stoner rock

bandcamp

Dead Hippie’s Revolution is an album by Greek stoner rock group Universal Hippies, released on February 18. Almost forty minutes long, the record has eight tracks: Redemption day, Homo sapiens, Mariner's dream, Universal hippie, Mountain, Holy slave, Matala and Reincarnation. A very incredible record, a little dry, but with ostensibly beautiful and functional melodies, and very detailed and captivating guitar lines, Dead Hippie’s Revolution is the ultimate stoner rock album. With an interesting level of originality, lucid, free-flowing and masterly created, this is undoubtedly a major record, that has everything to please the enthusiasts of the genre, in each and every possible aspect.

Never tedious or monotonous, the calmer, solid, powerful and vivacious guitar lines evidently are the stronger aspect of the work. Nonetheless, all other instruments closely follow the poetic and gracious harmonies perfectly delineated by these delightful strings, that summarily rearranges in a very acid, but at the same time profoundly genuine sonorous narrative, the greatness of a creativity that really satisfy anyone’s appetite for excellent music.

The serene pace of the record has a very therapeutic element. Amazingly calibrated, you feel yourself at the height of some moments transported to another dimension, where you can listen to the serene soul that for so long has been lost in the hidden spheres of your heart. A marvelous instrumental album, that departs from a graceful synergy between mind, soul, sound and rhythm, the perfect convergence of musical elements testify the powerful capacities of a creativity of a band that knows no limits. 

With a genuine intensity and a restless serenity amazingly combined to generate the sound of a new formula for the creation of a true, authentic and wonderful style of rock’n’roll, the sound of this album is so astoundingly impeccable, that you can literally feel the good old spirit of wild rock deeply inserted into the transcending, crude, rude and abrasive vibe transmitted by the ravenous guitars of the songs, flowing directly into your veins, and reviving everything that you thought had died with the good old school groups of the seventies.         

Dead Hippie’s Revolution is a formidable album. A milestone into the history of stoner rock, that will certainly leave its trademark in the sphere of the underground scene. A marvelous product of the astounding regional scene that is abundantly flourishing in Greece – the place upon which the most amazing bands of the genre are coming from – Universal Hippies came as another excellent surprise. And I hope they came to stay. Evidently, such a wonderful group has everything in their power to leave their style deeply engraved into the genre.  


Wagner

hardcore

Rules is an album by hardcore band First Blood, released on February 10 by Pure Noise Records. With twelve tracks – Fuck the Rules, These Are the Rules, Rules Meant to Be Broken, Rules of Life, Rules of Conviction, Rules of Engagement, Rules of Justice, Rules of Survival, Rules of Freedom, Rules of Sacrifice, Rules of Government and Rules of Crisis – this is a ferocious, incredible, amazing and almost delinquently explosive album, with a major set of songs that brings back the true essence of the genre, reviving the genuine soul of hardcore music. With belligerent and true to the ground lyrics, hostile, rude and crude rhythms and an authentic sense of duty, First Blood gives to its audience a major panel of civic aggression, that is not only loyal to the genre, but also defies deeply the very own meaning of their artistic and musical mission, in a very solid and prominent basis, that ostensibly relegates to the merits of its own sincere brutality the exasperating exposition of the ongoing hardships of life, a common theme to the genre, used to give a very honest treatment to the most controversial topics and subjects of existence.

With incredible, hard and very brutal melodies, Rules is one sonorous explosion after the other. With songs usually objective and short, First Blood really knows how to deliver a message, and with the right intensity. With powerful musical tonalities, that never hesitate, the record is certainly a major achievement for the genre as a whole. Although evidently doesn’t aggregate any new elements, it sticks so vehemently into the veracity of a very peculiar style, that it becomes impossible not to recognize the marvelous work that Rules reveals itself to be.

In general, Rules is a quintessential hardcore album. Despite the fact that doesn’t have vast differences in musical terms from other albums of the genre, undoubtedly outstands itself as a major and very captivating work of art, profoundly compromised with an explicit exposition of truths, in a very direct, lancinating, infuriating and aggressive tone. 

If you are into hardcore, you will positively like Rules very much. With not a single fault to be pointed out, this album is a major revival of all the great components that made hardcore the outstanding genre that this type of music came out to be. And First Blood has a tremendous role on maintaining hardcore as the truth of a very precious, objective and undeniably strong musical movement. 


Wagner

black metal

Los Nuevos Absolutos: Acto Segundo is an album by Argentinian musician Marc Huszar, released on February 26. Forty four minutes long, the record has only three longer tracks: Urgencia, O La Celebración De Las Auroras Negras, La Luna Coral Anuncia La Fiebre De Mercurio and Ira Astral (Plutón Parte 2: Prodótis). On this majorly magnificent album, Marc Huszar does a very intelligent, poetic and exceptional mixture of several BM subgenres, like post, atmospheric and melodic black metal, as well as complementing the harmonies with several elements of blackgaze and ambient music, elaborating a formidable amalgamation of different styles into his art. A genuinely splendid work, incomparable and unparalleled in the contemporary underground scene, Los Nuevos Absolutos: Acto Segundo is a very intriguing and interesting album, that has everything to attract the attention of aficionados, for its despondent, audacious, versatile and sensible musical atmosphere is intertwined with personally captivating components, that plays with a deeply veracious solicitude, that touches the soul directly, aiming to take the listener to a whole new ground of different sensorial experiences.   

