darkwave

We can’t deny the doubt off the almighty cliche, a top model and a musician starting a project together. Skemer is the name of the Belgian underground duo Kim Peers (the singing model) and guitar player Mathieu Vandekerckhove (Amenra, Syndrome). This cooperation reflects two different worlds carving into bold and erotic parts leading to a mix of darkened coldwave.

Benevolence, the debut of Skemer thrives in ambiguity and obscurity. Kim Peers has a seductive and angelic voice. Her sm mistress-like vocals are surrounded in dark beats and experimental electronic sound structures. Don’ t expect heavy guitars walls from Mathieu Vandekerckhove. On the track Call Me, we could hear so far, some guitar playing referring to the New wave days of the eighties. Most of the tracks are a Venn diagram with the dreamy minimalism of the Cranes, the electro pop of two other Belgian duos, Vive La Fête and Fär, mixed with the punk rock sound of Siouxsie And The Banshees.

Some records need some time to digest, with some you need stomach tablets. With Skemer you don't know what’s going on and what you are holding. The music has an inconsistent result but the atmosphere could fit very well on a dark wave party between the vaults of a medieval dungeon. On the other hand, after some attentive (sometimes forced) listening sessions of this album, Skemer doesn’t sound that bad at all. The duo shows stubbornness in their stereotypes and tries to create an own formative twist.

The couple recorded this album a few months after meeting, their urge for this should have been less overindulgence. Benevolence is to our opinion an interesting recording but with ups (Sunseeker, Call Me) and downs (Best, RHOEAS). Time will show what their future will bring.   

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Patsker 

darkwave / post punk / goth rock

The Arch are without a doubt more popular outside their home country Belgium, some call them the best kept Belgian secret. VIII / XII is the third release since their comeback in 2011, containing a compilation of songs which were dropped monthly one by one during the year 2018. The four headed band  wrote, recorded and mixed  each song before starting on the next one. A diversity of music styles was folded together into twelve touching pieces of music.

We can’t deny that the sound of The Arch is recycled from the legendary new wave bands of the eighties and a lot of listeners will call this a copycat. Well, the music is far from original but the passion and ambition shows itself after a few attentive listening parts of this album. Fresh and merrily sounding guitar riffs with sensual synths convey a romantic pop sound without losing the gloomy atmosphere. The lyrics have a darker tenor than the music, which is very admissible.

The band is thirty years active, they started as friends, they disappeared, they came back and sound mature and better than ever. They flirt with gothic and indie rock that tinge their balanced (post) new wave style. On the folk inspired Cadaver synod, the band got the vocal cooperation of Blaine L. Reininger (Tuxedomoon). 

Hopefully this hard working band gets more attention from the Belgian music lovers. Their deep weaved reflections of this world deserves to be heard. We needed to put some more energy in this album to get deeper but it was worth. Good music doesn’t always trigger the mind immediately.  Depending on which medium you choose, the VIII stands for the number of tracks on the vinyl edition, the XII for the CD version.

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Patsker

darkwave / post punk

The man behind Such Beautiful Flowers is Donny Woestenborghs, front-man of the European hardcore punk outfit Midnight Souls. While the rest of the Midnight Souls members formed the shoegaze, dreampop band Newmoon, Donny Woestenborghs chose the path of synthesizer orientated dark wave.

Neon Gloom (available on tape and CD) is a debut EP with four strong tracks reminding us of the Belgian EBM giants Front 242 and The Neon Judgement. The pumping beats and brimming industrial synths  create a sensation of a frigid postmodern world. Donny Woestenborghs wraps himself in sombre voiced lyrics. His fierce vocals and screams faded away in the past with this new aspiration now coming to the surface. Track four (Smile) is a slower piece of dark romanticism drenched in sad vibes. 

Neon Gloom can be the starting point for an exciting and promising future. A new generation of interesting Belgian dark wave artists is bubbling up.  Such Beautiful Flowers is definitely one of them. The dreary and machine-like atmosphere on this four track EP triggered us to dig further in the Belgian cold and dark wave garden. We would like to hear more of this in the near future.

