SHATAAN

This one got lost in my mental shuffle during the deluge of Black Twilight/Crepusculo Negro related releases during the first wave from 2009-11 or so. Thankfully, I hoard shit, so SHATAAN was waiting patiently for me last week, waiting to me to open myself to sounds of primitively reproduced and musically advanced discordant bleak metal. And I was opened. I certainly would put this in the same category as VOLAHN or GLOSSOLALIA, but there's something about the vocals and the howled desperation...it makes up for the almost casual delivery of these relatively complex tracks. Listen to the guitars, let the tracks sink in...it was worth the wait.

WAR CRY LAMENT

WORSHIP BLACK TWILIGHT

This is where it all started, at least for the uninformed and/or geographically challenged minions. Six offerings from the artists that made up the initial nucleus of Black Twilight Circle in Los Angeles, who would spend the ensuing years creating some of the most dissonant and interesting black metal in The Americas. One track each from ASHDAUTAS, VOLAHN, ARIZMENDA, KALLATHON, AXEMAN and KUXAN SUUM, most available on other Crepusculo Negro releases, and many previously shared on this site...Worship Black Twilight makes it clear that this force was formidable from the start.

WORSHIP BLACK TWILIGHT

KUXAN SUUM

An early offering from the Black Twilight collective in Los Angeles, KUXAN SUUM dropped this one track of psychedelic black metal in 2009, followed it up with another in 2012, and then faded into the shadows. Long introductions and limitless ambiance, the band is haunting and distant even when they unleash...almost like you are a part of something that's incomplete. The guitars are ethereal and colossal, but still cling to a sharp, thin quality forever attached to black metal. The shit is out there, and one could surely argue that "Kinich Ahau" is merely a part of the path that took this scene to astounding heights....but sometimes getting there is the best part, you know?

KINICH AHAU

RHINOCERVS

I was hanging out with an old friend who is more well versed in the world of metal (black, death, new wave of british heavy....all of it) than I am, a friend who is also much more articulate than I am, so I asked him what he thought about and how to describe RHINOCERVS (it was part of a larger discussion involving the Crepusculo Negro/Black Twilight scene). His response was simple and blunt: "They are the most compelling current North American Black Metal band." Exactly. You don't just put it on and rock out, these songs consume you, and while I do not think that this is the best RHINOCERVS release (that distinction falls on RHINOCERVS 11), these bleak sounds are nothing if not compelling. Total desperation and maximum intensity.

RHINOCERVS 13

Unrelated:

Many of you have sent messages requesting re-ups, I will get to them soon. I do a lot of things and manage my time poorly, this is a deadly combination.

ZOLOA

I've been sitting on this one for way too long, and I apologize. This band is a product of two nuclei - the Black Twilight and Silenzio Statico collectives combining forces is a terrifying prospect, and this relentless attack is more than enough justification for that fear. Cavernous Japanese hardcore vocals, an assault that annihilates with impunity and a passion that defies fidelity. There are two cassettes in today's download - Cocolia is more chaotic and frantic, while Todo El Mundo... is a little heavier and more metalcrust. But both tapes are essential listening - assuming you want to get pummeled, that is.

ZOLOA

ODZ MANOUK

Even more haunting black metal from the circle of Southern California madmen that call themselves Black Twilight. While I still leave discussions on the subtle nuances of the genre (and this crop of incestuous bands) to the experts, this is some of my favorite stuff from a very prolific group of outcasts. Once again on the Crepusculo Negro label, the sound wraps you like a shroud...tuck in.

ODZ MANOUK

RHINOCERVS

Los Angeles' mysterious black metal collective RHINOCERVS get even darker on their second release. Four more movements, taking a bleak caveman approach to creating morose metal - not exactly the sounds you might expect to come from sunny Southern California, but this collective have mastered not just a sound, but a feeling, and they have managed to capture it onto cassette with their second nameless cassette. Track 03 is the standout for me, haunting gothic guitar leads and a white washed aura that takes over the entire track even before the song totally hits its stride. This crew, like the Black Twilight collective, is making some of the most interesting music in the US right now, regardless of genre. Truly desolate and desperate sounds...

