doom / death metal

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Italians are the masters of doom metal. I know, there is decent doom metal being produced pretty much everywhere but somehow Italy constantly manages to produce a massive amount of high quality albums. In fact, there's a sticker on the album saying "Italian Doom Metal", which mostly serves as a quality label.
Furthermore, most of the doom bands from over there don't merely follow the trends. Today, sludge doom and post-metal are incredibly popular niches while melodic doom death is mostly being ignored. Not so in Italy, where yet another masterpiece of melodic doom will spawn on March 20.

Titled 'Empire Of The Void', this third album by Tethra is a blast. From the very beginning of the intro, 'Cosmogenesis', it's clear that we're dealing with a must-have. Drones and twin guitars,  we're descending back into the nineties, so it seems. And yes, then comes 'Cold Blue Nebula', an instant classic for those who adore November's Doom, Paradise Lost, Amorphis, Saturnus, My Dying Bride and so on. Heavy riffing, melodic guitars, tempo changes, harsh grunts, clean vocals,... this song has everything to become a fan favorite.

After that, the 'Gravity' trilogy begins, a massive anthem in three acts. I must say, as impressive as the opening track was, this trilogy is a stunner. I immediately turned up the volume and I immediately felt like I did when I first heard the albums by some of the aforementioned bands. Moonspell comes forward as a reference here, mainly in the clean vocal parts. I also often found myself thinking (and yelling out loud), "Fuck, this is awesome". I rarely use the F-word, so that is a compliment.

But, although I can namedrop a heap of nineties doom metal bands, I think it's important to point out that Tethra is a worthy player in their own right. The album is extremely coherent and extremely captivating. There is plenty of variation, yet still it feels like a concept album. Furthermore, 'Space Oddity' is a baffling cover version of David Bowie's classic. I could never have imagined this song could be even more crushing. I think this was a risk, but a well executed one. Kudos for this emotional tribute.

Another one of my favorites on 'Empire Of The Void' is 'Dying Signal', which nudges towards the black metal scene with intense riffs and a pitch black atmosphere. Back in those days, the heavy nineties, this track would be the one that made me decide to purchase the CD, and with that I'll recommend every melodic doom metal fan to do exactly that. Tethra cannot disappoint you. Their name belongs among those I mentioned earlier and this album belongs in between your all-time favorites. It's as simple as that...


​Serge

grunge / stoner rock

Iceland’s scene is very likely one of the strongest worldwide as we are talking about a country with roughly 360,000 inhabitants and yet we all know so many bands from Iceland pushing the brim for modern music further and further. Keelrider is another one of those, although they most likely will not see as much attention as Sigur Ros, Björk or the whole Icelandic black metal scene because they are Stoner Grungers with a twist. In 2018 they published their debut album “North” and last year they published two singles from their upcoming album “Second Wind”. While “Too Far Gone” is in parts a very nice melange of Alice in Chains-vocals and Soundgarden-stoner riffs, “Sun” is much more interesting because the band some a little more variety when it comes to time signatures and giving the guitar lines more space to breathe. If you are into stoner rock and grunge, this band is something right for you! 

post metal

Post-Metal from Italy. Most foreigners automatically associate it with Postvorta but some, a little deeper in and a little longer might remember the name Calendula, the sextet from Parma, which released an EP (2011) and a full-length (2012) a while ago. After some changes concerning line-up and musical direction, they released a 25-minute-song in November which definitely doesn’t fit to the title “De Brevitate Vitae” - it’s not brevis (brief) at all. It is quite a monster with a lot of dynamic changes and oscillates between dynamic driving drums and some really clever, counteracting guitar-work following the long intro, which sometimes hints at a bit of Tool. The vocals are pretty good, they also use some samples to give it a more differentiated sonic outline. Something that can be criticized is the sound as the partially trashy Lo-Fi sound doesn’t really fit a record as ambitious as this one, although on the other side it fits to the proclaimed role models  – 90s post-rock bands such as Slint (noticeable in the very effective guitar motif after the first real break). If the guys follow this path, we might have two Italian associations with the term Post-Metal.

