Crucial Blast Fall Showcase

We can make this introduction brief: Crucial Blast is hands down one of the most innovative, adventurous labels currently operating in the world of extreme music, specializing in capturing sounds from that nether region where ethereal beauty intermingles with disquieting darkness. As such, the first day of October seemed the perfect time to query label head Adam Wright about his upcoming plans for boundary-pushing. Here is what he sent along…
Oh, also, one quick note: If dark ambient isn’t your thing, be sure not to skip the final three tracks of filthy black metal and extreme prog insanity…

HUSERE GRAV You Are Transparent (10/1/13)

The mysterious Husere Grav — pronounced “Huss-urr-ee Grahv” — first rose out of the ashes of black metal duo Homunculus in 2006, and over the past eight years has released some spectacular pieces of utterly dread-filled industrial blackness. Following up splits with Meditations, TRTRKMMR and Robedoor and the 2012 CD Ten Graves, Husere Grav’s latest full-length offering comes via the Crucial Blaze imprint, a seven-song album of macabre ambiance and ghostly black drift that combines the charnel perfume of early 90’s black metal with the desolate early industrial sounds of the Broken Flag label and the subterranean reverberations that Lustmord pioneered on albums like Heresy and The Monstrous Soul.

THEOLOGIAN Some Things Have To Be Endured (10/15/13)

The latest offering from New York synth-death master Theologian — AKA Leech, also the mastermind behind the renowned power electronics/death industrial outfit Navicon Torture Technologies — Some Things Have To Be Endured features eight new tracks of punishing black industrial, apocalyptic darkwave frequencies, and nerve-rending electronic deathscapes. Endured is a collection of collaborations between Theologian and a lineup of female vocalists/artists from both within the industrial/noise/dark ambient/coldwave realm and beyond, with contributions from Rachael Kozak (Hecate), Kristen MacArthur (Sewer Goddess), Rachel Maloney (Tonikom), Nikki Telladictorian (Prometheus Burning), Patricia Benitez (Fetish Drone), Gillian Leigh Bowling (Teloahqaal), Christiana Key (Delphic Oracle), Joan Hacker (Factoria), Shari Vari (Void Vision), and professional opera singer Melissa C. Kelly. The tracks shift from grinding industrial dread to ethereal coldwave beauty, blasts of rumbling blackened synthcrush met with washes of haunting electronic melody, while always remaining rooted in Theologian’s bleak, jet-black industrial sound. Co-produced with Derek Rush/DREAM INTO DUST and mastered by James Plotkin, Some Things Have To Be Endured contains some of the most moving and dramatic music to emerge from Theologian’s black sonic abyss, and the album comes adorned with striking photography by Ione Rucquoi that makes this one of the more visually arresting releases in Theologian’s growing catalog.


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ENBILULUGUGAL Noisemongers For Goatserpent (10/29/13)

Enbilulugugal’s debut album Noizemongers For Goatserpent was a putrid eruption of low-fi black metal, harsh noise and experimental, anti-musical weirdness that arrived with a splat on the black/noise underground in 2004, infused with a Black Legions-style mix of weird invented mythology and garbled language. The album first appeared as a super-limited CDR released by the now-defunct Rusty Axe label — a home for some of the most demented experimental black metal of the past decade — and has been out of print in the physical realm for nearly a decade. It’s been one of Crucial Blast’s favorite releases from the band — a vicious, hideous mass of churning blackened hatred and brain-warping chaos that has now been resurrected as a deluxe double disc set that features more than an hour and a half of bonus filth, all re-mastered for maximum ear-hate by Enemata Productions, and presented in a new digipack design with artwork from acclaimed underground illustrator Jeff Zornow.

EPISTASIS Light Through Dead Glass (Early 2014)

Ominous jazz-infuenced blackened metal from NYC, coming in early 2014 from Crucial Blast.

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