Although the general musical layout is very similar to more generic atmospheric BM acts, Marc Huszar deeply infused on his music a very vigorous and precise musical synergy, that knows no boundaries and clearly recognizes no limits on his creative abilities, that obviously could be categorized as exceedingly powerful, strong, dynamic and absolute. As the music makes you levitate through waves of sonorous ambivalences, taking you into a very eccentric and ambitious journey throughout the labyrinths of your own vicissitudes, you feel you can almost touch the wider synesthetic emphasis of the most imperially withdrawn melodies, that carries on your soul the lucid and exonerating discourses of a life that has so much beauty hidden, waiting to be discovered. 

Los Nuevos Absolutos: Acto Segundo, is a major record, profoundly impregnated with a very poetic artistic sensibility. Amazingly conceived, having a profound personal style, Marc Huszar is a very outstanding, lucid and genuine breath of fresh air into the Avant-garde Black Metal movement, that has been taking the scene nowadays, having so much to contribute, that enthusiasts and audiences sympathetic to the genre will certainly celebrate his musical proposal, artistic vision and technical competence.  

A very skilled, vigorous, melodic, transcendental and colorful album, Los Nuevos Absolutos: Acto Segundo doesn’t have any faults to be pointed out. A marvelous and very audacious record, it certainly has everything to vehemently succeed in the underground, with great possibilities of capturing a real audience and a very loyal fan base, that will be instantly shaken by the deeply surreal, and exceptionally methodic creation that this gigantic sonorous symphony proved itself to be!   


Wagner

stoner rock

Wayfarer is an album by Finnish stoner rock group Void Cruiser, released on February 27. Almost forty six minutes long, the record has seven tracks: A Day On Which No Man Was Born, I Didn't Lie But I Know Now That I Should Have, As We Speak, Madonnas And Whores, Seven Years Late, All Over Nowhere and Maailman Kallein Kaupunki. A very beautiful, melodic and methodic stoner album, Wayfarer has captivating harmonies and very intense rhythms, with almost ethereal and dense vocals, upon which all musical elements are suspended, with the aim to promote a full convergence between classical components of vintage rock, and the amazingly personal, serene and sincere singular style of the group. 

With a surprising style, that departs from the common elements of the genre, Wayfarer is an album that has slow, but very abrasive and intrusive melodies, sagacious, but unscrupulous exonerating rhythms, and very distinct patterns, that subtlety isolates the more metaphysical aspects of their music, to elaborately create with them very protuberating and precious tonalities of sound, which gives to their music amazingly colorful and intense peculiarities.

Despite following in several aspects the more traditional wave of the genre, Void Cruiser reveals itself all the way through as a very audacious and creative band. Marvelously introducing into their music a splendidly vivacious impulse, that energizes their sound with a very cosmic sincerity, Wayfarer, although has several longer tracks, has so much life on the monumental axis of its formidable notes, that you feel marvelously captivated while listening to this great and astonishing record.

Although you feel inevitably bored at the height of some glorious moments – eventually you fall under the impression that several musical passages, indeed, present little rhythmic variations – the record doesn’t lose its power and intrinsic majesty. With a very genuine understanding of the genre, and the fabulous development of a singular style, Void Cruiser has presented to us on their most recent album, Wayfarer, a very lucid, exponential, phenomenal and outstanding album. With an exceptional musicality, that evidently has infused the best traditional elements of wild acid rock with the most wonderfully progressive contemporaneous precepts of the genre, Void Cruiser displays a magnificent style, that has evolved and matured to be fully autonomous, and certainly deserves to be considered and recognized as one of the leading acts of their genre, in their home country.  


Wagner

post rock

Miscellany is an album by American post rock group Sky Flying By, from Boston, Massachusetts, released in late January. Forty three minutes long, the record has seven tracks: Untitled No. Two, Laura, The Last Place You Looked, Have You Found Home?, Left Unfinished, The Last Tenth and December. Very calm and easy paced, the album has a peaceful and remarkable tranquility, that astonishingly never sounds tedious or monotonous. A true to the ground post rock album, Miscellany has a vibration and an originality of its own, with an intriguing power of tranquilizing abundance, that really can take you into a world of dreams, beauty and splendor.

Although the album is very sensible, and has very easy paced, quiet and almost static melodies, from this seven tracks emanates such a striking sense of absolute sincerity, wisdom and calmness, that you instantly feel the need to listen to this beautiful record again, as soon as it is over. With a splendid serenity that touches your soul, Miscellany has everything a good post rock record is expected to have: cohesion, coherence, sensibility, poetic enlightenment and a profound and intense level of musicality.

Evidently, this is not an album for all audiences. People who dislike slow, serene and metaphysic music may find very boring this record. But its conflagrating, captivating and almost celestial artistry relies solid in the boundaries of the primordial senses created by the proficiency of its planetary dimensions.  

Definitely a very outstanding and outgoing work, Miscellany reveals a very genuine and confident band. With a style of their own, that knows how to take beauty out of delightful harmonies, Sky Flying By offers us a different perspective on the genre. Full of more subtle, pure and divine colors, this album definitely initiates us in a very different axis of musical artistry. Exceedingly amazing, perennial and relaxed, but profoundly intense at the same time, Miscellany is a very original album, with splendidly creative nuances, that not only honors post rock, but certainly offers to the ones who haven’t been introduced to the genre the opportunity to appreciate an amazingly beautiful and incredible record. 

