ambient / drone

Wilderness Time, released recently, on June 28, is the most recent album by In the Branches, a personal project of musician Shane Cotee, from Portland, Oregon, that has multiple projects involving music and visual arts, collectively known as The Adaptive.

Basically described, and probably best filtered, as an ambient, atmospheric and post-rock project, Cotee, on his In the Branches creative vision, does in the present release a deeply surreal, stratospheric and cinematic presentation of a profoundly musical scenario. With a relaxing sound, a highly philosophical soundtrack of existence, and displaying the vast tranquility of a sonorous exhilaration, filled with an acquisitive proposition of soul meditation, Wilderness Time is a creative configuration of space, time and infinity, propelling an acquiescence of significant embodiment exhortation, to wander free and fine throughout a relevant sound colorless hemisphere, complemented with the spiritual vision of a highly dimensional thematic music.

Wilderness Time is a highly spiritual and completely definitive journey at the core of the universe of one’s soul. Being the perfect soundtrack for the principles of a personal philosophy, you can feel deep inside your soul the perfection, the intensity, the emotion and the consistency behind the music. The title of this marvelous work was probably influenced by the fact that – as Shane himself explained – the guitar parts were recorded in several different locations throughout the west of the USA, and then the songs were improved and reworked in a confined undisclosed location in the state of Montana.

With eleven tracks, consistently bound together by the cinematic scope upon which Cotee managed to tie them altogether, the chain of sonorous beauty that links the sound and the vision behind these tracks is really outstanding, surpassing the poetic elements that create the synthesis that revolves around the honesty upon which his intentions rely on, building a cohesive wall of sonorous elements that poetically feel the air you breath, transforming the molecules and atoms of your surroundings into harmonious and transcendental musical terrain. Remarkable as it is, you can see the soundscape that he creates with his mostly elemental opaque layers of tunes, creating anamorphic structural melodies, that unravels the independent consciousness of the blind feelings, that reveal to you the beauty of invisible expectations.

A great work of art is what waits the listener on this record. Shane Cotee, the artist and the vision behind In the Branches, captures perfectly entire landscapes of beauty, poetry and dreams and gives them sound forms, cohesively infusing in your imagination a soul searching musical scenario, deeply touched by the poetry of the senses and the most sublime form of melancholic appreciation. Wilderness Time, beyond any legitimate significance, is a great ambient cinematic centered work, that could be the soundtrack of your dreams, literally speaking. This is an outstanding record that you can hear any time, but certainly, it is perfect to be heard before you go to sleep, when the lights in your bedroom are off. So you just have to close your eyes, and let your mind go with the music. Suddenly, you will see a movie pass by you, with the most exhilarating landscapes accompanying you throughout a journey of relaxing undefined rhythms, boosted by a poetically reflexive density, deeply inserted in the highest wall of soundscape reliability that heals your dreams inside your soul.

An extremely sensible and effusively sensitive ambient work, with a highly volatile atmospheric technique, Wilderness Time, by In the Branches is a very peculiar, consistent and interesting record, that shows a high level of artistry and proficiency regarding the soundscape ambient genre, incredibly skilled at the emotional, creative and devotional ground. A record that will certainly wake up your senses, and eradicate each and every one of your wounds. Profoundly remarkable, deeply philosophic and never boring, Wilderness Time, by In the Branches, is one incredibly lucid and outstandingly excellent ambient work, with a true to life cinematic urge. If you really are into this type of sound, you should really check it out this record. It will reach your heart, your soul, your mind and your body instantly!


Wagner

black metal

Ophidian Henosis is the most recent full length by Barshasketh, a black metal band originally from Wellington, New Zealand – later relocated to Scotland –, released on CD by Blut & Eisen Productions, and in LP version by Blut & Eisen Productions in partnership with W.T.C. Productions. 

With seven unnamed, only numbered tracks, Barshasketh, active since 2009, it is certainly one of New Zealand’s pearls of the genre. Although at first you can think that Ophidian Henosis doesn’t have anything new to present to its audience – and you may be right about that, at least, to a certain degree – they are simply outstanding on the conventional grounds of Black Metal. They practice a very common, raw form of Black Metal, but nevertheless, these guys manage to outbreak a highly impressive, solid and authentically absolute form of BM. With heavy, stentorian, aggressive and furious guitars, they never practice a tiresome or generic display of Black Metal. With somber, pronounced and darkly sharp vocals, that matches  obscure and malevolent atmospheres of evil and despondency, you may think that this record cannot present you anything  daring or innovative, but these guys somehow managed to transform, rearrange, corrode, deform and deviate the old and usual components of Black Metal, turning all elements of the genre into a creatively intuitive, purely degrading and darkly illusive corporeal malevolent sound, that really can be described as old school-related, without being boring, repetitive, exhaustive or generic.  

Certainly, the very fast rhythms and the exceedingly hostile guitar lines give the album a remarkable reliability on the grounds of aggressiveness, nerves and confidence. While they easily assimilate their influences, and show them in very subtle grounds, they can agglutinate in the layers of their own proficiency the same vibrating amount of forces that reunites and expands their energy, to concentrate all of their power into the insane intensity of the definitive explosion that they rapidly accumulate at the deep-hearted invisible force of their music.      

Barshasketh – mostly – can certainly be described as another outfit that practices the same old style of Black Metal, without presenting to its audience any innovation. Nevertheless, we can qualify their work as an awesome, outstanding and excellent outfit of old school influenced bands. Without offending the intelligence of its audience, correctly assimilating all the right aspects of BM, greatly respecting all the demands of the genre, and filtrating the most propitious elements of the style, Barshasketh manages to be an impressively authentic band, that, unlike a lot of their contemporaries, will never be pleased – and can never be qualified – on being just another copy of the great references of Black Metal. 

You may be not impressed at all by Barshasketh’s Ophidian Henosis at first, but you should definitely give these guys a chance. They really deserve. You certainly will get impressed with this record, and once you listen to it, you will definitely understand what I am trying to say. A remarkable old school conventional Black Metal album, that masterly inserts an authorial line of work in their metal agenda, Barshasketh really do an impressive and serious work on this record, that should be regarded by what they really achieve: if they haven’t scored high on the grounds of originality, nevertheless, an impressively superior, competent, firm and convict line of work is present here, working to perpetuate, align and exhibit the most serious, obscure, malevolent and definitive alliance of sordid Black Metal ever. So, hail to them!               


Wagner

black metal

Autumn, the most recent album by Coldworld, an impressive and highly skilled Black Metal German project from Leipzig, led by its only member, G.B., really outstood himself with this furious and impeccable record. Featuring an amazing, rewarding and intriguing fusion of Atmospheric Black Metal with the more raw, primitive and aggressive side of the genre, prominently highlighting DSBM elements with unusual protuberating and heavier melodic notes, Autumn is certainly a straight A list album, a fundamental evaluation that you confirm in the very beginning, with the first track.

With eight tracks, being them Scars, Void, Wombs of Emptiness, Autumn Shades, The Wind and the Leaves, Climax of Sorrow, Nightfall and Escape II, Autumn really breaks emotional, intellectual, artistic and musical barriers. True to the proposal, visceral to the ground, and delightfully revealing a sonorous and astoundingly solid and unbound musical artistry, Autumn is a virulent, powerful and highly harmonious record, where the soul of depressive and dark poetry is perfectly inserted into the heart of a profoundly genuine Black Metal sound, although filled with a more inventive and innovative initiative. With melodic, daring and melancholic tunes that evoke the spiritual consternation of a hybrid pattern of transcending sorrow, Coldworld proves, shows and exhibits an astounding and perfect level of musical proficiency, like you have never heard in the history of Black Metal. Intensely intensifying the boundaries, provoking the limits and building the sonorous walls of the subgenre that we get ourselves used to call Depressive Suicidal Black Metal – or simply DSBM, to the ones most familiar with –, Autumn turned out to be such a groundbreaking and furious record, that it is impossible not to feel amazed by it at the first hearing.

