Albums Archived – 6000apez – The Consequential Mudhole [Demo / Hardcore Punk] – The Beer Patrice – Dead on the Ship [Live LP / Punk] – Blender – D03s 1t Bl3nd? [Demo / Cybergrind] – Clocked In – Clocked In / Year of the Rat Split [Split / Hardcore] – Coward – King Rat [Demo / Pop Punk] – Coward – Split [Split / Pop Punk] – Evan Watton – RPM 2021 [LP / Progressive Metal] – Kick Gut – Kick Gut / Don’t Split [Split / Garage Punk] – Kick Gut – The Peter Album [LP / Garage Punk] – Kristopher Crane – Piss Drunx Theme [Single / Hard Rock] – Make Mean Everything – Gamma Rays [EP / Progressive Rock] – Make Mean Everything – Make Mean Everything [EP / Progressive Rock] – Moss Heather – Summer Flu [Single / Garage Punk] – Of Wilds – A Ghost at the Strid [EP / Progressive Rock] – Personal Space Invaders – Eat Your Meat [LP / Experimental Rock] – Ratpiss – Four Humors [EP / Powerviolence] – Sarra Cenia – Good News [Single / Stoner Rock] – Solar Tongue – Consideration [EP / Drone Metal] – Sons of an Eastern Moon – Borealis [EP / Folk Metal] – The Strangled – Never Forget [LP / Skate Punk]
Carbonear dark ambient artist Nemophilist has released his first new piece of 2023. The new single is entitled “Aurora” and was described by project helm Forest Wanderer as “a love song”. The track was released on January 5th, 2023 through Kristopher Crane’s YouTube channel, and will come to Bandcamp soon.
You can listen to “Aurora” through our YouTube embed below.
This edition of Metal Maniacs features Greg Ravengrave, the multi-instrumentalistbehind Mistwalker, drummer of Ratpiss, as well as numerous other projects, and the founder of Heavy NFLD.
Hey folks! After doing this project for a few months thanks to the inspiration of Winterhearth frontman and guitarist Andrew Marsh I figured it was finally time for me to sit down and write about my own series of inspirational and influential records that led me to become the musician I am today. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Greg, I’m the founder of Heavy NFLD and the guy who mainly writes for this blog. I write and record everything in the black metal project Mistwalker, play drums in the crust band Ratpiss, and have umpteen-thousand other side projects besides that which span a number of different genres. With that out of the way, let’s get into it!
The Sword – Age of Winters
When I was but a wee lad I was growing up in the town of Glovertown, which is about three hours outside of St. John’s, in the Gander area. I grew up in a pretty strict Christian conservative household where my family did everything in their power to shelter me from the outside world. In all honesty, it was pretty fucked. Thankfully we eventually got the internet. At this time in my life I was pretty heavy into gaming and I was obsessed with the PS2 video game Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. One day I was browsing YouTube and found a trailer for the game’s sequel, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. The song used in that trailer? “Iron Swan” by The Sword. The heaviness, aggression and insanity of the instrumentation in that song was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. Coupled with visuals of vast swathes of Venezuelan jungle being burned to the ground and tanks and attack helicopters blowing shit up, it kicked my ass. From that moment I was hooked and needed more. Thankfully the rest of this record, including such classics as “Freya” and “Winter’s Wolves”, had plenty more megalithic riffage to offer my adolescent brain.
Slipknot – Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses
While The Sword was my gateway drug into metal, it wasn’t until Slipknot came across my ears that I delved fully into my nu metal cringelord phase. I first heard “Before I Forget” on Guitar Hero III as a teenager and, in all honesty, it didn’t quite click with me. However, when I eventually came across the song “Duality” on YouTube I was hooked. The rest of the album was like a drug, from the absurdly heavy and chaotic early tracks like “The Blister Exists” to the absolute banger that is “Pulse of the Maggots”, this album was exactly what my miserable, angst-filled teenage brain needed. Even the quieter, more solemn songs on this album, like “Circle”, “Vermilion”, and “Vermilion Part 2” hit me right in the feels. From this record I would eventually branch out into the rest of Slipknot’s discography and became a die-hard Maggot.