electronic 

Svart Records is one of the finest labels when it comes to hard, harsh music, most people know about that. Most people do not know that they also have an electronic sub-label – Svartronix which again is very open-minded. A few weeks ago they released the debut song by A Heart Beats “Dazes the Mind” which is pop music that fits perfectly in any 80s mix of songs by some tropical house producer. This songs purvey a kind of Caribbean calypso feeling but their sex-appeal derives to a large extent from the intriguing vocals of Paile who once was a member of Beastmilk. His delivery is very nice and especially the chorus is so funky that one automatically feels his feet moving, but the line also has some depth “It dazes the mind / and numbs the tongue”. The beats produced by Tuuki are layered with some space basslines in the sense of some more synth-driven Daft Punk and the beat itself is shuffling a bit, so that the sunny, opening sounds give the song a holiday feeling without the stupidity. A promising debut song, let’s hope A Heart Beats and Svartronix has some more servings.

doom / death metal

Russian death doom act Intaglio released a demo version of a new track at the end of last year and in some way, the beauty lies in the rhythm. Many voices will now scream that the rhythm is nothing particular new to the genre, as the slow, dragging rhythm of the song is really quite normal, but the way that the strings connect to it, support it in certain passages, yeah, even form it from time to time, that is really breathtaking – the Gothic attitude it brings to the song turns it into a remarkable one. The lyrics, speaking about the overwhelming character of a memory of death which overshadows everything else, are delivered in regular death metal style. Another standout feature is the use of the use of an upright bass that is tuned so well, that you can hear each tap and each ring.
In some way, three pretty singular metal genres are amalgamated into one pretty dense net of emotions that will leave no open ear without imprinting a memory of itself on the listener. If this is a first sign of a new album then one might keep Intaglio in mind.

punk

Everything about this 7” screams “Old school! Old school!”, the cover (seemingly a reverse from the classic Minor Threat discography cover that also was adopted by Rancid several years ago), the cover b-side, the black-white style, the sound, everything! But first things first: The revived band released a good album in 2018 and last December followed with this 7” out on Heartworm Press. The title track is a new shotgun blast somewhere between Zeke, MC5, The Clash, Turbonegro and Black Flag (although one must say, that only the vocals sometimes hint at Rollins) – definitely a good track. The b-side is a well-made cover of “Left for Dead” by The Lemonheads another one of these late 80s punk bands that turned more and more to indie-rock. The cover is good and shows a different side to American Nightmare. However, there is one thing that is lacking in this release and that is the teenage angst that made AN famous. The despair, the sadness, the melancholy – not there. On the other hand, that might drive the listener to despair and achieves the same effect.

avant garde / folk

Dog Tunnel Records

There are genres that seemingly are so heavily steeped in tradition and customs that it is hard to imagine to hear a new sound in them. Take Irish Folk for example; most of us at first might associate it with pub nights somewhere between the Dubliners and Christy Moore (at best) or Michael Flatley and Enya (at worst). But to combine the traditional folk instruments bodhran, flute, violin, and guitar with a wall of sound, lots of spoken word (not cheerfully and rhythmically, but rather intimidating and fierceful) is something rarely heard before. Tuatha is a fierce project that will leave some of us open-mouthed. Formed in early 2019 and already a rising star on the scene, the septet uses old Irish tales from the Middle Ages and Gaelic Dindsenchas (short poems describing certain places) to deepen their already impressive style. In parts, their unrelentless approach reminds one of the approach Archive and SubRosa took in totally different musical landscapes. This here is unique, bewitching and typical Irish yet also totally un-Irish. Folks, give Tuatha a listen!

sludge / doom

A quartet from Phoenix, Arizona with a very grainy, heavy sound, Mosara released their debut demo last November. It shall be a prelude to a record which is in the making and should see the light of day before the end of the year; of course the demo should also draw interest from labels and I think it might: The musical soundscape is strongly influenced by a lot of proto-metal like Sabbath, Blue Cheer, but also by classic doom bands like Electric Wizard or Cough – that means, you get what you expect, low-tuned, richly-distorted, grainy, a bit lofi-ish doom sounds with a tinge of sludge influences (most audible on the second track “Clay and Iron”). Sometimes the howls and growls could be a bit fiercer and less despaired because, sometimes, Tony Gallegos (ex-Twingiant) is a bit too clear. Nevertheless the sound is great, as if someone mated Fu Manchu with Sabbath and their offspring was left in the desert with a guitar as the only means of communication. The riffs are dragging, the bass is dominant, the drums are supportive – all good in the Arizona desert. 

