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MAY 2012

 

Above, the beautiful piece of art, drawn by Scott Move, that will adorn the cover of "Passion Rift", CHOWDER's first full-length album. Lead by Maryland's doom metal veteran Josh Hart (Earthride, Revelation, Asylum, Unorthodox), CHOWDER has given birth to an instrumental monster-record, a rollercoaster of deep emotions and dark Lovecraftian visions played with sublime technique. A must have for those into The Obsessed, The Hidden Hand, Revelation and the most adventurous sounds of doom.
Have a taste of CHOWDER by listening to the stunning intricacy that is "The Innsmouth Look".

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APRIL 2012

 

Time to unveil T.G. Rantanen's cover art for YSENGRIN's third full length album, "To Endotaton", to be released late May/early June. The record is offered as one 40-minute long track to strengthen its esoteric concept: the tale of an initiatic ritual taking place in the deepest recesses of a cavern.
Sometimes cryptic and depressive, other times triumphantly epic and darkly psychedelic, enriched with acoustic passages and eerie keyboards, "To Endotaton" blends the mystical sounds of early 90s Hellenic black metal with Mortuary Drape's morbidity, dipping everything into the doomy, 70s-tinged heavy metal of Death SS and Mercyful Fate. The result is what YSENGRIN themselves call "hermetic dark metal".
Below, a short album trailer for your listening pleasure.

 

The works on the 12-page booklet and graphic layout for TEMPESTUOUS FALL's "The Stars Would Not Awake You" debut are almost completed, a release date will be announced soon. Above you can admire the cover art: a painting by Herbert James Draper, as majestic and romantic as the songs that Dis Pater of Midnight Odyssey has crafted for his funeral death/doom project.
Here's a preview track off the album. It's called "Marble Tears" and has been inspired by the Latin myth of Proserpina, goddess of Springtime, abducted by Pluto and forced to live in the Underworld during Winter... Enjoy!

Dis Pater: guitars, bass, keys and vocals. Renee Hunter: violin.

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MARCH 2012

Dis Pater of Midnight Odyssey has finished with the recordings of his funeral death/doom project, TEMPESTUOUS FALL. The debut album, called "The Stars Would Not Awake You", is expected to be released before Summer. The trackinglist:

1. Old & Grey (10:39)
2. Beneath A Stone Grave (14:09)
3. Marble Tears (13:16)
4. The Stars Would Not Awake You (10:56)
5. A Cold Stale Goodbye (14:33)

The album has been written and performed by Dis Pater (guitars, bass, keys, vocals), with guest growls on "Old & Grey" by BM, and violins courtesy of Renee Hunter. 

A preview track will be available soon.

When I started the label a few years ago, I knew that I was going to confront with every kind of opinions about my releases. Actually, I find the idea very stimulating. Knowing that to judge a record is a great responsability, I always wait with trepidation for the reviews, expecting to find the honesty, competence and passion that such a difficult task requires. The good responses obviously please me, but it's the bad ones that I read with more interest and curiosity, especially if they are written in a constructive way. What I didn't expect is that a reviewer could gratuitously insult a band, calling its members "assholes" for his own amusement and for the amusement of his online friends. That's what happened at METALSTORM.NET, where MALASANGRE's "Lux Deerit Soli" has been blasted badly.
I won't comment the fact that the reviewer pretended to remember MALASANGRE from the mid-2000s, calling them a "black metal" band while they are - and have always been - a doom metal band. He probably got confused. I won't even question the out of place comparison with Forgotten Tomb, that started as a depressive black metal band, later incorporating 70s-styled hard rock elements in their songs: Nothing more far from MALASANGRE's purposedly minimalist, primitive, neverending mantras of doom. But apparently in the reviewer's mind the equation doom metal + black vocals = Forgotten Tomb...
No, what I've really found insulting is the fact that some serious musicians have been called "assholes" by someone for no apparent reason than that of sounding cool and wit and popular among his friends. It's not the word itself that I find scandalous, of course. It is scandalous today's condition of rock/metal journalism, where every guy with an Internet connection can freely download more albums than the pimples on his face, then go online playing the expert reviewer and offending people from a virtual pulpit.

