avant garde / metal / post metal

Saule is the debut album of the eponymous Polish crossover post metal act, released by Italian record label Avantgarde Music, on May 13. Forty one minutes long, the record has seven tracks: I, II, III, IV, V, VI and O. A brilliantly conspicuous, sagaciously unreserved, pervasively ambivalent and profoundly monumental album, with consistently epic elements, Saule reverberates through the colossal components of its own intrinsic beauty thoroughly exacerbated and melancholically dense desperate devices, that harmoniously shapes the melodic oceans of sensibilities upon which their music is crafted, and intelligently expands the fundaments of its redeemed phantasmagoric labor. 

Marvelously beautiful and thoroughly efficient, the style of Saule has an imperative grandiosity centered in wonderfully shaped and sculpted melodies, that brings at the confluence of its sonorous axis the experience of a sound convergence that reiterates the strength of a formidable and inextricable creativity. Sidelined at the lucidity of its ambitious harmonies, it is possible to observe the birth of entire universes, craving in the linear opacity of its thought the fugacious galaxy of a serenity that dreams way ahead the philosophy of its delightful whispers. In the corners of a delicate and splendidly voracious sensibility, Saule becomes the ethereal veil of melodies covered in dust, upon which the world has buried the coalescence of its unwanted dreams.  

Although the album is deeply submerged most of the time in a beautiful and almost hypnotic density of a marvelous instrumental ocean of deeply saturated sensibilities, there are thoroughly gracious vocal passages, that highlights the subtle style of the group to another path of reflexive grace. Stricken by an aggressive stupor of melancholy, the sound seems to levitate between somewhat inexistent monumental spheres of fallacious agony, and afflictive worlds of dying secrecy, upon which the fundamental principles of our soul becomes diluted, but keeps feeding at the fountain of the music’s essence. 

Despite some sonorous uniformity, Saule’s debut is a great and very unexpected record. A genuine and incredibly original work of art, full of gracious energy and displaying a genuine vortex of melodic infallibility, in thoroughly consistent rhythmical dissonances that creates a very singular dimension of plural expansions, Saule condenses the pressure of a gas giant into a symbiotic strength of versatile proclivities, meticulously engendered to pronounce the fugacious doom of a universe lost at the insensitive fables of our own inhumane hearts. So, summarizing, a formidably creative and astoundingly terrific album. 


Wagner

ambient / darkwave / avant garde

Darkness Is Dressed Black is an album released on May 8 by darkwave/ ambient/ avant-garde electronic musical project Deadly Oak, designed by Spanish artist Vadym Sycantrhope. With nine tracks – Abducted By Stranger, Try To, Hold Me (My Monster), Blood Is Life, Zero, Aethetic Apocalypse, Occasional Tragedy, Underneath The Surface and Stay – Darkness Is Dressed Black is a terrific and superbly unexpected album, and has on the virtual despondencies of its lurid insinuations the majestic – and thoroughly relevant – force of his artistic persona. With the darker nuances of sagaciously somber melodies, that seems to act as sideline hallucinations to the subtle grievances of his extraordinary and pervasively expansive musical dimensions, the album carries on the conspicuous and unforgiving grotesqueness of its style the drastic and more vivacious elements that Sycantrhope always brings with him, under the Deadly Oak moniker.    

A marvelous album, that has on the experimental verve of his seemingly audacious creative compositions a relentless desire to break sonorous boundaries, Darkness Is Dressed Black has no fear in what concerns the outline of its own deeply fugacious, but consistent sonorous configurations: relying on an almost perfect elaboration of a creepy and sordid atmosphere of infamous expectation the laborious art of a genuinely afflictive despondency, upon which every track seems to be opening something sinister towards the unknown. The atmospheres are evidently eager to celebrate the incongruous density of a bizarre planetary isolation, where all delusions of its virtual sensibilities perpetuate the solitude upon which your soul gets deeply confined, while the sound vividly promotes in your perfidious melancholy an intense conflagration of emotions. In the practical axiom of the imperiously consistent worlds created by the intangible density of the sound waves that thoroughly dissipates the anatomy of your soul, the harmonious emancipation of musical allegories that you feel masterly aggregates in your genome the insidious and tempestuous sensation of a world doomed to end in a matter of instants. 

Masterly creating anxious, afflictive and agonizing atmospheres of a hyperbolic lucid exhilaration, Darkness Is Dressed Black is overwhelmed by what Deadly Oak does best: the majestic confluence of several different electronic genres and musical elements, to conflate them into an abrasive set of melodies, adorned by the convoluted rapture of unsolicited shadows, that dream of escaping to the real world, while offending – and feeding – the irrational instability of the artist’s – as well as the listener’s – creative devices. 

More subtle and ambivalent than his previous Deadly Oak work, Darkness is Dressed Black leads the listener to a profound abyss of surreal – and almost pathological – nothingness, that literally feeds your imagination with whatever the things you dare to keep inside your head. Being the perfect soundtrack to a day in a parallel dimension of everlasting fugacity and ecstatic eternity, this album literally has the power to bring about the most elusive and despondent lethargy that you keep hidden within yourself. With the power to attract a symbiosis and a multitude of creative collisions inside a conspicuous myriad of emotional turbulent distances, Darkness Is Dressed Black is another demonstration of the incredible artistic power of Deadly Oak, always ready to surprise its audience, in the best and most inconceivable way possible!     

