L-R: Shawn Hillman (Bass) | Steve Cuddington (Drums) | Kurt Steigleder (Guitar, Vocals) – Photo Credit: Jade Weekes
With their debut album “Storm Over a Black Sea” coming up soon, Vancouver extreme metal band Ysgaroth allure metal fans around the world with a new single, “Forward Unto Death ”.
One of the shorter songs on the album, it was the last song written, and it is Ysgaroth stripped down to its core elements: harmonies, black metal atmosphere, and at least one riff born of caveman brutality. Lyrically this song is about everything mankind is doing to the Earth, and the true cost of climate change: everything. We’re not just destroying the Earth in some abstract sense, we’re slowly killing ourselves, and very quickly driving every animal we can extinct.
Probably the most stylistically varied song on the album, the verses evoke 90’s black metal, with the pre-chorus drawing influence from power metal and the chorus being pure 2000’s melodeath. The outro channels the muscular death metal of Deicide and Cannibal Corpse, and the solo is Steigler’s best Trey Azagthoth impression. The band comments about the guests on the song:
“We had already reached out to our friends Jessie Grace and Erik Leonhard of KOSM about having them on the album, and we wanted to do something a little bit different with 'Forward Unto Death' by having Jessie sing the chorus. The lyrics on this one are about as straightforward as we can get: we’re killing the Earth more every second of every day, and we only ourselves to blame for the extinction of thousands of species, the absolute shattering of the world, but at least the stock market went up.”
Influences ranging from old school death metal, progressive metal, black metal, and sludge are evident and fans of Enslaved, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Death will be particularly interested.
The single “Forward Unto Death" is available via its premiere on Metal-Rules HERE .
“Storm Over a Black Sea” will be available on November 13, 2020.
Music Video “Sacred” - YouTube . Spotify .
Track Listing:
1. Rain (1:54)
2. Nam Gloria Satanas (feat. Jessie Grace of KOSM) (7:06)
3. Sacred (5:31)
4. Altar of Scars 11:48)
5. Forward Unto Death (feat. Jessie Grace of KOSM) (5:19)
6. Deluge (feat. Erik Leonhard of KOSM) 17:24
Album Length: 49:05
For more info:
Facebook.com/Ysgaroth
Twitter.com/Ysgaroth
Instagram.com/Ysgarothofficial
EPK
About:
Ysgaroth is a progressive extreme metal band conjured in Vancouver, Canada that seamlessly blends elements of various metal subgenres into a vicious hybrid.
Initially, Ysgaroth started as Kurt Steigler’s black metal studio project, a non-serious musical outlet, but over time he grew attached to the songs and wanted to take them live.
With the desire to hit the stage, Steigler (guitar/vocals) was joined by Steve Cuddington (drums) and Shawn Hillman (bass) With these additions, the songs got more structurally ambitious, a sludge influence began to creep into the band. Cuddington brings an absolutely crushing, hardcore-influenced drumming style that gave the songs a new vitality, and Hillman’s exceptionally musical bass playing served as the perfect bridge between the crushing drums and razor-sharp guitars. Ultimately, the sound of the band became a mix of its black metal roots, classic 80’s death metal, 90’s thrash, and sludge with the long compositions of post-metal and the shifting, churning time signatures of progressive metal. Steigler is the main songwriter, but overall the process is hugely democratic.
The debut album from the band “Storm Over a Black Sea” will be unearthed on November 13th, 2020, and considering the growing amount of music they have been writing - fans can expect a lot more from Ysgaroth.
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