Welcome to the latest edition of “Freeloader” in which we review albums that you don’t have to feel like a douche for downloading for free. Today Satan Rosenbloom checks out the latest from Deafheaven.

Black metal is a music of destruction, but not as an end in itself. Just as devastating fires are necessary to maintain the evolution of a forest, the outsized musical gestures and inflammatory rhetoric of black metal are aimed at razing the world so that we may begin anew. Strange, then, that it’s only been in the last five years or so that we’ve seen black metal sprouting so many new branches. It’s a sad irony that a music so opposed to orthodoxy should be so concerned with notions of purity.

San Francisco’s Deafheaven are one of a growing legion of young American black metal bands (also including Krallice, Velnias and Liturgy) whose music captures that duality perfectly. There’s plenty of violence in the outpouring of blastbeats and guitars on their self-titled demo (briefly introduced by Vince here), but the violence feels transformative, baptismal, even comforting. Deafheaven’s arcing guitar harmonies lead to conventionally beautiful places; they even fly directly into the sun for the major key flashes of “Daedalus.” It says a lot that the acoustic instrumental “Bedrooms” feels totally at home among the beautiful carnage that surrounds it. It’s just as emotionally complete as the louder tracks.

While Deafheaven’s music shares surface characteristics with the classic black metal sound, this demo is so distanced from Mayhem and Immortal as to be another kind of music entirely. It engulfs rather than tramples, shimmers where so much black metal rattles. These descriptions alone do not make Deafheaven good or bad. But they do amount to an important shift in aesthetic values, one that makes black metal more listenable without taming its spiritual thrust. It’s a shift that has clear predecessors in Weakling, Wolves In the Throne Room and Agalloch. Do Deafheaven offer a take on this strain of black metal that the others don’t? Not really, though they do streamline the sound a bit. Do they offer that same feeling of cleansing that I get when I listen to the aforementioned? Oh, yeah.

(3.5 Horns Up)

-SR

Download Deafheaven’s demo over yonder.

Profound Lore will (I guess I should say “presumably”) continue their unfuckwithable streak with the November 23 release of Marrow of the Spirit, Agalloch’s fourth full-length, and first since 2006’s Ashes Against The Grain. Here’s the album art:

Unfortunately they haven’t released any songs off the album yet, but, hey, an announcement of a new Agalloch album alone should be enough to get you rock hard.

The band is also doing four tour dates Allerseelen in December. Dates are as follows:

Click to read more…

It’s like this band doesn’t even WANT anyone but their most die-hard fans to find out about their releases.

This time the item in question is a 7xLP set that comes in an engraved wooden box, limited to 350 copies; given, the only people that are gonna shell out $200 (€130) on something for any band are the die-hards anyway, but you’d think they could benefit from oh, I don’t know, an announcement on their website or MySpace page? But that apparently is too much to ask for, as was the case with their last release. Is an announcement too un-tr00 for this kultest of kult band? Call me crazy, but I’d think the band (and the label issuing this release) would actually want to sell these.

Then again, MS reader James Keglor emailed us about this set and we, in turn, are posting about it. So I guess Agalloch are doing something right (aside from making awesome music, of course).

-VN

Wait, what? A new Agalloch album came out? Last week?? And we didn’t even know about it?? Deja vu all over again.

Only by browsing Metal-Archives.com did MS tipster Loudden Mathias realize that he, us, and seemingly the entire world had missed the boat on the latest from the Portland, Oregon doom/folk metallers. The Compendium Archive, released on the Vernal Equinox of 2010 (that’s the first day of Spring, March 20th), is a two disc set limited to 250 hand-numbered copies. Disc 1 is a “Best Of” featuring material from From Which of This Oak, Of Stone, Wind and Pillor and Promo ’98 and Disc 2 contains “assorted works & rarities.”

So with only 250 copies available you better get to ordering one right quick if you’re a fan of this excellent band, as we are. The only problem is we’re not sure where the fuck to get it. The band’s official website hasn’t been updated since 2008 and their MySpace page makes no mention of it. Google just turns up a bunch of results of people asking where they can get this release.

