On this auspicious, equinoctial episode of Terminus, your hosts battle through Sunday-night braindeath to bring you.... the show, featuring three bands that gravitate towards slower tempos without being "doom," and one band with lots of punk beats and songs about owls.

The Black Metal Guy leads off with that one, the self-titled debut from Vermont's Strix Askesis. This is stompy, jangly pagan BM shot through with a surprising range of non-metal influences, to the point it may not even be metal anymore -- in other words, it's American outlaw rock. Oh, and since he totally forgot to mention it on the show, TBMG (who writes these descriptions) would like to add that the greatest of those non-metal influences has gotta be Sonic Youth, esp. songs like "Stereo Sanctity" and "Cross The Breeze." If you dig wild, earthy, life-affirming music you'll love this -- and you won't have heard anything quite like it.

Next, in accordance with our Party-mandated quota for Eastern-bloc black metal, TDMG brings us Russia's Malist. This one is hard to pin down. On the one hand, it's polished and melodic. On the other hand, it's brooding and burly. If you've been following our long-running conversation / debate about the "Mgla effect" in modern BM, and the overall turn toward more immediately catchy riffing, this is a crucial one.

TDMG continues his run with a great new find, also from Eastern Europe -- the Polish death metal band Incertus. You could say Incertus play "old school death metal," but from an alternate timeline in 1985. This one is better heard than described, but suffice to say it hits on both levels -- crushing / guttural and cryptic / melodic. Incertus has a wonderfully imaginative vision of what death metal could still be, encapsulated by their improbable choice of a cover track....

Finally, TBMG decides it's time we had a talk - a talk about the new Ruins of Beverast, that is. Since you're all familiar with the monumental works of Alexander von Meilenwald, we take a freer approach with this one. It's less a sample-based review, more a rolling conversation where the new record leads us to thoughts on TRoB as a whole, and vice versa. So pour yourself a Scotch or doppelbock, light your ancestral tobacco pipe, and get ready to pensively stroke your beard / goatee / chiseled jawline, sometimes starting up from your richly-upholstered armchair to shout your disagreement, other times turned away toward the rain-spattered window, lost in eerily familiar dreams of megaliths in snow....

00:00 - Introductory bullshitting / rundown of bands and labels

0:05:18 - Strix Askesis - Strix Askesis (Independent)

0:57:22 - Malist - Karst Relict (Northern Silence Productions)

1:36:11 - Interlude - Dark Tranquility - "Unfurled by Dawn," fr. A Moonclad Reflection (Slaughter Records, 1992). This EP is an ancient artifact, but it's included on this comp, and you can buy other early DT directly from the band.

1:43:28 - Incertus - Predestination to Damnation (Defense Records)

2:17:10 - The Ruins of Beverast - The Thule Grimoires (Ván Records)

2:52:08 - Outro - The Ruins of Beverast - "50 Forts Along the Rhine," fr. Rain Upon The Impure (Ván Records, 2006)

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