 
Wagner

avant garde / black metal

The title 'I Thought There Was the Sun Awaiting My Awakening', is quite a mouthful, but it perfectly covers the load of one of the most interesting black metal releases this year. As some of our readers might know, I like my black metal laced with the occult and as epic as possible. I also like it to be varied and conceptual. Well, this mesmerizing piece of work by Digir Gidim is exactly that.

t contains four tracks, 'The Revelation of The Wandering', 'Conversing with The Ethereal', 'The Glow inside The Shell' and 'The Eye looks through The Veils of Unconsciousness'. Each of them is a stunning ten plus minutes anthem of occult black metal. The music on this album is ritualistic, spiritual and esoteric, which immediately reminds me of acts like Blut Aus Nord, Acherontas, Nile or Melechesh.

Besides intense and dissonant black metal assaults, there is room for ritual chants, epic bombast and tonnes of atmosphere. In that, each of the four rituals is basically similar, so it's extremely difficult to pick out a favorite. Then again, albums like these are supposed to be a concept, to be listened to as a whole and to be allowed to crawl under your skin and into your subconscious. And that is exactly what the masterpiece 'The Glow inside The Shell' does.

Fans of occult avant garde black metal can easily trust Digir Gidim to deliver the goods. In all, this is a remarkable album, varied, overwhelming, intense and highly unpredictable. I can only recommend this to all you black metal freaks out there. Check it out and join me in hoping that Digir Gidim take this show on the road. I'm sure that they will win many souls on their journeys...


​Serge

avant garde / metal

Arisen is an album by Hungarian avant-garde metal project Hant, released on April 4. Forty one minutes long, the album has eight tracks: Desolate, Evolution of Minds, Of Longing and Lust, Black Lake, Arisen, Beyond the Astral Doors, Summoning and Mad World (a beautiful instrumental cover version of the notorious Tears for Fears song [and, in my opinion, the best track on this record]). With an incisive work competently built on guitars, Arisen is an album with interesting shapes and nuances. With generally calmer melodies, the harmonies are conceived in an anxious and afflictive layer of lancinating and acute atmospheric anguish. Somewhat interesting, there is a virtuous degree of skilled technical proficiency holding the musical structure of the work. Unfortunately, since the harmonies are mostly slow all the way through, and the songs are generally very long, a tedious, nefarious and exasperating sense of monotony overcomes the listener, and the album eventually becomes more of a boring task than an actual pleasure.

Nevertheless, there are distinct elements, as well as intriguing passages, in some tracks along the way. With minimalist and neoclassical tendencies, Arisen has charming peculiarities, and the sensational sonorous dilapidations that ostensibly arise in the outer limits of the conclusively splendid exterior layers of the songs reveal, quite surprisingly, a modest, but sagacious level of audacity, originality and creativity, well-worked and majorly conceived in the expansive fields of rhythmic dissonances discreetly dispersed throughout the album. 

Although Arisen can’t be qualified as a majestic record – and you will hardly be surprised while listening to it – this album has, indeed, several qualities. The hazard, dilacerating and meticulous guitar lines undoubtedly are the main force behind the work, and create all the major elements that consecrate the overall musical atmosphere. Taking that away, you don’t have too much components to appreciate on the album, although some harmonies are fulfilled by a lonely, restless, reflexive and poetic appeal. Evidently, if you like slow, melodic, melancholic guitar driven rock’n’roll with avant-garde elements, then Arisen is an album that you should listen. 
     
As far as my personal evaluation goes, Arisen is a good album, but is incapable of going beyond that. Too much accommodated in a common concept, with an ostensibly exacerbated uniformity, with little rhythmic variations, the overall sound, in the end, reclaims an ordinary and inefficient final product, that will probably appeal more to guitar players and guitar students in general.     


Wagner

ambient / experimental / shoegaze

metalcore / metal

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hard rock

classical / ambient

drum & bass / industrial metal

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progressive / thrash metal

nu metal

synthpop / new wave

techno / industrial

alternative rock

post rock

death metal

dark ambient / black metal

experimental rock

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gothic / industrial metal

punk

avant garde / experimental / drone / jazz / noise

Well well, here is something you don't hear every day. That is, unless you are a hardcore free jazz fan who easily finds his way into the pummeling chaos that this genre is.  If you, on the other hand, are someone who loves his music to be easy digestible, controlled and somewhat predictable, you might want to think twice before hitting the "play" button on top of this review. Your world might be shattered.

Of course, the Dutch don't really care about shattered worlds and pulverised dreams. That little country has been throwing a lot of unexpected and weird things on the world, including gabber hardcore but also the awesome blend between grindcore and jazz that Dead Neanderthals produce. Well, it the latter region we find The Julie Mittens, for me now known as "the Skullflower of the jazz scene", and their haunting release 'Soundcult'. 

What  to expect from this release? Well, a lot of noise, inspired by the Japanese noise scene. The four songs, each lasting over ten minutes, are incoherent and dissonant slabs of drones, noises, percussion and unidentifiable sounds. This certainly is something for the trained and experienced ear but those ears might be overjoyed with these bizarre sounds. So who to recommend it to? Everyone, just check it out and allow The Julie Mittens to drag you into a whirlpool of noise. It'll be an experience you never forget.


Serge

ambient

Strange things are happening in this house, strange coincidences to be exact. Recently, we have been working on a new project, one we truly believe in and one we are quite determined about. We believe that this project is going to take one year to be complete, at least, that is what our advisors have been telling us. A few days ago, this album came in, quickly followed by another one, both carrying the word 'Ichinen'. I'd never heard of that word before and I found it extremely coincidental that it suddenly appeared twice. 'Ichinen' is a Japanese word used in the art of zen meditation, meaning 'determination' and 'one year', among others. 

'Ichinen', the album by experimental composer Fabio Perletta, is the follow-up to his 2016 album 'Genkai'. It was inspired by a trip in Japan in 2015 and a book of Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō, titled 'Living by Zen'. So I guess it will be no surprise that this is a meditative ambient album. Divided into three parts, this album is a collection of soundscapes, drones, noises and field recordings, arranged into narrative pieces of music, or "sound art". However, don't expect blissful ambient in the vein of people like Brian Eno or Harold Budd. No, this album is abstract, avant-garde and unpredictable. 

