Suffocation’s entire new “Blood Oath” album is now available for streaming from the Suffocation MySpace page. The album comes out July 14th in North America and July 3rd in Europe (why Europe gets an earlier release date despite Suffocation being an American band is something I can’t understand).

A first listen through the tracks left me somewhat disappointed. Mike Smith’s drumming is awesome as usual and seems to be getting increasingly complex, but the guitar riffing wasn’t overly impressive and the overall sound wasn’t that great either. I’m hoping that maybe it’s just the quality of the MySpace-uploaded samples, or maybe that a few more listens will give the new songs a chance to grow. ‘Cataclysmic Purity,’ the song they’ve had up for awhile on MySpace, was the only one that really stood out.

Comparing the quality of the new songs to the last track, the re-recorded version of ‘Marital Decimation’ from “Breeding The Spawn,” you can really hear the difference between their newer songwriting style and their older compositions. The re-recorded tracks they’ve done for the last few albums have been invariably awesome; honestly I think they should just re-record the remaining songs and release an updated version of “Breeding The Spawn.”

» Order Suffocation’s “Blood Oath” from Amazon.com
» Check out Nuclear Blast’s CD + T-shirt packages for “Blood Oath”

“Köldens Union” from Sweden’s Istapp is basically a collection of their two demos along with a few new songs - something that I wasn’t aware of until after I obtained the album. Fortunately, this is not one of those albums where it’s obvious which tracks are the demo ones and which ones aren’t; instead “Köldens Union” is a very consistent and surprisingly good album of icy and melodic black metal.

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With “La Storia di Cannibali,” National Sunday Law thrusts themselves into an increasingly crowded subgenre of extreme music, making themselves targets for inevitable comparisons to Mastodon, Baroness, Neurosis and the like. And while NSL sounds superficially like those bands, their debut shows that they’ve managed to fashion a unique sound that is all their own.

Having created an album worthy of comparison to the genre’s heavyweights is an achievement by itself, but what’s more impressive is that National Sunday Law do it with only two guys - basically a guitarist, a drummer and some keyboards, along with various guitar effects and loops to fill out the sound. You certainly wouldn’t know it from listening to the album, as “La Storia di Cannibali” can get very layered and monstrously heavy in places.

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Germany’s Woburn House recently posted an update on their MySpace page about the status of their upcoming album, “Monstrous Manouevres In The Mushroom Maze.” The band has been talking about this album since late last year, but apparently they had some problems with their former label and are now back on Paradigms Recordings, which released their debut. The new album is now expected to be released either late this month or in early July.

All of you artistically-inclined readers may want to check out an art contest Suffocation and Nuclear Blast are running to promote the band’s upcoming “Blood Oath” album.

To go with the hellish cover art and the ‘Images of Purgatory’ track, the band is asking fans to create their own image of purgatory in whatever medium they prefer, and send it in to the label for consideration. One grand prize winner will receive a big package of Suffocation merchandise, and two runner-up winners will get lesser prizes.

» Suffocation Fan Art Contest Information

Samael’s online shop offers, among other things, a Samael wine called “Alliance.” According to the site, it will “surprise connoisseurs by its mixtures of dark and deep aromas” and it contains a mixture of grapes from Gamay, Diolinoir and Sangiovese. It’s not possible to have it shipped to the US, unfortunately.

Italy’s Forgotten Tomb is preparing a couple releases in the near future. The most immediate is their 2CD retrospective album “Vol.5: 1999-2009,” which is complete and will be released this summer, possibly as soon as this month. The album will contain reworked and re-recorded versions of classic Forgotten Tomb songs, along with some cover songs and one brand new song. The full tracklist (though not necessarily in order) will be:

- “Disheartenment / Alone / Steal My Corpse (Finale)” Medley
- “Entombed By Winter (Ultra Doom Version) / House Of Nostalgia” Medley
- “Solitude Ways”
- “Scars”
- “Daylight Obsession”
- “Black Sabbath (Intro - Black Sabbath cover) / Subway Apathy” Medley
- “Love’s Burial Ground”
- “A Dish Best Served Cold”
- “Negative Megalomania”
- “Spectres Over Venice” (New & Unreleased Song)
- “Papercuts” (Nirvana cover)
- “Depression” (Black Flag cover)

The band has also begun work on new songs for their upcoming “Under Saturn Retrograde” album, which is planned for release in 2010, with recording to begin late this year.

Finally, the band is also considering re-releasing the older, out-of-print Forgotten Tomb albums (“Springtime Depression,” “Love’s Burial Ground” and “Songs To Leave”), possibly toward the end of this year, although nothing has been officially announced. Having spent a good amount of time searching for places to buy any of them without much success, this is extremely welcome news!

Bergraven’s new album “Till Makabert Väsen,” the follow-up to 2007’s “Dödsvisioner” is scheduled to be released June 23rd on Hydra Head Records. Since Hydra Head seems to be busy promoting all their trendy sludge and post-metal bands, Bergraven’s new album hasn’t seen much press so far. If “Till Makabert Väsen” is anything like their previous release, it should at least end up being one of the more unique listens of 2009.

Bergraven’s MySpace page has a sample track ‘Asketens enda prydnad’ from the new album up for streaming. You can also check out short samples of all the tracks on Amazon MP3. Sounds like it should be along the same lines as “Dödsvisioner” - experimental black metal with lots of moody acoustic passages.

Moribund Records just announced another sale, this one even better than normal. From June 3rd until June 10th, they are offering a $4.00 discount on all full length CDs. That equates to around a 20-30% discount on all full length albums that aren’t already on sale!

At first glance, Battle Dagorath’s “Eternal Throne” is a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, the heavy Lord of the Rings influence in the band name and lyrics lead one to perhaps expect epic, warlike Viking metal (Battle Dagorath refers to the final battle for Middle-earth, which incidentally bears many similarities to Ragnarök from Norse mythology). But then the snowy cover art and song titles like ‘In the Forest of Frozen Darkness’ point to an album of colder, harsher black metal. Which will it be?

The first few seconds of the opener ‘Dämmerstunde’ (which along with the last track was written and performed by Vinterriket) let you know you’re in for something cold and atmospheric. The first real metal track, ‘Dead Eyes of the Moon,’ begins with a slow, Burzum-like arpeggiated line before launching into the storm of atmospheric blackness that continues through most of the album.

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