#cainites — Public Fediverse posts

Sethianism

The Sethians were 1 of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd & 3rd centuries AD. Along with Valentinianism & Basilidianism.

It was speculated to have originated in the 2nd century AD as a fusion of 2 distinct Hellenistic Judaic philosophies & was influenced by Christianity & Middle Platonism.

The Sethians (In Latin: Sethoitae) are 1st mentioned (alongside the Ophites) in the 2nd century by our boy, Irenaeus (who wasn’t Gnosticism’s friend) & in Pseudo-Tertullian texts. All later accounts appear to be largely lifted from Irenaeus. Hippolytus repeats info from Irenaeus.

According to Epiphanius of Salamis (circa 375), Sethians were found, in his time, only in Egypt & Palestine. But 50 years earlier, they had been found as far as Greater Armenia. Greater Armenia (a.k.a. the Armenian Empire) was an Armenian kingdom (in the ancient Near East) that existed from 331 BC to 428 AD, 758 years.

Philaster’s (4th century AD) Catalogue of Heresies puts the Ophites, Cainites, & Sethians as pre-Christian Jewish sects. However, since Sethians identified Seth with Christ (in the Second Logos of the Great Seth), Philaster’s belief that the Sethians had pre-Christian origins hasn’t found acceptance in later scholarship.

Sethianism claims that gnosis 1st descended upon Seth (3rd son of Adam & Eve), whose knowledge the Sethians regard as their origin.

Norea (who’s either Noah’s wife or Adam & Eve’s daughter) plays a role. As seen in Mandaeism & Manicheanism.

The Sethian cosmogonic myth (or their origin of the universe/cosmos) gives a prologue to Genesis & the rest of the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Hebrew/Christian Bible). This presents a radical re-interpretation of the Orthodox Jewish conception of creation & the divine relation to reality. Their cosmogony is most famously in the Apocryphon of John, which describes an Unknown God.

From the “Unknown God” emanate aeons. This is a series of paired female & male beings. The 1st of these is Barbelo, who is a co-actor in the following emanations.

The aeons that result are representative of the various attributes of God, which are indiscernible when they aren’t abstracted from their origin. God & the aeons comprise the sum total of the spiritual universe, known as the Pleroma. Pleroma generally refers to the totality of divine powers.

In some versions of the myth, the aeon Sophia (knowledge) imitates God’s actions, performing an emanation of her own without the prior approval of the other aeons in the Pleroma. This results in a crisis within the Pleroma, leading to the appearance of Yaldabaoth.

This figure is commonly known as the demiurge (the “artisan” or “craftsman”) after the figure in Plato’s Timaeus. Sophia, at first, hides this being. But it escapes, stealing a portion of her divine power from her in the process.

Yaldabaoth uses this stolen power to create a material world imitating the divine Pleroma. To complete this task, he spawns a group of entities known collectively as Archons, the petty rulers & craftsmen of the physical world. Like him, they’re commonly depicted as zoomorphic, having animal heads.

At this stage, the events of the Sethian story start to cohere with the Genesis story everyone knows. The demiurge & his archontic associates fulfil the role of the Creator. In Genesis, the demiurge proclaims himself to be the only god, claiming that there weren’t any other gods better than him.

The demiurge unknowingly emanates a shadow ‘image’ of Adam, while unwittingly transferring the portion of power stolen from Sophia into the 1st physical human body. He then makes Eve from Adam’s rib in an attempt to isolate & regain the power that he’s lost.

By way of this, he tries to SA Eve, who then contains Sophia’s divine power. Several texts picture him as failing when Sophia’s spirit transplants itself into the Tree of Knowledge. The pair eat from the tree of the divine epignosis, guided by Christ appearing as an “eagle” above it to guide them to remember their true “nature above.”

Most surviving Sethian texts are preserved only in Coptic translation of the Greek original. Very little direct evidence of Gnostic teaching was available before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library.

We’ve posted a few of these texts. Check them out at your leisure:

• Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit
• Second Treatise of the Great Seth
• Pistis Sophia
• Gospel of Judas
• Manichaean Psalms of Heracleides

The Gospel of Judas is the most recently discovered Gnostic text. National Geographic (Yes, that National Geographic. You know, NatGeo, y’all!) published an English translation of it. Our founder has a VERY well-worn copy of this book. It’s well-worn because they’ve read it numerous times.

This text portrays Judas Iscariot as the “13th spirit/daemon,” who “exceeded” the evil sacrifices of the “man who clothed me (Jesus).”

Its reference to Barbelo & inclusion of material similar to the Apocryphon of John & other such texts connects the text to Barbeloite &/or Sethian Gnosticism.

