The Fallen

July 2024

01. Frayle – “Darker Than Black” (from “1692”, 2020) [Submitted by UnhinderedbyTalent]

02. Trouble – “The Beginning” (from “Run To The Light”, 1987)

03. Black Sabbath – “Electric Funeral” (from “Paranoid”, 1970)

04. Randy Holden – “Fruit & Icebergs” (from “Population II”, 1970)

05. YDI – “Get Out” (from “Black Dust”, 1985)

06. Flower Travellin’ Band – “Kamikaze” (from “Kamikaze” single, 1971)

07. Black Space Riders – “Black Part 1: Space is Back” (from “Black Space Riders”, 2010)

08. Los Natas – “Hombre de Metal” (from “Nuevo orden de la Libertad”, 2009)

09. Orange Goblin – “Round Up The Horses” (from “Thieving From The House Of God”, 2004)

10. Tad – “Nipple Belt” (from “God’s Balls”, 1989)

11. Culted – “Brooding Hex” (from “Oblique to All Parts”, 2014)

12. Sorrow – “Insatiable” (from “Hatred & Disgust”. 1992) [Submitted by Daniel]

13. My Dying Bride – “The Return of the Beautiful” (from “As The Flower Withers”, 1992) [Submitted by Daniel]

14. Anathema – “…And I Lust” (from “The Crestfallen E.P.”, 1992) [Submitted by Daniel]

15. Couch Slut - “The Donkey” (from “You Couldn’t Do It Tonight”, 2024)

16. Bad Luck Rides On Wheels – “Le livre du ciel et du monde” (from “Semper Eadam”, 2020) [Submitted by UnhinderedbyTalent]

17. Thou – “I Return as Chained & Bound to You” (from “Umbilical”, 2024)

18. Civerous – “Geryon (The Plummet)” (from “Maze Envy”, 2024)

Hey, saw that Wretched (band from Maryland) isn't on here. Could you please add them? they have Jeff Parsons on guitar from the band Unorthodox which is another Maryland doom band that is on here, that would kinda complete the whole thing if Wretched is added. Speaking of which, another Maryland doom band if Life Beyond and they aren't on here either. They had Gus (whose a member of Wretched, hence the connection) and Louis and they were both member of Iron Man and speaking of Iron Man, Al Morris' band Force is worth checking out and also isn't on this site. Other than that, Life Beyond shared members with some unrelated non-doom metal but pretty cult bands like Indestroy and interestingly, Dreadnot (really weird thrash band that also isn't on here probably because they released nothing but demos). Also, Unorthodox used to be a band called Asylum who had released an album in 2018 when they had previously released nothing but demos. Finally, The Hounds of Hasselvander is another one that isn't on here. Related to Pentagram since it's the solo project of Joe Hasselvander, the guy who did all the instruments when the band became a two-piece for a while. All of these guys are from Maryland, funny enough.

Sorry, that was a lot of bands! here's their releases to add if that somehow makes it easier:

- Wretched ("Life Out There" album 1993, "Psychosomatic Medicine" album 1994, "Center of the Universe" album 1995. "Black Ambience" ep 2009)
- Life Beyond ("Ancient Worlds" ep 2000, "Thousand Vision Mist" album 2002)
- Force (s/t album 1991, "Discography 1981-84" compilation album 2017)
- Asylum ("3-3-88" album 2018)
- The Hounds of Hasselvander (s/t album 2007, "Further Torments of the SG" ep 2009, "The Ninth Hour" album 201l, "Midnight Dweller" album 2015, "Ancient Rocks" album (2016), "Another Dose of Life" album 2021)

Thanks! have a nice day.

Here's my review:

The only proper release from Sydney-based doom/death metal exponents Cruciform came to my attention at a time that I regard as being amongst the more exciting in my life to date. 1993 saw me forming the first iteration of my own death metal band Neuropath (still under our early moniker of Coprophagia) with four younger kids from the local area & we had every right to think that we might be the only metalheads in the entire Northern Beaches region that were clued up on the thriving death metal phenomenon that had taken off in the underground metal scene a couple of years earlier. One day one of us came back from the local record store Sandy's Music with a copy of the "Atavism" CD & shared it with the rest of the band who all enjoyed its filthy brand of death metal-infused doom. The music was simple enough for us to compare to our own early works but sophisticated enough to exude a strong pedigree in an underground scene that was currently thriving off the back of the tape trading concept. It wouldn't be long before we'd learn that Cruciform were actually located fairly close in proximity to us &, even more impressive, were also one of the senior players in the Sydney extreme metal scene at the time, being signed to the infamous Warhead Records label that was responsible for several key releases in the annuls of Australian metal history & would go on to release Neuropath's 1996 "Desert of Excruciation" demo too. This added additional appeal to the CD & would see us analyzing "Atavism" in greater detail. Opening track "Sanctuary" would become somewhat of a band favourite & we'd go about covering that song at all of our early live shows. At one Lewisham Hotel gig in 1994 we'd be approached by the sound guy after our set, only to find that we had just played a Cruciform cover to the band's new vocalist/keyboardist Simon Gruer which was terribly exciting. Shortly afterwards we'd realize that the long-haired gentleman behind the counter at Sandy's Music that had sold many of the local kids their copies of "Atavism" was in fact guitarist Leon Kelly too & I'd build up somewhat of a familiarity with him over the next couple of years. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he was an idol but I certainly looked up to him & listened to what he said with great interest.

Cruciform would go on to develop & mature very quickly after the release of "Atavism", culminating in the amazing "Paradox" demo tape in 1995 which saw them poised to break out of the local scene with a new deal with legendary English extreme metal label Earache Records in the works. We were heading to all of the band's live shows (well... the ones we could get in to as most of the other band members were still under the age of 18) which had become immeasurably more epic off the back of Gruer's inclusion & the strength of the new material. But just when Cruciform's light was about to shine at its brightest, the band spilt up & were lost from the Sydney scene, seemingly overnight. They'd reform many years later in 2012 & are still playing shows now but have not released any new recorded material that I'm aware of up until now. That's obviously quite a story but was "Atavism" really as good as my young ears thought it was at the time? Or was I simply dazzled by the idea of some local brothers in arms that were older than me & had achieved things that I was still yet to attempt? Well, I think the answer is a bit of both looking at it with modern-day ears.

"Atavism" was a six song release that we actually regarded as being an E.P. back in the day given its relatively short 32-minute duration. It opens with a lengthy three-minute neoclassical darkwave synthesizer piece that hasn't stood the test of time very well & sounds fairly cheesy these days. The remaining five pieces are made up of extreme metal tunes that had all become staples of the Cruciform live sets & are all worth hearing too, some more than others though it has to be said. The production job has a lovely layer of underground dirt caked on it that gives the music some additional authenticity while the musicianship was still fairly basic at this time with several examples of timing issues being plainly visible in the recordings that were clearly produced under tight financial constraints.

The early Cruciform sound is often touted as sitting somewhere between the doom/death sound that had taken the global scene by storm off the back of the Peaceville Three a couple of years earlier & a more conventional death metal one. You can certainly see why on the evidence here but the doom/death component plays a much stronger role than the death metal one so I don't think there's much reason for a dual tagging personally. "Reduced to Dust" is really the only straight-up death metal tune included with "Proboscis" being more of a hybrid & I'd suggest that those two tracks are probably the least impressive of the five proper songs anyway. Those pieces often remind me of My Dying Bride's early death metal efforts actually. The doomier material is where the real guts of Cruciform's notoriety was formed though with the two songs that bookend the release ("Sanctuary" & "I, to the Heavens Shall Lift My Eyes") being the clear standouts in my opinion. The band was still a four-piece at the time but utilized a three-pronged vocal attack that adds a great deal of interest to their sound. I particularly enjoy the ultra-deep death growl that reminds me of "Symphonies of Sickness" era Carcass although the occasional use of a higher register approach comes across as a little weak & gurgly.

Early Cruciform already possessed an uncanny knack for melody, particularly for such a young band. The way they allow their better compositions to build over time showed a good understanding of dynamics, even if the technical capabilities of the various band members still seemed to be a little immature at the time. Listening back now, I can easily pick up some sections of tracks like "Proboscis" & "I, to the Heavens Shall Lift My Eyes" that have been reworked into some of the more brilliant parts of the "Paradox" demo that I still regard as one of the finest I've ever heard to this day. Unfortunately though, I don't think any of these pieces compare all that well to the two epic numbers that make up that incredibly underappreciated release & this leaves "Atavism" as very much the entree to the "Paradox" main course. It's hard for me to think of it as anything else after all the years of solitary bedroom worship for Cruciform's later material but "Atavism" is still worth seeking out for early doom/death enthusiasts as there weren't too many artists exploring these creative avenues at the time. "Paradox" would see Cruciform pushing a sound that was wwaayy ahead of its time & could well have had a major impact on the global scene if it was given the right production & exposure in my opinion. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be though & we're left with only these limited recording to enjoy which in many ways pre-empted my own musical journey with Neuropath.

For fans of Hearse, Sorrow & Asphyx.

3.5/5

A Spotify playlist I've made based on my Trail of Tears favorite tracks list, though Disclosure in Red is not on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5PumWxcuPRl0sgAGqglkTt

With this high amount of heaviness and epicness, Trail of Tears are back with a vengeance:

^ Gonna review this, too.

I am still a MAJOR noob to the world of epic doom.  I have a little experience in its parent traditional doom, but I'm not even familiar with the works of Solitude Aeturnus, Doomsword, Solstice or Krux.  Having said this, the reason I decided to listen to this today was because I finally have enough room in my top 2024 albums chart for another metal album to potentially make the top 30.  I'm trying to keep it at a 20% max, so as to ensure I explore other genres heavily.  It's been a terrible time trying to expand on it, but thankfully, my saving grace for the day have been that Twikipedia album and new live albums by Can and Yes.  On top of that, checking the charts, it looks like "epic doom" isn't really known for a grand scale of variety among its more popular groups.

