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Showing posts with label Nihill. Show all posts
GRØND, chapter two in a trilogy, is an album wholly developed through a process of withering abstraction. The instrumentation renders a forceful merging of massive celestial bodies, each a whirling cacophony of inter-dimensional conjuring. After digesting the lyrics in accordance, what used to sound like the swinging of a pendulum, rather depicts a birth of an unknowable origin... a spectral and magnetic void. Nihill, an outfit firmly entrenched in the European underground, travels freely from one metal sub-genre to the next, effectively dispensing with the notion of a genre specific work all together.
The reflexive nature with which Nihill makes these connections puts them beyond the boundaries of simple categorization. GRØND is at once: black metal, drone, doom, noise, and even hints at martial industrialism; arriving at something resembling mechanistic dark ambient as much as traditional black metal. If this unique work need suffer comparison for the sake of cognition, Nihill's nearest contemporaries are the likes of Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega and the more obtuse of America's own Leviathan.
Moreover, rather than confining the moods and ideas therein to the nullifying constructs of a conventional metal record, GRØND offers the listener the opportunity to perceive things beyond physicality, an experience closer to metaphysical awakening than base entertainment. Into the void indeed....
First vinyl pressing
Limited to 600
Nihill's "Verdonkermaan" can now be purchased exclusively at Vacation Vinyl! Grab it in-store on 2xLP or Cassette before the official release date on August 21st. All vinyl copies come with a CD.
You can also now stream their new track "Fantoom" on Pitchfork, one of two new songs to be released on cassette in addition to Verdonkermaan. The cassette, Woestenij, will be limited to 100 copies through Tartarus Records.
You can even READ about Verdonkermaan over at Cvlt Nation: "Raw black metal has been a little on the quiet side this year; some great black metal releases from across the genre’s spectrum have made their way into the ether, yet this writer at least has yet to hear anything at the harsher end of the scale that pulses with the kind a sinister malevolence that Nihill’s third offering does."
Metal Sucks says "Nihill are a band that can go anywhere they want and still retain control of what they want to be doing."
Props also coming from Meat Mead Metal, who called the album "one of the more adventurous records to surface this year" and found themselves "captured by the bizarre vortex of sound this band captures and turns into avant-garde black metal magic."
Still don't have your hands on all 3 installments of the Nihill trilogy, Krach, Grond, and the currently pre-orderable Verdonkermaan? Hammer Smashed Sound is here to save the day!
All you have to do is leave a comment on the contest post; one winner will receive all three CDs, and one grand-prize winner will ALSO get their hands on a self-released cassette of extra new material from the band. Nihill collection/life complete.
If you're on the unlucky side, patience: Verdonkermaan's release date is fast approaching. Mark August 21st on your calendars and keep your ear to the ground for more updates from the Nihill camp.
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Nihill - Verdonkermaan
August 21st, 2012
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Holland's Nihill are one of the few bands in current circulation to which some of black metal's most common musical descriptors actually apply. Theirs is music of a truly relentless, cold and unforgiving nature, one which offers little or nothing in the way of relief or comforting melody. Though their albums are often punctuated by stretches of near silence or hushed ambience set between walls of frenzied blast and pummeling churn, these lulls serve to bolster the threatening whole in their absence of recognizable musical footholds. The winding paths laid by their music may be lightless, but the journey down them is one well worth taking.
Verdonkermaan is the third installment of a trilogy that began with 2007's Krach, and delves further into the churning cosmos as mapped out by its predecessors. Opener "Vuur - the Deathwind of Resurrection" serves as a devastating introduction to the album, replete with scalding washes of caustic guitars, and a howling backdrop that threatens a continual consumption of the foreground without ever fully taking over. Downshifting in tempo, but not in intensity "Spiral - The Taileater" brings the listener fully into the shadowy fold, with a hypnotic combination of cascading single note bends and insistent low end throb. From this peak of maximal force, through the dizzying cycle that closes out the album, many lines are cast into the pitch, but all remain firmly tethered to a dark hearted center. It's precisely this ability to transverse a multifaceted terrain without ever losing course that give the album its undeniably potency and obsidian allure.
Considering Verdonkermaan unto itself, as well as the trilogy to which it belongs, it's readily apparent that Nihill have established themselves fully and firmly with these stark and ferocious musical proclamations. While their efforts are clearly built on the foundational pillars erected by the early founders of the genre, they have added their own singular and acidic tongue to the modern lexicon of black metal. Though self imposed obscurity is the proud badge of many who've tread this particular realm of sound, the existence of Nihill and their freshly completed trilogy should not be overlooked by those who seek to stare longingly into heart of darkness.
2xLP extremely limited to 500, all black vinyl.
CD extremely limited to 500
Cassette extremely limited to 60!
Aaron Bradford Coloccia-Turner, Hydra Head Honcho (Mamiffer, Greymachine, Jodis, Old Man Gloom, House of Low Culture, Drawing Voices, Twilight, Lotus Eaters, Isis, Hollomen, Unionsuit)
BOHREN AND DER CLUB OF GORE - Dolores2xLP, CD
Midnight "doom-jazz" played at a crawl. Far and away one of the most beautiful records i've ever heard. This is one of those albums so perfect it's hard to believe it was created by human hands.
BERGRAVEN - DödsvisionerCD, Digital and Til Makabert VäsenCD, Digital
Criminally underrated blackened prog-metal from Sweden. On par with the works of Deathspell Omega,Virus, Lurker of Chalice, etc, possessing some of the same qualities as the aforementioned but with a very clearly defined persona of their own. Devote some time to these songs and you will be richly rewarded.
