Pestilength/Necronauta | Aesporeh | 2023

Spanish Black/Doom Metal

https://pestilength.bandcamp.com/album/aesporeh

Houston fiends! Get down to @whiteswanlive right now for the #HoustonMetalSwapMeet! Treasure hunt for underground gems. I just met up with @goat_throne_records, who has a great table featuring his releases (I bought three!). Our people are assembling; heed the call. 🤘

My loot:

Black Oath - To Below & Beyond

Pestilength - Basom Gryphos

Cardiac Arrest - Haven for the Insance

Wulfskol/Hexella Split

2x Judas Iscariot CDs

This new Pestilength record is awesome!

PESTILENGTH Stream New "Solar Clorex" Album, Out Now

Emerging from the fertile Spanish extreme music scene, corrosive Death Metal duo PESTILENGTH have been a distinctive presence since they formed in 2018. The band’s third opus, “Solar Clorex,” is a subterranean listening experience of deep, dark and devastating grandeur. The album is now officially available and can be streamed across all digital platforms. Discover it below: Mastermind M.…

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Pestilength - Baleful Profusion (2024)

Listen/purchase: Solar Clorex by Pestilength

Pestilength - Solar Clorex

Sounds to me like we have some doomy brutal death metal on our hands, but with unexpected turns and eerie dissonant guitar work.

Pestilength — Basom Gryphos (Nuclear Winter)

Basom Gryphos by PESTILENGTH

Basque death metal band Pestilength has a name expertly crafted for our times: a pestilence that has been in circulation for way too long? You can check both those boxes — and the association with the “death” in death metal underscores the alarming aptness of the semiotics. The affective vibe and the cultural ethos articulated on Basom Gryphos are thick, complicated stuff to work out. There’s a related issue of tone: for this listener, there’s something close to obscene, something that feels vaguely vulgar and grody, that happens when one says “Pestilength.” It’s hard to identify what about the term produces the repellant resonance, which adds to the uncertain representational stakes. Whatever it is, that resonance is in tune with the band’s music: thick, pummeling death metal of a high degree of intensity and a pervading sense of gravid sternness. Combine two song titles (“Exertion” and “Vexed”) from Basom Gryphos and you get a fitting mission statement for the record: vexed exertion.

A lot of contemporary death metal takes shortcuts to vex listeners to the point of gross-out. The throat-fart vocals of slam, the cartoonishly violent cover art and explicit yuck of song titles, the attempts to mimic peristalsis and digestive action in atmospherics and riffs: those are long-standing tactics in the genre, and they can produce some entertainingly unpleasant results. Pestilength doesn’t make forays along any of those avenues. The band prefers to confront the listener with the sheer force of its riffs, using them as blunt instruments to reduce various fleshy forms (ears, frontal lobes, bellies) to jelly. The results can be surprisingly musical; see the second half of “Tephra Codex.” There’s nothing especially complex going on, but the riff is infinitely repeatable, and the small rhythmic changes made by the drummer-entity identified only as N. introduce an interesting mutability to the long passage of thumping aggressivity. 

Indeed, the best songs on Basom Gryphos keep things simple, and the supple muscle of the riffs’ bottom end often has a viscid, organic quality that’s quite effective. “Entglant Subh” might be the most guileless display of that, a song that just wants to stomp and clench. The song’s title includes the Catalan word for England — but beyond that, this reviewer can’t comment on themes, or meaning. In spite of the dearth of representational content, and the lack of fancy flourishes and conceptual baggage, “Entglant Subh” is a hugely satisfying song. And it’s likely that Pestilength’s music is good in direct proportion to that dearth and that lack. You focus on the songs, the rhythmic wallops and the riffs. In death metal’s current conjuncture — with all the high-brow, speculative narrative, and all the cynical “brutality” turned up to 11 — it’s sort of refreshing to hear a band that wants you to groove on the riffs, and on the volume. Given the outsized exertion these guys put into their playing, their intensity is more than enough to vex. 

Jonathan Shaw

Some tapes came in today, from left to right: Gargoylium - Mon Royaume Ekthelion - Under a Mournful Moon Fief - IV Veiled - In Blinding Presence Baxaxaxa - Hellfire demo Golden Dawn - Rehearsal 1994 Pestilength - Demo MMXIX Abominablood - Abomination Continues Eternal Order - Strength Through Isolation Sepulcher - Panoptic Horror Reaper - Ravenous Storm of Piss

Review: Pestilength – Basom Gryphos (Nuclear Winter/Sentient Ruin)

My review of Pestilength's second album, Basom Gryphos, written for Heavy Music HQ:

Basom Gryphos is Pestilength’s second studio album after releasing Eilatik in 2020. It can be considered as a successful effort that has been effective to complete the world of the debut album.

In some ways it may seem that Basom Gryphos does not bring much with it, and is devoid of elements that make it a special work. But the manifestation of the album’s vibrant spirit makes sense when you listen to it several times. Basom Gryphos doesn’t put much on the table, but the album’s success is in their Incantation/Immolation-themed death/doom metal combination, with strong touches of black metal. It creates a dark, horrific and evil scene, reigning all over its ominous spirit. It’s an effort that ultimately allows Pestilength to score the points needed for an effective work.