Now I just read that the difference between traditional doom, which is bent in more heavy metal and blues influence. and epic doom is the theatrics, which gives this brand of doom more room for an otherwise opposite genre: US power metal, which is much more energetic.  The Stygian Rose makes a point of letting you know that it plans to make the most of energetic theatrics five seconds in, and the riffage is not only impressive, but the progression of each song is both interesting and easy to follow, even when songs change pace.  I mean, it's totally easy to fall in love with that gothic black guitar tone at the beginning of Down in the Hollow.  The stronger changes seemed to be more apparent with each track, such as the tempo changes with Heavy Is the Crown of Bone.  I was just utterly soaking in the combination of traditional doom, funeral doom, USPM and some doses of gothic and black, as well as the progginess of track four.  But the variety itself wasn't the highlight, but the COMPOSITION.  These guys are utter PLAYERS.  Crypt Sermon manage a lot with the album's average runtime.  There are completely hypnotic elements like that synthy beginning to Scrying Orb, which is one of multiple examples of how crystal clear the album's production is without the overpolished reverb of studio necessities.  This is especially handy considering that the band plays with atmosphere the further along the album goes.  Take the noisy yet heavenly funeralism of the closing title track's intro for example.  I have to be honest: that's one of the finest example of composition, aura, produiction and technique I've ever heard in 2500+ metal albums.

And let's talk about the lyrics.  During The Scrying Orb, I noticed something: these guys are about as good at delivering lyrical imagery of other worlds and realms without sticking fully to tradition as Blind Guardian.  I mean, take Imaginations from the Other Side and Mirror Mirror.  Rhyming anyone?  Crypt Sermon aren't as upfront about the experimentation with melody here, but they know how to keep things engrossing on all levels.  Take the line "Blessed be the green lion, the green lion that eats the sun, to see through Orion where two hearts will beat as onе."  I'm just getting customized flashes of ancient walls with highly detailed hieroglyphs moving to the story.  And thankfully, this guy has a totally appropriate voice for both the energetic bits and the atmospheric bits.  I honestly like his voice much more than Messiah Marcolin's.

I've been pretty excited about 2024 this year, even to the point where I feel like I'm overrating albums because there are so many albums this year that completely fit my standards for perfection.  So in my effort to ensure that my reviews are founded on knowledge, I have to ask myself, "how do I know that this album isn't essentially copying another epic doom metal band that I haven't yet heard?"  I think it's a 100% valid question considering that I made the dumbass decision to listen to a 2024 album for a genre I've only heard like 5 albums for, especially since most of those 5 are early Candlemass.

So I'm just going to go based on my standards across 2500+ albums, assuming that's at least enough by this point: I loved it.  There was not a single millisecond I wasn't completely behind.  It might be a bit too diverse for the general traditional doom metal album to really be seen as an epic doom classic, but if Coagulated Bliss is seen as a modern grind classic no matter how many genres it plays with, that I'm going to go by the standards I set up for myself and ask the four questions.

1. What is the goal of this album?  It seems to be a further exercise in Crypt Sermon's growth as a band by once again differentiating their sound from the previous album.

2.  Does the album meet its goal?  100%.

3. What does the band sacrifice or neglect by meeting this goal?  Honestly, I don't think it really neglected anything except maybe standard epic doom behavior, if I'm to believe the RYM track listings.  I guess if I had to compare it to other doom albums, one technicality that isn't quite a flaw but isn't quite as good as another album in this regard is that its variety, while perfect for the album, isn't as wide-ranging as Idolum or The Dreadful Hours.  But it still works perfectly for the album, which pretty much states that there was no real sacrifice if the goal was to expand.

4., Are the sacrifices and negligences made up for by other aspects of the album?  If the above indeed was a sacrifice, then I have to say that in the end, this album is the kind that can probably attract a variety of metal fans by staying true to the band's spirit.

All in all, I just have to call this one of the greatest doom albums I've ever heard.  On my list I'll be putting this at #244 on my list of perfect albums between Peter Gabriel's So and Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert.  This makes the album my #2 metal album for 2024, my #6 2024 album period as well as the seventh 100 for 2024 that I've given.  Haven't had a year like this is a long time.

For August (for now, will add to it as required around other submissions if we get any):

Ten Ton Slug - "Mogore the Unkind" (from "Colossal Oppressor", 2024)

Triptykon - "Goetia" (from "Eparistera Daimones",  2010)

Feel free to bulk your submission out to the 40 minute mark Vinny as I have a new The Fallen member that would like to contribute.

Thanks, can I please add:

Dystopia - "Sanctity" (from "Human=Garbage", 1994)

Shape of Despair - "Angels of Distress" (from "Angels of Distress", 2001)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rSh9MnfQo9HmPLo2W5MBa?si=eae70d0ffb59456e

Tracklisting:

01. Frayle – “Darker Than Black” (from “1692”, 2020) [Submitted by UnhinderedbyTalent]

02. Trouble – “The Beginning” (from “Run To The Light”, 1987)

03. Black Sabbath – “Electric Funeral” (from “Paranoid”, 1970)

04. Randy Holden – “Fruit & Icebergs” (from “Population II”, 1970)

05. YDI – “Get Out” (from “Black Dust”, 1985)

06. Flower Travellin’ Band – “Kamikaze” (from “Kamikaze” single, 1971)

07. Black Space Riders – “Black Part 1: Space is Back” (from “Black Space Riders”, 2010)

08. Los Natas – “Hombre de Metal” (from “Nuevo orden de la Libertad”, 2009)

09. Orange Goblin – “Round Up The Horses” (from “Thieving From The House Of God”, 2004)

10. Tad – “Nipple Belt” (from “God’s Balls”, 1989)

11. Culted – “Brooding Hex” (from “Oblique to All Parts”, 2014)

12. Sorrow – “Insatiable” (from “Hatred & Disgust”. 1992) [Submitted by Daniel]

13. My Dying Bride – “The Return of the Beautiful” (from “As The Flower Withers”, 1992) [Submitted by Daniel]

14. Anathema – “…And I Lust” (from “The Crestfallen E.P.”, 1992) [Submitted by Daniel]

15. Couch Slut - “The Donkey” (from “You Couldn’t Do It Tonight”, 2024)

16. Bad Luck Rides On Wheels – “Le livre du ciel et du monde” (from “Semper Eadam”, 2020) [Submitted by UnhinderedbyTalent]

17. Thou – “I Return as Chained & Bound to You” (from “Umbilical”, 2024)

18. Civerous – “Geryon (The Plummet)” (from “Maze Envy”, 2024)

London stoner metal kings Orange Goblin will be releasing their tenth studio album "Science, Not Fiction" on 19th July. I can't say I've ever really given them much time over the years as stoner metal isn't exactly my musical sweet spot. I did quite like their split E.P. with Electric Wizard & their "Nuclear Guru/Hand of Doom" single but those came more than 25 years ago now so perhaps it's time I gave them a long overdue chance o impress me with their new record.

US doom masters Pentagram would record this early stoner metal anthem some time in 1973. Just listen to those blues rock-inspired stoner riffs, psychedelic clean sections & Jimi Hendrix influenced lead solos! Filthy stuff!

This morning we examine the birth of one of doom metal's biggest names with Pentagram's "Bias Studio Recordings" demo being released on 22nd March 1973. It contained this classic doom anthem:

I had a sneaking suspicion that this might be right up your street, Daniel.

The latest offering from My Dying Bride, "A Mortal Binding" is really good. Check that one out.

Yes it was. Ben & I were obsessed with the figurines. Me in particular.

Just revisited this album and my thoughts remain unfazed by time. By now it should be no surprise that I value melody over sheer brutality in my music and Maze Envy is a solid balance of the two elements. By incorporating more doom elements into a death format means that Civerous play some solid grooves and instrumental leads. The structure is pristine by allowing the album to grow from shorter songs at the beginning, to longer, drawn out doom metal during the second half and creates a real sense of growth and development. That it to say, the long songs at the end of this album are more than justified.

Production can be a hit or miss call with some of the pummeling death metal during the first half coming as being just a little too overwhelming. But when it comes to death doom metal in 2024, Civerous are doing it in a way that was much different than I was expecting, but more than thrilled to give a chance.

4/5

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm (2024)

High on Fire are a band I have derived a deal of enjoyment from, yet I haven't given them nearly as much attention as my taste dictates they deserve, not really checking out much since 2007's Death Is This Communion. I don't really have an explanation for this, it's just the way it's been. Anyway, Cometh the Storm is another really solid offering from the Matt Pike-led threesome and is yet another that is right up my street.

The basic sound here is sludgy stoner metal and within that framework there is a fair bit of variety, but with the riffs constantly being king. The production is of very high quality, so those fuzzed-up riffs are given some extra clout with a beefy sound job that still allows plenty of clarity and depth. The variation within the songwriting is illustrated very early on where the relentless chugging of Burning Down with it's myriad stoned-out solos leads into the almost thrashy Trismegistus that, with Matt Pike's grizzled and throaty, but quite shrill, bellows, makes the track sound a bit like Motorhead (a comparison that is even more obvious on The Beating). This then gives way to the psychedelically-loaded stoned-out grooves of the brooding title track and the unexpected, yet perfectly suited, Turkish folk music of Karanlık yol. Each is handled impressively as High on Fire demonstrate exactly how accomplished a band they now are with none of the tracks sounding out of place or mishandled. A quick word for ex-Melvins drummer Coady Willis who has come in to replace founding member Des Kensel and has dropped straight into the HoF groove with the band not missing a step despite the change and with Willis' busy and precise performance being the foundation on which the album is built.

