hardcore / grindcore / crust

black metal

grunge / alternative metal / progressive rock

doom

alternative rock

death metal

punk rock

bandcamp

electronic

electronic / darkwave / EBM / Industrial

shoegaze

post rock / progressive rock / experimental 

It's Only Permanent is an album released by American experimental progressive/ post rock group Black Flak and the Nightmare Fighters, from Salt Lake City, Utah, in January 10. Almost forty-two minutes long, the record has ten tracks: 1) It's Only Permanent, Part 1; 2) Burning at Both Ends; 3) Clustercuss; 4) On a Good Day We Can See The End From Here; 5) Sunny Day Anhedonia; 6) F41.0; 7) Bird Without Feathers; 8) Wilt; 9) It's Only Permanent, Part 2; 10) You're Gonna Carry That Weight; with a beautiful, delicate and sensible style, already in the first song, you can feel the musical grace and the revolving tenderness that encircles the majestically soft, but dense harmonies, that runs throughout this marvelous work of art. 

With creative abilities that sideline a thoroughly dispersive, fabulous, dream-like sound, able to easily conceive in the diagram of its dynamic nature the colorful notes of its melodic infinities, the general structure of the band’s music is simple, but exceedingly whimsical, diluted, fantastic and genuine. It has a voice and a salutary disposition of its own, definitely delivering a sensational projection of peripheral sensitivities throughout the serene journey made possible by the grace of its cohesive and humane elegance. 

It's Only Permanent is mainly distinguished by its predominantly calmer, gentle and beautiful sound. You may not become too impressed or exhilarated by this album initially, but definitely, its overall qualities and virtues abundantly surpasses any predictabilities the record may have. With reflexive dissonances that understands the grace of its renitent and fragile splendor, the music of Black Flak and the Nightmare Fighters is an introspective symphony of vivacious artistry, that explores in a subtle minimalism the most discreet – but at the same time extraordinary – layers of their music. 

While they do fall in more ordinary territory sometimes, this doesn’t damage their music at all. The proverbial lucidity of their style is exceedingly functional, and the postulated boundaries they melt per second displays the paradoxical undertones of a deeply sagacious, restless and dynamic creativity, that is eager to go beyond all the intrinsic musical contingencies they might perceive as restrictive. Definitely, It's Only Permanent is a beautiful album, completely worthwhile listening. If you are an enthusiast of modern experimental post rock, you will positively love this amazing work of art. 


Wagner

post rock / progressive rock

Dormant is an album released on December 9, by Belgian post rock band noisedriver. An interesting, inspiring and original album, definitely transpires a lucid and groundbreaking approach to the genre, revitalizing the virtuous grandiosity of its robust and exhilarating musical universe, despite its rude conciseness – the album is only thirty minutes long. With melodies that strikes the limits of its outer proportions, with occasionally surprising, graciously harmonious and brief melodic arpeggios, noisedriver definitely goes outside the ordinary boundaries of the genre, flirting intelligently with progressive rock, elaborating and delivering to the audience a totally different experience in terms of musical perception and creativity. 

With seven tracks – Domesticated Nomads, Oneironautics, Reductionism, Metaphors, A Priori, Nihilism and Transcendence –, the sound becomes more and more surprising as the album advances. With deeply melancholic melodies either, the group delivers a profoundly extravagant and intense, but also refined and sensible harmonious densities, whose unbearable cosmogonies anticipates the grandiosity of its own hyperbolic artistic ambitions. As the striking beauty of highly unpredictable melodies conceives a very introspective place of consecrated rapture, the soul and the essence of the record reveals an impalpable, but thoroughly triumphant creative grandeur, that converts your conscience into an ocean of unlimited sensitivities, where an infinite and fantastic perceptive splendor aggregates the vivacity of life into your dreams.   

With a profoundly superb degree of originality, Dormant reveals itself to be a splendid and glorious album, all the way through. Displaying a complex degree of audacity and experimentalism – but completely devoid of any type of excesses or empty exhibitionism –, the music of noisedriver is a refreshing, dynamic and colorful parallax, almost to the point of perfection, never being too technical nor superficial, but exceedingly revitalizing and genuine. With a sensible, but also fabulous level of creativity, they are definitely one of those gracious talents capable to give the underground a whole new diagram of potentialities. 