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Make a monthly donation

Your contribution is appreciated.

Make a yearly donation

Your contribution is appreciated.

Rate this:

Sethianism

The Sethians were 1 of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd & 3rd centuries AD. Along with Valentinianism & Basilidianism.

It was speculated to have originated in the 2nd century AD as a fusion of 2 distinct Hellenistic Judaic philosophies & was influenced by Christianity & Middle Platonism.

The Sethians (In Latin: Sethoitae) are 1st mentioned (alongside the Ophites) in the 2nd century by our boy, Irenaeus (who wasn’t Gnosticism’s friend) & in Pseudo-Tertullian texts. All later accounts appear to be largely lifted from Irenaeus. Hippolytus repeats info from Irenaeus.

According to Epiphanius of Salamis (circa 375), Sethians were found, in his time, only in Egypt & Palestine. But 50 years earlier, they had been found as far as Greater Armenia. Greater Armenia (a.k.a. the Armenian Empire) was an Armenian kingdom (in the ancient Near East) that existed from 331 BC to 428 AD, 758 years.

Philaster’s (4th century AD) Catalogue of Heresies puts the Ophites, Cainites, & Sethians as pre-Christian Jewish sects. However, since Sethians identified Seth with Christ (in the Second Logos of the Great Seth), Philaster’s belief that the Sethians had pre-Christian origins hasn’t found acceptance in later scholarship.

Sethianism claims that gnosis 1st descended upon Seth (3rd son of Adam & Eve), whose knowledge the Sethians regard as their origin.

Norea (who’s either Noah’s wife or Adam & Eve’s daughter) plays a role. As seen in Mandaeism & Manicheanism.

The Sethian cosmogonic myth (or their origin of the universe/cosmos) gives a prologue to Genesis & the rest of the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Hebrew/Christian Bible). This presents a radical re-interpretation of the Orthodox Jewish conception of creation & the divine relation to reality. Their cosmogony is most famously in the Apocryphon of John, which describes an Unknown God.

From the “Unknown God” emanate aeons. This is a series of paired female & male beings. The 1st of these is Barbelo, who is a co-actor in the following emanations.

The aeons that result are representative of the various attributes of God, which are indiscernible when they aren’t abstracted from their origin. God & the aeons comprise the sum total of the spiritual universe, known as the Pleroma. Pleroma generally refers to the totality of divine powers.

In some versions of the myth, the aeon Sophia (knowledge) imitates God’s actions, performing an emanation of her own without the prior approval of the other aeons in the Pleroma. This results in a crisis within the Pleroma, leading to the appearance of Yaldabaoth.

This figure is commonly known as the demiurge (the “artisan” or “craftsman”) after the figure in Plato’s Timaeus. Sophia, at first, hides this being. But it escapes, stealing a portion of her divine power from her in the process.

Yaldabaoth uses this stolen power to create a material world imitating the divine Pleroma. To complete this task, he spawns a group of entities known collectively as Archons, the petty rulers & craftsmen of the physical world. Like him, they’re commonly depicted as zoomorphic, having animal heads.

At this stage, the events of the Sethian story start to cohere with the Genesis story everyone knows. The demiurge & his archontic associates fulfil the role of the Creator. In Genesis, the demiurge proclaims himself to be the only god, claiming that there weren’t any other gods better than him.

The demiurge unknowingly emanates a shadow ‘image’ of Adam, while unwittingly transferring the portion of power stolen from Sophia into the 1st physical human body. He then makes Eve from Adam’s rib in an attempt to isolate & regain the power that he’s lost.

By way of this, he tries to SA Eve, who then contains Sophia’s divine power. Several texts picture him as failing when Sophia’s spirit transplants itself into the Tree of Knowledge. The pair eat from the tree of the divine epignosis, guided by Christ appearing as an “eagle” above it to guide them to remember their true “nature above.”

Most surviving Sethian texts are preserved only in Coptic translation of the Greek original. Very little direct evidence of Gnostic teaching was available before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library.

We’ve posted a few of these texts. Check them out at your leisure:

• Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit
• Second Treatise of the Great Seth
• Pistis Sophia
• Gospel of Judas
• Manichaean Psalms of Heracleides

The Gospel of Judas is the most recently discovered Gnostic text. National Geographic (Yes, that National Geographic. You know, NatGeo, y’all!) published an English translation of it. Our founder has a VERY well-worn copy of this book. It’s well-worn because they’ve read it numerous times.

This text portrays Judas Iscariot as the “13th spirit/daemon,” who “exceeded” the evil sacrifices of the “man who clothed me (Jesus).”

