Mining Metal: Bekor Qilish, The Chronicles of Father Robin, Hexvessel, KEN Mode, Nganga, Oblivion Castle, Terminalist, and Tomb Mold

Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey
·10 min read

The post Mining Metal: Bekor Qilish, The Chronicles of Father Robin, Hexvessel, KEN Mode, Nganga, Oblivion Castle, Terminalist, and Tomb Mold appeared first on Consequence.

Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence contributing writers Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts.

The challenge when writing year-end lists lies in deciding which albums make the cut, as it’s hard to hold so many records dear over the course of a year. 2023 will not face that challenge because it has been absurdly good for metal, even before entering the peak-metal season when the temperatures dip to intolerable levels and frost tints our windows. While fall and winter are the most contextually relevant seasons for metal albums, dismissing what’s already released this year would be farcical. Heavy bands have demanded attention through their art.

Theoretically, the high-quality output that’s marked every month thus far can be attributed to metal’s interplay between live shows and self-actualization. For as much crowd-crushing riffs and mosh pits dominate the genre, its soul comes from the introspective task of sitting in a room alone and honing one’s craft on an instrument. Or, similarly, meditating on how that music extends from the creator. Especially in the underground extremities, metal musicians are more concerned with the amorphous philosophies that underlie human interaction (hence why their lyrics often read as medical textbooks or academic papers) rather than the interactions themselves. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but there’s much more music concerning spirits, death, and unknowable powers than there is the job market, for instance.

What happens when you combine this mindset with two years of isolation from a global pandemic? Rampant improvement across the board. In 2021 and 2022, many acts put those improvements to tape, then toured with those new compositions. Now, in 2023, we’re seeing the fruits of battle-testing their pandemic-era music and seeing what works in live settings. Musicians had the time to develop their art in solitude, test it in front of an audience, gather data, and bring it back to the lab. Only now can we witness how those long, isolated development periods interact with a revitalized concert-going crowd, hungry simply to re-engage with the music that saw them through such a desolate time.

The result is that every month seems better than the last, at least for metal releases. There’s genuine excitement when two of the most forward-thinking death metal bands drop new projects on the same day as if they’re Stone Cold Steve Austin returning to whack The Rock in the head with a chair. The quality is almost overwhelming. It’s common to feel like you’re missing out on some record or a certain band, but 2023 has been more akin to a buffet than a restaurant, inasmuch as it’s hard to feel like you’re missing out on a penne rigate when you can load your plate with all the spring rolls, Singapore-style noodles, and fried green beans you can stomach.

And, at least on a personal level, 2023’s metal output has been revitalizing. Musicians continue to double down and improve their craft, challenging each other not for competition’s sake but to push the genre as far as it can go. Tomb Mold’s new album (which you’ll read about later) is essentially a thesis on how you can shove death metal into every crevice of your astral-plain-prog-rock-psych-Phish-jam-band-worship and it’ll only be better for it. If that doesn’t make you want to find a diamond in the rough — or, conjure a diamond from the coal in your hand through sheer force of will — then I don’t know what to tell you. There’s plenty of metal that makes you feel like Conan, but 2023 has been about metal that inspires you to fashion your own war axe. All that being said, here’s our picks for September’s best underground metal releases.

– Colin Dempsey

Bekor Qilish – The Flesh of a New God

I’d like to think that when King Crimson fomented progressive rock which from what had until then been mostly a primordial stew of psychedelic and heavy rock elements, this was the kind of profound and angular evil they envisioned would be made. Following up their remarkable debut with this much more savage sophomore release, Bekor Qilish manage to retain every bit of the wild progressive splendor of their debut while increasing the requisite heavy metal savagery. This is a feeling from the world of thrash that more extreme metal bands sometimes lose and is often the determining factor between a black metal record that buzzes soporifically versus one that slits your throat in your seat. Progressive metal that makes me want to get in strung-out 2 a.m. fist fights in a poorly-lit Denny’s parking lot is the pathway to my true inestimable power. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Langdon Hickman

The Chronicles of Father Robin – The Songs & Tales of Airoea: Book 1

Forgive me if straight ahead progressive and psychedelic rock doesn’t strike your heavy metal fancy, but this record and its primordial ties to the very roots of what we treasure in the world of metal is too strong for me to ignore. Plus in all honesty this is one of my most-listened to records of this month, after the new Tomb Mold and KEN Mode, meaning I’d feel more than a bit dishonest if I didn’t squeeze it in. This is the pure and visionary stuff: complex folk arrangements, huge beds of synthesizers, Moog leadlines and organ embellishments, and enough crunchy rock guitar to make it obvious why heavy metal drew so much inspiration from this stuff in the first place. A gentle nudge here or there and you have all the hallmarks of dark metal, of the more expansive realms of black and death metal, of the vaunted halls of the majestic wing of traditional and power metal. It’s beautiful stuff. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Langdon Hickman