A marvelous album, with basically no deficiencies whatsoever, Dormant – contrary to what the title suggests – will keep you hallucinated; as a matter of fact, exhilarated, as long as the album keeps playing. Given the fact that the album is too short, I have listened to it two times in direct sequence. And the impression of its undoubtedly virtuous artistic grandiosity only grew. Definitely, albums like this one are not created every day. Dormant is a unique masterpiece, and a great gift to all post rock enthusiasts everywhere.  


Wagner

progressive rock / progressive metal / post metal 

Fire by the Silos is an album released in the beginning of the month by British instrumental progressive metal group Toska. Sixty four minutes long, the record has nine tracks: The Herd, A Tall Order, Abomasum, Congress, Fire by the Silos, When Genghis Wakes, Ataraxy, Prayermonger and The Heard. An interesting album, that reveals a mature, proficient and very technical band, Toska doesn’t have any fears when experimenting with distinct sounds, synchronicities, cadences, dissonances and interchanging rhythms, interweaving all those elements in a very interesting musical mosaic, with a majestic degree of experimentalism that really makes them an extraordinary musical act, that definitely doesn’t know what a comfort zone is, since their main musical disposition is to disrupt them all.

With an intelligent, diverse and unconventional musical identity, that departs from exceedingly original premises, the music of Toska is bounded by audacity and opulent doses of vertical, dissolute and flexible creativity, despite the fact that their sound is prominently heavy, and they never retreat in the slightest degree the ferocious nature of their music. Nevertheless, I do think that Toska is a band that works better as a live act (but this is just speculation, I never had the privilege of seeing them playing). While their sound is powerful and full of qualities that make their style to be quite exuberant and consistent, Fire by the Silos is a very extensive album, that eventually becomes repetitive, and highly fractured by hazardous levels of predictability and monotony – although these deficiencies, in a general evaluation, doesn’t harm the album in any way –, especially when you fully acknowledge the anatomy, the dynamics and the general propensities of their musical diagram.

Despite their apparent flaws, I must say that Toska has some abrasive and coherent virtues, that definitely consolidates wisely the sensibilities of their style. With rude and tempestuous, but also expansive and serene harmonies, they advance vigorously towards experimental territory with more bravery, tenacity, cohesion and graciousness than most bands do, with a level of creativity and security that is definitely above the ordinary standards.   

But I feel they pushed some of their most organic and vital musical elements too far on this album, revealing too much of them. When the album finishes, you feel saturated, without the curiosity or the need to listen to more of their stuff. Toska has to learn to leave the audience with the “I want more” taste, that is the basic premise of conquest. Of course, this is only my personal evaluation about Fire by the Silos. But, like I wrote some lines above, I do feel that they are the type of band that simply sounds perfect in a live performance, being Toska one of those acts that are just made for live concerts, rather than records. Despite this observations, I should point it out that Fire by the Silos – regardless of minor deficiencies – is an interesting, aggressive, pungent and exhilarating record, that elaborates dispersive and severely dilacerating atmospheres, that makes universes collide, in the rapturously extreme dissonances that falls over the strenuous harmonies of their elegant and very abrasive sound, with versatile dispositions that definitely makes Toska one of the most promising acts in their genre, active nowadays in the contemporary underground scene.  


Wagner

post rock / progressive rock

Chains For The Sea is an album released in November 11, by Greek post rock group Halocraft. A little more than forty minutes long, the record has nine tracks: Under the Waves she Sleeps, The Daughter you've Always Wanted, Vertigo, the Desire to Fall, Chains for the Sea, In Orbit, Those who sow winds, It has Awaken, False Vacuum and She speaks of stars. With beautiful, passionate and delicate harmonies, this album is marvelous, despite the fact that, after some time, becomes relatively predictable. Nevertheless, there is a genuine beauty and a wonderfully poetic fragrance, deeply attached to its virtuous melodies, which definitely makes this interesting and gracefully expressive work totality worthwhile of your time, despite some minor and obvious limitations. 

With a progressive layout embellished by gracious and creatively majestic guitar lines – albeit moderately inclined to a hyperbolic, but genuine melodic pretension – there is a wonderful degree of vivacity gravitating around the sensational axis of a colorful musical conjuncture, that balances towards the fertile density of its own sonorous anatomy. The sound of the band is fundamentally organic, and reorganizes its own volatile proclivities according to a very intuitive pragmatism.

