hard rock

This one was sent to me by Yvo, a friend of mine. That might be a bit strange since I know Yvo from the world of noise and dark ambient while Jerkbait is a straight forwarded hard rock band. Then again, Yvo knows a thing or two about rock 'n roll fun and that is exactly what Jerkbait delivers.

The band was formed in 2013 in Stadskanaal, The Netherlands. Since then, they have been writing songs, playing gigs and looking forward to record their first full length. That full length is named 'Paralyzed', but that is the last thing you want to be when you listen to Jerkbait.

The album opens with 'Predator and Prey' which immediately comes up with the infectious riffs and the heavy rocking tempo. Old hard rock and stoner rock bands and eighties thrash metal bands like Metallica, Rainbow, Ramones, Kyuss... must have been great sources of inspiration for these youngsters. 'No This Time Too' follows its predecessor's example while '72 Days' seems to nudge towards the power metal scene.

The album mostly makes me curious about the future direction of the band. Throughout the album, the Metallica influences seem to become bigger, especially in the vocals on 'Because Of You' and the massive rocker 'Commin' Get Ya' - my favorite track. This album is good, interesting and rocks pretty nicely but perhaps there are a few things to work on. One, and perhaps the most important are the vocals which in my opinion could use a bit more force and roughness.

Second, every band has one or a few solidly identifying songs. Nirvana had 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', Pantera has 'Broken', Green Day had 'Basket Case'. The eight songs on 'Paralyzed' are strong, well written and varied enough to be valuable live tunes, but I miss that one identifying song. We'll see if that one appears in the future, but for now, I'll enjoy these stompers regularly, especially the pounding title track. Check it out, this rocks!!!


​Serge. 

dark ambient / drone / ambient / experimental 

Sombre Soniks

The Sombre Soniks label returns with edition fourteen of their bi-annual compilation series, simply named 'Dark Ambient'. Usually, for these compilations, the acts within Sombre Soniks stable create new and exclusive tracks, based around one certain theme. This time, the label asked the project to create a soundtrack for an imaginary horror movie. In that, pretty much all of these acts have succeeded very well. 'Dark Ambient 14' is loaded with dark soundscapes, haunting field recordings and eerie atmospheres. When you purchase 'Dark Ambient Vol. 14' for £1 or more and you will receive an exclusive bonus mini-compilation as well.

Front Sonore opens the whole thing with an old school dark ambient track that reminds of acts like Raison D'Etre or Sephiroth. Over the haunting soundscapes, a sirene slowly lures you into the music. Next up is Cousin Silas and his long winded, gloomy track 'Quatermass Has A Late Breakfast'. This 30 minute track is perfectly suited as soundtrack for a shortfilm, perhaps one about the aftermath of war, or something like that.

Øystein Jørgensen -delivered a minimal track, called 'The Event'. Again, this is perfect soundtrack material, this time for something post apocalyptic perhaps. Scott Lawlor's 'Dark Autumn Dreams' is another huge track, forty minutes this time. Druhá Smrt imagined something in a medieval or ancient European setting while Uzbazur seems to dwell in abandoned factories or caves where strange creatures lurk. 

I'm not really planning a track by track review for this album but the quality and the level of variation on these first six make me realize something. It's been seven years since Sombre Soniks released the first edition of these compilations and many of the acts appearing on number 14 have been on previous editions too. I have been on them with my own project, Misantronics. My exclusive track 'Usher's Crypt' is on this compilation too.

But what I noticed throughout the years and throughout the compilations, is how most of these acts have grown. Druhá Smrt, Taphephobia,  sp3ct3rs, Grist, Babalith,... all of them are becoming indistinguishable from their predecessors like Svartsinn, Raison D'Etre, Lustmord.... The fact that Svartsinn is on this compilation, tells a great deal about the quality of the whole thing, not only this compilation but the entire Sombre Soniks label.  

So of course I will recommend the hell out of this album, not because I'm on it, but because this is a perfect overview of the current state of dark ambient and its related genres. I'm proud to be on this one and I'm proud to be a part of this amazing stable of artists. So go ahead, purchase this album now. It's definitely worth it since there are literally hours of music to be found. Now if you'll excuses me, I'm going to play it again and dwell in the haunted worlds of Sombre Soniks...


Serge

dark ambient / drone

I've seen the dark ambient scene evolve a lot in the past few years. I have seen and heard most of the groundbreaking acts on labels like Cold Meat Industry and Cyclic Law from the very beginning. Ever since I discovered the genre, I've been fascinated by it and it has been a constant throughout all my musical endeavors. So I'm extremely glad to see that this style is still alive and kicking. Ever more so, in recent years, it has gotten even more interesting with acts like CHVE, Barst, Empusae and this Swiss act, Sum Of R. The ritualist approach takes the upper hand again, which is a good thing. 