Ultimately, this is top drawer stoner metal, skillfully performed, with great production values and a tough sludgy edge that draws upon the stoned-out psychedelics of past times and drapes them over a solid and harder than you may expect metallic core that is able to appeal to both stoners and moshpit denizens alike. I can't really define why, but this is just one of those albums that feels so authentically and unapologetically metal that it is impossible to do it down in any way.

4/5

The Ruins of Beverast - Exuvia

Genres: Black Doom, Atmo-Black

Note: There's barely any "death" influence in this so-called "death doom" album, as it's all built on black textures, so I'm calling it black doom.

This is the one moment I've been waiting for, the beloved 2017 Exuvia.  I'll have heard the last of RoB's rawest classics after this.  It really bit me in the ass yesterday when my internet was conking out and I couldn't listen to either Exuvia or the previous EP.  I really wanna know where this man decided to go after everything that's been going down and all the surreal craziness and evil that built his last three studio albums.

The title track out with a new direction for the tribal behavior of the previous EP, Takitum Tootem, applying the chanting spiritual vocals to a funeral doom sound that evolves into black.  The next couple minutesa are taking small but effective shifts into different black metal sounds to keep things original, drawing the listener into a dark netherworld after the chanting ends.  It seems to me that the black metal here is being used for more like a repeating ambient track rather than a melodic track.  Despite the fact that melody has worked out perfectly for RoB in the past, this decision is a perfectly fine one since it WORKS.  The repetitive hypnotism keeps dragging the listener from one surreal plain of reality to another.  By the end of this track, there's a very faint guitar melody drowned out by the repeating riff.  I'd have liked for it to be a little louder as the ending draws itself out a bit.

Surtur Barbaar Martime begins with one of RoB's signature funeral riffs, taking a direct turn into the black metal pretty quickly, relying on more energy than the opener.  The song typically switches between the two for aural effect, oftentimes being instantaneous but eventually being combined with meximum effect during the middle section.  This song is esentially a reorganization of the behavior of the first track with less of the tribal ambient and more of the funeral backdrops.  But since it shares so many similarities with the first track, I was really hoping for something different with Maere.  Starts out more or less the same way with a blacker energy to it.  Any ambient aspects are attributed to ghostly wails, usued for a mysterious Lovecraftian effect.  They're quite cool, but a little drowned out by the black guitars.  At least, this is true for the first half, which cranks up the volume on the vocals.  It seems that despite the shifts in these songs, the exact tone is much moe consistent.  The line between black and doom is much thinner here.

The Pythia's Pale Wolves starts up the second half with bagpipes faintly added to another typical black doom intro, but the percussion is tamer, less active and more focused on a specific slow rhythm.  The vocals are also more fit for doom as they're clear and harmonic.  This helps bring out another spiritual vibe that's much more relaxing.  I didn't expect this to last forever, though, as it eventually combines the funereal guitar tone with this, somehow making both the ambiance of the blackened guitars and the funereal sound much more energetic together rather than separate.  Even when the crystal clear female vocalizing comes into play, it revs the listener up.  The tempo and percussion eventually replicate the energy, pushing it even further as the power becomes too much to handle, leaving the harmonizing to balance it out.  This is a shift I can really appreciate as it keeps making something better out of a sound that, while still great, we've heard before.  This is the densest segment of the album so far.  This track really likes to challenge the perceptions of relaxation and extremities, as it's really the heaviest track on the album at that point but also has some very serene atmospheric moments created through these extremities.  But at this point, I also really need something different no matter how extreme it gets.

Towards Malaika only has about thirty seconds of weird tribal chanting, and I was pretty disappointment that it didn't continue for even longer.  So the most I could do was wait for something totally new to happen.  Although the beginning had a typical sound, the vibes are much more dramatic than the tracks before, thanks to a higher pitched sound-effect driving the background and amplifying the weird rhythm in the front.  After the dramatic intro, there's a switch into pure, uncensored doom, and this doom keeps us going for a while.  This to me qualifies as a difference because it's slow, stomping guitars are more true to doom's roots than anything that's been present so far, relying more on atmospheres such as tribalism or mysticism before.  The third act, starts with the chanting, and I was once again hoping that it would last a while, but instead it goes right back to the black metal, which kind of pissed me off.  This guy makes a tribal ambient EP, releases another album the next year and barely does anything with it.  It begged the question, why bother featuring it on this track at all???  The song ends with it again, but it doesn't have as strong of an effect as it should for me.  I was thinking to myself, this last track had better be phenomenal.

This final track, Takitum Tootem (Trance), goes right into the noisiest black metal guitars present so far.  This doesn't stop a melody from being made out, largely because the percussion is more rooted in dramatic effect and not speed. In this way, I'm given an effective black ambient track performed with metal instruments, like some black noise albums I can name.  This slower, doomier and noiser take on the Exuvia sound has increased the heaviness while still finding that perfect serenity through it.

This is a different type of album for Ruins of Beverast.  The songs each have their differences and their similarities, and because the songs are so long, the similarities kind of tested my faith in his ability to put out other songs.  Maybe this is the best course of action, as black metal and doom metal fans want many more atmospheres.  This is the perfect RoB album for those who favor atmospheres akin to his debut over the wild ever-shifting behavior of his second through fourth albums.  This album is ALL ABOUT the atmospheres.  Unfortunately, this fixation on metal atmos also wanes down the potential of the tribal aspects shown on the Takitum Tootem EP from the year before, even though it still makes short and effective.  So this is another fantastic release by one of Germany's best black metal artists, but also features a slightly missed opportunity that's not quite enough to knock a half-star down, but is enough for me to confirm that IMO this doesn't hold a candle to Sheltered Elite.

95/100

Hhhmmmm.... this sounds very exciting given how much I enjoyed Darkthrone's last album "Astral Fortress". I'd suggest that I shall be partaking in this one at some point.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rSh9MnfQo9HmPLo2W5MBa

1. Buzzov•en - "Crawl Away" (from "…At A Loss", 1998) [submitted by Vinny]
2. Solstice - "Only the Strong" (from "Lamentations", 1994)
3. Hamferð - "Hvølja" (from "Men guðs hond er sterk", 2024) [submitted by Sonny]
4. Oromet – “Diluvium” (from “Oromet”, 2023) [submitted by Daniel]
5. Om - "Unitive Knowledge of the Godhead" (from "Pilgrimage", 2007) [submitted by Vinny]
6. Church of Misery - "I, Motherfucker (Ted Bundy) " (from "The Second Coming, 2004) [submitted by Sonny]
7. The Vision Bleak - "Chapter VIII: The Undying One" (from "Weird Tales", 2024)
8. Plaguewielder - "At Night They Roam" (from "Covenant Death", 2021) [submitted by Sonny]
9. Acid Mammoth - "Atomic Shaman" (from "Supersonic Megafauna Collision", 2024)
10. Grey Skies Fallen - "No Place for Sorrow" (from "Molded by Broken Hands", 2024)
11. My Dying Bride - "A Starving Heart" (from "A Mortal Binding", 2024)
12. Altar of Betelgeuze - "Echoes" (from "Echoes", 2024) [submitted by Sonny]
13. Nightfell - "The Swallowing of Flies" (from "A Sanity Deranged", 2019) [submitted by Vinny]
14. Solitude Aeturnus – “Mirror of Sorrow” (from “Into The Depths Of Sorrow”, 1991) [submitted by Daniel]
15. Hell - "Gog" (from "Hell II", 2010)

Tiamat - "Clouds" (1992)

Swedish metal stalwarts Taimat have gone through a number of musical transformations over the years & it depends on your musical taste & background as to which you prefer. Personally, I’ve always favoured Tiamat’s mid-90’s gothic releases with 1994’s “Wildhoney” being their clear pièce de résistance. Their 1997 fifth album “A Deeper Kind of Slumber” saw them moving away from metal altogether with most of that record favouring a progressive goth rock sound over the band’s more sinister roots but it was still a very strong release in its own right. Tiamat’s pre-“Wildhoney” albums tend to be a little more divisive though & not without justification either.

Tiamat’s 1990 debut album “Sumerian Cry” took more of a death metal direction which didn’t do much for me to be honest but its follow-up “The Astral Sleep” was a doomier affair that was where the band started to becoming interesting to me with 1992’s third album “Clouds” seeing Taimat moving even further down that rabbit hole. Ben & I owned “Clouds” on CD back in the day & I remember quite liking it but it wasn’t a release that I’ve returned to all that often which is likely more of a reflection on just how strong Tiamat’s next two albums would turn out to be than anything else. It’s been decades since I last investigated “Clouds” though so I was looking forward to refreshing my memory a bit this week.

Although “Clouds” is generally touted as being a doom/death release, I’ve never agreed with that sentiment. As a death metal musician myself, I can tell you that there’s bugger-all genuine death metal on the album. Even the vocals of rhythm guitarist Johan Edlund don’t come close to anything particularly deathly, instead taking the form of an awkward hybrid of clean & growly styles. There’s not much that resembles death metal in the instrumentation either other than some sporadic up-tempo parts that seem to have been haphazardly inserted into the tracklisting at random intervals, a feature that I regard as the clear weakness of “Clouds” as an album. Actually, I’d go so far as to say that the best moments on “Clouds” are when Tiamat completely leave their past behind & forge ahead with their newer influences which results in an attractive brand of gothic doom metal that offers a lot more crossover appeal than the band’s earlier works.