Complying with some general and monumental standards – at the same time that this one man only project inserts his highly effusive level of authenticity into his music – his sound is incredibly enthusiastic and voracious to the core, with impressively fast and aggressive guitars, while the rhythm manages to counterbalance the lucid outbreaks of the songs, being hugely grotesque, beautiful, poetic and obscure, at the same time. And these remarkable qualities, filled with a very ambitious poetry of sonorous ambivalence, are intertwined with a highly diffusive melancholy throughout the whole record, while you can feel deeply at the heart of your emotions the unbreakable balance that exists between these beautiful album, and all the artistic alignments that gets you through the beauty of its dimension.

Autumn follows the line of a very original and authorial style of Black Metal. If you’re not familiar with this musician’s work – if you already are, the recommendation, of course, is unnecessary – you have to hear for yourself this exhilarating masterpiece. Infusing some brief moments on the sideline of minor elements that sculptures influences from soft folk, acoustic melancholic rock and ambient metal, this record really outstands itself in each and every way possible. You will be barely able to hold your breath.

With a perfect convergence of elements that works really well for this peculiar and very personal style of Black Metal – that would be generically obvious to call simply DSBM, although appears to be a primary component of his music – Autumn, the most recent album by the German BM project Coldworld, really deserves your attention. With its heavier notes, groundbreaking fast rhythms, cutting edge ripping vocals, lucid, deep and profoundly razor blade harmonies, somber and elusive guitar lines, and exhilaratingly ecstatic sonorous digressions, without ever breaking its primary melancholic undertones, Autumn manages to be a real, compound and visceral masterpiece, that will certainly catch your attention immediately. Certainly one of the best records of the year, you will feel amazed when hearing it. So catch this one, or you will regret immensely! This is way more than just a record, but an exceedingly high and fantastic artistic victory.

Wagner

ambient / downtempo

bandcamp

Voyager is the debut album by an electronic musician from the United Kingdom known only as Outerstellar, a great and profoundly talented sound artist, specialized in a deeply touching, monumental and personal type of cosmological space ambient music. Subtlety introducing into his sound colossal traits of chill, glitch and downtempo, with organic, protuberating and vigorously audacious experimental tones, Voyager turned out to be an astounding and remarkable album, sound sculptured in the most refined, remote, distant and infinite abysses of the unknown universe. 

With eleven tracks, being them All This Vastness, Voyager, Celestial, We Are Star Stuff, New Dimension, Black Hole, Descender, Frontier, Stellar Evolution, Remnants and Magnificent Desolation, the album Voyager is a deeply exhilarating voyage throughout the excellent, imperial, enjoyable and dominant vastness of the infinite universe, propelled by a sound vision where you can feel all the colorful harmonies that define delightful places unseen, that will touch, enchant, glorify and tranquilize your ears, in such astounding, free and wonderful ways, that you will explore sonorous depths and fascinating melodies as you had never done in your life before.

With pleasant, glorious, delightful and poetic harmonies, Voyager is a shocking, vibrating, enthusiastic and sincere space ambient experimental soundscape journey, being a marvelous experience in galactic harmony. Soft, calm, artistically sonorous, effusively poetic, and building sound sculpting notes on the layers of its rhythms, Voyager turned out to be a majestic and powerful album. Easily erupting boundaries on the genre, and consolidating experimental sonorous domains by the sentient feeling of an unknowable philosophy of transcendental poetry and magical despondency, confiding through the delicacy of its tracks an obscure, but resiliently expansive vastness, able to reach your mind, soul and heart, in the bilateral lines of the emotional realm of calmness that its sound evokes, Voyager can be considered a definite and remarkable masterpiece of the genre, with a great touch of poetry aligned paroxysm, deeply inserted at the core of its meaningful artistic proposals.

Yes, definitely the sound is beautiful. If space atmospheric ambient is your thing, you have to check it out on this one. A deeply impressive and definitive album, that will make you surrender to the glory of its beauty, the harmonies, balances and colorful outfits adorning the stars falling from the constant pace of its effusive correlation of rhythms will make you feel astounded when listening to it. One of the most remarkable albums I ever had the chance of listening in the genre, the poetic scale of the beauty involved on this work is simply beyond amazing. Transcendental at the most drafting soul revolving sphere of profoundly heartfelt meaningful anthropologic cosmogony, Voyager, by Outerstellar, feels like a fragmented soundscape of a lucid inter dimensional travel, intertwining delicate sonorous milligrams of minimalistic cosmic brans, with interchangeable barriers of detailed veils of harmonic points of convergence, decisively bestowing sentient devices to the inner reliability of a sound confluence that harmonizes the coherence of the proposition in question, with the acknowledgment of an artistry of surreal clarity. 

Outerstellar’s ability to impose on his own creations different relations of rhythms incisively different from ordinary patterns of sound, previously mitigated by sensorial dreams lost in a permanent quest for originality, now express the majesty of his artistry in the absolute freedom of a very outstanding and creative process, aiming to reach a collision of arbitrary frequencies that will make you travel across the infinity of the space, and go back, to prepare for another journey. With amazing sound sequences, glorious harmonies of untimely intuitions and uncommon dimensions that navigate against the denying process of conspicuous lucidities, Voyager, the debut album by space orientated electronic English musician Outerstellar, definitely is an expansive and delightful journey throughout the cosmos. Inserting you in an unbreakable, philosophic and melodic sphere of transcendental calmness, Outerstellar politely invites you to go on a journey inside yourself, to reach the remarkable level of a cosmos you haven’t considered to exist. So embark on this fascinating trip towards the most precious and melodic elements of a sagacious and exceedingly vivacious space opera. You will be positively impressed with his work!                                     

​Wagner

black metal

Dystertid is a German Black Metal band, consisting of members Nostarion on vocals and guitar, Ragnar on bass and Swerc on drums. 'Auf Faehrten alter Tage', their first full-length, have eight increasingly wonderful tracks, being them Einklang, Walpurgisnacht, Aus alter Zeit, Harzwanderung, Am Quellbach, Herbstklage, Durchs Moor and Ausklang.

With a poignant and distinctively peculiar style of BM that could easily be classified as typically Germanic Black Metal, Dystertid practices a very melodic and sometimes acoustic kind of Black Metal, with songs normally relying on despondent, sensitive and almost exclusive folk melodies as the baseline of their structure, don’t depending too much – or anything at all in some cases – on heavier weight or fast rhythms to depart from the starting point of their peculiar proposal of sound, a more thinly delineated and calmly refined genre of Black Metal.  

With a very fast-forward decisive posture to distance themselves from the usual proclivities of the genre, Dystertid fuses atmospheric and melodic elements into their sound, creating a very elusive, but calm transcendental ambience with their music, that progressively inhales imperative nuances and aspiringly resonating dream-like states, with the profusion of folk elements, setting up with their tunes desolate unmerciful landscapes, lost in perpetual worlds of fog and dust, easily correlating with their artistic proposal a funereal atmosphere of fear, pain and hope, that melts pagan Germanic folklore, melodic atmospheric dreams and the most painstaking  elements of Black Metal, into a perfectly designed soundscape, that gives Dystertid its remarkable uniqueness, daringly infusing local colors and nuances into their work. At the same time, their sound vociferates sincere illusions and cold isolations, destined to set free all inhospitable thoughts that the genuine balance of their music ably renovates, track after track, song after song, and note after note.                     

Despite all of that, they sound incredibly heavy, furious and symptomatic. Nevertheless, their heavier sound is astoundingly adorned with a very subtle, harmonic and sometimes melancholic beauty. Inclined to a spurious veil of incisive and choleric lust, the sound of Dystertid will make you feel lost in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), celebrating old tales of Germanic lore, while resting in the philosophy of ancient pagan rituals, looking into the sky, and feeling deep inside your heart the mathematics of the universe.   