Its reference to Barbelo & inclusion of material similar to the Apocryphon of John & other such texts connects the text to Barbeloite &/or Sethian Gnosticism.

Make a one-time donation

Your contribution is appreciated.

Make a monthly donation

Your contribution is appreciated.

Make a yearly donation

Your contribution is appreciated.

Rate this:

Stuck in the Filter: June 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Managing this Filter is a full-time job. Or it would be if I paid anyone, or got paid myself. I doubt anyone in this godforsaken facility has seen a greenback in the last two decades.1 Nonetheless, I grabbed my clipboard and my flogger and I made my way to the lockers, where my dutiful minions await my first order of each day. It’d been a minute since we cleared out the ducts in the south wing of AMG Headquarters, so that’s where I ushered my team first. The poor souls shivered at the thought of tackling a highly neglected section of the system. But, as always, work needs doing and this is the work.

At long last, just when I started considering replacing my whole crew outright and leaving the current one for dead, they returned, battered and winded, but alive. And they brought wares! O blessed day! Without further ado, I bring you our June Filter!

Kenstrosity’s Medieval Mutton

Aklash // Reincarnation [June 20th, 2024 – Self Release]

Proving the unlikely flexibility of black metal as a medium, tales of knights, castles, and fantastical clashes of class marries with charred extremity so effortlessly that it comes at no surprise to me how UK Medieval melodic black metal troupe Aklash came to be. Kicking fourth record Reincarnation off with an incredible one-two punch, “Reincarnation” and “Communion with Ghosts,” Aklash’s melodic black metal-meets-Vulture Industries-meets-Modest Mouse-meets-Æther Realm concoction charms its way deep into my very being. These songs, burgeoning with lush compositions, incredible guitar work, and multifaceted personalities, evoke imagery of the ancient and the arcane so vividly that it often feels like traveling through time in an alternate universe of magic and mirth. The rabid “Babylon” takes this initial salvo and stabs yet another 1,200cc of pure adrenaline into my veins.2 As my neck swings and spirals with great velocity, giant mugs of mead spontaneously manifest in both fists. What is a sponge to do but imbibe? Against all odds, such infectious energy sustains into the magnificent closer “My Will Made Manifest,” making this record a wall-to-wall festival of sound. If it weren’t for a couple of frilly interludes and the teensiest spot of bloat in a couple of places, I could see Reincarnation growing into a year-end contender. In the end, it might do just that.

Thus Spoke’s Forgotten Findings

Cainites // Revenant [June 21st, 2024 – Scarlet Records]

It was once rumored across Eastern Europe that those who rebelled against the Orthodox church were cursed to become vampires after they died. Revenant, however, follows an Orthodox priest, whose induction into the class of bloodthirsty monsters happens irrespective of his religious devotion. Crafting a spooky tale with Scandinavian-inspired melodeath and flourishes of synthy blackened death, Italian duo Cainites strike a little like a less-polished Tribulation, but with bags of their personality. These guys know how to write a riff that shivers its way up your spine (“Theotokos,” “God’s Wrath,” “Redemption”) and dance around in your belly (“Darkness Awaits,” “Forgive Our Sins”), and damn, can it be catchy. Using a dueting mixture of growls and moaning cleans, choruses jam their way into your brain and don’t budge (“Vampire God,” “We Lost Our Sanctity”), amplifying the gleefully malicious bounce of the riffs with tongue-in-cheek melodrama. Solos have just enough yearning depth while staying grounded with a gritty tone, and not outstaying their welcome. The album generally treads the line well between camp and serious, discounting, perhaps, the extended spoken-word Bible recitation where God curses Cain (“Cainites”). In all, it’s a very good time and only grew on me the more I listened. One to check out for true fans of melodeath.3

Inherits the Void // Scars of Yesteryears [June 21st, 2024 – Avantgarde Music]

Scars of Yesteryears took me so much by surprise that I had to be informed by another staff member that it even existed. Having reviewed last year’s The Impending Fall of the Stars, and finding it quite an uplifting piece of melodic black metal, I was keen to see where the project had gone, musically, in the intervening time. The answer is nowhere, but that’s not entirely negative. This is still soaring (“L’effigie Du Déclin”), epic (“Scars of Yesteryear,” “L’eternelle Course Des Astres”), blistering (“Celestial Antler”), and sometimes beautiful (“The Endless Glow of Twilight”) meloblack. With lightning-fast and stormily dynamic riffing and enough of a melodic through-line to keep things going. The highs are not as high as they were on the previous record, the slower moments lacking the atmosphere and grandiosity that former work showed (though coming closest on “L’eternelle…” and “The Endless…”). However, the whole feels more consistent and steady, with the first half whizzing by on the tailwind of “Celestial Antler,” “The Orchard of Grief,” and “Ashes of Grievance”‘s bubbling energy, and the second dipping in intensity only to be saved by the final couple of tracks. Above-average, fiery meloblack, and worth taking for a spin even if it won’t be making any lists.