The gracious, calm and delicate vividness of its colorful harmonies is the most exceptional element present on Chains For The Sea, although the group rapidly tends to lose its moderation, and to be excessively dispersive in the continual development of a revolving musical tissue, that converges to an indefinitely expansive atmosphere generated primarily by guitar driven melodies. Nevertheless, what we have here is a very decent and cohesive result, that not only understands the logic of its own vicissitudes, but displays an elaborate set of vividly poetic sonorous tonalities, that are profusely elongated with its own infinite methodic layout, that never seeks the end of its own personal universe of fragile melancholy. The final track is a vocal track, that closes in an elegant and elusive style this graciously crafted work.  

While Chains For The Sea is not a magnificent album, the work has strong qualities, and a satisfactory level of originality, vigorously displayed by the enthusiastic sincerity of its musical synergy. Departing from audaciously pungent and creative virtues, highlighted by a sensibility that seriously seeks the splendor of its own introspective serenity through the waves of formidable and delicate symphonies, this album definitely is a captivating sonorous experience. Despite the fact that the group eventually disperses its musical grace by undertaking a drastic, severe and excessive dive into its qualities, extending them too much beyond the boundaries of virtuosity, and sacrificing their triumph by making a sound that eventually becomes too homogeneous, Chains For The Sea remains an interesting work to be delightfully appreciated, despite its minor deficiencies. 
 

Wagner

post rock / progressive rock

Pathways is an album released in early September, by American post rock / progressive rock one man musical project The Amnesia Cycle, from Lafayette Township, New Jersey. A relatively concise album, the record is only forty-one minutes long, and has eight tracks: Stepping Through I, The River Akasha, Hands of Etain, A Poem of Leaves, The Mark, The Elixir, Trinitatis Ruina, A State of Rest and Stepping Through II. With very organic and proficient melodies, that are highly concentrated on the symmetric energy of diluted cadences, made proverbial by profound and dynamic guitar lines, the musical groundwork for Pathways relies mostly on the axis of vastly dispersive melodies, whose strength is intimately enticed to the expansive calmness of its serene, but flexible alignment, permeated by digressive harmonies. 

While the melodies lead the listener to a diffuse, but latent space of vague sonorous abstractions, the artist maintains the coherent nature of his style in majestic and horizontal dissonances, that grows over the abundant colorful tonalities of its iridescent notes. Despite the fact that sometimes he stays for too long overreacting on the placidity of his hyperbolic sensibilities – and as a result, the sound remains somewhat predictable – the artist knows how to delightfully extract beauty from the melodies in motion; as the guitar majestically rises as the predominant feature, that leads and dictates all the musical ordinances from within its anatomy of sensorial intuition, the notes become reliant on its despondent, but lucid densities, extracting discreet poetic lines in the intangible ocean of its creative planetary waves.  

As the sound becomes cosmic and deeply expansive, its flavor becomes more consistent; nevertheless, starts to display an inevitable sense of monotony, as the melodies suffer from a lack of rhythm change. Though this is expected, the sound devices highlight on its surface the mosaic of harmonies that serves as a compulsory algorithm of its natural dynamic. Overall, Pathways is a beautiful album, despite the lack of audacity, an element that could drive its harmonies to more effervescent boundaries. 

Despite its simplicity, the album is deeply enjoyable, especially for enthusiasts of very diffuse progressive rock. With decent harmonies, that are organically induced to a paradigm of predictable dynamic virtues, the melodies outline an aggrandizing flow of musical antagonisms, that understands and corroborates the grace of its qualities, as well as its primary deficiencies. Unfortunately, this is assimilated in the indulgence of its relevant zone of convergence, where the equation of its fundamental sensibilities also become its weaker features. 


