Metal Riot

CARACH ANGREN , masters of fright metal, have announced a string of festival dates across Europe. The tour begins on May 4 and sees the consistently impressive and rising band hitting Graspop Metal Meeting, Tons of Rock, Sin Fest, and more. A full list of confirmed tour dates can be found below.

The gnarly riff barfers in WITHERED have announced a new leg of  North American tour dates. The Cvlt Nation-sponsored tour kicks off on March 24 and sees support come from WAKE. A full list of confirmed tour dates can be found below. Shit yes! We stan. We staaannnn!!!

Regarding the tour, WITHERED guitarist Mike Thompson comments, “After 6 months of one-off shows, a little writing, and regrouping, we can’t handle not being on the road any longer. So, we invited Canadian grinders, WAKE to join us late this winter for an eastern North America run. We plan to bring a new show with some songs we haven’t played in over a decade and can’t wait to reintroduce some of Withered’s back catalogue to new and old fans. It’s going to be one for the books.”

Sounds like a true excuse for a bangover.

WITHERED are touring in support of their new album, ‘Grief Relic’. The album, hailed as “a smarter and more sophisticated version of Withered, staking out territory in a more expansive landscape.” (Stereogum) is streaming now at the official WITHERED bandcamp page. The highly anticipated full-length is available across multiple CD and LP formats here.

Dates BELOW.

This Halloween is proving very black metal friendly as French black metallers Glorior Belli have signed with Season Of Mist AND Watain have a new video out.

Glorior Belli are one of our favorite dark acts and are currently in the studio recording their seventh album, which will be released worldwide in 2018.

Regarding their signing Glorior Belli comment: “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with our home country based fellows at Season Of Mist. Since 2002, Glorior Belli have played black metal in its most daring form. Now it is time for Season Of Mist to house one of our stronger efforts to come.”

More updates as we get them. Meantime, revisit their most recent masterful effort Sundown (the flock that welcomes) HERE.

Our friend Ignacio Orellana over at ArmyOfOnetv.com caught Goatwhore and Venom Inc. (all ex-Venom members who pretty much smoke Cronut’s Venom at this point) performing impressively surly sets to the ravenous Gramercy Theater crowd a few nights back in NYC and was chill enough to send some of the shots with us over here at the Riot of all things METAL.

Check out some highlighted shots BELOW.

 .The wrongs I committed to support my addiction…I paid for in mental scars that I can never wipe from my mind. All I can do is make sure, every day, that I never, ever make the decision to bring that awful garbage back into my life to ensure that I never have to see or experience anything like that ever again. And through being of service to people who are in the shoes I used to be in today, maybe I can use these awful experiences as a deterrent for others to stop before they go through the hell I experienced.

…I did not “kill” my girlfriend. I did not “use” with my girlfriend. And I certainly did EVERYTHING I could to save her when I found her….but it was just too late. – Blake Judd

We talk about mental health stuff briefly after a celebrity dies and the rest of the time try to ‘trigger’ one another with memes. No wonder some people choose to drop out of society any which way they can. Not that every conversation in life needs to be “are you ok?”, but generally it seems rites of separation are more commonplace than a gathering of those with allegiance to forging deeper opportunities in metal to make the extremity mean bonds, healing and conversation .  At live shows I usually see unity for the most part amongst metal crowds. Though cynicism might mainly be in the world of online trolls, it is good to address stuff head on rather than in the self churning bowels of the comments sections of metal sites and Facebook at times.

I just saw Katie Von Schleicher live in a small venue and was taken out of my daily stress and into a reflective moment, moved by the soulful music. Life is such a fast house of mirrors sometimes and we shine in some and stumble through others, cutting ourselves and fragmenting in the eyes of those around us. Sometimes the process is completely painful and other times it leads us to seeing ourselves differently or more completely as shards are swept up.

Blake Judd is back with a very unexpected EP called Resilient.  They have signed a new 2 album global deal with a new home that includes the Resilient EP as well. Full announcement in late August / early September, but the Resilient EP achieves Blake’s goal of creating an album experience in 3 songs. I have heard it and longtime fans will be thrilled with the variety. Early darker experimental black metal is paired with some of the deepest places you have heard different incarnations of the band go to yet, but as a logical extension of where things left off on the previous few releases.

More BELOW.

All photos courtesy of Nachtmystium.

“Everyone is your enemy Everyone’s your friend. Every possible series of
events is happening all at once,” says Aidan Gillen (Pertyr Baelish) on Game Of Thrones at one point this season. I’m starting off this first post on the site about Nachtmystium in a few years with this quote because I always believe there can be many potential outcomes to a story or at least believe in rehabilitation. I also believe people can change but that sometimes they really hurt one another along the way and that often healing never happens.

I guess what I am trying to say is we all have the capacity to really let one another down or to choose a different path.

I didn’t cover a lot of Blake Judd’s near death spiral, robbing of fans and months spent homeless much the past few years. We had been pretty good friends at one point and regularly communicated during the middle to end stages of The World We Left Behind album. It really was a big bummer, as someone who kicked dope a long time ago but knows how wretched and self-erasing an addiction it can be, when I learned that my friend had bottomed out worse than ever. One of the last times I had talked to him he needed money and wanted to sell some artwork and I mentioned it to a popular occult artist friend of mine in Chicago, which never happened. But in hindsight for awhile felt really lousy wondering if it had been a hustle on Blake’s part, especially since he had never wronged me but I had learned he had obviously wronged others.

I also am friendly with some of his former Twilight band mates who had some major static with him towards the end of his tenure with the band and at other points. I’d never want to willfully upset those dudes as I love Stavros from Atlas Moth and we have met in person and get along pretty well. I also like Neill from Krieg who has arguably had the biggest rift with Blake and who was very kind to me with some good advice when I was not drinking for a few years around the time my dad passed. We communicate every so often and I have been loving the shit out of the Poison Blood record.

More below.