The production job & instrumental performances are very good for the time with the riffs possessing a thick, tight & completely unified tone that takes a great deal of influence from classic Celtic Frost. The lead guitar work of Thomas Petersson is of a high quality & shows him to not only possess some pretty reasonable chops but also to have a good ear for melody. Edlund’s vocals are the clear talking point for those that dislike “Clouds” though & it’s not hard to see why as he’s not the most talented front man you’ve ever heard but I find that I can accept him for what he is & get on with enjoying the album most of the time.

The eight-song tracklisting is pretty consistent with only the very ordinary “Smell of Incense” failing to maintain my interest. Doomy closer “Undressed” is the clear highlight for me personally as it possesses a wonderful atmosphere that engulfs the listener &, in doing so, has gone on to become a genuine classic from my teenage years. Opener “In A Dream” & the one-two punch of “A Caress of Stars” & “The Sleeping Beauty” are also very solid with only those annoying accelerated bursts I mentioned earlier managing to taint Tiamat’s good work. I really enjoy the use of keyboards which provide further melodic support for the heavy riffs & give the album a dreamy feel that would foresee the direction the band would take on their next record.

Much like “The Astral Sleep”, I find “Clouds” to be a generally entertaining listen but I can’t say that I feel like returning to it all that often. It certainly contains some pretty solid material to sift through for inclusion in your weekend playlist (particularly if you’re into bands like Paradise Lost, Katatonia & Lake of Tears) but it lacks enough genuine highlights to see it becoming a regular fixture when I feel like reaching for Tiamat as the next two albums simply feel superior. Now that I’m discussing all these old records though, it’s made me realise that I haven’t heard anything Tiamat have released since “A Deeper Kind of Slumber” so perhaps I should rectify that at some stage.

3.5/5

This otherwise good song is totally ruined by Lars Eikind's cleans sound awkward and more overly dramatic than melancholic:

Here's my review:

English doom/death legends My Dying Bride had thoroughly blown Ben & I away with their first two releases "Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium" & "As The Flower Withers". In fact, their 1991 "Towards The Sinister" demo was really strong too so I had extremely high hopes for their next record as a teenager back in 1993. The band's experimentation with the incorporation of violin & gothic elements had proved to be a master stroke so the expectation around what they'd deliver us with next was certainly very high. Perhaps My Dying Bride's label & management could feel that excitement because they opted to deliver us a short three-track taster in order to tide us over until the arrival of the classic "Turn Loose The Swans" album later on that year. "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P. would land eight months before that spectacular game-changer & it'd only see my passion for the burgeoning doom/death scene rising to fever pitch.

"The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P. contains just the three tracks across its eighteen-minute duration, two of which take the form of their signature doom/death metal sound with the other being something a little different for My Dying Bride. The production job on the two metal songs isn't perfect with the rhythm guitars sounding a little wishy washy to my ears & the violin coming across as a tad artificial too. Thankfully though, the riffs are as crushing as we've come to expect from a My Dying Bride release with Aaron's iconic death growls being in full effect. There are some subtle differences from the band's debut album on show here. The guitar tone is starting to head away from the filthy death metal graveyard it had resided in previously &, despite the production issues, the overall package just seems to be a little more polished & professional. The violin parts that permeated "As The Flower Withers" aren't quite as prominent here either as they play more of a supporting role than they do the thematic protagonist we were presented with on some of the band's stronger works to the time. I'd suggest that there isn't quite as much undiluted death metal included in this material either. It's a little more consistently doomy than the earlier releases were.

The E.P. kicks off with the title track which is generally regarded as the strongest inclusion of the three. Interestingly, I'm gonna go the other way & say that it's the track that I connect with the least. Don't get me wrong, it's still a very strong piece that borders on being a classic in its own right but I just don't think it quite gels as well as My Dying Bride's most transcendent & timeless material. Easily the most divisive song is the dark ambient piece "Le cerf malade" that splits the two metal numbers & I have to admit that I've always found it to be the highlight of the record. Admittedly I'm a big ambient music fan & this piece absolutely nails the atmosphere it sets out to explore. In fact, I'd suggest that any ambient artist worth their salt would be drooling over this track to be honest. Closing doom/death anthem "Gather Me Up Forever" goes pretty close to equaling it too. It's the doomier of the two metal songs & doesn't taint its more beautiful & melodic doom moments with chuggier mid-paced riffage as much as the title track does so there's not a hint of filler here with every piece offering the listener a significant artistic & atmospheric pay-off.

"The Thrash of Naked Limbs" doesn't get quite as much attention as its more highly regarded predecessors but I have a big soft spot for the more mature & refined composition that predicted the direction the band would soon take & this saw it making just as big an impact on my life. In fact, I've tended to think of the E.P. as My Dying Bride's strongest overall work to the time & this revisit has only strengthened that feeling even though there's very little between the three proper releases. This is not only an essential My Dying Bride record but it's an essential release for the doom/death subgenre overall. It rightfully stands alongside the band's finest work & should have Paradise Lost, Anathema & Novembers Doom fans frothing at the mouth.

4.5/5

Hamferð - Men guðs hond er sterk (2024)

Hamferð are a six-piece doom metal band from The Faroe Islands. They have been in existence since 2008, but this is only their third full-length release in all that time, their debut having seen the light of day back in 2013 after winning the Wacken Metal Battle competition at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2012 and it's follow-up hitting the shelves in 2018. I must admit, I have only recently got on board with these guys myself during a dive into exploring more obscure doom metal bands, but I found much to enjoy in both of their earlier releases.

The new album's title translates as "But God's hand is strong" and the lyrics are sung in Hamferð's native Faroese, relating the tragic tale of fourteen faroese whalers who lost their lives at sea in 1915, with the album's title being a quote from one of the survivors upon his rescue. Musically they play strongly melodic death doom with both growled and clean vocals provided by singer Jón Aldará (also of Iotunn and Barren Earth) who switches between styles, to good effect, often within the same track. The band as a whole are very proficient with a nice clean sound that perfectly suits their more melodic approach to death doom. This melodic approach doesn't seek to crush the listener under waves of heavy riffing, but rather  attempts to affect them more subtly with sorrowful airs that worm their way into the consciousness, effecting a deeper sensation of melancholy than a merely bludgeoning approach would achieve. Occasionally they become very light of touch indeed, verging almost on the balladic, which may have come off as a bit corny, were it not for the consummate ability of Aldará who, vocally, never descends into overt melodrama, but who maintains a subtle earnestness throughout, for which he deserves great credit.

I may have given the impression that this is a lightweight album and even though it does like to paint it's sonic landscape with lighter shades, there are certainly heavy moments present. Opener Ábær kicks things off and drags the listener in with a suitably heavy, but also melodic main riff and penultimate track, Hvølja, is the album's heaviest with a monster riff that poses a real risk of crushing the air out of the lungs of the unprepared listener who may have been lulled into a comfort zone by some of the preceeding lighter moments. Elsewhere, second track Rikin features a scarily bellowing Aldará threatening to peel the paintwork with his growls on top of a thundering main riff that you feel at gut level.

Although Men guðs hond er sterk is a concept album, thankfully the music is always pre-eminent over the concept, so none of the tracks feel forced, with the possible exception of the final spoken-word piece, although it isn't at all jarring, especially as it is the final track. The overall impression I get from the album is similar in feel to some of Enslaved's later work, such as RIITIIR or In Times, only within a doom metal framework rather than black metal. I don't wish to downplay the others' contributions, but ultimately it is the astonishing vocal talent of Jón Aldará that strikes me more than any other aspect of the album and on the evidence of this he is one of the absolute best vocalists working in the doom metal field and his performance alone is worth the entry fee.

4/5

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rSh9MnfQo9HmPLo2W5MBa

1. Whores - "Tell Me Something Scientific" (from "Ruiner", 2011) [submitted by Vinny]
2. Gaul - "Megalodon" (from "Gaul", 2011) [submitted by Sonny]
3. Great Falls – “Old Words Worn Thin” (from “Objects Without Pain”, 2023) [submitted by Daniel]
4. Motherslug - "Stoned by the Light" (from "The Electric Dunes of Titan", 2017)
5. Häxenzijrkell - "Part 2: Von Zeit und Form" (from "Urgrund", 2022) [submitted by Ben]
6. Mortiferum - "Faceless Apparition" (from "Disgorged From Psychotic Depths", 2019) [submitted by Sonny]
7. Rapture - "Nameless" (from "Songs for the Withering", 2002)
8. Fange - "Césarienne au noir" (from "Perdition", 2024)
9. Saint Vitus - "In the Asylum" (from "Die Healing", 1995)
10. Black Boned Angel - "Supereclipse II" (from "Supereclipse", 2003)
11. Dopelord - "Scum Priest" (from "Children of the Haze", 2017) [submitted by Vinny]
12. Sempiternal Deathreign - "The Spooky Gloom" (from "The Spooky Gloom", 1989)
13. Cathedral – “Reaching Happiness, Touching Pain” (from “Forest of Equilibrium”, 1991) [submitted by Daniel]
14. Kowloon Walled City - "Gambling on the Richter Scale" (from "Gambling on the Richter Scale", 2009) [submitted by Vinny]
15. Mesmur - "Refraction" (from "Chthonic", 2023) [submitted by Ben]
16. Memento Mori - "Lost Horizons" (from "Rhymes of Lunacy", 1993)

No need to be sorry. Every music listener will find certain albums / styles more compelling than others. It would be boring if everyone had the exact same tastes.