Judas Priest – Painkiller
Around the same time that Guitar Hero started to fall off as a franchise, Rock Band came in to absolutely dominate the rhythm game market, and me, along with many of my friends, became obsessed. Towards the end of high school we used to host Rock Band parties on a pretty regular basis, and I can even credit the game with being how I first learned how to play drums. When Rock Band 2 came out near the end of the 2000’s I ate up the amount of metal tracks that had been included on the game’s disc at release, including Judas Priest’s “Painkiller”. I was blown away by the sheer sonic assault of the drum into. I had never heard anything quite like it. I was obsessed and immediately went to listen to the rest of the record. I remember having the thought, “this is fucking metal, man”. For real, if an alien visited Earth and asked me to define heavy metal I would play this album. Every single song on this thing is an unabashed banger. This is one of the few records in existence I would say is an 11/10, and to this day it remains in fairly constant rotation on whatever device I’m using to listen to music.
Mastodon – Crack the Skye
Similarly to Judas Priest, I also discovered Mastodon through Rock Band 2 thanks to the inclusion of “Colony of Birchmen”. At the time, however, that song didn’t quite click with me. Luckily it was only about a year later when the band would drop one of the most critically lauded records of their career. Crack the Skye came to me at exactly the right moment in my life. It was dirty and dark but was incredibly complex. This album introduced me to progressive metal but also encouraged me to push my drumming skills to the next level. Brann Dailor is an absolute monster on this record and I spent many hours in the rec room of my parent’s house trying to nail this entire album behind the kit.
Between the Buried and Me – Colors
Yet another artist discovered through Rock Band 2, albeit this time through the game’s downloadable content. “Prequel to the Sequel” was my first exposure to progressive metal of this stripe. The guitar playing on that song is on another level and the sheer complexity of the track as it twists and morphs into so many different areas still boggles my mind to this day. When listening to the full record it’s clear that Colors is in a class all on its own when it comes to contemporary progressive metal. Aside from showing me just what was capable within the framework of the “metal” genre, this band also got me into harsh vocals. There was a long time where I didn’t like screaming, no matter if it was the ultra low gutturals of a band like Cannibal Corpse or the higher pitched snarl of metalcore bands, I wasn’t into it. I could only tolerate Slipknot because for some reason in my adolescent mind Corey Taylor’s yelling wasn’t the same as a straight up death metal scream (don’t ask how I justified that, because I wouldn’t remember). But once I got into Between the Buried and Me I really understood just why harsh vocals were so appealing to people, and from then on I was sold.
Devin Townsend Project – Addicted
This was my introduction to Devin Townsend, an artist who has arguably had the most effect on my life as a musician, at least from a work ethic perspective. Addicted, like many of the other records on this list, came to me at the perfect moment in my life. It melded heavy guitars with a 100% pop aesthetic, fusing heaviness with absurdly catchy bubblegum melodies, and it was like a sonic version of crack to my ears. I couldn’t get enough of it. It was this album that made me realize that no matter how complex or impressive the musicianship on any given record is, what really matters to me as a musician is if your songs are memorable, and so I started putting a lot of focus into trying to craft catchy hooks over anything else. Granted, I wasn’t actually recording my own music at this point (around 2009/2010-ish), but it greatly influenced the music I did end up working on in the coming decade. Aside from that, the sheer amount of music that Townsend put out around this time wound up having more of an effect on me than the music itself did. How he was able to put out so much material so quickly, most of which was pretty damn good, astounded me, and I aspired to try and live up to that as much as possible with my own works.
SikTh – Death of a Dead Day
The first time I heard “Bland Street Bloom” by these UK tech metal legends I was blown away. If Between the Buried and Me opened my mind to what was capable of being played on guitar, and Devin Townsend showed me that prog and metal can still be catchy and poppy without sacrificing heaviness, SikTh showed me that you can maintain both of those qualities while also being insane. No doubt a huge influence on the djent scene that emerged in the 2010’s, none of the bands that followed in SikTh’s footsteps could ever really hold a candle to these guys. Sure, I love Meshuggah as much as the next guy, and they undoubtedly started the style, but SikTh has a special flavour that nobody could ever really match. As much as I love groups like Periphery and Tesseract and Born of Osiris, SikTh is the gold standard for technical and progressive metal, and this album is the pinnacle of that. To this day I’m still mesmerized by the guitar and drum work on this thing and I can only hope to one day be able to even come close to what is performed on this record.