To follow, a few opinions on MALASAGRE's album from more polite webzines and writers:

"Imagine a mix of Electric Wizard's heaviness and the acid evilness of early Unholy, then add a pinch of nihilism and atmosphere... The Olympus of ultra-doom has got its new Gods, all Italian!"
METALLIZED - 7/10

"...Like an evil star that drains and annihilates every hope."
ROCK HARD (ITALY) - 7,5/10

"Taking into accont the personal tastes, this could be classified as an incredible work of ultra-slow and apocalyptic doom metal, tinged with a healthy dose of drug-fueled pychedelia... or as a long and tedious work going nowhere. You need time to really enjoy this little gem."
GRINDER MAGAZINE - 4/6

"Super epic, mega-dark, and totally cryptic, the two tracks sneak through the cerebral cortex. Essential for die-hard doomsters."
CROSSFIRE - 8,5/10

"This is so heavy, slow, drawling and thunderous gloom that you actually see everything in shades of gray, forming mental images of fog, tombstones and dark cellars. Malasangre has created an awesome gloomy sludge doom plate, which is definitely worth a listen if you're into doom with a capital D!"
HEAVYMETAL.DK - 70/100

"I can see a lot of reasons for splitting the current two songs into four but then again this might destroy the reasoning behind crafting these monstrosities in the first place. Somehow I feel that this album needs a certain type of listener, an individual as dead and resonating as the visions that this album conjures inside..."
HEATHEN HARVEST - 3/5

"Under a livid sky, all hopes are swallowed by crude and disjointed sounds veering towards total silence. The Italian Sunn O)))? Why not?"
METALLUS - 7/10

"...An incessant advance of interstellar matter of frightening density, almost magmatic..."
STEREO INVADERS - 8/10

"A protracted, necrotic breeze of decay whispered over the viscera, often transformed into grisly mantras or chants drawn from the album's conceptual source text."
FROM THE DUST RETURNED - 6.75/10

"If Pombagira are your thing, fancy the less err… esoteric side of Esoteric or wish Nortt was more doom, then you should find no problem in getting inside this dark place. Getting out is another matter."
AVE NOCTUM - 7/10

I, Voidhanger Records announces the multi-album signing of crushing old school death metal act THE WAKEDEAD GATHERING to its ever expanding roster.
Based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, the band is comprised solely of Andrew Lampe and has already released the acclaimed full-length album "Tenements Of Ephemera" in 2010 as a pro-printed CD-r limited to 100 copies (and later as a pro tape co-produced by Dark Descent Records and Skeleton Plague Records). 
"Tenements Of Ephemera" was well received by the underground press and the true death metal fanatics thanks to its personal review of the early Incantation/early Immolation canons, with great emphasis on rhythmic changes and dark, twisted melodies.
In the near future we are going to release the band's sophomore album as well as the CD reissue of "Tenements Of Ephemera", with expanded artwork and possibly some bonus material. But first it will be time for THE WAKEDEAD GATHERING's most recent effort, a six track EP aptly titled "Dark Circles". The tracking list:

1. Lexicon: Transudae
2. Conjuring The Altered Void
3. Dark Circles
4. In The Midst Of The Tranquil Spheres
5. Mortuus Maculae
6. Inhale The Eclipse

"Dark Circles" is scheduled for a late Spring release. Cover art by Subtrocity.

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FEBRUARY 2012

New CDs from MALASANGRE, AUS DER TRANSZENDENZ and UMBAH are here and ready to ship! Order them from our online STORE at special low prices.

AUS DER TRANSZENDENZ's CD+Tshirt bundle available now for € 20,00 only!

We're pleased to announce that Midnight Odyssey's Dis Pater will be back soon with his new funeral death/doom project, TEMPESTUOUS FALL. The works on the band's debut album are almost completed and we plan to release it before Summer.
Through 5 majestic songs, each one comprised between 10 and 15 minutes, TEMPESTUOUS FALL paint a nocturnal world of romanticism and decadence. A place of the soul, where the broken dreams and the bitterness of life turn into dark poetry and fly on the wings of elegant and moving melodies, granitic guitars, and sumptuous arrangements of keyboards and real violins, while growl, screaming and clean vocals tell stories of love and death.
Fans of Midnight Odyssey, The Crevices Below, early My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Skepticism and The Cure take notice.

In Spring we also plan to release new albums from ÆVANGELIST, YSENGRIN and CHOWDER.