To listen to Dystertid, specifically to this beautiful Auf Faehrten alter Tage, is to submerge yourself into deep and meaningful inspiration. A remarkable Pagan Black Metal album, with a poetic outfit adorning the melancholy of its beautiful and sensitive melodies, sometimes wandering in the lustful agony of depressive and desolate chords, it is certainly a great Black Metal album. Brilliantly exploring melodic elements, rather than being another simple “blind fury following generic tradition”, Auf Faehrten alter Tage definitely has what it takes to be seriously considered a remarkable and strong exemplar of the genre. A little bit short – being only thirty one minutes long – in Auf Faehrten alter Tage Dystertid manages to be the perfect example of an excellent act capable of correctly inserting on a good old school black metal influenced sound the most stylish and relevant elements of local Germanic culture and folklore. Certainly being a band that deserves our attention, Dystertid manages to be a promising feature on the underground Pagan Black Metal scene, for the years to come. They certainly have the potential. Perfectly equalizing and balancing the most soft, philosophic and despondent side of Black Metal with the more heavier, furious and vengeful elements, this is a band that definitely  have it all to win their place on the underground scene. Auf Faehrten alter Tage is an album that really deserves your attention. If you like pagan Black Metal, this is your thing. Beautiful melodies and striking harmonies are waiting for you!         

heavy jazz / drone / experimental

I'm wearing my Dead Neanderthals t-shirt today, so this felt like the perfect moment to check out this little split. The Dutch heavy jazz combo joined forces with English act Sly and the Family Drone for a nice showcase of what both bands are capable of. Dead Neanderthals open with a repetitive, intense and noisy piece which, certainly live, will be quite hypnotic. This is an in-your-face jazz assault with drums and sax like there's no tomorrow. Luckily, Sly and the Family Drone provide a piece of calm and serenity on side b. It's a gloomy and eerie piece of dark drone ambient, driving on a sluggish tempo and continuously swelling. Highly recommended split, that's for sure.

electronic

This single by English producer Barry Snaith sure is something else. I wasn't sure what exactly I could expect, perhaps something nice and friendly, easy-listening for the consumption based society we live in. However, what I got was quite surprising, distorted pop music, driving on breakbeats and eighties industrial, as if The KLF and Crash Course In Science decided to work together. It makes me wonder, what if The Prodigy and Miss Kittin join forces? The outcome might be something close to this single.
You can pre-order it on iTunes here, along with some neat remixes.

industrial rock

A few months only after its 'Disorders in progress' EP (2015), French industrial rock outfit Strugg is back with a new full-length album called 'Flood' expected to be released this fall. In the meantime, the band unleashed the first excerpt of this upcoming effort with the single "Pull me out". I wasn't acquainted with this band but after hearing this single I definitely want more. Armed with a guitar and a bunch of machines, this duo blends the noise rock of Sonic Youth with the industrial flair of Nine Inch Nails. The song is immersive and intense and definitely gets your industrial ass shaking. If the whole album is like this, we just might be in for a treat this fall.

drone / ambient / experimental

Shimmering Moods Records

The mystery is great in this one. Behind this project are a couple of a well-known and respected artists, who use a pseudonym and prefer to stay anonymous. It's mastered by Sylvia. Images, screaming & shouting were done by Sale. Nothing else is known about this project, at least not by me. What I do know, is that this is an enormous dose of minimal drone ambient, alternating with experimental noise and a whole bunch of weird soundscapes. It's a strange, often horrifying trip through the minds and imagination of two people. The opening track is a 36 minutes epos of drones and noises. The other songs are shorter but equally intense and mesmerizing. Fascinating stuff 

ambient

Another brilliant release from the Sombre Soniks label. The Howling Larsons is a project from R Loftiss (The Gray Field Recordings) & Alan Trench (Temple Music). For this release, they delivered a massive, ever evolving piece of experimental ambient and drones, based on  the writings of Parmenides, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. There is only one track, lasting 45 minutes but it feels like a whole album, varied, thematic and deeply immersive. Besides the soundscapes, the singing bowls and the drones, you can hear vocals, recited by Nikolaos in Ancient Greek using the Byzantine tonal system. A mystical and mystifying release from a very talented duo, definitely recommended...

metal

Oh, Frenchies, you certainly are a bunch of stubborn chaps, aren't you? 'Nous sommes fiers de notre langue et de nos habitudes', you say, leaving the rest of us wonder what the hell you are talking about. You make your own blend of hardcore and metal, pretty much all sorts of metal too, judging from this album. Upon that, you throw a massive amount of vocals, screams this time. Did anyone else ever notice how French vocalists throw in way more vocals than others, or is that just me?

In this case, the vocals are brutal. So is the music. The whole thing is a massive slap in the face, combined with a firm kick in the nuts and a full-on assault on your eardrums. It's the ideal soundtrack to a hardcore wrestling match, or a street fight if you like. According to the biography, Dive Your Head are children of the 1990s, influenced by nu-metal and groups like Of Mice & Men, Stray From The Path, or even My Ticket Home. That's perfectly fine by me, but I don't know any of those bands.

After listening to the first few tracks, 'Les Rois Perdus' and 'Avaritia', I was ready to compare this band to a hardcore version of bands like Fear Factory. Perhaps because of the fierce sound of the guitars or the meticulous battering of the drums. 'Luxuria' threw some death metal to the mix and here and there I even sense flashes of black metal. Needless to say that this is one intense motherfucker. Vocally, I almost constantly think about Belgian legends .Calibre.

'Post-Mortem' is the culmination of it all, post-hardcore, combined with industrial metal and a good slab of catchy melodies. Obviously, all of that aggression is spew out in the language of Molière. But before that makes you think twice about checking this out, often the exact language is barely audible, except in closer 'Invidia', which adds a bit of funk, nu-metal and rap to the whole thing. In all, this is a harsh, brutal and intense piece of work, varied enough to remain interesting. 


Serge

electronic / ambient / downtempo

This album has been spooking through my mind for a while now. Big names were thrown in in order to promote it, or just to mention that there is a skilled artist behind the music, one who has been touring with Heather Nova, Martina Topley-Bird and Suede’s Brett Anderson. Anderson seems to be a big fan, describing Scatter Factory's music as “"beautiful stuff”". Will Foster, the man behind this project, has been a touring member for The Fratellis and has been active in the art-pop band Delicatessen and Lodger. All that praise is perfectly fine, but at the end of the day, all that matters is how the album sounds. I mean, you can be an absolute synth wizard but if you're music is boring, it's boring.

Well, this music is definitely not boring. A few weeks ago, we already announced the gloomy dancefloor filler 'Out The Blocks' (read), a track that reminded me of something between Suicide, No More and Kraftwerk. Yes, minimal electronic music, seemingly coming straight from the eighties. But there is way more than that to be found. While 'Out The Blocks' might have been a song on the 'New Wave Club Classix' compilations, other tracks dive right into the world of drones, ambient and neoclassical piano arrangements. Opener 'Catatonic Voyage' is a massive piece of dark, gritty ambient, a bit haunting and terrifying maybe.

I don't mind, I like haunting and terrifying.

'Scatter'd' comes up with the neoclassical elements, along with some neat electronics. At this time acts like Bersarin Quartett come to mind. Again, I don't mind, I like. Then 'Out The Blocks' starts, turning the album into a vintage electronic dance machine. Yet, right after that 'Sheepish Hello' shows another heap of electronic experimentalism. This is another odd and spooky tune. 'Spartan Missile' and 'PowWow' return the electronic percussion, downtempo this time. Once again I'm reminded of Bersarin Quartett but also Boards Of Canada comes to mind, Bonobo too.

