dark ambient

Last year Alessio Antoni surprised us with his awesome dark ambient debut The Substance of Perception (Cyclic Law). Less than twelve months later he is back with another pitch black dark ambient attack. Inspired by ten paintings NERATERRÆ conveys the reflected emotions of the artworks into murky drone landscapes. Each track (like on the debut album) got also a musical contribution from an artist from the scene.

The first track, The Last Abjurer (feat. Phelios) is inspired by Zdzislaw Beksinski’s AA72 and blows us immediately into a dark mysterious world filled with deep spooky drones. This breath taking piece opens the surrealistic dark ambient world of NERATERRÆ’s Scenes From The Sublime. Alessio Antoni chases with this album the symbolism of paintings by Dali, Bosch, Beksinski and many more artists. He succeeds by far to capture the beauty of darkness and the enigmatic content of the painters works. 

Scenes From The Sublime shows a  spooky and dystopian world created with arcane soundscapes and effects pushing the dark ambient genre further into dour and oneiric atmospheres. The contributions and ideas by Alphaxone, Dödsmaskin, Leila Abdul-Rauf, Mount Shrine, Phelios, Phragments, Shrine, Xerxes The Dark and the ritual vocals of George Zafiriadis from Martyria and Yann Hagimont from Cober Ord bulldoze this album up to a possible classic dark ambient album. 

Drenched in the sweat of dazzling artworks, this unearthly music projects a vantablack atmosphere. Scenes From The Sublime is a dark ambient masterpiece where a beam of light has no chance of survival. Without being flippant, this is a symbolic album of the genre.

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Patsker

dark ambient

The haunting sounds of ∆ø∆ (DØD) have a long history. Attila Iváncsik is the Hungarian bedroom artist behind ∆ø∆. He started to create dark clinical sounds under the name Prosektor in 2009 with some very interesting CDr and digital releases (Mental Illness and Mors Omnia Solvit). Parallel with ∆ø∆ the Budapest based artist puts his creativity in Twilight Of Emptiness, an on nature inspired ambient project with a full upcoming release  in 2020.

We have been following  Attila Iváncsik from the beginning of his musical career. With the four track EP Lost Souls Of The River he amazes us with spooky dark ambient structures. The tracks contain deep dark vibes spawn from eerie drones and soundscapes. ∆ø∆ produces dark cavernous tunes with a ritual edge. The music has depth and traps the listener in a cinematic atmosphere where doom and death are near. With a concept story about the beast, Lost Souls Of The River can be interpreted in many ways.

The threatening grim drones growl like a pack of sleeping wolves and are drenched in mysterious sounds. We are overwhelmed by the irresistible darkness this release withholds. ∆ø∆ finished Lost Souls Of The River in detail, adding samples and macabre effects to strengthen the obscurity on this awesome dark ambient release. ∆ø∆ already announced that the sequel Allegory Of Death is soon to be released. We are ready for some more dark sounds from Hungary. Lost Souls Of The River is available on digital format and limited edition tape on the artist’s Bandcamp page. 

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Patsker

dark ambient

The third release of  Jinthra captured the personal mythopoetic  background of this dark/ritual ambient artist. Jinthra is the solo project of Jindřich Spilka who is also active with other underground names like Druhá Smrt and A Most Accursed. During the darkest days of winter, between Samhain 2019 and Imbolc 2020 (a pagan cleansing feast during the first two days of February), Jindřich Spilka performed his sound  manifestation and recorded his solemn ceremony titled Wotanist Affair.

The four growling tracks are based on a wall of distorted and slow guitars spreading a ritual swarthiness filled with a deep cohesion of thoughts. Mythical voices and screams awaken an energetic wave of darkness from the unconscious of the artist. The soundscapes add an eerie tinge to the result of the revealed constructions. Jindra’s DIY rite feels like a transforming communication between several dimensions of the inner self. 

Track titles like Garma (warmth in Hindi), Notschrei (cry for help in German), Odinvokation and Ragnarok were chosen to introduce the meaning of the deep sounding and flesh cutting atmosphere. Jindřich Spilka lives in the shade of the vast Czech forests, not only receiving its inspiration but also perspires the call of nature with the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, Guido von List and Peryt Shou.

