#uada

We're lost within the pitch of gloom As night-tide piles the dead ashore The breathless laugh in the face of dreams And the subsisting smirk midst scaling banks of gore

Decomposing tower Self-generating cadaverous Gate to Abaddon

Lining lungs with azure plage All will succumb to putrefaction

UADA

Uada, which means “haunted”, are a melodic black metal band from the United States. They are based in Portland, Oregon and have been active since 2014. They are currently signed to Eisenwald records, an independent music label from Germany. In this house we love and support independent labels! They are specialized in black metal and have a very fun roster.

Uada have 3 releases out so far, all full length albums. They don’t do singles, they don’t do demos, they don’t do splits, they don’t do EPs. They make full albums and drop them on a roughly 2 years cycle, though with the pandemic we are at 3 years since the last record, so these mysterious hooded figures are ripe for new material! Their debut album Devoid of Light in 2016 was well received by the metal world as a promising debut, albeit very classic black metal that didn’t surprise much. 2018’s Cult of a Dying Sun seems to be their album with the most acclaim. The sound quality difference between these two is astounding. The tracks tend to be longer, which helps some songs and doesn’t help others. 2020’s Djinn is their latest release and the reception’s been this: Djinn is way more niche, as in, you have to be down for 14 minutes atmospheric black metal songs to like it, but if that’s your vibe? It’s fucking good. Quality up, marketability down. They still don’t do anything super different, but it’s good black metal. It feels like European black metal despite being American, which is what I love, because I’m intensely biased towards the EU scene. US bands have to be either 1)extremely fucking special or 2) European-sounding to get in my good graces XD

The guys are “masked”, in the sense that they play with hoods over their faces with the aim of not being seen, for atmospheric purposes:

They also do “the hand thing” when taking pictures.

But they’re ok being approached in public by fans, as long as you don't pressure them to take a pic with their faces showing. They are not anonymous, their names are out there if you wanna know.

As far as recs go, I would rec all of the albums honestly cause it’s less than 3 hours of music and there’s nothing truly bad in there. My favorite album personally is Djinn but that’s because I fucking love atmospheric albums that make me lose track of time. I’m aware that’s not everyone’s cup of tea xD So, to my previous recs of Devoid of Light, Black Autumn White Spring and Cult of a Dying Sun, I’d add all of Djinn, but specifically the title track and In The Absence of Matter as a first contact.

CARACH ANGREN

Carach Angren are a symphonic black metal band from the Limburg province of the Netherlands. They’ve been active since 2003 and they’re currently signed to French label Seasons of Mist, one of the few major metal labels I feel positively about! The Seasons of Mist roster is INSANE. They specialize in the darker genres of metal, black, death, gothic, doom and some prog. Many of my favorite bands have been on them through the years.

So. Listen. Carach are one of my absolute darlings in the black metal world. When I began my exploration into black metal in the early 2010s, their first three records have been instrumental in making this genre my favorite. I would not be where I am today without them. I will forever have a very special in my heart for these guys. I hung out with them several times, I’m attached, ok? But. And there’s a huge But. Dear fucking god did these guys fall off. I’m still reeling from how perfect their music used to be, and how fucking atrocious the output has been since 2015. In my opinion. These primers are only my personal opinions and ramblings ok XD They’re doing fine, their latest albums did get decent reviews which I? Don’t understand? But you do you, boo? XD They’re one of the big names in black metal right now, they’re headlining tours, they’re doing good on the new material ok. But I can’t fucking stand it hahaha.

The main problem for me was the vibe shift. Carach Angren’s themes are horror stories. They recount fantastic tales of horror, fright and gore, psychological horror, body horror, historical horror, the like. The storytelling in their first three albums is stunning. There was always a sense of realism there, of horror being grounded in reality. It’s classy, it’s tasteful, it’s striking and horrifying but it’s never cheap and nothing is played for shock. 2008’s Lammendam is about “true stories” in a 1700s an 1800s backdrop, a historical version of our “I heard from a friend of a friend that…”, tales from the crypt and all that. Ghost stories that we’ve heard before, la Dame Blanche for example, but set to music. 2010’s Death Came Through a Phantom Ship is about nautical horror. Historical stories of phantom ships, captain-less ships, mutinies and their disastrous bloody consequences. It’s so grounded. Their masterpiece, 2012’s Where the Corpses Sink Forever, is about the horrors of war. We follow soldiers in trenches, feel their desperation, their fear of death yet longing for it. The heart-wrenching beauty to be found on battlefields because they are so human, yet the absolute bone-chilling reality of it. It’s so fucking real. This album, no joke, is one of the best albums I have ever heard in my life. It’s a 10/10 record for me, and I do not give out 10/10 easily. I’m rather critical. I have less than 20 albums that I’ve ever rated as perfect in my life, and this album is unanimously recognized as the pillar of this band, and one of the pillars of symphonic black metal altogether. This is one of the albums that made black metal click for me. It changed everything.

