EVENT HORIZON June 2020
Man, it feels like I only just put together May’s Event Horizon! The year is flying by and the Metal release schedule is simply unrelenting. I detect a slight downturn in upcoming terrors locked in for June, but the quality is nonetheless looking stellar as ever. I had the plan to limit this feature to about six new selected titles, but found I couldn’t leave out some worthy releases. So just like last month, here’s TEN more to lock in on your calendar of dates. Hope you find something that files right up your alley. If not, there’s only around 200 other June releases you could check out if you feel so inclined! Enjoy the ride, brothers and sisters!
Stygian Crown – Stygian Crown
Released: 26 June
Style: Doom/Death
Label: Cruz Del Sur
Link: Bandcamp
On their debut self-titled album, Stygian Crown introduces the sound of “Candlethrower” to the world: A devastating combination of doom and death metal topped off by classically-trained vocals!
They call it “Candlethrower”. It conjures up images of doom-dancing and rolling tanks; doom-on-death; death-on-doom; Candlemass and Bolt Thrower melded together. Considering the background and sizeable résumés of its members, it wasn’t by accident Los Angeles’s Stygian Crown happened upon this sound. On their debut self-titled foray, Stygian Crown offers something few bands have in their arsenal: An album tuned to B, with a 26” bass drum and a singer who doesn’t need auto-tune. (From Bio)
Pessimist – Hold Out
Released: 26 June
Style: Thrash Metal
Label: MDD Records
Link: YouTube
Seven years have passed since the last album of the Thrash Metal maniacs of Pessimist called “Death From Above“. We welcome the third long player “Holdout” from this Southern German thrash band. You can expect 9 tracks with a playing time of 55 minutes of finest uncompromising Thrash Metal with a lot of Old School touch, which is, due to the merciless razor-sharp production, not only contemporary but also timeless. Expect this on June 26th 2020, via MDD Records. (From Bio)
Voidceremony – Entropic Reflections Continuum
Released: 26 June
Style: Death Metal
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Link: Site
Circulating in the pits of the deepest underground for nearly seven years, Ramona, California-based death metal outfit Voidceremony presents their long-awaited first full-length, Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel. While earlier releases hinted at the band’s unique potential and frenzied imagination, on their proper debut album, it takes its most actualized form thus far, looking ahead to darker visions of indefinable cosmic obscurity.
“On Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel”, Voidceremony features members of Ascended Dead, and is joined by Damon Good (Mournful Congregation, Stargazer) on fretless bass. The album was re-amped, mixed, and mastered by Damian Herring at Subterranean Watchtower Studios (Horrendous, Blood Incantation, Ghastly), and the cover art was created by Ivory Crux. (From Bio)
Purtenance – Buried Incanation
Released: 23 June
Style: Death Metal
Label: Xtreem
Link: Bandcamp
Finnish Death Metallers, Purtenance returns to the fore with their fourth album after their 2017 EP “Paradox of Existence”, where they did it as a quintet and since then have returned to a quartet formation, with the incorporation of Aabeg Gautam (from Nepal’s Dying Out Flame) on bass and vocals. “Buried Incarnation” is an opus with 9 cuts that continue their traditional style of heavy death metal from the old Finnish school, something they’ve been known for since their formation in 1989. The cover art has been made by Chris Moyen who has been in charge of every single one of their cover artworks since their classic debut album from ’92 “Member of Immortal Damnation”. (From Bio)
Vampire – Rex
Released: 19 June
Style: Death/Thrash
Label: Century Media
Link: YouTube
Deep in a musty, age-old cellar of old town Gothenburg, Vampire have been plotting something wicked…again! In 2020, frontman Hand of Doom, guitarists Black String and Sepulchral Condor, bassist Command, and drummer Abysmal Condor proudly present their third studio album, “Rex”, which proves to be a tremendous sonic and compositional highlight in their career thus far.
Having risen from the proverbial grave in 2011, Vampire released their self-titled demo a year later. Immediately hailed by tastemakers—such as Darkthrone’s Fenriz—and fans, who raided 300 copies of the demo in a week, Vampire’s vicious yet evocative style set fire to convention. Signed by Century Media a year later, the Gothenburgers quickly set out to work on their debut. Released in the abyssal spring of 2014, Vampire’s self-titled debut was received with much praise whereas the group’s artistic endeavors already became less to-the-face and more atmospheric on the following “Cimmerian Shade” EP and even more so on the second album, “With Primeval Force”. The latter overall turned out to provide a little less traditional songwriting in vampiric terms and was colder, less immediate than the debut. 2020’s “Rex” now ups the ante notably unfurling a highly addictive whirlwind of the harsh and the heavy, the aggressive and the atmospheric, the melodic and the maniacal. With “Rex”, Vampire have successfully crafted a majestic, macabre force of its own! (From Bio)
Nemesium – Continua
Released: 12 June
Style: Death Metal, Blackened Death Metal
Label: Black Lion Records
Link: Bandcamp
One of the darkest kept secrets from Australia, Nemesium deliver an incomparable form of extreme metal, channeling various stylings from both old school and tech/prog death metal to the devilish black metal from the ‘90s Scandinavian scene. With their high speed, high energy live onslaughts, the Geelong-based five-piece have deservedly shared the stage with world-renowned acts such as Sinister, Krisiun, Undergang, Omnium Gatherum, as well as Aussie legends Psycroptic and King Parrot.
