Walk Through fire - Bird Bands and Sekran's Gate

Birds. They are an efficient evolutionary machine, the true heirs to the dinosaurs. They feast on flesh. They crap on your head. They fucking fly through the air and laugh at you because you can't do that shit by yourself because you are just a worthless human. They know that the sky belongs to them! Lady Birdblood claims them as her spirit guides of evil. Iiiiiia!!!!!!! Iiiiiia!!!!! Squaaaak!!!!!! So why not have a Metal Night devoted to bands named after fucking birds, man???

Unfortunately, the first bird band we heard (heh) was Pelican and their very boring  first album, Australasia. This is pretentious sludge metal with the evil intentions scooped out,  making it acceptable to dudes who really couldn't give a fuck about metal anyway. It's entirely instrumental, featuring much delicate sounding arpeggiated strumming;  a dense, if somewhat polite, guitar tone; and riffs that really try hard to be heavy, but seem too airy to hold much weight . The song structures are semi-complicated, Rush-like affairs. Demon Scourge said it reminded him of Slint. Fucking hipsters!


Into the Necro Lands Part 10.1 - Human Foot

To the casual traveler, the smell of Sekran's suburbs is only just bearable. The sickening odor of the crematoriums, where the city's necromancers come to dispose of their rotting servants, fills the air with a foul haze. Everywhere there is death, from the sickly bone gates to the moaning corpses in their stables, waiting for their master's orders. In this place of suffering there is but one thoroughfare, Ra'l-Torth. From the stone wall of the castle it winds down the hill, past the houses of gatemonks and merchants, whose stark dwellings betray little of the bustling chaos below. At the port, where the clean sea air sometimes manages to banish the city's stench, the road turns west and descends to the shore. Along this stretch is the market, where supplies are traded and deals are made for

assassinations in far off lands. Merchants, whose faces are stained with the traditional corpsepaint of the Necro Tribe, stand patiently under their drab canvas tents. Salted meats and potable water are stacked alongside casks of loose bones, exotic feathers and the region's famous orcite beads. Sailors have long shunned the strange town and are known to stay aboard ship save to unload their cargo. If supplies are needed, they always travel in groups, for many among their number have disappeared into the labyrinth of dirt paths and foreboding huts throughout the years. Just past the bustle of the city's markets, but before the land meets the ocean, the outer suburbs skulk across the hillside. Here are found the worst of the worst, a monastery of perversion that few who enter ever leave. The economic fuel of this wasteland is a drug known as teffiv, manufactured from a kind of coral found only in the shallow waters nearby. When refined and combined with the dried scales of the lapin, a powerful psychotropic drug is formed that causes the users brain to function at many times its normal ability, but the onset of addiction is inevitably followed by death, usually within a year. Most of the denizens of this cursed place are those unfortunates who are living out their last year, working at one of the many refineries that dot Sekran's lower hill and performing unspeakable acts upon any that might come under their hands during the night.

We finally got the night off the right way when we put on NWOBHM progenitors Raven's sterling 2010 thrashterpiece, Walk Through Fire. What really amazing about this album is how it is just the same as their early 80' classics, and just as exciting as those early classics, and in some cases exceeds those albums, especially on the production, which is modern, updated, and in your fucking face like a big hairy arm pit. Raven piss all over Anvil, who they resemble the most in spirit and relative IQ. There is not a bad song or embarrassing moment on this album. This was my personal winner of the night, though the others digress.


Into the Necro Lands Part  10.2 - Theme of Loudness Part II

Bloodmace and I, moving under cover of the day, when the necromancer's powers were not as keen, had made it this far without detection. By not using the main road, we hoped to avoid any

confrontation with soldiers, who were undoubtedly looking for us by now. All around us, the high pitched rattle of coral being ground into dust could be heard. Low, black buildings were scattered in with clusters of makeshift tents. There were few pedestrians this time of day, but those who did show themselves were quickly repelled by a flash of our weapons. The desolation soon gave way to the markets, where we purchased some bones and beads to look more like Necrites. It was almost dusk when we made our way through the quiet district of severe little gray and black houses that stood before the city gates. Silently, we approached the towering edifice that stood before us and the castle. A small sign be the roadside pointed in the direction of a small entrance to the right of the massive aperture where two humanoid wolves stood guard. The larger one holds up his hand to stop us, "What is your business here?" I reply, "We have an assassination contract to be witnessed in the great hall."

