Last week I listened to three bands that were really good. I finally got around to listening to the last batch of Terrorfest bands (even though I still haven’t come up with money for tickets yet) and really liked the ungoogleable Un. Bandcamp alerts served up the other two – Zuriaake and Wild Hunt.

Un

I’d never heard of Un before, and it took me a while to track them down. Terrorfest has a page for each band in the lineup, but there was no information about Un, and no link to their own page. I finally tracked them down on Bandcamp, where I was only able to recognize the band from other search results by their album cover. Anyhow, it was worth the trouble to track them down. I really like their album The Tomb of All Things.

Zuriaake

Bandcamp alerted me that Zuriaake had released new music. I didn’t know who they were, but when I checked it out I remembered why I had followed them. Chinese black metal. Yes, please.

They have the same regal elegance as Wolves in the Throne Room, and like Wolves, eschew Nordic worship for terroir. They are strongly influenced by traditional poetry and folk music, and even come from the city where I first met my daughter. So many layers of goodness. The “new music” was a reissue of their 2015 album Gu Yan in English-translation. Whatever. I’m just glad to have rediscovered them.

Wild Hunt

Wild Hunt was featured on the Bandcamp blog last week, where they talked about their album Afterdream of the Reveler. I listened. I liked.