I've been busy lining up some fantastic new offerings that are going to be released through the newly minted Crucial Blaze series of limited-edition compact disc recordables that started out earlier in the summer with the full length Bleak from ghostly industrial droners Robe. The second release in the series was just added this week (the debut four-song Ep from Wolfnuke, a gang of local blackened thrashers with, er, extremely close ties to Crucial Blast), and we have the following titles confirmed and in some stage of progress that you can look forward to. All of the discs will come in plastic dvd-style library cases with high quality artwork and presentation, insert materials, vinyl stickers, and 1" buttons, and most releases will be released in hand-numbered editions of 250 copies, with a select few released in smaller numbered runs.
Here's what we have coming up in 2010, in no particular order of release:
LYCANTHROPIC WARHEAD Infinite Castigation 2xCDR - a super limited collection of warped, narcotized boom-bap and industrial black murk from this new project influenced equally by Scorn and Moëvöt, Tackhead and Abruptum, early Techno Animal and Brighter Death Now...
VOMIR Renonce CDR - a new, nearly hour-long wall of lightless oblivion from the French master of ego-immolating, pitch black HNW. Renonce will include a booklet of new writings from Vomir in the original French text, with English translations.
SCHREI AUS STEIN Tsasnaasjini CDR - the second release from this excellent new blackened, blissed-out, cold-wave/dreampop project from Ross Hagen of Encomiast.
CREMATION GROUNDS Abortion Sacrament 3" CDR - a very limited three-song/twenty-two minute set of brutal industrial noise, smoldering blackened HNW, and ultra-distorted black doom buried underneath endless layers of machine howl and feedback. Will include a chapbook of vile, surreal poetry influenced by the likes of James Havoc, Bataille, and Crowley.
GLASS COFFIN CDR - a new disc of savage, malformed low-fi black filth from Josh Lay (Cadaver In Drag, Swamp Horse, Temple Of Rot, and assorted solo black/noise/drone works) that cracks skulls apart and then vomits black offal on the wreckage, part Archgoat/Beherit style primitive BM, part atavistic blackpunk violence. The package will also contain an art zine that will feature an array of Josh's demented and hallucinatory artwork and illustrations.

Keep your third eye trained on: http://crucialblast.net/crucialblaze.html

WOLFNUKE Nightwar CDR / CASSETTE MP3 SAMPLES: "Beneath The Lash Of The Neuro-Goat", "Deathfire", "Nightwar ", "Filthwraith" The second document on the new Crucial Blaze imprint, Wolfnuke's Nightwar is a glorified demo, the first raw recorded work from this new Hagerstown, Maryland quartet that includes the C-Blast boss on bass and bellows, as well as a current member of long-running hardcore/grinders Strong Intention (Six Weeks / Coalition Records) on guitar. Wolfnuke seeks a different form of mayhem however, forging a furious, blackened thrash assault out of an unlikely combination of influences that include the obvious (classic second wave black metal and Teutonic thrash), the vitriolic crossover thrash of Cro-Mags's 1989 album Best Wishes, a lust for the driving, apocalyptic power of late 80's UK goth rock (Fields of The Nephilim, Sisters Of Mercy), and the violent aggression of Scandinavian hardcore. The four songs on Nightwar are universally fast-paced and dark as hell, starting with the nihilistic blackened thrash of "Beneath The Last Of The Neuro-Goat" and continuing through the blazing black metal-meets-crossover extermination vision of "Deathfire", the crushing mid-tempo blackened metalpunk of the title track and the anthemic matricide hallucination of closer "Filthwraith". Originally made available as a free download and cassette at local performances earlier in the year, the Nightwar demo has been presented here as a limited edition cassette, limited to a print run of 100 copies. In addition, the recording is still available to be downloaded for free, which can be done at the following link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NJFXJAT8. Order the WOLFNUKE Nightwar CDR (limited to 250): $6.50 Order the WOLFNUKE Nightwar CASSETTE (limited to 100): $4.50

:: AVAILABLE NOW :: Order the GNAW THEIR TONGUES L'arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante CD GATEFOLD: $9.98 Order the GNAW THEIR TONGUES L'arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante Shirt: $14.98 (CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE DETAIL) Small Medium Large X-Large XX-Large Order the GNAW THEIR TONGUES L'arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante Shirt / CD Package (also includes sticker/1" buttons): $22.00 (CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE) Small Medium Large X-Large XX-Large

Gnaw Their Tongues returns with the new album L'arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante, which will be released for North America by Crucial Blast. The cd (once again presented in a Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket) is available to order now, and we also have a new shirt design for L'arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante designed by GTT mastermind Mories that is available on its own or as a combination package with the disc along with Gnaw Their Tongues stickers and 1" buttons. All of these items are shipping now!