Wordlessly he waves us through. Inside the vestibule, more guards search through our belongings before handing us each a piece of paper, "You must present this to any member of the security forces upon request." We both nod at the desk officer and pass through the carven door into the great courtyard of Sekran where necromancers, dignitaries of every land and the great throng of city folk who lived within the safety of this fortified complex mingled in the gathering darkness. The business day was about to begin and we walked through a row of vendors with steamed buns and fresh fruit, past an area where old men drank their dusk cocktails and argued over the daily papers, right to the door of the great hall. Beyond this worn wooden gate was the economic heart of the city, where teffiv and other agricultural futures were traded. This was also the place assassins and their clients came to have their agreement ratified and made legal. This was the first place we were to conceal one of the sigils. We pushed our way through the crowd into the long hall. To our right was the marketplace. Screens ticked off figures as the early traders began their cacophonous dealings. We hurried down the large

corridor until we spotted the sign for the clerk. Stepping out of the din, we enter an almost empty waiting room where several rows of benches stand between us and a tall counter and a breathtaking sectaurian is typing on several keyboards with her six arms. Aside from the extra appendages and translucent wings, her figure was very human-looking and covered with a shiny armor of exoskeleton. I noticed that Bloodmace was also surprised to see one from such a far-off place. We approached and with a little smile, the clerk said, "What precinct please?" I froze for a moment, forgetting that they would ask me where the killing was supposed to take place, "Ar...Arvid," I stutter."I haven't seen you around here before," the smile on her face turning suddenly mischievous, "Where is your office?" Bloodmace pipes up, pounding his chest, "I am me, alone. My office is here," pointing to his heart.

The sectaur before us chuckles as she indicates the waiting room with one of her delicate hands, "The sergeant will see you in a moment." We turn and walk back to one of the long benches. Several cloaked figures are loitering around the room, some standing, some seated. At the end of one of one row, seated far from any of the cloaked figures, were two Samurian businessmen, one saurian and one human. They looked nervously about, as if they were afraid of being seen. It was, after all, not unheard of for those who came to order a death to be targeted themselves after being seen here. An electronic bell softly tolled and a chilak emerged from the inner offices. His many stubby legs propeled his stout, transparent body across the carpet as tiny eyes peered out from the rigid flaps of bumpy skin that covered his head. "Kratath?" He says loudly in his strange, pinched voice. The nervous Samurians hurry after the creeping civil servant, followed by two of the cloaked necromancers. I am inadvertently staring at the Sectaurian behind the desk, half daydreaming, when an idea hits me. I turn to Bloodmace, "Give me a sheet of that paper."

Then we heard the Swedish power metal godz Falconer and their 2002 album, Chapters of a Vale Forlorn.  This is powerful metal in full He-Man mode, with Nordic Viking vocals work that steals your woman and pillages your land with a clean yodel. The riffs are mighty and strong. The production is nice and shiny. The drums and bass and keyboards are well...they are there to paddle the longboat to Valhalla in a workmanlike manner. These Vikings smell clean and fresh. Amon Amarth.....they are not.

Lastly was the novelty album. Hatebeak is not a serious band, or a good band, but they are a band that releases product. But they do have the advantage of having an actual avian, a goddamn African grey parrot called Waldo, as lead vocalist. Thier 2005 split EP with Canius, a band who just so happens to have a pitbull as lead vocalist, is good for....ahem.... a hoot. It's a good for one listen at a party with your inebriated friends......and nothing more.



Words of the Elders
The secrets of the Necro Lands are prodigious and not learnt without forfeit of this mortal coil. Here in the realm of death, the currency is souls and the law is strength. Necro Baby and Iron James sit upon the throne of skulls here, their icy hands moving the pieces on this checkerboard of nights and days as the hundred gods watch with bated breath. Zagrieb, carry us in your pouch of might!, Lorko, fill the air with song! Let this incense carry our prayers beyond the realm of gods and find purchase with inscrutable fate! 

Until next time, loathsome lurkers, 




Horns