sludge / doom / metal

Switzerland’s music scene is thriving this year of our lord 2019 – Rorcal, Coilguns, the whole HUC scene and many more. Charlene Beretah from Neuchâtel is one of those bands from the second line of heavy bands to come out of mountainous Switzerland at the moment. Initially started in 2014 as a duo and, since 2016, a threesome after adding a guitar player (to make their sound heavier) they now released their first full-length “Ram” via Division Records. The title of the record is also its party program!

Like many heavy bands they chose to go for a distorted, sometimes noisy sound to transport their idea of modern sludge – quite punkish, a bit crusty and sometimes pretty groovy but always and foremost heavy! 

Very often the five songs breathe a lot of doom (witness the lengths with one track ticking in at over eight minutes, two even over eleven minutes) while at the same time never giving up on the necessities of the songs, whether it’s a bit of time or an outbreak to keep the oppressive, claustrophobic mood, because one thing is for sure: Here no sun shines behind closed doors. The way the vocals by Thierry are incorporated into the whole soundscape is definitely interesting; in “Hurt” (an ever-winding descent towards purgatory) they are in the foreground as he leads the way with some harsher passages between spoken words and infernal screams. “Call of Darkness” witnesses an elegant intro full of small interwoven electronics, then transforms with noisy shots from left and right before it completely bursts after about a minute, a song so full of life that it’s hard to grasp it all – here again, the vocals are very crusty and aggressive. 

Their whole sound-system and simultaneously the listener is being thrown to and fro with Sâver, Ufomammut and Neurosis being the cornerstones to their songwriting. No one can deny Charlene Beretah a thorough knowledge of how to write songs and using small changes in dynamics and sound in order to transform the whole song and/or its atmosphere. However, one might also see that – at the moment – they are still a band reaching for the places in the first line of awesome noisy Swiss sludge or black metal bands. On a good route to those spots they are, but not quite there yet.


Thorsten

black metal / industrial / doom

Sentient Ruin

Two weeks ago, I was in front of a shopping mall. The date was November 3rd, and a huge Christmas tree was looming over me... A bit early to be celebrating Christmas, I thought, but then again, it seems to put visitors in a spending mood.
Then it hit me. The irony. A long time ago, the Christians stole Christmas from some North European pageants. And now, shopkeepers have
stolen it from the Christians...
Why am I telling you this? Because, if you don't like this artificial jolly atmosphere, I have the perfect antidote for you...


On November 22nd, Sentient Ruin released Decoherence's second manifesto, Ekpyrosis. Last year, I rather enjoyed their first EP, so I was eager to check this out. Decoherence is a three-man band, but not much is known about them. They seem to be based in the UK, and the main member is Stroda, who also creates (lots of) obscure records under his own name. The music itself sounds like black industrial doom - think mid-era Blut Aus Nord. Everything is drenched in reverb and delay, mechanized drums thunder or blast along, guitars buzz, hum, drone, and somewhere deep in this sonic whirlpool you will find subhuman screaming, wallowing in its misery.

As stated before, it's not exactly an uplifting experience, and it takes some determination to finish the first listening session. After that, however, you start to discover the nuances in the different
songs, and all of a sudden it becomes an enjoyable experience. I recommend it as a background tune to a good book and a fine Portuguese wine (as I did last evening). There are five lengthy songs on this EP, and I would recommend the third one, Collapse, as an introduction to the whirling void called Decoherence. Enjoy!


Koen

funeral doom

Some people say that Type O Negative was nothing more than a phenom of its own time. However, the author of these lines must deny that because they laid the foundation for something that they didn’t witness – a genre called Funeral Doom. With a lot of these bands you can audibly hear the footsteps of Pete Steele and his comrades; those bands use some of Type O’s backgrounds – the drones, the pianos, the string sections – and place them straight in front of the audience in the foreground. 