Dear Hollow’s Dumpster Disturbance

Bilmuri // American Motor Sports [June 28th, 2024 – Self Release]

Everyone loves easycore.4 In an alternative universe where easycore is a natural progression of pop country rather than pop/punk, it becomes an international treasure and that treasure is American Motor Sports. Of the crabcore alum of Attack Attack!,5 Johnny Franck is least likely to be featured on Octane Radio,6 as the Bilmuri project has been a means for musical exploration since his departure. Offering the most streamlined homage to the three M’s (‘Murica, memes, and the Midwest), get ready to crank your hog to ten songs of heartbreak, beer, and landscaping through arena pop country with needlessly heavy djent guitar riffs – alongside Franck’s signature insanity coursing through all the movements. From the deathcore-meets-honkytonk and sub drops of “Better Hell” and “Spinnin’ You Around,” the blaring and sexy sax solos of “2016 Cavaliers (Ohio),” “Straight Through You,” and “Drunk Enough,” the blazing fiddle of “Talkin’ 2 Ur Ghost,” to the Kevin James breakdown call out of “Emptyhanded,” Bilmuri creates an infectious blend of the safely predictable and the utterly apeshit. It features guest artists from country scenes (Dylan Marlowe, Mitchell Tenpenny) and indie pop spheres (Knox, Arizona) who all add yearning and theatricality to Franck’s already emotive performances. American Motor Sports is twenty-eight minutes of catchy melodies, scathing grooves, and tastefully tragic lyrics with a penchant for memes. We’re all supposed to hate it, but much to my assigned promos’ dismay and Steel Druhm‘s chagrin,7 I haven’t been able to listen to much else.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Maritime Musing

Houle // Ciel Cendre et Mis​è​re Noire [June 7th, 2024 – Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions]

We all know that black metal hits harder when it’s actually something else wrapped in a blackened and shrieking package. France’s Houle offers Ciel Cendre et Misère Noire as a one part Iron Maiden, one part Immortal, and two parts unstoppable siren screaming as vocalist Adsagsona shreds throat through each of the blazing numbers on this debut (minus the beer-swinging sailor intro). Her ear-stabbing cries tally high, and if it weren’t for her glottal punishments and accompanying guitarists’ breaks into tremolo melodies, tracks “Sur Les Braises de Foyer” and “Sel, Sang et Gerçures” could be instead the backdrops to something of the dark power metal world, replete with Maiden bass gallop and anthemic flair. She has a fine narrative croon too, but it’s her flagrant vocal flayings that sell the extremity of what Houle packs as ballast. With terraced guitar lines and thrashed-out drum breaks (“La Danse du Rocher,” “Mère Nocturne”), Ciel Cendre has the forward energy of battle and doesn’t let go to the very end, joining bands like Aorlhac and Passièsme in the modern melodic black metal field fit for castle raids. But as long-form closer “Née des Embruns” reinforces with calls of the ocean in its open and fade, Houle attacks from the sea. En garde!

Mark Z.’s Musings

200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures [June 28th, 2024 – Metal Blade Records]

Following a rapid rise to fame during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio death metal troupe 200 Stab Wounds thrust their Slave to the Scalpel debut onto the masses in 2021. While I was about as mixed on that one as Felagund was, their second album Manual Manic Procedures has proven these wounds cut far deeper than originally thought. The beefy chugs that the band has become known for are still here in full force, but now they’re paired with sharper hooks and a heightened sense of maturity. On Procedures, you’ll hear acoustic plucking, immense Bolt Thrower riffing, grooves that will blow your guts out, and even some melodic death metal influence—and that’s just on the first song. The band also knows when to give you a breather, be it a well-placed atmospheric instrumental (“Led to the Chamber / Liquefied”) or an extended ride on a great groovy riff (“Defiled Gestation”). With a monstrous guitar tone, plenty of killer moments, and a track flow that’s smoother than liquefied human remains, Manual Manic Procedures feels like modern death metal coming into its own.