Monovoth - Pleroma Mortem Est (2024)

Monovoth is the solo project of argentinian multi-instrumentalist, Lucas Wyssbrod, and Pleroma Mortem Est is the sophomore full-length under the banner. It is an album of instrumental funeral doom, comprising six tracks and with an overall runtime of a mere 38 minutes, which is slight indeed for a funeral doom release. In a nutshell that previous sentence sums up the issues that I personally have with this. First off, six tracks for a measly 38 minutes! The funereal and doom-laden atmospheres for top-knotch funeral doom require  expansive build-up and layering with the extensive runtime being a pre-requisite for the sense of an inescapable, soul-crushing doom awaiting all of us at life's end. Secondly, instrumental funeral doom just doesn't work completely for me. With such downbeat and morbid instrumentation as that produced by top-tier funeral doom practitioners, I believe a human connection, such as the wholly human sound of vocals, is an absolute requirement in order to mitigate the hopelessness of the music and to place the human condition, as posited by the funeral doom ethos, into context.

The actual individual pieces here show a lot of potential and it is obvious that Wyssbrod is plenty familiar with the big names in the field, as he unleashes dizzyingly towering chords of immense weight interspersed with passages of self-reflective melancholy, but their brevity and lack of vocals suggests to me a series of musical ideas waiting to be worked up into full pieces and not actually an album of finished work. I really would like to hear these ideas expounded and expanded upon with a truly anguished-sounding vocalist on board because there is really some good stuff here, in seed-like form.

3.5/5

I really enjoyed the Altar of the Stag track you submitted and the Dyatlov Pass Incident has always intrigued me, so that is an album I definitely have on my list to dig into.

It's weird one alright (the incident - not the track).  Currently listening to Dark Histories podcast and the episode about Dyatlov as it happens.

Melvins - "Bullhead" (1991)

I don't think I ever really came across Washington sludge metallers Melvins back in the late 1980's & early 1990's. I certainly heard their name once Nirvana blew up in 1991 but didn't think they were any of my business given that they seemed to be associated with the grunge scene more than they did to the metal one. I don't think I'd actually ever hear them until around 2012 when I checked out their new "Scion A/V Presents: The Bulls & the Bees" E.P. & I didn't like it much to tell you the truth. My next encounter with them would come shortly afterwards through 2010's split E.P. with Massachusetts post metallers Isis, mainly because I'd gotten heavily into Isis but I found myself enjoying the Isis tracks but not the Melvins ones. So Melvins didn't actually start to show me what they really had to offer until I checked out their very solid 1992 fourth album "Lysol" which was mainly due to its association with the drone metal genre as its somewhat of a passion of mine. I found that record to be really appealing & have returned to it quite often since. This triggered a trip to its 1993 follow-up album "Houdini" which I quite liked too. But little did I know that the real meat on the Melvins bones was still in front of me with this week's investigation of their 1991 third album "Bullhead" being nothing short of game-changing.

"Bullhead" is only a relatively short record at just 35 minutes in duration but that's more than enough time when the quality is kept at such a consistently high level throughout. It sees the trio totally indulging themselves in amplifier worship with the spectacular production job allowing the listener to curl up in the drum riser or speaker box of a live performance & truly "feel" the reverberations of the music. It's about the clever use of rhythmic interplay between the musicians & the often weird yet perpetually gnarly vocals of front man Buzz (Crystal Fairy/Fantômas/Venomous Concept) which are both unusual & endearing at the same time. The commitment to keep unplanned guitar noise & other slight imperfections in the recording in the interest of building character was a masterstroke too while Crystal Fairy, Shrinebuilder & Porn (The Men Of) drummer Dale Crover's confidence in his own ability to explore new territory yet still hit the right beat at the right moment is staggering. Melvins simply sound like the elite version of what a dangerous live rock band should aspire to be here & it's left me devastated in a very similar way to the finest work from a band like Japan's Boris who I can only imagine were heavily influenced by "Bullhead" based on my experiences here.

The tracklisting kicks off in superb fashion with the epic nine-minute doom metal opener "Boris" (hhmmm... further indication of the potential influence I mentioned perhaps?) which is my favourite track on the album before turning towards a sludgier sound for the remaining seven tracks. The songs that close out either side of the record ("It's Shoved" & "Cow") clearly showcase the influence that Melvins had on the grunge scene that had just blown up on a global scale at the time as both tracks would arguably sit pretty comfortably on a grunge release. In fact, there are several passages across the tracklisting when I get similar chills to those that I'd experience during the doomier moments of your more crushingly heavy Soundgarden songs. Other highlights include the miraculous "Your Blessened" which is a perfect example of Buzz's ability to summon up some of the heaviest Sabbathian guitar riffs known to man & deliver them in the coolest fashion possible, as well as "Ligature" & "Zodiac" which aren't far behind in that regard. The grungier songs aren't quite as effective but the tracklisting never dips below a very solid level & is buoyed by the skyscraping highlight tracks that fill more than half of the run time.

I think it's fair to say that "Bullhead" has hit me as hard as a raging bull & I see it as one of the finest sludge metal releases I've ever heard. In fact, it's made such a big impact on me that I've had to find a place in my Top Ten Metal Releases of All Time list too which is really saying something after all these decades of metal indulgence. If you crave the days when rock music was edgy & dangerous then this record is most certainly for you. You can expect to have to give it a few listens to truly sink in but the rewards are nothing short of spectacular, particularly for those with a penchant for Boris, Acid Bath & Crowbar.

4.5/5

Here's my updated Top Ten Sludge Metal Releases of All Time list with High On Fire's "De vermis mysteriis" dropping out to make way for "Bullhead":

01. Pig Destroyer – “Natasha” E.P. (2008)

02. Isis – “The Mosquito Control” E.P. (1998)

03. Gaza – “No Absolutes In Human Suffering” (2012)

04. Monarch! – “Omens” (2012)

05. Fange – “Pantocrator” (2021)

06. Mastodon – “Leviathan” (2004)

07. Great Falls - "Objects Without Pain" (2023)

08. Melvins - "Bullhead" (1991)

09. Black Cobra – “Invernal” (2011)

10. Ufomammut – “Eve” (2010)

https://metal.academy/lists/single/133

Here's my review:

Dallas-based epic doom metal masters Solitude Aeturnus really surprised me with their 2006 "Alone" sixth full-length when Ben selected it for The Fallen feature release status some time ago. I'd previously allowed the band to pass me by but that record ticked all of my boxes & saw me claiming it as a genuine doom metal classic for the ages. Since that time I've always intended on exploring the rest of Solitude Aeturnus' more highly celebrated releases & thought I'd take this opportunity to kick that exercise off with their debut full-length "Into The Depths Of Sorrow" which is generally regarded as one of the elite examples of the niche subgenre overall.

In many ways "Into The Depths Of Sorrow" is the quintessential epic doom metal release in that it perfectly embodies the sound that the tag was originally created to label. All of the subgenres calling cards are here. Crushing doom riffs? CHECK! A strong classic heavy metal influence? CHECK! Theatrical power metal style vocals? CHECK! Soaring, shredtastic guitar solos? CHECK! A generally epic atmosphere? CHECK! I can't deny that the album is everything it said it would be on the tin & if that description sounds like something that'd appeal to you then you won't be disappointed but it did take me a couple of listens to get fully into for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'm a much bigger doom fan than I am a heavy metal one & the heavy metal component is particularly prevalent here with those riffs being pretty standard heavy metal fodder & nothing particularly exciting so I find myself waiting around for the doom to return which it inevitably does & with devastating effect too. There's obviously a lot of Candlemass influence on show as this was Solitude Aeturnus' first full-length & Candlemass were, of course, the creators & clear leaders of the epic doom movement so there are clear similarities in the way the two bands go about their craft but the area that Solitude Aeturnus fall down in as far as that comparison goes is in the guitar solos as Edgar Rivera & John Perez aren't quite as virtuosic in their capabilities. Thankfully, the general quality of the song-writing is very strong & the vocals of future Candlemass, Concept of God & Tyrant front man Robert Lowe are exceptional which has gone a long way to seeing me crowning Solitude Aeturnus as my favourite band from the epic doom movement overall regardless.

The tracklisting kicks off in very solid fashion indeed with the short intro track "Dawn of Antiquity (A Return to Despair)" building the atmosphere nicely before the first proper song "Opaque Divinity" kicks in & wastes no time in flexing its muscles. It's followed by "Transcending Sentinels" which is clearly the least impressive track on the album in my opinion but is still pretty decent. The remaining five songs are all very strong indeed though & round out a particularly consistent album with no real blemishes. The reason I don't see "Into The Depths Of Sorrow" competing with "Alone" for bragging rights as my favourite epic doom metal release any time soon is that it doesn't contain as many genuine classics. The utterly mind-blowing "Mirror of Sorrow" is the clear highlight of the album & is frankly one of the best examples of the subgenre I've experienced to date but none of the other material comes close to matching it with the brilliant doom passages regularly having their impact offset a bit by some flatter heavy metal chug riffs. It's a shame really as I think there was a lot of potential for another classic release here if a bit of quality control had been employed.

At the end of the day though, I can't be too critical as "Into The Depths Of Sorrow" is still an impressively consistent first-up effort from one of the leaders of the movement. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that it's eclipsed all but "Alone" & Candlemass' classic "Nightfall" album in reaching my personal top three for the subgenre overall which is quite an accolade when you consider the areas of improvement I highlighted above. The experience has certainly left me wondering whether Solitude Aeturnus have managed to top their debut over the course of their next four records so I've penciled a couple of them in for exploration in the not too distant future. In the meantime though, "Into The Depths Of Sorrow" should be essential listening for all of you Candlemass, Solstice & Isole fans out there.