Sum Of R was formed by Reto Mäder in 2008. Fabio Costa joined the project shortly after. During live performances, they use guitars, effects, drums, synths, samples and drones to create a dark yet hypnotic atmosphere. On this album, their third full-length they do exactly the same, influenced by everything between dark ambient, noise, post rock/metal, electronic and psychedelic music. The result is a fascinating listening experience, an event for body and mind.

The majority of the tracks on this album are slowly pulsating soundscapes and drones while others seem to borrow elements from modern classical music and soundtracks. Personally, I'm most fond of the ones with percussion, like 'Like & Dust'. My favorite track is 'Overgrown', which after the intro, immediately drags the listener down into a whirlpool of impending drones and soundscapes. 

The level of variation on this album is perfect. Every track seems to have its own identity, its own set of different elements. Yet, the whole thing is coherent and unmistakably Sum Of R. 'Cobalt Power' for instance, reminds me a lot of the current wave of dark jazz bands, like Dale Cooper Quartet or Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore. On other occasions, Sunn O))) isn't far off. But in all, this is simply a brilliant piece of dark music, one I will recommend to every dark soul out there.


​Serge

metal / hard rock

"Oh ow", I thought when I laid my eyes on this album for the first time. What I saw was a drawing of Scarlet Aura in front of some of the greatest of all time. Ozzy, Doro, Lita, Rob. Sylvester Stallone is there too. "Oh ow", I thought, " a symphonic metal cover album. Do I really need that?"

So I had my doubts for a while, mainly because I'm just not fond of cover albums. Nothing can touch the originals and sometimes bands make very bad choices for covers. For Scarlet Aura, this is not just a cover album, but a tribute to the great ones they have grown up with. 

Let's introduce the band first, for those not familiar with them. Scarlet Aura is a melodic hard rock band from Romania, led by vocalist Aura. They released two albums and a few singles, shared stages with Tarja,Gotthard, Europe, Accept and many others. This year, they decided to release this cover album, looking back at the music they grew up with. In all aspects, Scarlet Aura is a "rock chick fronted band", founded and fronted by Aura Danciulescu.

The album opens with Europe's 'The Final Countdown', which in my opinion is not a very good move. But I guess that's something personal, I just can't stand that song anymore. I have to say that Scarlet Aura's version isn't bad. It rocks, that's for sure but I'm not convinced yet. Next up is 'Breaking The Law' by Judas Priest, another song that you just can't equate. Here the band does a pretty good job, but I still feel that it can get better.

And it does. 'Don't Talk To Strangers' by the late great Dio is a first highlight, a very well executed and emotional version. A little later, there is another strong adaptation of Iron Maiden's 'Wasted Love', which makes me feel that ballads are Scarlet Aura's strong point. On the powerful version of hard rock's greatest ballad, 'If I Close My Eyes Forever' by Lita and Ozzy, Scarlet Aura does an excellent job, but here too, you just can't topple the original.

However, perhaps 'Zombie' by the Cranberries sounds a lot better in a hard rock setting than in the somewhat whiney version of the original. Surprisingly, this is one of the best covers on this whole album. 'Eye Of The Tiger' also gained a lot of power and 'We're Not Gonna Take It' comes close to the party-metal feel of Twister Sister itself. The album closes with 'All We Are' by Doro and all of a sudden I miss Doro. Again, well executed but nothing beats Doro.

In all, this is an enjoyable album with some of the greatest rock songs ever, brought by a well attuned band that takes things seriously. The only thing is, it makes me either long for the original or curious about Scarlet Aura's own songs. I will look into those soon. Is 'Memories' a recommended album? Well, sure, why not? It's well done. It contains some of your favorites and it's some bloody potent hard rock. Try it out, who knows.

Serge

industrial rock / metal

This is a nice return into my attention span. I've known Kaos Crew since their 2006 album 'Devour' but my temporary absence from the metal scene made me lose track of them. I didn't even know that they were still active, but I'm glad they are and I'm really enjoying this new album.

Influenced by the likes of Pain, Rammstein and Clawfinger, Finnish industrial metal act Kaos Krew came to life in 2004. With 'Returno', the band delivers its fourth album, faithfully following the path they have chosen. That path contains heaps of old school heavy metal riffs and a plethora of electronics. 

With that being said, in a way it feels like Kaos Krew have been toning down on the electronics. Of course, you can still find the typical crossover sound in songs like opener 'End My Pride' but 'Man Down' and 'Dying To Survive' sound like good old fashioned headbanging tunes, which is not a bad thing, obviously. 'When Soldiers Cry' goes heavier on the synths, adding some kind of gothic atmosphere to the whole thing. Perhaps it's safe to say that this is my favorite track as it comes quite close to what Samael does.