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Patsker

industrial / darkwave / experimental / post punk

Cascades are falling down, a constant repetition of collapse. A motif found frequently in music, soundwise, in the lyrics or the music itself. Lots of artists from blackgaze to classical use it. Additionally it is found in visual arts or modern literature and over the last few decades has been connected to a critique of the present in order to change something about the future.

A new artist from Pennsylvania uses the image of collapse and a future uncertain combining it with a sonic landscape taking its bits from shoegaze and ambient, from noise and industrial. Lunacy‘s debut album Age of Truth (after releasing four EPs since 2016) is indeed a challenge to the ear but a very thoughtful one. The idea behind the record is obvious after a few seconds already because after a short lush intro the near-ambient mood is disrupted by harsh industrial marching drums. We are drawn into a world beyond Blade Runner and before Mad Max, a place where the constants of past, present and future might either still be possible or already obsolete.

The musician behind Lunacy tries to remain unknown (which can also be seen when looking at the record covers on which he becomes more and more of a blur). He does so not for his personal privacy but to render a blank canvas in order to give the listener the chance of projecting his own interpretations of and ideas about the music and the future, our planet and life in general – maybe even about the future of the future. What if our industry and society will collapse and with it the hope of changing the course of human (interference with) life on this planet? What will happen to “the future” if the end is coming, if the facades of humanity collapse and we will face the industrial downfall and machine-driven end?

Musically, Age of Truth combines his vision of a post-apocalyptic, post-human industrial age with
the help of Connor Clasen (IXVLF) recording the album and Oliver Ackermann (A Place to Bury
Strangers) mastering it. Sometimes you hear breakbeats, distorted vocal chants, shoegaze moments like that Ackermann is famous for. The foundation for this experimental electronica is a kind of 80s industrial soundtrack stemming from the use of synthesizers from that era which were then combined with several layers of guitars. Whether Lunacy is igniting a new phase of music-making for the first century after mankind or whether he is developing a new form of shoegaze is up to the listener, however it is clear that as an artist he achieved his vision clearly for the album transports us to a different place and time. Age of Truth will be released by Parisian label Third Coming Records on November 22nd


Thorsten

synthwave

Enzo Kreft’s album Control is an attestation of what’s going on in our society. The clear view of the Belgian electronic artist was translated in twelve powerful dark tracks of electronic music. With precision this DIY artist repeats and confirms the visions of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, how robots and artificial intelligence are already ruling and determine our daily life.

Control is about total control and so is Enzo Kreft. The threatening sounds build a cold dystopian atmosphere without possible escape. Enzo Kreft’s harsh and cold lyrics reflect the military-like machinery domination and it’s controllers. With his dark synthwave escapades Enzo Kreft evokes images of a fearful apocalyptic society filled with paranoia and despair. 

The dramatic sounds and beats on the track Book Burnings are supported by sound excerpts from Fahrenheit 451(1966 François Truffaut) and The Burning Of The Books May 10, 1933. The used reflections of the past on this very strong song gave us a feeling of tragic asphyxiation. This bold man, dressed in black, opens a window where you can see the past, the present and the future at the same time.

Musically noting new was added with this album. The structure of the tracks is precise and very good sounding. We heard varied new wave/electro influences and inputs but they only make the concept of this release stronger. Mindshift could have been a Kraftwerk song without any doubt. Some tracks are dance-able (but who wants to dance… in dystopia).  Enzo Kreft made a clear statement with this album. Control is a mind fucker that puts a heavy warning boot on the listeners face. This awesome piece of work with intelligent content and brilliant ambiance will stay in our blood for a long time. Resistance is futile…

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Patsker

new wave / gothic / darkwave

Already ten years active and entertaining the Belgian Post-Punk and Gothic scene, Der Klinke releases a compilation of their work called Decade. This summary is a time line containing remixes, cleaned up versions and two new songs. The CD version includes the story of this interesting band.

