darkwave / post punk / goth rock

The Arch are without a doubt more popular outside their home country Belgium, some call them the best kept Belgian secret. VIII / XII is the third release since their comeback in 2011, containing a compilation of songs which were dropped monthly one by one during the year 2018. The four headed band  wrote, recorded and mixed  each song before starting on the next one. A diversity of music styles was folded together into twelve touching pieces of music.

We can’t deny that the sound of The Arch is recycled from the legendary new wave bands of the eighties and a lot of listeners will call this a copycat. Well, the music is far from original but the passion and ambition shows itself after a few attentive listening parts of this album. Fresh and merrily sounding guitar riffs with sensual synths convey a romantic pop sound without losing the gloomy atmosphere. The lyrics have a darker tenor than the music, which is very admissible.

The band is thirty years active, they started as friends, they disappeared, they came back and sound mature and better than ever. They flirt with gothic and indie rock that tinge their balanced (post) new wave style. On the folk inspired Cadaver synod, the band got the vocal cooperation of Blaine L. Reininger (Tuxedomoon). 

Hopefully this hard working band gets more attention from the Belgian music lovers. Their deep weaved reflections of this world deserves to be heard. We needed to put some more energy in this album to get deeper but it was worth. Good music doesn’t always trigger the mind immediately.  Depending on which medium you choose, the VIII stands for the number of tracks on the vinyl edition, the XII for the CD version.

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Patsker

sludge metal

“Demonic Black Magick for Tortured Souls.” That’s one of the first sentences you read when coming across Seventh Circle’s FB-account. Interestingly this record has less death metal than you would assume after such a proclamation and after a record title referring to Dante’s Seven Circles of Hell. The record is a solid pastiche of stoner-influenced sludge metal with a share of death metal miniatures. The duo from California really hits some weak spots in all of those people who like their death metal a bit more on the hard rock-side with these three tracks.
The sound is gritty and heavy and the breakdowns are not too hardcore-ish so that those 13 minutes are over quicker than you wanted. Most interesting are those moments when they take some time to establish the mood of a song instead of just racing into it. The only thing that might be bothersome is the mixing because although of course a band like this should be produced raw and dirty but the vocals are too far in the background. 

black metal

Invictus Productions

Iron Bonehead Productions

Belgium’s black metal band Possession brought a totally new concept to split EPs at the end of November by releasing two different splits with two different bands but with one unifying theme. “Passio Christi Part I / Witch’s Spell” is their split with Spite from the US and “Passio Christi Part II / Necrophagus Abandon” is the one with Venefixion from France. The second part of each record’s title is one of the track of Possession split partner. 
Interesting about these two separate releases on two different labels with bands spanning five countries is that it all sounds very organic and as if this was meant to be. But the logistics and planning for this thing must have been arduous. 
However, when playing both records in a row, you do not have the feeling of a loss of quality or a change in sound and vision. The releases each start with a very atmospheric intro by Possession with the second one even played on a church organ and incorporates carillon bells. Very, very good. The Belgians pursue their idea of a raw punkish sound and attitude, a high-octane version of black metal. “Stabat Mater”, the last of their six tracks total, ends in a whirlwind of drums and riffs that has mantra-qualities just before their final contribution to this duo split turns the song into an instant classic as they take up the intro from “Passio Christi Part I” again using a choir to make their songs one big entity. 
The other two bands are not only bystanders but take part immensely with each giving their respective releases a different element. Spite, for example, delivers the cover song that each good split should have doing Manitú’s “Cruel Creator” in their own way, very lo-fi and very chilling.  Venefixion, on the other hand, do the best thing to do after a song as good as “Stabat Mater” - they do their own piano-intro (!) and then all hell breaks loose, no barriers holding back, no hostages taken, no one left standing in their way – straightforward black metal!
As a final say, one has only very seldom heard such a coherent, thoughtful conceived combination of split series as this one!

psychedelic / stoner / rock

The California-based trio is set to release their next album on Valentine’s day next year and “8hr Parking” is the first single off of that record which will be called “Mortal Foils” and released via Italy’s specialist label Heavy Psych Sounds Records. 
And as this is not their first release but another one in quite a long list of excellent ones, it shows that singer/guitarist Enver Koneya, bassist Travis Williams and drummer Braden McGraw really know what they want to sound like – a mixture of “full-throttle, pedal to the metal” and “whirling swooshing Tornado jet”. The new song thunders like steamrolling in a Mad Max-vehicle without roof right through Los Angeles all the way up the coast with the wind rushing through your hair while tanking north on Pacific Highway 101 and then having to step down a bit because otherwise the turns and curves will not be mastered especially in Big Sur and North. If the upcoming record is as convincing as this one then we might up for something special!

