The Dead One B.C.

July was a busy and turbulent month for sure. Check out all the things that happened in our local scene for the month of July 2022!

Biggest Stories
– Anvil to Play The Rockhouse in September
– Cancer Bats and Comeback Kid to Perform at The Rockhouse in October
– Exciter Featured in The Newfoundland Herald
– Grenadier to Perform at Messe des Morts X
– Most Likely Forever to be Digitally Distributed by Earache Records
– Sons of an Eastern Moon to be Digitally Distributed by Earache Records
– Wyte Room Recordings Release Live Video A Selection from Bowring ’22

New Albums Released
– Grenadier – Trumpets Blare in Blazing Glory
– Nemophilist – Never Morning Wore to Evening, But Some Heart Did Break

New EPs Released
– Fucked to Death – Goth Bitches
– Gamma Knife – Spiraling Out of Control
– Sex Hole – Down with Music! Viva la Noise!
– Tunnel Vision – 2022

New Singles Released
– Big Space – “Improv 22-3”
– Laxidaisy – “A Ballad of Ships and Wolves”
– Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid Jammers – “Supercalifragilisticdruginducedpsychosis”

Album Reviews
– Cult of Azura – Cult of Azura [by James Titford]

Metal Maniacs
– Adam Sharr of Grenadier, Nocturnal Prayer
– Greg Ravengrave of Mistwalker, Ratpiss
– Jordon Walsh of Grenadier, Goreforge

Merch
– Grenadier Reveal New Long Sleeves and T-Shirts
– Vertebraeker Reveal New T-Shirts

This month’s episode of the podcast involves us delving deep into dungeon synth from Newfoundland and Labrador. You can find it on Bandcamp and on YouTube!

Albums Archived
– The Dead One B.C. – From Hell [EP / Dungeon Synth]
– Grey Fawn – Harbinger of Plight [Single / Doom Metal]

~ Akhenaten

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.