The new L'arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante design is printed on black Gildan 100% cotton shirts by Mammoth Screenprinting, with a gold/yellow print on the front.

One of the extreme metal/industrial underground's most unique bands, Gnaw Their Tongues arises again with a new album of majestic, orchestral death-terror called L'arrivée de la Terne Mort Triomphante, a series of five hymns to the death shroud, a celebration of dissolution. This Dutch one-man avant black/doom/industrial band is responsible for two of the most chilling albums of abstract heaviness to have been released in recent years (An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood and All The Grand Magnificence Of Perversity, both from Crucial Blast), but with this new full-length, Gnaw Their Tongues peels back additional layers of it's bombastic horror to reveal moments of euphonic beauty more than we've heard on the previous albums.

This is still harrowing stuff, though. The album opens with soaring choirs of the damned and a cacophony of tortured shrieks and demonic howling underneath a crushing, sludgy bass riff and pounding elephantine drumming, total blackened doom that's soon joined by peals of dissonant strings and softer droning cellos and violins. As you get deeper into " L'arrivée de la terne mort triomphante", there are moments of severe beauty that emerge, brief passages of fragile piano and mournful strings, the soft crackle of ancient vinyl grooves and French horns. These moments repeat throughout the album, lots of symphonic shadow that drifts amidst the pounding industrial blackness, but they never last for long as the spiraling woodwinds and cyclical piano figures inevitably become subsumed into the blasts of malevolent orchestral might. The fearsome martial drums and brass fanfares at the beginning of "Les anges frémissent devant la mort" eventually evolve into stretches of abstract industrial percussive pummel over droning strings and organ, and then into a stunning cinematic finale. That's followed by the clanking doom, swarming black buzz and sheet-metal cacophony of "La mort dans toute son ineffable grandeur/splendeur", the most industrial-sounding track on the album. "Le Chant De La Mort" is a lurching, blown-out death march that shifts into an infernal dubbed-out dirge, and the closing track " Le trône blanc de la mort (de white throne of death)" rumbles through funereal classical drift, waves of horns, strings, percussion surging into a series of dark, mournful shapes at first, but are then shattered by pounding doom metal drums and wailing choir voices, becoming an utterly grim blackened dirge with distorted shrieking vocals that are wracked with agony, ending the album with a suffocating atmosphere of death. At its heaviest, it's like funeral doom bathed in modern orchestral music, a cross between Penderecki and pitch-black doom filth, pulverizing and intensely evil.

Of course, this is essential for fans of previous Gnaw Their Tongues albums, but it's equally recommended to fans of both abstract blackened weirdness of bands like Emit, Abruptum, and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, and the bleak Wagnerian industrial of In Slaughter Natives and Shinjuku Thief. Like the previous two Gnaw Their Tongues releases on Crucial Blast, this comes in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket (which is exclusive to the North American release of this disc). Released for North America and all other non-European/UK territories by Crucial Blast.

MP3 SAMPLES:
1. L'arrivée de la terne mort triomphante ::MP3 SAMPLE::
2. Les anges frémissent devant la mort ::MP3 SAMPLE::
3. La mort dans toute son ineffable grandeur ::MP3 SAMPLE::
4. Le Chant De La Mort ::MP3 SAMPLE::
5. Le trône blanc de la mort ::MP3 SAMPLE::

:: AVAILABLE NOW :: Order the NEKRASOV Extinction CD GATEFOLD: $9.98 Order the NEKRASOV Extinction Shirt: $15.98 (CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE DETAIL OF SHIRT) Small Medium Large X-Large XX-Large Order the NEKRASOV Extinction Shirt / CD Package (also includes sticker/1" buttons): $25.00 (CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE DETAIL OF SHIRT) Small Medium Large X-Large XX-Large

Australian black metal/noizebeast Nekrasov delivers it's first album for Crucial Blast, an eight-track assault of blistering industrial holocaust, mechanical BM terror, and brutal drone/noise called Extinction, presented in a six-panel digipack. The cd is available now from Crucial Blast, and we also have a new shirt design for Extinction currently available on it's own or as a combination package with the disc along with Nekrasov stickers and 1" buttons. All of these items are shipping now.

The new Extinction design is a three-color print on black Gildan 100% cotton shirts produced by Mammoth Screenprinting.

