death, trash, black, a selection of albums released in 2013

This is my last "end of year list" post for 2013. This time it's my selection of death, thrash or black metal albums. I give it in no specific order.

 - Wormlust - Feral Wisdom              review & interview

- Tribulation - Formulas of Death    review

- Lantern - Below                             review & interview

- Noisem - Agony Defined                  review & interview

- Power Trip - Manifest Decimation         review

- Dead Peasants - Demo I                      review 

- Spektr - Cypher                                   review

- Rorcal - Vilagvege                              review

- Culte des ghoules - Henbane                review

- Vastum - Patricidal Lust                       review

Wormlust - The feral wisdom (2013)

Iceland is a good provider of weird music and Wormlust, the one man band of HV Lyngdal  is another good exemple. Wormlust display a special approach of atmospheric black metal with a strong dose of dissonant guitar work and dark psychedelia. The cover art with it's mixture of Art nouveau revisited byt he 60' psychedelic movement and traditional black metal imagery represent well the content of its first full lenght called The feral wisdom, a work that could be the soundtrack to some colourfull demented nightmares (in wicked lysergik technicolor!). or to quote it's Bandcamp page "Wormlust projects astral body horrors to the cosmos from Iceland.". it's surprising and excellent along its four songs and I really recommend it, one of my best black metal discoveries of the last months.

check it (and the other Wormlust releases) on its BC page.

and read the interview we did by mail : 

-to start with, can you tell us how did you formed Wormlust? what was the project and is the fact that you do it as a one man man a choice or a result of circumstances.

I awoke from a dream, my mind still fragmented but I remember what I saw. A ghostly musical troupe that appeared before me out of focus and menacing to the point of absolute terror. Knowing that I would never hear or see this band in this reality I guess you could say that I have formed a tribute band to the band of my nightmares. During that time I had started to loose interest in a band that I was in at the time, a band where all creative control had previously been mine. This  new vessel was a excellent way to not to have to put up with mediocre music being made just because egos needed pleasing. Kind of an empty god-head to fill.

-what about The feral wisdom, how would you compare it with your previous releases?

It was just exhaustive as always but over a longer period that before, the previous releases had all been done over a few days - staying awake for days until the they were completed (summoning strength until everything around you and inside you starts to feel brittle). With this one there was much more time, planning and of course more songs . Musically you could call it a summation of what came before.

-what was the process of making the songs of Feral wisdom from writing to producing?

Sitting down with a guitar, creating something carthartic and recording it. Nothing more to it. What state I find myself in when doing so is another matter though, sometimes life deals forth so much shit that you start to get tunnel vision, thats when it´s really like a clenching fire to create art. Other times experiments with sleep deprivation, hallucingenics and other artificially applied stimulants are all interesting additions to the mix.

-I really like the weird, trippy, psychedelic, element of your music, do you think it's a way of giving more depht and evocative power to the black metal basis, whereas traditionnal black metal, done and redone many times, sounds all too often generic, unidimensional and boring?

There are really no absolutes to art and creation, sometimes worship/clone bands are a good listen and other times not. You could make the argument f.i that everyone that uses watercolors are creating something that is just generic and boring whereas the nuances that each individual brings forth are probably more different from each other on a closer inspection than you originally thought.Personally I felt like mating together two forms of music that I enjoy and that was instinctually done so, not because of esoteric fears for the genre.

-have you started to write new songs, have any idea about how the next record gonna be?
Yes and no, I continue to write music and then discard it. Failing myself on a constant basis. I had hoped to use something from an album I recorded before "The feral wisdom" that I named "Dauðadá" but nomenclature aside it found a better home in the trash so now it´s back to the starting point. I do have a pretty good idea of how it will be, a sparser record with the guitars taking the center role this time instead of the overdubs -  stemming mainly from something that I learned after making the first album. That while piling endless musical ideas unto a song is fine there is really no need to have them all at the same time and continously.

-what about the lyrics?

Nothing has really been set in stone so far , only scattered phrases, a few trips to libraries and the occasional purchase of occult literature. Usually words come pouring of the self imposed thematic confines these three words; 1)Astral 2)Body 3)Horrors which can be transformed into the vast lyrical arena of 1)spirituality 2)mortality 3)Fears and anxieties realized. Astral Body Horrors also has inherent to it the eternal, the mortal and chaos, a kind of personal evocation to the spaces inbetween matter and to space, filled with matter.

-do you sing in icelandic because it better suits the lyrics and the music, or just because it felt more spontaneous for you to do so?
A band in iceland Vansköpun got me thinking about the power of my mother tounge and it´s beauty, especially works of  early 19th century poets such as Steinn Steinarr. In icelandic truly even the smallest words can have multiple meanings and almost unlimited illustrative potential, in hindsight though most of that doesn´t translate very well into english so the next project will most likely be in icelandic. Climbing the temple stairs to address the most ears.

-how is the metal scene in Iceland? which bands would you recommend?
 I withdrew myself from that world in the last decade but I do keep up with the releases that occasionally come out of it, from bands such Sinmara, Svartidauði, Vansköpun and Carpe Noctem  which are all now among the best in the world I find, a far cry from when I played in the only active black metal band in the whole country and what we had to offer wasn´t that great.  As for icelandic psychedelia from the turn of the 60´s -Trúbrot, Svanfridur, Náttúra, Icecross are hidden gems.

-do you think some bands (not only icelandic) play a music which could be related to yours? an album like Kosmonument by Oranssi pazuzu comes to my mind for exemple?

Not really. Otherwise I would just listen to the bands that sound like what I were doing.

-which evolution would you like to see for underground music in the future?

No idea, most likely simultaneous stagnation and progression as always - there will be fads that will bring forth definitive releases  but in the end all will be lost to the strands of time.  I would like to say that living in the present is more important but saying so as a person that is neck deep in obsessive nostalgia for a time that came before me would be a bit hypocritical.

-what is planned for Wormlust in the coming months?
The next releases.

-a final "full of (feral?) wisdom" sentence to close the interview?
I possess no wisdom, hopefully though the preceding Q&A is of interest to people that read your site.
Good luck in your endeavours.