Saidan - Visual Kill: The Blossoming of Psychotic Depravity

Raw Black Metal / Punk, United States

Spring 2024, Self-released

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After two years, Saidan makes their gruesome return with “Visual Kill: The Blossoming of Psychotic Depravity”.

"Emerging in 2020 Saidan rabidly released a string of demos, splits, and albums that caused a stir in the underground Black Metal scene. With their anthem-like riffage, violent imagery, deranged vocal delivery, and thrash inspired breakdowns. Saidan has risen above many of their contemporaries and has stood out in a bustling USBM scene.

Now in 2024 Saidan has presented us with their most focused and grotesque offering to date. Visual Kill takes you on a journey through a necrophilic hell and follows the morbid life, death, & afterlife of a student as they quickly drift further into unredeemable mental despair. While musically Saidan offers a beautifully violent take on the sound of classic Black Metal with a modern Punk twist; delivering malicious riffs, rapid leads, nonstop fist pumping hooks. and heart pounding drum work, all wrapped in a Raw Black Metal bow.

Inspired by Black Metal and Punk legends of the past; Saidan looks towards the future by staying true to themselves and delivers an album that is unhinged, chaotic, and raw.

Botanist - Paleobotany

 Avantgarde Black Metal / Experimental, United States

Spring 2024, Prophecy Productions

 

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On their twelfth full-length "Paleobotany", BOTANIST take us back more than 70 million years to a time when dinosaurs ruled the planet and early forests began to turn to coal. Before the age of giants ended in flames with the apocalyptic impact of the Chicxulub asteroid, many plants also grew much larger than their descendants that we know today. "Paleobotany" comes with all the trademark characteristics that set BOTANIST apart from all other metal acts on this planet. Lyrically, the band from San Francisco, CA revolves around species of plants – in a clean break from the usual genre stereotypes like Satan, dragons, and booze. 

 

Their music clearly has its foundation anchored in 'metal', but instead of 6-string guitars the Americans use 110-string hammered dulcimers. To the confused horror of traditionalists, BOTANIST fit these percussion-stringed folk instruments with magnetic pickups and distort them through various perverse means that range from amplifiers via analogue tape to digital manipulation. The resulting sound is as unique as spectacular. BOTANIST's continuing sonic evolution began at an audible Nordic black metal shaped point of entry. The band soon developed a more open, avant-garde style, leading towards a growing complexity. 

 

On "Paleobotany", the Californians have shed some of the more convoluted progressive elements in favour of more song-oriented arrangements that are still rich in details and surprises, which is enhanced through the album being mixed by renowned Swedish producer Fredrik Nordström (DIMMU BORGIR, OPETH, AT THE GATES) at Studio Fredman. BOTANIST are a unique band. "Paleobotany" expands their dark green sonic range of an avant-garde metal sound into a more accessible and dynamic sonic experience. When quadruped giants walked the earth, plants were already there and they will still be here when mankind has gone back to stardust. BOTANIST win their musical future by travelling millions of years into the past with "Paleobotany"!

Lidérc - Prof​á​n Myst​é​rium

Black Metal, Hungary

Spring 2024, Sun & Moon Records

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Lidérc was formed in 2020 in Veszprém, Hungary by old friends and musicians from bands like Niedergang, Infectus and Lepra. After a successful 2-song promo, the first full-length album of the band is finally ready to unleash. The album consists 6 songs of maniac medieval decadence with poetic Hungarian lyrics and detailed traditional hand drawn layout.

The name Lidérc is coming from the local folklore, where it appears as a malevolent house spirit, and a shapeshifting supernatural power. The music and the lyrics are evoking a rustic medieval-infused world of deranged alchemists, superstitious masses and rural witchcraft practitioners, with a vicious, grotesque and twisted sonic atmosphere. The themes of Lidérc are fast-paced, aggressive and sometimes uplifting, but they also emanate a strong melancholic decadence, which culminates in the symbolist-inspired lyrics as well.

The title of the album ‘Profán Mystérium’ refers to a mystery play, and the tracks can be perceived as stations on the path of damnation, the story of a glorious downfall revolving around the lyrical speaker. It can also be viewed as a kind of profane carnival, in which the participants symbolically destroy the existing moral structures by creating institutionalized confusion and chaos, turning the world upside down, spitting in its face and sell their souls to the Devil.