Stolen Babies – There Be Squabbles Ahead
I was never quite a goth kid when I was in high school but I always kind of wanted to be. There was definitely an appeal to the aesthetic presented by what is considered typical “goth” media like The Nightmare Before Christmas or My Chemical Romance, but given the oppressive nature of high school in small town Newfoundland I never really went full tilt, so to speak. Musically I wouldn’t even end up getting into actual, honest to Satan, goth rock until recently. Back in high school I found myself drawn more to avant garde metal, which, in my opinion, is usually just a fancy way of saying carnival musical with distorted guitars. Stolen Babies were my entryway to that world, and to this day I don’t think any band has quite managed to capture the feeling that their debut record, There Be Squabbles Ahead, has. I remember hearing one song from these guys on YouTube and being unable to find the rest of the record anywhere, save on a torrent site, so I let the album download over the course of a week and when I finally got to listen to it I was enthralled by what I heard. It’s fair to say that this record has influenced my own music to a degree, especially when it comes to some of the Halloween-themed releases I’ve dropped as Mistwalker (namely Of Pumpkins and Pinecones). And yes, before you ask, I did end up buying the album. I own a CD copy of it at my parents’ place in Glovertown.
Amon Amarth – Twilight of the Thunder God
This one probably doesn’t come as much surprise to anyone. The band’s most popular and critically acclaimed record, Twilight of the Thunder God is remembered fondly for a reason. This album is another 11/10 for me. Every track on here is so flawless both with their songwriting capability and memorability. Every song on this album is memorable and stands apart from the others on the record with their own individual flavour and uniqueness. This was probably the first death metal record I ever full enjoyed, this or At the Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul. However, it was this album’s (and band’s) Viking themes that drew me. It was around this time (2011-2013) that I became very interested in Norse mythology and Viking history, and this record was my gateway to that. The riffs and the vocals are so powerful that nary a melodeath record has risen to accomplish what this album has. It was this record that led to me incorporating occasional themes of paganism and Norse myth in my own music when I officially started recording under the name of Mistwalker in 2013.
Darkthrone – F.O.A.D.
It was when I was in college (from 2012-2014) that I met my Kristopher Crane (from the projects Nemophilist and Acorn to Great Oak and also from the bands Impaled Upon the Mountains and Grimacing, which we formed together) who introduced me to black metal. I was aware of black metal before college but it never quite clicked with me. Once I was a bit older and felt a bit more depressed in my adult life I think that’s when I fully got it. The album that really did it for me was F.O.A.D. by Darkthrone, which Kris had introduced me to. Songs like “Canadian Metal”, “The Church of Real Metal”, and “Raised on Rock” just hit me right in the gut. To this day Darkthrone is the band that has inspired me the most as a musician, particularly in terms of style. Their mixture of black metal with old school heavy metal and crust punk (particularly their 2000’s era) and even the doom metal they’re doing these days is exactly the kind of music I want to create.
Honourable Mentions:
At the Gates – Slaughter of the Soul Baroness – Red Album The Black Dahlia Murder – Nocturnal Darkthrone – Transilvanian Hunger Diablo Swing Orchestra – The Butcher’s Ballroom Equilibrium – Sagas High on Fire – Death is this Communion The Human Abstract – Digital Veil Judas Priest – Screaming for Vengeance Kylesa – Static Tensions Mastodon – Leviathan Periphery – Periphery Slipknot – All Hope is Gone Whitechapel – A New Era of Corruption
Wow! We dropped the ball, huh? Looks like we forgot to do our monthly retrospective for every month since February 2021. Whelp, time to rectify that problem. Let’s take a look back through ancient history to the far distant past of March 2021 and see what our local scene had to offer in terms of news stories and new music!
We also released our yearly RPM retrospective podcast in which we play a track from each of the heavier albums that came out of RPM 2021. Check it out below!
Albums Archived – Farmer Hitler John – The A.D.A.M Bomb Vol. 1 – Build Me a Bomb [Grindcore / EP] – Map to Temenos – O! Sweet Guillotine [Mathcore / EP] – Oberon – Dark Warrior [Thrash Metal / EP] – Over the Top – Never a Night Alone [Skate Punk / LP] – Resurectum – Resurectum [Crust Punk / Demo] – Sarra Cenia – Road Trip [Stoner Rock / EP] – Wavering Radiant – The Polar Ritual Demos [Neofolk / Demo]
Carbonear ambient musician and horror filmmaker Kristopher Crane, best known for his work as Nemophilist, released a new horror short earlier this month. On March 2nd, 2021, the new short, entitled Lock Your Doors, was released on Crane’s YouTube channel through his filmmaking moniker of Dark Bay Films. The film was shot in a first person perspective and contains some more experimental elements that Crane’s past work has also exhibited. You can watch Lock Your Doors through our YouTube embed below.
