Sonny's Reviews
Jupiterian is a four-piece behemoth that hails from São Paulo, it members going by the initials R, A, V and P. Protosapien is their third album, following three years after the fairly well received Terraforming. This album feels like such an advance from that still decent record that I can't help feeling that the band members must have encountered a black monolith somewhere down there in Brazil during the last three years!
Protosapien begins with a short intro, Homecoming, a dirge-like fanfare that sounds like it is announcing the arrival of a long-sought but dreaded god-king, which in a way it kind of is. The god-king in question takes the form of a sonic alliance between cavernous death doom and oozing, soul-crushing sludge metal that brooks no opposition to it's unholy assault on the ears, forcing all who hear it to bow down in supplication. Despite being a fairly short album of just over 35 minutes, this feels immense. The music doesn't compromise on it's heaviness yet is surprisingly atmospheric in a way that allows the mind's eye to conjure images of shattered landscapes, smoking ruins and immense, dreadful apparitions. The tectonic riffs will literally shake your walls and Thiago Oliveira's guttural vocals will bring them crashing down as they undermine their very foundations. Despite this intrinsic heaviness and the sludge-drenched slow tempo, there is still a memorable and even kind of melodic quality to the tracks - this is no monotonous trudge through to album's end, in fact Voidborne even contains some blasting that wouldn't be out of place on a black metal album.
2020 has been a damn good year for fans of ominous-sounding doom metal with great albums from the likes of Hell's MSW, Temple of Void and Convocation. Protosapien can rightly take it's place alongside those as one of the best doom-related releases of the year.
As with many visionary metal bands, Venom were derided mercilessly in their early days. I remember the UK music press (including Kerrang!) lambasting them at every turn as a band that couldn't even play their instruments properly. Of course, those same people have no recollection of ever having done so and claim to have been supporters of the band from the outset - hypocrites. Of course Welcome to Hell sounds sloppy, but that only adds to it's charm. The album took the speed metal of Motörhead, added some cartoonish satanic imagery (that later bands took FAR too seriously) and then went at it with a youthful enthusiasm born of the UK DIY punk scene. In fact, with his north-eastern accent Cronos often sounds like the legendary Mensi of The Angelic Upstarts.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in common with most of England's northern cities, was a grim place to grow up in the seventies and early eighties, but where the punks took out their frustration with songs about how shit everything was, Venom sought catharsis and escape through songs based on Dennis Wheatley books and Hammer Horror movies. Bold, brash and full of balls, this was an album that was made by a band who clearly did not give a damn what anybody thought about them. Often lumped in with the NWOBHM, I would argue this has far more in common with Discharge, GBH and The Exploited than Iron Maiden or Saxon, but they were too punk for the metal crowd and too metal for the punks, so for a long time had to plough their own furrow with only their diehard fans for company. The band's outsider cred is what probably endeared them to the even younger up and coming bands they influenced including Metallica, Bathory, Mayhem and the band probably closest to them in term of attitude, Darkthrone. I would argue that without Motörhead there woud never have been a Venom, but certainly without Venom there would not have been a black metal scene as we recognise it.
Of course the album shouldn't only be judged on it's historical importance. Any fan of high-energy, down and dirty speed metal, particularly in the vein of Lemmy and his crew should love tracks like the title track, Witching Hour, In League With Satan and my personal favourite, Live Like an Angel (Die Like a Devil). All hail Venom, the outsiders of the outsiders and the patient zero of extreme metal.
The Boats of the Glen Carrig is a survival horror novel written in 1907 by William Hope Hodgson, set in the early 18th century. In the novel the author purports to be one of several survivors of the sinking of the ship The Glen Carrig, who were cast adrift onto the open sea in two lifeboats and were confronted by monstrous creatures as they fought for survival. Ahab's fourth album is a concept album based upon the novel and continues the band's obsession with all things nautical.
They have developed their sound from the days of the phenomenal debut, The Call of the Wretched Sea and now feature more of a contrast between dark and light passages than the debut's unrelentingly bleak funeral doom. Boats.. owes as much to death doom as funeral doom and is consequently more uptempo in pacing than TCotWS at times. It also features several clean passages, both vocally and musically, that derive from post-metal outfits like Isis, that serve as contrast to the heavier, darker sections, throwing them into sharp relief and act as the narrator's conduit to the listener. TBotGC is a step up from it's predecessor, The Giant, which I felt had moved too far away from the crushing heaviness of the first two albums to inhabit a more accessible, post-metal landscape. Boats, however is a satisfying meeting of that clean, lighter sound, the debilitating, deep-sea pressure of the band's take on funeral doom and pacier, yet still supremely heavy, death doom.