 


Wagner

krautrock

Holy Monitor is an album released on February 17, by the Greek krautrock musical collective of the same name. Thirty seven minutes long, the record has ten tracks: Halcyon, Nemesis, Bed Of The Earth, The Vine, Golden Light, Αφροδίτη, Bend The Trees, Icarus, Ice Giants and Cacti. A very surprising and vibrating album, with an amazingly original sonorous approach, the rhythmic impulses are not just overwhelmingly genuine, but revives a very eccentric, majestically creative subgenre of rock. If you haven’t listened before, you better listen to it right now. It’s so surprisingly astounding, authentic, powerful and lucid that you will never believe your ears, no matter how many times you listen to this album. And yet, you will celebrate each and every track of this insane masterpiece! A sagacious, formidable and terrifyingly precious album, the songs are superbly inundated by an electrifying beat, disguised as a thoroughly major musical moonlight, that reenergizes in all guitar lines the tempestuous shadows of a forbidden happiness, that has never been so splendidly solidified in the history of music before.

The tracks are exceedingly powerful, and all of them have very special signatures. With uplifting and sensational vibrating rhythms, each song is a monumental creation per se, with a major set of singular characteristics that explodes in an invisible pattern of emotions, never testified on the creative history of the underground scene. With a musical atmosphere that resurrects the biosphere of a gracious narrative, encircled by a geological form of creative artistry, Holy Monitor embraces a lucid and very effective storm of originality, that gives them a unique shape, unbound by a tremendously expansive musical identity. Their sound is so alive that you literally feel all the musical notes invading your soul with a spontaneous vehemence, lacerating your heart with an oblique insistence, that only a very different genre, executed with an exceptionally skilled musical approach, would be able to perform. 

Holy Monitor, on their eponymous album, has really done a marvelous work. With a strong musical presence and a higher level of originality, extremely uncommon to testify in any genre, they certainly can be regarded as one of the most glorious references in the contemporary development of their genre, for having executed an unparalleled work for the category, that obviously highlights them as one of the most important krautrock groups in the world today (although precisely define their sound, and insert them in one specific category, is a very difficult task, since they incorporate into their music an enormous set of several elements, from a lot of other genres as well).  

Holy Monitor is a splendid group, and their eponymous album is a marvelous record. Everybody that listen to this majestic masterpiece would be wonderfully impressed, and literally without words. Departing from a superior level of creative artistry, Holy Monitor gives us paradise, in a very outstanding, excellent and vivaciously elaborated sonorous dimension.  


Wagner

stoner rock

The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues is an album by KYUSS frontman John Garcia, released on late January by Napalm Records. Almost forty six minutes, the record has eleven tracks, being them Kylie, Green Machine, Give Me 250ml, The Hollingsworth Session, Space Cadet, Gardenia, El Rodeo, Argleben II, Court Order, The BLVD (Live) and Give Me 250ml (Live). A pretty much acoustic stoner rock album, The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues is a very powerful and energetic work, filled with twisting, emotional and surprising rhythms. Exceedingly exceptional, several tracks are astounding and ferocious pieces of artistry, amazingly created and beautifully delineated, with very singular, delicate and sensible sonorous appointments.

The album is not just formidable, but incredibly executed. The songs seems to be the creation of a very delusional artist out of this world, and the guitar lines are spirally contracted to breath over a planetary discussion of sonorous cohesion. With a poetic vibration that standardizes overtly cleansed spiritual harmonies, the melodies are so genuinely stricken that you feel comfortable listening to them all the way through, as they seem to know the proper way to your heart, in an unforgivingly right pathway to the emotional staircase of an unbound elemental collision. 

With small elements stolen from smooth, wild and southern rock, The Coyote Who Spoke in Tongues is a major achievement in technical, spiritual and artistic aspects. With beautifully consecrated tracks, the record alternates between mood, emotional and elemental songs, and more unpredictable, encircled and harmonically conscripted ones, almost ballad driven, but always with a very desert rock feature densely impregnated into it. Although I haven’t found the album to be a masterpiece, it certainly gets close to it. Filled with a powerful energy – even in calmer songs – from the beginning to the end, The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues is a major record, that has all the chances to elevate John Garcia to the status of a legend, no doubt about that. 

With colorful guitar lines, vigorous and precise rhythms, a major sense of breakable and twisting functional notes, a superbly wild rock mood and sensible walls of melodic superiority, this album certainly can be regarded as a trademark of the genre. Precise, beautiful, aggrandizing, intuitive, genuine and very honest, The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues aggregates a major set of elements into the genre, reworking in a very audacious new platform the very good, elemental and old components of traditional southern, wild and desert rock, giving us a major album as a final result. 


Wagner

alternative metal

Enter Escape is an album by Croatian alternative metal group The Ralph, released on February 20. Forty minutes long, the album has ten tracks: End of Everything, Next In Line, Enter Escape, Means End, Detached, Delimiter, Years Away, Reflux, Untouchable and D.I.G. A very powerful, energizing, strong and exceedingly furious album, Enter Escape really inserts interesting components into the genre. With the digression of pop and alternative rock elements infused into their sound, The Ralph has created a very intriguing and promising album, a little reminiscent of acts such as Seether, Shinedown, Nickelback, Creed and Three Days Grace. But don’t get me wrong: they are much, much, much better than those references. With an exponential sound that has a superb, vigorous, free-flowing, fluid and spontaneous synergy, The Ralph easily manages to be superior than all these other bands combined. 