death metal / black metal / doom / noise / grindcore

Noise bastard? Yeah. Death metal? Sometimes. Grindcore? For sure. Doomy Gloom? You bet. All of that and more is “Tellurian Insurgency” by Ploughshare. With their third release in as many years (after 2017’s “Literature of Piss” and 2018’s acclaimed “In Offal, Salvation”) the quartet from Australia’s capital Canberra once again proves that the bar is always too low for them. Excellent musicians with a highly complex understanding of how music works they show that extreme metal must also rely on atmosphere that sometimes exists between the chords and blastbeasts. A great deal of the attraction of this band is the vocals, which never sound cheesy but quite on point. This EP also features a remix of their standout song, the title track of “In Offal, Salvation”, which shows that it is even possible to give this dark nightmare of a song an even more desperate twist. One thing that becomes clear throughout the record is how important good drumming is for such a kind of music as it must set the tone for everyone. If the guys can keep up their productivity we should await a new heir to the extreme metal throne in 2020.

industrial

Describing this Oakland, CA, quartet is not that easy and not that difficult at the same time. Their sound relies heavily on synths, samples but also on guitar, bass and drums. They cross constantly between electronic noise (aka industrial) and post-punk’ish avantgarde sounds. Initiated in 2013 and having independently released already a bunch of records, Lament Cityscape set out to publish three EPs in 2020, each following some red thread and yet also standing out on its own. Something that they share with some of the pioneers of this kind of sonic assault (Godflesh, Killing Joke, Author & Punisher) are the harsh sounds that sometimes remind one of buoys warning the oncoming ships of the nearby rocks and sandbanks which here are symbolized by the rough drum attacks. In parts, this is a good record for those who like Godflesh’s Streetcleaner a bit less polished and a bit more straightforward. Partially, one is left behind by a lack of surprise, but fans of industrial noises and harsh synth-driven drums will really like this.

black metal

At first, the band’s name might sound like a nice pun on 80s karate flic “Bloodsport” (with the amazing multiple Academy Award winning actor Jean-Claude van Shakespeare) but when listening to this new face on renown Swedish Meta label Blood Harvest it becomes clear that the idea of a fungi which sits parasitically on its host and feeds of it before finally killing it works perfectly within the black metal community. It also works nicely because the record to it is really good and leaves one’s ears with an immediate wish to press replay because of its clever changes in mood, dynamics and tempi. The record (especially the second track “Cede to the Saprophyte”) is like a nice blend of groove metal and black metal with the emphasis, of course, on the latter. Thematically, the record presents the idea of the fungal mass on this planet slowly but certainly taking over and destroying all other organisms, a new take on the apocalyptic visions presented by bands like Botanist or Arx Atrata. For a band that only came together in 2018, this is really somewhat impressive. 


​Thorsten

black metal / death metal

Debut albums are very complicated, especially nowadays, when it’s more or less already do or die. Either your record is strong enough to attract as much attention as necessary or not. With Seattle’s new five-piece collective Izthmi the answer is a straightforward YES! The band surrounding vocalist Jakob Keizer is able to throw a lot of different influences and genres into the blender stirring it a lot and then pouring a mesmerizing collection of songs into the listeners’ ears. 

Atmospheric acoustic guitars and heavy shredding – yet never without a strong sense for melodies – provided by two guitarists who seemingly have listened to lots of doom and black metal although they are able to develop a very self-sustaining amalgam and not to sound like a clone of any role model. The ability to give the album a red line in the form of little distortion on some of the tracks and some over-steering connected to the synth sounds. 

One thing that definitely doesn’t go unnoticed is the fact that the drumming is definitely on point and a very essential part of the songwriting. The band uses a lot of dynamic changes in style and pattern and very often the force steering it all or connecting it all is Nolan Head’s drumming. He incorporates precise blastbeats as well as small, minute parts. A brilliant example of Izthmi’s breathtaking songwriting is “Useless is the Song of Man, From Throats calloused by name” – huge buildings are constructed and torn apart, small and calm parts go hand in hand with explosions and eruptions.

Not a lot of bands will be able to convince the audience as much in a genre of their own, because that is what makes this record even more impressive. The band can draw from a bunch of genres and never sound like a pure black metal band, or a pure death metal band. They are always self-conscious in their arrangements and sound. If you are looking for a new band to “know” before they become big – Izthmi might very well be it!


Thorsten

post metal / death metal /experimental

I've often thought about what goes into making an album. How the push and pull of various influences plays out in creating a work of musical art. Does anyone have overall control of the project or do each member have an equal say in what is produced? Having only a tiny fraction of musical talent myself I am fascinated as to how great albums come to be in existence. I would love to know the answers to a few of my previous questions when it comes to the latest album by Italian band Nero Di Marte called Immoto.

