REAPER'S DIGEST: Sunday Scaries

The fact that you're reading this right now means that I've successfully kept Salvo running for two whole months. That doesn't sound like much, but in fairness, throughout the last month I've also spoken on two panels, reported a feature for In These Times, flown to London, spent two weeks at the Wellcome Gallery and British Library doing research for my next book, sent off the proposal for said book to my publisher (!), nearly finished edits on my second book, done a book event at London's biggest lefty bookshop, gotten tattooed a whole bunch (which put my hands out of commission for a few days) and published three Salvo features.

I'm amazed that I haven't fucked this off yet, at the very least! And there are no plans to do so, either—this has been so much fun, and the response has been so gratifying, that I reckon Salvo will be around for a good long while (so tell yer friends to subscribe!).

There have been a lot of neat snippets of metal news this month, too, including the wildly exciting revelation that Thou has released a new album. Umbilical is the Louisiana apocalyptic doom outfit's sixth full-length, but their 13th overall release since 2018's Magus. Anyone who's followed Thou for more than five minutes knows how dizzyingly prolific they are, even with their members scattered across the country, and Umbilical is yet another triumphant entry into their supersized catalogue.

It's not exactly new, but the reissue of Corrupted's 1999 EP, Dios Injustos, is still pretty exciting if you were bummed out about the sound quality on the original. Japan's reclusive experimental doom lords are always worth a listen, whether they're revisiting the past or releasing brand-new material, like 2024's pensive Felicific Algiorithm/Mushikeras.

I also really like the utterly miserable new EP from Canadian death/doom downers Balkan, Not All Prisons Have Bars, and was excited to hear a new track off German antifascist black metallers Uprising's upcoming new LP, III. The new joint is due out July 19th, and features Panopticon's Austin Lunn on drums (!). Listen to their new anticapitalist screed, "Eternal Mantra," here while you wait.

A bunch of other bands released new records in May, too, including Gatecreeper's surprisingly groovy Dark Superstition, Diva Karr's furiously cathartic Hardly Still Walking, Not Yet Flying, Pallbearer's expansive Mind Burns Alive, and Tzompantli's pummeling Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force. In case you missed it, Hekseblad dropped their latest slab of fantasy-inspired grimdark black metal, Kaer Morhen, in April, and raw black metal princess Lust Hag unleashed a self-titled LP; meanwhile, Civerous blessed us with their lumbering 20 Buck Sin debut, Maze Envy, all the way back in March.

Finnish freak-a-leeks Oranssi Pazuzu released a new single, too—even by their standards, "Muuntautuja" is real weird!

So is this new tune from Les Chants Du Hasard, the extremely French, black metal-adjacent "extreme opera" project that I love deeply in spite of my lifelong aversion to orchestral frippery. "Parmi les Poussières" translates to "Among the Dust," which is admittedly not what I expected.

I also completely forgot about Nile for like, the past decade, but they've got a new album coming out in August and judging by the track they've posted on Bandcamp, "Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes," it's probably gonna bang (and in a world where sex pest Egyptologist discourse can consume Twitter for days on end, it's nice to see these unproblematic South Carolina boys still at it).

That's only scraping the surface, of course. There's lots more out there, like this instrumental bluegrass metal experiment called Appalachian Anarchy that you can definitely listen to, if you want (or you can just listen to Kentucky for the millionth time instead). Brazilian war metal gods Goatpenis dropped a new album, too, if you'd prefer to take your Monday in a very different direction.

This past month, Salvo published interviews with Finnish death punks Unearthly Rites, Inter Arma's rock'n'roll-obsessed drummer and songwriter T.J. Childers, Swedish labor history and burly doom metal aficionados Horndal, and anti-imperialist slam prodigies Torture. I've got some great stuff planned for June, including interviews with Tzompantli and Lust Hag—stay tuned for more!

xoxo
Kim