thebilljim

Thou is, at this point, an instant buy with or without hearing any of the material in advance, so I snagged one of the Primordial copies as soon as I got the notice (Bandcamp email, for me). Incredibly stoked to spin this one as soon as I get my hands on it.

Well, shit...sold out by the time I saw this. Hopefully a repress or a Bandcamp version or something happens soon.

I caught them a few weeks ago on the first night of their tour with Sumac, where they played almost entirely stuff off of this record. Apart from the "this is literally our first night playing as a full band" hiccups. they were really tight, and the new songs sound great. Nowhere near as much microtonality as the debut, but you make up for that in sheer volume of pinch harmonics.

Yup! Got my shipping update this morning, and was going to post about it but I couldn't remember what thread we were all talking about it on.

SCARCITY - "The Promise of Rain" (The Flenser) out 7/12/2024 First album with a full band lineup rather than just the duo of Brendan Randall-Myers & Doug Moore. Vinyl options include bone & swamp green merge (/500) and swamp green (/500). Pre-orders and first track off the album are up now on Bandcamp

Pre-orders for the new Ulcerate are up now at Debemur Morti. Options appear to be a standard 2xLP in red/black galaxy for $29.99, or the DMP exclusive 2xLP, red w. black splatter and a silkscreen slipcase, for $20 more. US preorders here: https://debemurmorti.aisamerch.com/pre-orders EU pre-orders here: https://www.debemur-morti.com/en/400-ulcerate-shop Also, first track from this went live as well, for those of you who like to listen ahead of time: https://youtu.be/l31Xj44vJEA

Absolutely awful to read about. I only ever saw Pig Destroyer once, at the Decibel 100th issue show in Philly, but man, was Blake such a great hype man. You could see very clearly that he was having a hell of a time just doing what he loved. R.I.P., noiseman

New Ulcerate!!!! Pre-order info drops March 14th, album art & tracklist is up now: Tracklist: 01. To Flow Through Ashen Hearts 02. The Dawn is Hollow 03. Further Opening the Wounds 04. Transfiguration In and Out of Worlds 05. To See Death Just Once 06. Undying as an Apparition 07. Cutting the Throat of God "Cutting the Throat of God" explores a cohesive lyrical theme centered around the rupture of morality, the delicate boundary between depravity and extremity, and the irreversible descent into darkness. A first track, 'The Dawn is Hollow,' and pre-order details will be unveiled on March 14th. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, and digital formats, and is set for release on June 14th 2024.

Yeah, I emailed them about a week ago asking for an update, and they said the same thing. So, whatever is causing the delay hasn't been resolved yet.

First show of 2024 last weekend. Caught SUMAC with Scarcity and Forbes Grahm at Arts at the Armory in Boston*. Forbes Grahm was cool; not really my thing, but I can appreciate anyone creating their own thing. Seemed like some free jazz type stuff on the trumpet, but run through some number of filters (I'm presuming ProTools or something, based on the two-Macbook setup on the stage) and effects. Definitely seemed like the kind of unexpected weird that Aaron Turner loves, so it made sense. Scarcity played almost entirely new material from a record that Brendon Randall-Myers confirmed will be releasing sometime later this summer through The Flenser. They're a full band now, and the new songs sound pretty badass. I wish they'd played more from Aveilut, but apparently according to BRM, those songs are insanely hard to translate live. They did close their set with the "III" movement, which was cool. SUMAC was fantastic. Loud as hell, all three of them appeared to be really having a blast playing. They're getting even more improvisational/noisy these days; I'd estimate that at least 50% of their set was unidentifiable from anything they've recorded.

Didn't see anything else in thread about this; GLASSING has a new record coming out in April. Looks like a number of different variants are available through a couple different merch stores. Sounds like this one is going to be a ripper.

I don't know if anyone else has posted about it somewhere else, but I'm finally getting to spin my copy of FAWN LIMBS x NADJA - "Vestigial Spectra" and it is Very Fucking Good. I'm pretty much down to insta-buy anything Fawn Limbs puts out without waiting to hear what it sounds like. They've been untouchable for me over the past several releases.