Wagner

progressive rock / experimental rock

Blasphemy Alley is an album released in early September by progressive rock group Bienwolf, from Pune, India. A marvelous and thoroughly sensible album that catches the listener from the beginning, this is an unbelievably strong, marvelous and gracious rock album, energized to the fullest by a deeply inspirational and creative authorial sound. The first song, Vampa's Lore, begins with a wonderfully dense piano, that immediately takes over the melody by storm, and you feel inherently compelled to listen to the whole work until the end. Despite being excessively concise – with only thirty one minutes, that feels like only five –, the album has a powerful musical strength, that becomes evident by the solid cohesiveness of the songs. The exceedingly majestic originality of the music, with a smooth, reflexive and serene sound that grows from the sincere, but lunar melancholy of its notes, makes every song on this record a treasure with its own charismatic flavor.   

Probably one of the most marvelous albums that I’ve ever heard, Blasphemy Alley is humanely poetic, and the melodies flow naturally, like the rain after a hot afternoon; you just expect it to happen, but not with such a vast, tempestuous and astutely atypical grace. With fragility, patience and a rational flavor that adds a sensational splendor to the musical surface, the group really has made some simple songs, with a glorious level of creative sensibility, that really strikes the listener at an emotional level, with a genuine, reliant and formidable sense of artistry, that reflects a superb level of audacity, that keeps modest and discreet at the insight of its own unquestionable greatness.   

With only five songs – Vampa's Lore, Catch 22, Masquerader, Descent and Simbelmyne – the only bad thing on this album is the already mentioned conciseness. Nevertheless, this is easy to solve, after the album was finished, I’ve started to listen to it again. It’s easy to notice that the general style of the group is simple, but the eagerness and objectivity of its melodies contrasts highly with the astonishingly marvelous level of profoundness and fearless, unbound and gracious creativity of its rhythmical procedures. Penetrating the human graces of the heart without being overtly romantic nor sentimental, Bienwolf has really conceived one of the most glorious and inventive albums in modern independent rock history. 

A fantastic album that opens and understands new possibilities for the genre without disrupting its basic premises, nor exhausting the fortunes of its artistic sonorous signature, Blasphemy Alley is a wonderful, sincere and splendorous work of art, that deserves and has all the necessary qualities to make history.   


Wagner

progressive rock / post rock / experimental / alternative

Naegleria is an album released on October 12, by Greek instrumental progressive/post rock band Movement Of Static. Almost forty seven minutes long, the record has ten tracks: Slowlly We Are..., 57 084 INICIAL' 76 16 56 79, The Passage, 77 56 01 51 AGGRADACIYA 05 51 55 97, Mountain Of Life, 6EQUJ5, 80 516 GANOMATIT 21 23 86 25, Diaspasis, 93-882-NAIMINA-74-14-35-74 and ...Fading From Our Existence. An exceedingly authentic, sensational and creative post rock act, whose organic sound deeply penetrates and collides with the omniscient harmonies of its virulent, but consistent splendor, the melodies on this album seems to deliberately fluctuate between a groundbreaking serenity and a solitary aggressiveness, that anticipates the energy of a ferocious, but rational agony, with a formidable level of vitality, that completely dilacerates all the reticent labyrinths of its enigmatic and profuse restlessness. 

With a proficient elusiveness that concurs with the gentle, but somewhat abrasive spontaneity of its expansive sonorous nature, the music delivered in Naegleria is a virtuous and unexpected journey throughout the abysses of a diluted, but circumspect mordacity, that gradually reinvents in a liquid ocean of abstract sagacity the glorious elements of a dilated sentimental grace. At the innermost gravity of its surreal kingdoms of timeless rapture, some fabulous passages are almost meticulous studies on the flexible art of space, and its correlation within discreet undertones of placid tenacity and peripheral melodies of lugubrious elasticity; everything sidelined with ardent, but brightly philosophic guitar lines, that decipher in the nucleus of its impeccabilities a complex diagram of sensibilities, that aspire to be a wandering soul completely submerged in the vicinities of a long lost everlasting sadness. 

With a poetic and melancholic nature, that doesn’t surpass its vibrant and transcendental qualities, I should point it out that the name of the group – Movement of Static – basically describes their style: the music will make you feel stagnated in some distant horizon of the universe, but at the same time, the relentless motion that keeps the mind moving makes the listener to be aware of the life around him, as well as the life inside him. The lucidity suggested by their organic, but marvelously pretentious style makes you collide towards a universe stagnated, but euphorically in constant movement. The pungent lucidity of consciousness redirects the entire existential grace of an infinite dimension of majestic dormancy, that anxiously surpasses the pain of reality, marvelously engraved in the arid territory of dreams that recognizes the fragile grace of life as its main fuel.  