Riding atop the recent wave of black metal/noise hybrids who combine the bleak frosty riffs and blackened ferocity of underground BM with blown-out and corrosive strains of industrial noise (see also WOLD, Emit, Grief No Absolution, Enbilulugugal, Vargr), the Australian one-man band Nekrasov has so far made a substantial mark in the realm of extremist necro-racket with a series of limited edition, brutally abrasive albums (Cognition Of Splendid Oblivion, The Form Of Thought From Beast, etc) that have mostly been self-released, save for some recent offerings on labels like Siege Of Power and Chrome Leaf. Early on, Nekrasov's sound was steeped in caustic noise, a blazing industrialized black metal assault that was doused in heavy levels of irradiated distortion and Merzbowian skree. But more recently, it's mutated into less metallic regions, alternating the hyperblast black metal with forays into crushing, demonic wall-noise and blasted ambience. Now, Nekrasov is back with a new full length (the first for Crucial Blast), and it's the most advanced slab of their blacknoize terror that we've heard so far. An octagonal prism of isolationist drone, flesh-rending mechanical black metal, abstract otherworldly beauty, claustrophobic industrial dread, and the most violent, suffocating strains of harsh noise, Extinction is pure cyclonic contempt for humanity.
The eight-song disc combines hyperspeed cybernetic blastscapes and bleak black metal riffage, the tracks often revealing snarled minor key melodies that are buried deep beneath blizzard blasts of machinegun drum machines, the drums veering through nerve-fraying rhythmic shifts, and acidic croaks bathed in black hiss. Triumphant frost-bitten riffs scream out of maelstroms of violent distortion, and Choral voices soar through a cyclone of helicoptering blastbeats and sheets of blown-out, ultra distorted drone, streaked with bits of gorgeous vibraphone-like melody, somber Hammond-like organ drones and looped synth, sometimes breaking off into grinding slo-motion industrial throb or swirling kosimiche drift. The tracks on Extinction go back and forth between the noisier, more industrial like material and overt black metal, though the two sides of Nekrasov's sound are always present together. When the sound does move into pure noise, it's either vast fields of minimal ambient drift, metallic clank and distant percussive sounds, utterly bleak Lustmordian soundscapes, or crushing, almost HNW-style slabs of molten noise, scouring waves of hellish skree and crushing slow-motion tidal surges of jet-black sonic syrup flecked with dubbed-out blasts of tectonic crush and electronic glitches that ripple across the void.
Closing the album, the title track descends even further into black industrial crush, a monstrous, almost seventeen-minute long sprawl of plodding, simple drum pound echoing within a slowly swirling fog of distorted fx, churning, billowing black ambience, buried black buzz, an endless whirlpool of blown-out synthesizers and the immense black breath of leviathan lungs heaving deep below the surface.
Like everything else from Nekrasov, this album is loaded with blasting inhuman drumming and ferocious riffing that form into noise-drenched trance-scapes of bestial industrial BM, but the attention to texture and sound sculpture elevates this above most mechanized black metal projects, with immersive layers of electronic sound, creative stereo panning techniques, and other production tricks that create a harsh, alien atmosphere that is pretty unique to Nekrasov's sound. This is a scorching new chapter from one of our favorite bands out there right now fusing black metal and noise.
The cd version comes packaged in a full color six-panel digipack.

MP3 SAMPLES:

:: NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER :: Order the FISTULA Goat CD Digipack: $9.98 Order the FISTULA Goat Shirt: $14.98 (CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE) Small Medium Large X-Large XX-Large Order the FISTULA Goat Shirt / CD Package (also includes sticker/1" buttons): $22.00 (CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE) Small Medium Large X-Large XX-Large

"Extreme-metal bands and their fans love gory lyrics. Slayer and Cannibal Corpse keep things theatrical, but on their new EP, Cleveland's Fistula tackle the all-too-real case of alleged rapist and murderer Anthony Sowell. The band cranks out ultra-distorted riffs over clattering drums; the vocals are an indecipherable howl of pain. Goat is a seriously ugly record, as befits its morbid and disturbing subject matter. The music is a buzzing, hostile roar. Samples of news coverage tell the story of sex crimes and the discovery of bodies (and body parts) in Sowell's home. The dispassionate narration, bolstered by grinding riffs, makes the whole thing even more depressing and bleak. There's no Cannibal Corpse-style shock value here — this is real death metal." — Phil Freeman, CLEVELAND SCENE


Ohio is rotting. Fistula once again team up with Crucial Blast to deliver another heavy dose of their septic, filthy, lumbering death-sludge in the form of Goat, a five-song Ep of low-fi and low-end nihilistic filth and rabies-laced caveman thrash with songs based on the ghoulish discovery and subsequent investigation of the eleven decomposing bodies found in the Cleveland home of Anthony Sowell in the Autumn of 2009. This new disc delivers more of the pulverizing, slime-covered sludge and primitive death metal rot that these Buckeye barbarians have been carving out in the back of Medina garages over the past ten years, continuing to follow in the coagulated blood tracks of Frost, Autopsy and Winter, but filtered through Fistula's uniquely mangled and inebriated scum-haze and utterly negatory worldview.