Hexvessel – Polar Veil

The purpose, to a certain extent, of heavy metal is a spiritual one, an inducement of visions, a transportation of the spirit. This kind of unabashed and unashamed heavy metal mysticism admittedly isn’t strictly necessary for any given record, but that mythic grandeur is something certainly that draws us to the genre, keeps us wrapped tight in its embrace. Hexvessel, with their proggy folk leanings and heavy metal bonafides, finally produced a record that also ripples with heavy metal guitars, buzzing atmospheric black metal riffs underpinning the still-swirling psychedelic miasma. There’s always been a bleeding ground between progressive music and heavy metal music; Hexvessel shows the terminal unity of these two modes, feeling at once clad in black leather as it is the starward journey. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Langdon Hickman

KEN Mode – VOID

The downside to a band with a great deal of range is, of course, that listeners never know precisely whether they’ll connect with a new record the way they did with a previous one. I won’t lie: KEN Mode has shaken me from their clutches sometimes. But I can also be assured that, like with this record, they will always find a way to bring me back. Here, KEN Mode fuse a bruising post-metal/noise rock heft to a deep melancholy and brooding saxophones. Tracks such as “These Wires” and album closer “Not Today, Old Friend” feel radically despairing, more heartbreaking than a great deal of atmospheric and depressive black metal to my ears. The thing that cinched this record for me, though, came early: the way the opening track “The Shrike” (hey, I love Hyperiod too!) explodes at the 10 second mark immediately seized me by the throat. What follows is furious and elegant, unafraid to be sophisticated or ignorant depending on the needs of the moment. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Langdon Hickman

Nganga – Phthisis

While black metal captures a wide spectrum of negative emotions, Nganga congeal them into an apocalyptic worldview. On Phthisis, everything feels lost and pointless, though not with the hand waving usually associated with nihilism. Nor is such severity characterized by expansive track lengths. In fact, it’s the opposite; Phthisis is an incredibly lean and vicious 25-minute project. Its brevity allows Nganga to sprint from start to finish and wring every last drop from their hyperfocused vision. The musicality is scorched and the vocals are wretched yet human, presenting not an apocalypse but the aftermath. It’s a similar approach to other, latter-day US black metal bands, but in Nganga’s hands, it’s immediate. The album’s taut frame and urgent delivery indicate why the mood is so dire — there’s no room for sunlight to penetrate. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Colin Dempsey

Oblivion Castle – Witch’s Lament in the Moonlight

Oblivion Castle first appeared in Mining Metal last year. Witch’s Lament in the Moonlight is their second album, and while releasing two full-lengths in two years is commonplace, head of the table V.C.H. has dropped roughly 20 releases in that timeframe. She’s constantly diving down new rabbit holes. Historically, Oblivion Castle has been her most gothic venture, but Witch’s Lament in the Moonlight rescinds that. It’s the closest she’s come to the original black metal ideology. “The Edge of Immortality” convenes with spirits in a way that invokes second-wave Norwegian heritage while “Eclipse of Forbidden Desires” is an ecstatic barn-burner of claustrophobic cymbal crashes and tremolo-picked riffs. V.C.H. has always been a student of black metal, but this album is where she diverts some of her attention from atmosphere and mood to get to the genre’s veins and arteries. There’s still some of her wise-beyond-her-years patience on “Frozen Echoes,” but overall the album is her most wicked and witching work. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Colin Dempsey

Terminalist – The Crisis as Condition

Although Terminalist describe themselves as a “hyperthrash” metal band, that label undercuts them. It’s not just that they play fast and technically; it’s that these aspects serve their grander purpose. It’s a Darwinian protection against the lightspeed our world runs at, one which pits the environment, housing, and our livelihood against one another. It’s a reflection of the armor we must develop to survive — a sign that to make it to the next year, we have to optimize ourselves beyond human limits. Now, none of this is to say that Terminalist’s technicality is a mere coping mechanism; it’s also a phenomenal way to modernize thrash metal by targeting its core. The Crisis as Condition plays by the genre’s rules as it isn’t daring with its song structures as a whole, instead articulating how progressive metal, black metal, and thrash sound in 2023. The result is both daunting and terrifying in how it reflects what’s expected simply to survive. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Colin Dempsey

Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit

Much like how taking a break in a relationship can strengthen it upon return, Toronto’s Tomb Mold’s first album in four years greatly benefits from the member’s side excursions. Guitarist Derek Vella lifted his compositional freedom and astral passages from Dream Unending while drummer/vocalist Max Klebanoff and guitarist Payson Power did the same with their knotty and calculated rock from Daydream Plus. That both side projects reference dreams is the most obvious sign that The Enduring Spirit is less concerned with death metal’s reality. On it, Tomb Mold repackage their ferocity into the ethereal and experimental, meaning the album is as blissful as it is crushing. Tracks like “Will of Whispers” connect death metal with new-age music in a manner that you can’t unhear. The record is full of these revelations, making you reevaluate how death metal can interact with and improve what it touches. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Colin Dempsey

Mining Metal: Bekor Qilish, The Chronicles of Father Robin, Hexvessel, KEN Mode, Nganga, Oblivion Castle, Terminalist, and Tomb Mold
Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey

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