That can also be said for Belgian duo Slow (according to the band that is short for “Silence lives over/out Whirlpool”) and they are very much ahead of their game competing with forerunners Bell Witch on this record. However, there is a difference in the soundscapes of both bands. Bell Witch’s music relies heavily on the use of a gigantic bass guitar while Slow use the piano to their advantage. Nearly every track starts with a single piano motif introducing the song before another instrument or the vocals take over and bully the piano into the background. Nevertheless, it is always present – which is a compliment to the producer and the mastering engineer. Under all these waves of sound the keys are the quicksand the listener is sinking in like a seductive pillow not knowing that for the next 78 minutes he cannot escape. 

The minute changes in dynamics that either “speed up” or (more often) “slow down” a track are their biggest strength. Sometimes they are able to intensify the urgency of the song by simply reducing the tempo by a beat (which is a lot in this genre). The emphatic way they embed the strings into the cascades of growls, riffs and drums can match any band’s. The simple yet very effective riffs are a sight to behold:

Cascading lava is rolling down the mountain towards the eye and ears and in the background the music is underlining the visible event – not marking it as a catastrophe but as a unique moment the human eye usually only witnesses once. Slow(ly) the liquid fire is encroaching on the house and then finally surrounding it on all sides while the candles are burning indoors. Knowing that there is nothing left to do, the mind lies down to rest, the head lies down on the soft pillow on the ottoman sofa. The air is heating up, the oxygen is being used predominantly by the candles burning down and the fire outside creeping up the walls. Slow(ly) everything is good.


Thorsten

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

post metal / sludge / doom

Over the years, many post-metal bands have seen the light of day, nowadays more or less every country has its heroes within the genre. Year of no Light from France, The Ocean from Germany, Postvorta from Italy and so on, the list is long. Portugal’s Wells Valley, who just released a new album on Black Lion Records, is another such example.

The new record “Reconcile the Antimony” displays the necessary qualities of a regular sludge-/post-metal-record, some down-tuned riffs charged with distortion to make the walls of Jericho shake afraid of them, some slow cymbal-driven drumming laden with a regular eruption and vocals to blast away any doubt of pop similarities due to its raspy character. 

A lot of listeners will say that the band is in no way adding something new to a genre whose zenith lies a few years in the past. One will find it hard to deny that fact, indeed Wells Valley’s unique qualities are in only a few moments audible enough to pinpoint why it is a clearly above-average album within an over-established genre with fans well-fed with lots of new releases this year – Cult of Luna, Downfall of Gaia, Inter Arma. An example is the way that the guitar supports vocalist Filipe in the doomy opening track “Antient” or the short second vocal line roughly four minutes in or the nearly inaudible short spoken word part in the middle of the same song. Yes, all these examples are taken from one track only – to clarify the following: Welly Valley make headphone post-metal. 

A few years ago, lots of people were talking about post-metal as “thinking man’s metal” - Wells Valley totally support that with a lot of their song titles referring to Ancient Greek philosophical ideas: “Antimony” (used in the album title) is the incompatibility of two opposites according to Greek philosophy, “Pleroma” takes its name from the Greek word for a shimmering sea of light, “Henosis” is the word for “one-ness” or “unity” and “Hypostasis” is nothing less than the basis or foundation. Add a song title like “Forty Days” with a possible reference to Pythagoras to it and one might see that there is definitely more to this record than your standard post-metal riffs and songwriting concepts, it tries to make a broken entity whole again – reconcile the two incompatibles, likely man and his natural environment. 

Wells Valley’s “Reconcile the Antimony” is built on a solid foundation of post-metal ideas but erects a house full of shimmering tiny details and wholesome philosophy so that it definitely transcends your average sludge record. 