Wotanist Affair provokes as a deep listening session but the moment you start to understand the communication and the hidden emotions, your thoughts will be chopped into pieces and prepared for a new afflatus. Don’t say we didn’t warn you for this mind blowing sound art.

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Patsker

dark ambient

Eighth Tower Records

Our first contact with the Tehran based electronic artist was with his appearance on the outstanding compilation Anthology of Persian Experimental Music. In the slipstream of two other Iranian dark ambient projects Xerxes The Dark and Alphaxone, Reza Solatipour put himself in the international dark ambient spotlights with his first full release called The Gate.

Darkness surrounded us from the first second we tuned into this album. The grim soundscapes are etched in deep mystical layers transmitting spiritual echoes from the long history of Persia. Reza Solatipour knows how to hold the tension in the varied tracks. The drones whisper like sharp grains of sand originated from the long forgotten temples of Persia and scratching the human soul with  secretive sound structures. Lustmord was the first name that came to our mind to compare Reza Solatipour’s compositions.  

Producing music made a powerful comeback in Iran with a generation of young composers (in several genres) reconnecting with the period before the Revolution and the Iranian diaspora. Although the creativity of Iranian musicians has reached a new area, everything still happens in a grizzled and doubtful underground zone. 

The dark ambient fans will love this quality album containing dreamy expressions and arcane ideas from a darker kind of world. We are impressed by this excellent production that was released on several formats in November 2019. Hopefully Reza Solatipour has more darkness in his mind for much haunting compositions in the future. The more underground can a recording like this be?

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Patsker

dark rock

Nothing new under those vast Scandinavian skies – yes! Nothing boring in the wide open spaces – yes! Nocturnalia are a good example that a mix of Rainbow, Deep Purple, the 69 Eyes combined with a singer who clearly likes Bruce Dickinson never gets boring. For we have heard those things so often before we can clearly identify the roots – always a great thing for every fan(atic) as he can display his knowledge. However, there is something else to that mix that lies beneath the obvious and that is some good and clever songwriting because we must remember – copying is one thing but taking lessons from idols is another. Nocturnalia definitely follow the second line and we can take singer Linus Ekermo as an example here: He knows his Bruce, he knows his Dio but he never dares to simply copy them, he adds little singular characteristics once in a while, for example in “Winter Hymn” when his (nearly) spoken word is a great atmospheric moment - “Frost be the sign of this lost ending year /  Darkness embrace me for winter draws near” words and phrases heard before but combined with a sound reminiscent of the wind of uilleann pipes and a second (at the beginning nearly inaudible) vocal line we are still drawn to it and keep on spinning “III Winter”. 

hard rock / classic rock

Wooden Earth (look at that band name – you already see the green smoke rising in the desert) are to release their new track “Fangs” on December 13th. The Dallas-based duo consisting of guitarist Devin Moreno and drummer/vocalist Griffin Thomas will release their debut full length next year and are currently touring their ….. off. No new witches’ brew in their mix of two similar genres, but their play with dynamics is definitely worth lending your ear if you like Red Fang’s ferociousness, QOTSA’s pop appeal and some scruffy vocals to accompany all of that. They throw in a riff that is really genre-like but their dynamics draws you in and the small kicks from the side in form of a sharp noisy lick keep you going just as much as the 60s style psychedelic organ in the background which keeps the atmosphere light and tight. Here you go, Stoner fans, you might have another band to follow! What a name anyway!

metalcore

My media player sometimes plays a trick on me and doesn’t enlist the tracks in the right order but reverses them, so that the last track is played first. It did that when I started listening to Moonreich’s recent EP Wormgod, and thus the first thing I heard was “Broken” and the first vocals I heard were “If you want control without any pain / How long will you suffer? / How long will you reign?” My mind racing, where had I, what did they, whom had they….  and then memory retrieved the wanted information – it’s a cover of a Depeche Mode-song! No, nothing worrisome about that cover but well, the rest is solid work. A lot of grindy-metalcore, blastbeats, solid screaming gutturals, some quick and harsh turns, a few moments reminiscent of Slipknot (supposedly a major influence) and some posty-swirling guitar loops. A solid Metalcore band doing some solid Post-Metal songs but being unable to hide their roots. A good band to start your summer festival day with, but well …if it wasn’t for that Depeche Mode-cover!

