Red & Anarchist Black Metal [and much more!]

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Ritual Harm - "Nothing Is Beautiful / Everything Hurts" (2012)

RITUAL HARM "Nothing Is Beautiful / Everything Hurts"

Year: 2012
Genre: Blackened Hardcore/Grind
Country: Australia

Track List:

The Only Wife For Me is the Damp Earth
When Day Fades to Night and Push Becomes Shove
He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost
End-Time (Reign of the Bastard)
The Light in Your Eyes will Fade and Die
He Mourns for the Change that has Come Upon Him and His Beloved, And Longs for the End of the World
A Cabin in the Woods
Dead Friends

bandcamp

Black/death metal-influenced hardcore from Brisbane, something in the vein of Young And In The Way. Of course their music is free for download, and at least one of their members reads my blog.

Taken From The Nest - s/t (2012)

TAKEN FROM THE NEST "s/t demo"

Year: 2012
Genre: Blackened Crust / Death Metal
Country: Italy

Track List:

Excrete Thru Surface
This is the way the World ends
Transhumanist

DOWNLOAD

"The band “Taken From The Nest” borns in Perugia in June 2011 by an idea of Paolo Lombardi (Five Hundred Murders) and Riccardo Mencarelli, bassist and drummer respectively. Paolo and Riccardo published an online ad to find the other members of the band. Claudio Cilione answered to the ad and he became the voice of the band. The band was looking for a guitar player, and Claudio introduces his friend Daniele Boccali, which joines immediatly the band. In September 2011, after many test to find the second guitar player, the pursuit ended with the arrival of Edoardo Del Principe. Immediatly, the quintet began to write songs and play cover, and in the following months the band prepare the content for a first demo.

Influenced by Death Metal, Crust Punk and Black Metal, the musical pieces embody the idea of the quintet to blend the various elements with a soul raw and wild. In January 2012 the band began to record its first production in the recording studio of Daniele Marinelli, Teclas, where, in two days the band records the three musical pieces of the disk that bears its name"

Well... maybe the choice for a band name wasn't the best, but their first demo sounds promising. BTW, I have to repeat that I don't recommend sending me your music via facebook, because I check my inbox there only occasionally (and the personal messages for the RABM page are rarely checked at all).

bandcamp

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Abyssal - "Landscapes" (2010)

ABYSSAL "Landscapes"

Year: 2010
Genre: Crust/Doom/Sludge
Country: Mexico

bandcamp

Detesta Records have pointed me to this release from Tijuana-based band Abyssal(don't confuse them with the UK-based death metal band under the same name!), consisting of only one long track. Personally I didn't really understand this album, but if you're a fan of minimalistic doom/sludge, and you liked Abyssal's side of this 4-way split, you might enjoy this one too.

Act of Impalement - "Ritual Warfare" (2012)

ACT OF IMPALEMENT "Ritual Warfare"

Year: 2012
Genre: "War Doom"
Country: USA

Track List:

Reign of the Impaler
Now Your God Has Fallen
Ritual Warfare
Dusk on the Blood Enveloped Battlefield

bandcamp / facebook

"Act of Impalement is a 2 piece War Doom band from Nashville, TN. Fusing the traditional doom of Black Sabbath and Saint Vitus, the desolate black metal of Darkthrone and Mayhem, the crushing Death/Doom of Autopsy and Bolt Thrower, and the filthy sludge of Eyehategod into a heavy and raw creation"

To be honest, I expected to hear much more BM on this demo, instead of doom/sludge - but it's still good enough for a first demo, and the band embraces DIY/anti-authoritarian ideas. More demos are coming soon in the next few months.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Incrüst - "A Hate Named Revolt" (2012)

INCRÜST "A Hate Named Revolt"

Year: 2012
Genre: Metallic Hardcore /Crust
Country: Switzerland

Track List:

Wall Crusher
R.A.T.M.
HxC Riots
Free Mankind
A Hate Named Revolt
Time To Act (NASUM cover)