Thorsten

alternative / doom / metal

bandcamp

Faith-Faith is an album released by Russian musician Artem Pervykh, under the alias Faith, on September 30. Atmospheric metal with profusely melancholic and symphonic dissonances, this magnificent album is a relentless and formidable masterpiece. Almost fifty-two minutes long, the album has only four long tracks:
1) In the Ocean of My Tears; 2) Clouds On Your Sides; 3) Faith; 4) Oblivion; the first one, a beautiful anthem of serene majesty, the deeply resounding and harmonious cosmogony that emerges from the melodies are exceedingly proverbial rhapsodies of ostensible splendor, that reveals the absolutely graceful artistic competence of Artem Pervykh. 

His musicality has extraordinary features, most prominently the atmosphere upon which marvelously gracious and flexible melodies float, converting a dense horizon of disruptive harmonies into an everlasting sculpture of sonorous virtues. Despite the fact that some songs are indeed very extensive — the third track, Faith, is almost twenty minutes long —, the fantastic cohesiveness displayed by the music, as well as its generally beautiful and exceptionally wonderful tonalities exhibits a superb and incomparable degree of original creative proficiency, perfectly aligned to a sensational level of technical knowledge, that makes this album a very pleasant and delightful experience.  

The spectacular sonorous atmosphere created by the artist is a major point of sensitive highlight in the album. His astounding excellency upgrades the ethereal cosmogony that is a major musical feature within the wonderfully despondent symphonies that floats from the creative atmospheres of the soul. The genuine and intuitive groundbreaking qualities of the album find no match in the genre nowadays. The melodies are made of exceedingly extraordinary levels of beauty, upon which the essence of the album derives its colossal and virtuous strength. 

Faith-Faith is a magnificent, resonating, serene and deeply vivacious album, that not only revitalizes, but opens a new path of possibilities for the development of atmospheric metal as a genre by its own merits. With an exceptionally dynamic, but at the same time fugacious nature, all musical elements on this great album deliberately align, to deliver a wonderfully conceived masterpiece, that deserves to be classified as a milestone of the genre. 


​Wagner

metalcore

Donetsk is usually known for its coal, maybe also for its football club. Or the war in Eastern Ukraine, but can you name a metal band from there? Probably no, but there is one now, Jinjer. The band around Tatiana Shmayluk will please all fans of bands like Walls of Jericho or Arch Enemy because they definitely got all the trademarks necessary for being successful in the scene. 
​
Their sound is state of the art, the drums energize the songs up to full max, the breaks for the clean parts are well-placed and the vocals easily change seamlessly from growling to immaculate singing. The band is able to incorporate some surprises like the piano-part in “Retrospection” or the jigging off-beat beginning of “Judgement (and Punishment)” hopping along to Tatiana’s lyrics. But the latter also present the one flaw in the Jinjer-puzzle, they are a bit too genre-like; for example the lyrics to the opener “On the Top” with its first glorification of the individual strife for greatness and success and the turn to a criticism of the same. “Retrospection” definitely has the most intriguing lyrics as the beginning is sung in Russian and English with the English parts talking about the wish to return to the family safe haven – the Russian parts make the English screaming much more believable. Nonetheless, genre fans will surely be very pleased with the first band they know from Donetsk, Ukraine.

doom

“From the darkness comes the light” - a programmatic sentence for Karyn Crisis and her project with husband/Ephel Duath-mastermind Davide Tiso, gloomy sunrises dominate this record. The voice of former NYHC band Crisis has been working with the Italian metal guitarists for several years having released an album in 2015. Now, four years later, they return with a new LP and its 12 songs show a lot of different sides of the duo accompanied by Fabian Vestod (Skinlab) on drums. 
The songs have a certain groove and grow on the listener but they mostly feed off of the energy spread by Karyn’s voice. It is audible that she has been singing for nearly 30 years with a longer break after the end of Crisis in 2004. Since then she has discovered her spirituality and even taught people in order to get in touch with that side of themselves and in some strange ways that can be heard. Very often she uses her strong voice to seduce us, to connect with our third eye.
Listening to Karyn is like watching a black and white movie of a medicine woman with some blue flames flickering before an old Chevy standing at the top of a long canyon with the black gorge looming in the deep. An image one cannot take the eyes off just like one doesn’t want Karyn to stop from lullabyeing. 
Her husband doesn’t overplay his musical abilities he rather uses all his prowess to sustain his wife’s magical abilities. You will find a wide range of dynamics and guitar work on “Covenant” – from doomy riffs to minuscule guitar pickings painting red moons over Karyn’s old Chevy and the black canyon.