The Isle sets the scene with a gentle, clean intro as the narrator, a passenger named Winterstraw, begins telling how the survivors have been adrift for five days after the sinking of the Glen Carrig, before erupting into an ominously foreboding passage of malignant death doom as land, in the form of the ill-starred isle, is approached by the unfortunate seamen, strange weeping cries emanating from it. The Thing That Made Search follows a similar structure, with a vocally and musically clean beginning as the narrator now tells of the sailors' rising fear, before Daniel Droste's voice changes to that of a growling demon and the monster riff kicks in as the lifeboats and their trembling human cargo are sought out and examined by some many-tentacled Lovecraftian horror. The track slows to a crawl in it's dying moments as the creature withdraws and sinks back into the depths.
Like Red Foam (The Great Storm) builds on the thundering riffs that went before and ups the pacing as a mighty, supernatural storm batters the ill-fated sailors. Red Foam is a song that could easily have come from a classic-era Opeth album, exhibiting the same songwriting skill and musical chops that Mikael Akerfeldt employed to devastating effect aroung the turn of the Millenium. Ahab return to their roots for the beginning of The Weedmen as the slowest section of the album oozes through the listener's inner ear with a slab of glacially-paced funeral doom, the sailors are washed up on the unnamed island and realise it is the home of the hideous Weedmen, the music invoking the mounting, unbearable fear and dread they feel as they come under attack.
To Mourn Job then returns to the structure of the first two tracks with alternating gently sorrowful clean sections and thunderous death doom passages as the narrator describes the aftermath and the sailors perform funeral rites and mourn the loss of one of their number, a young lad named Job, during the attack of the monstrous creatures.
Most versions, except the original jewel case CD, have a sixth track, The Light in the Weed (Mary Madison), which serves as a kind of epilogue, telling of the fate of the titular Mary Madison, wife of the captain of the doomed Glen Carrig. Now, seven years later and unable to deal with what she saw and felt she has become hopelessly lost, drink her only solace in a world that can hold such horrors, the track filled with melancholy and sadness for those affected, yet with also with a hopeful message that if one holds steadfast then you can deal with any "seas so grave".
I still hold The Call of the Wretched Sea in the highest regard as Ahab's best, but this is not so far behind, a beautifully crafted musical rendition of a classic horror tale that is expressive and subtle whilst still retaining the ability to crush with powerful and irresistibly heavy, doom-laden riffs. Ahab are one of the most accomplished of all funeral doom outfits with a songwriting prowess seldom bettered in the genre.
So let's talk about Scott "Wino" Weinrich for a while. Is there really anybody who better exemplifies the ethos of stoner doom metal than Wino? From his lead-heavy, bluesy, stoner riffs and cigarettes 'n' whiskey-soaked vocal delivery to his biker tatts, uncompromising attitude and well-documented crystal meth addiction, there are very few who could stand alongside this guy for sheer metal cred (maybe Lemmy, but that's about it).
Beginning his music career with not one, but two legendary doom bands in The Obsessed and Saint Vitus, after leaving the latter Wino formed Spirit Caravan, a stoner doom three-piece, releasing a couple of well-received albums either side of the Millenium. Spirit Caravan split in 2001 and Wino formed a new trio the following year called The Hidden Hand and that is where this album comes in. Divine Propaganda is the 2003 debut album of the new band, who went on to release two more albums before splitting in 2007.
The album kicks off in strong style, it's first three tracks laying out an impressive calling card. Bellicose Rhetoric and Damyata are trademark fuzzed-up stoner doom with a bit more of a groove going on than Saint Vitus or The Obsessed. Damyata is typical of Wino, a song about environmental disaster, not via a pathetic "why doesn't somebody do something" whine, but in a "we are all fucked" warning - "Oh, I feel the sky is cracking, oh, I feel the ice melting, oh I feel the mountains falling, oh, I feel the world dying". On third track, Screw the Naysayers, Wino even turns on his own fans, hailing his new band and urging everyone to get over the split-up of Spirit Caravan - "Caravan has slipped away, The Hidden Hand is here to stay, screw the naysayers". The track is only 72 seconds long and is basically a fuzz-drenched punk track, a legacy of Wino's time with the Obsessed when they used to open for DC hardcore bands like Bad Brains, Black Flag and Minor Threat.
