black metal / death metal

Chaotic Symbiosis is an album released on November 15, by American blackened death metal band A God or an Other. A little more than thirty-five minutes long, the record has six tracks: What Keeps Us Here, Exhaustive Perturbation, Tacit Alarum, Torrent of Failure, Ritualistic Devitalization and Chaotic Symbiosis. With a dense, brutal and very aggressive sound, Chaotic Symbiosis is a characteristic genre album: it has a very sinister premise, revolving around an excruciatingly painful, hostile and visceral sound, displaying occasionally more sensible and surreptitiously slow harmonies. Hunger to prey on the dark vicinities of a fatalist cosmogony, that highlights a permanently obscure universe, lost in the infinite despair of a primordial demise, this album is a mordacious descending into an exasperated reality, infuriatingly immersed in chaos . 

The style of the band unfortunately suffers from a severe lack of originality, being neither surprising nor impressing, although they can work also in a more subtle and lugubrious context. A God or an Other definitely knows how to elaborate and to vehemently display very tense and slow-pacing interludes, that normally anticipates the hazardous and horrific doom of excessively tempestuous harmonies, that descends over the listener like a definitive cataclysm, eager to destroy everything that comes on its way. Probably, these macabre, melancholic and gothic serenades are the greatest triumph of their music.  

While you can feel a sharp, genuine and brutal ferocity embracing the consistency of a very aggressive, hostile and lancinating style, the most negative aspect of the band is related to the fact that it’s so brutally ferocious, and its melodies are so ostensibly rapid for the most part, that the sound invariably becomes too homogeneous. You inadvertently feel lost in the terrible storm of sameness compelled over its ferocious brutality, and eventually, becomes even incapable of differentiating one song from another. While there is genuine aggressiveness in their abrasive sound, there is little versatility and flexibility, which makes the album too predictable, and monotonous to a degree. 

While Chaotic Symbiosis is not a bad album, it’s style is very limited. Definitely, the tempestuous malevolence is genuine, and, to a modest level, interesting. But its creativity is too petrified to a restrictive musical diagram, getting close to brutal death metal for the most part. Resenting itself from stylistic limitations and a severe lack of originality, this album is mostly recommended to passionate enthusiasts of extreme metal. Outside this particular zone, the album will hardly find any appreciation. 
 

Wagner

black metal / death metal

The blind leading the blind is an album released on November 11, by independent Ukrainian record label Archaic Sound. Work of a musical project conceived under the alias 1914, this is blackened death metal on its most inventive, pressurized and obscure prominence. With sinister atmospheres, but abrasive guitar lines adorned by imperatively rapid harmonies, The blind leading the blind reunites in graceful cohesion all the fundamental elements of the genre: dense melodies, a guttural voice, pungent but dilacerating musical arrangements, and dubious melancholic sensitivities, that falls between the exhilarating devices of narrow ambiguity and glorious objectivity. Beyond the summary astute easiness of its aggressive downfall, this album satisfies coherently the mostly general qualities of the genre, while being too obvious and generic – almost predictable – by a more oblique perspective. Nevertheless, The blind leading the blind manages to be, more or less, an intense, intelligent and pervasive album, with some satisfactory songs that makes this work worthwhile listening it.

With eleven tracks – War In, Arrival. The Meuse-Argonne, A7V Mephisto, High Wood. 75 Acres of Hell, Beat The Bastards (The Exploited cover), Hanging On The Barbed Wire, Passchenhell, C'est Mon Dernier Pigeon, Stoßtrupp, The Hundred Days Offensive and War Out – this almost one hour long album is a profound, lucid, pertinent and belligerent anthem in preparation for war. With versatile elements that dispatch vividly its musical strength, The blind leading the blind is mostly characterized by powerfully exhilarating and brutal harmonies, that never dares to be condescending with its own ferocious and implacable plausibility. 

While there’s nothing on this album that could be regarded as deeply surprising or original, 1914 knows how to elaborate and to execute a solid, proficient, somber and cohesive musical work. With a salutary vividness that embraces its own virulent propensities and archaic glorious dimensions, the sonorous densities of the musical layers are characteristically well elaborated, and respect the boundaries of its own passionate, but effusively dark cosmogonies, that always explode in a tempestuous rebellion of nefarious harmonies. 

