EVENT HORIZON

The third instalment of our new Sunday feature for Blessed Altar Zine! As stated previously, this feature will appear at the end of every month – specifically the fourth Sunday – with a narrowed streamlined focus on the more significant Metal releases to be unleashed in the forthcoming month! So today we look at the month of June! Again, peeking over the edge into the maelstrom of metal, the line up across the next 30 days is packed with new (un)earthly delights with June 14, 21 and 28 standing out with some exciting top notch new albums to wrap your skull around.

Here’s another delightful mix of heaviness for you and your wallet to consider: Give solace to the following six albums – June’s Event Horizon!

NUCLEUS – Entity
RELEASED: June 14th
STYLE: Death Metal
LINK: Bandcamp
LABEL: Unspeakable Axe

NUCLEUS is a Sci-fi themed death metal band based out of Chicago, IL. “Entity” is their second full length album. Technical, sometimes weird progressive time signatures in a mountain riffs to boot. Man, even without a description, you’d be hard pressed not to investigate based on the cover art alone! Adam Burke genius right there!

ATLAS ENTITY – Beneath The Cosmic Silence
RELEASED: June 14th
STYLE: Progressive Death Metal
LABEL: Self- Release
LINK: Bandcamp 

Florida-based progressive death metal outfit ATLAS ENTITY recently announced the upcoming June 14th release of their first full-length album, Beneath the Cosmic Silence. It is the follow up to the project’s 2015 EP, Enceladus. Several years in the making, Beneath the Cosmic Silence is a multi-faceted progressive death metal experience enhanced by melodic death metal, technical death metal, and black metal elements.

The release once again unites multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Alex Gallegos with world-renowned drummer Samus Paulicelli, best known for his work with Decrepit Birth and his current year performance on the new Devin Townsend album, Empath.  The album’s sole guest spot is likewise a high-profile appearance, sporting a guest guitar solo from Obscura guitarist Rafael Trujillo on the closing song “Celestial Noise”.

ATLAS ENTITY – Beneath the Cosmic Silence will strongly appeal to fans of Conducting From The Grave, older Opeth, Death, Amorphis, Agalloch, Falls of Rauros, and In Flames. Alex Gallegos was happy to cite the following releases and bands as having influenced the direction of the group’s new material, ranging from Falls of Rauros – The Light That Dwells In Rotten Wood, Celephaïs – Monad, Abstract Void – Back to Reality, Mesarthim – Isolate, Vvilderness – Devour the Sun, Ihsahn – Arktis, and Opeth – Damnation / Opeth – My Arms, Your Hearse.

HOWLING SYCAMORE – Seven Pathways to Annihilation
RELEASED: June 21st
STYLE: Avant-garde Metal/Extreme Progressive
LABEL: Svart Records
LINK: Bandcamp 

2^ND album from HOWLING SYCAMORE! The pedigree is stellar – Jason McMaster (WatchTower, Dangerous Toys), Davide Tiso (Ephel Duath) and Hannes Grossman (Necrophagist, Obscura) unite to create Howling Sycamore, an extreme metal project that traverses all aspects of progressive music. With guests Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, Corrections House) and Kevin Hufnagel (Gorguts, Dyshythmia).

Produced, mixed and mastered by JAMIE KING. Artwork by DEHN SORA.
Also Featuring: MARTY FRIEDMAN on lead guitars in “Second Sight”
KEVIN HUFNAGEL on lead guitars in “Initiation” and “Mastering Fire”
MATT BALDWINSON on lead guitars in “Tempest’s Chant”
BRUCE LAMONT on baritone saxophone in “Sorcerer”
FABIAN VESTOD on drums in “Second Sight”
OTREBOR on hammered dulcimer in “Sorcerer”

HATE MANIFESTO – Herald of Triumph (EP)
RELEASED: June 24th
STYLE: Black/Death
LABEL: Helter Skelter
LINK: Bandcamp 

One of Greece’s best-kept secrets, HATE MANIFESTO formed in 2003 but, so far, have an extremely sparse discography. However, what they lack in quantity, they more than double-up on in quality. To Those Who Glorified Death, their debut album from 2017 – which HELTER SKELTER rereleased on a worldwide scale in early 2018 – displayed the shockingly extreme force with which HATE MANIFESTO could create their whirlwind of martial black/death. But with the aptly titled Herald of Triumph do they fully display the armament of their potential. Comprising four fierce ‘n’ fiery tracks in a swift ‘n’ decisive 17 minutes, Herald of Triumph is full-on shock & awe – CRUSH, KILL, DESTROY – with HATE MANIFESTO‘s chosen weapons being the iron-fisted surge of black metal and the muscular swarm of death metal, all rendered in rich, devastating tones. Simultaneously classic and modern, Herald of Triumph is the sign of your end! (From Bio)

You can check our review of Hate Manifesto’s EP here.

YELLOW EYES – Rare Field Ceiling
RELEASED: June 28th
STYLE: Black Metal
LABEL: Peaceville Records
LINK: Bandcamp 

With their 5^th album ‘Rare Field Ceiling’ is the coldest YELLOW EYES record to date, and it is also the warmest. It is the most inviting, the most alienating, the murkiest and the sharpest, always falling apart and yet held together by a dawning sense that within the thicket is a vision of majestic clarity.

But as Rare Field Ceiling climbs and climbs, majesty becomes delusion and clarity becomes mania. Yellow Eyes have always held failure up to the light and found patterns in the glow, but here they trace a doomed arc and, with unnerving focus, follow it to the very end.

In the cryptic, labyrinthine tradition of Ved Buens Ende, Fleurety, and early Blut Aus Nord, Yellow Eyes play black metal, uncompromising and unbound. Rare Field Ceiling is the latest statement in an increasingly significant and singular legacy. (From Bio)

BLOODY HAMMERS – The Summoning
RELEASED: June 28th
STYLE: Doom Metal/Rock/Goth
LABEL: Napalm Records
LINK: Bandcamp 

The U.S. duo (Anders Manga & Devallia) have prepared a wonderfully creepy horror musical experience that pays homage to classic horror. BLOODY HAMMERS’ idea of a soundtrack for your favorite video nasties holds some surprises on their fifth album. Frontman Anders Manga infused the new album tracks with epic metal and hard rock nuances. But don’t fret, the lumbering doom riffs deliver massive doses of goth rock, and Devallia’s psychedelic keyboards (just check out the hypnotic “The Beast Is Coming Out”!) are present ever-still, and turn their latest effort The Summoning into a well-balanced, lush and highly infectious affair. (From Bio)

Carefully selected by KMaN

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