The band name ‘De(r) Klinke’ (doorknob) has its own history. A small garden house without a doorbell of the parental home of Geert ‘Chesko’ Vandekerkhof was a gathering space where you could just step in by simply using the door handle. This man cave was soon called De Klinke.

The musical path of Der Klinke is one of progression. Der Klinke formed in Ostend Belgium started to play music inspired by cold wave and electronics but slowly created an own stubborn and modern twist in their darkly music. Curtains and Bridges are new songs and show the deep influences from the Sisters and Front 242. Both songs are strong and filled with dark atmospheres. 

Cult hit The Doll sounds still timeless. The compilation has no weak songs and the remixes sound remarkably good. Der Klinke celebrates with glory their musical career. Gothic and dark wave lovers just can’t walk around this album. The mood on Decade is filled with ten years of gloominess, dark dancing tunes (The Doll and The facts of Live remix) and post punk vibes.

This selection of songs is dope. We can’t get enough of these wild and varied sounds of Der Klinke.  Decade is available on CD (limited edition 300 pieces) and vinyl (only 100 pieces). Do not hesitate to grab this Wool-E diamond. Instead of chasing shadows we are chasing the sounds of Der Klinke (again).

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Patsker

hardcore / grindcore / crust

black metal

grunge / alternative metal / progressive rock

doom

alternative rock

death metal

punk rock

bandcamp

electronic

electronic / darkwave / EBM / Industrial

shoegaze

post-punk / dark wave

A release on Wool-E Discs gets always my attention because of the  quality of music on the label. A Slice Of Life is a Belgian Post-Punk/Darkwave band from Antwerp. Dirk Vreys (lead vocals) and Guy Wilssens  (Guitars) formed  the six member band in 2016. They play a kind of mix between The Cure and The Sisters Of Mercy  with a modern Rock twist. Restless is their debut full cd, although they already made a EP in 2016. All 5 songs of the EP are also on the full cd!

The cd starts with the catchy post New Wave song, ‘Restless Gods’ (also on the EP). Dirk Vreys vocals sound good and made us sometimes think of Andrew Eldritch. What a kick off! ‘Older’ shows us another side of Dirk’s voice, slower and full emotions, this song takes you back to the best Dark Wave of the eighties! ‘The Marionette’ and ‘Life As It Is’ sound very Cure, knowing  that Dirk Vreys is also lead singer of obsCURE, a pretty popular Cure cover band in Belgium. His voice on ‘Life As It Is’ has the same sad vibe as Robert Smith . The lead  guitar sounds  maybe a little too much Cure but it’s still a very nice song!

‘Feel Like Crazy’ and ‘We Fight’ are potential live hits on stage, and could make the crowd shout and dance. ‘Sweet Sin’, ‘Coraline’ and  ‘Panic Attack’ switch again to the darkest songs of the eighties when The Sisters Of Mercy had their best days! The cd has a bonus track but the song doesn’t reach the level of quality as the rest of the songs on the cd. A Slice Of Life gives you a blast in the past, ‘Restless ’ is a greatest hits album from the dark 80’s without hits!


Patsker

dark ambient

bandcamp

A fifteen minutes EP with four tracks, Dark Hymns lives to the glory of its simple, but energetic and suggestive title. With a very dark, subtle and obscure sound, the sensitive premises of the style are afflictive to the fullest – despite being paradoxically peaceful and serene –, and seems to anticipate the imminence of a profoundly terrible doom. While the work presents to the audience a very simple and surreal sound, its nuances are dense, and the excellence of its atmosphere dissipates a graceful and somber fear over the boundaries of the melodies. There is nothing too exceptional or extraordinary about this work, but for dark ambient genre enthusiasts, the vivid, morbid intensity displayed by the artist behind the project is certainly vast, very meaningful, and spiritually consistent. 