#200StabWounds #2024 #Aklash #AmericanMetal #AmericanMotorSports #Aorlhac #Arizona #AttackAttack #AvantgardeMusic #ÆtherRealm #Beartooth #Bilmuri #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BoltThrower #Cainites #CielCendreEtMisèReNoire #DeathMetal #DylanMarlowe #FrenchMetal #Houle #Immortal #InheritsTheVoid #IronMaiden #ItalianMetal #Jun24 #Knox #LesActeursDeLOmbreProductions #ManualManicProcedures #MedievalBlackMetal #MelodicBlackMetal #MelodicDeathMetal #MetalBladeRecords #MitchellTenpenny #ModestMouse #OfMiceAndMen #Passièsme #Reincarnation #Revenant #Review #Reviews #ScarletRecords #ScarsOfYesteryears #SelfRelease #StuckInTheFilter #Tribulation #UKMetal #VultureIndustries

Stuck in the Filter: June 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Managing this Filter is a full-time job. Or it would be if I paid anyone, or got paid myself. I doubt anyone in this godforsaken facility has seen a greenback in the last two decades.1 Nonetheless, I grabbed my clipboard and my flogger and I made my way to the lockers, where my dutiful minions await my first order of each day. It’d been a minute since we cleared out the ducts in the south wing of AMG Headquarters, so that’s where I ushered my team first. The poor souls shivered at the thought of tackling a highly neglected section of the system. But, as always, work needs doing and this is the work.

At long last, just when I started considering replacing my whole crew outright and leaving the current one for dead, they returned, battered and winded, but alive. And they brought wares! O blessed day! Without further ado, I bring you our June Filter!

Kenstrosity’s Medieval Mutton

Aklash // Reincarnation [June 20th, 2024 – Self Release]

Proving the unlikely flexibility of black metal as a medium, tales of knights, castles, and fantastical clashes of class marries with charred extremity so effortlessly that it comes at no surprise to me how UK Medieval melodic black metal troupe Aklash came to be. Kicking fourth record Reincarnation off with an incredible one-two punch, “Reincarnation” and “Communion with Ghosts,” Aklash’s melodic black metal-meets-Vulture Industries-meets-Modest Mouse-meets-Æther Realm concoction charms its way deep into my very being. These songs, burgeoning with lush compositions, incredible guitar work, and multifaceted personalities, evoke imagery of the ancient and the arcane so vividly that it often feels like traveling through time in an alternate universe of magic and mirth. The rabid “Babylon” takes this initial salvo and stabs yet another 1,200cc of pure adrenaline into my veins.2 As my neck swings and spirals with great velocity, giant mugs of mead spontaneously manifest in both fists. What is a sponge to do but imbibe? Against all odds, such infectious energy sustains into the magnificent closer “My Will Made Manifest,” making this record a wall-to-wall festival of sound. If it weren’t for a couple of frilly interludes and the teensiest spot of bloat in a couple of places, I could see Reincarnation growing into a year-end contender. In the end, it might do just that.

Thus Spoke’s Forgotten Findings

Cainites // Revenant [June 21st, 2024 – Scarlet Records]

It was once rumored across Eastern Europe that those who rebelled against the Orthodox church were cursed to become vampires after they died. Revenant, however, follows an Orthodox priest, whose induction into the class of bloodthirsty monsters happens irrespective of his religious devotion. Crafting a spooky tale with Scandinavian-inspired melodeath and flourishes of synthy blackened death, Italian duo Cainites strike a little like a less-polished Tribulation, but with bags of their personality. These guys know how to write a riff that shivers its way up your spine (“Theotokos,” “God’s Wrath,” “Redemption”) and dance around in your belly (“Darkness Awaits,” “Forgive Our Sins”), and damn, can it be catchy. Using a dueting mixture of growls and moaning cleans, choruses jam their way into your brain and don’t budge (“Vampire God,” “We Lost Our Sanctity”), amplifying the gleefully malicious bounce of the riffs with tongue-in-cheek melodrama. Solos have just enough yearning depth while staying grounded with a gritty tone, and not outstaying their welcome. The album generally treads the line well between camp and serious, discounting, perhaps, the extended spoken-word Bible recitation where God curses Cain (“Cainites”). In all, it’s a very good time and only grew on me the more I listened. One to check out for true fans of melodeath.3

Inherits the Void // Scars of Yesteryears [June 21st, 2024 – Avantgarde Music]

Scars of Yesteryears took me so much by surprise that I had to be informed by another staff member that it even existed. Having reviewed last year’s The Impending Fall of the Stars, and finding it quite an uplifting piece of melodic black metal, I was keen to see where the project had gone, musically, in the intervening time. The answer is nowhere, but that’s not entirely negative. This is still soaring (“L’effigie Du Déclin”), epic (“Scars of Yesteryear,” “L’eternelle Course Des Astres”), blistering (“Celestial Antler”), and sometimes beautiful (“The Endless Glow of Twilight”) meloblack. With lightning-fast and stormily dynamic riffing and enough of a melodic through-line to keep things going. The highs are not as high as they were on the previous record, the slower moments lacking the atmosphere and grandiosity that former work showed (though coming closest on “L’eternelle…” and “The Endless…”). However, the whole feels more consistent and steady, with the first half whizzing by on the tailwind of “Celestial Antler,” “The Orchard of Grief,” and “Ashes of Grievance”‘s bubbling energy, and the second dipping in intensity only to be saved by the final couple of tracks. Above-average, fiery meloblack, and worth taking for a spin even if it won’t be making any lists.