4/5

Had the time to get through this playlist today on my morning walk.  I still have no idea of the attraction of Sunn O))) (sorry Sonny) and I listened to all 14:59 of that track.  It is just not my cup of tea.  Also had to skip Iron Man (those vocals) and The Gathering (a bit too rocky and again the vocals grated).  I have come to the conclusion that Wino's voice actually grates on me nowadays and so I had to skip The Obsessed track also.

Thankfully there was still lots to keep me happy on the list.  Standouts were Dolorian, Crowbar, Goatsnake, Godthrymm, High on Fire and Saturnalia Temple.  Good work Sonny. 

Thanks Vinny. Drone metal is a hard sell, with even it's most ardent followers recognising that it isn't for everyone and Sunn O))) are no exception, so no apologies required. I'm not a fan of Iron Man myself, but I feel it is incumbent upon me to showcase all aspects of the Fallen, despite my own preferences. I wasn't sold on Goatsnake either, to be honest. I have always been a fan of Wino's "cigarettes and whiskey" voice, so I have enjoyed the preview tracks from the new Saint Vitus album.

I gave Khanate an honest try but as Sonny alluded to in his review, I wasn't able to make it fully through. I would have gotten through the whole thing if I didn't run out of time at work yesterday, but I have zero interest in picking it back up or restarting it from the beginning to try and get the full experience. I can see why it would resonate with people as I saw what they were going for with the vocals, but man, really not something for me at the end of the day. So I'll refrain from rating that one, it's very far from my wheelhouse. 

As we have got to know each other's tastes, I would have been very surprised if you had come out in favour of Khanate, Xephyr. They are definitely not for everyone and I would never hold it against anyone who didn't much care for them, even though I absolutely love them. Drone metal is an acquired taste at the best of times and Khanate are by no means an easy listen, even in drone circles.

For sure there are a couple of things I liked about Objects Without Pain, the guitar tone is nicely pitched and best of all the drums sound amazing. I could listen to an isolated drum track of this quite happily and would prefer to over the finished thing. Unfortunately I couldn't take to it other than that. The songwriting is too spasmodic for me, it veers far too much into mathcore, djenty type territory for my preference and although I really like the tone of the album, the actual songwriting leaves me cold. But the absolute killer for me is the vocals. I would be the first to admit that I probably put too much weight onto vocals but I think I am quite tolerant of some very divisive vocalists, Silencer, Cirith Ungol, King Diamond or Demilich for example, but if I take against a singer then it is like a movie with Adam Sandler in it and no matter how good the rest of the production, it still has Adam Sandler in it! Such is the case with Demian Johnston, his vocals amount to little more than shouting at the top of his voice and just come over like some angry child berating his parents for some perceived injustice and which I find wearisome in the extreme. I don't have an issue with shouted vocals per se, but these are just irritating and off-putting to me to the degree where, by the second half of the album, my mind is wandering and I have pretty much tuned out. I seem to be a minority of one and good luck to those who derived far more enjoyment from it than I was able to muster, but this just isn't one for me I'm afraid.

2.5/5

Sunn O))) - The Grimmrobe Demos (2000)

Sunn O))) were formed in 1998 by Goatsnake's Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley, who was looking to form a new outfit after the splitting-up of Burning Witch, their name intended as a pun on Earth's moniker as the drone pioneers were huge influences on Anderson and O'Malley. The Grimmrobe demos were released in 2000 as the band's debut release, with the duo's worship of all things Earth resulting in the album containing a track called "Dylan Carson" after the Earth mainman. The sound on Grimmrobe Demos is heavily based upon that explored by Carlson on Earth's debut, the seminal "Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version" with super-slow tempos, heavily distorted and downtuned guitar tones and feedback, all designed to present a monolithically towering sound with which to swamp the listener. Drums are entirely absent as there is no percussion required here, the tempo being so slow and crawling as to render any sort of timekeeping irelevant. Even for Sunn O))) there is little variety offered here, these are unflinchingly slow and crushing primal soundscapes, with zero evidence of the experimentation the duo were to introduce on some of their later releases. This is the music of nature, the music of tides, the music of tectonic plate movements and I imagine, in my more fanciful flights of fancy, that this is what it would sound like if you could get close enough to a star to hear those awe-inspiring cosmic furnaces burning off their plasmic fuel.

I have touched on elsewhere how busy experimental and technical metal often causes me difficulties because of the challenges I often experience with sensory overload, well Sunn O))) are a perfect antidote to that for me, these bassy and monolithically repetitive aural experiences enveloping like a comforting blanket, providing a calming and meditative experience that I don't often find elsewhere. I get it that these guys really aren't for everyone, or even most people, but they are amongst some of the best at what they do and personally I would hate to live in a world where Sunn O))) didn't exist.

4.5/5

Solid list again this month.  Particularly enjoyed The Angelic Process, Convocation, Dopelord and Ocean of Grief (which was unexpected since they are quite melodic).

Less enamored with Remina, Kaunis Kuolematon, Lord Vigo, Madvro and YDI and still have my Lee Dorrian aversion when it comes to Cathedral.

So with the start of a new year it's once again time to have a look at the covers for all the releases for each clan. I personally like to rate a whole stack of covers all at once, rather than doing them one at a time throughout the year, as it allows me to get a better feel for where each cover sits in comparison to others. With that in mind, I've just rated every cover for releases in The Fallen for 2023.

Below are the releases that are currently competing for the prestigious 2023 The Fallen Cover of the Year Award (i.e. they rate at least 3.8 and have 3 or more ratings). The winner will be announced on the 1st of February, so there's still time to get your ratings in.

Ahab - The Coral Tombs

Ocean of Grief - Pale Existence

Fires in the Distance - Air Not Meant for Us

Smoulder - Violent Creed of Vengeance

Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean - Obsession Destruction

Abbey, The - Word of Sin

Oromet - Oromet

Obelyskkh - The Ultimate Grace of God

Acacia Strain, The - Failure Will Follow

Witch Ripper - The Flight After the Fall

Lethvm - Winterreise

Soulmass - Let Us Pray

If you want to contribute and rate some covers, the easiest way is to go to The Gallery and select The Fallen and 2023.

https://metal.academy/gallery?cid=1&type=overall_cover_rating&myRating=&fromYear=2023&toYear=2023&exclude=0

I look forward to seeing which release gets up for the win!

It is quite timely for an Isole feature, as they have had a new album out this year, with Anesidora hitting the shelves back in March. For me, Isole have been on a bit of a downward trajectory since their late-2000s high water mark and listening to Bliss of Solitude and Anesidora back-to-back gives an illustation of why. The latter release feels stripped of any real emotional weight, with the band seemingly seeking a sound more palatable to the mainstream, stoner doom crowd.

So, enough of what went wrong and let us focus on what the band were doing well fifteen years ago, with Bliss of Solitude and it's follow-up Silent Ruins. After forming in 2004 the Swedes released a couple of solid doom metal albums in 2005's Forevermore and '06's Throne of Void, but it was with 2008's Bliss of Solitude that they found themselves nearing the summit of the doom metal mountain. Obviously they were influenced by Candlemass' bombastic style of epic doom metal, but that was certainly not the full extent of what Isole were about, that bombast being tempered by a sorrowful, emotionally resonant side like that being displayed by the likes of Patrick Walker's Warning. The result of this for a release like Bliss of Solitude is that it sounds at once romantically triumphant, but also heart-rending and mournful, like the emotions of the victors of a savage battle won at great cost.

The production is spot on and producer, drummer Jonas Lindström (also of Ereb Altor), have fashioned a perfect guitar sound, being at once huge and weighty whilst still possessing a sorrowful emotion that also keeps it quite personal-sounding. Additional weight is provided by the thundering basswork and Lindström's well-pitched drumming, which act as a perfect foundation for the emotionally-charged dirges of the riffs. The band employs dual guitarists / vocalists in Daniel Bryntse and Crister Olsson, their style of esoteric, layered clean vocals being another source of the album's essential melancholy, particularly on a slower, more inward-looking track like "Imprisoned in Sorrow" or "Dying".

There is a classiness to Isole's best work, of which this is definitely an example, to which not all doom bands are able to aspire. This isn't just about playing super-slow riffs, dragged-out to inordinate lengths, but it is about portraying sadness and sorrow in a relatable and humanly resonant way, being able to express negative emotion in a manner that hints at both redemption and hope without sounding trite or insincere. Bliss of Solitude is a classic slab of emotionally-charged doom metal that deserves a larger share of the praise that is heaped on lesser releases and as such is a perfect choice for a feature release. Nice work Ben.

4.5/5

Benthic Realm - Vessel (2023)

I have been a fan of Krista Van Guilder's turns in bands like Warhorse and Second Grave for some time now and was very contented with the direction of latest band Benthic Realm as indicated by their first couple of EPs released in 2017/18. However things had gone quiet on the BR front while the world battled the Covid-19 pandemic, but now they are back with their debut full-length, five years after their last EP hit the shelves. Well, the band have certainly not been sitting back and I've got to say up front, this is possibly my favourite release from bands Krista has been involved in. The guitar sound is perfect for this style of doom metal, with a powerful, booming tone that imparts a huge amount of heft to the riffs. The bass and drums provide a rock solid foundation upon which these booming riffs are built, providing a dense, all-enveloping quality to the sound. Then over all this soars the heavenly vocals of Krista herself. These aren't the ephemeral, airy vocals associated with a lot of female singers in the doom metal scene, but powerful and authoritative with a gorgeous tone that perfectly complements the weight of the riffs with a strength of their own, providing both melody and power in equal measure.

