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

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)

indie rock/ experimental rock

bandcamp

ok seas is an album released by an eponymous indie rock British musical act, from Portsmouth, in early October. Only forty-three minutes long, the record has twelve relatively brief tracks: sad synth, huh, chime guitar, organ bells, short #15, clap drum, tremolo robot, player piano, yamaha sigh, sure sure, big spiel and bow arp. With simple, but charming songs – despite some limitations – ok seas is a decent album, fluid and somewhat melancholic in tone, majorly influenced by the poignantly affluent commonalities of slow and sentimental indie rock. 

While definitely not fabulous nor original, the work certainly has decent qualities. Departing from a conventional layout – with some passages clearly looking as fragments arranged to compose a mosaic of dissonant cadences –, the virtual elasticity of the harmonies is a common resource constantly inserted over its intuitive latent sequences, agglutinated in the downward periphery of its sensitive sonorous contingencies, worn out by some restrictions. It’s also easy to perceive a concentrated, tough soft melodic structure, and a very cohesive sonorous identity, that is delicately tied together to propitiate a sensible artistic unity to the work. With a musical technique that is gracefully efficient, the dilated harmonies fulfil its colorful dispositions with sincere and profoundly melancholic exasperations, as the melodies walk away throughout the axis of its linear platform exposing the solitary sensibility of its ordinary fugacious splendor. 

Definitely, the album is more strictly valuable by the stability of its precise technique, than anything related to its creative elements, that are drastically more limited and predictable, resenting itself to a composite layout of sameness. Nevertheless, ok seas is a listenable album, good, decent, emotional, that will not aggregate too much on your personal musical universe, but has some qualities that extracts in the calmness of its musical atmosphere a discreet level of beauty, that has produced a handful of songs, good enough to please enthusiasts of soft indie rock.

A modest album with good melodies, ok seas – as a band – needs to become more versatile and audacious. They have demonstrated some good qualities on this album, but they have to learn how to expel monotony, and efficiently, to surprise their audience with more pungent and unpredictable tunes. They already proved with this record that they are good doing calmer and flavored sentimental cantilenas, but an entire album of emotional soft songs can be too tedious to hold it out for forty-five minutes. Definitely, they have to aggregate other elements into their music, as they have talent and potential to convert their work into a more dynamic and versatile art.  


Wagner

alternative rock / stoner rock / grunge

One might wonder, "what's in the Belgian waters?" Bands and releases are popping up by the minute here. A rock band in that corner, a noise act over there and a trip-hop act in another place, it never seems to end in this little country. To answer that question: I don't think it's in the water. It's what Belgians do with that water. We turn it into beer, another thing we have been doing for ages, and pretty damn good too. It's a magical chemical process, turning ingredients into something almost otherworldly. The same goes for our music industry, people come together and create magical chemistry. 

Another one in the never-ending tsunami of Belgian releases is 'Superglue For The Broken' by Antwerp residents Tangled Horns. Influenced by rock music of all ages, from the psychedelics of the sixties & seventies to the raunchy grunge scene of the nineties, Tangled Horns invite the listener to a wicked ride of their rock 'n roll rollercoaster. In short: 'Superglue For The Broken' is a groovy-ridden powerhouse that can get any rock 'n roll heart beat a little faster.

Of course, these days you can't write and record a decent rock album without adding a heap of influences. The most obvious reference on this album is Alice In Chains, whose sound shines through in opener 'Shadow (A Personal Piece Of Darkness)' and in 'The Timeline Is A Noose'. Loaded with groove and power, these two tunes can easily get any rock party started, and metalheads will join in on the fun.

Other bands that come to mind include Soundgarden, Kyuss, Queens Of The Stone Age and The Foo Fighters. That surely makes one interesting list. But, even if it's all in good fun, Tangled Horns also show a well-thought out, mature sound. It's not a bunch of youngsters messing around in a rehearsal studio. It's five bearded dudes paying tribute to the one thing that kept them living their lives the way they do: alternative rock.