Like I’ve pointed out some lines above, The blind leading the blind definitely is not a marvelous album, but manages to be modestly good and interesting, all the way through. Its sophisticated enough to captivate an audience, solidify a cohesive sound and redefine intelligently the more discreet elements of its own style, while maintaining intact its general musical premises, and reevaluating this particular genre as a more extreme form of expression.  


Wagner

drone / ambient

death metal / grindcore

death industrial / dark ambient

Exabyss Records

post rock / ambient / electronic

ambient / classical

funeral doom

gothic rock / alternative / metal

drone / ambient / folk

dark ambient 

alternative rock / funk rock

facebook

indie / dreampop

industrial / electronic

Perc Trax

​Serge (2 & 3 by Patsker)

post black metal / black metal/ death metal/ experimental

Oasis is an album released on November 2, by New Zealand experimental/ atmospheric post black metal duo Súl ad Astral. Almost one hour long, the record has ten tracks: In Dreams Reborn, Float, Pennies Down The Infinity Well, Last Regret, Inaction and Consequence, Hindsight, This Broken Ideal and the title track, Oasis. A beautiful album, impregnated with a formidable level of organic fury, dramatic energy, dynamic synergy and an ostensibly explosive level of creative originality, Oasis is a lucid, expressive and very cohesive work, abundant on rapid harmonies, aggressive tonalities and distinct musical vigor. With a genuine and consistent signature sound, the album – from the beginning until the end –, reveals itself as a primal and whimsical musical work, that displays on the layers of its proficient salutary qualities an excellent and brutal performance.  

With the amazing and joyful intertwining of clean and guttural vocals, and discreetly flirting with power metal devices, the style of Súl ad Astral is very fluid, gracefully dynamic, dense and proverbially virtuous. Most of all, is impeccable and sensibly peculiar, with a very distinct grace floating over its very colorful, yet heavy notes. With some latent melodic death metal tonalities being amazingly prevalent over its distinct rapid sequences – nurturing the unlimited atmosphere of its boundless musical glory –, the sound is perfunctorily creative and fearless, and never renounces to its majestic harmonious and composite grandeur, that seems wisely dilapidated over the dimensional tapestry of a dense, but perfectly consecrated melodic expansion. 

As a sensational conjuncture of symphonies that departs from an entirely new universe of passionate and sagacious musical possibilities, Súl ad Astral has conceived Oasis as a masterful, rapturous and beautiful mosaic of marvelous splendor, whose wonderful style is definitely singular, and will hardly find a similar parallel in the history of underground music. 

Crossing over several distinct genres – post black metal, melodic death metal, post grunge, metalcore and even pop rock – in varying degrees, in a wide and creative range of intricate sonorous possibilities, Súl ad Astral is a fantastic and proverbial musical act, with no boundaries or restrictions whatsoever. Merging altogether the most predominant elements of several apparently disparate genres, this fabulous musical act conceives an entirely different level of greatness very cohesively, without any disruptions nor dysfunctions, whose splendid results can be categorized as a creative statement of talent and authenticity. 

With a splendorous shape, and an extending musical diagram, the energetic and powerful creativity of the duo is very compelling and graciously vivacious. They are obviously not bounded or limited to a particular genre, but definitely are fully compromised in developing its own insightful, organic and highly original musical style. 


Wagner

death / doom metal

Vanhelgd has a steadfast style, death metal straight from the heart. Deimos Sanktuarium is the fifth full release of this uncompromising band. Their heavy riffs of discomfort and death make them sound so recognisable. A heritage of the legendary Swedish death metal cult has been succeeded.

Mattias Frisk and his collaborators never disappoint. Deimos Sanktuarium is again an interesting piece of death metal violence filled with obscure grunts painted in a horrifying atmosphere. They know as the best to hold the tension over the rolling bass lines and evocative guitar riffs. The doomy slowness in the songs makes Deimos Sanktuarium an  album between doom and death metal. Melodic guitar solos create a false glance of hope in the dark ambience.

The mood is increased by several ads of chanting or choirs. Vi Föddes I Samma Grav is a perfect example. The creations of haunting voices fit perfect with the heavy riffs. Four of the seven tracks are in Swedish. Emotions and anger are at their best in the native language.

