Awenden - s/t (2018)

AWENDEN "Awenden"

Year: 2019

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal

Origin: USA

Track List:

1. Awake
2. The Wilderness
3. ...
4. A Scourge on the Earth
5. The Wild Jihad

Bandcamp / Facebook / Instagram

Awesome Cascadian style anarcho-primitivist black metal from Oregon and Washington. They're working on a new full length, but in the mean time, the self titled album is up for free on bandcamp.

Ragana - "You Take Nothing" (2017)

RAGANA "You Take Nothing"

Year: 2017

Genre: Blackened Sludge/Doom

Country: USA

Track List:

1. Spare No Man
2. To Leave
3. Winter's Light
4. Destroyer
5. Somewhere
6. You Take Nothing

Bandcamp

A female duo from Oakland, CA.
"Ragana" means "witch" in Baltic languages.
"You Take Nothing" was released by An Out Recordings.

"RAGANA has existed since autumn 2011 when Maria and Nicole met in Olympia, wa. they currently live in oakland, ca. their interests as a band include pacific northwest forests, early cat power, and the total destruction of capitalism"

With The End In Mind - "Unraveling; Arising" (2016)

WITH THE END IN MIND  "Unraveling; Arising"

Year: 2016

Genre: Cascadian Black Metal
Country: USA

Track List:

1. Sings the sky
2. Anguish symmetry
3. Unraveling; Arising
4. From the true source
5. Wheeling, endlessly wheeling

Bandcamp

"Born of grief and uncertainty, born of life-changing experiences in the wilds of Northern California and the Olympic Mountains, born of ever escalating crises and ever escalating resistance. Unraveling; Arising is a labor of truest love, a call of urgency, a reverent homage to Life in all its forms".  

Alda - "Passage" (2015)

Alda - "Passage"

Year: 2015
Genre: Black Metal, Blackened Crust, Hardcore
Country: United States

Track List:

1. The Clearcut
2. Passage
3. Weather
4. The Crooked Trail
5. Animis

bandcamp

The album begins with their first track, The Clearcut which has the noise ambience of crickets followed by guitar strumming. The guitars entangle into their own chorus until a dramatic pause followed by guitar plucking reminiscent of Central American folk which is joined by beautiful singing, not only from the male singer but the female as well. You are sucked into an absolutely beautiful album and know it at this point. I was hesitant, but I already was thinking "this is a five star album" to myself already. The song then makes a dramatic pause to accelerate into power chords and screaming lyrics of despair and desperation.

Their second track, Passage begins under the cover of rainfall with an absolutely brilliant, dark and sombre strumming mixed with power chords that leads to somewhat accelerated power chords and screaming that churns your soul. Their third track, Weathering is quite sombre and darkly appealing that builds up with a slight intensity that subtly maintains that attractive sombreness and darkness. Their fourth track begins with water ambience noise and softly builds up folksy guitar strumming, which is very beautiful as well in a calming manner. Their last track Animis begins with barking puppy noise ambience followed by a build-up of strong screaming, but not over-fiercely met with too strong of guitar strumming and power chords throughout the rest of the song. Absolutely a new favourite album of mine and obviously a five star strong album! *****!

Alda - "Tahoma" (2012)

Alda - "Tahoma"

Year: 2012
Genre: Black Metal, Blackened Crust, Hardcore
Country: United States

Track List:

1. In The Wake of an Iron Wind
2. Adrift
3. Tearing of the Wave
4. Shadow of the Mountain
5. Wandering Spirit

bandcamp

The album begins with their first track, In The Wake of an Iron Wind, which builds up slowly at first, but with a growing pace that leads to a relapse of a build-up, except with power chords. The vocals tend to dive into your soul during the introduction of it, or at least I felt that way. The song ends softly as it begins after the outro which is after the ten minute mark. Their second track, Adrift begins with water ambience, but then proceeds to power chords which build up and slow down multiple times as well.

Their third track, Tearing of the Wave continues in the same tradition of build-up relapses from soft vocals, guitar plucking and guitar strumming to screaming and power chords. Shadow of the Mountain, their fourth track also continues this pattern, but maintains itself throughout with soft lyrics and soft melodies that are continuously catchy throughout the album. In my opinion, Shadow of the Mountain is the best track on the album.

Their last and fifth track, Wandering Spirit picks up the build-up and relapse pattern, except strictly with power chords, that the first three tracks embraced and ends with a dark ambience of howling wolves. I liked this band, but wanted to hear more sounds like Shadow of the Mountain off of this album. I give it three and a half stars *** (*/**).