A furious, splendid and very aggressive album, the musical spontaneity of their sound is surprising, They lack the mechanical and mathematical despondency of similar acts, whose aggressiveness sounds forced and artificial. With primitive, but expressively melodic pulses, their music proposes a true and formidable revival on a genre that has been dying for a long time now. Although at first they do not sound innovative, they do insert so many original and authentic components to their music, that their style immediately exposes itself by its unique scope and singularity. With an expressive vitality that shines with a brutal, but marvelous intensity, Enter Escape, song by song, reveals itself as a wonderful album, that has on the verge of a splendidly solicit flame of originality a marvelous ordeal of musical lucidity, artistic ambition and expressive sagacity. One of the best albums of the genre that I have heard, Enter Escape is filled by elements of other genres, that largely contributes to expand the brilliance of The Ralph’s musical style. 

For enthusiasts of alternative metal, Enter Escape is not just a tremendous record, but a gracious and overwhelming personal victory. An album that has everything to outstand each and every possible milestone of the genre, there is not a single moment, a single passage or a single track that could be labeled as bad, mediocre or lazy. This is a very energetic, surprising, elemental, formidable and intense album, that certainly will satisfy at large all the expectations demanded on the scene by the devotees of the genre. I don’t have the slightest doubt about that. 

With that crude vibe that easily combines with the ongoing lone stranger on the ride, but without losing the youngster appeal, Enter Escape carries on the dimension of its artistic capacities everything you can imagine: free and reverberating guitar lines, intense harmonies, exceedingly major impulsive beats and very unforgiving lacerating rhythms. An impeccable album, full of gold and sensational artistic elements, The Ralph really has proved for once and for all why they are astoundingly relevant on the scene.     

   

Wagner

post rock

Film Noir is an album released on February 20, by Lithuanian Post Rock band Autism. Forty four minutes long, and with seven tracks – Alive And Torn, In Anger, Humanity – Crescendo, Brittle Bones, Your Loudest Sound Is Change, 918 and the eponymous Film Noir – this record certainly is one of the best post rock albums recently released. With deeply abrasive and solid guitar lines, beautiful and intrincate melodies and splendidly dense, but very ambitious harmonies, Film Noir is a state of the art work and a major record, that presents on its incredibly strong and creative outlines a very personal, intense and cordial overview of the genre. 

Alternating between calmer, serene and more aggresively dense melodies, the soundscapes on Film Noir are created with an elusive vagueness of powerful ambiguities, that generates the intensity of an exploding heart. Never repeating themselves, the harmonies encircle a pattern of more indefinite nuances, although they are majestically predisposed over lines of an afflictively frivolous musicality. Over a strict panorama of afflictive sonorous sidelines, Film Noir reveals itself as the perfect ammalgamation of a very corrosive, but insinuating universe, that creates everything by exchanging the sonorous detrimental boundaries of its own virtuosity.

A marvelous album, that has on beautiful and exceedingly poetic melodies the absolute axis, the overall keys and the secret patterns of a self-sufficient life. With vibrating and colorful rhtyhms that defy the genesis of generic musical limitations, Autism fully reveals a style of its own, with all the genuine expectations of a very authentic, energetic and inflammable band. 

Never tiresome, tedious or weak, Film Noir is a very outstanding Post Rock album. A phenomenal work of art, that standardizes the genre upon the strenght of an unusual concept, the album really has the capacity to evaluate all the elements that solidify the veracity of the genre. True, beautiful, direct to the point and expressively philosophical in all of its major perspectives, Film Noir certainly can be considered a milestone of the genre. A very unique album, that has on the shape of its vast and amazingly ordained singularities everything that post rock enthusiasts are searching for.          



Wagner

post rock

A World Without Colour is the most recent album by UK-based artist Ben Woods, released in late January. Only thirty minutes long, the album has eight tracks:
A World Without Colour, Upon This Rock, Endless Lines of Infinite Light, Finding Your Last, As Above So Below, Russell Gardens, A Place And Time and One Final Drift Away. A very peaceful and quiet album, with beautiful passages filled with glorious moments of melancholy, A World Without Colour is a very poetic record, that unravels a musician with a very interesting style of his own, absolutely secure of his musical capacities, and where he is at the present moment of his musical career, and where he intends to go. 

With vivid, but at the same time very somber harmonies, that reveals a gloom so strong that seems capable to devour the world, the intensity of his songs are extremely captivating, with melodies that present themselves paradoxically as dark and serene, as well as dense and corrosive. Nonetheless, the tracks are astoundingly beautiful, full of charm, entrained in a very philosophical layer on life, and creatively expansive from the center of its own introspective sensibilities. 
Although the harmonies in general present little variations, and their pace is usually very slow as well, there is so much life flowing from these intrinsic rhythms where the universe revitalizes itself so easily, that you instantly learn how to better understand the truthful aspirations of a very lucid and reenergizing path of sonorous artistry. 

