Hubris - Metempsychosis

By Justin C. Chances are good that you’re reading this while under some level of self-imposed quarantine. It’s not a lot of fun, even for those of us who have had work from home situations before. It’s even less fun for people whose income depends on being able to go out in public and gather people around them, like our beloved bands.

By Justin C.

Artwork by Jérémie Hohl.

Chances are good that you’re reading this while under some level of self-imposed quarantine. It’s not a lot of fun, even for those of us who have had work from home situations before. It’s even less fun for people whose income depends on being able to go out in public and gather people around them, like our beloved bands.

So what to do? Well, there are no easy answers to that, but some folks are trying. Bandcamp itself is waiving its share of sales on March 20 to help artists. (And for those of you griping that it’s just a “token” or some such nonsense, please go away unless you’re also donating 100% of your income to others for any period of time.) Art as Catharsis, a label that supports all manner of avant garde music, is giving 100% of their profits directly to their artists through the end of March.

So what to buy, what to buy.... I got into Art as Catharsis way back when through Serious Beak, an instrumental band that Lachlan Dale, label founder, plays in himself. That’s a good start, but for a recent release of metal-adjacent, instrumental music, let me recommend the latest by Hubris, Metempsychosis, an entirely engaging album centered on Greek mythology.

I say “metal-adjacent” here because this doesn’t have the heavier vibes of bands like Russian Circles or Pelican, but like those bands, Hubris knows how to write a damn fine instrumental song. And although there is a lot of delicate loveliness, they also aren’t afraid to get their stomp on when needed. The heaviness is judiciously meted out, like around the halfway point of album opener “Hepius.” I’ve poked fun of other post-metal-type bands that seem to stick to the quiet-LOUD-quiet-LOUD formula, which can be a bit exhausting, but Hubris ebbs and flows, builds and retreats, making even their longer songs pass by like a dream.

Give Hubris a devoted listen, especially since your other option is to enter the Thunderdome to fight people over toilet paper. If you’re able, support the bands you like through Bandcamp this Friday, or from Art as Catharsis the rest of this month. Every little bit helps.

Tints of Obsidian - What You Missed in 2017

By Justin C. Much like the Christmas shopping season, sometimes it seems like the end-of-year album lists come earlier and earlier each year. Inevitably, this means some otherwise excellent albums released in November and December get lost in the shuffle.

By Justin C.

Much like the Christmas shopping season, sometimes it seems like the end-of-year album lists come earlier and earlier each year. Inevitably, this means some otherwise excellent albums released in November and December get lost in the shuffle. I'm here to educate you on what you weren't paying attention to: two outstanding splits from bands known and unknown and a full-length from a newcomer.


In late November, black metal bands Barshasketh and Outre released a split called Sein / Zeit. We haven't talked about Barshasketh around here since way back in 2011, which is a shame because they've made some fine albums since then, including their latest full length, Ophidian Henosis. For this split, Barshasketh contribute the Being ("Sein"). Their black metal here has a touch of dissonance and a driving energy. The rhythm is sometimes chunky, sometimes galloping, but always addictive.

Outre brings the Time ("Zeit") and an additional track, and from the first off-kilter, thrashy strains of "Zeit," you can tell that they're a bit more zany in their approach. Is zaniness allowed in black metal? I say yes. The jangly chords and manic vocals add a bit of playfulness to the full-speed meanness in the riffing, and it's a great combination. I wasn't familiar with Outre before this, but I'm going to check out their back catalog.

Siberian Hell Sounds has, thus far in their career, produced short blasts of blackened, crusty noise, with songs usually hovering around the three-minute mark. When I saw that they contributed one, 20-minute-long song to a split with Convulsing, I was worried. Could their signature sound be extended to funeral doom lengths without getting tedious? The answer is yes. Who would have guessed that the band had ambitions to make a damn mini-epic with what I'd actually call legitimate movements while never taking their foot off the gas in terms of intensity?

Convulsing's track is similar in scope and sound, although if anything, their rough parts sound even nastier, although perhaps that's just in contrast with the delicate, barely-there ambient sections, doomy sections, and slow-creepy-death sections, to name just a few of the fascinating interludes contained in this one, long track. Like Outre, Convulsing is another band I need to check out in more detail. This split was another late November release that I feel like slipped by too many people.

