BAND OF THE DAY: HOUR OF 13

“In the circle here I stand

Naked in wait on the pentagram

With sacred blade self-mutilate

To my own wounds I masturbate

In a sweat and semen soaked

Surrounded haze by incense smoke”

 (HOUR OF 13, “Call to Satan”)

 Who said you needed to be one über-evil BM band to spit forth the vilest abominations possible? The beauty of HOUR OF 13, purveyors of ‘true occult doom’ as they‘re saying, is that not only this US duo have learnt and properly digested all their chops from the darkest corners of the NWOBHM movement – think PAGAN ALTAR or WITCHFINDER GENERAL riding with the devil on a moonless night – but they’ve also penned the kind of blasphemous lyrics even Glen Benton would find offensive. Blame it on multi-instrumentist Chad Davis, ex-DEMONCY, new drummer of FATHER BEFOULED and hundreds more or less short-lived black or death bands/projects. And if you’ve recently feel under the spell of THE DEVIL’S BLOOD for example, you’d be well-advised to enter their cult.

 After one critically-acclaimed eponymous debut two years ago, a well publicized fall-out with their former label and a short period of line-up instability, the original duo, rounded on vocals by Philip Swanson from the criminally-underrated and now sadly defunct UPWARDS OF ENDTIME, HOUR OF 13 are about to release both ‘The Ritualist’, their second full-lenght on German label Eyes Like Snow, and their first seven inches on Svart records from Finland, the later including a SAINT VITUS cover (“Darkness”) on its B-side. 

Check em out at www.myspace.com/hourof13doom