Life in this game, is a life with no place. The sin of a Bitch is a sin, and no grace.

[ Livin' on the Highway from Your Place or Mine; 2005 self-released ]

UPDATE: The album title has been confirmed: MONEY BASTARD SOUL

Originally released on CD by Todestrieb records in 2008. Flenser is very proud to release this monument to black doom.
The double vinyl release also contains the Ghast tracks off of the split with Helvette released on War Flagellation in 2007. The vinyl cut of these demo tracks sounds unbelievable and is the highlight of this release.

Video from Hateful Abandon’s debut live performance is available here.

[ Memory of Main from "split w/ Nekromantheon" 7"; out May 18 on Duplicate ]

Xasthur – Portal of Sorrow is now available from the Distro!

We also had the good fortune to get some Portal of Sorrow posters signed by Malefic, and will be giving these away free soon.

Closing date and full details to be announced.

Notes:
You will be contacted via email within three days of the closing date. You must reply to this email within the specified time, if you do not respond in time you will forfeit and a new winner will be selected.

The only physical copies were sold at that first show, but the band have now made it available to download.
Download the complete Time of Land EP here.

[ The Icon and the Axe from "Time of Land" EP; 2010 Enemies List ]

I don’t think Hateful Abandon fit in with the Avant-garde movement. I don’t feel that we are unorthodox enough and indeed, the experimentation that HA does, has been done before. I’m just interested in writing good songs and keeping things fresh and original rather than ‘pushing the envelope’ so to speak. As far as genre goes, it’s the very last thing on my mind. I think we’ve left ourselves enough space to be able to do what we want in our music.

Listen to Antti Klemi’s mixtape, part of our podcast series.

Issue 7 still available.

After the dwellings with The Serpent Bearer, Kaleidoscope stands again on its own feet and takes a glance to a controversial genre – avant-garde (black) metal has always divided opinions, although the musical field is nowadays wider than ever. Here are ten views on the topic:
TRIPTYKON
FLEURETY
AUSTERE
ALTAR OF PLAGUES
CROOKED NECKS
BLACK MAJESTY
CRYSTALLINE DARKNESS
COLDWORLD
SAROS
An article “Vanguards of dark art” with ALCEST, HATEFUL ABANDON and …IN THE WOODS

So expect 48 pages of thoughts, musical journeys and artistic freedom.

Directly from Malefic, the very last Xasthur record. We will have copies very soon.
There will also be a killer promotion/giveaway for this release, to be announced on their arrival!

This album, “Portal of Sorrow”, is the last Xasthur album, period.
The honorable thing to do is to end the band and not hang around too long, like so many metal/black metal bands do. Enough is enough, right?

I’m not able to make it work anymore. I don’t want to turn into one of those bands who rely on too many guests and session musicians to make people interested in their music again. Some help is fine but more than some help is very cheap and it becomes others, not the roots of the band that makes the difference and the music work. I don’t want to fall into that pattern.
The motivation and inspiration used to be there full time and now it’s not there at all, not for doing Xasthur at least. It is a role or persona that I have simply outgrown. I’ve been saying I’m sick and tired of it all for too long… and now, I’m going to back it up. There are or have been literally 18,000 black metal bands; it does not matter if there’s one less.

Just like in the nineties, I made a few recent attempts to put a real line-up together and it still failed; another sign that said “give it up already”.

However, I wanted to end on a better note with this ‘Portal of Sorrow’ album because the album that came before it, ‘All reflections drained’, was not up to par and I couldn’t finish up with an album that I was less than satisfied with. Now, I suppose any or all goals have been reached and there is nothing more I wish to try with Xasthur and it’s time to move on…

[ Reaping Death from "Reaping Death" single; 2010 Season of Mist ]

Hypothermia is making this album available for free, you can donate some money as a sign of appreciation on this page.

[ Skogens Hjarta from "Skogens Hjarta"; 2010 self released ]

I originally planned on creating a playlist centered around some of my favorite album covers of all time. But once I got started I realized my list would mostly consist of metal classics that hopefully you already listen to every day (every day, headbangers!). So instead I decided to create a playlist of more obscure or at least unexpected songs that I like to blast when I’m drawing. I hope you enjoy expanding your horizons a bit…
~ Dennis Dread