dub doom

Ever wondered what it would sound like if Godflesh emphasized the metal side a bit more and a bit dirtier? Less sterile and less dubby? With a bit less verve and some more doomy gloom? Then you might find yourself drawn to Blackwood, an electro-doom-metal-project headed by Italian artist and composer Eraldo Bernocchi who – via Subsound Records has just released his new EP “Of Flies” with the help of vocalist Emilia Moncayo and a lot of samples, for example the urgent screams “Conductor we have a problem! Press emergency!” taken from a YouTube-video filmed a few years ago, when a man ran around in an American subway screaming these words all the time. The songs are like a descent into the hell of the human psyche, one does not want to listen because of the grittiness of the songs but it it somehow impossible to stop because there might be another even more sensational sound or sample or scream just around the corner of this dirty wall of sound. And just before the finger hits the button he calms it down again and then surrounds the ears with some soothing parts and ethereal moments. But the dirt is always just one step away. A great introduction into a genre some people might never have imagined. Or never wanted to imagine. 

dark ambient / edm / house

“Always on my mind”. Elvis. His late years. A classic. Always recognizable. Always? No, not as in always always, because as Ghostboy shows with his version, starting out like a desert slo-mo-acoustic guitar version then turning into slow ambient song, even a song we have all heard a trillion times can be hard to recognize even though he sticks to the original lyrics. This song was my reason to listen to the new EP by Ghostboy released on and for Halloween and thus aptly titled “Disgusting”. Four songs revolving around the themes lost love, death, loneliness and ghosts are presented here by the electronica artist, who combines burbling dream-pop with dark electronica parts or classical house elements and sometimes garners them with an interesting detail, like the aforementioned acoustic guitar. The only fault in the EP: The cover doesn’t totally fit in with the others, even though it is quite an original track, but its lyrical mood is so different and furthermore because of said western-intro. Maybe he should choose a real Halloween classic for such a themed release – my suggestion: “The Boy with the Arab Strap”. Otherwise, it becomes clear where Ghostboy comes from and where he’s headed as he stays immensely authentic. 

Thorsten

experimental / electronic / dark ambient / ambient / noise 

Nostalgie De La Boue

The world is all that is​.​.. is the most recent release by German electronic underground experimental noise artist Hans Castrup. With six tracks — The concept of sinking, Popular imagination, Full of used notes, Paradox difference, Clarification of geometry and Upon a hill —, on this work, like his previous albums, Hans continues to dive deep into a realm of lugubrious, melancholic and sinister sound experiences, where he clearly heads towards a stylistic direction of impious, responsive, nihilist and fatalist demise. Each and every album released by Hans Castrup seems to be the perfect soundtrack for a H.P. Lovecraft horror story. 

Already in the first track, the dense, epic and monumental The concept of sinking, we clearly see that the artist — deliberately or not — establishes his creative efforts towards a prominently dark ambient musical cosmogony. With pulsating, almost afflictive sonorous reverberations, the sensitive pluralism that emanates from the expansive and digressive agonies that subtlety comes out of these tracks certainly makes this album one of the darkest in the artist's discography. 

Nevertheless, there is also a lighter side in the music — albeit ostensibly dispersive —, that sounds as a more discreet, reasonable, proverbial uneasiness allocated in the background, that ocasionally flirts with our projective sensibilities, gracefully establishing an harmonious pattern that can be as decisively obscure as it is delightfully stimulating. 

The music gradually reveals itself as it is: as complex — in the darker depths of its relentless and dissolute darkness —, as it is majestically simple and objective, in the way it calmly delivers its pungent and uneventful dimension of poingnant mortality smoothly to the listener. Just as impressive is Hans' remarkable ability to progressively reinvent his music with more diluted elements, while never losing his virtuous and graceful sonorous identity. 

With the conception of an exceedingly dense, cohesive and robust musical atmosphere, it looks like Hans Castrup has crafted The world is all that is​.​.. as a pervasive parallel dimension destitute of acessible colorful sensibilities, whose mandatory elements are all indebted to a relentless and abrasive sonorous tissue, made entirely of an unforgiving, infinite and ruthless demise. 