The best way to approach this album is to play it loud enough, find a comfortable position and allow the sounds to guide you through your own imagination. As I already mentioned, this is a meditative album, both minimal and immersive, if played in the right conditions, obviously. I'm not even going to recommend this just to ambient fans. I'm going to recommend it to everyone. In this world, full of stress, anxiety and depression, an album like this might actually help people to relax, to meditate and to discover talents and emotions they never thought they had. So check it out, try it. It's healthier than taking antidepressant medication...


​Serge

experimental / black metal / shoegaze

Anomie is an album to be released on March 1, by Azerbaijani musician Emin Guliyev, under his artistic nom de plume Violet Cold. With six tracks – the eponymous Anomie, She Spoke Of Her Devastation, Lovegaze, My Journey To Your Space, Violet Girl and No Escape From Dreamland – Violet Cold’s music is a complex mixture of several different – and at a first glance, disparate – genres, like atmospheric black metal, blackgaze, ambient electronic music, shoegaze and post black metal, amongst others, resulting in a peculiarly unique blend of sonorous artistry, that has created a singular kind of experimental music, in the whole history of the underground scene. A very surreal album, with sad nuances, opaque colors and emotional soundscapes, Anomie is certainly a very unique composition. With beautiful harmonies, and a fantastic melodic layout, the record is full of abyssal and enchanting dream-like fantasies, as well as sincere disdainful loyalties, deeply inserted in the vastness of a pure and cosmological vision, that resurfaces at the core of an unseen labyrinth of agony, never testified in a work with such level of sensibility, in the underground music scene before. 

With the serenity of unspoken, but deeply energizing harmonies, full of soul, relinquishing beauty and aggrandizing features of spontaneity, this is certainly a refreshing, embellished and interesting album. Deeply committed to a general level of uneasy originality, which, at least to a certain degree, seems obvious, given the fact that so many different genres are combined with the genuine proposal of creating something unique – though ambient elements do prevail most of the time throughout the album’s length –, Anomie is a magnificent record. Authentic and singular, certainly this album is anything less than a major outstanding work. 

Splendid, fulfilling, original, faithful to its roots, and genuine by the sake of its purpose, there is no other album that could be highlighted as a possible comparison. A formidable artistic achievement, you are never bored throughout its fifty three minutes long run. In the end, you will be asking yourself when something with such a powerful magnitude will ever be created again.   

A great experimental work, with a phenomenal final result, Anomie is a sensational record, being a splendid work in the experimental music category, probably the best ever made. With the perfect infusion of so many different elements from a lot of different genres, what has been created on this album is marvelously unique and unparalleled in the history of underground music. A splendorous sound from a different world, a different dimension and a different galaxy, you will never believe what you are hearing, in the first place. A majestic exemplar of artistic excellence, Anomie is an album that deserves its place of honor.  



Wagner

black metal / folk metal / avant garde

Skadi is an album released on January 20, by American melodic folk metal band The Flight of Sleipnir. Forty five minutes long, and with five tracks – Awaken, Tenebrous Haze, Earthen Shroud, Voices and Falcon White – Skadi is an interesting album, that features a complex mixture of melodic black metal, post metal, folk metal, psychedelic rock and stoner rock, creating a genre entirely new, exceedingly difficult to categorize. 

Nevertheless, setting classifications apart, Skadi is a very intriguing work. Unraveling a band that has created their own peculiar style, most of the music developed by The Flight of Sleipnir showcases a stoner sound, with pronounced black metal vocals all the way through. With a dignifying and unusually compelling technical work, splendidly developed as well as the creative harmonies, Skadi is a singular and largely unexpected album. Heavy and rude, but with slow harmonies, here the apparent contradictions not only work out very well, but solidifies the cohesion of a style amazing to discover, and to listen out loud. After the first two tracks, you rapidly come forward to the conclusion that certainly The Flight of Sleipnir is the pioneer of a genre yet to be named and properly understood. But it certainly sounds not just amazing, but enthusiastically promising.

Sometimes sounding almost like a soul-fueled prog-folk version of Jethro Tull, The Flight of Sleipnir is able to instantly intrigue anyone, and after a few minutes into their sound, they easily captivate the attention of intelligent listeners. I mean, there is so much curious and different elements perfectly combined together on this album, that you suddenly realize that the musical possibilities conquered by this formidable band are effectively endless. Skadi scores high in magnificent moments, being exponentially poetic, philosophic, cosmic and reflexive, all at the same time. With beautifully splendorous guitar lines, amazingly aligned with the sky in an endless night of unforgiving majesty, this record has all the right components that a true and genuine album of melodic Avant-garde metal should have.    

With calm, but imperial and transcendental harmonies, that have at the core of its artistic primacy the majesty of a kingdom of splendor lost somewhere in the sky of a glorious universe unknown, Skadi is a multifaceted and versatile album, whose sound evolves in the linear movement of constantly reshaping waves, that perfectly agglutinates on its superb style the coherence of an integral unity, bound by a marvelous sonorous soul, profoundly capable to shine from within. A fantastic album, unique in the history of the underground scene, Skadi certainly has generated a new path towards the development of exponentially relevant and excitingly new perspectives in the metal genre, as a whole. Sensational, inspirational, monumental, amazing and surprisingly fantastic, we have an enormous debt of gratitude with The Flight of Sleipnir, for creating this peculiar work of musical excellence, for the delight of our ears.   
  

