BAZ Underground Updates XLII
It’s still the Monday of the year, but at least we are just about two thirds through January. It’s becoming harder and harder to figure out something interesting or fun to write every week in this intro, so how about this time we just jump straight into the good stuff with our writers Julia Katrin and Tom Boatman hmm?
So, let’s see what’s out there…
Band: Wolfheart
It’s been a while since we saw the announcement from Wolfheart that they were planning their Winterborn Live from Studio stream on the 20th of January, or in other words; tomorrow! The Winterborn album is planned to be performed in full, plus a few selected songs from other albums. Almost two hours of footage is coming our way, including Q&A as well as a song tutorial. For all information plus a ticket purchase you can visit this page, and be quick because before you know it the live stream will start and you might miss it!
Band: EyeHateGod
Ahhhhhhhhohfuckohfuckohfuck EyeHateGod has a new album coming out and I only found this out by total accident! New Orleans’ grimey, noisy Sludge titans follow up their 2014 self-titled album, with “A History of Nomadic Behaviour”, due for release on March 12th through Century Media. Vinyl copies of some of their past releases change hands for anything up to around €100, so when we tell you copies won’t be available for long, believe it. Americans can go to the band’s shop for the limited edition purple vinyl (and there’s a ton of great merch available too); for Europeans, Germany’s Napalm Records is one excellent online store you can go to and has limited purple, grey and standard black vinyl (all coming with a CD copy and a poster), as well as a CD option. Fucking EyeHateGod!!!! Ahhhhhhh I need to go lie down now.
Band: MomentuM
Italy’s Gothic Rock band MomentuM haven’t exactly been prolific. Formed in 1987, the band released their second (and up to this point final) album “Ad Nauseam” way back in 2002. Now though Avantgarde Music have announced a one off 250 unit colour vinyl pressing (which you can pre-order here). The release date is February 19th, but you can be sure it’ll be sold-out by then. Hard to pin down, “Ad Nauseam” at times sounds like something you might hear in a David Lynch movie, or an Einstürzende Neubauten record, or if Queensrÿche collaborated with Mike Patton when he’s feeling in a dark lounge mode. This is one you could relax to with a glass of red wine on a winter evening, but it might give you strange dreams.
Band: Fiendish Imp
The quirky Dungeon Synth of the UK’s Fiendish Imp sounds like it could be playtime music for kids, buuuuuuuuuut turns out those kids have imbued with the spirit of the Dark Lord, because there is seriously spooky and sinister undertones to this instrumental music. Originally released back in 2019, most of the original vinyl pressing are gone, but Germany’s Dunkelheit Produktionen have just announced a new, limited, coloured vinyl edition. You can snaffle a copy here.
Band: Aara
Delivering huge, grand Atmospheric Black Metal, Switzerland’s Aara have announced the release of “Triade I: Eos” through Debemur Morti Productions on March 26th. As you might guess from the title, the album is part 1 of a planned trilogy and the releases are inspired by the 1820 Gothic novel “Melmoth the Wanderer” by Charles Robert Maturin. You probably won’t guess that last part from the album’s title, but it’s written on their bandcamp page, where you can feast on a range of limited vinyl editions and a bunch of other merch you can merrily drain your bank accounts with.
Band: Fractal Generator
Although Canada’s Fractal Generator won’t see their second album “Macrocosmos” released until May 15th on Everlasting Spew Records (nice, real nice), the limited , colour vinyl is all gone and bandcamp have already almost sold out of the regular, black vinyl, but fear not the label still have copies left here. If some pounding Technical Death Metal is what you’re in the mood for, this forthcoming release could be right up your street.
Just as it has become harder each week to write an intro it’s just as hard to write a clever outro as well. But as you can see, that doesn’t seem to affect the fact that this week is yet another one filled with activities and merchandise to keep us occupied and the artists maintained and supported. So for now let’s keep our faces covered, our hands clean and of course, our horns up!
By Julia Katrin and Tom Boatman
**Please support the underground! It’s vital to the future of our genre.**
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