As the perfect sonorous background for a surreal hallucinatory black and white alternate reality — like the ones shown in old sixties television anthology series like The Twilight Zone and One Step Beyond —, the music conceived on this marvelous album by Hans Castrup transports us to a whole different, more diluted, arbitrary and conspicuous diagram of existence, where the fugacious ephemeralities of life seems dormant, because they were never what they seemed to be, in the first place. 

Your sensitivities will be all confused, before they would be entirely configured in a completely different sonorous perception, diametrically opposite to what you had expected. In the end, The world is all that is​.​..  is a fantastic descent into a world of gloom, solitude and demise, without any possibilities to return. 


Wagner

dark ambient

The Dutch Winter-Light label welcomes the mysterious Norwegian artist Sysselmann with a four track ep called Ritual Of The Aurora Noir. Of course Merchants Of Air are thrilled to review more illusionary creations Sysselmann  (Thomas Narverud) delivers. His previous release The Northern Chronicles blew us away with fascinating waves of profound electronic music.

Sysselmann combines soundscapes with dark electronic vibes reflecting the vast rough nature of Northern Norway and proceeds further and deeper in this last enterprise, Ritual Of The Aurora Noir. The music he creates is embedded with the history and legends of his homeland. Viking-like horn blasts and war drums were added to the drones sounding like the haunted sea winds, eroding the majestic fjords. The music of Sysselmann is filled with darker atmospheres of mysticism and ritualism.

Again moniker Sysselmann doesn’t make it easy for the listener. These four organic tracks are filled with deep and multi-layered sound structures which tangle and invite the hearer to listen again and again. The true vision of this recording can only be felt and discovered  while scratching of the tone plies bit by bit. Sysselmann’s secretive and meditative audio world is covered with all kinds of effects and field recordings stimulating the unconscious spheres to be entered.

We can’t deny that the continuously high quality releases (already three) of this talented Norwegian artist mark him as an important conductor of new explorations in the darker electronic music scene. Rumours say Sysselmann is already working on a sequel to this stunning release. We barely can’t wait for his new creations while we still enjoy and sink deeply in the Ritual Of The Aurora Noir ep.  

Ritual Of The Aurora Noir is available on cd and digital formats on the Winter-Light Bandcamp page.

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Patsker

dark ambient

The modest Norwegian Tipi Token label presents an intriguing journey into diverse reconstructions of the dark ambient musician Onasander aka Maurizio Landini. His self-released  ep ‘Ancestry’ from end 2016 was inspired by the military history of the Roman Empire. Four artists were asked by Onasander to give their impersonations on his compositions. Reworking artists are Anja, Klangbunn, Xerxes The Dark and Hilyard. We took the time to listen to the original work too so we could have a clear view on the result of the deconstruction and the  reconstruction process the four tracks had to undergo for  this release. 

Anja (Chris F from New York) gave the drones on Orans a deeper and more imminent sounding effect. The buzzing sounds erupt deep and dark atmospheres. There is not that big difference between the  reworked and the original piece. Anja handled with care the reconstruction and fine tuned with precision the first track of the release.

Klangbunn is the alias of Marius Sortland Myklebust (the Tipi Token label owner and manager). He was in a comfortable position to give Arcadius a total metamorphosis. Klangbunn added a mush of sound effects to the retained skeleton of Arcadius. We were drawn into a world with noisy and distorted textures resulting in a stunning dark ritual ambient recreation.

The response on Trier was done by Xerxes The Dark, the dark ambient alias of the Iranian Morego Dimmer, based out of Tehran. A series of grim touches were added to the drones of Onasander arising in a mysterious landscape of impending vibes and tones. 

With etheric vocals sound designer Hilyard boosted Milivian Bridge into a meditative adventure. The enchanting sound constructions combined with the floating soundscapes and peaceful background babbling work like entering an escape pod, ready to set foot in other worlds.

Ancestry Reworked is without doubt a fine release showing the talents and mastering skills of the artists and the original creator Onasander. The answers of the reworking crew have meaning to stand on their own and demonstrate that there is still a future for inspirational dark and ritual electronic music.

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Patsker

dark ambient

A Most Accursed is a side project from the dark ritual act Druhá Smrt (Second Death), conceived behind the threatening shadows of the Middle European forests in the Czech Republic. Jindřich Spilka and his wife Lucie Spilková are mapping the awareness of life in a deeper way of thinking. The inspiration coming from their mind exploring experiences is transcribed into the music of A Most Accursed.