ÆVANGELIST is Matron Thorn (noise) and Ascaris (voices). Both are active under the black metal insignias of Benighted In Sodom, but here they play death metal to end all death metal. Compared to bands like Portal, Vasaeleth and Innumerale Forms, for ÆVANGELIST old school death metal is only a starting point, a raw matter to transfigurate and mould in a personal and totally hallucinating way. There's a disturbingly trippy atmosphere throughout their songs, something that assaults and violates the senses, and that works on the subconscious in subliminal, occult ways. Voices, bass and guitars are pure and uncontrolled chaos, a choir of horror and despair. Like a thick and disorientating dark haze floating around a cold and emotionally detached drumming that ties the songs to the ground.
I, Voidhanger Records is going to release on limited CD the band's debut EP, "Oracle Of Infinite Despair" (previously available only for download), while the first album, "De Masticatione Mortuorum In Tumulis", will follow later this year.

On YouTube you can have a taste of both releases: listen to "Blood & Darkness" from the EP, and "Death Illumination" from the full-length.

YSENGRIN are from France and play their "hermetic dark metal" under the guidance of La Guilde De La Malebeste: Guido Saint Roch (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards), Aldébaran (guitar and keys) and Aboth (drums). Those who are familiar with their last year's opus, "Tragedies - Liber Hermetis", already know what to expect: esoteric, occult and ancient dark metal, influenced by old masters like Mortuary Drape, Necromass, Death SS and the Greek black metal bands of the 90's.
In Spring we will release YSENGRIN's third full-length, "To Endotaton": a concept album in one long 40-minute track describing an initiatic ritual which takes place in the dark meanders of a cavern. The allegory of a journey through the deepest recesses of the soul, in search of enlightment.
Wonderful cover artwork by the Finnish cult artist Turkka G. Rantanen, who has worked with Adramelech, Demilich, Demigod, Ascended, Depravity and many others.

CHOWDER is the amazing creature of Josh Hart, a true veteran of Maryland's doom metal scene, having played bass with seminal bands like Asylum, Unorthodox, Revelation, and - more recently - Earthride. With him, the acrobatic rhythm section of Doug Williams (bass) and Chad Rush (drums). For CHOWDER Josh Hart has switched to guitar (and keys), with which he writes and plays twisted, dark riffs of doom with a progressive approach.
CHOWDER have already debuted with an eponymous EP, produced by John Brenner of Revelation and released through Bland Hand Records in 2007.
"Passion Rift" is the title of the band's first full-length (and all-instrumental) album that we'll proudly release next Spring, sure to please those into The Obsessed, The Hidden Hand, and the most adventurous prog/doom sounds.
This is what John Brenner has to say about CHOWDER and "Passion Rift":

Since 1992, guitarist Josh Hart and drummer Chad Rush have been writing Chowder’s music, bringing together their early exposure to doom metal, progressive rock, and hardcore. Although he originally played bass in Maryland metal bands Revelation and Unorthodox, Hart took to the guitar for writing his own material. Once original bassist Joe Ruthvin left the band for MD doom stalwarts Earthride, Chowder remained in limbo until finding bassist Doug Williams. Doug came to Chowder from the hardcore scene's Next Step Up, a band that would feature at different times all three current members of Chowder. The band recorded demos in the 90s, but it wasn’t until 2007 that Chowder recorded their debut EP, released on Bland Hand Records.
Immediately after recording the EP, Chowder’s ambitions broadened and deepened. Taking their unique vision even further, they wrote a new song, titled “Passion Rift,” which would become the epic title cut for their first full-length album. Nearly two years in the making, the album “Passion Rift” encompasses everything that makes Chowder a great band: off-kilter arrangements, abrupt time-changes, memorable melodies, creepy dissonances, top-notch songwriting, performances, and arrangements, and a true passion for making heavy music. Tastefully strewn throughout the record are analog and digital keyboards, cello, and various samples and sound effects, giving a texture to the songs that grows more rewarding with each listen.
Songs such as “The Innsmouth Look” and “Head Full of Rats,” with their forward-rushing, unrelenting progressive metal, sit next to atmospheric pieces such as “Mazuku” and “Mysterioid,” in a mix part hardcore, part Lovecraft, and part autobiography. And then there is the epic title cut “Passion Rift,” as big in its scope as Rush's “Hemispheres,” a journey through a landscape at times peaceful, tense, melancholic, aggressive, and nightmarish. This is music that communicates something important, and it does so without lyrics or vocals.

"Passion Rift" will be graced with cover art by fine artist and band's long time friend Scott Move.