The songwriting is very good also, being instantly relatable to any doom metal veteran fan, whilst still retaining a vibrancy and identity very much of their own. No, Benthic Realm don't throw away the doom metal rulebook, but they are so proficient as songwriters and performers that Vessel sounds anything but tired and derivative, feeling like a shot in the arm to a scene that often retreads old ground with solid, but indistinguishable releases. If you only listen to one female-fronted doom metal album this year then you could do much worse than grab a copy of Vessel.

4/5

Wasn't too keen on some of the more melodic death/doom tracks this month - I am familiar with Hamferð and Mother of GRaves but neither really floated my boat.  Still lots to enjoy though with Cough, Sir Lord Baltimore, Remembrance and Melvins being highlights.

Dymna Lotva were an interesting prospect, post-black metal and doom (with some folk) sounds as a mixture worked for me.  Playing the album through now as I type this.

SubRosa is an old favorite band of mine. I don't know how I found them, but I found the whole whole female-fronted sludge/stoner metal with violins idea a lot more intriguing than I normally would. While they used the violins on their debut album, it was far more sparingly than they would use starting here.
They really sought to make this album as crushingly heavy and depressing as possible. Usually when one thinks of metal and violins, one thinks of the later providing some contrast. Not so here, here it's just another element adding to the sorrow. There's a very on-edge effect the violins add. Without it, the band would be quite mundane, with it, a tension atypical of such bands.
While I like the EP, it's only after trying to figure out what the albums before and after it have that this lacks that I figured out what was missing. Two of the three tracks were remade for the follow-up, No Help for the Mighty Ones, and those versions of the songs are just better in every way.

3.5/5

The only real change that may be worth considering in future is the addition of epic doom metal as a sub-genre as I am coming to the opinion that it has sufficiently divergent attributes to differentiate it from conventional doom.

Ben & I are still a bit on the fence about epic doom metal to be honest. We're certainly open to it if there's a majority who think it's necessary as it isn't a hard one to implement but can't think of an epic doom metal release that doesn't sit just as comfortably under a conventional doom metal tag. We're certainly not experts on the subgenre so could be wrong but most of the time it seems to be just the vocal style that makes these releases worthy of the "epic" prefix, is it not? I know the heavy metal influence is important but we find that in other doom metal bands too & they don't seem to be tagged as epic doom unless the vocal style is operatic/theatrical (see the early Trouble, Witchfinder General & Pentagram albums for example). Perhaps you could give us some examples of epic doom metal releases that you feel need to be separated from conventional doom metal to help justify this addition Sonny?

I'm not particularly bothered about it to be honest, Daniel, but yes the vocal style and obvious heavy metal influence are two features, although more accurately, to be termed epic doom I think power metal or USPM influences are required, rather than just heavy metal, hence the dividing line between epic doom and Pentagram / Trouble trad doom. I would also probably cite an increased inclusion of guitar solos as an indicator. I look at the black metal sub-genres and see pagan black metal and dsbm and other than lyrical content, I'm not sure either of these differ much from either conventional or atmospheric black metal, so personally I believe epic doom has at least as many, if not more, differentiators from conventional doom as either of those black metal genres do from conventional bm.

Smoulder's "Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring", Solstice's "White Horse Hill" and Khemmis' "Deceiver" are pretty good examples.

I guess ultimately it comes down to how much you want to differentiate sub-genres. as I said, I am no genre pedant and don't really care either way, I don't have sufficient technical knowledge to comment authoritatively on any technical differences between sub-genres, I just thought I would throw it out there and let those who are better informed decide if that was a way to go or not.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rSh9MnfQo9HmPLo2W5MBa

1. Orodruin - "Forsaken" (from "Ruins of Eternity", 2019)

2. Corrosion of Conformity - "Wolf Named Crow" (from "No Cross No Crown", 2018) [submitted by Vinny]

3. Orphans of Dusk - "Wasted Hero" (from "Spleen", 2023) 

4. Nile - "Ruins" (from "In Their Darkened Shrines", 2002) [submitted by Daniel]

5. Boris - "Hama" (from "Amplifier Worship", 1998) [submitted by Sonny]

6. Hail the Void - "Goldwater" (from "Memento mori", 2023)

7. Godthrymm - "We Are the Dead" (from "Reflections", 2020) [submitted by Vinny]

8. Stoned Jesus - "Stormy Monday" (from "Seven Thunders Roar", 2012)

9. October Noir - "Burn" (from "Thirteen", 2019) [submitted by Morpheus Kitami]

10. Solstice - "The Sleeping Tyrant" (from "New Dark Age", 1998)

11. 16 - " Tocohara" (from "Drop Out", 1996) [submitted by Sonny]

12. Iron Void - "Living on the Earth" (from "IV", 2023)

13. Solitude Aeternus - "Only This (And Nothing More)" (from "Downfall", 1996) [submitted by Sonny]

14. Kowloon Walled City - "The Pressure Keeps Me Alive" (from "Container Ships", 2012) [submitted by Vinny]

15. Winter - "Eternal Frost" (from "Into Darkness", 1990) [submitted by Daniel]

16. The Obsessed - "Red Disaster" (from "The Obsessed", 1990)

17. Bong - "Trees, Grass and Stones" (from "Mana-Yood-Sushai", 2012)

Thanks Vinny. Nice one!

Here's my review:

You know what’s amazing about the Metal Academy feature release arrangement? Every now & then one of our well-educated members will nominate a release that’s received absolutely no fanfare whatsoever from a band that I’ve never even heard of & it’ll blow my socks off. Sonny’s got a pretty reasonable record in this department too with a recent example being his Dvvell nomination that went on to become our The Fallen Release of 2022 & it would seem that he’s done it again with Plateau Sigma’s “White Walls of Nightmares” album which is a sublime experience that’s deserving of so much more attention than it’s received in the more than a decade since its release.

I’ve seen mention of “White Wings of Nightmares” being released as a single or an E.P. which is kinda silly given its 49-minute duration & album-style format. The reality is that the band regards it as a bit of an experiment & prefers that it’s thought of as a demo which is the reason for the strangely inappropriate format labelling. It contains just the five songs with each being given plenty of time & space to develop. The production job isn’t top tier with the guitars sounding slightly fuzzy but the flaws are minor & shouldn’t make an impact on your listening experience.

I’d describe Plateau Sigma’s sound as being very much a tribute to the great doom/death releases of the early-to-mid 1990’s. You can expect chuggy, mid-paced death metal-inspired riffs & deep death growls mixed in with slower power-chord driven sections layered with gothic clean guitar melodies. There are a number of atmospheric clean sections featuring beautifully executed clean vocals spread across the tracklisting too & I actually found these to be the most effective parts of the album to be honest. Plateau Sigma certainly know what they’re doing in that department with some of these sections reminding me very much of artists Tiamat, Opeth & particularly Anathema with some of the vocals being the spitting image of Vincent Cavanagh (who I absolutely adore just quietly). The chuggy mid-paced stuff is very simple in a My Dying Bride kinda way & is perhaps a touch less engaging than the doomier material but the band mix things up nicely so you’re unlikely to reach for the skip button at any point.

The tracklisting is very consistent with all five songs deserving of your attention. The shortest inclusion “Lunar Stream Hypnosis” is perhaps the least essential of the five but after the first three tracks I was feeling pretty confident that I’d be awarding this release a solid four-star rating. That’s when things get really interesting though because the remaining two tracks are absolutely stunning & are also the longest in duration which saw them having a massive impact on my impressions of the release overall, particularly the epic, slow-building closer “Maira & the Archangel” which is as good as this style of metal gets.

How a release like this one manages to slip through the cracks in the internet age is pretty baffling to be honest. It’s certainly left me wondering what else Plateau Sigma have to offer with their three subsequent (& equally overlooked) full-length albums. If you’re a fan of bands like Anathema, My Dying Bride & Ahab then you owe it to yourself to check this one out guys.

4.5/5

The debut EP from Isis shows a remarkable level of maturity. The build to opening track Poison Eggs sounds like it is written by a band some ten years into their existence, not just twelve months as was the case with the band at the time. This release shows just why Isis grew into staples of the sludge metal world. Whilst there are spades of aggression and harshness for the listener to feast upon, there is a restraint to elements of the violence also. Underlined by the tightness of the performances, as a whole The Mosquito Control is a real force to be reckoned with.

At not even a full half hour, there still feels a lot of activity to process on this EP. Tracks shift and lurch beneath the monumental weight of the noise created by the fusion of drums, guitars, bass and vocals. Yet no track ever descends into full-blown chaos, even on the manic Life Under the Swatter there is a more subtle passage that tempers the frantic pace and tempo really well, giving the listener a slight breather before launching them straight back into the pulsating fury of the track again. The standout performance on the EP is without doubt Aaron Turner's vocals. Rabid to the point of leaving him breathless, they fit so well with the instrumentation it is literally a marriage made in heaven. That is not say that the rest of the group take a back seat. The stabbing groove of the riff that starts Hive Destruction proper is infectious as fuck and I find myself clamouring for its urgent cuts as the slower, doomier riffs take precedent. Likewise, the motoring bass of Jeff Caxide drives this sense of urgency and control throughout the whole EP, whilst Aaron Harris puts an amazing shift in on the drums.

The heaviness on display throughout The Mosquito Control is relentless. Listen to any modern sludge act like Primitive Man and you will here the poisonous fury of Relocation Swarm as cornerstones of most of what they do. This is possibly one the heaviest releases I have heard in my life and the production and mix job leaves it all sounding so fresh and organic. This is oppressive music that is ironically very freeing an experience to listen to. You absolutely should give this the attention it commands. There are no short measures of focus allowed when listening to The Mosquito Control, close all the blinds/curtains, turn all non-essential devices off and let the music take you.