post rock

Mountain men mambo. Caveman cha-cha-cha. Those stupid terms can hardly be used more adequately than when describing Törzs’ new album, with a wink of an eye. Why? Later, for now let’s talk about the music itself. 
There is something about this record that resonates inside as much as outside. The reverb on the record is probably as much a derelict of the band’s roots in shoegaze as to the idea behind it. The songs follow a motif of clarity that is also reflected in the change to a purely instrumental band with this release letting go of vocals for better. The Hungarian outfit is able to paint a wholesome picture of deserts around huge mountains without snow-capped tops, of long and winding roads through the Hungarian vastness outside the metropolis. Sometimes the temperatures drop because of the chilling slowness of some riffs and licks (“Hamarlik”) and sometimes the heat rises by the minute because of the jazzy vibrato of the drums (“Ötodik”). Jazz, that is definitely a thing to connect “Tukör” with, the band sometimes sounds like the perfect mix between The Cinematic Orchestra and Bohren und der Club of Gore, and just those two there is one thing that Törzs definitely are really good at – giving their songs just the right amount of time to breathe. They have left all desperate haste and unnecessary hurry at the entrance to the cave in which they recorded this record; and that is no joke – this is real caveman-made music. 

blackmetal / blackgaze

The second release from Hungary in this edition of the Brieviews, Hegy is leading us onto a seemingly similar path like Törzs with the opening track “Outer Rings” before turning around abruptly and then erupting harshly destroying all ideas one had about the road taken and at the very end the Alcest’ian notions are overturned again with an electronic outro. Those are reconfirmed by the beginning of “Hydra”, the second track, when they use blastbeats to show their roots and then lead into a straight up rock song of which many mainstream rock bands would be proud. It becomes clear that Hegy (Hungarian for ‘mountain’) is a band that is really capable of producing good long-tracks as there is always so much going on in their sound and songwriting. The trio doesn’t bore the listener, the guitars take him by the hand leading him from one sonic idea and motif to the next with the drums explaining a story of a harsh expedition through unknown territory sometimes going up a difficult slope and then again stumbling over earthy ground. 
Sometimes blackgaze doesn’t need vocals if the music is already pointing you in the right directions. Or turns you around to enjoy the right view before you just stare at a blank mountain wall for too long. Or plays a trick on you and you stare at a picture of a view before being pushed off the cliff but falling into an even more interesting scenario. It would be “Nefarious” not to listen to Hegy if you are into post-rock and shoegaze, blackgaze and post-metal. They have a lot to say wordlessly.

black metal

Agalloch, Saor, Winterfylleth, Panopticon – the list is long and seemingly endless when it comes to atmospheric black metal bands nowadays. Most of them have a feeling for dynamics and the situational eruption amidst vast quietness. Ben Sizer aka Arx Atrata is no exception to it. The mastermind and only member of this project uses synthesizers to spice up his musical vision which becomes clearest in the title-track of this, his third record. A 10-minute-opus, the track plays with the audience often using small ambient passages or clean guitar parts to disrupt the eruption. Sizer is definitely able to use the synthesizer to his best advantage, supporting the blastbeats and eerie guitar motifs with effective scapes in order to purvey some kind of loftiness of sound that is also noticeable in small things like some minor background guitar work where some simple chords provide a breath of air and slowly raise everything a bit higher. ‘Higher’ in general seems to be the direction that Sizer strives for, as his compositions always reach towards the open sky. Whether he will be able to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors when it comes to the success they had, remains to be seen – he surely took a lot of pages from their books and constructed his own vision and trademark sound. That is something that not too many people on the long list of atmospheric black metal bands can say for themselves. 