'In The Now' clearly shows that. Along with the aforementioned songs, this is my favorite here, a strong rock song that aims for a spot in the grunge-classics lists. On the noisy, gritty 'Beautiful Flaw', Faith No More even comes to mind, combined with either Led Zeppelin or Brant Bjork. Yes, I can easily imagine these tunes rolling over big, crowded meadows next summer. I can see people dancing on 'Destination Tipping Point', go nuts on 'Magnificent Maniac' or make sweet love on 'Icebound'.

So if you're looking for a groovy, versatile and immersive rock album, you should really give this one a change. Once again, a local band proves my point about this country's musical underground (read 'Belgium Rock City' - Dutch only). Naturally I will recommend this to every fan of decent rock music. 


​Serge

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

alternative rock / post punk

Aurora is an album released in the end of September, by Belgium alternative rock band Slow Crush. Almost thirty-five minutes long, the record has eight tracks: Glow, Drift, Tremble, Shallow Breath, Aid and Abet, Collide, Beached and Aurora. Already in the first song, the fabulous, fantastic and thunderous Glow, the band struck precisely the epicenter of the most dense, infamous and great standards of melodious heaviness, with powerful guitar lines and absolutely furious drums, eager to completely destroy and dilacerate all the decadent patterns of normality. With a formidable level of sonorous audacity that highlight their authorial musical strength, Slow Crush is an exceptional band, that goes directly to the point, and knows how to make a great record, with a somewhat simple, but efficient musical formula. 

Despite the fact that the band rapidly alternates to a more modest, quiet and sentimental tone, the sound of Slow Crush can generally be qualified as moderately aggressive and rude, but even then, delivers with candid and methodic proficiency its sincerely humane sonorous graciosity. The album delivers mostly splendid cantilenas, with more quiet, poetic and charismatic passages, where the extensive serenity of an emotional density hits the harmonies, favoring quite a balanced and versatile musical universe to the audience, that certainly will be surprised all the way through, as the album isn’t monotonous nor predictable. The subtle change in tone from the tracks at the beginning, that are more aggressive, contrasts brightly with the rest of the album, that is definitely more philosophic, dense, emotional and serene – though this mood interchanges occasionally –, and the unexpected element is one of the greatest triumphs of the group. 

With a marvelous sonorous style, that definitely enchants by the fragrant tenacity of its beauty, the flavored and colorful harmonies that Slow Crush delivers in Aurora are generally quite slow, aggrandizing and simple, but in the end, the group showcases all the beauty, elegance and effervescent grace of its marvelous sonorous tonalities, that juxtaposes the sentimental placidity of its musical nature,  with its more hostile – though filled with the emotional contrivances of a lyrical sensibility – perceptions of the world. 

In the end, Aurora reveals itself to be a very good and majestic album. With a very personal, precise and characteristic style, the group has definitely conceived a very peculiar work of art, that deserves to become a reference in the alternative underground rock scene. 



Wagner

rock’n’roll / hard rock/ noise rock / experimental

Loss is an album released on October 26 by British hard rock act Pijn. Sixty-six minutes long, the record has eight tracks: Denial, Detach, Distress, Blanch, Blush, Unspoken, Squalor and Squander. With a very flexible degree of artistry, the musicality of Pijn goes to both extremes: it can be furiously aggressive and dangerously brutal, as well as expressively calm, melodic and majestically virtuous. This is already noticeable in the first two songs: Denial is a virulent anthem of hazardous and protuberant aggression, while Detach is a serene and soft serenade of introspective melancholy. The album in general has a proverbial density that speaks for itself, although it is very accessible on the sensibility of its methodic and direct easiness, as well as playful and modest on its scale of ambitions.