Three more songs to go. It looks like this is going to be another song-by-song description. That's what you get with interesting and well-varied albums, I guess. 'Plains Awash' and Not There Yet (and it's getting dark) showcase more darkness, more minimal beats, more eerie drones, like Vangelis in a melancholic mood, frightened at times. The album even takes a nudges towards neo classical post-rock in closer 'Mea Culpa', opening with piano and slowly building. An excellent closing track for a swingeing album. 

So yeah, I think the big names used to promote this album are quite justified, not necessarily needed, because the music on this album is certainly good enough to sell on its own. In fact, I like this one more than any of the names I mentioned in the opening paragraph, but don't tell them. 


​Serge

hard rock

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First, a warning: Don't go searching for this ep on Google, I think you know why. This Glory Hole was formed by Cedric La Piche in order to create "sexy music".  In a way, they quite succeed in that, as I can certainly imagine some beautiful women shaking their shapely hips to this infectious blend of rock, hard rock and funk. The music reminds me of a mix of Living Colour, Rage Against The Machine and Prince, the latter mostly in the song 'Anaconda's Sister'. My favorite song is the heavy rocker 'Kill Your Flatmate' but the whole album is highly enjoyable, loaded with dirty rock 'n roll which will absolutely get you off your feet wherever Glory Hole decide to play.

black metal / folk

Opening with a piano-track, followed by a lengthy passage with only an acoustic guitar and soundscapes and still being a black metal album, that's something very few bands successfully pull off. The acoustic guitar is the central instrument on this ep by Winnepeg (Canada) band Noire, but they can also deliver a decent slab of progressive black metal. In a way, the songs on this epic piece of work remind me a bit of bands like Agalloch, teaming up with black metal icons like Immortal or Enslaved, and Opeth-influences are never far away. The title track is a massive anthem, definitely my favorite here, but I also like the ritual ambient and acoustic tracks. This is a brilliant ep, period.

heavy metal

Epic heavy metal from Italy, obviously with testicles of steel. I mean, it takes guts to write music that sounds somewhat outdated, compared to whatever the young generation of metalheads is spewing out. Etrusgrave has those guts, coming up with an album that might have well been an effort by Manowar or Grave Digger. With lengthy songs, containing flashing solos, battle-ready riffs and heroic vocals, Etrusgrave brings back the glorious days of the eighties' heavy metal scene. Honestly, it took me a while before I was getting into this album because it really sounds like it's recorded in 1984 or so, but it gradually grew on me. Now, I'm singing along with epic tunes like 'Coward' and 'Festering Slash'.

funeral doom / neo classical

Funeral doom is one of my favorite genres but it's always hard to write about it, mainly because there is not that much happening on those albums. This album by Portland, Oregon, US residents Disemballerina is somewhat different. It's not that much doom metal but nudges more towards the dark chamber music of acts like Ataraxia or Dargaard. Yet, there's always that grim doomed atmosphere throughout the whole album. How best to compare it? Well, how about Apocalyptica and Olafur Arnalds crawling into a dark recording studio to rewrite the music of Esoteric or Shape Of Despair. In all, this is a beautiful piece of work, dark, immersive and grievous.

heavy metal

Another flashback in time, this time courtesy of English metal band Forced In Black (formerly known as Merciless Fall). With this four track ep, these guys are aiming for their spot in metal history. What kind of metal? Well, they don't seem to care. Parts Judas Priest, parts Candlemass, parts Testament, parts Iron Maiden and about six percent other influences. The result is, unsurprisingly, a highly varied ep, loaded with massive solos, epic riffs and a wide array of vocals. Headbanging is obviously an absolute must, and quite frankly, I think it's going to be pretty impossible not to bang your head to this. If you can, I'm afraid you're not really a metal fan...

folk metal / pagan metal

Månegarm is a veteran Swedish metal band, active for more than twenty years now, that blends what appears to be folk, neoclassical, progressive and technical death metal elements into their soud, creating a vibrating, peculiarly unique and very distinctive sound, responsible for their large acclaim within the international metal community. With an astoundingly large fan base, and regarded today as one of the top metal acts in the Nordic countries, Månegarm, with their eponymous release, manages to engrave, for once and for all, their solid and vigorous relevance within the underground scene. With a very technical work, and a solid consistent soul forming the shape of their music, the respect, amazement and admiration for Månegarm will only stay strong, especially after your hear this album.  

With folk elements thinly detailed in a very skilled and technical proficiency that eludes harmonies in a very intricate layer of sounds, but nevertheless sounding fresh, clean and objectively fast, this record is really an impressive and daring milestone for the underground metal scenario. Daring, unbound and unrestrained, without any fears of innovation, and having unprecedented traces of peculiarities, Månegarm also introduces instruments and sounds that at first can appear “alien” to a metal background. Nonetheless, their perfect introduction of local folklore into heavier and sidelined harmonies sounds instinctively enthusiastic, furious and joyful, and engraves their distinctively Nordic identity. Powerful vocals and rhythmical guitar lines have also a notorious responsibility in building and holding the structure of the songs as well, giving the album it’s subjective, artistic and unusual primacy. Delicate and smooth melodies are incisively protuberating and distinctive as well, easily shaping and maintaining into the music an ambience of comradeship, optimism and sentimentality, that hails the monumental glory of epic battles that dwells within the shadows of its own derogatory disillusions.

Sometimes reminding a little their distant Finnish cousins – Amorphis –  Månegarm is skilled in aligning and combining the most heavier aspects of metal music with more detailed, soft and delicate melodies, creating a genre difficult to categorize, but creatively expansive, and awesomely fun to listen. Setting no limits for their capabilities, and picking up almost each and every element they find interesting for a song, Månegarm creates unusual tracks, and gives to their music well defined characteristics, that certainly could be regarded as folk metal, with daring experimental sound nuances and contrasts. 

With some power and symphonic metal elements – although introduced very subtlety in some of their songs –, Månegarm has given us an outstanding album, that deserves all the proper recognitions. Although sometimes you can get a little bored by their sometimes excessive insertions of local color into their music, it becomes impossible not to admire the album as a whole, in the end of it all. So much technical proficiency, aligned with a purely passionate and free enthusiasm, which transpires in each and every one of these tracks, makes you crave for more of this exciting masterpiece. Of course, being them metal veterans, as well as serious, talented and dedicated musicians, it is no surprise at all that, together, they’re able to create such a groundbreaking and original album. Profoundly coherent in their differentiated and resounding musical proposition, certainly Månegarm is a pride motive in their native Sweden, as well as for the international metal community. 

Certainly demanding a very skilled and intuitive talent to perfectly reconcile and arrange so many different elements into their music, Månegarm inserts poetic, melancholic, epic, melodic, harmonious and aggressive elements into their sound, creating defined moments of unbelievable beauty – in the soft as well as in the furious parts of their music – that enables them to maintain a distinctive, cohesive and solid identity, while sounding extremely eclectic at the same time.

With an outlook of unpredictable, but definitive glorious artistry, Månegarm achieves what most bands cannot achieve in a lifetime: being them, whatever and whenever they want. Doesn’t matter what they play, Månegarm will always sound as Månegarm, doesn’t matter the circumstances. Creating a distinctively Nordic, epic and folk style of metal, you can certainly hear the eponymous Månegarm album, without regret. You will certainly love it. It will surprise you minute after minute, song after song. This great warriors of metal deserve your attention, and you will get addicted to this album, as soon as you listen to it. It is an amazing musical journey: your musical boundaries will be astoundingly different, changing dramatically, as soon as you have listened to this beautiful, resounding and poetic masterpiece.    