All this begs the question… is this compilation even legit? A blog on Agalloch’s MySpace warns of counterfeit From Which of This Oak tapes making the rounds on Ebay. I wouldn’t put something like this past an overzealous Agalloch superfan looking to cause a stir on the Internet; people are fucking weird and will do anything for attention. If anyone can shed light on this situation, kindly do let us know!

-VN

So, uh… apparently Portland, OR epic doomsters Agalloch — perennial MetalSucks favorites — have a new DVD out called The Silence of Forgotten Landscapes. The band’s official website makes no mention of it, nor does the band’s MySpace page (save an inclusion on the discography). No other metal sites seem to be reporting on it, and a Google search of “Agalloch The Silence of Forgotten Landscapes” turns up a bunch of torrent sites and, finally, a buy page on The Omega Order. Save the wise tip of MS reader Daniel Guzman, I never would’ve known about this release, Agalloch’s first into the visual realm.

Leave it up to the members of Agalloch’s Fan Page to actually provide some real info about this release:

First-ever DVD from the mighty Agalloch. The main feature of this DVD is a show recorded on March 29, 2008 in Belgium — eight tracks culled from the band’s three albums to date, totaling over 70 minutes. Features another 50 minutes of extra material, which includes about 10 minutes of original music written and performed by John Haughm. [By request of the band, $2.50 of each DVD sale will be donated to a nature preservation society that protects parts of northern Belgium and southern Holland.]

Well, what gives, dudes? There are lots of folks I know who would be interested in this release if only they knew about it. Way to completely drop the ball. The DVD’s been out for a week now and I haven’t seen a single press release or article. Maybe the DVD really sucks and they’re ashamed of it? Who knows. If any readers have the DVD, please tell us how it is in the comments.

Since neither the band or record label seem to care enough to share this information with you, we have the tracklisting and a list of bonus features after the jump, taken from the fan page.

Click to read more…

I haven’t sung the praises of Salome in awhile, so here goes: this band crushes. Everyone I know who has seen them live has just been floored with them. Guitarist Rob Moore and drummer Aaron Deal (read my interview with Mr. Deal here) play as though they’re actively attempting to use soundwaves as a weapon, and vocalist Kat… well, she goes to some other place. Like, she temporarily becomes psychotic or something. (Actually, maybe she’s always psychotic. I’ve never actually met her, but her art is pretty dark. I once considered buying a piece because I think it’s so cool, but I was afraid if women saw it on my wall, I’d never get laid again. Of course, right now I’m having trouble finding the link to the page where you can buy her art, but just take my word for it. It’s bleak.)

Now Salome have signed a deal to release their next full-length – actually, I think it’s their first full-length – through Profound Lore. That makes them label mates with Agalloch, The Gates of Slumber, Cobalt, Alceste, and some other awesome bands. In other words: it seems like a good fit.

The band is still writing said full-length, but they have a split with Thou coming out sometime soon (more details as I get them!), and I strongly encourage you to check out their EP in the meantime – or, even better, go see them live. As we reported before, they’ll hit the road in September on a tour with the equally fantastic Hull and Batillus, and will even be playing the MetalSucks co-sponsored Planet Caravan fest in North Carolina alongside Clutch, Kylesa, Burst, Wino, and a whole bunch of other great groups. Really. Go see them. It is truly a fucking experience.

Complete tour dates after the jump. If you don’t know Salome, visit them on MySpace ASAP.

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I’m not really sure how the entirely acoustic music peddled by Ottawa’s Musk Ox could be considered metal… but yet, somehow, it unmistakably is. Musk Ox, whose self-titled Absurdist Records debut drops January 19th, beg the age-old question of what actually defines metal. Is it distorted guitars? If you answered “yes” then you’d have to bar similar bands like Agalloch and Daylight Dies from admission to the metal pantheon, yet surely this is not something you want to do. Like those bands are wont to do, Musk Ox pluck out neo-classical melodies on their acoustic guitars augmented by rainy-day strings to create a gloomy, dark landscape of desperation and despair that just screams metal, even despite the lack of distortion, drums or words. This is the kind of metal brutal Canadian winters must be made of.

