Words by Andrew Lampela
Andrew Lampela was an employee and eventual co-owner of the 40-year old institution, Haffa’s Records in Athens, Ohio, just outside of the dark woods from which Skeletonwitch emerged. Over his years there he has played in a number of bands ranging from rock to noise to metal and has taken his lifelong knowledge of music into contributing to a number of publications.
Brittle November air bites all the way down my lungs. A few straggling leaves rustle listlessly, silhouetted by the handful of streetlights that still work in my neighborhood. Aside from the scattering of head-down, no-nonsense dog walkers, the cold assures that I have the streets pretty much to myself.
I know how much of a bummer this time of year is to most, as the world plunges into total darkness before people even get home from work, but I’ve always enjoyed the anonymity of wandering around in the pitch-black. Fuck bugs and sweating, the frigid abyssal dark of winter is my kind of nature, tell you what.
Aside from wirelessly consuming endless playlists, stumbling around in the dark is a necessary step in decompressing from the digital onslaught of daily reality. The Mid-Terms. The outright senselessness of what is happening in the Ukraine. Is anybody even reporting on how fucked Haiti is? The never-ending malaise of just being awake in the U.S. anymore. The curmudgeon in me is retreating more and more each and every day. I’m perfectly fine crying to mid-90s Emo in the dark the old fashioned, analog way, flipping 7”s over every four minutes.
Don’t get me wrong, I manage to carve out enough happiness throughout the day to be content, but it’s becoming extremely difficult to retain any optimism about society’s continued refusal to stop circling the drain. How do some of these motherfuckers reconcile their position in politics with accepting active-shooter drills in Grade School as ‘just something we have to live with now’?
It’s not as if I don’t have choices as far as which mass shooting really drives home just how hopeless it all seems, but Club Q hit me squarely in all of my senses.
I haven’t been very motivated to attend things that involve large crowds for quite awhile now, global pandemic and all, but a friend asked if I had any interest in Mercyful Fate (thanks, Tom!), and I’m pretty sure I surprised the hell out of both of us when I said yes. I’ve somehow never seen King Diamond in any form, so the bucket list was itching, crowds be damned.
And no shit, that was hands down one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Hats off to regional ripping heroes Midnight for both landing a sweet gig and opening things up with a tongue-firmly-in-cheek banger of a set, but the night was all about the grace, poise, and exceptional maturity of a tighter than fuck, mesmerizing Mercyful Fate. Unbelievably fucking good.
The whole venue knew we’d just witness something incredible, and everybody was still vibrating with a communal blown mind. As much as I try to avoid crowds, it brought back why live music, particularly the dreaded larger venue, was so special to me in my younger days. Seeing joy on the faces of teenagers and geriatrics alike is pretty cool, particularly from watching a face-painted little Danish guy sing about Satan and Pharoah’s curses.
So watching that communal safety get ripped away from the LGBTQ community once again is simply heartbreaking. It is inconceivable to me that educated people on either side can exist with a clear conscience, pretending that treating people with equality hinges as something that just ‘doesn’t have the votes’. How can we pretend that Democracy isn’t a complete failure as we continue to marginalize other human beings on the basis of their skin, or who they find love with, or their median income? How can people believe that a book about a vengeful omnipotent space guy that has been re-written and abridged countless times holds more truth than just not being dicks to each other?
To see a place of refuge, a place assumed to be a safe respite from the everyday grind, desecrated with such hatred, such vehemence, such outright malice, absolutely breaks my heart. Fuck your thoughts and prayers. The grotesque mockery of rich white men ‘representing’ the needs of their constituents is laughable, as they gut health care and education, creating more and more radicalization instead of an understanding that we’re all pretty fucked if we don’t start getting our collective shit together. I don’t care how many mansions you’ve accrued or how many Instagram followers you have or how many teachers you get fired for showing your little Timmy the racism and genocide that built this country, when the ocean catches on fire, those flames don’t care how many F-350s you own.
As we kick in to a new year, I swear I’ll go back to using this column to talk about dumb shit. Until then, though, can we all stop shooting up schools and night clubs and Walmarts and foreign countries? We can take baby steps as far as the redistribution of wealth and bolstering education and providing health care as a basic human right, but can we all just immediately stop it with the guns? And the intolerance? And the homophobia? And the transphobia? And the racism? And the misogyny? It’s all maddeningly preventable, and even more maddeningly heartbreaking our society obstinately refuses to prevent any of it.
*wipes frothy anger from brain with more coffee*
*slinks off into the dark*
Throw some strings into the mix? I’m a sucker for it every time. I always enjoyed SubRosa, and was a little bummed to hear they called it quits. Less bummed to find four-fifths of The Otolith comprised of SubRosa alumni. Much, much less bummed with every subsequent immersion into Folium Limina (Blues Funeral). Opener “Sing No Coda” sets up the general idea, slow build intro into capital D Doom crush into a regrouping middle section before more Doom crush then outro. Over the course of six songs you know it’s coming, but goddamn when “Andromeda’s Wings” kicks back in, it’s both expected and intricately off-kilter enough to defy those expectations. The violins add massive textural depth, but The Otolith up things by imbuing their riffs with an intellectual heft that elevates these songs without crossing the line into academic sterility. This album is all heart. The RIYL list hints at the sounds you’ll find here, but ignore that shit. This is a singularly individual album of great songs by a creative behemoth of a band. I highly recommend working your way backwards, as SubRosa has some real winners in the catalog as well. Outstanding stuff.