Wild's Reprisal - "Against Leviathan" (2015)

Wild's Reprisal - "Against Leviathan"

Year: 2015
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Country: United States

Track List:

1. Bio-Civilization
2. Gaard
3. Neither Man Nor Beast
4. Death of Nature
5. The Power and the Promise

bandcamp

I really enjoyed this album, especially with it's album name being a reference to my favourite book, "Against His-Story, Against Leviathan" by Fredy Perlman. I felt as though the music spoke to me very much so. Beginning their first track, Bio-Civilization plays with dark atmospheric ambience that alternates with explosive, loud and fast paced metal. Their second track, Gaard is even faster and maintains it's speed at longer intervals with a dramatic fade-out ending that is fitting. Their third tracks begins with howling wolves and then is followed by power chords and heavy, slower drums in Neither Man Nor Beast. Their fourth track Death of Nature has more enjoyable fast-paced energy. For their last track, The Power and the Promise, expect a slower, quite softer music track and cue the piano as well for this song. It's a fitting finale for the album. The screaming throughout the well-recorded album was always very fitting as well. I give it five stars *****.

Huldrekall - "Into The Æther" (2015)

HULDREKALL "Into The Æther"

Year: 2015

Genre: Cascadian Black Metal

Country: USA

Track List:

1. The Will To Freedom
2. Hypnogogic Hallucinations
3. Traversing the Borderland State
4. Into the Æther
5. Nightmare Abyss
6. Beyond Life, Beyond Death

DOWNLOAD

You probably already are familiar with this band from Olympia, WA, because of their split w/ Mania posted on here some time ago. Here's their latest full-length album, titled "Into the Æther":

"We are a black metal band that plays a very crusty and psychedelic form of cascadian black metal. We are punks who play metal and our lyrics deal with many topics that are very relavant to the RABM scene, including state surveillance, DIY theory, bands climbing bullshit social ladders, discontent with the mental restraints of modern life and the decay of the earth as a result of suburban/population growth. We are hoping to spread the free download of our new album "Into the Æther", and are hoping that you would be willing to do a post.

We feel that digital media should be free and physical releases should be as cheap as possible so as to make it so people from all walks of life can afford and enjoy music without having to spend $35+shipping on an LP thats gonna break in the mail anyways..."

P.S. Although I don't see a free download link @ their bandcamp right now (UPD: fixed), I'll post a link to their page anyway:

bandcamp / blog

Mur - Athabasca (2015)

MUR "Athabasca"

Year:  2015

Genre:  Atmospheric Black Metal

Country:  USA

Track List

1. Ungulate Flesh & Blood (Stirring in the Herd)
2. Dragged Across the Forest God's Teeth
3. Athabasca (A Calf is Culled)

Hailing from Minnesota, one-man project Mur has released an impressive album.  While not explicitly anarchist, the album does hold to radical environmentalism.  It is, in fact, a concept album exploring the relationship between the wolf and the American Bison.  With sounds ranging from doom to drone to aggressive, Cascadian style black metal, Mur covers a lot of ground.  Take the time to check this one out.  It is well worth it.

Bandcamp / Facebook

Hellships - "Doom Organs" (2015)

HELLSHIPS "Doom Organs"

Year: 2015

Genre: Psychedelic Doom Metal (with Cascadian BM overtones)

Country: USA

Track List:

1. Nihil Desperandum
2. In The Name Of Stability
3. End Realism
4. A History Of Collapse
5. Electric Pilgrimage
6. Regifting Cigarettes

bandcamp

Line-up:

Robin Flowers: Guitar
Alex Freilich: Drums, Bass, Synthesizer, Piano, Vocals
Neal Jensen: Guitar, Organ, Vocals


There still is a lot of releases arriving into my mailbox every week, but a lot of them either have nothing to do with the topic of my blog, or simply lack the information needed to post them. This one, though, is really interesting, and comes from a band what was featured on my blog before.

Hellships, founded in 2009, are from Olymplia, WA. Their music is a kind of mostly instrumental noisy psychedelic doom metal, heavily influenced by the Cascadian black metal scene. Although their music and imagery isn't explicitly political, they're all anarchists. Additionally, one of their members also plays in With The End In Mind, if I'm not mistaken.

