Viva La Vinyl
Blackshape - Blackshape
I found out about this band earlier in the year from one of the podcast related Facebook Groups I’m in that talks about metal. Someone posted a video Blackshape made for their song that came out earlier in the year, “ITIIITIATIIHYLIHYL,” which stands for the chorus(?) of only lyrics in the song, as well as the entire album, “If this is it / If this is all there is / I hope you live / I hope you live.”
At some point after this album released in 2021, they sold out of the initial print run of 250 vinyl copies. But a couple months ago on a Bandcamp Friday, they repressed 150 more on this “Translucent Merlot w/Smoke.” I think there are still some available, if you wanna get in on this.
This is a heavy-hitter of cathartic, instrumental post-rock, along the lines of Pelican and Russian Circles. This self-titled album is presented as pretty much one piece of music — no real tracks, per se. And except for that one they made a video for, the songs are all titled 1 through 9 in Roman numerals.
I don’t really have much more to say about this other than it’s good and I like it... I’m probably going to only get one more of these out before the end of the year, and it will be explained why once it write it.
-bcp