At this point I should just say, this album isn't only about Wino, Bruce Falkinburg does a fine job on bass and backing Wino up on vocals and a particular shout out should go to Dave Hennessy who's drumming is absolutely first class, battering the shit out of his kit like a young Bill Ward or John Bonham.
The album continues to mix heavy, doom-laden stoner grooves with faster, trad metal and punk influenced tracks, occasionally throwing in the odd psychedelic or blues influence, such as on The Last Tree or Sunblood respectively, so there's enough variety on display to satisfy any fan of fuzzed-up metal and any die-hard fan of Wino and his previous bands shouldn't be disappointed.
Cinerous Rain are German multi-instrumentalist Eugen Kohl and Ecuadorian lyricist and vocalist David Freire who are both veterans of a huge number of metal projects. This is a seriously heavy album of atmospheric blackened death metal. It's buzzing, atmo-black riffing is wrought into a savage beast by alloying it with the undeniable brutality of death metal. The vocals are vicious-sounding muted shrieks, although the lyrics are a mystery, even the tracks names are merely roman numerals, so no clue there. This is a moot point however, the atmosphere is everything here and the atmosphere is incendiary. An impressive debut and I hope to hear a lot more from these guys.
Just for the record, Mesarthim haven't started making albums about social commentary. The Degenerate Era is, in fact, a posited astronomical era when the universe no longer makes new stars and is populated by "degenerate" stars like black holes, neutron stars and brown and white dwarfs.
First track, Laniakea (the name of the galactic supercluster that is home to the Milky Way) is the album's longest track at nearly 15 minutes and is a sweeping track that takes some interesting turns including a section that sounds like an 80's arena-rock riff and some gentle minimalist ambient synth work nestling in amongst the more usual expansive and symphonic atmo-black paeon to the awe-inspiring majesty of the cosmos.
The title track is a far more ominous-sounding affair with the doom metal pacing of the first half generating a portentous atmosphere illustrating the darker, colder condition of the universe during this "Degenerate Era". Mind you, around the five minute mark it lets loose with a real buzzing blast followed by a solo that inexplicably reminds me of Brian May (?!) and ending with a nice trance coda.
Time Domain, despite the urgency of the vocals is a melodic and particularly upbeat track. The nine minutes of Paradox follows a very similar template, yet sounds even more savage whilst still maintaining a pleasing melody. Final track 618 is more of a trance-led track and is a satisfying closer to the album.
Mesarthim proves once more to be a unique voice within the black metal community, his huge sweeping sonic canvases perfectly balance a tension between cold black metal savagery and a warmer melodic side with trance-influenced electronica that just works so well.
Mystras is a solo atmospheric black metal project of Greece's Nihilus Ayloss who is probably better known as Spectral Lore, the cosmic black metal project often found in collaboration with Mare Cognitum. Mystras has been begun as an outlet for a thematically different project, swapping the awe-inspiring majesty of the cosmos for medieval folk and tales of the medieval common man's fight for freedom from serfdom and the corruption of those who would set themselves above them. Mystras itself is the name of a fortified town in Laconia, Greece near the ancient city of Sparta that was the focus of a seemingly unending struggle between the Byzantine Empire and the Franks after the Fourth Crusade.
The albums fifty minutes are spread over five tracks of blistering atmospheric black metal interspersed with short interludes of medieval folk-based instrumental music. Under his Spectral Lore monicker I find that LÜÜP becomes a little bit rambling with some jazzy noodling that I never really enjoy, but here with Mystras he is far more focussed. His atmo-black is reminiscent of Panopticon or Winterfylleth, with sweeping atmospherics crafted to inspire the mind of the listener. The medieval interludes are nice, gentle moments that add a kind of context to the lyrical content of the longer tracks and have been produced with the help of a number of guest musicians. The medieval musical themes are used only sparingly within the main tracks, thus avoiding the kitsch of folk metal accusations - this is most definitely, first and foremost, a black metal album.