Oops! We made a bit of a mistake. On account of incredibly busy home lives and a hectic summer filled with political upheaval and civil unrest we missed our June in Review segment. But hey, better late than never right? Of course it goes without saying that the continued civil unrest going on across the globe has been felt even in our home of Newfoundland and Labrador with everything from Black Lives Matter protests to COVID-19 anti-mask protests occurring on the streets and in front of the Confederation Building and heated discussions, debates and arguments going on across the Newfoundland sphere of social media.
Even in our own community there have been individuals who have been assaulted by the police (as evidenced by one of the biggest stories we published this month in which Kristopher Crane of Nemophilist and Impaled Upon the Mountains was brutally attacked in Montreal) while we decided to put together our first ever compilation album to raise funds to fight racism and discrimination here in our own backyard.
Read on to find out exactly what June 2020 had in store for the punk and metal community of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Crane at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal / June 8th, 2020. Photo credit: Kristopher Crane.
In the weeks following the death of George Floyd, demonstrations, protests and riots have erupted not just in the United States and Canada but across the entire world. The people are clearly sick of police brutality and are willing to stand up to it and fight it wherever it rears its ugly head. This includes the city of Montreal, Quebec which has a long history of racial profiling within its police department, the SPVM (Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal).
Protesting against the SPVM and police brutality in general began in Montreal on Sunday, May 31st, with a massive march led by the Black Lives Matter movement through the downtown area. Things turned ugly late that night when heavily armoured riot police prevented the peaceful protesters from marching along the SPVM headquarters located on St. Urbain Street. The police launched tear gas at the protesters, while up the street looters who were not associated with the peaceful protest began to cause wanton destruction on Saint-Catherine Street, including stealing tens of guitars from Steve’s Music Store (though several of these instruments were later returned and the owner said that it was worth the guitars being stolen to address the issue of racism).
The protesting continued the following Sunday on June 7th in the same area, consisting of a large demonstration of several thousand people that turned into a march. The march eventually ended near Champ de Mars metro station when police officers on bicycles (a common sight in Montreal) blockaded a nearby ramp leading to the highway and one officer pepper-sprayed an peaceful protester, leading to subsequent brutalization of everyone at the march by the riot police who had surrounded the protesters on both sides of the street. The inciting incident was captured in a photo by William Wilson (via Instagram) as you can see below.
As chaos erupted many protesters attempted to leave the downtown area but were chased and ran out by the police forces. One such protester was Kristopher Crane, also known by his musician’s alias of Forest Wanderer. Crane, who is best known for his work as Nemophilist and the his variety YouTube channel, but also for his secondary ambient project Pretty Little Flowers and as the vocalist of black metal band Impaled Upon the Mountains, was shoved to the ground by SVPM riot police, resulting in a severe concussion and whiplash that has left him with serious short term memory loss, loss of balance, loss of motor skills, and nausea in the days since. He had also been subject to the effects of tear gas which left him temporarily blinded and with slight burn marks on his face.
Crane posted a lengthy diatribe to Facebook the following day describing the incident.
WARNING: THIS WILL PROBABLY PISS YOU OFF SO IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO EVERYTHING THATS GOING ON WITH PROTESTS DON’T READ IT!!