electronic / darksynth / dark electro / synthwave

Crossing Lights is an album released on June 22, by German electronica/ synthwave act Collapse Project. A wonderfully splendid album, with eleven tracks – Where everything began, Crossing Lights, Arise from the darkness, M.e.n.s.c.h., Pursuit,
Bloody Dancefloor, Cemetery Walk, Starfighter, Nightshift, Test Drive and Rewind – this marvelous and majestic state of the art work has colorful harmonies, a vibrant, lucid and energetic pace, an intense and cohesive style and a superb sense of rhythmic rapture. With softly pungent, dense and dynamic mordacious melodies that engraves its formidable intrinsic strength at the voracious pace of the music, the album is fulfilled with a tremendously aggrandizing and creative originality, displaying a talent that has everything to stand out as uniquely authentic in the contemporary underground scene. Showcasing a sensational musical grandeur whose artistry is effectively sidelined with the most vivid and hallucinating melodies, the genuine musical abilities of Collapse Project is a gigantic cosmic evolutionary step in what concerns the general development of the genre. With some of the most beautiful songs that I’ve ever heard, Crossing Lights is an unprecedented milestone in the history of electronica. Certainly, deserves not only to be fully appreciated, but highly highlighted as one of the most beautiful, sensational and singular albums ever conceived. 

death metal 

Coffin Birth is an album released on July 20, by Californian death metal group Extremity. With eight songs – Coffin Birth / A Million Witches, Where Evil Dwells, Grave Mistake, Umbilicus, For Want Of A Nail, Occision, Like Father Like Son and Misbegotten / Coffin Death – the record is a satisfactory, lucid and efficient, but hallucinatory and hazardous death metal album, that works decently the most traditional elements of the genre. With heavy, fast rhythms that exposes the voracity of their style, Extremity showcases a peculiar, brutal, direct style, atrocious to the core of its corrosive nature. Despite the fact that the album at some rare passages becomes a little predictable and monotonous, this does not affect the general layout of the sound, nor does any damage to the competent and precise style of the band. Their aggressive strength is somewhat inherent to the most brutal and extreme ramification of the genre, and the name of the band certainly stands for it. While you can’t expect too much of innovative features on this record, Coffin Birth displays a decent amount of virtuosity, talent and definition, and certainly honors the genre with a virulent and passionate degree of astounding sonorous hostility, that will entertain avidly the most dedicated enthusiasts of extreme death metal.    

grunge / stoner rock/ power metal / black metal / alternative rock

Released on June 22, Desolation is an album by alternative post grunge/ power metal rock group Khemmis. With six tracks – Bloodletting, Isolation, Flesh To Nothing, The Seer, Maw Of Time and From Ruin – this gracefully peculiar, audacious and cohesive record showcases the splendid abilities of a band that does an amazingly superb and exceedingly sophisticated work in their amalgamation of several different genres and styles of music. With a power metal core heavily infused by a post grunge alternative rock density, the music of Khemmis has its own singular and energetic creative groundwork, fuelled by an outstandingly voracious and rude nitroglycerine spontaneous synergy, that explodes directly in the brain of the listener. A little reminiscent of more classic and mainstream acts like Manowar, Creed and Blind Guardian – although exposing a formidable degree of uniqueness – the band does a surprisingly splendorous and excellent work on Desolation, that reveals itself as a marvelous, profoundly genuine and sensational album, all the way through. Undoubtedly, Desolation deserves to be classified as one of the greatest masterpieces of the year.  

electronic

A beautiful, outstanding, lancinating and colorful EP, Gated Soul has four tracks: Blues For Jekyll, Last Raver, Hocus Pocus and To The Woods. With beautiful melodies, and very sensible, delightfully plausible harmonies, there is a genius spontaneity coming out from these songs that actually make you feel quite enthusiastic about it. With an exceedingly serene, but at the same time ostensibly sensational and mandatory vibe, the artist reveals a subtle, but formidable sense of originality on the framework of the sound that is the embodiment of this work. From within, the melodies gradually expand from a synergy that relocates the rhythm directly to the point of its graciously moving syncope. Exposing lucidity and showcasing an extraordinary degree of creativity, this electronic music artist from Great Britain has no fear in demonstrating his superb, masterful and singular talent, that easily reinvigorates in a more sophisticated sonorous artistry the greatest elements of electronica. Here you have four amazingly wonderful songs, that you will be pleased to hear over and over again. 