4.5/5

Hits this month for me to check out further = The Body, Baroness

Pleasing familiar artists = Smoulder, Shape of Despair and Tzompantli

Skips this month for me = Type O Negative, My Dying Bride

Amazingly enough this was my first ever listen to Sunn O))) and although not blown away I accept that this is for a certain mindset and so doing chores whilst listening did not engage me well with it.  I plan to revisit though.

Another solid month Sonny, keep 'em coming.

Before I realized this was Darkthrone, I at first assumed this was some weird-ass Venom-style black/speed outfit, then a This is Spinal Tap-style parody of black metal. That's the kind of album cover a parody band would use. Then I noticed the band name.
Well, like politics, black metal is impossible to lampoon.
This is a very weird album. Were atmospheric black metal not taken for stuff like The Summoning, this feels like it would fit that name well. Black metal production and techniques used at a much slower pace. Where tremolo picking would be used, one single note is used instead. This makes it very noticeable when the album does use tremolo picking. At no point does the drumming go above a walking pace. The growling has an almost ethereal quality to it, unlike any kind I've heard before.
The writing is kind of bland. It seems aimless, possibly by intention. It starts off okay, with the kind of atmosphere you'd expect, but then we get the first solo of the album. I don't know who played it, but it's not good. A half-hearted attempt at regaining the kvlt faction, perhaps with it's strange aggressiveness. Then after another long verse, close enough in sound to the first as to make no difference, there's another solo, closer in tone to what you'd expect, but at this point feels meandering. The song finally ends with what can only be described as a very slow series of tremolos. While the album has more interesting songs on it, like Impeccable Caverns of Satan, most seem to follow this template.
I found this didn't really appeal to me, much in the same reason a lot of melodeath doesn't. If you're going to combine extreme metal with heavy or power metal, it's better to do something like Satan's Host where far less hostile sounding music with clean vocals gets hostile sounding music. Mundane sounding music makes growly vocals goofy.

3/5

Another solid playlist this month.  To call out the standouts for me:

Katatonia - I have this weird "bookend" scenario with this band in that I have only ever listened to the Dance... and then their latest release and nothing in between.  Brave Murder Day has been landing on a few playlists as suggestions around the streaming services I am on of late and so it is liable to be the next full-length I venture along with from this band.  This track proves to me that I am missing out by not listening to the rest of their discography in some more detail.

Saturnalia Temple - well, this is a fucked up sounding box of frogs if ever I heard one.  It is still so damn entertaining though, not in the least because it is so blatantly obvious that these guys have zero fucks to give

Mournful Congregation -  starting to wonder if these Aussies can do any wrong at all as there is virtually endless win in everything I hear from them.  Still sounding relevant thirty years on, this track bodes well for me getting around to the album at some point.

Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean - dumbass name aside, I had very little to argue with here.  Agonising sludge metal that is punishingly repetitive

Iron Monkey - more sludge metal only this time it is raging and ugly as fuck - me like.

Woorms - I have be eyeing that astonishingly good artwork on the Slake record and wondering if the music could ever be as good as the artwork.  Good news, it is.  With a measured level of confrontation in their sound, Woorms sound alienating and hostile whilst tipping their hats to some fine doom metal along the way also.

I seem to be one of the only ones who were familiar with the name Xibalba before checking out this debut full length record from Tzompantli. I heard 2020's Años en infierno by sheer accident and enjoyed the record enough, since for a death doom record, the album decided to focus most of its time on the "death" portion of that hybrid; a sound that I was not as familiar with as the "doom" focused hybrids.

And that also seems to be the case with Tlazcaltiliztli. "Tlatzintilli" begins with a heavy percussive element while the guitar plays a slowed down rhythmic motif. It's certainly an unfamiliar sound in the doom or death metal spheres and left me interested to hear where the band could go from there. Unfortunately, the record kind of finds its groove around "Eltequi" and does not attempt these sorts of hybrid sounds again; instead keeping the death and doom parts isolated. That's because the second half of the album spends a lot more time focused on the Indigenous timbres, which all told, isn't very much. But as I have said with many extreme albums in the past that add objectively softer passages (such as a string/orchestra section), their contributions always feel subdued to the loud guitars, percussion and vocals.

On this record though, these limited elements are fascinating and rarely interfere with the straight up metal passages so as to not overburden the listener. It also keeps them fresh when they return. As for the straight up metal passages, even though I mentioned how stale it can get later on with the death and doom sections kept apart, I cannot deny that some of these riffs are filthy; mostly on the tracks "Tlatzintilli", the title track, "Ohtlatocopailcahualuztli" and the closer "Yaotiacahuanetzli". If you're looking for a death-doom album with heavy emphasis on the "death" as opposed to the much more popular "doom" stylings of My Dying Bride or Swallow the Sun, this record can scratch some real itches.

3.5/5

A few notes regarding the tracks selected for this month's playlist:

1. Worship of Keres - "Book 3" (from "Bloodhounds for Oblivion", 2016) [submitted by Sonny]
I was going through some of the older releases I had purchased from Bandcamp and this 2016 EP jumped out at me with it's chunky and ponderous riff contrasting with singer Elise Tarens voice to great effect. They still seem to be going, but a measly couple of EPs is all they have produced so far.

2. Decadence Dust - "Lighthouse" (from "Lighthouse", 2023)
I must admit that as far as gothic metal goes I have to rely on the RYM charts quite a lot and this month they threw up Russian duo Decadence Dust and their new album Lighthouse. They sound a lot like Lacuna Coil I thought. Vocalist Anna Dust has a really nice voice and multi-instrumentalist Alexander Kargaev does a good job on the instrumental side of things. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I actually didn't mind this track.

3. Black Capricorn - "Snake of the Wizard" (from "Cult of Blood", 2022)
Black Capricorn are another Bandcamp favourite for me and I have just obtained a copy of this, their latest, last year's Cult of Blood. Super-fuzzy stoner doom from Italy that is a nice grooviness to it. The vocals aren't so great, but I can't resist a good fuzz-fest.

4. Toadliquor - "Gnaw" (from "Feel My Hate - The Power Is the Weight - R.I.P. Cain", 1993)
Another more recent discovery, sludgesters Toadliquor only left us a single full-length despite being in existence throughout the entire 1990s. Bleak as fuck, desperate-sounding sludge, I love this track.

5. Liturgy - "Veins of God" (from "Aesthethica", 2011) [submitted by Daniel]
I've not listened to Liturgy before (that avant-garde tag has always put me off) and I am guessing that this isn't what they usually sound like. A repetitive trad/stoner doom riff that I have no idea what effect it has in the context of the album from which it came, but in isolation it sounds quite a bit Ufomammut-ish.

6. Church of Misery - "Come and Get Me Sucker (David Koresh)" (from "Born Under a Mad Sign", 2023)
It was only during the compilation of this playlist that I found out that Japanese, serial killer-obsessed stoners Church of Misery had a new album out. After a sample of a ranting David Koresh this kicks into gear with a hard-hitting stoner groove that somewhat belies the subject matter and is a guaranteed toe-tapper and head-nodder.

7. Nightfucker - "Poisoned Wine" (from "Leechfeast / Nightfucker Split EP", 2023)
Last month I featured Leechfeast's contribution to this split EP, so in the interests of fairness here is the second of Nightfucker's two tracks.

8. Windhand - "Halcyon" (from "Eternal Return", 2018) [submitted by Vinny]
A great track from one of my absolute favourite female-fronted psych-doom bands. This was five years ago now, so a new studio album is long overdue,

9. Messa - "Babalon" (from "Belfry", 2016)
Messa are one of the most celebrated doom metal bands of the last couple of years, pushing boundaries more than most. Babalon is from their 2016 debut and is a bit more conventional in it's approach to doom. It's still a quality release though.
 
10. Tragedia - "Tiamat" (from "El libro de Enoc", 2023)
I've never heard these guys before, again using the RYM gothic metal charts to find them, but this is actually pretty good as far as gothic metal goes. I will have to check it out further I think.

11. Minotauri - "Doom Metal Alchemy" (from "Minotauri", 2004)
Primitive sounding Finnish trad doom that pays homage to early exponents of the style such as Pentagram. Minotauri were contemporaries of Reverend Bizarre and sound very similar to their countrymen.

12. Capilla Ardiente - "The Spell of Concealment" (from "The Siege", 2019)
Chile doesn't just produce the best thrash metal on the planet at the minute, they also have a great epic doom band in Capilla Ardiente. Candlemass worship at it's best. Notably it keeps that prominent, growling bass so beloved of so many modern Chilean thrash bands.

13. Rippikoulu - "Pimeys yllä Jumalan maan" (from "Musta seremonia", 1993) [submitted by Daniel]
Super lo-fi early death doom from the awesome Musta seremonia demo. Awesome stuff for the doom metal historian.

14. Thorr's Hammer - "Norge"
TH have attained legendary status, despite only originally existing for six weeks in the winter of '94/'95. Sunn O)))'s Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley teamed up with Norwegian exchange student Runhild Gammelsæter, playing a couple of gigs and recording the three-track EP from which this track was taken. Runhild has a different vocal style to the other ladies who have featured on this month's playlist and could be the musical performance of the possessed Regan from The Exorcist.

15. Warning - "Footprints" (from "Watching from a Distance", 2006) [submitted by Vinny]
It's Warning... It's from Watching From A Distance. Thankyou Vinny, I am a happy man!!

16. Khanate - "To Be Cruel" (from "To Be Cruel", 2023) [submitted by Sonny]
The title track from Khanate's latest. The soundtrack to all your worst nightmares. My favourite album of 2023 to date.

Likewise, I am struggling for time with work pressures at present so will be abstaining as well.