Mining Metal is a monthly column by Heavy Consequence contributing writers Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey. It focuses on notable new music emerging from the unconventional metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels, or even releases from unsigned bands.
One of the biggest challenges and frustrations of a column like this is the constant feeling of looking back and saying, “Why not…?” For example, take the band Hemotoxin, who released the brilliant and very death-oriented When time becomes waste In May, a record that I spent most of June listening to non-stop but which had sadly missed its chance. Why wouldn’t I add it, you might think? After all, as we’ve long established, this is our column, and even our definition of what constitutes music that can be covered nicely for a heavy column is sometimes deliberately slippery. This touches on the other frustration, a good frustration: there always seems to be more music than we know what to do with. Any article is inevitably measured against what it might replace; our lists for a given month’s column typically have Colin and I listing 12 or 15 bands, themselves culled from much longer lists we develop individually.
For the sake of being academic about it, I'll briefly list a number of records literally from July alone that were in contention and, to be fair, are also worth your attention. Consider this a bonus for those of you who read the introductions! There's an atmospheric post-punk black metal debut from Vuur and Zijdethe sombre and grave-smelling death metal of a group that is making a comeback. Van Helgdthe surprisingly well-balanced orchestral death metal debut from Rhaugthe progressive and deeply abstract post-Gorguts black metal of Conglaciationand triumphant black metal with almost classical rock influences. VimurJust to remind you, these are all albums that came out this month, albums that are very worthwhile and that simply competed with other equally worthy ones.
This is a strange world. A month or two ago, I resigned myself to watching an open fascist ascend to the head of state again and reconfigure the state apparatus at home to behave as it always has abroad. Suddenly, a window has appeared, and it seems we may have a way out of that fate, at least for now. My life after marriage is slow and peaceful, though socializing on the autistic spectrum, being agender, navigating homosexuality are always labyrinths of the self. Through all these things, the twisted and crumbling terrain of extreme metal replenishes itself. Life is made up of a seemingly endless series of contradictions, in motion but rarely fully resolved. This perpetuity of heavy metal is more than a minor gift. I am not an idealist of art; All the gathered power of the collective outrage of the artists of the Western world did not stop, much less end, the Vietnam War, and for every great novel and painting, not one step of the Nazi march through Europe decades ago was deterred by a work of art. But as a consolation in a confusing and sometimes terrifying world, it is a record of renewal.
– Langdon Hickman
thanks to our partners at consequence.net