Dear Hollow’s Dumpster Disturbance

Bilmuri // American Motor Sports [June 28th, 2024 – Self Release]

Everyone loves easycore.4 In an alternative universe where easycore is a natural progression of pop country rather than pop/punk, it becomes an international treasure and that treasure is American Motor Sports. Of the crabcore alum of Attack Attack!,5 Johnny Franck is least likely to be featured on Octane Radio,6 as the Bilmuri project has been a means for musical exploration since his departure. Offering the most streamlined homage to the three M’s (‘Murica, memes, and the Midwest), get ready to crank your hog to ten songs of heartbreak, beer, and landscaping through arena pop country with needlessly heavy djent guitar riffs – alongside Franck’s signature insanity coursing through all the movements. From the deathcore-meets-honkytonk and sub drops of “Better Hell” and “Spinnin’ You Around,” the blaring and sexy sax solos of “2016 Cavaliers (Ohio),” “Straight Through You,” and “Drunk Enough,” the blazing fiddle of “Talkin’ 2 Ur Ghost,” to the Kevin James breakdown call out of “Emptyhanded,” Bilmuri creates an infectious blend of the safely predictable and the utterly apeshit. It features guest artists from country scenes (Dylan Marlowe, Mitchell Tenpenny) and indie pop spheres (Knox, Arizona) who all add yearning and theatricality to Franck’s already emotive performances. American Motor Sports is twenty-eight minutes of catchy melodies, scathing grooves, and tastefully tragic lyrics with a penchant for memes. We’re all supposed to hate it, but much to my assigned promos’ dismay and Steel Druhm‘s chagrin,7 I haven’t been able to listen to much else.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Maritime Musing

Houle // Ciel Cendre et Mis​è​re Noire [June 7th, 2024 – Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions]

We all know that black metal hits harder when it’s actually something else wrapped in a blackened and shrieking package. France’s Houle offers Ciel Cendre et Misère Noire as a one part Iron Maiden, one part Immortal, and two parts unstoppable siren screaming as vocalist Adsagsona shreds throat through each of the blazing numbers on this debut (minus the beer-swinging sailor intro). Her ear-stabbing cries tally high, and if it weren’t for her glottal punishments and accompanying guitarists’ breaks into tremolo melodies, tracks “Sur Les Braises de Foyer” and “Sel, Sang et Gerçures” could be instead the backdrops to something of the dark power metal world, replete with Maiden bass gallop and anthemic flair. She has a fine narrative croon too, but it’s her flagrant vocal flayings that sell the extremity of what Houle packs as ballast. With terraced guitar lines and thrashed-out drum breaks (“La Danse du Rocher,” “Mère Nocturne”), Ciel Cendre has the forward energy of battle and doesn’t let go to the very end, joining bands like Aorlhac and Passièsme in the modern melodic black metal field fit for castle raids. But as long-form closer “Née des Embruns” reinforces with calls of the ocean in its open and fade, Houle attacks from the sea. En garde!

Mark Z.’s Musings

200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures [June 28th, 2024 – Metal Blade Records]

Following a rapid rise to fame during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio death metal troupe 200 Stab Wounds thrust their Slave to the Scalpel debut onto the masses in 2021. While I was about as mixed on that one as Felagund was, their second album Manual Manic Procedures has proven these wounds cut far deeper than originally thought. The beefy chugs that the band has become known for are still here in full force, but now they’re paired with sharper hooks and a heightened sense of maturity. On Procedures, you’ll hear acoustic plucking, immense Bolt Thrower riffing, grooves that will blow your guts out, and even some melodic death metal influence—and that’s just on the first song. The band also knows when to give you a breather, be it a well-placed atmospheric instrumental (“Led to the Chamber / Liquefied”) or an extended ride on a great groovy riff (“Defiled Gestation”). With a monstrous guitar tone, plenty of killer moments, and a track flow that’s smoother than liquefied human remains, Manual Manic Procedures feels like modern death metal coming into its own.