alternative rock

Sometimes there comes a band that is able to emulate a sound that directly brings up several memories from your past that you had forgotten you had somewhere deep in you. Now a lot of you readers will say “Of course that is what good music should be able to so that you find a connection to it!” For clarification: Listening to an EP with the singer in the first song sounding like a first-class Layne Staley impersonator is never a bad thing, especially when he concentrates on the articulation and breathing and not on the impossible to imitate the voice of Alice in Chains’ front man. With the second using the same bells that Radiohead used for “Karma Police” is another very positive thing and the third one witnessing a voice imitating Thom’s way of phrasing words and sounds while the band is finding the middle between both bands the author of these lines is back in a room at home with the lights on, thinking about former loves and igniting hundreds of candles to fit his mood. Or is that just what this record wants me to feel like? Probably; well: Well done!

Thorsten

post rock/ progressive rock / alternative rock

The Shape Of Things To Come is an album released in November 16, by progressive rock project No Sudden Moves, from Melbourne, Australia. A very concise musical effort, the record is just over thirty-six minutes long. With eight tracks — 1) The Shape Of Things To Come; 2) Cause And Effect; 3) Stroll On; 4) First Contact; 5) Nothing's Easy; 6) The Space Between; 7) This Is The Life; 8) I Wander; — The Shape Of Things To Come is a sensationally beautiful album, despite the fact that it does not bring any extravagant innovation into the forefront of the genre. Nevertheless, the record display phenomenal virtues, that deserves to be highlighted. Its light, clean and well-diluted sound is harmonically cohesive, exceptionally vivid and radically authorial, at least to a certain level. 

The style of the artist is technically consistent and displays a respectable degree of proficiency; as a matter of fact, each track possesses its own singular qualities. The serene poetic densities of the third track, Stroll On, and the oblique tonalities of the fifth track, Nothing's Easy — whose melodies ultimately converts into a moderately progressive tune —, exhibit a thoughtful and efficient eclecticism, that over the course of the entire album, demonstrates in a very undisputed fashion that the artist is quite secure even in an expressive range of musical territories, though he never leaves the genre, knowing how to explore lucidly, and how to add especial flavors, even to the assiduously traditional diagrams conceived by the wonderful mosaic that his spectacular style invariably becomes. 

With a sensible and serene sonorous disposition, that eagerly projects over the diffusive lines of its melodies the dense elements of its own introspective horizon of dispersive and abstract creativity, the music exhibited on this work — despite the extensive use of elements that make the sonority, to a certain degree, quite predictable —, is also surprisingly versatile and distinct, because the artist already in the beginning displays his ability to explore wisely and profusely the most diverse conjuncture of tonalities, resonances and harmonies, within the expansive dimensional context of his restless and proverbial style. 

There's no doubt that the overall sound displayed by the artist is profoundly sensible and original. With a serene, but at the same time colorful gracefulness, the artist conceives a world of sound so dehydrated and detached — whose unimaginable beauty stands beyond the horizon of its own soul —, that the fantastic tranquility crafted by the music creates a renitent splendor, that floats endlessly towards the everlasting poetic nature of its wonderfully sensitive and delightful melodies. 

Despite the fact that — in a general evaluation — the music displayed by this artist is quite simple, The Shape Of Things To Come reveals itself as a majestically unique and very audacious work of art, whose most virtuous elements come from its subtle authorial ambitions, that at first doesn't stand out, but slowly expand to all sonorous spaces, like the sunlight, that slowly illuminates the whole morning. With primarily organic compositions that exalt the full vigor of its elegant beauty, this album is a remarkable milestone of ambient rock music, that deserves to be fully appreciated, and above of all, recognized by the graceful uniqueness, the authorial sensibilities and the splendorous consistency of its versatile and dynamic musicality.