Wagner
 
  

black metal / avant garde

Beyond is the most recent release of Arkhaeon, a Swiss black metal project of which very little is known. With only one track – titled Beyond – being almost thirty four minutes long, this album is an interesting exemplar of a very functional mixture of raw, melodic, symphonic and esoteric black metal. 

Exploring very well the essence of its melodic possibilities, Beyond is almost a symphony of melancholy, relying in an ocean of forgetfulness and desolation, searching for redemption in a place of sorrow, disdain and coercion. With calm guitar lines, and sometimes beautifully poetic acoustic passages, Arkhaeon is a very peaceful, quiet, self-reliant, reflexive and philosophic black metal record. Nonetheless, growling vocals, fast guitars and rapid sonorous passages are prevalent throughout the whole album, which makes Beyond to be quite a unique record, with a digressive, but somewhat objective style, that manages to conquer its own boundaries of artistic intuition, in a high level of lucid proficiency, that makes the album – in fact, the track itself – to portray a lot of different emotions, colors and nuances, drawing different pictures and setting different contexts into a track full of surprises, emotions, setbacks and atmospheres.

With a formidable layout that seems to be always changing to achieve a new level of sensibility, this track really explores the wider possibilities of an atmospheric sound, into a very black metal background. But evoking different perspectives and antagonistic choices, a rebellion seems to explode into the heart of the unknown. Always surprising the listener with unforgiving elements that integrates new components into the music, Arkhaeon does a fine work on this album, elaborated at the height of a perception that explores wisely all the different nuances and perceptions that are possible in the genre, never falling into ordinary clichés. Although I sincerely can’t categorize this work as a masterpiece – yet – Beyond is undoubtedly a serious and magnificent work, that rereads and reworks the genre in a more stoic, experimental, sophisticated and complex manner, while exonerates the fate of an ordinary approach with the transcendental ambition of its poetic values. 

Beyond is a very intriguing album. Although it will hardly please enthusiasts of the more conservative wing of the genre – although Arkhaeon is neither progressive nor DSBM [although closely resembles] – this work deserves all the compliments for its audacity, creativity and originality. It certainly deserves to be among the most interesting avant-garde black metal albums of the decade! 

  
Wagner       

black metal / avant garde

Arctic Sunrise is an album released by veteran German hard/ black metal band Spectral, on January 13, by Boersma Records. With nine tracks – being them an Intro, the eponymous title track Arctic Sunrise, Evil Takes Control, Invaders, Nuclear Assault, In Battle With Fire & Steel, Path Of The Damned, Vengeance In Blood and Fuck Off And Die (Metal is Forever) – this is a captivating, intense and exceedingly good album! With balanced and well-shaped rhythms, Arctic Sunrise manages to be a very decent record, done with a remarkable degree of originality, mixing elements of black metal, dark metal and power metal – amongst other subgenres –, to solidify an excellent and genuine style, that has everything to be considered the best of its kind to strike the scene, so far. As the songs are objective, and not too long, the exchanging dynamics presented on the album makes the sound to be rapid, functional and delightful, impossible not to be appreciated in a well-deserved manner, as it delivers agitatedly an astounding, innovating and relentless type of metal, unforgiving and destructive to the bones. Powerful, overwhelming and proverbial, this is a very definitive record, that has all the necessary qualities to make history! 

With heavy melodies, great solos and amazing guitar lines, the compositions are solid, and reveal a very experienced band, secure of what they’re doing. Never underestimating their talent and musical capacities, they create an intriguing style of their own, exponentially authentic, that relies on the major force of their trustworthy objectives. Although in some songs black metal elements predominate a little, nevertheless, they match black and death metal perfectly for the most part – without becoming what is usually called blackened death metal –, as they play with a lot of components from other genres as well, showing a formidable compromise with anyone, except with the solidification of their own peculiar style.

Rapid rhythms and fast guitars predominate all the way through, although their music does present a more technical aspect in its multifaceted layers, in several passages. With a complex musical ordeal that reveals excellent musicians firmly compromised at creating and executing the best songs possible, Arctic Sunrise reveals itself as a major musical work, that perfectly matches the most traditional elements of metal with new and audacious possibilities, without fear of innovating, in a more embellished and polished musical panel, but always maintaining the basic precepts and the core of true metal. And – although the entire album is good – special mention goes to the last two songs on this marvelous record: Vengeance In Blood and Fuck Off And Die (Metal is Forever). I promise these two extremely amazing tracks will definitely blow up your mind, in such an astounding way, that you never have experienced in your life before. 

An interesting record, that certainly has everything to captivate the most ardent enthusiasts of the genre, Arctic Sunrise is a major album. Approaching metal in a brilliantly experimental manner, and effectively doing a mixture of different subgenres, adding new colors to it without losing the essence, Spectral proves why they are a relevant energy on the scene, and will remain as such, as long as they live.  


Wagner

black metal / avant garde / post metal

There was a time when you had to search the deepest underground to find albums that bulge from despair, misanthropy and intensity. Back in the nineties, these things appeared on obscure tapes and compilations, only to be found by the chosen few. Today, the darkest regions of the musical universe are easier to enter. They are much more varied too and here and there, an album appears that grinds your very soul into a unrecognizable mush.

'Hope', the fourth effort by Polish post-black metal act Mord'A'Stigmata is such an album. Divided into four chapters, this album drags you down into your own darkest emotions, fears and desires. They do it with an interesting array of influences and sounds too, ranging from fierce black metal to dark rock music and haunting doom. Furthermore, there are some massive psychedelic passages that turn this album into a trance inducing whirlpool of sound.

Opener 'Hope' already showcases all these elements. Although the tempo often changes, there is an overall atmosphere and theme to be found. Sometimes I'm reminded of other post-black metal acts Lantlôs and Alcest while on other occasions even Tiamat and Sisters Of Mercy come to mind. 'To Keep The Mind' opens with a damn immersive piece of mid tempo music before it slowly starts gnawing on your sanity.

