Last we heard about questionable Swedish black metallers Watain was when their 2019 show in Singapore was canceled. But now, everyone’s favorite Scandinavian Aghori are back with a new album, and this one’s got a real goth-ass title!
Watain’s new album will be called, wait for it, The Agony and Ecstasy of Watain. Why a black metal band whose sonic brand is unremitting darkness would name their record something this Byronic and clove-cigarette-smelling, I don’t know, but here we are. Hopefully, the Ecstasy part is about how Watain went to play a show that turned out to be a rave, and then they all took Molly, and realized that all humans are connected by an invisible river of light, and then they stood in a circle and frotted their pig’s-blood-covered wangs together.
Anyway, The Agony and Infected Mushroom Phase of Watain comes out April 29th from Nuclear Blast, and is available for preorder. With it comes the first single from the record, titled “The Howling,” which is unfortunately not about the 1981 Joe Dante werewolf movie by that name. It’s what you’d expect from a Watain song — angry black metal, a little eerie, good for church arson. The video features footage of that, actually, with burning structures intercut between performance footage shots.
Here’s what vocalist Erik Danielsson has to say about the new track:
“‘The Howling’ refers to the wordless voice of the wild, wailing eerily through the ages, urging us to leave our safe spaces and explore the dark recesses of the great Abyss both within and without. To see it, to learn from it, to know it. “
JAZZY. Let’s listen, and then check out the full tracklisting and cover art below:
1. Ecstasies In Night Infinite
2. The Howling
3. Serimosa
4. Black Cunt
5. Leper’s Grace
6. Not Sun Nor Man Nor God
7. Before The Cataclysm
8. We Remain
9. Funeral Winter
10. Septentrion