Profaned Is The Blood Of The Covenant starts very mystic and slow but emerges to haunting savagery. The guitars hail as hunted fearsome animals in the forests. The vocals scream like a grizzly bear in dusk.

Unearthly howls make The Silent Observer one of the best tracks on the album. The speeding of the guitars create an etheric aura. Mattias Frisk screams his lungs out while the vibrations of the guitar strings hypnotize you slowly into slumber. The song ends with doomy medieval voices.

Här Finns Ingen Nåd is the last track and brings old school death metal like the best. Deep frightening grunts kill all the light that is left. Strong berserk choral sounds will only make you to touch the repeat button.

Vanhelgd offers with Deimos Sanktuarium top quality death/doom metal. This release is available on cd/lp and digital formats.  Deimos Sanktuarium deserves a place in every death metal collection. The fantastic artwork is by Mattias Frisk. Buy or die. 

​
Patsker 

alternative / metal / metalcore

heavy metal / power metal

hard rock / stoner rock / alternative rock / grunge

thrash / death metal

doom

doom / sludge / post hardcore

pop rock

pop rock / alternative rock

​Serge

death metal

"Oh god, death metal, what am i going to do with this one?" That was perhaps my very first thought when I opened the postal package that contained this CD. I  have to admit that I have grown out of the genre, with only a few classics remaining in my heavy playlist. I don't know why but most of today's death metal scene cannot convince me.

Then again, you never know. Spanish death metal combo Murder Worker does use the "old school" tag and they do have some interesting names in their list of influences. So after a long period of hesitation, i decided to throw the disc into my CD-player. 

"Dismember", was my second thought. This sounds almost exactly like Dismember. Of course, there was the little traditional intro but once that groovy guitar sound in 'Modus Operandi'  blasted through my speaker I was sure: this is the right stuff. Formed in 2017, Murder Worker have quickly found their sound, blatantly ripping off the classics like Dismember, Obituary, Morbid Angel and Autopsy.  That might sound like bad thing, "ripping off", but in this case it is not. Old school death metal fans want intense sonic punches to the nutsack while forming walls-of-death and that is exactly what Murder Worker delivers.

Instead of using the term "ripping off", I might have well just phrased "tributing the old school". Back in those days, tracks like "Eternal Hate" and "Killing, Rotting, Eating..." might have been instant classics. Then, Murder Worker would be a resident on compilations like 'Death Is Only The Beginning". That being said, I love how Benediction often comes to mind here, especially in the mid-tempo tunes. Today, where deathcore and other questionable styles rule the death  metal scene, Murder Worker is an overwhelming fresh breath of rotten air. 

If I have to split hairs on this one, I think most of the songs could have ended better, at least better than the short fade-out that some of them seem to have. But that is merely a details. I'd also make the album available more easily. Upload the whole thing to bandcamp and push it like the destructive steamroller it is. 'Where The Scream Becomes Silence' is a smasher of an old school death metal album, one that can stand right next to many people's favorites. The death metal scene has to do its very best to top this one. 


​Serge

black metal

bandcamp

With three songs – Bǽl, Opaque and Mǽdland – Bǽl is a strong, lugubrious and poignantly aggressive EP, released by British black metal act Normakk. With a very somber, evasive, discreet and effective atmosphere, the songs are beautifully composed, and from the very beginning, denotes a pungent and starkly spontaneous originality. With a graciously sensible competence, able to display in a positively sincere fashion the most pervasive aspects of the genre, Bǽl is raw black metal done in a proverbially sophisticated and elegant scale. With strident and expansive, but sensibly reliant, and, to a certain degree, darkly sentimental guitar lines, the general musical groundwork of the band is thoroughly exhilarating, consistent and dense, and obliterates on the vicinities of its melancholic melodies the most elusive aspects of black metal. Undoubtedly, a work of irreprehensible grandeur, Bǽl is a marvelously fantastic and unique work of art. Normakk closely follows the traditional old school, with a very peculiar, creative and dense style, with premises that outstands its genuine and salutary virtuosities, shining away any possibilities of being classified as just another generic act of the genre.   