Wagner

post metal / folk metal

Every once in a while a new side of a regular genre is opened and forces people to open their notions of and vocabulary for said genre. With Boreal Hymn from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada it’s quite the same. They offer an quite unique blend of medieval sounds, chants and post-metal songwriting with regular gurgling singing and guttural screaming. This EP is their debut and the four “pagan revelries” as the duo calls them show some pretty interesting ideas of composing a sound somewhere between Junius, Agalloch on the one side and Heilung, Wardruna on the other side. The soundscapes remind one of a bodhran, acoustic guitars, medieval horns and – on the other hand – some droney, ambient parts. The prominent members Colby Hink (known from Wormwitch) and Bronson Lee Norton (The Seer) have embarked one a new sound and although one naturally must remark upon the (momentary) inadequacies of the songwriting as their ideas and skills still need some refinement but one should remember this is still a demo and remember to follow this band on one of their social media outlets or the usual streaming services – they might be up to something refreshingly new.

black metal

Bands like Agalloch or The Ruins of Beverast have shown how shamanistic (and in part nihilistic) ritualistic Black Metal can be, a band like Heilung stresses the ritual-aspect of the music much more than their black metal roots. And now there is a band who started more than ten years ago, The Deathtrip, who are back with only their second real full-length, Demon Solar Totem released via Profound Lore and Svart Records.  A band that definitely knows how to purvey a cold atmosphere while playing with shaman chants and small bells and lots of passages that remind one more of a pagan mass that puts a spell on its audience. The production is raw to say the least, sometimes this whirlwind of an album doesn’t give away whether the sounds are real soundscapes or mere very dirty feedback. This “super-group” with members of Grave Pleasures, Dodheimsgard and My Dying Bride tries to encapsulate the essence of raw ritualistic metal aiming for an effect of fear of affection. Either you hate it or you leave it – true for most black metal bands, The Deathtrip being one of the better ones albeit not of the same level as the genre forerunners mentioned above. 

black metal

Two songs, one hour. No, we are not talking about a radio edit of Bell Witch’s “Mirror Reaper” but about a new release by Chicago-based three-piece Canyon of the Skull consisting of guitarist Erik Ogershok (who even moved to the US a few years ago in order to follow his dreams with the band), bass player Todd Haug (Powermad, 1349) and drummer Mike Miczek (The Atlas Moth). Ogershok is the mastermind behind it all and he wanted to purvey an image of a ritual performed by the Natives of Northern America, as he named the two tracks “The Ghost Dance” and “The Sun Dance”, the first one alluding to the ritual that should connect the living and the dead in order for the ghosts to wake up and fight the white colonialists. Clearly a sign of frustration and despair. The songs show remarkable songwriting skills as the band’s kind of black metal is really refreshing and is able to make the listener feel connected to the spiritual world due to its meditative character. An album for everybody interested in some form of instrumental music channeling stoner rock, doom and black metal. Put the record on, dive in and drop out. 

indie / rock

The Get Up Kids, The Goo Goo Dolls, The Spielbergs. Who? The Spielbergs! A three-piece power pop band from Oslo is on its way to become the new sensation in bubblegum punk. Of course, we have heard songs like the title track or “Fake A Reaction” or “Daisy! It’s the New Me” quite often. There is hardly something new in a genre whose heydays are twenty years past. However, there will always be an audience for this kind of music as there will always be new generations of youth who need their own (loser) anthems. The title track is one of those songs to which you can already see late teens and early twens dancing and singing along to, shouting out such anthemic slogans like “I don’t wanna be worthless / Just let me go back to start” or also “I was more than good to go / I wish you finally gave in” (from “Oh No”). Interestingly, there is as much Placebo in here as there are the Replacements, just as much uptempo as there is distortion. And who knows – maybe the Spielbergs are the ignition for a revival of a music genre that can never perish but that is always forgotten by the elders!


​Thorsten

progressive / alternative / rock / metal

Originality in the music business nowadays is very rare. Almost every band likes to say that they are pushing the boundaries of what they are producing but in reality what transpires is more of the same but with maybe a small twist. Step forward anonymous collective Sleep Token. The band say they worship a deity with an unpronounceable name, but for the purposes of their music, it's pronounced Sleep. 

They burst onto the scene a few years ago with their debut EP 'one' which sounded like nothing else at the time. The mix of dreamy pop with the incredible voice of front man Vessel mixed with downright obscene heavy breakdowns was a breath of fresh air and instantly got the attention of music lovers everywhere. Over the two EP's they seemed to accumulate more acclaim each week. In fact, the only criticism of them it seemed, was that they were a bit of a one trick pony. Would there debut album be more of the same or would they be able to produce something else? Well, the answer to that question is that they have produced something incredible.