#200StabWounds #2024 #Aklash #AmericanMetal #AmericanMotorSports #Aorlhac #Arizona #AttackAttack #AvantgardeMusic #ÆtherRealm #Beartooth #Bilmuri #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BoltThrower #Cainites #CielCendreEtMisèReNoire #DeathMetal #DylanMarlowe #FrenchMetal #Houle #Immortal #InheritsTheVoid #IronMaiden #ItalianMetal #Jun24 #Knox #LesActeursDeLOmbreProductions #ManualManicProcedures #MedievalBlackMetal #MelodicBlackMetal #MelodicDeathMetal #MetalBladeRecords #MitchellTenpenny #ModestMouse #OfMiceAndMen #Passièsme #Reincarnation #Revenant #Review #Reviews #ScarletRecords #ScarsOfYesteryears #SelfRelease #StuckInTheFilter #Tribulation #UKMetal #VultureIndustries

Stuck in the Filter: June 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Managing this Filter is a full-time job. Or it would be if I paid anyone, or got paid myself. I doubt anyone in this godforsaken facility has seen a greenback in the last two decades.1 Nonetheless, I grabbed my clipboard and my flogger and I made my way to the lockers, where my dutiful minions await my first order of each day. It’d been a minute since we cleared out the ducts in the south wing of AMG Headquarters, so that’s where I ushered my team first. The poor souls shivered at the thought of tackling a highly neglected section of the system. But, as always, work needs doing and this is the work.

At long last, just when I started considering replacing my whole crew outright and leaving the current one for dead, they returned, battered and winded, but alive. And they brought wares! O blessed day! Without further ado, I bring you our June Filter!

Kenstrosity’s Medieval Mutton

Aklash // Reincarnation [June 20th, 2024 – Self Release]

Proving the unlikely flexibility of black metal as a medium, tales of knights, castles, and fantastical clashes of class marries with charred extremity so effortlessly that it comes at no surprise to me how UK Medieval melodic black metal troupe Aklash came to be. Kicking fourth record Reincarnation off with an incredible one-two punch, “Reincarnation” and “Communion with Ghosts,” Aklash’s melodic black metal-meets-Vulture Industries-meets-Modest Mouse-meets-Æther Realm concoction charms its way deep into my very being. These songs, burgeoning with lush compositions, incredible guitar work, and multifaceted personalities, evoke imagery of the ancient and the arcane so vividly that it often feels like traveling through time in an alternate universe of magic and mirth. The rabid “Babylon” takes this initial salvo and stabs yet another 1,200cc of pure adrenaline into my veins.2 As my neck swings and spirals with great velocity, giant mugs of mead spontaneously manifest in both fists. What is a sponge to do but imbibe? Against all odds, such infectious energy sustains into the magnificent closer “My Will Made Manifest,” making this record a wall-to-wall festival of sound. If it weren’t for a couple of frilly interludes and the teensiest spot of bloat in a couple of places, I could see Reincarnation growing into a year-end contender. In the end, it might do just that.

Thus Spoke’s Forgotten Findings

Cainites // Revenant [June 21st, 2024 – Scarlet Records]

It was once rumored across Eastern Europe that those who rebelled against the Orthodox church were cursed to become vampires after they died. Revenant, however, follows an Orthodox priest, whose induction into the class of bloodthirsty monsters happens irrespective of his religious devotion. Crafting a spooky tale with Scandinavian-inspired melodeath and flourishes of synthy blackened death, Italian duo Cainites strike a little like a less-polished Tribulation, but with bags of their personality. These guys know how to write a riff that shivers its way up your spine (“Theotokos,” “God’s Wrath,” “Redemption”) and dance around in your belly (“Darkness Awaits,” “Forgive Our Sins”), and damn, can it be catchy. Using a dueting mixture of growls and moaning cleans, choruses jam their way into your brain and don’t budge (“Vampire God,” “We Lost Our Sanctity”), amplifying the gleefully malicious bounce of the riffs with tongue-in-cheek melodrama. Solos have just enough yearning depth while staying grounded with a gritty tone, and not outstaying their welcome. The album generally treads the line well between camp and serious, discounting, perhaps, the extended spoken-word Bible recitation where God curses Cain (“Cainites”). In all, it’s a very good time and only grew on me the more I listened. One to check out for true fans of melodeath.3

Inherits the Void // Scars of Yesteryears [June 21st, 2024 – Avantgarde Music]

Scars of Yesteryears took me so much by surprise that I had to be informed by another staff member that it even existed. Having reviewed last year’s The Impending Fall of the Stars, and finding it quite an uplifting piece of melodic black metal, I was keen to see where the project had gone, musically, in the intervening time. The answer is nowhere, but that’s not entirely negative. This is still soaring (“L’effigie Du Déclin”), epic (“Scars of Yesteryear,” “L’eternelle Course Des Astres”), blistering (“Celestial Antler”), and sometimes beautiful (“The Endless Glow of Twilight”) meloblack. With lightning-fast and stormily dynamic riffing and enough of a melodic through-line to keep things going. The highs are not as high as they were on the previous record, the slower moments lacking the atmosphere and grandiosity that former work showed (though coming closest on “L’eternelle…” and “The Endless…”). However, the whole feels more consistent and steady, with the first half whizzing by on the tailwind of “Celestial Antler,” “The Orchard of Grief,” and “Ashes of Grievance”‘s bubbling energy, and the second dipping in intensity only to be saved by the final couple of tracks. Above-average, fiery meloblack, and worth taking for a spin even if it won’t be making any lists.