​Thorsten

doom / black metal / post metal

Caro Tanghe from Oathbreaker, T from Turia – two brilliant examples of female fronted black metal or blackgaze, two strong females who show that not only guys can raise hell with their voices and a coherent attitude. If we talk about Dutch-Belgian bands with female vocals over dark, sinister music we shall not forget another one – Sylvia Berger, the singer for Breda’s blackened sludge five-piece The Fifth Alliance.

The band released their third full-length in late August (shame on us for not reviewing it earlier) and
it definitely is a grower in its own right. One cannot deny the magical carpet ride that they take us on with this record as they are able to give space and air to every instrument so that it can contribute
to a sound that will flow through you and captivate your senses.

Sometimes the blastbeats may be a bit harsh but the guitars flow and always point out a way for the listener to catch a hold in all the wonderful chaos before him. They show you the path whenever a moment to clarity is needed, for example after roughly two thirds of “Hekate” - the guitars take over after a longer passage of dancing around the blastbeats and then two very different guitar lines make for a highly atmospheric ending.

The doomy parts, take the intro to “Hellfire Club” for instance, also provide a perfect background
for Sylvia’s vocals reaching into the Depth of Darkness. Here, for example, she starts the narrative with the words “On a starless night he played god”, a clear sign that nothing good can follow as someone is already at the beginning unmasked to be an impostor to a position that no person can hold.

The only criticism that one might put forward is that, even though they are near-perfect in their own genre, they hardly contribute to its evolution. Nothing on this record is unheard of; it is flawless and captivating, but unique in its own sense? No. Nevertheless, is that really necessary if you are that good at what you do? Maybe we should just follow Sylvia down into this five-song abyss hoping that we find our way out again. The voyage itself should be worth it. 


​Thorsten

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.
​
“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

black metal / doom

How do you write about a record with a running time of 37 minutes – in only two songs?! You cannot look at the sequence of songs because, well, there are only two. Can you look at any really significant difference between them? No, not with German black metal masters Ultha, though you might say that “No Fire only Smoke” is the more experimental track of the duo because of its slow beginning with the voice-over sample. You might also argue that track two, “Constructs of Separation”, a 21-minute-monster infused with a lot of doom-moments, is a bit more melancholic and gloomy.


When Ultha and Vendetta Records broke the news for this release they also simultaneously said that this would be their pen-ultimate record (before an infinite hiatus), the last one being released at the band’s own Unholy Passion Festival in December. So, this release is the beginning of Ultha
preparing for their goodbye; is there a slight hint at that in the title of “Constructs of Separation”?
Well, if there is then it’s well-hidden in plain view.

As usual with this band you should not expect anything less than uncompromising artistry as they
are masters of their craft. There is hardly any modern black metal band that cannot make clever use of the double bass attacks and blastbeats, of harsh, distorted shredding and slowly winding clear motifs, yet there is hardly any modern black metal band that can match up to Ultha’s brilliance.

They got this Wagnerian moment working for themselves – just as cleverly as the (ideologically
discussion worthy) German composer of the 19th century they are able to hide a simply beautiful
guitar line inside of a lot of noise only to push it slowly towards the foreground where it then can
stand on its own and shine even brighter as it had to survive through all the “dirt and grind”. These are then the moments which make the listener feel heightened up to a point where he is as elated as that singular musical element. This ability to lift us up while still shredding along all the time is what makes this band stand out, makes the hair on our arms stand up, makes us wait for the final release at the beginning of December, and finally makes us wait for a comeback after
aforementioned hiatus. We could hardly wait with arms more open. 


​Thorsten