Lead by the very distinctive vocals of singer Sean Worrel who sings somewhere between a controlled growl and a clean style, not a million miles away from Joe Duplantier. This lengthy album (it clocks in at over 67 minutes long) runs the gamut of several musical styles and does so exceedingly well. The first song Sisyphos is a great introduction to the rest of the album. It starts with gentle guitar strums before Sean's impassioned vocals come in over the top before exploding in a frenzy of blast beats and a wall of noise which ebbs back into calmer waters after a few minutes. This dynamic between the light ambient slower side and the cacophonous frenetic darker side are at the beating heart of this album. A lot of bands I've listened to have a great grasp of these dynamics, Nero Di Marte skate this line and come perilously close to falling off it at times, but most of the time they seem to correct the course and balance out the equation. I say most of the time as there are occasions when they fall prey to over indulgence and I can't help but feel with a bit of trimming some of the more indulgent passages, this album could have been stupefyingly good, rather than just great. Album highlight L'Arca is a maelstrom of heady extreme music and really showcases the best the band has to offer. Every member gets a chance to shine and the rhythm section in particular sound like they are having a blast, literally at times. 

Overall, this album is an outrageously good listen, the web-like strands weaved by the band create occasional magic. If you like your extreme music with a healthy dose of calmer sections then do not miss this album, it is wonderful. 


Simon

death metal

This one man debut was released in the beginning of February 2019. The CD was given to us by a fan when we visited one of the oldest record shops of Ghent Belgium. Ethereal Darkness is the project of a certain moniker Lars playing all the instruments and taking care of the death and black metal voices on Smoke And Shadows.

Melodic based death metal is mixed with gothic and black metal atmospheres. The album brings a story of life reflections balancing between life and death. Thoughtful lyrics tell stories about loss, love, acceptance, hope and remission. The darker side of life is etched in song structures containing heavy hypnotic guitar riffs and blasting beats. Mysterious Lars knows how to play the strings with sharp solos and slow melancholic parts precisely woven in the eight tracks of this album. 

It’s difficult to categorize Ethereal Darkness. The use of melodic guitar work with a mix of death and black metal vocals has very interesting result. Wintersun appeared in our mind to describe the varied wall of sound Ethereal Darkness shapes, but with less complexity. The production and mastering of this surprising piece of work is almost too good to believe and flirting with a strained feeling.

Smoke And Shadows  is a conceptual album about how our lives are like rivers flowing slowly into the sea. This Belgian artist provides with no doubt a nice listening session for the dark and lonely winter evenings. We will embrace this music during black X-mas days.

​
Patsker

black metal / death metal

We have been following, with a lot of interest, the musical path of the Uruguayan dark metal duo for several years. Upon Shadows is Natalia Arocena (bass) and Tamara Picardo (keyboards, guitars and vocals). Modern Obscurantism is the cherry on the cake of their hard work. The duo from Montevideo started with this female-fronted dark metal act in 2003. Tamara Picardo moved to Finland in 2013 but the less Upon Shadows stayed alive and creative trying hard to spread their dark metal music into the world.

The production of Modern Obscurantism was in professional hands. We could listen to an outstanding well balanced sounding album with ten varied atmospheric dark metal tracks. Tamara Picardo’s grating voice is melted in spooky keyboard chords and guitar riffs referring to the old school atmospheric black metal days. Beautiful angelic background vocals are added to her demonic growling, creating a dark romantic mood. 

Session drummer Joonas Alaräihä (member of Finnish thrash metal band Fatal Effect) controls tightly and detailed the wood chopping with bass player Natalia Arocena. Although Tamara Picardo is the musician in charge, the rhythm section has also an important impact on this recording. Modern Obscurantism  has a vast amount of interesting details hidden in many layers. Dwelling piano riddles and chiming bells give a creepy gothic mood to the album. We could hear and feel that Tamara Picardo put a lot of inspiration from the land of a thousand lakes into this album. Even the South American roots of the band remained by adding Spanish lyrics in several songs.

Upon Shadows shows the result of dedication and persistence on Modern Obscurantism. We have listened with full attention and got fused into this atmospheric dark metal (with a black metal touch) trip. The mastering and mixing of this inspiring album was in the hands of Mika Pohjola at Soundmix Recording Studio in Oulu, Finland. We can only bow before these ladies of Upon Shadows.