In all, 'Hope' is an incredibly intense album, perfectly suited to play on maximum volume and perform the necessary rituals to exorcise your inner demons. It certainly feels like this album was written for that exact purpose. So obviously this thing comes highly recommended for all fans of dark, avant garde black metal. This one definitely is a candidate for most haunting album of the year...


​Serge

black metal

Vault Of Dried Bones

Aah, a new edition of Brieviews, and why not simply kick of with what will probably prove to be the most raunchy and ghastly piece of musical extremism in this article. Sorguinazia is a duo, dwelling in the deepest, darkest caves and tombs of the black metal scene. Don't expect musical ingenuity on this one, but prepare to get molested by fierce guitars, haunting vocals and a relentless tempo. One these three songs, the duo constantly balances on the edge between primitive black metal and harsh noise. This is not music, this is either an exorcism or an occult ritual and it's definitely suited only for the chosen few who can handle the extremest of the extreme.

stoner doom

On the slower part of the metal spectrum, we meet up with Brazilian psychedelic doom band Ruínas de Sade and their self titled three-track debut. I'm not sure when this band formed, but my guess is "not that long ago". However, despite the fact that the whole thing sounds like a first effort by some enthusiastic youngsters, there is some bloody awesome potential to be found here. The tracks are long and loaded with monolithic riffs, rough vocals and psychedelic solos which even bring Pink Floyd to mind. Of course, I would recommend this to all doom fans but another shoutout goes to labels: sign these guys, lock them up in a studio for a year, add a solid producer and they might come out with a classic. This is talent!!!

post rock / electronic / doom

Onto one of the most unique releases in this edition of Brieviews, an astonishing cooperation between Bulgarian doom metal band Smallman and drum & bass producer Ivan Shopov (Cooh/Balansky). The result of this cooperation is an often perplexing blend of styles, contrasting rhythms, dark ambient, folk and post rock passages and intense outbursts of metal. Bands that come to mind include Massive Attack, Coldplay, Primordial and Anathema. There is plenty of atmosphere and more variation than you can imagine but most of all, these are simply excellent songs, dressed in a modern and epic sound.

progressive metal

Since we're dwelling in the experimental and somewhat unusual corners of the music industry, allow me to introduce Jupiter Hollow. In the past few years, this duo has been absorbing all things progressive and now come up with a stunning blend of everything between Rush, Opeth, Pink Floyd, Dream Theater and Tool. The five songs on this album are complex, often downright confusing pieces of progressive rock, interlaced with ambient passages. They not only show tremendous technical abilities but also a decent flair for songwriting. Fans of progressive rock should definitely get their hands on a copy of this. This is pretty much everything you like, pressed into one ep.

progressive rock

On the somewhat more gentle side of the progressive rock spectrum, we reconnect with Finnish masterminds Grus Paridae and their new single. I remember writing a review for this act in the early days of Merchants Of Air and I remember being quite charmed by their music. On this single, that is no different. 'Forthcoming Nonintellectual Decadence' is a classic progressive rock anthem, one where I can clearly hear influences from Pink Floyd but also elements from classical music. The piano and violins have a central role in this atmospheric and beautiful piece of music and the whole thing sounds well balanced, varied and as anthem-like as this kind of music should be. Nice work.

death metal / thrash metal

thrash metal / black metal

dark ambient

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noise / experimental

dark ambient / experimental

black metal

post punk

progressive / power metal

Modern melodic metal from Canada, suited for fans of Kamelot, Symphony X, Alter Bridge and Tesseract, that's what the biography mentioned. Yet, I'd like to add bands like Moonspell to that list, certainly after listening to the brilliant opener 'Guillotine', which is an epic dark metal anthem. The rest of this ep is pretty much equally interesting with some very strong metal songs. Red Cain somehow managed to blend progressive, technical and dark metal into a mesmerizing journey. Personally, I really dig the clean but forceful vocals with this kind of music so in that Red Cain certainly delivered the goods. Closer 'Unborn' is my second favorite, especially with that epic intro. 

black metal

progressive / alternative rock

progressive metal / djent / post metal

Some more relentlessness from our neighbours in France, this time with a genre called "djent". I'm not very familiar with it and many of the bandnames don't really ring a bell but I know what I like, and I like what I'm hearing right now. Short, nervous riffs, energetic drums, loads of atmospheric sounds and a harsh, screaming voice create a captivating blend of post metal and hardcore. No doubt that songs like 'The Wall' and 'Broken Streets' will be absolute blasts when played live, certainly with that amount of energy and intensity. This definitely is one for the newer generation of metalheads, but I think Meshuggah fans can easily appreciate this slab of aggression too.

indie rock / psychedelic

black metal

2016 has already been a pretty good year for the black metal scene, or pretty much every scene for that matter. The genre has been overloaded with primitive and traditional albums, but also by shoegaze and psychedelic rock inspired black metal releases, giving the whole thing a huge amount of variation. However, I'd like to add an exceptional piece of work to the already massive list of albums that came out this year.  This sure is something else...

'Unholy Ghost Liturgy' is not a split. It's a collaboration album between Russian ambient/black/doom metal project Abigorum and American black metal/ambient formation Cryostasium. They composed the songs together, and there are quite a lot of those. The album contains no less than twenty tracks, eventually clocking off about about seventy minutes. Perhaps that might be a bit too long for some people, but not for me, certainly not when they come with up with plenty of variation and some downright strange tunes.