While the album seems redundant at first – at least in the longer songs –, the musicality of the group, though appears to be simple, is profoundly rooted in a coherent style, that explores systematically the fugacious elements of the melodies, while delivering a deliberately generous and cosmic flamboyant eccentricity to the more dispersive virtues of its placid tonalities, formally engraved in a graceful nostalgia, that easily comes out of sound. Trying to recover lost time in the primordial vicinities of a life that is no longer there, the occasionally almost minimalist style of Pijn is a free deliverance of joy. In the course of this fascinating musical journey, it becomes more than that: a vivid celebration of life, that personally undertakes a realm of sincere melancholy to rescue the genuine golden elements of rock’n’roll, with the firm resolution to compose in a singular piece of paradise the purity, the liberty and the glory that became lost in the sands of time, though they are never restricted to this genre in particular. Their creativity is limitless and boundless. So much so, that in the process of delivering the sound, they develop their own eccentric, playful and peculiar style.   

While the heaviness of the guitar lines is the element that mostly stands out, the adherence of precise notes extending its anesthetic poignant devices in the occasional reverberations of latent melodies never divides the sensibilities of its dramatic soul. They patiently, but anxiously highlight the proverbial qualities of the album: as Loss evolves, the salutary epicenter of the music becomes more philosophic, serene, diluted and dense, although the music itself becomes lighter, digressive and effectively dispersive. 

Occasionally, you will hear awesome screaming vocals, in slow passages delivering the color of agony and despair, in the style of post-hardcore and straight edge; although the album is mostly instrumental. Given its extensive length, the record is somewhat subjected to a certain redundancy; but the sound in general is very sober, somber and delightful, able to satisfy anyone who is expecting the unexpected, with a very clean dose of melancholy, anger, hostility, despondency, acceptance, conformity and exhilaration. Not in this particular order, of course. But be positive that you certainly are going to deeply enjoy Loss.  


Wagner

alternative rock / indie rock / experimental

Death Spells is an album released in mid-September, by American alternative/indie rock group Holy Fawn. One hour long, the record has ten tracks: Dark Stone, Arrows, Drag Me Into The Woods, Yawning, Seer, Two Waves, Take Me With You, Vespertine, Same Blood and Sleep Tongue. A formidable album with a very dense and melancholic tone, Death Spells is a musical study on deliberative melodious introspection, with no clear boundaries between genres, flirting sometimes – very discreetly though – with genres like metalcore, atmospheric black metal and indie rock, albeit their general musical compass is mostly engraved on an alternative rock sphere, radically indebted to post rock. Without any fear to experiment, the band delivers a secure, but volatile sound, that virtually exposes a very mature style. With an audacious, but sensible level of originality, that is deeply intertwined in their inherent musical abilities, Holy Fawn consecrates a very lucid and serious work on Death Spells, departing mostly from slow harmonies, that elaborates in the epicenter of its majestic beauty a solid grace between sorrowful serenades of philosophic serenity and aggressive thunderous downfalls of mordacious agony. 

With latent, soundscapes that appeals to very sentimental harmonious propensities, the sound of the group is generally elegant and profound, though they mostly abuse on slow rhythmical devices. Nevertheless, it is possible to feel a very surreal, but dormant fury discreetly positioned at the core of each song, which vehemently adds to the genuine folklore they gracefully elaborate in the vast expansive diagram of their music.

In Death Spells, beauty is everywhere, and strikes with such a peaceful and serene charisma, that is impossible not to feel enchanted by the lucid, delicate and captivating musical tonalities they perfectly expose. Creativity here is transposed as the most excellent device for authentic artistry, and evaluates in an ever aggrandizing sonorous panorama the possibilities exposed by its ostensibly virtuous, but despondent harmonies. Even their hardest passages – some of them remembering metalcore act We Came As Romans – seems to disclosure a deep sense of tranquility, although also delivers, paradoxically, a disturbed hemisphere of afflictive, deceptive and lucid sense of reality. 

Although the album is somewhat very long, their general musical anatomy remains cohesive, and their creative greatness is free of any sentimentality and generic passages. Holly Fawn easily flows between genres, in a fluid ocean of sonorous synergy, delivering a very appreciative and peculiar sound, that becomes quite characteristic, as one can hear the album entirely as only one long track, without any disruptive feeling of impatience or monotony. Emerging as the marvelous result of an energetic and meticulous musical confluence, Death Spells has ardently evolved from the sophisticated standards the group established themselves to follow.  


​Wagner

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