1. The Chambers Brothers
   ‘Time Has Come Today’
   (1966)
   The Chambers Brothers were primarily a gospel/R&B band (!) but this insane 11 minute descent into pop psychedelia is a perfect way to begin your evening (and this playlist). It’s inspiring to think that such a daring song actually met with mainstream success here in the States and I can only assume it helped pay the bills through the remainder of their rather forgettable careers. I love the powerful chorus which predates hardcore “gang vocals” by some 20 years and the metronome tick-tocking throughout the entire song gives it an almost subliminal urgency. There goes my metal credibility…
2. Ultimate Spinach
   ‘Mind Flowers’
   (1968)
   Chris Reifert put this on a mix tape for me a while back and totally blew my mind. This is basically a heavy psychedelic epic by a band that clearly didn’t dabble much with actual psychedelics. The rest of their music is suspiciously clean and tidy and devoid of the imaginative anxiety that comes with prolonged drug abuse (like, say, The 13th Floor Elevators). I generally like my jams much filthier than Ultimate Spinach but this pseudo drug ritual washes over you like a dark tide and is perfect for late nights at the drawing table. Or whatever. Light a black candle and let it burn. “SACRIFICE!!!!!”
3. Alice Cooper
   ‘Lay Down and Die, Goodbye’
   (1970)
   I agonized over which early Alice Cooper song to put on this playlist and ultimately decided to take the road less traveled. This is the freak-out finale from the band’s transitional second LP Easy Action and it oozes with bad vibes and misguided menace. Love It To Death is probably my favorite Alice Cooper record but you’ve already heard ‘The Ballad of Dwight Fry’ a million times, right? Speaking of great subversive moments in heavy metal history, Mr. Furnier infamously stuck his thumb through his pants on the band photo for Love It To Death and it slipped past the label executives until they began fielding complaints from hyperopic parents who thought they saw a gnarled little penis! Needless to say, that photo was censored in subsequent pressings.
4. Judas Priest
   ‘Dreamer Deceiver/Deceiver’
   (1976)
   Despite my best intentions to leave out the obvious, I have no choice but to slip in these gems. For 10 solid years, between Rocka Rolla in 1974 and Defenders Of The Faith in 1984, Judas Priest recorded one perfect album after another. Their first four albums are particularly potent and, song for song, Sad Wings Of Destiny is among the Top 10 greatest heavy metal albums ever recorded. This record is, of course, an absolutely stunning listening experience from beginning to end and for a fifth of Bulleit Bourbon I’ll sing it in its entirety for you anytime anywhere. Patrick Woodroffe provided the brilliant cover art and, although the fallen angel is just a bit…well…gay, this is precisely what heavy metal art should look like. Those flames in the background are an unmistakable Woodroffe trademark as he had mastered a unique marbling technique that appeared often in his illustrations. Absolutely essential!
5. The Saints
   Brisbane (Security City)
   (1978)
   Hailing from Brisbane, Australia, The Saints are often cited as one of the original punk innovators and this record proved just how innovative things could get. Prehistoric Sounds was their third LP and it perplexed the “scene” with its obnoxious jazzy horns and decidedly upbeat party tempos. Perhaps this one was just a bit ahead of its time. Seething just beneath the happy-go-lucky sarcasm is a sinister undercurrent that bleeds very well into our contemporary music-scape (and this playlist). This was punk before “punk” became a boring and rigidly defined downloadable genre. Commercial failure is often the price of artistic triumph, as is the case with this dark little sleeper.
6. The Mob
   ‘Youth’
   (1979)
   The Mob is one of my favorite UK peace punk bands to emerge in the prodigious wake (and horrible din) of Crass. Instead of attempting to bludgeon us with boring self-righteousness they actually wrote uncomfortable and uncool songs with heart-wrenching introspective lyrics that make their anarchist views meaningful. They also had a very stark aesthetic and a creepy vulture-man logo that was very effective and can still occasionally be spotted sewn onto the studded vests of frowning vegans. Hard to a pick a favorite among so many aces but this quirky b-side to their 1979 ‘Crying Again’ single is the song I’ve returned to most often over the years. In case you ever forget how alienating and awkward it was to come of age in a world occupied by very strange adults, The Mob have written this soundtrack to remind you.
7. VKTMS
   ’100% White Girl’
   (1980)
   VKTMS were an early San Francisco punk act that banged out infectious anthems like this one while singer Nyna Crawford assaulted the status quo with her hilariously barbed lyrics. They caught shit for this track from politically correct punks who cried racism but I love these lyrics for their unflinching honesty. Nyna lived in the Tenderloin neighborhood which was a genuinely dangerous area back in the early 80′s and she could scarcely leave her apartment without being accosted by derelicts who inevitably employed the “white girl” slur. More importantly, Nyna was dating underground comix artist Jim Osborne at the time and he drew the classy cover art for this 7″ based on a vintage 1953 comic book called Haunted Thrills. According to legend the local punk girls told Jim they were tired of seeing the cliched damsel in distress imagery so, in the spirit of fair play, Jim later created a VKTMS flyer that depicted the exact same scene with the roles reversed so the woman was torturing the man.
8. The Gun Club
   ‘Fire Spirit’
   (1981)
   Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a latter-day Mr. Mojo Rising for the L.A. death punk tribe. A brilliant poet, consummate showman, self-destructive narcissist and, ultimately, a ghost on the American highway who led his band The Gun Club to infamy with wild shamanistic sex beats. For a few brief years in the early 80′s there was more raw pathos and more shimmering talent in a single drop of Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s alcoholic piss than most bards with heavy eye-liner can ever hope to muster. To quote Blade Runner, “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” This is soul music for fire spirits.
9. Amebix
   ‘Coming Home’
   (1987)
   Ok, another obvious choice slips into the mix but this band was a big influence on me when I was younger so I couldn’t resist. The final track on the final LP. Not necessarily one of their better known songs but this sparse anti-war ballad still raises the hair on my neck after all these years. Few bands could pull this off with as much integrity and sincerity. Throat-scraping death rattles and simple synths that build to an absolutely crushing climax. One of the finest moments from one of the finest bands to ever crawl forth from England’s crusty underbelly. THE POWER REMAINS!!!!
10. Hawkwind
    ‘The Watcher’
    (1972)
    “The last thing you’ll feel is fear.” I love drawing to Hawkwind’s third LP Doremi Fasol Latido. Hell, I love washing dishes and cleaning the bathroom to this record and Lemmy’s sparse closing admonishment is a great way to end any night (or playlist). If Klaatu from The Day The Earth Stood Still had done lots of space drugs and grown his hair long he might have sounded like this. Powerful heraldic cover art by “Barney Bubbles” (aka, Colin Fulcher), the acclaimed English designer who also brought us the brilliant Space Ritual cover! We took the wrong step years ago…

Direct link to this Podcast.

[ Filhos da Guerra; 2008 unreleased ]

[ Kids Get Down from "Perfume and Piss"; out April 5 on Hellcat ]