black metal / death metal

Altar Of The Dying is an EP released on July 30, by American blackened death metal group Throne, from Jackson, Michigan. Almost twenty-four minutes long, the work has seven relatively short and very concise tracks: Intro, Heresy Of The Highest Order, Not Of Shadow Nor Fog, Altar Of The Dying, Covenant Of Darkness, Where Angels Cower In Fear and Plagued Upon The Unholy. With an aggressive, dense and very rapid sound, their style can be described as methodical, rude and severely traditional, albeit a little predictable, although this does not affect their general performance. With a fiber and a level of brutality that makes their sound to be profoundly eviscerating, drastic and virulent – but also efficiently concentrated –, Altar Of The Dying is a very energetic, hostile and straightforward work. With highly consistent harmonies and incredibly lucid and somber guitar lines, the group certainly manages to deliver a powerful and pungent style of extreme metal, that is poignantly effusive and dark. Although there is nothing here that you haven’t heard several times before in similar albums of the genre, Throne is a competent, skilled and creative band, that proves their ardent and passionate compromise with extreme metal, on this exceedingly great and powerfully grotesque EP. 

doom

Ashes is an EP released on July 20, by Danish doom metal group Doomcult. Almost twenty three minutes long, the record has three tracks: Sulphur, Ashes and Black Fire. An excellent, pleasant, very delightful work, with way more poetic tendencies if compared to the traditional groups of the genre, Ashes has a melancholic and disturbing, but exceedingly ascendant, philosophic and serene atmosphere, that rises above the sensational and placid stability of its harmonious and dense sonorous configuration. While the first song, Sulphur, deserves to be highlighted, all three songs present an artistic level of security and a musical technique that stands as far superior to the average level. With a sensational style that makes them a powerfully potential reference for the genre in the underground scene, the consistency of the sound of Doomcult – as well as the audacious, but at the same discreet originality present in their music – showcases in the end an absolutely splendid final result. Certainly being one of the most genuine and spectacular releases that I’ve ever heard on the genre – being amazingly passionate and frivolous at the same time – Ashes, by Doomcult, is an exponentially marvelous experience on doom metal, highly recommended to everyone that is an enthusiast of the genre.   

black metal

bandcamp

A dark, rude, depressive and melancholic traditional black metal work, Drowning in Sorrow is an EP released in June by a Finnish musician, that presents himself by the alias of Sathanian. Almost twenty-four minutes long, the EP has five tracks: Depressing Dreams, Wanderer, Drowning In Sorrow, Despair and Kenkiintuijottaja. Despite being better described as traditional black metal, the EP has some discreet traits of DSBM, which is present in the predominantly slow, digressive and dispersive harmonies, that really stands for a surreal and profoundly melancholic mood. The cynic and sorrowful atmosphere of the work is genuinely beautiful, and has a formidable musical consistency, that is ostensibly framed by conspicuously sinister and funeral vocals, that sometimes emphasizes its presence more for its morbid, almost neutral sterile qualities, than for its grotesque nature. A promising, very interesting work, that is sidelined by its truly proverbial and eloquent understanding and execution of the genre, Drowning In Sorrow is an emotional, poetic and very somber work, that has everything to please enthusiasts of the genre.    

black metal / post black metal

bandcamp

An interesting EP with four tracks – Dramatic Truth, Winds Of The End Of Afternoon, Jonas and Alone – the music of Sabactâni can be described as a melancholic twilight forever lost in the everlasting vicinities of depressive and anxious thoughts. A marvelous post black metal group from Brazil, their originality is amazingly eviscerating, with a powerful and afflictive sonority, that energizes the genre at the core of its structure. With powerfully ascendant melodies, that revolves around aggrandizing, but at the same time dismissive and dispersive harmonies, the disillusion that is felt as the epicenter of their style is symbolic to the mood that better defines the genre, and takes a major layer of beauty and poetry in the virtually insane musical diagram of the band, that can be felt as simple and humane, at the same time. A wonderful EP that brilliantly aggregates major qualities to the genre, with a severely robust and consistent anatomy of abundant sonorous virtuosity, B.O.R.E.A.L, by Sabactâni, certainly can be classified as a vigorous and sensational state of the art work. 