Yesterday there was a huge protest here in Montreal, Me and my room mate couldn’t attend the beginning of it due to business related to moving into a new place. We arrived at the very end when most people had tapered off but still a lot of people in attendance. we were peacefully watching a demonstration when we decided to leave and walk towards what we thought was another demonstration. When we got there shit hit the fan, Police began firing tear gas at the protesters making it painfully obvious they were trying to hit them with the cans, we were running as fast as we could and it was one of the most terrifying moments in my life. Anyway I got a face full of tear gas, blinding me and causing me to vomit twice. I was sitting on a ledge getting water poured in my eyes and coughing when a wall of riot police started to walk towards us on the street screaming for us to leave.( I only know this because I could hear them) we were sitting in a public area trying to give me first aid with an injury that they caused. I still couldn’t see so I was trying my best to walk away and leave, If I ran I would have surely slammed into something or fallen off of something.Luckily my room mates were there to kind of guide me. Anyway I got to the bottom of the hill and started to walk across a grassy area when HEAVILY ARMED AND ARMOURED riot police began running (once again i could hear their screaming approaching rapidly). I tried to see what they were doing by slightly turning around (still blind, I don’t know what I was thinking, I was blind) I felt two hands on my shoulders and I was air born (this cop was running at full speed). I hit the ground with tremendous force landing on my back. My neck snapped backwards and slammed the back of my head into the ground, knocking me out for a few seconds. When I came to I found I couldn’t walk, Trust me I tried. I started crawling, still blind, in fear thinking I was going to be shot with rubber bullets or beaten with batons but couldn’t stay conscious. when I came to ten seconds later or so I was being held up by the same girl that poured water in my eyes moments before and my room mates saying ”you are Kristopher Crane, that is your name, Can you hear us???”.The riot cop shoved a temporarily blind person with every bit of strength he had after seeing me walk down the hill stumbling blindly and trying to do exactly what they were telling me to do. After that an ambulance was called and I was put in back. I’ve had time to think this over, and I was a little apprehensive to make this status but I think my story needs to be told. Today my neck is killing me, my head is killing me. I also am getting very confused over very basic tasks. Not only did the police blind me like cowards but they horribly injured me like cowards. What if I had hit concrete?? I would be dead right now. What if the tear gas had permanently blinded me? I could forget ever really making films or music, skateboarding, writing my cook book, cooking in general, they would have stolen everything but my life from me. I know this is happening everywhere and there are huge issues to deal with in the world right now #blacklivesmatter but like I said I just wanted to share my story. Please share this as much as you want to raise awareness that police cannot keep doing this to people.
Later in the week a video surfaced on Twitter showing Crane from behind resting on the ground held up by Erin Faith (Ratpiss, Mistwalker) alongside Greg Ravengrave (Mistwalker, Ratpiss).
Several other protesters had arrived to treat the effects of the tear gas and paramedics were called to assess his injuries at two separate instances in the hours that followed. As of the time of this writing Crane has been to the hospital and been seen by nurses and doctors to assess the severity of his injuries and he is expected to make a full recovery within the next few weeks.
Crane, who is originally from Carbonear, had been living in the United Kingdom since 2017 and had recently moved to Montreal in January of 2020.
Carbonear-based horror filmmaker and ambient / black metal musician Kristopher Crane has been releasing horror shorts and other experimental films through his YouTube channel under the name of Dark Bay Films since at least 2012. In that time he has made a number of short films parodying famous horror films such as Scream or John Carpenter’s The Thing, adding his own twisted slant to the beloved classics.
His latest take on parody is a comedy horror and mystery short entitled Unsolved Files in which Crane himself parodies the format of popular murder mystery and paranormal investigation shows such as Unsolved Mysteries and Forensic Files. The video was shot in a single not and was released to Crane’s YouTube channel on February 9th, 2020. You can watch the short through our YouTube embed below.
Adam “Miasmas” Sharr of Oxygen Chapel, Bone Alley, Nightbreed.
The spread of black metal’s infamy throughout the world of heavy metal is a story that most metalheads are no doubt familiar with. What started as a small cult movement in retaliation against the modernization and overproduction of death metal ended in front page news stories of murder, suicide and arson. The legend of the second wave of Norwegian black metal ironically catapulted the entire genre into the spotlight despite the desires of its performers to remain within the confines of the underground. With bands like Mayhem and Emperor still packing festivals and venues across the world one could even say that black metal is bigger than it has ever been at this moment in history. As a result the genre has given birth to small localized scenes that have cropped up all across the globe, from Mexico to China.
Given the genre’s oft-used lyrical themes of nature, winter and the occult it’s of no surprise that a small but burgeoning black metal scene has emerged from the frigid coastal moors of Newfoundland and Labrador. While the term “scene” may be debatable due to a lack of connection between the artists in the province, I propose that the small population of the island lessens the disconnect between these different bands and solo projects and unites them in a way that they themselves may not even realize.
To discuss the history of black metal in the island we’d have to go way back to the late 1990s’s and the 2000’s with Embers Fade, a symphonic black metal act whose music is heavily inspired by Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. Creeping towards the end of the decade into the 2010’s other bands such as Dark Era, a crust punk band who draw heavy influence from the atmospheric side of black metal, and Nightbreed, a truly brutal blackened death metal act, begin to emerge.
