Bandcamp Friday Picks [May 2023]

Since today will be the last Bandcamp Friday until August, try to help out some independent artists by buying either an album or some merch. Here are some recent releases that are eroding my already compromised hearing.

Episode 103: Paul Masvidal

Here is the 103rd episode of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Paul Masvidal of Cynic, Onward With Love, and Aeon Spoke.

[cover photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva]

Listen on Apple Podcasts (IOS)

Listen on Stitcher Radio (Android/IOS)

Mixtape 78 - Jason Göbel (Part Two)

Here is the 78th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring the second part of an interview with Jason Göbel of Cynic, Portal, and Gordian Knot.

Mixtape 77 - Jason Göbel (Part One)

Here is the 77th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring the first part of an interview with Jason Göbel of Cynic, Portal, and Gordian Knot.

Mixtape 61 - Darsombra (Part 2)

Here is the 61st installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring part two of an interview with Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton of Darsombra.

Mixtape 60 - Darsombra (Part 1)

Here is the 60th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring part one of an interview with Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton of Darsombra.

Bandcamp Picks - Burial In The Sky, Dischordia, Hatred Reigns, Pestilent Reign

Pennsylvania's Burial In The Sky join Cynic and Inanimate Existence in my "yoga metal" circle. Like kombucha brewed with psilocybin, Creato et Hominus infuses the band's cerebral and technical approach with psychedelia in the form of moog keyboards, saxophone, and mandolin parts. Not since Dan Swanö in his prime has death metal drawn so deeply or boldy from the well of Seventies' prog. [$7.99]



As the ranks of bands emulating Immolation and Deathspell Omega proliferated, Oklahoma's Dischordia spent almost a decade refining their own style of progressive death metal. Their two song Binge/Purge EP takes the listener on a 20 minute voyage through convoluted riffs and spastic mathcore, resulting in a car crash of technical mastery and punishing dissonance. Symphonies of motion sickness. [$5]



There's a bright light on the death metal horizon in the form of Hatred Reigns. Like fellow up-and-comers Abnormality and Hate Storm Annihilation, their three song Realm: I - AFFLICTION draws from the blast-centric work of Morbid Angel, Suffocation and Cryptopsy without being overly beholden to it. Give them the production their brutality deserves and they'll be unstoppable. [€7]



I doubt anyone loves Misery Index as much as Stuttgart's Pestilent Reign - not even this nerd. While Pyres never quite rises to furious speed of their heroes, it does add an agreeable blackened sheen to the band's fretburning deathgrind (as well as a less agreeable Alex Jones clip). Heirs to nose-bleedery. [€7]