Nihill - KrachCD, Digital
A perfect alchemical blend of structured song form and scorched abstracted textures. Many have tried this approach and few have succeeded. Nihill have done so with clearly evident conviction and created a bleak masterpiece in the process. Yet another unsung gem.
Oxbow - The Narcotic StoryCD, Digital
This is a lesson in brutality, restraint, beauty and menace of endless suspense doled out in equal but unpredictable measure. While musical artists of all stripes regularly feign emotional energy through the mode of song craft, there are a slim few who have so purely channeled the human experience so tenderly and so forcefully as Oxbow have on The Narcotic Story. This is also the first and likely last hydra head release to be nominated for a Grammy. No shit.
Mare - s/t EPCD, Digital
The tragedy of Mare's short lived existence is amplified when experiencing the greatness of this debut and wondering what the hell might've come next had they stuck around. A mixture of beautifully orchestrated choral vocals, piercing shards of guitar and obtuse but memorable riffery. Truly unique and sorely missed.. Please come back guys. Please....
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1. Can you tell us a little bit about the band for those that have never heard you before?
NIHILL is a Black Metal outfit from the Netherlands. We exist solemnly for the drive to create a nauseating nightmarisch atmosphere. An underworld below a most ugly material world. We are not included by any limits artisticly. We've been around for quite a couple of years but actually decided later on to release records. Currently we are working on our third record, which is the final piece of a trilogy. The first record "KRACH" is about dying, the second "GROND" is about floating in the vacuum and the final piece will be about a painfull rebirth. NIHILL hasn't performed live and has no interest in doing so.
2. What is the meaning behind the band's name?
NIHILL is the great nothingness, the emptiness, the vacuum. The great denial of everything.
3. How would you describe your musical sound?
A voyage gone bad. Trancelike riffing and monotonous rhythm. Very layered. Chaotic. Either fast or very slow. Rooted in old school black metal, but also in noise and chaos.
Also, be on the lookout for the third installment of the Nihill trilogy! (Krach & Grond being the two previous installments).
Nihill's Grond (the second in a trilogy) is available in stores today or directly from Hydra Head Here!!
Descriptive Text:
"GROND, chapter two in a trilogy, is an album wholly immersed in abstraction. The instrumentation renders a forceful merging of massive celestial bodies, each a whirling cacophony exuding a unique sonic trembling. After digesting the lyrics in accordance, what used to sound like the swinging of a pendulum, rather depicts a birth of unintelligible base... a spectral achievement even. Nihill, an outfit still very new to the American public, travels freely from one metal sub-genre to the next. The reflexive nature with which Nihill makes these connections might lead one to consider them genreless. GROND, for example, is at once: drone, doom, noise, industrial, and black metal; arriving at something resembling a sort mechanistic dark ambient more than anything else."
On October 13th, HHR will be releasing NIHILL's Grond full length. Part two of the trilogy that started with Krach (which just saw a proper North American release via the handsome gentlemen [and lady] of HHR), Grond continues with the black metal scuzz that we can't get enough of. In honor of this release, we are offering a new shirt design which you can gander at above.
"..brutal, necro-weird black metal with a choirs-of-hell agapeness á la Deathspell Omega or Funeral Mist when they blast and make like Immortal circling above in time before time; raw industrialised Burzum-isms; Mayhem-style spoken-word schizo-grumbings; abstract ambient doom propositions. All here, and coated in a sheen of Lustmord-esque sonic filth." - Decibel Magazine
Check out the preorder here
September 15th marks the North American release date for NIHILL's Krach, via HHR. We got the preorder all launched up over at our webstore, which includes a smooth shirt (image below). Nihill's follow-up, Grond, will follow shortly, so be on the look out.
"The first two minutes of 'Gnosis: Part 1,' would not sound out of place on an Einsturzende Neubauten album, but from the two minute mark on the track is pure doom metal. The guitars cut and slash in horrible slow motion, long sustained chords that grate against subtle, barely-there drumming, complimenting a vocalist choking on every anguished scream, akin to Abbath if he was recorded drowning in the bottom of an infinitely deep well."
- Diabolical Conquest
This is some seriously blackened music. - ChronicYouth.com
GROND, chapter two in a trilogy, is an album wholly immersed in abstraction. The instrumentation renders a forceful merging of massive celestial bodies, each a whirling cacophony exuding a unique sonic trembling. After digesting the lyrics in accordance, what used to sound like the swinging of a pendulum, rather depicts a birth of unintelligible base... a spectral achievement even. Nihill, an outfit still very new to the American public, travels freely from one metal sub-genre to the next. The reflexive nature with which Nihill makes these connections might lead one to consider them genreless. GROND, for example, is at once: drone, doom, noise, industrial, and black metal; arriving at something resembling a sort mechanistic dark ambient more than anything else.
If anything this unique need suffer comparison for the sake of cognition, Nihill's nearest contemporaries are the likes of Sunn O))), Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega. Moreover, If realized as an experience, rather than confining the moods and ideas therein to the nulling constructs of a conventional metal record, GROND offers the listener the opportunity to perceive things beyond physicality...
Grond Tracklisting:
1. Aard
2. Antimoon
3. Vacuum
4. Pulsus
Two years after its original release on Monumentum Records, the album Krach, by Norways’s Nihill, is finally seeing a domestic release. Although the album’s arrival is certainly welcomed, it is curious that it took quite so long. Fans of black or doomy metal should consider this required listening, and you can start here.