic kind of black metal. I really look forward to another full-length of Moonknight. 

Meanwhile head over to Rising Beast Bandcamp and stream/download this great EP by Mooknight, just follow the link below. A limited edition tape of "Senmorta" will see the light of day soon, so keep your eyes opened for this one.

Senmorta

New Header up!

In case you haven't noticed... there's a new header for Forever Cursed! A huge thanks to master Eric Marshal, who took his own time and patience to create such an awesome, crazy illustration. If you want some crazy layouts for your album, tees, whatever... message Eric up through his Facebook. 

It was time to make some changes here in the Haxan's den. Hope you guys like it as much as i do. Later!

Thank you so much Eric.

†H†

Crypt Lurker "Baneful Magic, Death Worship and Necromancy Rites Archaic"

Holy shit... now where did this band came from? Crypt Lurker hail from Liverpool playing this dreadful, haunting, absolutely the most sinister death doom i've heard in a while. Simply some of the best material i've had the pleasure to hear this year. Their sound brings to my mind bands like Hooded Menace (but way more frightening), Catacombs, Moss or the slower side of Funeral. Crypt Lurker's music is all about death involved in with a very claustrophobic atmosphere where a very strong stench of sulphur, reigns. "Baneful Magic, Death Worship and Necromancy Rites Archaic" is the band's debut that is going to see the light of day very soon. With such great releases this year from Vasaeleth, Ulcerate, Gorguts, etc, this is a new band that sure deserves to be upon the same altar as them. Memorize this name: Crypt Lurker.

The hour approaches, the bells toll, the crows stare as the grave lies open...

be ready or one of the most heavy death metal releases of the year. Stream the tracks in the link below.

Worship Death

New Header Wanted!!

So, in order to mark this return i really thought about it and i think it's time to change the blog header. What do you guys think? Yes or No?

If you're a tattoo artist, illustrator, graphic designer and want to get your art featured here, just hit me an email to: forevercursedblog@gmail.com

I could do it myself, but time isn't my friend at all and one of the bad things in my job is that you're never pleased with the final result. So if you're a fan or follower of this blog, you know the kind of stuff i dig. The whole concept must be around what i usually post here. But feel free to do whatever you want, mix some occult, esoteric stuff with boobs, i don't give a shit. In the end it has to be awesome!!

Thanks.
†H†

Kyrest "Fractures"

Taking influences of Cursed, Trainwreck, Hammers or Perth Express, Kyrest are another band making it's way in the european scene. I must confess that the germans really have a knack for this kind of stuff. Kyrest are no exception. I really dig this kind of hardcore that drinks from this crust (or neo-crust) new kind of influences. Fans of the bands mentioned above, don't sleep on this one. And by the way, the vinyl editions of "Fractures" sure looks awesome, and it's pretty cheap as well. All records comes with a download code and a beautiful 12-page booklet. First press of 500 records. 100 on white vinyl with black splatter, 100 records on pantone blue vinyl and 300 on black vinyl. Kyrest will release their first full-length record "Fractures" in August 30th. Check these beauties here.

Faults and Fractures