Dark Era performing live at The Rose and Thistle, St. John’s, NL.
But aside from these collective groups and bands there has been a rise of one man black metal on the island over the last two decades. The first instances of solo projects popping up include Domen, VORBKT, Bone Alley and Oxygen Chapel.
Domen, a project which went defunct years ago, was a one man raw black metal project with influences from the harsh noise and power electronics genres who classified his own music as DSBM. The project released several albums, EP’s, demos and other assorted material online before ceasing to release anything for years to come. Despite a prolific presence online it’s still unknown who the musician was behind this project.
Meanwhile VORBKT, an acronym which stands for Value Objectively Remains Broken Knowing Tragedy, was similarly a one man band that classified his music as DSBM. There were elements of dark ambient as well as atmospheric black metal here and there but his music was very much on the ‘raw’ side of things. Having released a veritable cornucopia of material over a relatively short period of time the project simply ceased to exist. The Bandcamp page which hosted much of VORBKT’s music was deleted and all of the material vanished from online sources. Recently a new Bandcamp page emerged with VORBKT’s material published once again, this time through a supposed record label entitled Depressive Illusions.
Bone Alley and Oxygen Chapel were the two projects formed by Nightbreed frontman Adam Sharr, also known by his stage name Miasmas. While Bone Alley released a few demos back in 2014, Oxygen Chapel has since become the primary focus for Sharr. With a brand new logo and a one album record deal with an as-of-yet unnamed American label, Oxygen Chapel is poised to become one of the bigger names in the Newfoundland one man metal scene.
Andrew Marsh of Winterhearth, Dead Inner Youth performing live at Distortion, St. John’s, NL
It was also around this time that Bonavista native Andrew Marsh would form his blackened death / thrash metal band Winterhearth alongside bassist Robbie Butler. Combining the freezing cold atmosphere of bands such as Immortal and Dissection with the fiery auditory assault of old school death metal, Winterhearth quickly gained a cult following within the local metal scene as well as attention elsewhere around the globe such as in South America.
For a few years Dark Era, Winterhearth and Nightbreed dominated the live aspect of the black metal scene in St. John’s. But it was in the intervening years of 2013 to 2015 when the seeds planted by those earlier one man projects would begin to sprout.
In 2013 the one man blackened heavy metal project Mistwalker was conceived by Glovertown native Greg Sweetapple, then a student at College of the North Atlantic in Stephenville, where he formed a bond with Carbonear native Kristopher Crane. It was Crane who introduced Sweetapple to black metal and inspired him to form Mistwalker.
Crane himself took to recording his own black metal projects beginning with Himmelen, an atmospheric and folksy take on the genre that served as a way for Crane to experiment with writing and recording music. In 2014 Crane retired the name Himmelen in favor of his new project Nemophilist. Nemophilist began in the same vein of atmospheric black metal but it quickly shed those roots in favor of a dark ambient sound. Several years later Crane would begin two additional projects entitled Acorn to Great Oak and Pretty Little Flowers. While Acorn to Great Oak, which is still active today, showcases an ugly and experimental take on atmospheric black metal, Pretty Little Flowers serves as a prettier counterpart to the dark ambient of Nemophilist.
Kristopher “Forest Wanderer” Crane and Greg Ravengrave of Impaled Upon the Mountains.
Together Crane and Sweetapple formed a variety of projects including Impaled Upon the Mountains, a two piece ‘true’ black metal band, and Grimacing, a comical band serving as a parody to the subgenre of DSBM. Sweetapple would also go on to form a number of black metal and black metal-adjacent projects such as the dark ambient project Icefog, the dungeon synth project The Dead One B.C., the drone metal project Inverted Coffins, the Elder Scrolls-themed black metal project Cult of Azura and Glacier Frost among others.
A few years prior to these events a small band named Anal Christ had also appeared on Bandcamp. While most of Anal Christ’s music was comical and novelty in nature, they had also created some truly haunting and brutal pieces of music, especially on the EP entitled Fuck You, God, which was released in 2012 and purportedly recorded in Stephenville on the west coast.