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DECEMBER 2011

Stop holding your breath: as it is evident by now, our new releases are delayed and will be out in late January/early February 2012. You can listen to a couple of preview tracks at their respective pages (more to follow).

We have licensed the vinyl edition of SERPENT ASCENDING's "The Enigma Unsettled" to our Swedish friends at BLOOD HARVEST, leader in the death metal vinyl field! The album (a gatefold with 30x30 insert) will be out in early 2012, and of course will show Wiley Trieff's original artwork in the glorious LP format.

MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY's and SERPENT ASCENDING's pages have been updated with new interviews and reviews.

The current issue (#44) of UK's prestigious ZERO TOLERANCE Magazine features a brand new interview with Midnight Odyssey's Dis Pater by editor Nathan T. Birk, who calls "Funerals From The Astral Sphere" his top album of 2011.

An excerpt:

"Midnight Odyssey isn't the perfect vision of black metal. No one band is the perfect vision of black metal. And that to me is the hidden beauty of it. You can be raw and minimalistic like Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger, or lavish and symphonic like Limbonic Art's Moon In The Scorpio, and really, they both represent different aspects of the same vision that is black metal. I created Midnight Odyssey as simply an expression of myself, for myself, without trying to fit in conventional barriers and genre tagging."

And:

"To me a live experience is something dangerous for a project like Midnight Odyssey. Imagery is important to my music. I don't want people connecting my music to guitar rigs, microphones and drunken fools in the crowd, nor do I really want people to connect it to physical beings as such. Some things I feel are better left untouched, and I think for the case of a live Midnight Odyssey, that is completely true."

You'll be glad to know that early next year a new project by Dis Pater will be revealed to the world, to be released shortly after under our insignia... and other new signings will be announced soon.

In the meantime, we wish you all a happy new year!

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NOVEMBER 2011

We are glad to announce our next batch of releases, out before the end of the year:

• IVR-008    UMBAH "Enter The Dagobah Core"  CD
  

• IVR-009    MALASANGRE "Lux Deerit Soli"  CD
  

• IVR-010    AUS DER TRANSZENDENZ "Breed Of A Dying Sun"  CD

Info and MP3's coming soon.

The response on our latest releases has been in most cases enthusiastic! Both Midnight Odyssey's and Serpent Ascending's pages have been updated with reviews, and interviews will follow soon. For those of you too lazy to go through them, here's a short selection of opinions:

MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY "Funerals From The Astral Sphere"

"...another glorious and engrossing median between star-stuff and obscurity."
FROM THE DUST RETURNED (9 out of 10)

"The most striking aspect of this album, and that is a quality I have rarely heard in metal or into that, in black metal, is the ability of the creator of the music to tag it with astral qualities and actually deliver; writing music that would very much sound as if it came from beyond this world; music that will sound other-worldly, spacey, almost divine, emanating strong metaphysical star dust while playing, illuminating rather than darkening."
CHRONICLES OF CHAOS (8 out of 10)

"...Riffs colour and strengthen the keyboards in a sometimes cold, always dark swirl as though passing through the clouds of some nebula. It suggests mysteries revealed but the purpose always somehow obscured. (...) It's been a good year for atmospheric Black Metal but the neo classical mystery of Midnight Odyssey so far holds the crown for me."
METAL TEAM UK

"There is no avoiding the pure fact that when you decide to take on this sonic opus of over two hours of music, you need to be doing nothing else but listening to it. To slap a label on this undertaking is difficult; you could call it ambient black metal, but it pushes far beyond any genre. Forget the notion that you think you’ve heard every little bit and piece of what is considered music, this record is a firm and lovely reminder that you haven’t."
SLUG MAGAZINE

SERPENT ASCENDING "The Enigma Unsettled"

"Every lover of genuinely good death metal, the way it was supposed to be, having atmosphere, depth, violence, darkness and a supreme sense of melody, would be advised to give this beautiful beast a chance. Fuck the old school -- all Hail Serpent Ascending!"
CHRONICLES OF CHAOS (8,5 out of 10)

"...Creepy, murky, primitive and eerie atmospheres of early Finnish Death Metal that used to set the whole underground world on fire some 20 frigging years ago.(...) The vibe and feeling of those past times are still strongly present in the production of this record, the man himself in charge obviously paying a quite amount of careful attention to not having a too sterile and overly clean sound on this release, just to maintain his primal vision how SERPENT ASCENDING should actually sound like in the first place."
VOICES FROM THE DARKSIDE