The album opens with something you could and would expect for this collaboration: harsh black metal, enhanced by keyboards and soundscapes, driving on fierce blast beats. Yet, there seems to be an underlying urge to experiment and it wouldn't take long for that urge to take the upperhand. 'Unholy Ghosts', the second track, already drags us into a mysterious and horrifying world. 'Liturgia' adds a lot to the gloomy atmosphere, perhaps because of the keyboards, or the haunted vocals or the slow, lingering tempo. 'Forgotten Lines' is just plain madness.

The album continues in that bizarre, experimental and somewhat confusing manner. I'm not going to write a song-by-song description here, but I will tell you that there's more musical insanity to come, possibly even more than you can handle. These projects keep on grabbing influences from all things experimental, psychedelic and dissonant. The endresult is something out of this world, something that will often leave you in a state of trance. But don't worry, many passage here are well suited for a decent headbanging portion.

For me, the best tracks on this album include the space-rock inspired 'Last Galaxy', the chaotic 'Essential Death' and the sheer insanity of 'Mysore's Cocoon' but I'd suggest  you check out the entire album. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, this sure is something else and it sure is something that just might become one of the most surprising black metal released of the year. So go ahead, indulge yourself in absolute madness with this awesome cooperation.


​Serge

electronic / industrial / noise / avant garde

An album that opens with a song titled 'Life Is Noise Around Me', you might start to expect a challenging listening experience. You could be right about that too. In fact, at first listen, this album really might sound somewhat unconventional. Yet, sometimes "challenging" and "unconventional" result in something interesting and that's exactly what's happening here. Let's see if I can guide you through this one.

Csigo is a singer-songwriter and guitar player from Hungary who played and plays in bands like Dubcity Fanatikz, Anima Sound System and Beat Dis. However, don't let those references fool you, because on this solo album, Csigo does things quite different. This has nothing to do with dub, rock or even techno music, although at times it's quite danceable. So what is it? Well, basically, it's the lovechild between eighties avant garde electronics and rhythmic noise.

Opener 'Life Is Noise Around Me' and follower 'Interplanetary' remind me of acts like Suicide and Throbbing Gristle, while on other occasions Crash Course In Science, The Normal or even Prurient come to mind. That being said, yes, this is a heap of minimal but dark electronics, perfectly suited for those industrial dancefloors. 'Vexation' even takes the "industrial" tag quite seriously, being a droning and repetitive piece of music.

In all, this is a strange and harsh album, one which I would recommend to all you dark electronics freaks out there. Perhaps not to the people who are into easy-digestible dance music, but for those who dare to experiment and seek deep, dark music to accompany the noises in their heads. The last track, 'Blank Look', might terrify you a bit, but don't worry, it's just music... I hope...


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black metal / noise / experimental

You find yourself face down, lying on a filthy floor in a room you do not recognize. You're hurt, bleeding. You look up to the grey walls in search of a window but why should there be a window? As you make a first attempt go get up, you feel a sting in your lower leg. You feel your achilles tendon snap while whatever that stabbed you, slowly starts pulling you back. Your t-shirt starts to rip on the granular ground, you realize that your skin will soon follow. You scream, and grasp your bleeding fingers on the bricks in the floor. You hear a harsh, grinding noise when you're being dragged into another room, a chaotic and eerie sound which repetitively bangs on your head. Then you hear a ritual being performed, a dark ritual that should never see the light of day. Somewhere in this absolute and deafening darkness is an entity, gladdedly lurking at its newest sacrifice, you.

Sometimes, when I first listen to an album, all kinds of different things pop-up in my head, little scenes, sometimes cinematic, sometimes joyful and sometimes things like the opening paragraph of this review. It usually depends on the nature of the album I'm listening to, which in this case is indeed something dark, haunting and frightening. The album is named 'II' and is the latest effort of American avant-garde post-blackened doom noise metal act Crowhurst. The band started as a noise act but gradually evolved into whatever it is now. Noise and soundscapes still are important elements in their music but the whole thing delves deep into the black metal scene. Plus, there is plenty of room for influences from sludge or post-metal, doom and industrial  too.

The album opens with an instrumental track, 'Cold Sweat' which somewhat sets the tone. From the very beginning it becomes clear that this is not a commonplace black metal act. The tempo is slow, torpid even, and the guitars make a shitload of noise. On 'Take This Pain Away' the typical blackened screams appear over an equally bleak, slow and grinding piece of music. This is utter despair and utter madness, this is brilliant. 'The End' is also a slow track, but it feels more like a blackened Fields Of The Nephilim or Sisters Of Mercy track, mainly because of the clean vocals. And here too, when the extremes kick in, this monsters feasts on blast beats, eerie atmospheric elements and sheer aggression. You might see this as a mix of goth-rock Tiamat and Blut Aus Nord, or something like that.

But there are more surprises, ever heard a crushing blackened industrial noise rock version of Nirvana? Well, 'No Saviours' is such a song and it rocks. Perhaps this is my favorite track on this album, but I'm not sure. Every song here is an extreme adventure, especially 'Dried Blood and Old Earth' which closes the album in style. This monster is pretty much an "all of the above", include the one song I didn't mention yet, the punishing depressive blackened sludge metal anthem 'Fractured Lung'.  This is an unbelievable album, a relentless piece of extreme music, regardless of genres. I absolutely recommend it to all of you who are looking for the bleakest and most obscure sounds out there. This is an absolute gem...


