“Everything is backwards, everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, psychiatrists destroy minds, scientists destroy truth, major media destroys information, religions destroy spirituality and governments destroy freedom” 


On ‘Inverted World’, Somalgia present a psychedelic interpretation of a dystopian reality set in a world not unlike our own.  The album covers an eclectic range of influences & genres from black metal, trip-hop and folk to progressive & psychedelic rock.  

Lyrically, ‘Inverted World’ follows a young man’s journey through an awakening process in which he struggles to come to terms with the nature of reality, falls down endless conspiracy rabbit holes, battles addiction, consumerism & technology overload and ultimately understands what it means to be an outsider in a backwards world.

Tom Collins & Ryan Stevenson (Zopp, Rulum) are the living men that created the album.  Tom states ‘Somalgia was initially a solo project of mine that I’d been working on since 2018, Ryan came into the fold in late 2020 when I asked him to mix the album.  He ended up taking 6 months to completely rework the album into what you hear today.’

Ryan adds ‘tom and i both share a love for many different artists and find the idea of genre boring today, so we naturally threw all sorts into the final mix from the beginning of the process.  This meant that I had plenty of artistic freedom when it came to producing and helping with the song writing; by adding mellotrons, 808 beats, guitar solos and much more, we ended up crafting an album that sounds truly post-genre!'

Somalgia is:
Tom Collins – Electric and acoustic guitars, vocals, lyrics, synths.

Ryan Stevenson – Keyboards, guitars, vocals, drums.

Session vocals performed by: Kat Elizabeth

Recorded in late 2019/early 2020 At Zopp Studios
Mixed by Ryan Stevenson
Mastered by Kerberos in ‘The Crypt’
Layout Design by Neil Mccathie

Recalcitrant

God Is Dead

One year on from the critically-acclaimed debut album, Fly in the Trap, Spider God return with another epic slice of their homegrown brand of hyper-melodic black metal.

Part one of a two-part concept album, The Killing Room expands the true crime themes of their first record to tell the story of Faustus, an ex-band member who went missing under mysterious circumstances after becoming embroiled in a deadly online game known as 'Possess the Devil'. Legend has it that the album's lyrics were penned by Faustus himself, just before he disappeared, and the band have released this record in the hope that someone will be able to decipher his last words and unravel the mystery of his fate.

Through these eight blistering tracks, Spider God push their sound to new heights, weaving elements of goth rock, hardcore, and prog into the mix, and throwing curveballs of clean guitar and multi-phase suites along the way.

Who is Roku San? What is KilSim? How do you beat 'Possess the Devil'? All these questions will be explored in The Killing Room, and if you can survive until the second instalment, you may very well find an answer...

This is True Crime Black Metal.

This is Spider God.

The Killing Room

六さん (roku san)

蜘蛛神 (s.p.i.d.e.r.g.o.d.)

入場 (enter)

LAMPIÃO REI is the second studio album by the Brazilian progressive rock / avant-garde metal band Papangu.

Recorded by 3x Latin Grammy-winning engineer Fernando Sanches and mixed by Berlin-based producer Richard Behrens (Elder, Kadavar), Lampião Rei continues Papangu's series of albums on the Cangaço movement that began with Holoceno, the band's critically acclaimed 2021 debut.

While Holoceno is a Faustian allegory of environmental destruction, Lampião Rei instead presents an epic, biographical narrative of magical realism, recounting the trials and tribulations of Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, a.k.a. Lampião (1898 – 1938), the legendary bandit leader of the Brazilian Northeast, from his birth until his rise as the most fearful man in Brazil. The rest of the story—Lampião's downfall and the infamous beheading of his whole crew in 1938—will be continued in a future recording.

The idea to retell Lampião's life has been latent since the band's conception back in 2012—with "Oferenda no Alguidar" being built around the band's very first riff—, but Papangu decided to keep it on the back burner for a good reason. The post-2013 Brazilian zeitgeist, marked by the far right's half-successful attempt to push the country into self-destruction, led the band to focus on Holoceno's apocalyptic tale instead.

Lampião Rei is a bittersweet story, filled with hope, religious syncretism, and malice, and the João Pessoa ensemble intentionally avoids repeating Holoceno's formula in its execution. While there's plenty of heaviness in this sophomore release—with "Boitatá" sounding like a Goetic grimoire growled out loud in the back of a moving garbage truck—, here one can also hear baião, MPB, synth-wizard proggery, maracatu, and shamelessly optimistic chord progressions.

Now functioning as a sextet, with improv-trained brothers Rodolfo and Pedro steering the songs into jazz-rock territory, and new drummer Vitor—having worked both as a forró percussionist and as a beat-keeper in death metal bands—grounding everything down with brute force and class, Papangu showcases their second album with aplomb. Unlike the half-studio, half-bedroom recording process of Holoceno, most of Lampião Rei was recorded live in the studio as first takes.

The result is Papangu's own brand of cinematic, metallic zeuhl taken to a rolling boil, showing not only the high-octane intensity that brought them comparisons to King Crimson and Magma, but also proudly displaying their Brazilian heritage, with influences ranging from Hermeto Pascoal and Edu Lobo to Sepultura.

Special guests include Marian Sarine (Deafkids), João Kombi (Test), Andrea P. (Ad Nauseam), Philippe Bussonnet (Magma, One Shot), and Paulo Ró (Jaguaribe Carne).

Repose Records

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