Aye, it’s time for last part of the VIDEO OV THE DAY!!! inputs. It’s been a blast and now it’s over, sad but true. The last feature is, as can be seen, Ram’s latest video for “Flame of the Tyrants”. A salute to the old days of Judas Priest, leather and some good ol’ masculinity!

Back in the glory days, just before most of today’s Death Metal enthusiasts were born, Iceland had Death Metal. We still have it, but it peaked in early nineteenninetysomething. Everyone listened to it! Well, most young males, and some girls. A couple of Iceland’s Death Metal bands even managed to get a video out there. I’m sure most of you have know Sororicide which did a video for “The Entity”‘s title-track. I’ve never found that online, but it was always great when you saw that video in Bylmingur!

So, the video today is In Memoriam’s video for “Trúleysi”, which was for a long time my favorite Icelandic Death Metal song. It was professionally done and directed by Reynir Lyngdal who later went on to direct the movie “Okkar eigin Osló” which has gotten very good remarks.

If you are interested in appearing in the printed issue that’s due out in four months time send a mail to currents AT currents-online.com.  In the meantime click this link and visit a blast from the dark past of Currents with the June, 2010 issue that features interviews with the Swedish grandmasters WATAIN, the evil ones of SORCERY and the manufacturers of devil deals in SHIRTS AND DESTROY. Short and sweet.

To celebrate 25 years since the release of the most influential grindcore album ever made, “Scum” has been remastered especially for this release from the original tapes with Full Dynamic Range (FDR), allowing the music’s nuances to shine through and giving the whole album a more ferocious and dynamic sound than ever before, and enabling the listener to immerse in the full audio chaos like never before.

Original NAPALM DEATH guitarist and founding member MICK HARRIS states: “It sounds wicked – that record still holds up today and I’m proud I was part of it.”

The re-issue will be released both on a limited edition digipak-CD as well as the four different vinyl versions you can view above, so if you are feeling nostalgic and want to relive the many “20 seconds or less” madness’ “Scum” is infamous for now is the chance! Do it here or here!

Not always the first one hearing about things, the introduction came through the diabolical Dutch duo we only know as Urfaust. I heard they were doing a split with some guy calling himself King Dude. The name sounded like a guest-character on a sitcom or perhaps even a Mexican wrestler. When it’s like that you know you have to check it out. It’s on repeat now. Albums must be had!

So, again we go through HIStory, for King Dude is the name of a man and one man alone, who’s motto is “love is the law, love under will” and has “pizza time” tattooed on his stomach. I can relate to both. There’s always time for love and there’s always time for pizza, even though the hours in the day are sometimes fewer than one would like them to be. Still, not all of Reykjavik’s pizza places have been conquered because, to quote the man himself “I believe love is the most important thing, but your will is more important that love.”

PRESS THIS!

This started in a land far away so it’s time to reel the line back in and start over. New & Icelandic. Heathen & bastard. Back when things were small, not big. Before huge festivals replaced practice-space that could barely contain the three people that made up the band. Things change, people change but what ends when the symbols shatter? What ends?

PRESS THIS!

It’s somehow fitting to have “Ancient Aliens” on in the background while listening to Sigh’s new album. One borders on the insane and Sci-Fi while the other ignores all borders and is just straight on Sigh-Fi.

Sigh have, since the creation, put people on the edge of their seats. On “Scorn Defeat”, the band’s first album, we saw the bones. Two years later, on “Infidel Art”, there was a bit of meat on the bones and the roller coaster ride began for real. Album after album layers were added and now we are caught in a Woodstockian Black Metal vortex where cocaine cowboys in old westerns run rampant in the digital age.

What does that all mean? It means you skip the first four levels and go straight to “L’excommunication à Minuit”. Return to the beginning after finishing the song, digest the album in it’s entirety. Enter level five again a bit later and progress on. 2011 had it’s highlight, the beginning of “L’excommuncation…” will be the highlight of 2012.

A lot of people throw the term “music for experienced listeners” around like it’s Casual Friday at work and “it ain’t no thang!” without realizing that… …”In Somniphobia” is an album for experienced listeners and Sigh is a band for level 5 music nerds. It’s as much a David Lynch TV-show as it is a Michael Mann flick. It’s all you ever wanted it to be but at the same time it’s the thing that will shatter your dreams.

Mondays aren’t always good days. In fact, for the most part they pretty much suck. They draw you back into the world you spent all weekend trying to get away from and into the routine. Gone are the joys of the notime and the unclock.