With a creativity that seems to have developed its own sensitive sonorous language, A World Without Colour is a melancholic soundscape of devotional intensity, that summarizes a musical ode to the nothingness that has taken the strains of the human heart. Working in detail the major feelings that beautifully translate themselves to sound, this album slowly deciphers the profound and serious metamorphosis of the human condition, analyzing in the lines of its sonorous perfection the usual failures that inevitably enslaves the human race. 

A formidable album, despite the little rhythmic variations, besides being concise and very objective, is deeply fulfilled by a sensible and human beauty, that evaluates a magnificent musical proficiency, that not only overcomes itself in technical excellence, but reevaluates in the scope of its poetic majesty the overall retribution of an antagonistic but very colorful overview of the world, full of hope, humanity, benevolence and serenity. Undoubtedly, a very beautiful record, that will take your musical perceptions into a whole new level of overwhelming consciousness.    
 


Wagner

drone / ambient

Belgian drone guru Ashtoreth is a busy man. Not only did he recently release an album with his band Emptiness (read review), he also kicked off our Lapses cycle (read) and helped the Unexplained Sounds Group compile a stunning compilation with Belgian ambient acts (read that review too). Now, that same Unexplained Sounds Group throws Ashtoreth's latest effort in the mix, an hour long excursion through drones, soundscapes and atmospheres.

The album is recorded live and dedicated to Morana, a Baltic and Slavic goddess, associated with seasonal rites based on the idea of death and rebirth of nature. The concept somehow reflects perfectly in the music. Like nature, the music is slow but steadfast. It sounds fragile but it can easily carry the listener on its soundwaves. Of course, since this is a drone and ambient album, you don't have to expect anything heavy or in-your-face.

No, this goes way deeper than your face. A track like 'Kāla Nāg' slowly slithers into your mind, your very conscience. It thrives on elaborate waves of soundscapes and feels like one of the most ocean-resembling pieces of music I've ever heard. Furthermore, here Ashtoreth's voice also appears, adding a sense of rituality to the whole thing. As often on this album, I'm reminded of acts like CHVE, not a bad act to be compared with if you ask me.

'Tymor' is an immense piece of work, lasting for twenty six minutes with not a boring second to be found. It's a dreamy, lingering and gentle composition that shows exactly how well Ashtoreth masters the trade. With stuff like this, he easily proves that he can stand next to those other Belgian drone masters like Dirk Serries, Stratosphere, the earlier mentioned CHVE and Barst. Yeah, sorry world, in this genre, Belgium is winning.. (*).

​'Waní Yetu' somewhat differs from the other tracks as the choir-like vocal parts add something religious to the whole thing. They also make this one the most eerie track on this entire album, which is quite ironic. The more nature-resembling tracks are soothing pieces of ambient and the religion-resembling one is scary as hell.  But perhaps that's just my mind playing tricks on me. Fact remains, this is a great song, bringing some more variation to the album.

Closer 'Hyberna' is one of my favorites, but in a way all these tunes are. If you love drones, if you are a fan of all the aforementioned acts, there is absolutely no reason why you should not get your hands on this album. 'Morana' is a solid, narrative, atmospheric and well-varied full-length that definitely deserves a spot in your collection. So check it out, you will not be disappointed, I can assure you.


Serge

(*) In December, when we publish our best-of list, I think we'll make one 'Best Of' and one 'Best Of Non-Belgian Albums'. We're crushing the competition here...

stoner / doom / death metal

I have to admit, the death metal scene doesn't thrill me as much as it used to. There was a time when I devoured albums by Entombed, Dismember, Death, Amorphis and so on. Yet, in recent years, the genre seems to slip through my fingers. At first, I thought that that was age related. I'm just getting older and thus more interested in slow, calmer music. Yet, that doesn't seem to be the cause of my growing disinterest in the genre. The main problem seems to be a lack of originality. Many bands seem to fear trying new things, which results in uniformity. 

Enter Finnish quartet Altar Of Betelgeuze and their green smoke filled approach to the genre. Their new album 'Among The Ruins' is saving the genre for me, blending the harsh and abrasive nature of death metal with the monolithic riff capacity of doom and stoner rock. As if that is not varied enough, they throw in some clean vocals and even some psychedelic guitar solos. It's not often that bands like Black Sabbath & Electric Wizard come to mind while listening to a death metal album, but it sure is pretty damn bloody awesome.

Although opener 'The Offering' is a strong and immersive piece of music, follower 'Sledge Of Stones' is an absolute masterpiece. Somehow, Altar Of Betelgeuze managed to add the groove of bands like Entombed and Dismember to the thick sound of the bands I mentioned in the previous paragraph. At some point even Queens Of The Stone Age come to mind, along with some of their stoner rock colleagues. 'New Dawn' is another favorite, but more a vintage doom metal track than a death metal tune.

Another absolute highlight its 'Absence Of Light', a slow but brutal steamroller of a song, one that will have you on your knees in no time. There is a tiny bit Amorphis in here, enhanced with all of the above. Obviously, the majority of metal fans will classify this album as doom metal and I can't disagree with that. The overall tempo is quite slow. The riffs are almost touchable. The clean vocals remind me of the early days of the doom genre.

Basically, perhaps you can simplify classification by saying that this is "Conan with grunts" but that would be too easy. Fact remains that this is a well-written, well-thought-out and original album that definitely deserves a spot in your collection. So who to recommend it to? Well, doom fans of course. They will adore this thing, no doubt about that. Death metal fans will have to open their mind a bit, but once bitten, Altar Of Betelgeuze could easily become your favorites.