DOWNLOAD

Some more fast and agressive metallic hardcore/crust for you - this time from Switzerland. Incrüst are a band from Geneva with members of Mumakil, Sedative and Burning Flesh, and "A Hate Named Revolt" is their debut 6-track demo heavily influenced by such bands as Disfear, Wolfbrigade, Tragedy, Disrupt, etc. Great stuff.

facebook

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Parasitic Skies & Losing Skin - split (2012)

PARASITIC SKIES / LOSING SKIN "12'' split"

Year: 2012
Genre: Metallic Hardcore
Country: USA

Track List:

Parasitic Skies

The Void
The Throat Of The Sleeping Sun

Losing Skin

Depressor
Time Crawling By Me
Destroyer's Crown (bonus)

DOWNLOAD

This 12inch split is featuring two metallic hardcore bands from the Cascadian region, released by Headfirst! Records. According to the label, it's free for download, but any support is encouraged, as they're a small (two person) operation who spent a ton of time/efforts/money to help support bands they're friends with. As for the bands - of course it isn't BM, but I guess a lot of my readers are into this "Holy Terror"-kind of sound and aesthetics (think Integrity, Ringworm, etc.)

About the blog

After many years of activity, this blog is now put on hold since the majority of contributors have a lot of other important stuff going on in their lives. New music submissions should go to /r/RABM/ (note that the mods of /r/RABM/ don't have anything to do with this blog).

Most of the uploads here are band sanctioned. Anyway, if you for some reason don't want to see your music here, contact us using rabm (AT) gmx (DOT) com, and we'll consider taking it down.

Bottom note: there's probably a lot of broken English on this blog, since English isn't the first language for many of the contributors.

FAQ

Q.: Which kinds of music are featured on this blog?

A.: - (primarily) RABM or Red & Anarchist Black Metal: all kinds of black metal-related music charged with radical leftist (anarchist, libertarian socialist, eco-anarchist, etc.) political views. Some of the bands featured here may be not openly political, but all of them are RABM-friendly;

- blackened crust/hardcore/punk (only if it's openly RABM-friendly, or if it's just very good music; we have no intention to collect here all the blackened punk in existence);

- other kinds of political (anarchist, socialist, etc.) metal - death, thrash, post-metal, etc.;

- dark ambient, neofolk, industrial, dark electro, etc. - but only if it has some RABM-friendly ideology;

- regular punk/hardcore/crust, post-rock, conscious hip-hop, etc. - but only as a rare exception (so if you want to send us a demo in one of these genres, you're probably in the wrong place).

Q.: What are some RABM/blackened crust bands to start listening from?

A.: Here's an old compilation which I (B.K.) made in late 2009. Doesn't include a lot of good RABM bands that I didn't know of back then, but still recommended if you're new to RABM:

Check out this list as well, or this one.

Q.: How can I support a particular RABM band with my money?

A.: Most bands nowadays have a bandcamp page, where you can but their stuff online (usually for an arbitrary price). It's the most convinient way to support the band. If your favourite band don't have a bandcamp or bigcartel page, try to find out in which distro you can find their albums/merch. Of course, go to concerts if you have such opportunity.

Q.: How can I offer my financial support to this blog, or the RABM movement in general?

A.: Unfortunately right we don't have an opportunity to accept donations, but we hope we'll be able to set it up soon.

Q.: What is the connection between black metal and hardcore/punk/crust?

A.: It's a well-established fact that the connection between black metal and punk scenes existed since the early days of BM (think Venom, early Bathory, early Mayhem and early Sodom on one side, and Amebix, Discharge and Axegrinder on another). Recently this mix of BM and hardcore punk got a new life in the form of blackened crust (thanks to Black Kronstadt / Iskra in first place). And don't forget about Cascadian black metal bands with their radical environmentalist ideology, often to the extent of radical eco-anarchism or "pro-nature/anti-humanity" ideas.

Q.: What's your main ideology?