Just because you don’t like Mondays it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything with them. Mondays are the first lump of clay we are given and here, today, we have a new week long feature which is “The Video Ov The Day”. Each day this week videos that are brand new and wonderful to the eyes or old and sentimental will be posted. One video for each day, from today to Friday, when we are finally able to dive headfirst into the deepest abysses of our enjoyment.

Today’s video is a brand new one, only seen a few times by these very eyes of mine, by A Whisper In The Noise, who return this year with a blissful and lush new album entitled “To Forget”. The Minneapolis-based group formed in 2002 by West Thordson, who grew up on a large patch of farmland in the rural Minnesota town of Hanska. As an adult, Thordson moved into the abandoned elementary school he attended as a boy, where he composed in the music room in which he had played as a child, wandering the empty halls at night.

PRESS THIS!

The public was outraged! Articles were written, protests were held and the nation boycotted Ríkið this weekend.* We now face a second major financial crisis.** Nobody understood why they had banned the wine. After all, they had not mentioned the taste, the percentage or the ingredients when listing reasons why it couldn’t be sold. However, after some intense, but discreet, investigation Currents has discovered why Motörhead Shiraz can’t be sold here…

It’s because Lemmy is God. We all know it, we’ve said it enough times, and in a country with a state church as powerful as our church is there can only be one god. That’s the reason we can’t have any Motörhead red wine for communion!

Here you can find some local coverage of the protest:
http://www.visir.is/rokkarar-heimtudu-haettulegt-raudvin-/article/2012120219806

*This is not true, can Icelanders survive without alcohol?
** This is also not true, we still have four more years.

Out of the grave emerges this American ‘zine, perhaps the only shot we will see from this soldier of God.
One of the selling points of this publication, or more specifically, what made me have to get my hands on a copy, is the fact that the editor is a man of God. A bible reader. A christian.
Should it make the ‘zine any better? No, I don’t think it should make it any better but perhaps it makes it a more interesting read. What’s more interesting than reading how the opposition interrogates our own? That is, should we choose to let down our shields and embrace some of the conspiracy theories out there. Religious convictions, whatever kind they may be off, don’t make good ‘zines, it takes a lot more. CftG, thank Old Nick himself, has what it takes.

In the editorial Aaron, the editor, stresses the fact that this isn’t just any ol’ fanzine, this is a ‘zine that touches the ground unlike the others out there. “If you want to read about what color vinyl was released and what members were on this or that demo or 7-inch, give this rag wit someone with a soul and get on with your existence” he shouts at the readers and it’s on! We are head first in the inner works, the deeper realms of a shitload of today’s Black-, Death- and Doom-heads. Astral projections are on a 2 for 1 special today.
However, for him to say that just because one is not neck-deep in spirituality one has no soul is a bit harsh. Don’t you think? We, and this ‘zine is included, are constantly floating in a lake of fire where materialism is more priced than anything, where “How much on eBAY?!?!” is a common question, where it’s not enough to put out just one version of a release, where occult jewelry is most of the time just empty bling, kind of like patches. “Does this inverted cross make me look fat?” is a question I’m sure at least two people have thought to themselves today. I know, Aaron did say he wasn’t about that, but it’s more about the soul than the materialism, you dig? Christ can’t hog the soul. He just can’t.

It might make for an interesting evening if one was to interview the editor himself, a bit of wine, some cheese, a few guns, perhaps even Christicide’s upcoming album? A few of the questions I would ask, when not stuffing my face full of cheese would be:

1. Why he feels this connection with Black Metal, being of the faith that he is?
2. If the connection is only towards the bands of the more occult nature?
3. If he felt any connections towards bands like Deicide, for example, which are a bit all over the place in their Satanic shouting, but at the same time bomb-threat anti-christian?
4. If the feeling he feels when he is listening to Black Metal is similar to the feeling he gets when he attends church (if he does) or prays?
5. If he has tried other kinds of Metal, or music in general, to reach the same spiritual high?

The ‘zine itself is a goldmine, the interviews are for the most part great (it’s impossible to get a full house here, it just is), and the illustrations are effing hot! Seriously! Okay, so there are no photos of the individuals featured here or any band logos that cover half of the page. Instead we have Black Magick ikons that we are able to loose ourselves in for hours. The questions are genuine and go deeper into the spiritual side than most fanzines out there. I would therefore recommend you to search online in despair for a vendor that still carries it as it’s sold out pretty much everywhere.