Serge
​

electronic / ambient / downtempo / industrial

Denovali Records comes with two collaborations this month, both equally interesting in my personal opinion. I'll start with this strange and breathtaking collaboration between two Berlin based electronic acts, Monolog and Subheim. I don't think these are unknown names to fans of downtempo electronics and Denovali Records so I'm not going to go into introductions. However, I will have to warn you, this is not an easy digestible album. There sure is a lot going on here but the overall feeling is dark, heavy and often haunting.

​The album opens with 'Wone', a pitch black blend of dark ambient and industrial. As if Raison d'être, Lustmord and Author & Punisher have engaged in a sonic threesome. From there, things tend to become abstract, strange and definitely unusual. 'Benedict' reminds me of Scorn, much to my delight. It's been a while since Scorn has appeared in my playlist. 'Sumo Rimi' is probably the most radio friendly track on the entire album, doing something highly immersive with dubstep and the dark electronic sounds of the eighties.

'Make Stones Cry' grabs back to the eerie dark ambient sounds and layers it with sluggish beats. Perhaps this one is my favorite but that's a tough decision to make. 'Colourful Flight' closes the album, again with a gloomy electronic ambient sound. Yet, in a way, this song can function as the breather after all that sonic darkness. Nonetheless, it's another one of my favorites here, my five favorites. Yes, I know, there are only five tracks, each with a different personality and identity and each of them equally interesting. So - obviously - this comes highly recommended.


​Serge

stoner rock / noise rock / psychedelic

Is that a light bulb shoved up someone's private parts? Did Greek stoner rockers Arrakis invent a way to "enlighten" a newborn or are they just a bunch of sadists? Maybe it's just photoshop and did nobody get hurt during the design process, I certainly hope so. But let's not divagate about the cover art, because the first track on this album will probably hurt you enough already, and with that I'm talking about your neck muscles.

Take Karma To Burn, Monkey 3 and My Sleeping Karma, throw them into a blender with Melvins and Buzzov•en and out comes opener 'Plexus', one of the heaviest and  most energetic pieces of psychedelic stoner rock you can imagine. The rest of the album seems to tone down a little but but Arrakis never lose their trance-inducing dynamics. 'Electricon', the track, will have you on a trip through space in no time.

Although there are only five tracks, all instrumental by the way, this album carries plenty of fingerlicking riffs, hypnotic jams and high-octane drums. 'Loot' is a massive sludge-induced piece of music, designed to pierce your eardrums, so be warned. I'll leave the other two tracks up to you, dear reader. You'll be amamzed at the amount of energy coming from this Greek trio. Stoner rock to bang your head to in space, what else could you want?


​Serge

death metal

Ubiquity is an album by French brutal death metal band Ogarya, released on February 15. Thirty seven minutes long, Ubiquity has twelve very objective and concise tracks, being them an Intro, Downgrading Redemption, Black Sun, Perennial Idolatrous Violence, Ubiquity, T-eraFormer, No wisdom possible, Engine, BiOniric Mechanization, Seven Sin-gularities, Those We Don't Want To See and Another World. A very rapid, brutal and explicitly grotesque album, Ubiquity is primarily fulfilled by all the classic death metal components: a hostile and malevolent style, a thoroughly aggressive sound, guttural vocals and a very explosive musical layout.

Ogarya manages to develop very well their own style, since Ubiquity – despite featuring as its main components the general elements of an ordinary brutal death metal feature –, really has a very original musicality, although eventually you feel yourself absorbed by a more generic pattern, within the uniform sonorous correlation deeply standardized into the songs. 

Although there is nothing extraordinary in Ubiquity, the album is good, and certainly has everything to be a favorite among death metal enthusiasts. As a record, in a more detailed and meticulous analysis, Ubiquity is as interesting as it is monotonous. Technically, there is a solid and vehemently ardent splendid proficiency, whose exceedingly high level of competence really demonstrates to the audience what brutal death metal truly is. Nonetheless, on the other hand, since the harmonies are voraciously fast all the way throughout the album, with little to no variations, the sound appears to be too uniform, and you eventually fall under the impression that they are playing the same song over and over again. 

Ubiquity is a polarizing album, that certainly has the potential to divide opinions.  Not a bad album, if you have a little patience, the expressive musical lines in general reveals very skilled musicians. Enthusiasts of a very extreme and brutal death metal sound probably will find the album a splendid and marvelous experience, since the voracious aggression literally gives you no truce, for the entire run of its thirty seven minutes.  

I really can’t say I found Ubiquity a marvelous work of art, but the record certainly has its merits, and they are not scarce. Although Ogarya does not promote a revolution in the way death metal is played, they seem to be fully compromised with the development of their own style. Evidently, Ubiquity has the potential to please the more ardent and extreme enthusiasts of the genre. There is no doubt about it.
 

Wagner

post metal

Unearthing is an album by New Zealander Post Metal duo Into Orbit, released on February 3. Forty one minutes long, the record has eight tracks: Dark Matter, Stone Circles, Scattering Light, Equilibrium, Caldera, The Archer, Unearthing and Gilgamesh. A marvelous record, with wonderful, delicate and planetary melodies, Unearthing is fulfilled with a poetic and splendid sense of majesty, that inhabits a universe of delusional and abstract colorful tonalities, where glorious guitar lines and intricate, but devotional, expansive and empirical harmonies create worlds of introspective brilliance, making you see things differently, in a dream-like state trajectory where all your thoughts are converted into a gigantic and transcendental wave of cosmogony, that vividly conflagrates into the signs of your soul all mysterious directions that perpetuates the enigmas of time.