​Wagner

black metal

Darkness Never Fades, released in June 22, 2016 – with another album, titled Wounds Of The Monumental Majesty, having been simultaneously released on that same day (both works originally planned to be released as one double album) – by Theoroth, a prolific Black Metal project from Russia, that blends epic, melodic and raw black metal, manages to diversify and create, with its bold and creative proposition, a very lucid, reverberating and interesting type of Black Metal. Although Darkness Never Fades will hardly sound remarkable or original to the Black Metal community at first, in fact, Theoroth amazingly interchanges the raw and atmospheric BM components on this album, revealing tracks of masterly dark and rejuvenating beauty, epically introducing some blackened folk elements into the songs as well, sounding peculiarly fresh, and renovating the external layers of the genre, bringing to existence a somewhat unusual proposal to Black Metal, merging raw and atmospheric Black Metal in a way that you have never heard before.

With five peculiarly dark and sinister atmospheric tracks, being them Darkness Never Fades, When Tales Are Just A Lie, Abandoned Shrine, Natt and Fading Magic, and having only – unlike most Atmospheric BM albums, a duration of thirty minutes, Theoroth, on this record, Darkness Never Fades, does have an intriguing proposition, sounding almost like “rhapsodic” Black Metal. Being an atmospheric ambient BM project that doesn’t renounce nor leave a truce to the raw aspects of the genre, the aggressiveness in some tracks are really unbelievable, although not always sounds different from another BM acts. Nevertheless, his fusion of different styles and aspects of Black Metal into one main dark and abrasive proposal is no ingenious or minor audacity, and it does work quite well for almost all the time on the album. Despite some brief ordinary or boring moments, Darkness Never Fades incorporates the true essence, the genuine aspects and the crude authenticity of Black Metal, without any fear of impressing his mark into the genre, and revolving around his own style of meritorious artistic devotion. With very bright and intelligent guitar riffs that can also be counted behind the great achievements of this album, Darkness Never Fades is a landmark on the fusion of different styles and genres of Black Metal, without deforming or depreciating anyone of them. At the same time, Theoroth manages to outstand itself as a creative musical dynamo, highly insinuating his own art as a powerful renovating force within the scene.

Despite the record being a little brief, it is quite an achievement, having a sound fearless to show a unique identity, and an independent music proposal, that relies on a solid definition that truthfully associates, amalgamates and blends several different styles of Black Metal. As a successful experimental fusion, it works in an amazingly surprising form, never disrespecting the genre, nor disregarding the monolithic aggressiveness vehemently built in the defiance of all the styles that, together, function perfectly as one.

Although Theoroth is a recent act, being active since 2013, this prolific musician is responsible already for at least ten releases, gaining significant momentum with every one of his records. With a serious artistic proposal, managing to be exceedingly heavier, technically skilled, voraciously brutal, softly melancholic and darkly melodic at the same time, never disrupting any of his original intentions, Theoroth is certainly a curious case of poetic artistry in the underground scenario nowadays. Featuring also some distinct and protuberating folk elements upon which he adorns some of his songs, with a peculiar inclination towards deeply sonorous and lugubrious narratives, and very calm devices aligned with somber chords of darkened melancholy, Theoroth certainly gives us a curious case of a well-defined and reinvented Black Metal, profoundly developed within his own terms and methods, although he never renounces the deleterious hostility of the genre. Mixing distinctly peculiar elements to form his own sonorous identity, Theoroth, in his Darkness Never Fades, certainly inscribes on the genre a very singular and remarkable style of Black Metal, that will inevitably call your curiosity out to listen what this musician has been doing. A great work, with a surprising result, and a very promising and intriguing path ahead of him, Theoroth certainly have captured my attention with Darkness Never Fades, and deserves to have yours as well! So do yourself a favor, listen to this album, and see for yourself how remarkable this record turned out to be.           



​Wagner

folk metal / black metal

Mana Ewah is the most recent album by Bifröst, an Austrian Folk/ Pagan Black Metal band, that certainly deserves definitely its place in metal history. Besides Mana Ewah being probably the best pagan black Metal album that I have ever heard in my entire life, Bifröst really outstands itself by consolidating a purely genuine musical identity, having lyrics and singing entirely in German, which is certainly a magnificent and very defining feature, in a mostly anglophile scenario.

The first song, Himmelsfall, is the kind of track capable of immediately blew up your mind. A furious and energetic track, you will have the most wonderful rapture while listening to it. This album emanates wonderfully – and perfectly – all the astounding principles of pagan metal: the “magical” thing about Mana Ewah can be described as a powerful combination of a genuine rhythmical mathematic baseline with a true to the spirit ideological sonorous proficiency, which resulted in a strong, well designed and sincerely grounded collision of qualities, forged at the gates of perfection. I’m sincerely moved at how all the elements that built this amazing and superbly indescribable masterpiece are perfectly aligned together: guitar lines that holds the structural elements of the songs, perfectly mathematical melodies vibrating in an infallible pattern of bold, beautiful and wonderful harmonies, with an astounding degree of emotional soul into it, purely converging to path of magical folk elements, as well as powerful, rasping, and cutting vocals. Everything easily combined to form one of the most ambitious, significant, brilliant and complete albums in metal history. No, there is nothing on earth like Mana Ewah. It is a sensitive, pure, groundbreaking, innovative, strong and fundamental album. The most perfect definition of a pagan BM sonorous journey, from the four corners of the underground world.

The second song of the album, Verräters Geschick, explains perfectly the defintions I’ve described above. The exhilarating voice – that sometimes enters into a triumphal contrast to more guttural vocals – is backed by wrathful melodic guitar lines, that structures the whole song into a majestic beauty of undefined poetic lucidity. I wish I had never listened to this album: I will certainly get addicted to it, and it gets me frustrated because it is impossible to describe in words what these fantastic musicians have done. Perfect contrasts, perfectly aligned melodies, amazing convergence of rhythms, some rock’n’roll influenced harmonies, the most talented construction of a differentiated “pagan” sonorous element, the correct insertion of folk components into the right places, and songs completely sung in German, makes Mana Ewah the most refined, singular, absolute and definitive masterpiece of the genre, and certainly one of the metal milestones released on this century.  

Mana Ewah is certainly an album to hear, buy and believe. Magnificent, energetic, powerful, astounding, vibrating and exhilaratingly delightful, it is not just another album, but a very distinguishable, renowned, high and impeccable work of art. It sets up a new definition for metal, with its surprisingly astounding style of black metal, that blends folk, melodic, pagan and power metal components, masterly inserted into the melodies, which gives them a unique sonorous identity, without the possibility of ever being compared to anyone. Setting up a new and fresh level of creativity into metal, Bifröst proves for once and for all why they can, and should be seen as one of the top metal acts in their home country, as well as their undeniable relevance to the metal community worldwide. Mana Ewah is an album that will persist through the ages, and will become an underground favorite, and a metal classic. Such reverberating, passionate and professional level of competence can never pass unnoticed. This album is an astounding and compelling furious wrath, with an unbound and original artistic legacy.             

Certainly, undoubtedly, empirically one of the most magnificent albums that I have ever heard in my entire life, Mana Ewah is a vibrating, creative and unimaginable masterpiece. A unique album, with a strong and genuine proposition, held by an exceedingly unusual path of veracity, truth and authenticity, and a heartbreaking emotional level of bold originality, this album is a groundbreaking achievement not just for Bifröst, but for every one of us, metal fans. Amazingly remarkable, beautiful, emotional, poetic, true to the origins, and surpassing unthinkable degrees of originality, I can only say thank you, Bifröst, for this amazing, awesome, excellent and astounding masterpiece. It brought tears to my eyes, while listening to it. After all, what can I say…? A Pagan Black Metal album entirely in German it is certainly one of the most magnificent things that can happen on Earth!     



