False Announces Breakup After Sexual Assault Allegations Against a Member


False has announced their immediate break up following the news they were hit with that a member of their band is the subject of sexual assault allegations, reportedly said to be Jimmy Claypool, according to commenters on their Facebook page, under their announcement post. This is disappointing since False has been one of the greatest USBM bands, during their existence. The statement made it clear that neither the other members of the ban nor their label Gilead Media, were involved or aware of the allegations. We’ll continue to follow this story as it unfolds. Continue reading


Roadburn 2020 Books Earth, False, Sylvaine, Body Void, Sólveig Matthildur and More!


Roadburn Festival 2020 has booked its final bands for the upcoming fest this April. Kicking things off with the new bands Earth will perform as part of Emma Ruth Rundle’s curated event, celebrating thirty years, as well as a solo performance by Dylan Carlson. Also, part of Emma’s event are GC favorites False and Sylvaine. Additional artists joining the main bill are Body Void, Sólveig Matthildur, Dynfari (second set) and Rubin “Zwoelboy” van Nistelrooy, Erik “El Cahole” van de Beek, and Frankie Fuzz AKA The Ballet Bombs. Taking place April 16-19th in Tilburg, NL, weekend passes are sold out as are Thursday, Friday and Saturday day passes. The fest also announced their 2020 Full Bleed Art series, which includes giants of the mediums such as John Baizley, Richey Beckett,David V. D’Andrea, Douwe Dijkstra, Maarten Donders, Fortifem, Jondix, Marald van Haasteren, and Burlesque of North America. Continue reading


Migration Fest Tickets on Sale Now!


Migration Fest tickets are on sale now! Presented by 20 Buck Spin and Gilead Media, Migration Fest III has booked False, Mizmor, Spirit Adrift, Yellow Eyes, Immortal Bird, Obsequiae, Thou and Emma Ruth Rundle Obsequiae, Imperial Triumphant, Buried At Sea, Falls of Rauros, Kowloon Walled City, Spirit Adrift, Tomb Mold, Ulthar and many more. The full list can be seen below. The fest takes place July 31st – August 2nd, 2020 and returning to Mr. Smalls in the Pittsburgh suburb of Millvale, PA.Continue reading


Migration Fest Books False, Mizmor, Spirit Adrift, Yellow Eyes, Immortal Bird, Obsequiae, Thou and Emma Ruth and More!


Migration Fest is coming back for its third edition and it looks like a rager! Presented by 20 Buck Spin and Gilead Media, Migration Fest III has booked False, Mizmor, Spirit Adrift, Yellow Eyes, Immortal Bird, Obsequiae, Thou and Emma Ruth Rundle Obsequiae, Imperial Triumphant, Buried At Sea, Falls of Rauros, Kowloon Walled City, Spirit Adrift, Tomb Mold, Ulthar and many more. The full list can be seen below. The fest takes place July 31st – August 2nd, 2020 and returning to Mr. Smalls in the Pittsburgh suburb of Millvale, PA.Continue reading


Gilead Media Offers Their Exclusive 2020 Subscription Club


Now in its fifteenth year of existence and awesomeness, Gilead Media has launched their Exclusive 2020 Vinyl Subscription Service. If you are unfamiliar with this label, then you missed amazing 2019 releases by Mizmor, False and Yellow Eyes (and countless others). The 2020 SubClub is a limited time offer with registration is now open only until 1/15/20 and is also available to customers outside the US and Canada for an additional shipping charge. There is an insane amount of value in this offer, beyond all the awesome vinyl and perks. You’ll be supporting one of the preeminent record labels in underground music! Continue reading


False – Portent


Minneapolis is not a frigid northern waste year-round, but it’s a good stand-in for Scandinavia on a frosty winter day. The music that comes from there often conjures the heartless sounds of the birthplace of Black Metal. While also being home to the funky sex god Prince (RIP), the region has notably given us many great modern USBM bands to hand our hats on. The greatest may very well be False, as the sextet continues to hone their sound to perfection. I won’t event front, I have been a huge fan for some time and while they are “emerging” to mainstream ears, I have been down since the beginning, with several EP’s and splits most prized among my collection. So of course, I was amped for the release of Portent (Gilead Media), their new full-length album, so I got ready to dive in hard. Continue reading


Stream The New Single from False – “Neither Path nor Gate”


USBM greats False are streaming their brand-new non-album track single ‘Neither Path nor Gate’, the track is the latest exclusive from the Decibel Magazine Flexi-Series. The track will not be on the bands’ highly-anticipated new album called Portent, out July 1st via Gilead Media. Jam out to ‘Neither Path nor Gate’now and subscribe to Decibel to get the flexi! Continue reading


Theories, False, Immortal Bird, Anicon: Live At The Archeron, Brooklyn


Theories, Immortal Bird, False, Anicon Live At Archeron ghostcultmag

Writing this review on the heels of the news that Archeron will cease to be as a venue, I may get a bit misty-eyed for this place before too long. I headed down to the cool Brooklyn venue/bar/eatery to see some excellent metal bands on a Friday. As I walked around the up and coming Williamsburg neighborhood before the show, I reflected on how cool it is that New York once again has all these cool venues for live music, especially so for metal right now. Just ten years removed from when a shitty former mayor shuttered classic venue after venue and outcries the fans of live heavy music as a “nuisance”, it seems to be alive and kicking it at night in The Big Apple.

Getting to the bar early it was prime people watching from the bar. While I drank a smooth Pale Ale from Bronx Brewing Company and took note of the nice selection on tap, the food at the bar and restaurant was reflective of the bill tonight, excellent.