Rating: 3/5

Albums of the Week! Here are the albums that got the most track plays out of me. I went on a Thulcandra deep dive, covering the entire discography. All of it is excellent, but the three listed here are standouts. The new Metallica resonates well with me, and the A Perfect Circle album was a great dose of nostalgia. Finally, I am once again pleading with you to field test that Wülfskol/Hexella split!

1. Thulcandra - Ascension Lost

2. Thulcandra - Hail The Abyss

3. Metallica - 72 Seasons

4. Mgla - Exercises in Futility

5. Pestilength - Basom Gryphos

6. A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step

7. Cardiac Arrest - Haven For The Insane

8. Wülfskol/Hexella - Burn With Us

9. Thulcandra - A Dying Wish

What did you listen to this week?

Pestilength | Eilatik | 2020

Spanish Black/Death Metal

https://pestilength.bandcamp.com/

PESTILENGTH Stream Upcoming Album "Solar Clorex" Ahead of Release

One and a half weeks before the official release of PESTILENGTH’s third album, “Solar Clorex“, the Basque Country corrosive Death Metal duo presents the full album stream. Delve into an impeccable sequence of tense, cryptic songs-of-decay where grotesque vocals combust, choke and reignite; barbed riffs – each with a sting in the tail – creep, crawl and shapeshift into electrifying violence;…

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March 11, 2022 Arkaik – Labyrinth Of Hungry Ghosts (The Artisan Era) Chromancy – Shadows In Atlantis (Fighter Records) E-L-R – Vexier (Prophecy Productions) Haunted Shores – Void (3Dot Recordings) The Human Tornado – Love Is Demode (Rockshots Records) Ghost - Impera - (Loma Vista Recordings/Spinefarm) In Aphelion – Moribund (Edged Circle Productions) KISS – Off The Soundboard: Live In Virginia Beach (UMe) Konvent – Call Down The Sun (Napalm Records) Messa – Close (Svart Recordings) New Horizon – Gate Of The Gods (Frontiers Music SRL) Oddland – Vermillion (Uprising Records) Pestilength – Basom Gryphos (Nuclear Winter Records & Sentient Ruin Laboratories) Pillaging Villagers – Pillaging Villagers (Self-Released) Purple Dawn – Peace & Doom Sessions Vol. II (Electric Valley Records) Rust N’ Rage – One For The Road (Frontiers Music SRL) Shaman’s Harvest – Rebelator (Mascot Records) Threads Of Fate – The Cold Embrace Of The Light (Layered Reality Productions) Vanir – Sagas (Mighty Music) Shoutout to some good labels: @Century Media Records @NuclearBlastVEVO @Nuclear Blast Records @Ripple Music @Metal Assault Records @Unique Leader Records @Atlantic Records @InsideOutMusicTV @Creator-Destructor Records @Napalm Records @SpinefarmRec @SpinefarmUS @Pelagic Records @MetalvilleTV @Mighty Music @Frontiers Music srl @The Svart Records Channel @Dying Victims Productions @Mascot Label Group @Metal Blade Records @HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS RECORDS @RidingEasy Records @Rise Above Records @riserecords @Triple B Records @UNFD @threeonegrecords @Sumerian Records @Atomic Fire Records @Earache Records @Season of Mist @Loma Vista Recordings @Upstate Records New York 💻 Omar Cordy (https://www.instagram.com/ojcpics​​) 🎤 Scott Sommer (https://ift.tt/eNJoFXd) 🎵 Fahad Syed (https://www.instagram.com/fahanzi​​). Gear we use: (These are affiliate links and Ghost Cult makes a small profit from a sale) Set up A: Sony A7 III - https://amzn.to/3tQm422 Tamron 17-28 - https://amzn.to/3ePrlTd Tamron 28-75 - https://amzn.to/3fqCjgY Desview Mavo-P5 Monitor- https://amzn.to/33LlTub Manfrotto Befree Travel Tripod - https://amzn.to/3hxbL0e Set up B: Canon 80D - https://amzn.to/3ye8WqV Sigma MC-11 - https://amzn.to/3brZdU2 Sigma 18-35 - https://amzn.to/3tLlEd7 Tokina 11-16 - https://amzn.to/3bty9Uk Feelworld T7 Monitor - https://amzn.to/2Re9hta Audio: Sound Devices MixPre-3 - https://amzn.to/3tKkJd2 Gearlux XLR Mic Cable - 3 Pack - https://amzn.to/3w3zN6Y Deity D3 Microphone - https://amzn.to/3tRa6W2 Fifine Usb Mic - https://amzn.to/3w8JHEG Lighting: YONGNUO YN600L - https://amzn.to/2QkNrn5 YONGNUO YN300 Air - https://amzn.to/2QjN5gu Dfuse Softbox - https://amzn.to/3uQq4AN Aputure MC - https://amzn.to/3oirFgx NanLite PavoTube II 6C - http://bit.ly/NanLitePavoTubeII Lightstands - https://amzn.to/3uSBl3x 5 in 1 Reflector - https://amzn.to/33KHdjo And our iconic Rope Light https://amzn.to/3ycdmyz For the full list of Ghost Cult gear: http://bit.ly/OJCPicsKit by Ghost Cult Magazine

Listen/purchase: Solar Clorex by Pestilength