Cuscuta - "The Wilderness Within" (2014)

Cuscuta - "The Wilderness Within"

Year: 2014
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Country: USA

Track Listing

1. Atavism and the Destruction of Civilization
2. Trapped in the Beast... Tearing from Within

DOWNLOAD

Featuring the same person from Evergreen Refuge, Cuscuta is a project that is just as raw and fantastic. The sound is more spacey and when you really crank the volume, it's extremely powerful. Most of the lyrics on this release speak from an eco perspective, with Evergreen yelling into the void as civilization collapses around us.

This release is basically two long tracks. Not very uncommon for him as Evergreen Refuge generally has some pretty lengthy pieces. It all flows so well though that you barely notice. Give it a listen and see what you think.

Black Clothes - "Lygophilia" (2014)

BLACK CLOTHES "Lygophilia"

Year: 2014

Genre: Post-Black Metal

Country: Canada

Track List:

1. The Great Leap
2. Memories
3. Ocean

bandcamp / facebook

One more demo from Canada, this time from Vancouver BC. There's very little information about the project, and the demo itself is quite short (about five and a half minutes). I'm not sure if it can be classified as "cascadian black metal" in terms of sound, although it definitely was influenced by atmospheric BM and post-rock.

Emerald Weapon - s/t EP (2014)

EMERALD WEAPON "Emerald Weapon EP"

Year: 2014

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal / Drone

Country: USA

Track List:

1. Cascade Spring
2. Enlightened Womb
3. Self Reliant
4. Nothing/Everything

bandcamp

One more Portland-based project which just released a debut EP (out on 13th of June and sent to me just today). Emerald Weapon consists of Frederick Michael Troina (guitar, synth, programming) and Matthew Earl Ramsey (bass, vocals). There's a bit too much synths/programming for my taste, and it's a bit too repetitive at times (especially the first and the last track), but for a first demo it's fine. Their sound isn't quite of "Cascadian" type, but pretty close to.

GRST/The Will of a Million - "Split Cassette Tape" (2014)

GRST/THE WILL OF A MILLION "Split Cassette Tape"

Year:  2014
Genre:  Cascadian Black Metal
Country:  USA

Track List:

1. GRST - Wrathfully Trodden
2. The Will of a Million - Smoke

The two bands on this split have some member in common, as well as having members in common with the Blackened Hardcore band Banewreaker.  These two bands are more typical Cascadian Black Metal with more overtly ecological, anti-civilization, and anti-capitalist lyrics.   I don't have a direct download link at this point, but will work on getting one.  In the meantime, the split can be downloaded in a "pay-what-you-want" format from the Bandcamp page.

bandcamp (GRST) / bandcamp (Glossalalia) / facebook (The Will of a Million) / facebook (Glossalalia) / GRST Web Page

Radagast - "An Earthly Sacrament" (2012)

RADAGAST "An Earthly Sacrament"

Year: 2012

Genre: Cascadian Black Metal

Country: USA

bandcamp 

"Amazing green, apocalyptic, cascadian, epic, folk-black metal. Radagast began with Mark Tierney(the talent behind the project, and drummer of blackened crust-grind band Redneck Warmachine)..."


Well... can't say it's that amazing, but it's certainly a good debut which shows a lot of potential. Definitely recommended for everyone who's into Cascadian scene. And for those who's into crustgrind, Redneck Warmachine album  "Cryptic Basement Terror" is highly recommended too.

With The End In Mind - "Thresholder" (2013)

WITH THE END IN MIND "Thresholder"

Year: 2013

Genre: Cascadian Black Metal

Country: USA 

Track List:

1. Thresholder
2. The Pantheon Arches In All Directions; Endless
3. True Weight Of The Things We Must Carry

bandcamp

The second release by WTEIM, following the s/t debut:

"All music composed and recorded by AF. Thresholder features Alex Mody on drums, Emily Metcalf with additional vocals and cello, and Jason Leher on flute. Drums were recorded by Jon Lervold at Big Name Studio. Artwork by James Hauptman. Thanks to Willy Walker, Jon Lervold, and Tommy Thompson for their help and advice. All donations for the download of this album will go directly towards the physical release"

Mania - "Revel" (2013)

MANIA "Revel"

Year: 2013

Genre: Cascadian Black Metal

Country: USA 

Track List:

1. Dimensions
2. Storm
3. Falling
4. Mirror
5. Drowning In Black Void
6. Portals
7. Letting Go

DOWNLOAD

The newest release of Mania, just to keep my blog alive. Don't know if I'd be able to post here regularly in the near future, but at least I hope I'll have some free time for it later this month.