Their upcoming debut album, “Continua”, is a series of tales about torturous struggle, transition into a new age, and the decimation of the world as it currently exists to the background of an unrelenting and sonically crushing soundtrack. The direct followup to the 2015’s EP, “Sentient Cognizance”, this debut full-length sees the band stepping themselves into a darker and more twisted realm of extreme metal. (From Bio)
Ormskrik – Ormskrik
Released: 05 June
Style: Blackened Thrash
Label: Fysisk Format
Link: Bandcamp
From their self-built rehearsal space in an abandoned yarn factory on the west coast of Norway, Ormskrik have brewed up thrash metal in its blackest form since 2015. Though still in their teens, the guys give new life to the genre first pioneered by Slayer, Metallica and Anthrax and then evolved by Integrity, Toxic Holocaust and Power Trip.
Produced by Daniel Bergstrand at Dugout Productions and mixed by Lawrence Mackrory at Obey Mastering, “Ormiskrik” features eleven hyper-eviscerating and ferocious tracks fusing bay area thrash, Norwegian black metal, and Swedish death metal. (From Bio)
16 – Dream Squasher
Released: 05 June
Style: Sludge Metal
Label: Relapse
Link: Bandcamp
-(16)-return with their new album, “Dream Squasher”. A testament to the power of loss, every moment of “Dream Squasher” casts the San Diego band into new, deeper depths. “A conscious effort was made to inject positivity into the lyrical themes,” guitarist and lead vocalist Bobby Ferry explains. “The best we could come up with is loving your dog so much, you’d end up killing yourself if the dog dies.”
The tragic, violent intent in this expression won’t be lost on listeners either; at any given moment of “Dream Squasher”, -(16)-‘s bouldering guitars crash into one another, set atop equally pulverizing bass and drums. Thunderous riffs express equal parts melancholy and fury. For the first time in the band’s 29-year career, “Dream Squasher” sees Bobby Ferry stepping forward and taking the helm on lead vocals, rounding out the band with both monumental moments of singing and pained screams of pure vitriol. From standout tracks like “Candy in Spanish”, to bruisers like “Agora (Killed by a Mountain Lion)” and the mountainous melodies of “Sadlands”, “Dream Squasher” proves to be -(16)-‘s return to form – where riffs dominate and anger reigns supreme. (From Bio)
Death Courier – Necrotic Verses
Released: 05 June
Style: Death Metal
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Link: Bandcamp
Legendary death metal band Death Courier are one of the earliest bands from the Greek metal scene releasing a slew of demos from way back in 1987 and putting out an album and an EP in the early ’90s. More than three decades later, the band is on the verge of releasing one of the strongest albums to come from the Greek death metal scene. It’s hard to believe that this is the same band because the energy level is off the charts and everything has been amped up to match present day standards without of course changing the core sound and integrity. The music is still essentially the pulsating, rabid death/thrash metal kind and there remains that palpable hunger in the members to create memorable and gnarly music that they were known for. This is a lethal new album that throws down the gauntlet to the naysayers doubting the band’s prowess after so many years, who will invariably be forced to eat their words. “Necrotic Verses” will grab you by the throat and won’t let go till the shockingly potent album is over. Death Courier have set new standards for themselves and others to look up to, all over again. (From Bio)
Ulthar – Providence
Released: 12 June
Style: Blackened Death
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Link: Site
Bay area blackened death cult, Ulthar, will unleash their second full-length, “Providence”, via 20 Buck Spin.
With the release of their “Cosmovore” debut in 2018, Ulthar presented a twisted and warped dystopia where furiously-paced, inverted death metal and scathing angular blackness defined a new way forward. Now the band returns with the grotesquely intangible Providence, whereby Ulthar stretches the fabric of previously trod worlds into idiosyncratic new forms and elevated levels of primal intellect.
The unyielding Ulthar attack doubles down on “Providence” with figures becoming more sickening and shapes more savage. An immensity like spiraling ancient monoliths too tall to comprehend and bending inward upon themselves envelops adherents to this realm. Duly diabolic voices guide this odyssey through the incongruous caverns of absurdity, obscure texts and manifold vitriol. (From Bio)
Carefully considered and selected by K-MaN
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