In December--if you'd been paying attention--Dsknt brought war to your ears (and sometimes to vowels) with their album PhSPHR Entropy. Their style is definitely bottom heavy, pairing low growls with a bass-heavy production. For reasons I probably can’t defend in a musicological sense, I’m put in mind of Portal--I think they share a dense muscularity, but the big difference is that Dsknt doesn’t employ Portal’s suffocating impenetrability and focuses on songs that mere mortals can comprehend. I couldn't resist the dissonant jabs of guitar overlaying the black-death churn on album opener "Exhaling Dust," and the rest of the album is equally compelling.

Serious Beak - Ankaa

By Justin C. We're not quite done with bird-themed metal this year. Up now is Australian instrumental act Serious Beak with Ankaa, a follow-up coming almost exactly 4 years after their fantastic debut, Huxwhukw.

By Justin C.

Artwork: Caitlin Hackett

We're not quite done with bird-themed metal this year. Up now is Australian instrumental act Serious Beak with Ankaa, a follow-up coming almost exactly 4 years after their fantastic debut, Huxwhukw. If you know their debut, you generally know what to expect, because their brand of proggy instrumental metal has stayed pretty consistent, although this time around, I think their melodic sensibilities have grown sharper.

The album is a concept of sorts, detailing in four songs the life cycle of our sun--including its formation, its "main sequence" at the present, its eventual expansion into a red giant, and ultimate collapse into a white dwarf and ultimately going dark completely as its fuel is exhausted. Paired with each song/stage is a bird, starting with an Australian songbird and ending, appropriately, with an extinct species. It's a fascinating concept, and it's interesting to think about how one might compose a soundtrack for the trillions of years in the life of a star. It wasn't obvious to me how one might do that, and even after the first listen, I still wasn't sure. But as I spent more time with this album, I realized Serious Beak nails the hell out of it.

The music alternates between proggy dissonance and lovely, tranquil melody. The angrier/proggier parts definitely call to mind King Crimson and bits of Meshuggah-isms, but I almost didn't include those references in this review because I didn't want to color anyone's perception of the music. More than any particular influence, what kept coming to mind when listening to this was the word "balance." The jagged, syncopated riffing is interspersed with beautiful minimalism. The first two parts of "Main Sequence (Dacelo novaeguineae)" emphasize this in spades. Granted, I could have happily listened to a whole album of the shimmering spacey parts, but as it is, the harsh and the pretty are offset perfectly. You can get lost in some music, but this demands more attention.

The third track, "Red (Laniocera hypopyrra)," may be the most aggressive, and it even features some legit guitar heroics. As you might expect, though, the technicality serves the song. The whole thing comes to a beautiful end in the fourth and final track, which perfectly encapsulates the idea of a star coming to the end of its life. Its gentle melodies and lilting tremolos perfectly fit the idea of something ending, particularly something much grander than us little human beings. It's a perfect ending to a wonderfully immersive album.

Adrift for Days - Come Midnight​.​.​.

Written by Ulla Roschat.


Come Midnight... (2012) is the second album of the five piece psychedelic/drone/doom band Adrift for Days (formed in 2009) from Sydney/Australia. It consists of 6 songs with a total playing time of about 71 minutes.

The album is a psychedelic journey through soundscapes of extreme contrasts, contrasts in quietness and loudness, in acoustic fragility and massive walls of droning distortion, in enchanting melodies and crushing riffs. These contrasts may unfold in an agonizingly slow build up weaving a multi-layered texture of sound with threads made of psychedelic, drone, sludge and post metal elements, or it may just hit you unprepared with a crushing riff coming out of nowhere.

There’s an underlying eerie atmosphere throughout the entire album created by the incredibly beautiful melancholic melodies, the menacingly driving tribal rhythms, the echoing sounds barely locatable - from far away or from inside your mind?, and of course the creeping doomy heaviness and crushing destruction.

And despite all the contrasts and many different elements the album never sounds forced or glutted. Instead it simply takes over your mind from the first sound and won’t let it go until the last one faded away. It is bracingly experimental, organic, progressive, unpredictable... and with vocals to die for.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]