black metal / death metal

A very impressive, hostile and energetic album – although widely using exceedingly crude and conventional elements by some standards – Krwawy Sztorm, by Polish extreme metal group Moloch Letalis, is an aggressive, furious and bloodthirsty album. Only thirty minutes long, the record has nine tracks: Wielka Egzekucja, Sztorm, Krwawa Ziemia, Zatańczysz Ze Mną Kurwa W Piekle ?, Przysięga, Zdychaj Psie, Palownik, Gotowy Na Piekło and Żar. With ostensive and abrupt rhythmic grievances, the style of the group is simple and direct, a little reminiscent of punk rock, given the atrocious voracity, objectivity and rudeness of its style. With a solid fidelity to the most brutal aspects of the genre, the work is amazingly competent and full of acid rage. Although there is nothing too aggrandizing nor original about the work, certainly this album is a pearl for avid enthusiasts of the genre, since Moloch Letalis literally practices closely the most ardent, extreme, raw and violent aspects of death and black metal, executing a refined breed of these marvelous genres. If you like astoundingly heavy material, Krwawy Sztorm is something you would like to hear. 

electronic / techno / industrial 

With six tracks – Entrance of Gargoyles, Dance or Die, The Order, Mechanical Vampire, The Cavern of Noise and Theunderdogme 2018hardrem1x – The Cavern of Noise, by techno industrial French artist McClane is a formidable, very intuitive and lancinating work. With abrasive and disruptive rhythms, increasingly grotesque and infuriating harmonies, cohesive dilapidation of sound and very unpredictable, dense musical compasses, The Cavern of Noise is an interesting work of art, astoundingly engraved at forefront of the best tradition of techno music. With elements that plays on the fundamental axis of the noise and industrial genres, the artist evokes at the colorful blast of the music an atmospheric vitality that rejuvenates the harmonies and the anatomy of the music. With a lucid, compulsory and graceful creativity that is exponential to the ardent mordacity of the melodies, on this album, you certainly get the best the genre will ever offer you. The title track – The Cavern of Noise – is absolutely the best, and will leave you with the dense exposition of what electro techno music should really sound like. 

black metal

Mysteries of Earth, released by British black metal group Blutvial on July 5th, is a formidable, lucid and splendorous album. Fully energized, mortally intense and with sordidly aggressive, rapturous and impulsive, but lugubrious and poetic guitar lines, Mysteries of Earth is better described as a marvelous state of the art work. With ten amazingly placid and cohesive tracks – beneath the moon, black silence, existential rite, vault of unrest, carving nihil, midwinter's halls, urnacht, doomed to eternal night, in praise of noctula and where graves spring open – this fantastic work, besides its subtle originality, extraordinary grandiosity and proverbial musical audacity, consolidates firmly and brings about intrinsically the best qualities of the genre: hostile mordacity, somber harmonies, an aggressive stylish impetus, creative melodies, a rapid pace and an exceedingly volatile density. With the organic virtue of a profoundly vital and conscious musical dynamic, you can certainly highlight this record as one of the best black metal pieces released this year. Mysteries of Earth is a punctuating device and a majestic work of art in the history of the genre.     

black metal

Cosmic Autumn is the debut album of an eponymous black metal project from Germany. Released on July 13, the record has five tracks: The Last Deception, Event Horizon, Indistinct Visions, Realms Of Eternal Light and Solitude (Instrumental). With a beautiful and very original musical layer, very sober and proficient, the sound is definitely strong, sensitive, dynamic and fundamentally cohesive. Although the record retains the fury typical of the genre, Cosmic Autumn is also a lesson on sincere and poetic artistry, as the music revolves itself around a shroud of mortifying serenity, like a twilight that dies in the agony of an everlasting moment of unspeakable affliction. Since the music translates into sound these imponderable passages of pervasive anger, the overall loyalty of the project’s style to the genre is emphasized, but without compromising the ability of the artist in showcasing his own peculiarities. A very good work, that certainly exposes the mordacious talent of an exponentially promising black metal artist, Cosmic Autumn is the opening gate for a musician that has everything to aggregate into the genre a whole new conjuncture of possibilities, with his audacious and ostensibly brilliant creativity. 