I enjoyed Marrasmieli’s 2020 album Between Land and Sky quite a bit, so sure, I’ll check out a Rehearsal Live (Naturmacht) album of them playing those songs in a more feral live-in-studio setting. And yep, it’s great Black Metal. More importantly, however, how the fuck did I miss a studio album from April? Martaiden Mailta (Naturmach) is a bit darker, but man, the sawing violins that kick off “The Forest Of My Soul” hit and I am in. Over ten minutes the band nails everything – acoustic passages, grooves, blasts. I don’t even mind the near polka shit in the middle of “Ghosts Of Past And Future”. While many will lean towards the stoic “The Oaks Of England” as the centerpiece, these Finns drive it home for me on the seventeen minute closer “Far In The Frozen North”. I’m far from an authority on Black Metal, and find some of the purists a bit much to take, but Marrasmieli really do it for me on all three of these albums.
Speaking of the purists, I certainly didn’t expect to enjoy a 2022 Kampfar album as much as I have. For a band nearing the thirty year mark, Til Klovers Takt (Indie Recordings) sounds incredibly vital. I’m not sure how this stacks up to the band’s recent-ish output, as I’ll fully admit to losing touch after their early classics, but if this is any indication, I’ve got some catching up to do. A combination of full, crisp production and deft songwriting gives the album a spacious feeling, even at its most punishing. I can’t really put my finger on why, but the riffs really catch me. Just as droney as they are driving. I’m sure the ultra-produced thickness will piss of the KVLT dudes, but this is an unrelentingly listenable take on modern Black Metal from true veterans, and I continually find cool nuances with every listen.
Continuing on the Black Metal roll, I just discovered Ancient Mastery and fuck yeah. Lo-fi symphonic Black Metal isn’t a genre I dip my toes in very often, as most of it hits pretty cheesy levels almost immediately. However, I absolutely can’t stop listening to Chapter One: Across The Mountains Of The Drämmarskol because “The Majesty Of Aztara” is synth heavy awesomeness when that shit kicks in under the keyboards around the four minute mark. The Chosen One is also fantastic (both on Northern Silence). Sometimes verging on Power Metal, sometimes veering into New Age, always entertaining, this is some really good shit.
Wise Blood Records has really stepped up to become one of my favorite labels of late. They close things out this year with Rise of the Nightmare Terror, a split between Nattmaran and Terror Cross. Both bands offer up four originals and a cover (Bathory for Nattmaran, goddamned Manowar for Terror Cross), and both bands offer up some unhinged first wave 80s heavy metal. Both great, but Terror Cross is just utterly filthy reverbed-to-the-max awesomeness. Dig into the Wise Blood catalog, there’s plenty to enjoy (especially the stunner from Mother Of Graves).
I’ll follow Dallas “from Asschapel” Thomas anywhere, so it’s a double bonus that Ready for Death put out such a crusty twenty two minute blazing crusher with… uhh… Ready For Death (Translation Loss). High Command put out one of my favorite ‘Kreator-but-not-Kreator’ thrash records a few years ago, so expectations were high for Eclipse Of The Dual Moons (Southern Lord) and I’m happy to report that this album furthers the band’s skill at totally ripping while coming in to their own. I was finally putting away the ever-growing pile of records overtaking one of my chairs and realized I forgot all about the new Acephalix. Theothanatology (20 Buck Spin) is disgustingly thick Death Metal, so obviously I love it. Oakland Crust supergroup Deadform have a new demo out on Brainsand (Brainsand) and it fuckin’ rips. As a whole, Cosmic Putrefaction‘s Crepuscular Dirge For The Blessed Ones (Profound Lore) is a highly enjoyable weird Death Metal outing, but goddamn is “Amniotic Bewilderment” an outstanding track on its own. I listen to the whole thing, but that song is already on a few mixes. I haven’t spent enough time with the Lykotonon album to give an accurate appraisal for how all over the place, claustrophobically bonkers Promethean Pathology (Profound Lore) truly is. This one will take some time. Like Darkthrone? There’s a new one, and it’s pretty good. Need a sonic beatdown of an album called Vomit? Chicago’s Bones have you covered (heheh). Atomic Witch remind me of buying anything with the Noise logo in High School, like a healthy mix of Coroner and Kreator and some Celtic Frost, so Crypt Of Sleepless Malice (Redefining Darkness) gets a fuck yeah from me. Likewise, Critical Extravasation has that sloppy but somehow mind-warpingly technical retro thrash weirdness down pat, so Order Of Decadence (Redefining Darkness) also gets a fuck yeah. Let’s never, ever forget how goddamned perfect Allday Hell is, alright?