​
Patsker

death metal

For people not really acquainted with Tech-Death the new record by Denver’s Blood Incantation (released via Dark Descent Records) will sound like pure a fistfight between King Kong and a T-Rex, with the king of the monkeys playing the guitar and the king of the carnivores providing the growls and howls that for now shall be called vocals. This battle for the ages takes place in a desert wasteland on a godforsaken planet, revolving around a blue sun, which every once in a while makes the place so cold that even the two monsters have to stop to take a breath. 

The record starts like every good fight with a lot of rage and the monsters are exchanging their blows heavily and quickly. The audience is blown into their chairs and cannot take a breath because there is so much going on. However, after the first part of the fight (here called “Slave Species of the Gods”) the middle part of the fight starts when both contestants have to think of their stamina as they were unable to deliver a knockout in the first part and now might be facing a full length fight – Blood Incantation’s version of that is called “The Giza Power Plant” and the small stops and guitar solos show that it’s not all about speed for them, a musical structure must also have some time to breathe. After roughly two minutes the pub brawl turns technical and the band does so by displaying a doom momentum somewhere between a sitar and a western movie tune. 

“Inner Paths (to Outer Space)” follows with a calm intro and some drops of water falling on the barren ground beneath the fighters who have to sit back and wait, they’re coming closer to the final round, “Awakening from the Dream of Existence …” that is an 18-minutes opus displaying all the qualities of a good metal record – speed, doom, great guitar skills and atmosphere. The monsters are taking it out on each other again with body parts flying from left to right, while they still need to take a deep breath every once in a while because it’s been so intense. There are multiple breaks (one of them the long outro) filled with ambient passages and sci-fi noises that show a thorough understanding of dark jazz. King Kong and T-Rex knocked each other out and the dust is settling on their bodies. These calmer moments make the album worth listening – it’s not the speed and the musical skills that make a good record but its ability to look for and behold the necessities of the song. 


Thorsten

death metal

How fast can laser beams travel on a guitar neck? Well, ask these guys! After a longer silence –
with last year‘s one-off single Plague Revival as a lonely sign of life– Seattle’s death metal-sci-fithrashers Xoth are back with their second self-released full length Interdimensional Invocations and
again they show how speed metal and tech-death can spawn a solid technical animal.

The band embarks on a 40 minute journey of speedy dual guitars, lots of double bass and a great
mixture of different voices which is one of their strongest trademarks.


Everything blends nicely into this lyrical chaos of rising cybernetic kings, a plague for mankind and the phantom queen at whose feet we kneel. It is evident how much fun Xoth had when writing these lyrics, because this is all taken with two grains of irony and that is what separates them from a lot of their tech-death colleagues. A genre laden with so much sterility and precision can definitely use a band that has a twinkle in the eye. The post-machine-takeover science-fiction theme is a good contrast to a lot of the over-serious topics you encounter in this genre. Nevertheless, do not mistake them for the Coheed and Cambria of tech-death – here is no solution to end wars, here those battles are over and mankind lost.

On the other hand it must also be clear that musically Xoth does not add anything new to this genre, they can compete but not challenge. Many other bands that they already shared the stage with are capable of the same dual-threat guitar attacks and double-bass massacres; nevertheless, the Seattle quartet can say for themselves that having three vocalists is a bonus as each voice is clearly identifiable and different, ranging from a bar brawl shouter to clear black shrieks and deathly growls.

The band is definitely at their best when they give the songs a rest, even if it’s only a momentary
one, but that makes them even more interesting, for example the little slap-bass part in Plague Years 20XX or the dancing and dueling guitars at the beginning of Mountain Machines. If they can focus their songwriting more on songs like the final Melted Face of the Soul in which classic metal guitar work alternates with on-point death metal riffing the next album can become even more of a genrebender. 

Xoth will release Interdimensional Invocations on October 18th and it can be purchased through
their bandcamp account.


​Thorsten

post rock / post metal

noise rock / jazz / experimental

doom / sludge

psychedelic / doom / stoner rock

ambient

house / techno / electronic

dark ambient

ambient / experimental

electronic / downtempo

bandcamp

heavy metal

black metal / death metal

ambient

Audiobulb

​Serge

metal

metal / death metal

facebook

progressive rock / experimental

psychedelic rock / doom

hard rock

progressive metal

psychedelic rock /  doom

sludge metal / doom

black metal

alternative rock / psychedelic / noise rock