Welcome to Through a Speaker Rumbly, a multimedia column whose focus is on underground cassette tapes. This month’s episode is titled . . .

Spells to Ward Off Social Intercourse

Relax, reader. Breathe deeply. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth. Smell the corpses. Now blow out the ritual candles. Follow me, reader. Give credence to my words. You are getting hyped . . . very very hyped. You are reading the shape of my words and you are getting more and more hyped. You are following my sentences and you are so hyped. Reader, when you see the links below, you will click them. You will clink the links and you will headbang. You will click the links and bang your skull, and, without ceasing headbanging, you will embark upon a virtual journey to track down these tapes. Upon this journey, you will consume energized potions and chthonic tonics of virility to stave off your desire for rest. Hunger you will sate with bits of skin chewed off from the deadened tips of your fingers. You will not rest, you will not eat until each of these tapes is in your nibbled-to-the-quick claws . . . and subsequently posted on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, some weird forum, et al.

TANTRA – DEATH TRANCE RITUAL

Molten metal soup for the fitful soul

Up from the Singaporean underground, Tantra’s debut full length of mid-paced droning black metal is as weird and uplifting as it is crushing and tormented. Regardless of the name Death Trance Ritual, and despite whatever a song title like “Mutual Benefit Friendly Society” may lead you to believe, there’s zero tranquility to be found here on this four track full length. A cumbersome spiritual unrest weighs downs these songs to the point that even the samples of prayer sound beleaguered. Death Trance Ritual is the soundtrack for someone too fed up to meditate, a spiritual call to action. Keep your third eye on Tantra. This band has potential to transcend the underground.

NECROMANTIC WORSHIP – Spirit of the Entrance Unto Death

Emulating the masters as a means of conjuring the past

Two Dutchmen shape-shift into an Hellenic bass-driven deity whose very name is the root of their own and the result–a three song demo entitled Spirit of the Entrance Unto Death–is nothing short of praiseworthy. But while their Necromantia emulation is spot-fucking-on, it’s those moments when they prove to be their own entity that are most exciting, such as the chorus to “The Dark Young of Shub Niggurath.” Methinks a little bit of Beherit and some Moëvöt, too, must have seeped in and contaminated their not-so-air-tight-after-all ritual crypt. With SotEUD, NW have given us a demoatmospheric enough that even the otherwise repellent drum machine adds to its damp, recondite nature.  You’ll most definitely want to pick up their live drummer-backed full length next year from Nuclear War Now!, but practitioners of the dark arts of tape jamming will find this most kvlt. (Bonus: Check out Ghûllzaraën’s solo BM project Widder the next time you’re trekking into the unknown cold wastes of Kadath all by your lonesome.)

Perverted Ceremony – Demo 2012

Nearly forgotten NSFW demo from some Belgian creeps

Perverted Ceremony – Ceremonial Bread (demo) from Perverted Ceremony on Vimeo.

Thanks to Ghûllzaraën of Necromantic Worship for digging around in the past, otherwise I might never have procured a copy of this unreleased demo by Belgium’s Perverted Ceremony. Originally recorded in 2011 in a basement in Brussels, Perverted Ceremony’s demo never saw the dim light of the underground because its two members (Morbid Messiah and Baron Cimeterre) lost their rehearsal space and, eventually, their interest. Yet Morbid Messiah was psyched enough for the renewed attention to his project that he went out of his way to personalize my dub of the unreleased demo with a several minute sample from a 70s era Satanic porno whose name and origin I am admittedly loath to learn. And for once I’m not just rubbing my privilege in your face, dear reader, because Morbid Messiah informs me that he’ll send dubs of the demo to select distros in the near future. Be on the look out for this then, for no collection is complete without this killer slab of blackened death. It’s like Temple Below with perpetual orgy going on!

LUNG MOLDE – LUNG MOLDE

Burly new doom to smash what little hope you have left

Lung Molde ride out on a sound like mighty, onyx-armored black steeds of Frazettan musculature with bluish fire issuing from their nostrils in profile. Then the vocals come in–separating Lung Molde from the crowd of heavier-than-anything-ever doom/sludge–and instantly you know this is a record you’re going to love. The vocals are like a faering full of battle-worn vikings rowing toward a fog-clad island that reeks of smoke and certain doom singing a dirge with the melodic sensibilities of Sleep-era Al Cisneros. Yeah, man, Lung Molde’s good shit. This self-titled debut will lay you lower than your first lung rip. This come outs on Caligari Records sooner rather than later, so don’t blink until you’ve secured your copy because you know those Caligari titles go fast!

Thanks for tuning in and tuning low, readers. These four tapes should keep you interred in your fortress of metal until the next installment of Through a Speaker Rumbly. And remember: only poseurs rewind!

Bands interested in possibly having their demo tapes featured on TASR should find a desolate crossroads where no buildings stand as far as the eye can see and wait there until midnight sharp when I will appear in the form of a towering, overalls-clad black man. Show me your tape and if I pop it into the Walkman on my hip, then you’ll know you’ve been chosen.