​Wagner

space ambient / dark ambient

Aphotic Apathy is a one man artistic project, and creative vehicle of musician Alex Alexander, from Miami, Florida, that works on the genres of electronic dark and space ambient music. With a deep focus on a very sinister, dark and tense atmosphere, the main goal of the project is to create atmospheric sound layouts based on the Predator and Alien movie franchises, encompassing a very hostile, fearful and dreadful ambience of horror and demise, aiming to replicate the feelings of anguish, agony and apprehension perfectly captured on these motion pictures. Always driven by a theme, the album The Engineers, designed to capture the same expectations described above, explores, revolves and reveals a saturated, but remarkable set of doomed perspectives, grounded on the story of these characters – The Engineers – which are mysterious and dark figures from outer space, with an astoundingly advanced knowledge and technology, apparently responsible – with their exceedingly developed expertise on genetics – for the creation of humankind. Later, feeling lost and disappointed with their creation, The Engineers decide to annihilate the entire human race. On a quest for knowledge, experience and learning, a team of human explorers decide to go on a quest for their creators, without knowing that their purpose for humankind is evil. Later, upon discovering what The Engineers have in mind for the human race, they are confronted by the horrible possibility of extermination and total eradication. Having no better options, these explorers must escape from The Engineers, and their unforeseeable fate of doom and demise. 

With eleven tracks, being them LV-223, Discovery, Dream, Designed, Temple, Ampules, Swarm, Engineers, Pathogen, Life and Paradise, The Engineers is a magnificent album, that really transmits an undeniable sense of anarchy, lost cosmogony, galactic fear, and an unbreakable and dangerous dark sense of an impending doom. If you let your imagination drive you to be transported as a character on a fatidic and dense ambitious journey throughout a dark realm of ambivalence, fear, death and demise, you will certainly understand perfectly the motivations, the feelings and the horror behind The Engineers. An album that really captures all the excitement, the darkness, the agony and the tension that an awesome dark ambient album should transmit to its listeners, Alex Alexander really outstood himself on this remarkable journey of the sinister and the macabre.

With very obscure, dense and fearful transient devices, The Engineers is a journey throughout fear, impotence, inferior knowledge, numerical disadvantage, a battle against superior and unknowable forces, and a desperate quest for survival. If you let yourself submerge on these peculiar universe of conspicuous anguish and abstract desolation, you will really find yourself able to feel and capture in your soul the profound and astoundingly real elements solidly built on these tracks, designed to transport you to a doomed world of a definite obliteration and imperial demise. Aphotic Apathy really captures perfectly – and replicates whimsically –the horrible and dense atmosphere of its main proposition: to transfer the listener into the despicable, dark and unpredictable ambient of the story that is being told – as to know – the survival of human explorers against their sordid, but conspicuously intelligent, technologically improved, and proficiently developed creators: The Engineers.

An excellent dark ambient album, with beautiful harmonies, very lucid arrangements and an impeccable work on the technical devices, this is a very outstanding, perfect and genuinely wonderful exemplar of the genre. With a solid atmosphere of fear and apprehension, with a great and coherent sci-fi background story, Aphotic Apathy has really done an excellent work on this record, with all the main elements perfectly aligned to stand in together. If dark, tense and fearful space ambient is your thing, you have to check it out this album. You will feel everything the movie franchises upon which Aphotic Apathy built his work on in a much larger scale, with the benefit of having the images not on the screen, but unrolling without limits on your imagination. With an astoundingly awesome result, The Engineers turned out to be a remarkable album, achieving a very satisfactory result. With a cohesive set of sonorous patterns obeying an agonizing proposal of serious anxiety, the main goal of The Engineers is perfectly arranged to score all the objectives upon which our fears revolves, being a record for the genre to be proud of. So relax, close your eyes, let your soul wander free throughout the vastness of an imperial, but hostile, desolate and dreadful cosmos, on a journey that completely disregards and disintegrates any consideration for human beings, arranging a funereal and morbid fate for all the human explorers that went on a probable no return search for The Engineers, eager to set their creation on a definite, irreversible and inconspicuously aggressive deplorable demise.


​Wagner

electronic / dark ambient

Sycantrhope is a Spanish electronic ambient musical project, with a very peculiar atmospheric layout, led by musician Vadym Sycantrhope. His most recent album, Septimo Movimiento, is an extremely abrasive and inconspicuously sinister – though somewhat mysteriously dark – 
nocturnal artistic embrace, with a very subtle elemental antagonistic sensitivity, that at the same time turns out to be an exceedingly experimental set of magnificent lugubrious ambient tracks. 

With seven tracks, being then Your Place Is Out There!, Thought The Mechanics Of The Heart, Lonely And Free As A Wolf, Ritual Under Growing Sky, Fear Felt By The Soul, Deaf Ears, Here There Is Nothing Left From Us! and The Grey Day, We All Die Sometime! Sycantrhope makes you wander and travel free in the mindset of a vast sonorous configuration, that feels profoundly sane, magically unbound, and sardonically perfect at the same time. Reverberating an intriguing plurality of sounds, that constantly rearranges and recombines itself to firmly accommodate on its own terms a groundbreaking set of creative motives, Septimo Movimiento is filled with suspenseful, dark and apprehensively emotive tracks, bound by no restrictive rules. Paradoxically, the songs are all completely charged with a very colorful intensity, with ever changing inconspicuous nuances, pragmatically tempered with a solid layout of texturized notes and densely delighted sound flavors, that breaks its own harmonies and rules, to constantly feel and renovate the mathematics of the melodies built by the heart of its own intrinsic revolving rhythms, forming a cycle fulfilled by its own meritorious circle of diversifying sensibility, giving us the impression of a permanent sonorous replication.         

Being Septimo Movimiento a profound, astounding and mesmerizing set of ambient tracks that will put your soul to rest, and make your body wake up in another dimension, Sycantrhope manages to create an elusive and hallucinatory world, where gaps and chains don’t exist, although the emptiness that counterbalances the atmosphere of the songs is never free of any tasks. With a complex technique that really explores sound nuances in what appears to be a very calm cinematic set, the immensurable deep treatment that Sycantrhope inserts in his music is certainly beyond simply entertaining: a true and genuine artist of sound, that builds note by note fantastically complex arrangements of an amazing universe of tension, the artist replicates in the sound devices of his work an agonizing journey of an immensely grotesque – with picaresque tons of the ordinary – darkness subversion, with all the flavors of a common suburban mindset, that in a very intriguing way brings and finds the beauty in what is irrelevant and superb at the same time, splendidly transporting you to another side of life, with more gray, black and white nuances, with sepia scenes in the background. Its creative and powerful energy will not only submit sequential scenes to your mind, but will make you travel to an obliterated sound dimension, where all artistic craft is perfectly arranged to antagonize personal impressions and emotional lacerations. 

A very different ambient album, Sycantrhope is not only deeply hallucinatory, out of this world and original, but manages to subdue the listener, while enchanting him at the same time. Best described as a tense, unsuspecting, unforgiving, unpredictable, emotive and apprehensive album, Septimo Movimiento is an impressive work of creative ambient music, that never feels unrestrained by the merits of its proposition: feel, create, transport, hallucinate, consummate. Although every emotion is very subjective, and the feelings behind every track can be summarized as obviously speculative, Sycantrhope is an awesome genuine genius, with no fears of being experimental, and never restricting the infinite ramifications he is able to achieve with his art. Having created some of the most mysterious, beautiful, fearful, dreadful and poetic tracks of the genre, he easily proves his relevance with this astounding album. Building a cohesive universe of anxious exhilaration, consciously forging and demanding a genre expansion in his own terms, Sycantrhope have really outstood himself with this wonderful album, that will hardly find a match anywhere. Having created a beautiful groundwork of intensifying, creative and agonizing beauty, ambient music lovers can never pass the opportunity of listening to Septimo Movimiento. You will certainly recognize the brave density and the horrifying beauty behind these tracks, and feel instantly mesmerized by it!            