-VN

I am currently in the midst of a signing tour for my latest book, PURE MURDER. Nothing helps me keep my sanity more when I am on the road paying outrageous sums of money for gas, dealing with complete fucking morons behind the wheel, and trudging through Texas-sized traffic jams than listening to heavy metal at full volume.

Here are some quick reviews of some of the metal I cranked on my recent trip to Houston for a booksigning, and then to Huntsville for the execution of one of the killers from my book.

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Finland’s Omnium Gatherum, a gloomy, dark doom/death band of whom Axl and I are big fans, have posted two new full tracks from their new album The Redshift, out September 22 in Europe and October 14 in the U.S. (Candlelight). I’m tired and unable to come up with anything funny/interesting, but trust us, it’s good and you’ll like it if you like stuff like Daylight Dies and Agalloch.

-VN

Oceans of Sadness are a band who grabbed my attention based solely on their name, which despite its emo-osity beckoned me to give them a listen. The Belgium-based sextet combine elements of Scandinavian-influenced death/doom (Insomnium, Daylight Dies, Agalloch) with a more airy, ethereal, progged-out but dark sense of melody reminiscent of To-Mera meets Type O Negative. Does that make any sense at all? Didn’t think so, but neither do 99% of music descriptions.

Oceans of Sadness’ MySpace page says they have a new album coming out some time this year called The Arrogance of Ignorance but doesn’t specify a date. One track from that record, “Some Things Seem So Easy,” is posted on their MySpace. Also check out their haunting, truly wicked sounding cover of Alice in Chains’ “Them Bones” (complete with a keyboard rendition of the guitar solo). Dig it.

-VN

North Carolina’s Daylight Dies make some of the doomiest melodic death metal out there — and along with Washington’s Agalloch, make some of the music best suited for a rainy day.

No wonder it’s raining here in NYC then, because Daylight Dies have released a brand new track (I’ll be here all day, folks!) on the Candelight Records MySpace page, called “A Portrait in White.” The track comes off the new album Lost to the Living, which hits stores June 24th.

I am super fucking excited about this record! Which makes me all that much more of a sucker for not going to see Daylight Dies open for Candlemass tonight at BB King’s. Alas… someone who is going please send us a report. In the meantime at least I have this track to enjoy.

-VN

A recent comment by Kye reminded me that we really ought to write about Pacific Northwest atmospheric doomsters Agalloch. Beautifuly doomy might be one way to describe the sound of this mostly instrumental, rarely touring foursome; the best way to describe this music could be to say that this is metal that absolutely sounds like it was written by dudes who live somewhere where it rains, all the time. Think a less Death-y, darker Daylight Dies. Their 2006 release Ashes Against the Grain (The End) is a great record to blaze to on a rainy day, what with such precipitation-inspired tracks as “Fire Above, Ice Below,” “Falling Snow,” and “Not Unlike the Waves.”

Agalloch has a new record called The White EP due on Vendlus Records on that most metal of days, Feb 29, so metal it only happens once every four years. “Sowilo Rune,” a preview track recently made available on their MySpace page, interweaves acoustic guitars with pianos, whispers, samples, and the occasional airy electric lead. It’s a whole lot less heavy than their previous output, but the band assures fans they aren’t permanently altering their sound: “As with all of our EPs and limited releases, this is not necessarily a sign of things to come. We envision small releases as opportunities to experiment and try new things without the weighty demands of a full-length release. So, expect a different sound, but also expect something that sits nicely with the rest of our work.” And while the new material is certainly different, it’s absolutely in character with the rest of their work.

Pre-order The White EP at www.vendlus.com/store. This release is limited to 2000 copies.

Be sure to check out Agalloch on MySpace, where you can also hear some of their older, heavier material. Think of the new, mostly acoustic EP as music for a snowy day, perhaps.

-VN