black metal / crust punk

bandcamp

Fallen From The Hull is an Ep released by American black metal act Nailwalker, from Austin, Texas. Twenty-five minutes long, and with four sensationally fantastic tracks – Juvenile, Feeding The Devil, Without A Thread To Pull On and Meant For All Fours – Fallen From The Hull is a formidably majestic state of the art work, that brings on the crest of its tempestuous, direct and incinerating melodies all the aggressive devices truly inherent to the genre. With a sober, technically proficient and genuine veracity that is the main engine of their music, Nailwalker is a fantastic musical creation, that introduces into their music in a perfectly incisive and precise manner crust punk elements, as well as more melodic and melancholically somber sonorous tonalities. With beautifully poetic and thoroughly original guitar lines – that somewhere along the way, unveils an amazingly superb, lugubrious and dissonant solo – Fallen From The Hull is one of the most perfect, authentic and astoundingly beautiful experimental black metal pieces that I’ve ever heard. With furious, but lancinating and dramatic vocals as well, as soon as this EP is over, you want to hear it again! 

black metal

bandcamp

S/T is a two track EP released on August 17, by Canadian black metal act Mandragora, from Victoria, British Columbia. With two amazingly sinister songs – In Scarlet Embrace and Beyond The Lacheist Prisons – Mandragora performs old school traditional black metal, on a virtuous and dissonant style. With somber and aggressive tunes, and pervasively grasping cutting edge vocals, the sound of the duo is thoroughly groundbreaking and energetic, doomed to fall beneath the imperial demise of its own projected desolation. With a responsive aggressiveness, that is more melancholic and lugubrious than hostile or belligerent, the overall sound of Mandragora is quite provocative and inventive. Very reminiscent of the early Norwegian black metal scene, the style of the duo is profoundly proverbial, obscure and essentially imaginative, although they do present a formidable degree of originality, that makes their sound quite distinctive, but without losing the quintessential trademarks of the genre. An excellent work – as a matter of fact, a gracefully fantastic two track EP – on the course of its seventeen minutes, Mandragora definitely gives a sonorous lesson about what true old school black metal really is.  

black metal

Dark Lore is an EP released on July 27 by American DSBM artist Moon Bog. Almost twenty three minutes long, the work has four tracks: Under Burning Leaves, Reawaken the Frost, Mount Sorrow and The Strain. A splendid, beautiful, philosophic and marvelously poetic musical work, with an abundant layer of sonorous melancholy, the general style of the artist is profound, graceful and exceedingly rough on the introspective universe of its expansive sensibilities. With genuinely patient and somber harmonies, that plays on the majesty of its precociously filtered and salutary guitar lines, the melodies are dramatically tense, but profoundly calm at the same time, as they extend to the transparent, but lugubrious oceans of its frivolous sensitivities the turbulent pandemonium of its restless state of mind. A passionate, cosmic, exhilarating work, whose pervasive sensibility plays a vital role at the cornerstone of its infuriating, but peaceful and placid sagacious artistry, the formidable level of creativity and excellence displayed by the artist on this work is simply extraordinary, and will certainly please all genuine DSBM enthusiasts that will be happy enough to listen and to enjoy this fantastic pearl of the genre. 

black metal

bandcamp

Self-Destruction is a wonderful EP released on July 25, by Russian DSBM artist Dystert Natt. Very concise, only ten minutes long, the work has four tracks: Ashes And Snow, Insomnia, Scars'14 and Sing To Me An Alcoholic Lullaby. The general style of this musician is DSBM on its most typical and traditional layer. Nevertheless, it is abundant in beauty, and has several qualities that stands out on the course of its sonorous brevity. The melancholy, the mordacity, the overall serenity and the discreet sadness that is overexposed at the most frivolous panel of its virtuous musical context is excessively evasive and lugubrious, but has a poetic beauty that easily disperses and dilacerates the macabre rudeness of its shadows. The guitar lines are ostensibly impeccable and whimsically elaborated, although they are plain and simple. Unadorned, direct and full of lethargic grievances, Self-Destruction – as predictable as it is –, has a consistent, dramatic and sincere layer of sonorous beauty and stylish purity, that certainly makes this wonderful EP a very pleasant experience to hear. 