Deafest/Evergreen Refuge - "Grey Rock, Red Earth" (2013)

Deafest/Evergreen Refuge - "Grey Rock, Red Earth"

Year:  2013

Genre:  Instrumental Black Metal

Country:  USA

Track List:

1. Deafest - 14,000 Feet
2. Deafest - Snowmelt and the Buds of Spring
3. Deafest - Rising From the Ridgeline
4. Evergreen Refuge - Taking Refuge Among River Valleys
5. Evergreen Refuge - Beyond the Mountains
6. Evergreen Refuge - And It Begins Anew...

From Chase of Deafest:  "Deafest and Evergreen Refuge are two instrumental black metal bands from Colorado, USA.  Both play songs that worship the beauty of nature, especially the Rocky Mountains, and reject the ugliness of man-made/urban world.  Though they are influenced by the Cascadian Black Metal style, they seek to define Rocky Mountain Black Metal as a scene in itself.  Since day one, I have tried to keep Deafest music free as a small resistance to the Capitalist world we live in."

I'm not sure I'm able to fully distinguish what makes these two bands musically distinct from Cascadian Black Metal, or at least not distinct enough to warrant another subgenre.  That said, I enjoy both sides of the split.  I think the Deafest side has more cohesiveness and better transistions.  The Evergreen Refuge side seems a little more raw and less polished.  The transitions seem choppy sometimes.  I do think that track 5 is my favorite on the album though.  Fans of Skagos should enjoy this offering, but be aware that it is entirely instrumental.  You can download the entire album in a pay-what-you-want format from either Deafest here or Evergreen Refuge here.

Skagos - "Anarchic" (2013)

SKAGOS "Anarchic"

Year: 2013
Genre: Cascadian Black Metal, Post-Metal
Country: Canada

Track List:

1. Anarchic I-III
2. Anarchic IV-V
3. Anarchic VI-VII

A long-awaited Skagos' second full-length album is finally released in its entirety. Just like in case with "Terma" by Sadhaka and all the releases of The Flenser Rec., I won't include a download link - better listen it @ bandcamp and buy it if you like it. As for a review - check out this one, it's much more complete than anything I'd ever write (and of course, written in much better English...)

Wild's Reprisal - "Defiance Enthroned" (2013)

WILD'S REPRISAL "Defiance Enthroned"

Year: 2013

Genre: Cascadian Black Metal

Country: USA

Track List:

1. Ethics of Respect for Nature
2. Forever Wild
3. The Broken Circle
4. A Few Too Many
5. Industrial Society and Its Future
6. A Manifesto for Earth

bandcamp

The second album from this Portland-based radical green/black metal project, released 1/1/2013. Musically it's atmospheric black metal with "doomy" parts and some female vocals, somewhat similar to the latest releases by A Cloud Forest. Some people have disliked the drums on this album, but I personally don't see a problem with them (there's a lot of BM project using drum machine that's programmed far worse). 

Wild's Reprisal - "Cascadia Rising" (2012)

WILD'S REPRISAL "Cascadia Rising"

Year: 2012

Genre: Cascadian Black Metal

Country: USA

Track List:

1. A Fierce Green Fire Dying In Her Eyes
2. Transpersonal Ecology
3. Tragedy of the Commons
4. Ecosophy T
5. Unpolluted, Uncontaminated, Undammed
6. Silent Spring

DOWNLOAD

Release notes:

"Wild’s Reprisal is the solo project of Gedden Cascadia. The music is reflective of deeply held ecocentric beliefs and a commitment to deep ecology. The focus of this music project is to inject a level of intellectualism into a genre rife with bands professing a love and connection with the natural world. Yet, how many of these individuals in these bands take this alleged love for the natural world and turn it into action to protect the biotic communities of this planet? As Humanities crushing footstep increases, those of us that love the wild places have a duty to defend those spaces by any means necessary. Actions in defense of the Earth should be rooted in a deeper philosophical understanding of the morality of the intrinsic value of all life. Each song has as its focus a different ecological philosopher. Each song lyrically is just a reading from a specific essay by the author. Each essay has a link to it on this website. Hopefully the songs will help spread the work of such important authors as Aldo Leopold and Arne Naess"

This is Gedden's debut solo work, released 1/1/2012, and a new album called "Defiance Enthroned" was finished just a few days ago. Will listen to it and write a review within the next few days.


bandcamp