My particular favourite (and the album's longest track) is The Murder of Wat Tyler, a devastating indictment, both musically and lyrically, of the deception of the Crown against one of the leaders of England's Peasant's Revolt in late fourteenth century England, a period of history I am particularly interested in and it's nice to hear a metal band relating the tale. Castles Conquered and Reclaimed is indeed one of a rare breed in what is seen as the conservative world of metal that, in a similar way to Panopticon's Kentucky, addresses the struggles of the class of society that most often produces it's adherents.
For me this is Ayloss' best album to date. Although I like Spectral Lore, I prefer the focus and rawer, more aggressive sound he has achieved on this.
A fleur de peau part II was intended to be released and listened to as a single, sixty-five minute track, but has been split into two due to some kind of Bandcamp restriction on track length, apparently. The album features a guest appearance by Kim Carlsson of Hypothermia on vocals, with Déhà himself being responsible for everything else, as usual. The lyrical subject matter is pretty heavy, introspective stuff, the title of the track(s), Burdening Everyone, giving some insight into the mental condition of the song's subject. According to the album's Bandcamp page, it is "a tribute to those who, inexplicably, cannot express why they do not feel comfortable in the world" and Déhà once more proves himself a master of expressing the deepest emotions of the disconnected, doing so without sounding like a self-absorbed fool. Personally, I find a lot of DSBM to be insufferable, both musically and lyrically, but Déhà is cut from a far greater quality cloth than the herd. Musically, the album is medium to slow-paced black metal, rooted in atmospheric BM, with angst-ridden, desperate and hopeless-sounding vocals. There are passages of post-metal calm that allow for more measured moments of introspection for sure, but eventually the tortured railings of the song's protagonist erupt once more into desperate screams and shrieks and the music becomes ever angrier and more ominous. A great example of DSBM done right.
A number of fans disliked previous album, 2014's Striden Hus, with it's more melodic take on black metal, but I really enjoyed it, it has some good hooks with plenty of energy and is a lively affair. This, however, is a different kettle of fish altogether. It moves even further away from the black metal of it's origins and delves in a more rock-oriented direction. In doing so, I feel it has been robbed of any vitality that the black metal parts may give it. There's an attempt at a more progressive direction in the vein of Enslaved's prog-black, but there isn't really enough to grab hold of here and, as a consequence the songs feel bloated and just kind of slide past without making any real impact on the listener.
All in all this is a great disappointment as I have a lot of respect for Taake and I have no issue with them trying a new direction, but there are many bands who pull off better what I think Hoest and co. are trying to achieve here. It's not awful, but it's not particularly good either and, consequently, I do feel it is Taake's worst release. For band completists only.
Déhà has been a busy little bee so far in 2020. I guess with lockdowns and self-isolation he's channelled all his efforts into his art. This is his NINTH album of the year so far and is the third instalment of the "A fleur de peau" series. Whilst parts I had somewhat of a doom vibe going on and II made side roads into post-metal, this is more of a straight-up depressive black metal album. The album features four tracks and each has a guest appearance: Natalie Koskinen of Shape of Despair adds vocals to the opening track, Tim Yatras from Austere and Hauke Peters from Maladie appear on Hope for Twilight, Carlos d'Agua from Collapse of Light features on Thanatos and the Sea and Nils Courbaron from Sirenia guests on I Am Not Complete.
Musically the tracks veer from blasting, angst-ridden self-loathing to hopeful, soaring melodies that provide a nice textural contrast that works really well, despite the seeming dichotomy of these two competing atmospheres. The keyboards contribute a fullness to the sound over the black metal riffing and blasting that makes for a richer atmosphere than is usual in DSBM. Despite this, Déhà's vocals still manage to convincingly convey the desperation and anguish that is the cornerstone of the DSBM sub-genre.
Despite Déhà's profuseness during the past seven or eight months, there is no great detectable drop in the quality of his music and this is a very solid release.
Phobos Monolith was Mare Cognitum's third full-length album and, for me, is the one that elevated him into the upper strata of atmospheric black metal artists. This is the album where his music first consistently assumed the epic atmosphere that the great exponents of the genre produce. The best of the genre expresses respect and awe for the natural universe, usually in sweeping musical vistas evoking mountains, forests and the white expanses of frozen tundra, but Mare Cognitum are one of the bands that have recently turned their gaze out beyond our world to the vast reaches of space, along with others like Darkspace or Mare Cognitum's sometime collaborators Aureole and Spectral Lore.