Dear Hollow’s Dumpster Disturbance

Bilmuri // American Motor Sports [June 28th, 2024 – Self Release]

Everyone loves easycore.4 In an alternative universe where easycore is a natural progression of pop country rather than pop/punk, it becomes an international treasure and that treasure is American Motor Sports. Of the crabcore alum of Attack Attack!,5 Johnny Franck is least likely to be featured on Octane Radio,6 as the Bilmuri project has been a means for musical exploration since his departure. Offering the most streamlined homage to the three M’s (‘Murica, memes, and the Midwest), get ready to crank your hog to ten songs of heartbreak, beer, and landscaping through arena pop country with needlessly heavy djent guitar riffs – alongside Franck’s signature insanity coursing through all the movements. From the deathcore-meets-honkytonk and sub drops of “Better Hell” and “Spinnin’ You Around,” the blaring and sexy sax solos of “2016 Cavaliers (Ohio),” “Straight Through You,” and “Drunk Enough,” the blazing fiddle of “Talkin’ 2 Ur Ghost,” to the Kevin James breakdown call out of “Emptyhanded,” Bilmuri creates an infectious blend of the safely predictable and the utterly apeshit. It features guest artists from country scenes (Dylan Marlowe, Mitchell Tenpenny) and indie pop spheres (Knox, Arizona) who all add yearning and theatricality to Franck’s already emotive performances. American Motor Sports is twenty-eight minutes of catchy melodies, scathing grooves, and tastefully tragic lyrics with a penchant for memes. We’re all supposed to hate it, but much to my assigned promos’ dismay and Steel Druhm‘s chagrin,7 I haven’t been able to listen to much else.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Maritime Musing

Houle // Ciel Cendre et Mis​è​re Noire [June 7th, 2024 – Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions]

We all know that black metal hits harder when it’s actually something else wrapped in a blackened and shrieking package. France’s Houle offers Ciel Cendre et Misère Noire as a one part Iron Maiden, one part Immortal, and two parts unstoppable siren screaming as vocalist Adsagsona shreds throat through each of the blazing numbers on this debut (minus the beer-swinging sailor intro). Her ear-stabbing cries tally high, and if it weren’t for her glottal punishments and accompanying guitarists’ breaks into tremolo melodies, tracks “Sur Les Braises de Foyer” and “Sel, Sang et Gerçures” could be instead the backdrops to something of the dark power metal world, replete with Maiden bass gallop and anthemic flair. She has a fine narrative croon too, but it’s her flagrant vocal flayings that sell the extremity of what Houle packs as ballast. With terraced guitar lines and thrashed-out drum breaks (“La Danse du Rocher,” “Mère Nocturne”), Ciel Cendre has the forward energy of battle and doesn’t let go to the very end, joining bands like Aorlhac and Passièsme in the modern melodic black metal field fit for castle raids. But as long-form closer “Née des Embruns” reinforces with calls of the ocean in its open and fade, Houle attacks from the sea. En garde!

Mark Z.’s Musings

200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures [June 28th, 2024 – Metal Blade Records]

Following a rapid rise to fame during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio death metal troupe 200 Stab Wounds thrust their Slave to the Scalpel debut onto the masses in 2021. While I was about as mixed on that one as Felagund was, their second album Manual Manic Procedures has proven these wounds cut far deeper than originally thought. The beefy chugs that the band has become known for are still here in full force, but now they’re paired with sharper hooks and a heightened sense of maturity. On Procedures, you’ll hear acoustic plucking, immense Bolt Thrower riffing, grooves that will blow your guts out, and even some melodic death metal influence—and that’s just on the first song. The band also knows when to give you a breather, be it a well-placed atmospheric instrumental (“Led to the Chamber / Liquefied”) or an extended ride on a great groovy riff (“Defiled Gestation”). With a monstrous guitar tone, plenty of killer moments, and a track flow that’s smoother than liquefied human remains, Manual Manic Procedures feels like modern death metal coming into its own.

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