Ghosts contains a mysterious ambiance compressed in dark romanticism, causing the feeling of pure free thinking. The four tracks comprise a philosophical approach, the spoken words of Nietzsche are grumbled by Jindřich Spilka between the echoing piano keys and drones. A Most Accursed combines slow ritualism with a post-rock vibe on this recording. The guitar sounds are low tuned and surrounded by atmospheric and noisy electronic effects providing a world on the horizon of desire with a passion for the impossible.

Lucie Spilková renders the recording an extra touch with her secretive vocal appearance between the distortions and echoing sounds. Ghosts is the third release of A Most Accursed and they do not miss their objective. The moods and tones have an insightful result and create several thought patterns able to follow. Without forcing, this modest Czech couple tries to establish the string theory in a repetitive musical way. 

The artists describe themselves as: ‘A Most Accursed are those who have become ghosts in contemporary bodies, because they found themselves out of time.’ We could only embrace the drone-post rock-dark ambient music and escape into the addictive sound adumbration that A Most Accursed created. Deep echoes from enigmatic minds.

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Patsker

dark ambient

A gray cover shower the mouldy hands of a seemingly dead person – no one could live with hands a mixture of burnt to ashes and blown up by frostbite – hanging down in front of an old garment (with one bloody stain on the left arm) as if worn by a mummy from the 17th or 18th century. This cover
gets the listener into the right mood for what will follow in the next 37 minutes.

No sunshine can permeate through the stark, distorted canvas that Clavicvla – mastermind Ittiel has concocted for the follow-up to last year’s “Sermons”, only to show that the starkness of horror scores for the most evil movies, the most gruesome images, the most horrible slow-motions need some kind of eruption: a shriek, a shrill noise wandering from left to right, a slow verbal chant to exemplify the fear to be induced.

Sepulchral Blessing” is not a bad album per se, not that is not true, in the realm of Black Ambient
this band has definitely a strong footing and will even gather more followers with this album. It is
bleak, it got a lot of atmosphere, knows how to incorporate small disturbances into the sub-bass
horror bleakness without ruining the Hadean flow. However, those of us who do not regularly watch old horror movies turning off the sound and for those who cannot envision a dark spawn of John Carpenter and Bohren und der Club of Gore lying in the grave dug up by Mamiffer and A-Sun Amissa this will not do. A class of its own – for its own scene – in its own world. Enter if you may.

black metal

Swiss German is already a hell to understand for anybody who is not from the Northern part of
Switzerland, but turning it into the lingua franca for a black metal record seems even more absurd.
However, one thing becomes very clear when listening to Ateiggaer’s debut EP, to be released in
mid-November: These two guys (working under the monikers Fauth Temenkeel and Fauth Lantav)
make no sacrifices, they take no hostages, they are in it for themselves and for nobody else.

Associated with the up and coming Helvetic Underground Committee from Zurich, they are able to play a furious version of black metal that has long been associated with the second wave of black metal, stemming from Norway. They infuse their fundamental rage and well-shouted visions with short passages of intricate laid-back drum fills, guitar motifs and near-Gregorian chants that connect very well with the mysticism they are here to convey, just listen to “De Dämon us Levania” (the demon from Levania) – everything blends in nicely.

The world as we see it is not theirs, they talk about spheres and gods from another realm, always
able to surprise us with minuscule differences to the usual sound. Not even a year into their
existence, Ateiggaer already got a release by popular German black metal label Eisenton – no
surprise when listening to this EP which is hopefully not their last.

hardcore

When announcing this release of one of his numerous projects on iconic label Deathwish Inc.,
guitar player Aaron D.C. Edge said that this was a dream come true. Naturally, most any hardcore band dreams of releasing a record through Jacob Bannon’s label for several reasons – worldwide acclaim, lots of fans and, of course, the respect of the scene. However, the members of the band have already earned that respect over decades of contributing with so many bands (amongst them 
Deadguy, Kiss It Goodbye or Lumbar), so that this should not be a major goal.