"Serpent Ascending's The Enigma Unsettled is a finely hidden gem within the 2011 metal scene, adding yet another chapter to the fabled Finnish death metal division. Essentially combining elements of Depravity's Silence of the Centuries and at other locations slowing down to the murky depths of Slugathor and Stench of Decay, The Enigma Unsettled is very much a conglomerate of the sounds of this particularly rotten death metal scene and a pleasant surprise for the weary and uncompromising heeder."
SPUTNIK MUSIC (4 out of 5)

"I could go on listening to "Saturnal", "The Enigma Unsettled" and "Endless Initiations" repeatedly. They are some of the stronger old school numbers I've heard of this sort in recent years, and should be mentioned alongside bands like Sonne Adam or Father Befouled as an example of how to do this all correctly. (...) Serpent Ascending are likely to thrill the newcomers to the niche, or provide manny (un)happy returns for the veterans who seek sincerity amidst the grinding miasma."
FROM THE DUST RETURNED (7,5 out of 10)

The bands' respective CD + Tshirt bundles are still up for sale, but please note that we have run out of Midnight Odyssey's "M" size shirts. Other sizes are available in very limited quantities, so act fast!

On a final note, we want to remind those reviewers who have complained about the production of Serpent Ascending's "The Enigma Unsettled" that the album is a collection of 2 demos, recorded in an old fashioned way. If you forgot what underground death metal is meant to be and are in need of polished and ear-pleasing sounds, there's a bunch of soulless records with bombastic productions out there waiting for you.
We also apologize to those who complained about Midnight Odyssey's last opus being too long: we understand that these are fast-food and superficial times, and that an absorbing 2-hour-long listening experience is a titanic effort for many atrophied minds.

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AUGUST 2011

From now on, you can purchase our releases directly from our on-line STORE at special low prices!
To inaugurate the webstore, we are happy to offer an exclusive CD + T-Shirt bundle for both our new releases, MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY's "Funerals From The Astral Sphere" and SERPENT ASCENDING's "The Enigma Unsettled". CDs and T-Shirts are ready to ship!

Place your order at

MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY - Slipcase 2-CD + Limited T-SHIRT: € 24,00

Sizes: XXL, XL, L, M

 

SERPENT ASCENDING - Slipcase CD + Limited T-SHIRT: € 22,00

Sizes: XXL, XL, L, M

T-Shirt design: Francesco Gemelli - www.francescogemelli.it 

In other news, we're pleased to announce that the sonic terrorist known as UMBAH has completed work on its new futuristic nightmare, "Enter The Dagobah Core", scheduled for release in next few months. Expect a frightening collision between the most violent grind/death metal and the most iconoclast electronic music... with even more emphasis than before on the words "violent" and "iconoclast"!
Below you can admire the cover art, courtesy of J.L Rey at Phlegeton.com.

UMBAH is Cal Scott, once guitarist for the death metallers Necrosanct.

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JULY 2011

 

 

ENTER  OUR
STORE

or purchase our releases from

 

TEMPESTUOUS FALL
THE STARS WOULD
NOT AWAKE YOU
CD (IVR-013)
OUT MAY 2012

 

YSENGRIN
TO ENDOTATON
CD (IVR-012)
OUT MAY 2012

 

CHOWDER
PASSION RIFT
CD (IVR-011)
OUT MAY 2012

 

AUS DER TRANSZENDENZ
BREED OF A DYING SUN
CD (IVR-010)

 

MALASANGRE
LUX DEERIT SOLI
CD (IVR-009)

 

UMBAH
ENTER THE DAGOBAH CORE
CD (IVR-008)

 

SERPENT ASCENDING
THE ENIGMA UNSETTLED
CD (IVR-007)

 

MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY
FUNERALS FROM THE
ASTRAL SPHERE
2-CD (IVR-006)

 

WOEBEGONE OBSCURED
DEATHSTINATION
CD (IVR-005)

 

Tribute to H.P. Lovecraft
YOGSOTHERY
GATE I: CHAOSMOGONIC
RITUALS OF FEAR
CD (IVR-004)

 

MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY
FIRMAMENT
CD (IVR-003)

 

UMBAH
TRILOBETH
CD (IVR-002)

 

URNA
ITER AD LUCEM
LP (IVR-001)