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punk rock / garage rock

I admit, I was completely wrong about this album. To be honest, I was expecting some lame ancient Iron Maiden rip-off, probably from looking at the cover and band logo. However, what I got was something completely different, something that made me turn up the volume immediately. Swedish rockers Nightmen come up with an infectious blend of garage rock and punk, reminding me of a mix of Ramones, Sex Pistols, Blondie and The Cars. This is a tremendous throw-back in time and an absolute must-have for fans of sweet but raunchy rock 'n roll. I promise you'll be quickly singing along with songs like 'I Only Want You', 'Go Go' and 'Tonight Is The Night'. Awesome stuff...

electro

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Since we're dealing with strange music, let's introduce this electronic dance single by Morgane Lhote (ex-Stereolab), A.K.A. Hologram Teen. Yes, strange, because even though the whole thing reminds me a lot of a blend of French house music and acts like Add N To X or even Kraftwerk, there is a great deal of joyful experimentalism in here. It also reminds me a bit of the acid house and new beat scene in the late eighties and early nineties, two scenes that I secretly loved back then. I still love them today and I quite like this single too. So check it out, get your rave-pants on and prepare for a little party with Hologram Teen. It'll be fun, I promise you.

ambient / experimental / neoclassical

Eilean Records

øjeRum is Copenhagen based musician and collage artist Paw Grabowski. Since 2014, he released several albums but this is his first one on Eilean Records. The compositions on this album somewhat reach the avant-garde scene, but are still gentle, calm and quite immersive pieces of minimal music. With this minimal and often repetitive approach, these tracks are very interesting to explore. They show different sides each time, sometimes reaching out to classical music, sometimes almost medieval folk and sometimes calm and soothing ambient. So yeah, like most of Eilean's releases, this is a highly recommended piece of work, one I will be listening to quite often from now on.

avant garde / experimental / ambient / noise

Eilean Records

Another odd and quite varied album from Eilean Records, this time by German sound artist Florian von Ameln. And this album should be seen exactly like that: sound art. Some of the track on 'Rvvr' could barely be described as music. I mean, 'The Last Before Settlement' partially consists of bleeps, bird sounds and minimal drones until the real musicality fades in. Yet, that doesn't make this album any less interesting. It remains an adventurous journey, loaded with weird noises, strange electronic and acoustic passages and a mystical atmosphere. The more you listen to 'Rvvr', the more a map of an otherworldly, imaginary universe opens. Truly recommended material...

black metal / crust

It looks like these will the most varied brieviews yet, from punk over experimental ambient to electronic music and now a fierce slab of blackened crust punk, courtesy of Minneapolis, US residents Feral Light. Yet, it isn't just brutal and aggressive crust you get here. These guys are obviously inspired by the ancient Scandinavian hordes, judging from the awesome riffs. Yet, they also bring in the layered sound from today's post-black metal scene, turning these little pieces of extremity into hypnotic metal songs. As far as crust is concerned, these guys are well on their way to become my favorites in the genre. Try it out, you'll be pleasantly surprised, if you survive the trip...

avant-garde / experimental 

Merdumgiriz

Controversial, weird, angsty, insane. Those are words you can use to describe this strange album by Turkish experimental act Viranesir. The former extreme metal act has been banned from facebook and bandcamp for their often questionable content. This time, they deliver a firm kick in the nutsack of the metal industry by combining technical death metal drums with spooky synths and a massive avant-garde attitude. That way, this album reminds me more of acts like Virgin Prunes, Sex Gang Children or Alien Sex Fiend. It feels like this album was meant as a pop-induced middle finger to one industry, but unintentionally it has become an interesting piece of dark cult album. Yep, that's talent, no matter how controversial it is...

death metal / thrash metal

Headbanging time again, right now with Italian quartet InAllSenses. This ep has been released awhile ago but for some reason it escaped my attention. If you're a fan of strong but melodic metal, this should not escape yours. This is a great crossover between old school thrash metal and the melodic death thrash of the Swedish scene. A little In Flames, a little Testament, a dash of Arch Enemy and a hint of Fear Factory, but all perfectly fitting in with today's metal scene. I'm absolutely sure that songs like 'The Anthem Of Revolution' will cause massive moshpits wherever these guys play this stuff live, moshpits where young and old extreme metalheads will have the time of their lives...

grindcore 

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Well, here's another album that is completely void of musicality, not because it consists of a bunch of field recordings and noises but merely because this is raunchy porngrind, goregrind or whatever you like to call this stuff. Hyperspeed drums, thick riffs, screams, squeals and other torturous noises will continuously blast through your speakers until your sanity is sick of it and leaves that deranged body of yours. Don't worry, you don't need your sanity to enjoy this album. All you need is a bunch of good friends, a mouthgag and plenty of sick bondage equipment and you're ready to go. Have fun being tortured by this shit. And yes, in this case that's probably a compliment...

doom / folk / ambient

One long track, about forty minutes, divided into four pieces of gloomy, highly atmospheric music, blending elements from doom metal, folk, classical and dark ambient ànd featuring an appearance by Thomas Helm (Empyrium), that's what this strange gem delivers. Created by Iranian one man act The Unknown (Aria Moghaddam) and aided by Kevin Pribulsky from US band In Search Of, this album is a brilliant piece of work. There aren't even so many doom metal elements present. The majority of the music is orchestral and symphonic ambient and quite immersive if you ask me. It fits perfectly in today's post-metal/rock scene too with its elaborate soundscapes and hypnotic riffs . Beautiful stuff...

stoner rock / psychedelic rock

This album by Berlin, Germany stoner rockers Samavayo is their first one as a trio. There used to be more members but apparently, three is enough to make a blast of an album. 'Dakota' is a groove and fuzz-loaded riff-beast which will undoubtedly get your wasted ass shaking. Yet, these aren't simple in-your-face stoner rock tunes. These are quite complex pieces of work where psychedelic rock meets alternative rock, grunge even. They show a great deal of musical craftsmanship and songwriting abilities.The more you listen to the album, the more layers of fuzzy bliss you will discover and the more you will like it. I have no favorite songs, as I simply like to play this thing loud and ride along with the grooves. Awesome...

death metal / industrial / avant-garde

Sometimes, not often, but on occasion, it happens. Lina, our cat, sleeping as ever, suddenly hears the music I'm trying to review, looks up to the speakers and then starts staring at me, as if she wants to say "what the hell is this". I can tell you, she is already used to a lot of musical extremities, from harsh noise over grindcore to free jazz and industrial. But all at once, plus avant-garde weirdness and eerie soundscapes? Nope, that's quite new to her. She seems to like it too, since she isn't walking away.