Unearthing is a splendid and magnificent work. With a solid purpose, and a strong sense of originality, Into Orbit develops a very lancinating musical style, that can be described as a hazardous and proficient storm in the middle of the most serene and ambivalent ocean. With punctual and fluctuating devices, that carries out at the height of an imponderable significant concept a very sensible ordeal, the songs are as soft and calm as the perpetual haze of a distant world of ethereal  dreams, that suddenly feels prepared to captivate your soul, being the sole objective of the journey the desire to wonder free into the most derelict, antagonistic, pure and sincere vicissitudes that shapes the orbit of the insecure emotional devices of the human existence. With laborious and insinuating melodies that capture the essence of an insurrect desolation that standardizes the retrospective resilience of the human soul, Unearthing is unparalleled in the streams of its poetic correlations, surpassing the formidable essence of an inexistent river of detrimental recollections of fragmented dreamscapes, that conforms to the non-aligned essence of an unbound and unrestricted sentimental galaxy. 

With exceedingly beautiful and strong guitar lines, Unearthing is a formidable instrumental album, that really shapes the genre in a very personal and original context. Unfortunately, some passages of incongruous and diffuse musical uniformity transmits a sporadic sense of monotony. Nonetheless, these awkward moments do not compromise the strength, the audacity and the genuine sonorous lucidity of the album, primary qualities that grow stronger and stronger, with each track.                     

Unearthing, by New Zealander Post Metal duo Into Orbit, is a solid, masterful, perennial, splendid, graceful and gracious album, that will literally take you into another orbit of sonorous existence, certainly a more extraordinary and vivacious one. A sensational and monumental record, Unearthing is a wonderful and spectacular state of the art work. Original, lucid and very singular, this is a record with a seriously ferocious artistic potential, that has all the right components to revitalize and revolutionize the genre.        


Wagner

post rock

Assimilation is an album by American post rock Group ghost island, released on February 3. Almost fifty one minutes long, the record has seven tracks: your hope, your joy, your doubt, crushed, your fear, your equanimity and assimilation. A calm, lucid, quiet and very modest post rock album, Assimilation can be considered a minor masterpiece, specially taking into consideration its precise and detailed technicality. Although excessively calm throughout its whole ordeal, there’s a singular vitality within the music, and it’s impossible to be indifferent to it. With complex arrangements and conscious, abundant and methodic melodies, Assimilation is an interesting album, that really evaluates and inserts into a more embracing panorama the sonorous devices of the genre, over a mixture of traditional devotion and modest originality.

At a first glance, you may think that there is a total absence of new elements in the album, and you can be positive about that. Nonetheless, ghost island manages to develop their music wisely, with a pragmatic and evocative set of melodies, that really exposes what the genre has to offer, at the height of its best possibilities: eccentric, but constant harmonies, a demanding, but moderate conflagration of easy rhythms played along with the spontaneity of an occasional melancholy, the concentrated harmonious terrain of a genuine liberty and a calm serenity that overlooks the abysses of a congenital sincerity inherent to the genre. 

The album generally works very well towards the continuity of its outstanding peaceful and serene melodies. Although the overall sensation maybe of a despondent sonorous embrace, Assimilation has beauty, charm, elegant rhythms and a high concentration of positivity. Despite the fact that the album has little to no innovations, you will definitely amuse yourself with the profound qualities this record has to offer. 

In the end, Assimilation, by ghost island, manages to a very good album. It follows very well the trail of a perfectly executed post rock, especially in the technical part, although fails ostensibly in achieving a higher, more solid, original and reverberating artistic path. Nonetheless, it’s a good record, and definitely compensates listening to it, especially if you are an ardent post rock enthusiast.  


Wagner

black metal

Ballad of the broken is an album by DSBM project If I Could Kill Myself, released on February 3. A relatively short album, only thirty three minutes long, ballad of the broken has ten tracks – again, only regret, coward, escapism or death, ballad of the broken, im just not worth it, to be forgotten, i hate myself, last chance and goodbye –, and without a doubt can be regarded as the ultimate DSBM album. Exceedingly different, and with a very peculiar style, this project have a very original approach concerning the genre, although brings back to the table themes familiar to DSBM, with suicide being the most prominent. Characterized by very depressive interludes, but delicate, soft and beautiful harmonies as well, ballad of the broken is primarily a very poetic and self-sufficient work with a strong identity. Honoring the DSBM subgenre with ostensibly captivating peculiarities, this is an album totally worthwhile listening.

The beauty and the delicacy of the harmonies certainly can be described as the strongest point of this album. Some passages are so ostensibly melodic, lucid, outspoken and beautiful, that you will hardly remember that you are listening – technically – to a black metal subgenre. Nonetheless, If I Could Kill Myself is abundant in beautiful passages, and the way the artist unravels its own singular style of music is simply too wonderful to believe. 