black metal

bandcamp

With only two tracks – Vacuous and Obsequious Vermin –, Histamine Haven is the debut of an eponymous Canadian project, released on July 24. With a raw and traditional approach to the genre, the record is absolutely fascinating, has a consistent style and definitely has what it takes to please a large audience. With solid, but at the same time dissolute guitar lines, Histamine Haven has a ponderable and serene conjuncture of harmonies, that – despite brief passages of virulent aggressiveness – gracefully elevates the internal dynamic conflagrations of its expansive rhythms to a fateful standpoint, where the experimental colors of the sound extrapolate the venomous frontiers of its own unfathomable hostility. Unraveling a fantastic and versatile tone of primordial stature and creative audacities, the style of Histamine Haven has mordacious peculiarities, and a very original musical groundwork. The way the artist promotes the balance of the most violent and hazardous aspects of his music with the more serene and sensible components of his sonorous splendor denotes a vigorous and majestic ambivalence that is gracefully dilapidated almost to the level of perfection, and certainly will captivate the listeners, almost immediately.  

Wagner

doom / sludge metal / drone / dark ambient

This EP, or single, is long, seventy minutes but in that timespan Boobs Of Doom takes you on a trip through your own darkest imagination. Just download the album, because this is a full length, turn the volume knob to neighbour levels and drift away. Carrie will appreciate it, Boobs Of Doom will appreciate it.

drone / ambient

death metal

gothic rock

bandcamp

drone / dark ambient

Sombre Soniks

drone / dark ambient

dark ambient / ritual / drone

death metal / black metal

drone / dark ambient

ambient / experimental / downtempo

dark rock / art rock / blackgaze

traditional / folk 

post punk / new wave / goth rock

Heading from Bristol, Naut decided to ignore all current trends and to look back to the dark eighties. Now, this five-piece comes with a baffling debut EP, containing five pitch black goth rock tunes. Influences from bands like Sisters Of Mercy and Killing Joke run rampant and come with the overwhelming energy of post punk acts like The Jesus and Mary Chain. Song like opener 'Disintegration' and 'I'm Here' are destined to fill dark dancefloors everywhere. My personal favorite here is closer 'XVI'. It makes me curious and hungry for more, but for now I'm sure that this EP will be an excellent addition to every post punk / goth rock collection. 

doom / sludge

Sheffield doom mongers Kurokuma return with a two track EP, based on the Dope Rider strip from High Times in the 70s. The artwork comes from Paul Kirchner, the creator of the strip. The music is another slab of severe psychotic sludge doom, five and eight minutes long. Part 1 also showcases something industrial, reflected by repetitive, almost methodical drums. Part 2 simply continues to slow but brutal pummeling. Fans of bands like Conan, Dopethrone and Yob can easily trust Kurokuma to deliver the monolithic riffs and fierce vocals they crave so much. So if you want your sludge metal as destructive as a wrecking ball, this EP should do.

post-metal / doom / alternative rock

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Several months after the release of 'Serrated', Dutch heavy rockers An Evening With Knives unleash three songs that did not make the album because of the limited space on the vinyl. Yet, these songs were to important for the band to be ignored. Opener and title track 'Fade Out' deals with the death of Marco’s father due to Alzheimer disease. It's a long, heavy and cathartic lamentation, showcasing the darkest side of this band. The other two songs follow that example, be it a bit shorter. They all walk a similar path as the songs on 'Serrated', and thus would also fit perfectly into every sludge, doom and grunge collection. These guys are growing steadily, that's for sure.

electronic / ambient / experimental

An alienating two track EP that will leave you confused and entangled, that is what Soho Rezanejad delivers. Subtle electronics, minimalist drones, gloomy soundscapes and her vocals come together in two lengthy modern day folk songs. I can't help but think about a mix between Zola Jesus and Diamanda Galas, be it a bit less creepy than the latter. Yet, there is emotion, there is fear, mourning, wonder and hope in these two tracks. There is a mystifying atmosphere, one that borrows elements from dark ambient. Yet, above all perhaps, this is a unique piece of work, reminding me of an act like Dark Ensemble. Recommended only for eternally wandering souls.