A.: This blog is generally written from a position of anarchism without adjectives; however, the RABM scene is very diverse ideologically. Let us end on this, as this blog isn't quite a right place for purely political debates; if you want to learn or argue about anarchism/other ideologies, there's a lot of specialized FAQs/blogs/forums for you.

Q.: Isn't black metal supposed to be apolitical?

A.: Supposed by whom? I personally don't think so, but if you think that political awareness should have no place in "true" black metal, you can feel free to call the bands featured on here "blackened punk" or whatever you want. It should be noted, though, that a lot of these bands doesn't openly talk about politics in their lyrics, exactly because they think it wouldn't be suitable for black metal. - B.K.

Q.: Isn't RABM just an "answer" to NSBM?

A.: While RABM is definitely against NSBM and any other kind of far-right crap in metal scene, it's most emphatically a self-sufficient movement and not any kind of "answer to NSBM". Similarly, while RABM is 100% pro liberation from any kinds of religious tyranny, it isn't a movement against any particular religion (Christianity, Islam, or any other).

Q.: What's your opinion on Satanism?

A.: The so-called "Hollywood Satanism", which is often found in black metal, is, in our opinion, nothing more than inverted Christianity, so we aren't big on it. Many of us are simply atheists, pagans of all kinds, gnostics, etc. We also don't share the notion that only genuine theistic Satanists / Devil-worshippers can play "real" black metal (this would exclude such bands as Venom, Bathory, Immortal, Summoning, and many many others). Additionally, the very term "Satanism" is quite vague, and can't be narrowed down to LaVeyan Satanism (which is heavily disliked by many black metallers), or whatever else. LaVey had some good points, but in general his philosophy can be described just as "Ayn Rand with some occult tinge".

Q.: What about misanthropy and nihilism?

A.: To put it in short: we don't hate everyone and everything (and we don't think there's anyone who truly does). We just hate these traits of humanity which make true anarchist society most likely infeasible in the foreseeable future.

Q.: Collectivism or individualism?

A.: There actually is no "hard" contradiction between these two terms. Individualism is simply an outlook emphasizes the moral worth of the individual and its right not to be oppressed by the state or some social group. It doesn't contradict at all with standing up for your rights along with a group of like-minded individuals. It also worth noting that the early black metal scene didn't promote individualism that much (see "black metal circles").

Q.: Who coined the term "RABM"?

A.: Hard to say, but there's an apparent similarity to RASH ("Red & Anarchist Skinheads"). Here's the very first mention of "RABM" we could find (August 2005). The term was popularized by our last.fm group (and later - by this blog) since 2009.

Q.: Do you know the ideology of the band X? It isn't obvious if they're NSBM or not...

A.: Sorry, we don't know, do your own research. It's often hard to say anything certain about a band's views, if the members themselves aren't open about it. We also don't advice using various "lists of nazi bands" etc. as a reference, as most of them are full of bullshit. Similarly, forum posts or blog comments (especially anonymous ones) generally aren't a reliable source for anything. In one particular case, we had an anonymous comment claiming that the members of Timebomb are now playing in a fascist band called SPQR. Later it turned out that it were members of a completely other Italian band with a similar name (Timebombs). Hopefully that'd be a good example of how important fact-checking is.

Q.: I've seen some of the albums posted here in the same distro with some albums by right-leaning bands...

A.: Unfortunately it's often the case with distros and labels that distribute stuff regardless of its political affiliation. Even Austin Lunn of Panopticon complained about Pagan Flames (the label which released his "Collapse" and "Social Disservices" LPs) having NSBM in their distro, so things like these are just unavoidable.

Q.: Some bands on this blog have Burzum on their list on influences. Isn't Varg Vikernes a nazi?

A.: See a good comment on this matter here.

Q.: Can I use some materials from this blog on my site?

A.: Of course you're welcome to do so (unless otherwise is specified), as we're against copyrights.

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Sunday, August 12, 2012