Another band that often comes to mind, is Die Krupps. I guess that is another compliment for Kaos Krew. And let's not forget about Oomph. It's clear that over the years, Kaos Krew have mastered their art, something they gladly showcase in a stomper like 'Crippled By Belief'. Fans of industrial rock and metal, fans of crossover goodness can trust Kaos Krew to deliver the goods, the riffs and the groove. So yeah, this thing comes recommended. 


Serge

doom / black metal

Swallow the Sun and Trees of Eternity guitarist Juha Raivio, Amorphis vocalist Tomi Joutsen, and former HIM drummer Gas Lipstick joined forces to create this deeply emotional doom metal album. The album is based on the lyrics and poems of the late Aleah Starbridge, a member of Trees Of Eternity and life partner of Juha Raivio. Juha comments: "What we recorded was a raw moment in time honouring the memory, lyrics, and poems of Aleah Starbridge with all its pain, beauty and darkness. There are no stars left upon the bridge to light the way anymore, but the music will always be a dim light, even in the darkest of the night."

With that information in mind, I gave the album an extra good listen. I have to admit that I was a bit reserved at first. After all, in my opinion, regardless of who's in the band, they're only as good as their latest effort. When this album came in and I saw these names, I tried hard to keep away from the "supergroup" idea. I don't like that term. Yet, I do like this album and I'm sure that many people will agree with me.

Although 'No Starts Upon The Bridge' is mainly a doom metal album, you can discover influences from black metal, melodic death metal and progressive rock. True, the music is mainly slow but it can sting, hurt and gnaw, just like some of your depressive black metal favorites. On the other hand, you can also find some heartbreaking pieces of music. The vocals carry the same level of variation, alternating between clean, grunts and screams.

Then, there are also the poems, accompagnied by gloomy piano. You can almost feel the pain, the descent into a mental and psychologics abyss. You can feel it throughout the entire album. In that aspect, this album is a very creative, intelligent and well executed representation of a mourning process. It's a masterfully crafted tribute to a lost love one and a high quality modern day doom metal album.

If you want names to compare with, you can possibly add the previously mentioned ones, plus November's Doom, Anathema, Paradise Lost, Fen and so on. Fans of melodic doom will absolutely adore this crushing masterpiece. 'Raven's Song' and the soul ripping 'The Maze' are probably my favorite tracks on this album but, as often, this album comes highly recommended to all you doomers out there. This is talent.


​Serge

progressive / post metal

black metal / doom

electronic / coldwave

heavy metal versions of eighties hits

progressive / psychedelic rock

noise rock / industrial

noise rock / sludge

stoner rock / psychedelic rock

death metal

alternative rock

alternative rock / dream pop

indie rock / alternative

death metal

death metal

death metal / black metal

ambient

alternative rock / grunge / stoner rock

heavy metal

facebook

doom / drone / black metal

post rock / progressive rock

black metal

With eight tracks – Intro, Rise of the Immortals, Draut Gaddur, Isildur’s Bane, The Ban of Wisdom, Proud & Feeble Men, Dark Skies of Black Times and Rage in the Night –, Gamardh is a thoroughly majestic, sensorial and splendorous album, a little discreet at the height of its artistic primacy, although its primary order is driven by old school black metal. 

With powerful guitar lines, and an emotional sonorous overtone that aggrandizes the most furious principles of the genre, Khazad-Dum is driven by a wrathful display of traditional elements, highlighted by rapid and exceedingly fast melodies, reminiscent of what conventional BM has at its best; nonetheless, the group incorporates monumental symphonic elements that are perfectly correlated with the most brutal passages of the album. 

Despite the fact that you will not find in Garmadh absolutely anything new, the album has great melodies, and an interesting degree of originality, that merges to its music some elements of hard rock, traditional heavy metal and power metal as well, although the general layer of the music seems to be always near the furious ordeal of raw black metal. With a fewer exceptions, the songs on the album are short to average in length, and the experimental elements that consecrated to the group’s music a more vintage sound defies a precise definition, since they evidently play a very peculiar, almost personal subgenre of metal, sometimes closely inspired to hard and southern rock.

I haven’t found Garmadh to be a monumental or phenomenal album, but definitely, this record can be defined as impressively good. An exceedingly curious and pleasant work, that deserves extreme attention and study, given the audacious nature of their sublime and unpredictable creativity, that is as close and as distant to traditional black metal as a band can be at the same time, Garmadh is an amazing album, highly recommended to raw black metal enthusiasts, although they will be certainly impressed by the unprecedented level of intricate authenticity present on Khazad-Dum’s radically expressive style, that intensely dilacerates, and strongly maintains intact all the traditional precepts of the genre, at the same time.         