Although I wouldn’t qualify Naegleria as a masterful nor fantastic album, because some passages are – to a certain extent –, predictable and monotonous, the album gets very close of being classified as a masterpiece of the genre. With a natural fury, an organic atmosphere, a latent execration of ordinary musical parameters and a surreal level of originality, this album certainly deserves to be regarded as an exceptional work, abundant in systematic artistic virtuosity, and genuine musical development. 


​Wagner

progressive rock / post rock / experimental

Four Light Years from Home is an album released on October 1, by instrumental progressive rock group Across Seconds, from Mumbai, India. A very concise album, only thirty two minutes long, the record has seven tracks: Flow, T Minus 10, Astral Drift, Mayday, A Perfect World, Four Light Years from Home and Ebb. A very good, incisive album – despite the fact that, at least at first, there’s nothing too exceptional nor superb about it –, the group has an interesting sonorous dynamic. The songs are well created, and their general melodies are indeed very beautiful and pleasant to hear. You can appreciate this album without any fear. Despite some rude limitations, there is a sincere and organic plasma of genuine creativity here, that it’s definitely enjoyable and lucid.  

With generally slower and calmer harmonies, Four Light Years from Home has virtuous and solid melodies, that dance over the sonorous frontiers of its own cadences. With bold guitar lines – that, paradoxically, feels a little generic, following a pattern that definitely seems exhausted by the genre – the rhythms exhibit a general layout of passionate serenity, whose uncompromised sensibility virtually delivers innocently the proverbial tenacity of its ardent musical rules.     

With an intelligent sonorous mordacity that comprehends its own creative limitations, the expansive musical universe upon which the melodies display its vigorous potential for artistic dilution is exceedingly satisfactory, despite the fact that – on the rapturous density of its solitary continental calmness –, the group could have pushed their instinctive boundaries a little further beyond the line. Nevertheless, the constrained modest greatness of their creative ambitions definitely fit into their sensational colorful horizon of sweet melancholy, that waits for the sunset to arrive, before the departure of all the souls in the abyss. 

With interesting poetic elements that gracefully emphasize the generous kindness and delicacy of their music, Across Seconds definitely conceived Four Light Years from Home as a beautiful and touching work of art. One that you definitely will feel compelled to hear, several times. 


Wagner

doom / sludge metal

Most musicians, and certainly rhythm sections, know that guitarists are usually annoying smart-asses who think the world revolves around them. Quite often, you can't jam with them without hearing a horrible look-what-I-can-do guitar solo. That is, if they're done twisting the knobs on their amps and telling the soundman to turn the guitars louder.

Luckily for real musicians, technology has been improving enough to be able to rock out without the need for a guitar player. Several bands already ditched their attention-whores and some just start jamming with out them.

That brings me to German doom & bass trio Moto Toscana. A drummer, a vocalist, a bass player and a truckload of fuzz is all they need to blast venues to pieces. To me, that raises comparisons to English duo Bismuth who also come up with grinding doom riffs. Yet, while Bismuth focuses on fuzzed out tsunamis, Moto Toscana adds a touch of progressive doom to their recipe, mainly coming at you in strong lyrics, the melodic vocals and neat bass lines.

But perhaps the most surprising aspect of this music is the strange resemblance with funk. I mean, un-fuzz the bass and the whole thing can be a solid foundation for Earth, Wind & Fire tunes. Opener 'Sickandtwisted' got me both banging my head and shaking my hips. The same goes for a lot of tunes here, except for 'Craving' and 'Exclusive' which bring something grungy to the whole thing. By now, I'm pretty astounded by this trio and their surprising variety.

I think the biggest surprise on this album is the huge amount of possibilities within their minimal approach. As I mentioned before, this setting could be the foundation for a lot of different styles, from Black Sabbath to Linkin Park to Primus and from funk to grunge to punk. It depends on what you want to hear in it. The only certainty is the fact that this grooves and rolls like crazy. My personal favorite is closer 'Among The Dead', which spells pure doom but obviously I recommend this album to all doomers and bass addicts out there. 


​Serge