​Wagner       
    

extreme metal

We kick things off with a massive slab of modern extreme metal, courtesy of New Jersey, US residents Monument Of A Memory. 'Catharsis' is their sophomore ep, after their debut ep 'Dreamwalker' (2015). This is one of those albums that combine old school death and thrash metal with influences from modern extremes like post-hardcore and deathcore. Influenced by At The Gates, Killswitch Engage, Lamb Of God and Parkway Drive, these guys rage on in sheer brutality and ferocity. Needless to say that this is quite and intense ep, guaranteed to make you bang your head and start a moshpit. Recommended only for the metal extremists...

heavy metal

More headbanging material, be it a bit less extreme this time. Devolted, a quartet from Dublin, Ireland, are dedicated to headbanging, moshing and partying in the best way possible. They name bands like Guns 'n Roses, AC/DC, Megadeth and Ozzy as their influences, and that might be true but I certainly would add bands like Machine Head, Pantera and even Sick Of It All to their infectious blend of metal. The four songs on this album are groovy, immersive and definitely intense enough to start a massive party. My personal favorite here is 'God Of Light' but all songs have the so-called "true-metal" power that gets every fan off his feet and into the pit.

death metal

This is a perfect example of how diverse death metal can actually be. Horricane, from Estonia, come up with a completely different version, (mostly) slower, nudging towards the industrial side of the metallic spectrum and grinding on your darkest emotions and fears. The use of horror-themed keyboards certainly makes these songs have their own identity. It also makes it hard for me to compare this music to other bands.  Fear Factory? Samael? The Kovenant? Sybreed? I don't know. All I know is that this ep is a monster, intense, heavy and immersive. It's about time these guys climb on bigger stages allover Europe. This is the shit I want to see on festivals...

black metal

Fierce old school black metal from Greece, is there a better way to describe this album? Isolert formed in 2015, making this their debut album. But there's no way in hell that I'm going to believe that this is the first effort by these people. Judging from awesome songs like 'Your Hypocrisy', 'The Dance of Tormented Spirits' or 'Frozen Mist' they must have had their share of experience. If not, well, then these are skilled artists who know a thing or two about writing a brilliant black metal song. Their main influences include Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Dissection and Sargeist and that's exactly where this album belongs on your shelves, right in between the great ones...

metal / hardcore

Hell yeah, this is the shit. Rock 'n roll in its roughest form, loyal to the power of the riff and blasting through my speakers like a tsunami. Media Solution come from California, USA.  Their name might sound like a shady business but they rock like a freight train. The music is a blend of heavy rock 'n roll, groove metal and hardcore, reminding me of a mix of Rob Zombie and Biohazard. Opener 'Destroy Something Beautiful' sounds like a damn good advice, and the rest of the album is the perfect soundtrack for that adrenaline rush you'll feel while tearing the house down, highlighting in the brilliant song 'Coward'. This is pure aggression, absolutely recommended stuff for fans of anything between Motorhead and Sepultura. 

heavy metal / power metal

Formed in 2013 by bassist/composer Andrea Franceschi, Italian metal band Silverbones pay tribute to the awe-inspiring sound of eighties and nineties power metal. Their influences include Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Gravedigger and Running Wild, but personally I'd like to add Hammerfall and Helloween to the mix as well. Why? Well, these songs have the same atmosphere, the same heroic and battle-ready sing-along capacity and the same rush as those bands have been producing over the years. I especially like the title track, which might be one of the best power metal songs I've heard in awhile. This stuff makes me a bit nostalgic, and that's a good thing.

post hardcore / sludge

"Five friends from Norwich who hang out and jam" they mention on their facebook page. After listening to this album, I'd turn that into "five friends from Norwich who spew out their deepest fears, terrors and emotion in a whirlpool of harsh yet melodic post hardcore". That being said, yes, this is post-hardcore, but it comes with a highly immersive slab of post-rock influences and, for me personally, this makes this whole album quite interesting. I admit, the word "alternative-emo" on their page made me a bit weary at first but now that I'm into the album, I have to say that this is pretty damn good stuff. Hardcore for post-rock fans, there you go, excellent ep with a stunning opening track.

black metal

This album by Canadian act Idolatry is pure chaos, which would be a bad thing if it weren't a trenchant black metal album, fueled by evil and misanthropy. Even in the world of black metal, this is quite a stand out. While many black metal bands work extremely hard to create a grimm image of themselves, Idolatry simply is evil. Their satanic aesthetic is real, their lust for chaos and disorder is predominant. Their music is a severe kick in your face, spawning from the deepest undergrounds you can imagine. Their vocals range from haunting growls to deranged screams. I don't know what goes on in these guys' heads, but it must be more terrifying than any splatter-horror movie you've ever seen. And that is a compliment.

ambient black metal

Another, equally interesting, form of black metal comes from Philadelphia, USA. I loved this band immediately, simply because of their name, but when I heard the music for the first time, I was sold. Fierce black metal, often alternated or enhanced by strange noise, ambient and even minimal folk passages. Sometimes, the combination is weird, as in the massive song 'Immaculate Deconception', but the whole is so damn intense and immersive that is is quite impossible not to bang your head repetitively, until you reach a state of pitch black trance. I surely hope that these guys find a way to Europe soon and conquer the old continent with this stuff.

black metal

Symbol Of Domination

This album by Ukrainian one-man act While They Sleep could quite possibly be the wickedest release in these breviews-series. The project was founded by sole member ​Kvolkaldur (also known as Ildverden) in 2013. His style comes close to that of other one-man acts, including Leviathan, Xasthur, Nortt and Burzum. It's lo-fi, haunting, sharp and straight-forward. Personally, I'd place this album into the depressive black metal scene, but I'd mostly recommend this to anyone who is constantly on the lookout for the grimmest, bleakest and darkest releases from the underground. This is one of those gems that sound so old school that they never get outdated, and that's not an easy thing to accomplish.

ambient

Eilean Records

...and now for something completely different. In the past few days, I've been focusing on the heavier side of the music industry so I think it's time for a change of musical scenery. This album is exactly that, "musical scenery", loaded with soundscapes, strange noises, elements from classical music and drones. It comes from someone who knows his way in and around the world of experimental and avant garde music too.

Offthesky is Jason Corder, a composer and video artists who lives in Denver, US. He has been active for several years. In fact, 'Silent Went The Sea' is his fiftieth album, and that calls for a celebration. Eilean Records presents a special release for the occasion, including the album plus a second disc with a dvd connected to the eight tracks. But of course, regardless of all of that, this simply is a high quality piece of ambient music which certainly deserves your attention.

It's also one of those albums which are hard to write about. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, this is a collection of soundscapes, noises, drones, classical instrumentation and so on. Often it nudges towards chilly ambient while on other occasions there are fragments of modern classical music with piano, violins and sofort. The experience of Corder simply turns all of those elements into one enormous musical journey.

Perhaps the best way to explain it, is by saying that this is an excellent wedding between the music of drone-ambient acts like Dirk Serries or Stratosphere with the classical music of people like Olafur Arnalds or Sebastian Plano. I can also say that this is a brilliant album, which is absolutely true. Ambient fans, do not hesitate and get this piece of work into your cd player or whatever device you like to us. This is a highly recommended album, essential even...


​Serge

sludge / doom

Bands that "don't limit themselves to tags and genres" are all well and good but they don't make my job any easier. I have to tag them, which sometimes isn't the easiest task in the world. Then again, on some occasions it's perfectly safe to push a band into a certain genre, knowing that the fans of that particular style will enjoy the album and hopefully spend a little bit of cash on it. At this moment, I'm going to address the sludge fans among us. 

Seventh Hundredth Unicorn are a two-piece band from Milton Keynes, UK. They claim to make "heavy rock", influenced by bands like Black Sabbath, Neurosis, Mastodon and Isis. Personally, after listening to this album a few times, I'd change "heavy" into "massive' and "rock" into "sludge" because that's exactly what you get on this debut: massive sludge metal with a thick wall of noise, pummeling drums and brutal screams. I know very little sludge doom fans who can resist that recipe.