stoner rock/ psychedelic rock 

bandcamp

Earthborn is an album released by Greek stoner rock group Stone Age Mammoth. Forty minutes long, the record has seven tracks: Fearless, The Dark, Whispers, The Mysterious Life Of Mr Krips, The Secret, Earthborn and My Darkest Hour. An exceedingly calm, methodic and meticulous, but exceedingly vigorous and lucid album, undoubtedly, Earthborn is a fantastic state of the art work, that dissects, reverberates, comprehends and exposes the best aspects the genre has to offer. With singular, serene and soft guitar lines, a configuration of sonorous walls that grows from the sincere stylish leniency of the group and a marvelous sense of timing that knows from instinct what has to be done, Stone Age Mammoth has a formidable artistic security and a powerful domain over the genre, that comes out naturally. Revealing itself as a graceful masterpiece as the album evolves and revolves around its own atmosphere of calmness, omniscience and existential perception, the glorious creativity of the group certainly highlights them among other bands of the genre. With a singular conjuncture of sonorous qualities, Earthborn deserves to be greatly regarded, widely appreciated and publicized as the wonderful and fantastic work of art that truly is.

black metal

Nostalgia is an EP released on July 23 by German black metal artist ColdWorld. With five tracks – Cosmos Devourer, Demon Speed, The Dark Ages, Let The Devil In and Silva Nigra – the EP, almost twenty six minutes long, is concise. Exceedingly beautiful, with the typical elegance that is an engraved milestone of the artist, the proverbial guitar lines and the poetic harmonies anticipates the general conflagration of its overall majestic serenity, deeply fulgurated with the sensible character of its everlasting, elegant and somber  horizon of artistry. With rapid passages that are profoundly surrounded by graciously atmospheric interludes, the music on Nostalgia is overloaded with the imperial fragrances of its own rudimentary darkness, that is sustained by a lucid and dense, but marvelously whimsical ferocious resentment, whose vitality extrapolates the shadows of its own arrogant beauty. With everlasting precipices of color surrounding the rhythmic fortunes of the songs, I must confess that I wasn’t particularly overwhelmed by this work. Nevertheless, Nostalgia has all the elements that are characteristic of a ColdWorld work, and, to a certain extent, has enough qualities to be deemed valuable for its sincere and splendid level of singularity.    

post rock / experimental

Return is a three tracks EP released on July 25, by a musician from India, who works under the nom de plume of Phet. With three marvelous songs – Return, Distance and Liberation – Phet works very distinctively the interior perception of the harmonies, to articulate an ascendant, protuberant and expansive, but at the same time discreet, lucid and introspective degree of sonorous exhilaration. With a pungent, incisive axis of conscious melodic devices, correctly assimilated by the lenient, but purposeful stability of its glorious symbiosis of organic dissonances, that seems lethargic at first, the intrinsic nature of the rhythmic serenity that grows within this musical horizon slowly works towards the digressive elements of the harmonies, revolving around a certain complexity that obliterates the cosmic volatility of its formidably eloquent style. With a futurist, colorful, modernist musical approach that made the external shape of the songs, indeed, to sound in an exceedingly beautiful and elegant fashion, Return can be positively described as a very gracious, audacious and original work of art. The last track, Liberation, I would certainly highlight as my favorite. If you want to listen to something very surprising, astute and genuine, I definitely recommend this marvelous and surreal EP. 

Wagner

post-metal / doom / alternative rock

dark jazz / ambient / experimental / trip hop

hardcore

acoustic blues

dark ambient / noise

doom / occult metal

death metal

black metal / doom / death metal

post punk / synth pop

breakcore / industrial

alternative rock / blues

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style of Tool and quite a bit of grunge - vocals that remind of Cobain included. So go buy this one if you appreciate something that refuses to fit into one box.

ambient / experimental

Pany Rosas Discos