Following this a new one man band by the name of Decima Morta appeared on Bandcamp. Headed by Baie Verte native Aiden Parsons the project, while extremely lo-fi, takes lyrical inspiration from Shakespeare as well as Greek and Roman mythology, making it stand out in comparison to some of the other projects mentioned. It was at this moment in time when things truly began to get interesting.
Winterhearth suffered a few dramatic lineup changes that left Marsh debating whether the band should even continue. Members of both Nightbreed and Dark Era left the island to pursue work elsewhere on the mainland, leaving shows by both bands a sparse occurrence. Sharr, who had since formed a second black metal band named Luminance, began to divert more of his attention into his death metal and grindcore pursuits such as Moe Secretion, Nuclear Eden, Imbrued Sediments and Gastric Gurgling of God. A niche had been left unfilled and where a small but determined black metal scene existed none now remained.
Yet in 2019 Newfoundland experienced a dramatic resurgence of black metal projects. Among the first was Nocturnal Prayer, a three piece band consisting of Cancer on vocals, Murder on guitar and bass, and Nausea on drums, who have so far released two demos and have been featured in Decibel Magazine. While the true identities of this three piece remains unknown, they purportedly record their demos in ‘various tunnels, caves and forests’ around Newfoundland. There was also Artach who appeared in mid-2019, and composed of Sruthan on guitars and bass and Fiochmar on drums and vocals, have consistently been releasing new music since their formation.
Thesolo projects included Synsaer, a one man project in the vein of blackgaze and post black metal drawing influence from groups like Alcest and Amesouers. There was Ledningsmunn, another one man band who released their first single back in 2019 and are releasing their debut album on February 25th. Then there was Solitarian who released a full demo entitled Contemplations… Where None Dwell in 2019 before suddenly vanishing from Bandcamp in a similar fashion to VORBKT. There was also the project known as Three Merlins, another one man project that combined elements of black metal with death metal in an experimental fashion, and a new one man band named Aginor that has cropped up in Wild Cove, headed by an individual named Demandred, who has promised a demo due out in 2020.
Nightbreed performing live at Distortion, St. John’s, NL.
While all of these one man projects have sprung up the island has also seen the return of some of the older acts mentioned above. Dark Era returned with a single entitled “Nightscapes” in late 2019 before surprising fans in the local scene with a full length sophomore record simply named Dark Era II, which maintains the same blackened crust sound of their debut. Nightbreed also announced their return halfway through the year and have been consistently active on social media through posting videos of themselves jamming and promising a new release, either an EP or an album, sometime soon. Winterhearth has also returned with a new lineup and new music coming down the tubes, releasing their first song since 2016’s Resettlement in the form of “Charmed (By the Dead)” on a compilation album by Still Heavy Productions.
On top of that Mistwalker has also been consistently active, releasing a new EP in late 2019 and compiling an official live lineup with intentions to return to Newfoundland for live shows in the future. Impaled Upon the Mountains also posted their first evidence of being active in December of last year in the form of a jam video on YouTube. Nemophilist has also been excessively active, releasing a slew of singles through the end of 2019 and early 2020.
As it stands now, it’s evident that Newfoundland is a region that is primed for some sort of black metal revolution. While the scene may be small and consisting mostly of one man bands, all of these bands are doing their own thing. Nobody is copying another’s sound, each of them tackling the genre from a different perspective. I think that over the course of the next few years we’re going to see a lot more black metal come from Newfoundland, and given the climate we live in here on this speck of rock and stone in the North Atlantic, it’s about time.
Kristopher Crane (costumed as Michael Myers from Halloween)
Carbonear-based independent filmmaker Kristopher Crane has been making and experimenting with the horror genre probably since before 2011. However it was in that year that the Carbonearite began to ramp up his production and general-fucking-around-with of horror tropes, with such short films as The Lift and Bedimming, produced in conjunction with other independent filmmakers at the time such as Aaron Powell thanks to the film production program at College of the North Atlantic (Stephenville).
In the years since then Crane has produced a number of experimental horror shorts, such as Yggdrasil: The Hooded Figure and a fan tribute film to John Carpenter’s Halloween.
The most recent addition to Crane’s constantly growing filmography is a short film entitled Sweet Dreams, no doubt inspired by a recent viewing of Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse. The film, shot in black and white with a 7 minute runtime, depicts a man’s growing paranoia that he is not alone in his apartment. You can watch Sweet Dreams through our YouTube embed down below.
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