Wagner

black metal

A great album released on September 15 by Chilean atmospheric black metal act Lascar, Saudade is a sensible and soft work of brave, serious and overwhelmingly artistic serenity, with a dense texture and a solidary smoothness, upon which a world of unearthing sensibility creates a tense, yet hopeful and ardent splendor, where all human souls converge altogether to explore a tender layer of singular possibilities. With four tracks – Tender Glow, Thin Air, Uneven Alignment and Bereavement –, Lascar catches the human spirit at the sideline of its ambivalent inferior and dreadful cosmogonies, seeking a symmetric standard of beauty and precision, where a different universe creates a profuse and absolute knowledge of freedom and comprehension, that flows graciously through the music, and completes the satisfying afflictions of the spirit, in an infinite arena of sonorous perspicacity and cautious expansion.

Although Lascar’s style can be defined as standard atmospheric black metal, their sound is thoroughly profound and quite effective, consolidating vivacious harmonies of antagonistic beauty, adorned by precisely passionate melodies, arranged in a horizon of patiently colorful sensibilities, that transforms the general melancholic context upon which the overall structure of the songs are inserted, in a permanent quest of hopeful sensibility and sincere contemplation. 

And yet, this is probably the quality that better defines Lascar’s music: its free-flowing, almost ritualistic contemplative element, that purposefully circulates in  the between the harmonies, deliberately playing with the introspective and mostly fundamental perceptions of the spirit, highlighting an harmonious monument of rhythmic liberty that reenergizes the plural peripheral nature of a style that seeks the elevating skyline of a devotional rule inspired by an absolute artistic standard, that has as its main effect the sublime ordination of a sensitive realm embodied by the mordacious melodies meticulously displayed by the creative ambitions of Lascar.   

Although on the other hand Saudade appears to be a too much ordinary atmospheric black metal record, this perception is only superficial. Beyond the surface, Lascar dilapidates a new conflagration of elements whose final result is a deeply expansive and thinly impressionistic layer of somber majesty, objectified by a lucid sense of serenity and calmness, realistically and efficiently transmitted to the listener by the extemporal sound of an intense wave of pure and intermittent loneliness, created at the epicenter of a fantastic zone of permanent fantasy, where the music keeps coming to your soul, even when the record is over.                     

​
Wagner

black metal / experimental

A fantastic, intense and majestic album released on September 8 by Italian post black metal duo Falaise, well-known by their melodic, introspective and artistic style of DSBM, My Endless Immensity has a way more experimental overtone than its predecessor, heavily flirting with progressive, indie and post rock, and showcasing a virtuous and creative audacity, that certainly will highlight Falaise tremendously by their fearless and boundless originality. With ten tracks – Nightgaze, The Embrace Of Water, You Towards Me, Crimson Clouds, Dreariness, The Abyss, Sweltering City, Pristine Universe, A Veil Of Stars and Les Ruches Malades (Amesoeurs Cover) – My Endless Immensity has a monumental art concept, that is severely structured over dense melodies, conjugated at the epicenter of a divine collision of harmonious sapience and benevolent poetry, that on the other hand, maintains a primordial black metal intensity at the nucleus of its everlasting twilight of infinite sensibility.

Merging and sometimes fusing the frontier of the many genres they flirt with at their endless and brave experimental sonorous horizon, Falaise searches for the perfect melodic density, that invariably reaches an abstract level of beauty, eventually colliding with their technical proficiency, where each and every aspect of their music compliments one another with astounding perfection, in a poetic delightful enchantment that creates marvelous worlds of sentimental serenity, that elevates the spirit towards a monumental plausibility that gracefully heals all the wounded majesties in the personal overview of our ordinary world perspectives. 

With a monumental sensibility that evidently aggrandizes introspective sonorous principles and transforms them into a marvelous quest for serenity, the music of Falaise on My Endless Immensity certainly reaches a whole new level of artistic and sentimental amusement, structured over a greatly pungent diagram of splendorous melodies, filled by curiously electrifying and transcendental elements, that feels like a new universe is being created all around you. 

A fundamental album, filled with overwhelming beauty, surreal enchantment and gloriously peaceful introspection, My Endless Immensity is a rewardingly pure, efficient and original album, that showcases not only the fantastic musical evolution of the promising Italian duo, but also reveals their commitment to a constantly evolving musical groundwork, that has no limits, sees no boundaries, and doesn’t care about genre. Their creativity has no boundaries, and this record in particular, besides the fact that is a major state of the art work, reasserts this as a mordacious and absolute fact.             


Wagner