The album starts off with the dream like 'The night does not belong to god' which does a brilliant job of accentuating Vessels sublime vocal skills. He sings with such emotions that at times, it sounds like he is close to tears. This segues into 'The Offering' which is an absolute highlight and one of the heavier tracks on the album. The disgustingly good breakdown is glorious and it's at this point you start to realise that not one single note is out of place on this album, the musicianship of the whole band is first class but special mention must be made to the drummer who although anonymous is absolutely at the top of his game. 

The next couple of songs showcase Vessels talents again and reign in the heavier side of the group but this does nothing to diminish the impact of the songs, which vear from catchy dreamy pop into lush guitar driven passages so beautifully you'd think that this kind of thing was easy, it's not, far from it, in fact it's bloody difficult getting something that sounds this natural to be anything other than a mess, and they nail it, completely. The two song combination of 'Give' leading into 'Gods' sounds like it shouldn't work with the former songs deftly building gorgeous arrangements butting up against the latter songs immense heaviness, but again, it does work. 

The upward trajectory of this band is something special indeed. If a group can lure in fans from cross genres then they are onto a recipe for success, I would not be at all surprised that if you went to see them live, you would be just as likely to bump into some wearing a Meshuggah t-shirt as you would someone in a Sam Smith or Florence and the Machine top. I cannot recommend this album enough and you really should give it a listen if you are interested in music that moves you.


Simon

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

shoegaze / alternative rock

Whenever you think you got Deathwish figured out, they come along and jump into your astonished face with a band like Greet Death knocking out your teeth with all their silky, spooky softness and then embracing you with tall towering yet whispered walls of sound. 

Not trying to come across as philosophical, but this release is so unlike most other Deathwish releases (for example lately Process Black or Frail Body) that it’s already more hitting than all the other releases. 

“Circles of Hell” greets you with an intro that might also be the start of a new Weakerthans record, or the beginning to a good song by some Britpop-sensation back in the late 90s, like Spiritualized or Slow Crush, to drop a more recent name. Another name that might come to mind is Radiohead on their first two records still using some harsher guitar riffs and yet blending those with beautiful pop melodies. “I could give you my heart / what would you say, dear? / I could open my arms / I could just lay here” - pure blessed melancholy accompanied by simple guitar lines opens the record and you feel like meeting an old friend at your high school reunion. And then, after 46 seconds, the first noise part steps in and you are totally drawn in reminiscing of Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Pumpkins and other greats of the early 90s when Greet Death probably would have hit MTV’s Alternative Nation hard. The band is able to shower us with melody and noise, with bliss and pop, with melancholy and sweetness – not only in one song but in each single note. 

They also transport that 90s teenage angst thing, the insecurity of youth, the self-righteousness of being young and misunderstood, of wanting to fit in with a non-conformist movement – just listen to the wonderful lines “I hate my friends / Cause they don’t hate themselves / And they shut me up / I want to be like them / I don’t want to talk / I want to think about my days/ ‘till I waste them all”.

And here is the one single thing you might want to complain about – the content of the record. It is a concept album about a couple splitting up, being unable to stay together. The story is told from one of separated and that person is definitely having a very bad time coping with it and drifts off completely into suicidal ideas. Now, a lot of bands talk about death and suicide, but hardly any talks about in such a way, where the “normality” of such thoughts is really hard and where the brilliant noise-rock-pop music might be called a glorification of these tendencies. You should not listen to this record being in a depressed mood, it might not be good for you. 

Nonetheless, from an artistic point of view, it is nearly unbelievable how impressive this album is. One really has to listen hard to hear that this band is not from the UK, but from Flint, Michigan, that they are not teenagers themselves but twens. And that this is not a wonderfully encapsulated record from the 90s blown through a wormhole into the present and now unloading all its blissful queerness onto the ears of nowadays’ audience. The youth should listen, and everyone else, too!


​Thorsten

shoegaze / grunge / post punk / noise rock

It’s that special sound of the guitar strings that makes shoegaze so unique – that moment when the pick hits the string and then the sound starts winding its swirling way up the long, thick metal cord. Something similar can be said about the significance of those same strings for a grunge song, albeit here the sound is not winding up slowly and seemingly winding along even after the end of the neck, in many grunge songs the sound is pretty short but robust. You can see the difference clearly when listening to “Loveless” and then to “Nevermind”. 