Skin Drone, founded in 2013, aren't interested in mainstream sounds, MTV appearances or groupies. At least, that's what I can make up from their biography. All they care about is extreme metal and being one of the most surprising acts on earth. In that, they certainly succeed. After hearing three songs, I'm already calling them "the extreme version of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum", and that is a compliment. 

Other bands that come to mind include Fantomas, Gorguts, Ministry, Fear Factory, Necrophagist and Cephalic Carnage. Brutal death metal alternates with pounding, repetitive pieces of industrial audio terror, horrifying ambient and noise passages, obscure samples and almost gothic horror music. At times the listener will be torn between fiercely banging his head and crawling under a rock in absolute terror. 

This just might be what would have happened if Tim Burton were an extreme metal fan instead of a movie director. Skin Drone created unique worlds for their music to demolish. The level of variation is so immense, it really feels like a free-jazz album on steroids. Besides, these guys are damn good musicians too, convincingly performing progressive passages, calm folk melodies and extreme outbursts. They can handle it all.

My advice? Well, if you're an extreme metalhead who isn't afraid of the weird and unexpected, this certainly is something for you. If you're a grindcore freak who equally loves Nile and Atari Teenage Riot, you should check this out. Oh well, if you breathe and have ears, you should check this out. This is probably one of the wickedest, most bizarre and extreme albums you'll hear this year, certainly one of the most varied ones...


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experimental / noise / avant-garde / jazz

"Hello, this is the first album by avant rock / experimental band Danielle Liebeskind", that's how the accompanying note for this album opened. I remember thinking "experimental, avant rock, that sounds a bit arty-farty, a bit pretentious possibly". I mean, I've heard a lot of "avant" stuff in my life and sometimes the self-glorification of the artists is massive, certainly compared to the non-coherent manure they produce.

But I tried the album anyway, because the exact opposite is also true. I've heard a lot of "avant" stuff which takes the listener on beautiful, strange and unexpected journeys. Besides, Danielle Liebeskind is a Dutch band, a trio and some guest musicians. For some reason the Dutch seem to know how to make experimental music interesting. Apart from their "shlagers" and their awful carnival music, the Netherlands are one of the greatest countries to discover new sounds.

And yes, Danielle Liebeskind is something to discover. They're mostly an improvisation act, so it shouldn't be a surprise that this debut is a registration of improv sessions, recorded in March 2014. They seem to be influenced by jazz, classical music, ambient, drone and noise artists but I can also hear elements from Pink Floyd, mostly in the guitars on 'Equilibrium Of Make Believe'. Those guitars also seem to be hiding behind a wall of weird sounds and odd percussion.

The whole thing does indeed feel like an experimental jazz performance, a very experimental one. You know, like when Sonic Youth, Keiji Haino and Merzbow decide to to make a jazz album together. I'm not even sure which instruments were used but I guess they include spoons and singing bowls next to more traditional instrumentation (piano, drums, guitars...). On the other hand, in the first part 'Little Acts Of Rebellion / I Saw Your Light' I recognize absolutely nothing, except for the narrating voice.

That track is one continuously changing piece of minimalistic music, that's for sure. So is opener 'Kimya Dawson Tribute', a song that perfectly fits in with the natural and human sounds around me. In fact, it often happens that I have no idea which sounds come from the LP and which come from in and outside of my house. I like that. It gives the album something extra. It makes it sound completely different every time I listen to it. 

And I think I will be listening to this quite a lot from now on. It's an album that deserves deeper exploration by curious and open minded music fanatics. The way it turns from gentle noise into a piece of classical music into a dark jazz tune, accompanied with what sounds like typewriter sounds, is brilliant. I can only applaud this approach to music and I do recommend this album to all you experimentalists out there.


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jazz / avant garde / noise

Well, since we're dwelling in strange and absurd music, how about an avant-jazz record that will awe and confuse you? In Love With is a project by French drummer Sylvain Darrifourq, aided by the string instruments of Théo and Valentin Ceccaldi. The album is named 'Axel Erotic' and it's a weird thing, but what would you expect from experimental jazz, something radio friendly? Forget about that. This will kill your radio...

Yes, experimental jazz, I guess many people will know what that means and I guess many people will know exactly what to expect: incoherent rhythms, non-conventional sounds and a nag to take everything to the absurd. Those expectations truly come true, even though the album opens quite friendly with an experimental modern classical piece. 'Bien Peigné En Toute Occasion' is probably the most listener friendly track here, and quite frankly also one of my favorites.

Yet, from then on, things become stranger. 'A Saveur De Très Beurre' nudges towards experimental and pretty dark ambient while 'Asil Guide' becomes utterly chaotic, certainly in the drums. 'Sexy Champagne' takes on a more gentle approach, a bit ambient-jazzy if you like. 'Les Flics De La Police' is a repetitive and polyrhythmic piece of experimental music, not really my cup of tea but not all records can be, right?

There are a few more songs to be discovered on this album, to be discovered by a seasoned jazz fan that is. I cannot imagine that any music lover will be able to appreciate this without the necessary foreknowledge of avant garde jazz music. But that doesn't mean it's a bad album. I quite enjoyed the weird and mesmerizing trip and the many surprising hooks and edges. Perhaps you can too, so check it out. At least it will be something you never heard before...


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