Wayfarer - American Gothic is hands down my AotY this year. It's stupid good. Other heavy releases that I spun a lot this year: Liturgy - 93696 Body Void - Atrocity Machine Usnea - Bathed In Light Nightmarer - Deformity Adrift Ragana - Desolation's Flower OAK - Disintegrate The Acacia Strain - Failure Will Follow (biggest surprise for me, as I fuckin' HATE everything else they've done) Bell Witch - Future's Shadow Pt.1: The Clandestine Gate Great Falls - Objects Without Pain Death Engine - Ocean Calligram - POSITION | MOMENTUM Mizmor - Prosaic Blindfolded and Led to the Woods - Rejecting Obliteration Downfall of Gaia - Silhouettes of Disgust Full of Hell & Primitive Man - Suffocating Hallucination END - The Sin of Human Frailty Big | Brave - nature morte Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab That's just of the records that I actually purchased vinyl copies of...this year was really good for heavy shit.

OK, I'm going to commit to it here: AotY for me is Wayfarer "American Gothic" - phenomenal release, and I haven't been able to get enough of it.

Man, I haven't seen LS play since the early 2000's...crazy to realize they're still active, and it seems with basically the same core lineup? Bruce's growls are legendary, and Lance is a beast of a drummer. I was one of the olds at the Botch show in Boston last weekend. Shit was beyond words.

I've seen both bands separately, but seeing them together on a single bill would be incredible. You're quite fortunate!

I have it spinning on my turntable right now. It is, in fact, exactly as awesome as the packaging would indicate. I'd say nothing that takes a major departure from their other stuff, it's heavy as a sack of hammers & angry as a bear with a toothache, which is exactly what I want from this band. Also, huge respect to Closed Casket for making the packaging this elaborate without tacking on a crazy upcharge. If I recall correctly, I paid $30USD for this, and they could easily have made it $40-45 and justified the increase by the material costs.

Dropped the new Wayfarer on the turntable just now, already through side A, and it's fucking GOOD. Solid AotY candidate for me.

I didn't grow up Catholic, but I was raised Evangelical, so the religious themes of this show still felt sinister to me in a very deep way. To me, Bev Keane is 100% the villain in this story, and reminds me of I don't know how many people I was raised by/went to church with/am related to, with that infuriating level of sanctimonious judgement and self-righteousness. I actually really felt for Fr. Paul, he seemed like someone with a sincere heart trying to do right but in a bad way. Bev was just completely fucking reprehensible (but PHENOMENAL acting by the actress who played her, no criticism there!)

Spent the weekend binging Midnight Mass. I know it's supposed to be horror or at least horror-adjacent, but I mostly found it beautiful & sad, which is about the same experience as I got with Hill House. I think I prefer Mike Flanagan's brand of horror to more jump-scares or gorefest type.

No order yet, but some records that have been blowing my mind this year: LITURGY - 93696 BODY VOID - Atrocity Machine USNEA - Bathed In Light FIDDLEHEAD - Death Is Nothing To Us NIGHTMARER - Deformity Adrift OAK - Disintegrate THE ACACIA STRAIN - Failure Will Follow BELL WITCH - The Clandestine Gate GREAT FALLS - Objects Without Pain BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS - Rejecting Obliteration DOWNFALL OF GAIA - Silhouettes of Disgust BIG BRAVE - nature morte

Caught Gaerea, Blackbraid, and Wolves in the Throne Room Friday night in Boston. Also Hoaxed, but I wasn't particularly enthused by them. Gaerea was the highlight of the show for me. Also, big ups to whoever is running sound at Big Night Live - from where I was standing, the mix was damn near perfect. Blackbraid was cool, and live they're a little more ferocious than they sound on record. WITTR was great, very theatrical, very ceremonial. Only negative of the night was having to dish out $60 for parking because I didn't realize the venue is actually right in the TD Garden complex, and I got hit with their "event parking" cost.

I really enjoyed Deformity Adrift, enough to shell out the dough for a "Solar Suffering" variant off their Bandcamp, but almost certainly not enough to bother with getting a second/different copy. I'll continue spinning my copy a good many times and not feel bad about skipping this. I'd say Ulcerate is the best comparison that I can think of, although Ulcerate is...I don't know, just...MORE, somehow? I can't explain it. Nightmarer is some good quality disso-death though, for sure.

New Wayfarer album up for preorder. https://profoundlorerecords.merchtable.com/music/wayfarer-american-gothic-vinyl-lp Vinyl Editions: Marble Gunsmoke Edition (Decibel Magazine Exclusive) sold out Black, White, Silver Colour Mix w/Gold Splatter) sold out Cloudy Molten Gold Vinyl Black Vinyl

Sold out already, to save anyone who might have been thinking of it a click.