Fistula's Goat is available to order now on both cd and digital formats, and we also have a new shirt design for Goat that features the album's insane cover art from artist Steve Barcus. The shirt and cd can both be ordered now for immediate shipment, and we also have a shirt/cd/sticker/1" button set package available as well. The Goat design is printed on Gildan brand 100% cotton black t-shirts, available in sizes small through XXL, with high quality grey ink printing on both front and back. Click on the above links to check out the shirt artwork in detail.

MP3 SAMPLES:
1. Ohio Death Toll Rising ::MP3 SAMPLE::
2. One Chair And An Electrical Cord ::MP3 SAMPLE::
3. The Ones That Got Away ::MP3 SAMPLE::
4. So Far Sowell So What ::MP3 SAMPLE::
5. Mission Accomplished ::MP3 SAMPLE::

MP3 SAMPLES:
1. Ashes ::MP3 SAMPLE #1::
2. Hollow ::MP3 SAMPLE #1::


AVAILABLE NOW.
The mysterious Portland ensemble Trees return with their second offering on Crucial Blast, Freed Of This Flesh, with two new fetid death rituals scraped from the crypt. Each of these tracks averages around fourteen minutes, an extended death-rattle formed from black glacial riffs suspended in space, tectonic percussive rumbles, anguished shrieks of torment and abject suffering, deep guttural demon-toad throat singing, and endless sheets of glistening metallic feedback that spill and drift to the far edges of their extreme time-stretched ambient doom, a crumbling, blighted majesty, noxious ambient blackdoom adrift on putrescent tides. The wretched vocal effluvium creeps formlessly across austere slabs of crushing heaviness arranged into ghoulish constructs of atmospheric dread, moving so slow that the music seems to lose all sense of propulsion at times, becoming lost in a fog of howling amplifiers and buzzing feedback, the guitars stretched into massive decomposing drones, the spaces between infested with controlled bursts of drums that skitter and rumble, almost "jazzy" in a vague sort of way, but still incredibly slow and ponderous. Freed Of This Flesh inhabits the same sort of black-tar depths as the likes of Burning Witch, Monarch, Khanate, and Bunkur while stripping the slo-mo heaviness into their own twisted, skeletal configuration.

:: CLICK HERE :: for details and online ordering for this release.

MP3 SAMPLES:
1. Bleak (Part I) ::MP3 SAMPLE #1::
2. Bleak (Part II) ::MP3 SAMPLE #1::
3. Bleak (Part III) ::MP3 SAMPLE #1::
4. Bleak (Part IV) ::MP3 SAMPLE #1::

"...With Bleak, which eschews song titles for four lengthy self-titled segments, the Indiana musicians/filmmakers demonstrate the marriage between visual and auditory elements by composing creeping dread so convincing, it may induce panic in the listener. Their toolkit seems limited to effervescent static and twisting creaks built on groaning foundations, but listen too long and, like staring into a snowy TV, you’re bound to start imagining things in it. The third act is where the bad noise really starts to bare its claws, introducing fuzzy discordant melodies like funereal foghorns wafting into a rickety, haunted harbour...believably scores what might be taking shape in the shadows ’round bedtime..." - Rue Morgue Magazine

AVAILABLE NOW. The first entry in the new Crucial Blaze series of limited edition cd titles, which picks up where the now completed Crucial Bliss series ended. Now, our explorations into ambient drone, electronic noise and abstract heaviness descend into darker and more apocalyptic zones than before, and Robe's newest release Bleak combines all of these elements into an ideal flagship release for this new series.
C-Blast customers may remember when I gushed over a stunning cassette that Robe. released on Thor's Rubber Hammer a while back; this new set of tracks continues in that intensely dark and oppressive vein, with seventy-five minutes of rumbling, creeping ambience and oozing, blackened bottom end raked with the blare of distant horns, smeared trumpets echoing across a vast ocean of black sludge, evil screeching violins time-stretched into endless drones, an immensely oppressive and threatening atmosphere drifting over formless glacial guitar/bass grind like plumes of pungent black smoke. It's like hearing corroded, distressed blasts of orchestral sound, broken and warped BM guitars and clanking machinery rotting beneath massive waves of low-end heaviness; the same reference points that I used for their Remains Of A Burning World apply equally here (Abruptum's Casus Luciferi, Neuntoter Der Plage, and Aderlating's most atmospheric moments), but leaning even more towards a sort of surrealistic industrial nightmare.
This limited-edition release of Bleak is packaged in a library case with full color artwork, limited and hand-numbered out of 250 copies, and includes a set of full color 1" buttons, a vinyl Robe. sticker, and an insert. This will be available to order in the next two weeks - keep checking back here for updates. In the meantime, we have some samples below that you can check out from the release; also, keep an eye out for coverage of Bleak in the new issue of horror-culture rag Rue Morgue.

:: CLICK HERE :: for details and online ordering for this release.