Rarely a band comes along that denies its allegiance to one side or the other, which merely says “Hey, never mind being loveless!” Timelost is one of those rare bands and at the same time they are more. Another example of 2019’s singular position among recent decades when it comes to new sounds and combinations, just think of Witch Trail or Jambinai. 

So here Timelost are, now entertain us. The first song already transports a similar vibe - “You’ll never know / How strange I feel / It comes and goes / It’s always there” is a laconic take on a broken relationship and the time lost becomes its drive impersonated by the energetic drums and the   quick guitar lines that seem to reach for something beyond its origins. Singer Shane Handal mentions that this is some kind of ongoing motif on the album – relationships and loss, “It’s weird to throw yourself out there to the world and be so vulnerable but it felt honest and real. We wanted to put out a genuine record from the music to the lyrics.” There is something in those good and simple, yet exquisitely shoegaze-grunge songs that goes straight to the heart and makes us want to embrace this duo for all it’s worth. Maybe it’s something like the outro of “Nausea Curtains”, where a few harsh hits on the drum kit end a line of reverberating guitar twists, and the semi-acoustic guitar intro to the following song “Don’t Remember me for this”, where the acoustic-ness is then substituted for some swishing rides of the shoegaze riffs up the neck of Handal’s guitar. 

There are some clearly grungey moments on the record like the intro to “The River broke us” which sounds like a meeting between Kurt Cobain’s neck and Dean DeLeo’s strings. This record is much more than one part Set and Setting (Handal) and Woe (drummer Grzesiek Czapla) – it is neither and stands within a new sound realm, one it draws the listener to. Timelost are here to entertain us, no matter the melancholic mood they were in when writing the record, these eleven tracks spread loads of warmth. 


​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

blues / psychedelic rock

Stoneface is an album released in the end of July, by Australian blues rock group The Ivory Elephant. A very intriguing album, with dispersive and highly diluted guitar lines, that fly over the extensive sensibilities of its vaguely digressive harmonies, the work displays an overtly dense and horizontal placidity, while at the same time the imperiously somber dynamic strength of its cohesive sound gracefully externalizes in the tissue of its imponderable and vast serenity the ostensibly lucid vividness of its circumspect nature. So, while the transparent elements of its astounding energy fluctuates above the abrasive restlessness of its own atmosphere, the general musicality of the group conceives a versatile style, whose sound transpires vitality and authenticity. 

Forty-seven minutes long, the record has ten tracks: 1) Storm; 2) Maybe I'm Evil; 3) Wars; 4) Roll On; 5) Jazzhead pt I; 6) Low Expectation; 7) Stoneface Jamboree; 8) Stoneface; 9) Hard Case; 10) Jazzhead pt II; with solid and amazingly authorial guitar lines, that conceives a sonorous paradise where the soul can rest indefinitely in a sweet cosmogony of surrealist expansive splendor, the music of The Ivory Elephant revitalizes the best elements of modern blues rock, and gives them a more dynamic and introspective outlook, sometimes disrupting the harmonies into an almost minimalist rapturous contrivance.

Despite the lethargy that the melodies can inspire — as a consequence of its stylish features that conceives the superiority of supreme calmness —, the sound displayed in Stoneface is marvelously original, tremendously elegant and exceedingly sensible. The band not only manages to successfully create a discreet, but concomitantly extraordinary work of art, it also becomes necessary to expose the gracefully organic temperance of its dilated and effusive sonorous stability.

While the sound of the band can appear to be a little homogeneous at times, The Ivory Elephant manages to successfully make each track to be a glorious surprise, since each of them has an identity of its own, while at the same time the band is coherent and keeps loyal to its marvelously beautiful and sagaciously unique style. Despite the fact that the entire album is wonderfully good, splendid tracks like the epic Stoneface — almost eight minutes long — and the more retro styled Hard Case deserves to be highlighted. A virtuous and proficient work of art that reveals the formidable potential of a very promising band, Stoneface can certainly be qualified as a majestic album. Undoubtedly, blues rock enthusiasts are gonna celebrate this spectacular achievement, whose expressively genuine musical patterns anticipates further developments for the genre. 


​Wagner