The album opens with 'Our Worlds Collide', immediately throwing in elements from doom, sludge metal, hardcore and noise rock. It sounds as if someone is screaming at you while you crawl through a thick puddle of mud, broken glass and barbed wire, a military drill with a sergeant who can't stand your ass. In that aspect, and in the category "best songtitles", 'Jesus Was My Age, When He got Nailed' is one of my favorites.

Sometimes, the tempo goes up, bringing a bit of a punk attitude to the already bloody melee. Even more, there's grunge riffs to be found, and some furious blackened passages as well. Alice In Chains meets Isis meets Conan in 'Death Of Glory In The Serpent's Eye' or Rise Against meets Neurosis in 'Rule Of The Mob', or something like that. I guess you'd have a decent idea about how punishing and brutal this album is, a decent enough idea to buy this thing. So go ahead...


​Serge

noise rock / post punk

Here's another slab of gutripping Belgian noise for your aural delight. Two young bands from Ghent, pretty much the musical capital of Belgium by now, have been thrown on a split album with no other intent than utter destruction of your sanity. I guess that's what you get for living in this strange little country. I mean, we know our noise rock, Vandal X, Evil Superstars, Perverted, Hypochristmutreefuzz, Blægger,... the list goes on and on.

We kick off with Crowd Of Chairs, a band with members from Youff and Deer. Their contribution to this split, is a three-track assault of punkish riffing, hyperkinetic drums, screaming and loads of hypnotic guitar sound. Opening with the frenzy 'Hieronymus', these guys rage on with their strange and nervous music, even in the calmest passages. Closer 'Mind Control' is a massive beast, an anthem of every noise they can get out of their instruments. The other song? Well, that's up to you to discover. It'll be worth it, I promise.

Some people hate Maze. They say it's thrash, shit or crap. I know, people aren't very friendly when they talk about music they don't really understand. But what's there to understand about this band? Pretty much nothing, except maybe for the fact that their deranged post-punk is damn infectious and loaded with stuff you'll never expect. They threw three songs on this split, opening with the repetitive and eerie 'Experience' and causing a punk induced moshpit of noise into the others. 'Other Convictions' is somewhat Ministry meets The Jesus Lizard, or maybe not.

As a fan of Belgian underground experimental noise post-punk rock, or whatever you call this stuff, I can definitely recommend this to all you noise-rockers out there. If you're a fan of anything between Sonic Youth, Melvins and Fantomas, this certainly is your thing. If you're not, you have just wasted your time reading this review. You could have spent that time to listen to the split, tell the internets how "fucking awful" this is and go back to listening to fucking Adèle. Belgian noise rules, let's just agree on that...


Serge

heavy metal

Well, time for some good old school fashioned heavy metal, the kind I haven't really heard since the eighties or early nineties, when I was rocking along with the intro-music by a number of wrestlers. There they were, with their larger-than-life personas and their blasting heavy metal music, running towards the ring to beat each other's asses. Those were the days, and those wrestlers actually inspired me to grow my hair.

That wrestling-paragraph was not coincidental since I'm currently listening to two wrestlers and an ex-Dio guitarist. Brute Forcz was formed by Slammer and Jammer in 2010 and released a full-length 'Out For Blood' in 2012. Then, a number of setbacks followed, including injuries, financial problems, departures and even death. But now, the trio is back with their "kick-ass" heavy metal, planning a stranglehold on audiences far and wide.

The four songs on this ep are vintage heavy metal songs, obviously inspired by bands like W.A.S.P., Motorhead, Danzig and Judas Priest. Opener 'Phatt Ass Girls' is an in-your-face song: fast, relentless and merciless.  The other tracks too are vintage heavy metal songs with enough power to bodyslam André The Giant. '(Ain't Gonna) Tear Me Down' is probably my personal favorite but I can assure you, there's plenty of headbanging going on.

So, if you're into the very old school, this ep certainly deserves a spot in your collection. Are grinding guitars, neck-tormenting tempos and flashy guitar solos your thing? Well then, what are you waiting for? On the other hand, if you want the modern stuff, you might find this thing a bit too primitive, but I don't think Brute Forcz really gives a damn about that. They just want to kick ass and rock hard, something I can only applaud...


​Serge

black metal

Sojourner is an Atmospheric Black Metal band, with folk and melodic elements, with musicians from Sweden and New Zealand, most active now in Scotland, that released on May 25, 2016 by Avantgarde Music their debut album, Empires of Ash. Having previously released one year before, on May 23, 2015 on Bandcamp Heritage of the Natural Realm, a single now included on the album, Sojourner was already able to generate in the underground scene, especially in their precocious, but somewhat very loyal fan base, great expectations about what their work would come to be.  

With protuberating components of melodic and epic Black Metal permeating a very delusional degree of convulsive, but somewhat whimsically arranged elements easily intrinsic to their music, Sojourner gives us a very exhilarating new kind of artistic Black Metal, with an impressive expansion of folk influences, properly arranged in the correct places. Creating a transcendental atmosphere of calmness, that reverberates in the delightful melodies of their music an enormous sense of journey throughout the past, Sojourner achieves a very audacious level of an experimental poetic musical approach, delivering an excellent mixture of tradition with their own musical identity. Astoundingly liberating with the beauty of female vocals on the right places a rewarding contrast to the more aggressive guttural vocals that delineates the structure of their sublime harmonies, perfectly counterbalancing the heavy side of their music with the inconspicuous serenity that evokes a calm atmosphere of refreshing balance into their songs, Sojourner gives even to the harsh parts of their music a dilapidated glamour of unrestrained positive result, that easily claims a remarkable degree of originality to their sound.    

With seven tracks, being them Bound by Blood, Heritage of the Natural Realm, Aeons of Valor, The Pale Host, Homeward, Trails of the Earth, and the eponymous Empires of Ash, we have almost one full hour of an innovative imperial journey throughout a transcendental and mythical past, that propels its listeners to wander through ancient ruins, empty castles, empires reverberating a colossal nothingness inside their vain glories, ghostly shadows chanting the sorrows of unfulfilled and despicable emotions, and a lot of other sensible and very enchanting qualities, that gives their music a very inspiring feeling of monumental exhilaration.  

Empires of Ash may give birth to a very peculiar kind of Black Metal, Folk Black Metal – so to speak – although it is better to left their music unlabeled, and their fresh level of creativity unrestrained. Masterly inserting into a BM ambience elusive, but subtle elements of power metal as well, Sojourner gives the underground community a very incredible, elaborated and intricate work, that certainly could be regarded as one of the best releases of 2016. A very fine, lucid and detailed album, the final result is a refined record, with a very serious and comprehensible personal artistic proposition, that walks towards a reverberant personalization of style and shapes a very peculiar identity of sound composition.      

It is also worthwhile to point it out that Sojourner’s emphasis on folk elements reshapes our understanding of these components on metal music. With an astounding ability to tell stories that, colored by these same folk arrangements on varying degrees, leads us all throughout a marvelous past of epic glory, where all of our virtues are deeply accurate and very intriguing scenarios of beautiful, yet ephemeral empires of dust and ash, standing with no dreams of their own, to finally prove or disbelieve that we become real retributions of an intricate, desperate and decadent reality. 

With the Empires of Ash album cover having an amazing artwork by artist Jordan Grimmer, that captures perfectly the atmosphere the musicians themselves ably built in their sound, this album is an interesting work of art, from the great beginning until the very end. A curious release, it will certainly gain momentum among the more inspired legend shaped, technically and spiritually motivated and sound refined Black Metal community, with its surprisingly built harmonies, that seems dilapidated in the golden treasures of silver harps, carefully designed to sound as an opera of traditional glory, adapted to a very polished  metal sound. Empires of Ash, Sojourner’s debut, is certainly one of the underground’s most recent glories, and you have to check it out for yourself, to believe. What these guys have done is certainly impressive, no doubt about that!                  

​Wagner