Brooklyn’s Anicon’s thick sound blew up the small rectangular space early with their instrumental black metal. Progressive, yet classic sounding USBM, Anicon performs with no pretense beyond their music. They want you to feel it as much as they do, so all their songs are more like a journey than a song. Little chatting to the crowd with very little moving around; they just showed up, played beautifully, acted like old pros, and bounced. The way it should be. Their new album drops in early July from Gilead Media, so please be sure to support them.

Chicagoans Immortal Bird returned to NYC will a bag of new jams from their Empress/Abscess long player and a reconstituted lineup. Having followed this group from its inception, to the stunning début EP Akrasia, to now, this is the tightest and best lineup of the band they have had to date. Led by vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Rae Amitay (Thrawsunblat), the band ran through tracks both recent and old. The entire room was feeling it and having many “holy shit” moments, as was I. Coming into their own now and gelling with the new players, it is exciting to see the growth of an up and coming band mirror that of the greats of the scene. Once they get off the road later in the year, they’ll be writing a new album with this lineup in tow. Big things are coming from this camp in the future, so don’t sleep!

False, man. False. I am tempted to just leave it at that, because words will likely fail to do justice to the six-piece crew from Minneapolis. OK, I will try to take you there with me after all. False is not a band, but a force. Seemingly put together by some cosmic chess-master selecting all the members exactly to compliment each other seamlessly, they hit your heart and mind simultaneously. Avant-garde, progressive or whathaveyou, False simply rules. One thing you notice right away about the band is their fantastic sonic mix live, perhaps better than on record. Even in a tiny room, they sounded immaculate from several vantage points I had. They wring every emotion out of their music and themselves, and ultimately you too. This was my second time seeing them, and honestly I am sad for that reason alone.

Theories frontman Rick made a vow to the crowd about crushing your enemies and enjoying their downfall early in the night during their set. That pretty much sums up the tenor of their well-crafted, but savage grindcore anthems. If you want to slam, spill your beer, and exorcise your demons, Theories has the elixir for what ails your soul. Just in your face, well-played grind that has no fatty parts, just streamlined sickness. There were a few people right at the front of the pit, spilling their beers and exorcising said demons, but really the drama was all in the speakers to me. They were having a lot of fun on stage, which some bands in the scene seem to forget about these days. They were so powerful and provocative, that the fierceness is smarter than other bands in the genre. Theories is thinking people’s’ angry music, which is one of the best compliments I can give to a band.

 

KEITH CHACHKES


Voice of Shadows Part II – Frost of Satyricon


satyricon live at the opera cover

Satyricon is known to have the seed of their album writing sessions come from jamming. With their new orchestral collaboration finished, the last studio album from the band being stripped down and new music on the horizon; we asked Frost about the challenges of creating new work, but keeping with the high expectations for the band:

It (Satyricon, 2013) was a very demanding album in many aspects, but they mostly had to do with the musicality of it. Getting everything to sound right and in accordance with the ideas that were the fundamental of the different songs. We had to enter a territory where we hadn’t really been before and we had to bring dynamics into the music that we had never done before that albums. This was definitely demanding. But when it comes to the soul and spirit of it, that will always be there. That’s an attitude, and it’s also about a feeling. Both Satyr and I are people that feel the fire burning, that is never something that we doubt. For us it is truly Black Metal because it has that vibe and that energy and that atmosphere. It couldn’t really be anything else, but it doesn’t matter for us what it’s being called. Trying to label something very often has to do with standards and conventions for many people. That is the type of thing we would like to avoid. We don’t want to have all these standards and conventions to adhere to. The way we see it Black Metal is not about all those. It is a very creative and open musical genre. That also means that you could fall pretty long if you do it wrong. It could easily get pretentious. Trying to master something that is dramatic, dark perhaps even theatrical. Something that is epic, something that is grim and cold, all the imagery, everything around it. To manage all of that and do it well, without becoming clowns because of the way you do it. That is actually difficult.”

Satyricon, by Susanne A. Maathuis Photography

Satyricon, by Susanne A. Maathuis Photography

Are there any other acts out there right now you feel manage to strike the balance?

Not that I can come up with, no. Maybe if I got to think a little longer but I really had to say very few do it. We had a discussion, a couple of us, on the bus on the way here earlier today. Which bands have that nerve to it, and only that has that kind of purity. For most part you only find that among the older generation of bands. I think understanding the spirit and the attitude is fundamental. But you also have to be able to express it musically. No make-up or spikes or bullet belts will help you. If you choose to have that, that’s simply because you feel that it is part of the identity and it pertains to a certain tradition and all that. It can never be worth anything in itself. It’s all again in that attitude and feeling. The previous Satyricon album is an example of an album that is really filled to the brim with it. Even if it is varied and if there are ambiances that are something else than pure darkness, that just makes the darkest parts feel even more menacing and gloomy. There is a deeper darkness to it, which you can feel more because of the contrasts. That kind of vibe and feeling quite dominate the album. There is a lot of grimness and aggression. When that beast is roaring you can feel that it is alive. It is not a dead album with dead music on it. I know the next album will also be very vital. Perhaps even more varied and even weirder than the previous one. Because we felt that many doors were opened for us. There will be lots of different types of music, but it will all carry the Satyricon vibe and the Satyricon musical signature. We have to continue to develop and explore other parts, and try to get further. To improve and to learn, that’s the fundamentals if you want to be creative. That’s the driving force here.”

Satyricon’s Live At The Opera DVD is out now from Napalm Records.

WORDS AND CONCERT PHOTOS BY SUSANNE MAATHUIS