Although there are some passages in a few songs that are, indeed, more powerful, rapid and aggressive, the strongest element on this album is the effusive, symbolic and astonishing development of a very personal musical identity, which is primarily melancholic, expressively melodic and somberly poetic, with more colorful, abstract and reflexive moments, that seems to be reminiscent of classical music. Creating marvelous melodies with profound and hazardous, but outwardly disdainful  feelings of suffering, frailty and desolation, If I Could Kill Myself, despite the fact that the album is a little bit short, certainly has taken DSBM to a more powerful, credible, ascendant, intelligent and abrasive path. 

Since DSBM is considered almost a genre of music by its own merits, even by black metal enthusiasts, ballad of the broken is not recommended for everybody, but certainly will be much more appreciated by people who are already familiar with the subgenre. Nonetheless, ballad of the broken is an astonishing and amazingly intense album. Evidently, deserves to find its audience, and the right audience certainly will be exceedingly pleased and satisfied when listening to this marvelous, audacious, original and splendidly wonderful piece of work.        


Wagner        

post rock

Proverbial is an album by Greek Post Rock group Swim to Cape Sherpa, released on February 19. With a total length of only thirty six minutes and four tracks – As the world turns, Hepirot, Of wolves & men and Nocturne – Proverbial is an astonishing and intriguing album, with a solid atmosphere and a very antagonistic musical substratum, that has on the mathematical allegory of its substantial proficiency the greatness of a sonorous poetry, that relies purely on the strength of a deeply relegated solitude, that searches constantly for the invisibility of a world unseen, where all harmonies are fragments of a soul, lost in the field of a hazardous and despondent sensibility, that seeks in the eternity the possibilities of an existence full of meaning. 

With delicate melodies, and a very soft sonorous approach that revolves around themes of surreal introspection, Proverbial is a very methodic record, that wisely explores in the beauty of its overwhelming instrumental intensity the whimsical values of very expressive rhythms, in a constantly expansive context of profoundly graceful, volatile and voluble sonorous interactions. Undoubtedly, the harmonies are wonderfully beautiful and spectacularly created, constructed under a layer of sensible and imperially sardonic demise. Nonetheless, there is an imponderable majesty in the overall tonalities of its sonorous relevance, and the full convergence of instruments into a punctual and pungent rhetoric of ascendant monumental discovery dwells deep into a pragmatic evolutionary scale of perplex and precious amorphous atmospheres of plenitude and commotion.  

With almost Andean sonorous influences, Proverbial is a singular record, that has on the verge of its cohesive and intrinsically concentrated musical energy the overall shape of serene, but fully devoted rhythms, that preserves on the essence of its strength the marvelous audacity of a world that transpires in the values of its abrasive artistry the uniqueness of a sensible grace, that only initiated subjects can truly relate to, specially if you are fully committed to the sonorous expansion of your soul.    

A marvelous record, for the entire run of its wonderful thirty six minutes, that has everything to present to the underground the different shapes of a diagram of serene nuances that creates from the fire of its own essence the unforgiving fascination of an opaque sonorous appreciation that dilapidates precious notes from a convoluted and intermittent sense of musical abilities, Proverbial is a fantastic work, whose musicality relies primarily in the original axis of its own sonorous ambivalence. Unrestrictive, infallible and genuine, Swim to Cape Sherpa really has created a fascinating and outstanding record, that has all the necessary qualities to become a milestone of the genre.          



Wagner

ambient / dark ambient

Superspectrum is a Dark Ambient compilation featuring various artists, released on February 17 by Italian label Eighth Tower Records. With thirteenth tracks, they follow exactly on this order: Mørkerom, by Warpness, Wasted Land, by Sysselmann, Majestic, by Alphaxone, Oblivion, by Xerxes The Dark, Breath, by Heliocentrism, Attitude, by Gopota, Manuscript, by Ocadium, L'éveil de Baron Samedi, by Damballah, Az orias felfalja gyermekeit, by Nagaarum, Ceremony, by Sonologyst, Kvasaarit, by vÄäristymä, Canis Tindalos, by Cordis Cincti Serpente and Number Zero, by Vesicatoria. 

Despite the great diversity of artists, the record is vehemently solid and consistent, and follows a very somber, genuine, sinister and inhospitable atmosphere. With a general calm and serene tranquility that explores elusive nuances, solitary confinements and hopeless invisible places of eternal disdain and disillusion, Superspectrum manages to be a terrific compilation, that reunites in one record the best artists of the genre the underground scenario has to offer.

As usual for the genre, the general harmonies are calm, peaceful and quiet, but deep into the melodies, relies the greater doom of a more sinister and improbable expectation, that emerges ostensibly contaminated by a radical and dangerous wave of fear, anguish, apprehension and affliction. All thirteen tracks are exceedingly captivating in the way they absorb the abnormal and splendid ecstatic features of the genre. Although all tracks are exceptionally phenomenal, Oblivion, by Xerxes The Dark, Breath, by Heliocentrism and Ceremony, by Sonologyst, deserves special mention. Nonetheless, all of these musicians are superb in their capacity to filter, to exasperate, to exterminate, and to compose an aggressive, and yet calmly anxious and afflictively agonizing atmosphere of imponderable and exhilaratingly oppressive sonorous ordeal.

Superspectrum is a marvelous compilation. If you are a dark ambient supporter, you should listen to this wonderful album without any hesitation. You will be instantly captivated by it. Without a single moment of boredom or monotony, Superspectrum is a monumental Dark Ambient compilation. One that really deserves all attention from the genre enthusiasts, everywhere.    

      
Wagner