RHINOCERVS 02

ABSUM

Black Twilight does it again, this time a torturous funeral doom exercise from ABSUM. There are four movements on this cassette, each more painful and beautiful than the next. The pace is agonizing, and I keep finding myself pleading silently for these tracks to go somewhere, but that frustration is the whole point. Dark industrial dirges through space and sound, ABSUM create an atmosphere in these twenty minutes that most bands would spend their entire existence trying to replicate. Worship Black Twilight, indeed. 

PURGATOÍRE

VOLAHN // TUKAARIA

Black Twilight just keeps making magic...black magic perhaps, but magic nonetheless. Stalwarts VOLAHN return with more bleak high end madness, this time with a spaghetti western guitar lead meandering occasionally through the ten minute main track. TUKAARIA are associated with RHINOCERVS, and it shows in the songs. Melodies are buried under a wash of hiss and guitars, but the melodies are there...

VOLAHN // TUKAARIA

RHINOCERVS

RHINOCERVS is a relatively new metal collective in Southern California. Loosely associated with the Crepusculo Negro and Black Twilight folks, their objective appears to be creating dark and oppressive atmospheric black metal instead of showering themselves with adoration from fans. So focused are they on the music, rather than the mania, that the first two RHINOCERVS releases are without band names, without release names, without song titles - just two cassettes, each bearing a catalog number and four movements. Howling, primitive, soaring....raw and gorgeous. This is the first release, the second will surely appear here eventually.

RHINOCERVS RH-01

BLUE HUMMINGBIRD ON THE LEFT

A recent addition to the Black Twilight stable in Los Angeles, BLUE HUMMINGBIRD ON THE LEFT features AXEMAN, BONE AWL, ASHDOUTAS, and VOLAHN members and deliver the kind of sinister black metal folks have come to expect from this collective. BHOTL add flute into the mix (don't ask, just listen) and let it do battle with evil doing vokills and a primitive white-hot assault drenched in high end hiss and distortion. There are actual hooks buried in there somewhere...and the search for them is part of the point. Three songs, that's all you get.

BLOODFLOWER

ASHDAUTAS

More dreary black metal from the Black Twilight folks in LA. ASHDAUTAS are noisy, grim and uncomfortable.  I also heard one of the members say: "I just took a bunch of LSD, I think it's giving me gas." Perhaps that might give a little insight into the bizarre vibe that the Crepusculo Negro releases seem to all have?

Where The Sun Is Silent

The files are split simply into sides A & B, as the music is presented as two long movements.  The song titles are:

I. Purity Of Disease

II. With Blades We Speak

III. Synaethesia

IV. The Yawning Black Beyond

I'm leaving town again this weekend, driving Oakland's LAUDANUM to the Northwest. Thursday April 8 in Olympia @ Northern; Friday April 9 in Portland @ Plan B; Saturday April 10 in Seattle @ The Comet Tavern.  All three shows with SAMOTHRACE, ATRIARCH, and FAWN. Stop by and get your doom on.

AXEMAN

I picked this up last week from the Raw Ponx from LA when they were up in The Bay last week (great fukkn show from TB, POLISCHITZO, RAYOS X and that band from San Jose who rules but I could never remember the name of), and it pretty well floored me.  Epic and dismal raw black metal from Southern California that deals as heavily in tape hiss as it does guitar fuzz, AXEMAN create an utterly painful vibe in these three songs.

If this suits your fancy, then please check out this weeks Black Twilight post over at Cosmic Hearse, and if it doesn't, then rest assured that poorly played shitty punk will be returning soon.  "poorly played" and "shitty" are both terms of endearment, and meant as positive comments, in case you were offended.  I like poorly played shitty punk...anyway, get your evil on:

ARRIVE