post rock / post metal / stoner / sludge

In today's post rock scene, new bands pop up like mushrooms. Würzburg residents The Man Within are one of those newcomers. Mostly, that first effort comes with a low production and a careful introduction in what the band really is capable of. Yet, here that results in a full-blown post metal album with seven outstanding tracks. Most of them, including 'Mount Santo', my favorite 'Institution' (that rolling bass is hot!!!) and the massive 'Limitless' can easily entertain audiences far and wide. Although firmly rooted in the post-scene, elements from sludge metal, psychedelic rock and stoner rock are never far away. A great introduction, now let's hope they can confirm this in the near future.

dark ambient

The new brainchild of Nachtzeit, the man behind ambient dark metal project Lustre, comes up with an interesting dark ambient album. Although playful at time, this album takes us back to the mysterious  and dark age of the Norse gods. Early in 'Drömmarna' acts like Mortiis (on Cold Meat Industry) and Wongraven come to mind. Synths, soundscapes and dreamy melodies guide the listening on a musical tour of medieval Europe, so it seems, highlighting in 'Löftet' and 'Tårarn'. Strangely, the title track 'Hädanfärden' has an X-Files OST feeling about it, which isn't bad, on the contrary. Fans of old school medieval dark ambient can easily appreciate this album.

alternative rock / hard rock / grunge

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Belgian hard rock duo Breakfast At Midnight proves that two is enough to create heaps of noise. On this debut EP they blast seven tracks through our speakers, beginning with the heavy rocking 'Kidi Coke'. From then on, the rock doesn't seem to stop. Inspired by anything between Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age and Stone Temple Pilots, these two feed an everlasting fire. Most tracks drive on sheer energy but in 'What I'm To Say' and in '1813', the band delves deeply into the Pearl Jam version of grunge rock. Here, the vocals are excellent and clean while the other tunes contain heaps of aggressive screams. Not that I mind, this is pure rock 'n roll: raw, rough and heavy.

black metal / death metal

Grab onto something now because Ukrainian trio Goatsperm is about to unload a hellish, chaotic and vulgar EP, loaded with orthodox black/death metal. 'Voice In The Womb' contains three tracks, each one being a pummeling piece of extreme metal, as dark as Satan's butthole but with an ambient breather here and there. Somehow, this trio manages to combine atmospheric passages with sheer metallic terror, something that might indeed make a lot of banging heads turn their way in the near future.  Besides, 'Into The Deep Waters Of Catacombs' is one of the fiercest black metal tunes I've heard this year. If you're a self-respecting extremist, you need this.

krautrock / shoegaze / punk

What would have happened if Ramones used My Bloody Valentine's guitar effects? What would a punk rock cover album of Neu! songs sound like? Well, Finnish six piece Teksti-TV 666 might have a decent answer for you. 'Aidattu Tulevaisuus' delivers six high-octane krautrock tunes with the raw energy of punk and the immersive nature of shoegaze. I admit, it is something different from the usual slabs of rock 'n roll that appear here but 'Turbo-Mondeo' and 'Aidattu tulevaisuus' can easily get your behind shaking. My favorite here is the somewhat slower 'Rauhankone', which might be described as a down-to-earth space rock track. Recommended? Hell yeah!

ambient / electronic / experimental

Hailing from Porto, Vitor Joaquim is a sound sculptor and visual artist, active around the strange borders between soothing ambient and otherworldly noise. This new album, 'Impermanence' contains seven tracks, revolving around repetitive soundscapes, almost subconscious loops and immersive musical textures. Here and there vocals samples have been added to increase the narrative nature of the music. That, along with the minimal soundscapes, makes the title track my favorite here but I'm sure that every fan of decent ambient music can appreciate these sounds. Obviously, this comes highly recommended.

ambient / drone / experimental / noise

bandcamp

An even more noisy and experimental variation on ambient sounds comes from Han, a project by Vitor Joaquim and Emidio Buchinho. This album revolves around live improvisation and real time processing, which results in something severely unusual and highly experimental. Yet, behind the gritty freestyle on the guitar, beautiful ambient loops lurk. These seven tracks are weird, immersive in one way, yet restrained and peculiar. Somehow this album feels like the early days of drone experimentation, when artists were exploring the other possibilities of their instruments. In all, this is an interesting release to dive into, but only for experienced avant gardists...

Serge