And then, there was a tonal shift. I suspect, coming off from such a resounding success, the band didn’t know how the fuck they could live up to it, and they crumbled under the pressure. 2015’s This is no Fairytale is, as the title suggests, bases in the Grimm fairytales. It’s a weird modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel and like. Yeah. It started to get cheap. The language used in the lyrics shifted. There’s a ton of unnecessary cursing all over this album, graphic depictions of SA, p*dophilia, incest, drugs abuse and overdose, and like, yes, Hansel and Gretel is a tale about child abuse, of course, but there’s a way to approach those topics you know? With feeling, with emotion, with realness, and here it just feels cheap. Ghastly “twists” are constantly played out for shock value, it’s surface, it’s plastic-y. The stage show changed from refined hustorical costumes and atmospheres to, like, female-bodied mannequins being dragged around and getting their throats cut on stage with copious amounts of fake blood, and for what? It’s just, tasteless now. The band lost its delicacy. That’s where it started to feel cheap, and it only went downhill from there. 2017’s Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten is a joke. Legit, this album sounds like a joke. The songs are boring, uninspired, structure-less. The lyrics are so cheap. It’s like we went from a museum quality horror painting that moves and inspires, to a cheap clown trying to be scary at a kid’s birthday party. 2020’s Franckensteina Strataemontanus was very “meh” to me. Less offensive than the previous two, and the story is inspired by classic horror literature like Mary Shelley and the strange scientists that inspired her Frankenstein. There’s potential, but the magic is dead for me. Bad taste in my mouth. I can’t do it anymore, but maybe a fresh pair of ear that doesn’t have the baggage I have with this band will like it? You let me know.

In this context, you’ll understand why my recommendations will only be from the first three albums. If you want to go for it, just listen to all three. There are no duds in any of them. But for specific songs, from Lammendam: Haunting Echoes from the Seventeenth Century, The Carriage Wheel Murder, Heretic Poltergeist Phenomena and my absolute favorite La Malédiction de la Dame Blanche. From Phantom Ship: The Sighting Is a Portent of Doom and Bloodstains on the Captain's Log. From Corpses? Listen to the whole thing man. For real. It’s a concept album, so grab the whole thing, sit down, close the lights, get the lyrics out, and follow along. Prepare to be sobbing by the end. I could recommend every single song, but they hit so much more powerfully within the context of the story.

In terms of aesthetic, there guys are “masked” in the way that they have a very unique look of corpse paint (the face paint typical to black metal).

They coined this look, not corpse paint as a whole, but their style of it. It’s been copied a million times since (like by Cradle of Filth notably, though they'll argue to the ends of the world it wasn't copied. It looks the exact same, it's a bit ridiculous), but it was Carach who did it like this first. The band members have character names, though they are not anonymous. Their real names are out there, but on stage, they’re not themselves, they are Seregor and Ardek (Namtar used to be their drummer. He quit in 2020. I have no clue how the band will record anything else in the future without him because he was the CORE of the band for me. Absolute drummer crush. I digress.) Seregor is a hobbyist mask maker and he makes masks for his different characters from his stories, like these:

Imo they still hit on the mask kink somewhat. The guys on and off stage feel like they are radically different people, and to have met them masked at the end of a show and unmasked at more proper events, there’s a world of difference in the vibe. I love it.

Oh also they have spawn a good few big metal memes like this one XD :

Which they found funny enough they turned it into a shirt XD :

(and yes of course I have one hahaha)

ROTTING CHRIST

Rotting Christ are a seminal band in black metal’s history. They have been at it for 36 years under the Rotting Christ banner, 39 years if we count the first iteration of the band under a different name. Dare I say it? I’ll say it. They’re the black metal daddies. I’m so sorry, I said it, it’s out there now XD They are daddy and I don’t make the rules. Anyway! They’ve been active since 1987, as I said, and they are signed to, yep, Seasons of Mist. I wasn’t kidding when I said this label’s roster is nuts. They are from Athens, Greece and they’re more towards the melodic / gothic side of black metal. They influen ced black meal heavily because this early in the 80s (black metal as a genre really kicked off in the 90s), there were no other bands who did what they did, and especially not in Greek. Rotting Christ have a lot of songs in Greek, in Latin, later in their career they made songs based on Hindu mysticism, their lack of fear when it comes to singing in everything but English at the time was genre defining. They made many songs in English since, but man the ones in Greek just hit different you know? They changed the game before the black metal game was even a thing.

Currently there are only two original members left in the band, brothers Sakis and Themis Tolis, vocals/guitar and drums respectively. Everyone else right now are tour musicians or session studio musicians. As their band name suggests, their themes are of anti-christianity, satanism, occultism of many different cultures, mysticism, it’s all good shit. One more band we traumatized christian kids can heal our religious trauma through, weeeee!! They have 13 full length records out, their latest one being The Heretics from 2019 (we are starving from new material, please feed us) though they haven’t paused during the pandemic, re-recording older material and releasing compilations instead. There was a new single in 2022 called Holy Mountain, and I hope and pray that means new album soon. Sakis Tolis also released a solo project in 2022, Amongst the Fires of Hell, which was fucking DELICIOUS my dude. More laid back, but so fucking crunchy. Highly recommend if you feel their sound.

In terms of recommendations, you’re in luck because they released a massive best of for their 30th anniversary called Their Greatest Spells: 30 Years of Rotting Christ. That’s the must-listen. If you want into this band, start here. You’ll get a taste of the sound of every single full lenght that came befoee. It’s 2 albums, 33 songs: find your favorites, check which album they're from, and go from there! Non Serviam, Grandis Spiritus Diavolos, In Yumen-Xibalba, Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy, everything’s on here, besides my personal favorite song of theirs, Apage Satanas. It’s a weird chanty, trance-y song but it’s the one that made me fall in love with the band. It scratches at something deep inside my brain idk.

Rotting Christ are not masked, nor is there an aesthetic to latch onto, really. They’re just cool dude doing cool things and doing their part spreading the message. They’re honest and raw. No frills. What you see is what you get. They’re the OG.