Nevertheless, one goal was surely to release a standout single which they did. The noisy, low-tuned shredding by Aaron, Brock Lowry’s tight drumming or Tim Singer’s brilliant vocals (his name speaks for itself, evidently) all give the listener a shiver-evoking experience. The opener “Lies > Truth” already shows all the strengths of the band and additionally marks a deeply sarcastic lyricist.
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“I don’t want truth… just lie to me” - sometimes people want to be lied to because (maybe) the
truth is too hard to bear, right? Well, truth be told, you will have to try hard to find a better noisehardcore debut single this year. The dream has come true for these experienced musicians. 

"miserable bastard music" / alternative / indie

Burden Limbs debut EP can hit you straight in the face when you least expect it as it displays a rougher version of the kind of dark pop that Kayo Dot presented on their latest record. The darkness is not only shown musically in a synth-driven melodrama like the self-titled track “Burden Limbs” but even more in their lyrics which are pretty straight-forward: “I'm so tired of suffering these reminders of a world I can't abide / Why else would I carve out my hatred and dissatisfaction?” The little red-glowing dots on the dark horizons are not leading the way to new-found hope but rather to blood raining in slo-mo from the skies. Not a lot of songs demand repeat as urgently as this one.

Burden Limbs can also knock you out in ways that do not sound like a doom-version of The Cooper Temple Clause but much more immediate with songs that introduce themselves into your longtimememory by means of simply intriguing lyrics by Chad Murray but also through the combination of synths, drones and gently-interwoven electronica giving you the chance to discover a lot of details and something new each time you sit down to really listen. And listen you should – these Londonboys might be up to something. They provide a great soundtrack to an overdose of medicine you don’t want to take but that you just can’t stop yourself from.

doom / sludge / noise rock / metal

Astral Noize

Split releases – an interesting thing as most of us can name a few from the tip of our head, right? Isis and Aereogramme, Melt Banana and Fantomas, Battery and Ignite, The Ocean and Burst. Sometimes however, those with the unknown bands get you the most. Mid-November, Astral Noize will bring us one of the latter category, releasing a 7” by Kurokuma and Under. The combination is really striking, because both songs at first glance seem totally unrelated only sharing a certain weirdness.

Kurokuma starts off with a cover song (well, that is not unusual for a split release) – reworking a theme song for a 20 year old Sega game classic called “Ecco the Dolphin: The Tides of Time” - fortunately, this is not a close cover but a free interpretation as they turn the whirling theme into a pretty clever doom track with a lot of atmosphere and a striking hihat use so that the listener asks himself afterwards if this might not have been the better theme for Ecco’s second adventure.

Then Under are up next with “Abysal Gigantism” and they definitely have some sense of humor, because their track starts with some field recordings from the seaside so that you hear that kind of stuff you would expect from our dolphin. Then they turn the song into an  eight minute epic somewhere between Crowhurst and Dillinger Escape Plan making clever use of vocoder, swirling guitars and waving drums all being held together by a strong rhythm section. 

In the end, this 7” leaves one impressed by the chutzpah of combining those two bands and the
clever way both complement each other turning this split into a more than welcome stray from the
path of regular splits.

black metal / noise rock / post metal

Sometimes, certain boundaries should not be crossed. For example combining Motown Soul and
Classic Hardcore – that just doesn’t work. Nevertheless, some unexpected combinations might
work, just remember Zeal and Ardor combining gospel and black metal. Witch Trail do something similar – they create their own unique blend of post-metal taking a lot from Sonic Youth and Thurston Moore’s solo work and combining it with pure post-metal. And once again, Belgium (more specifically Ghent) proves to be a brilliant soil for unique combinations as the trio is really able to provide a fresh start to a genre as trodden as post-metal.

They take the classic noise-licks and use them to replace the regular post-metal riffs. This way they also implement the pop-appeal of good noise-rock into their songs. How they start “Lucid” with a noisy take on a nearly surf-twang guitar riff and then build the shrieking vocals around it, always leaving those easy and pumping noise-rock elements at the core of the song and right in the middle of our ears – impressive! Sometimes you must think of the Beach Boys (“Stupor”), but sharing the record with Stiff Little Fingers and Discharge (“Sinking”); suddenly Kim Gordon and SY show up on your mental stage (“Silent Running”) - but interestingly all of the songs are not sung by any of those but by a guy like Fenriz. These 29 minutes full of twists and turns, of clean-distorted noisy-ness and of blastbeats, of infernal shrieks and a unique soundscape really captures any open ear. 

Thorsten