Of the four tracks on offer, three are over thirteen minutes long and, although the obvious focus on hypnotic repetition is there, there is also a variation in pacing throughout the tracks, that stops them from becoming boring and samey, transitioning from pummelling, yet gorgeously melodic wall-of-sound blasting to more ambient, dream-like sections. This melodic nature has drawn criticism from some black metal devotees, but is so expertly handled that there is no hint of sugar-coating or cheesiness diluting the frantic riffing. It may make the album more accessible however which, I guess, will always upset the trve kvltists. The vocals are raw, but distant, as if heard from the depths of space beneath the prevalent radiation of the galaxy, intoning the lyrics that concern themselves with galactic Life, it's passing and the ephemeral, ever-changing nature of the Cosmos. The production is also another area where the band have taken a big stride forward, the sound is huge and all-encompassing, yet is clear as a bell, allowing every note to be heard.
To coin a phrase, Phobos Monolith was a giant leap for Jacob Buczarski that catapulted him into the black metal major leagues, where he remains. A real tour-de-force of epic, melodic and powerful black metal that any fan of cosmic BM should lap up.
Mare Cognitum is a solo project of Californian, Jacob Buczarski, one-time member of shoegaze band Spirit Lapse. He plays atmospheric black metal with a cosmic bent. This is his second release under the Mare Cognitum banner, following 2011's debut, The Sea Which Has Become Known and features six tracks spread over 50 minutes. The opener (and the album's longest track at twelve minutes), Collapse Into Essence, is epic, galactic-scale atmospheric black metal, reflecting the vast coldness of space and the uncaring, all-powerful forces that exist there, both actual and metaphorical. Second track, Pyre of Ascendance, is more of a traditional atmospheric black metal blastathon, harsh and savage, as are the remainder of the tracks. Sure, there are hints of it, but the epic-scale, truly cosmic sound of MC's later releases is still in development on this release, the majority being very well done, but somewhat derivative, atmo-black. Not a bad album at all - I always enjoy well done atmospheric black metal - but he gets better as he gets more ambitious.
A searing combination of atmospheric sludge and black metal that is dark, menacing and exceedingly heavy. Yet despite this it also has some great melodies, opener Fragments for example, has a fantastic, sweeping main riff completely born of melodic black metal. The five tracks all clock in between eight and ten minutes which gives them enough time to develop their individual ideas without overstaying their welcome or becoming boring. The vocals are largely of the harsh shouting variety, common to most sludge metal, although there are some clean vocals (which aren't the band's strong point to be honest). The five tracks exhibit a satisfying variety in pacing, each has a particular character and doesn't fall into the trap of becoming formulaic, successfully weaving the band's several influences together to create something they can confidently call their own that stands apart from the mundane and as such is a testament to their songwriting skills. If you are after something a bit different in the sludge metal world, then give this a spin.
This four-track EP is the debut release from this duo of US black metal veterans. It is manic, psychotic-sounding black metal, pummelling along for it's twenty-odd minute duration. The album's best is closer, Souls Void, a slower paced, eerie sounding track, that sounds a bit off-kilter, like the organ music at a sinister carnival in some fucked-up horror movie. I like it, but don't know how often I would be likely to return to it, as it isn't exactly earth-shatteringly original or substantial enough to warrant many listens over and above everything else.
The UK is not blessed with an overabundance of quality black metal bands, but Manchester's Wode are rapidly becoming one of them. Although the sound is more polished than most nineties black metal releases, this album's heart most definitely belongs in the early days of the second wave and unashamedly so. No genre-bending experimentation, no blackened this or that, just straight-up pummelling black metal like back in the day. And it's only half an hour long, for extra authenticity!
Female-fronted doom outfits are becoming ten a penny nowadays, but EMBR are a decent prospect. Crystal Bigelow's vocals are excellent and guitarist Mark Buchanan has a great "rolling thunder" tone, but the songs are nothing we haven't heard before and the couple of attempts at harsh, sludgy vocals were ill-advised. Still, there is enough here for fans of the whole doom-with-female-vocals genre to enjoy, myself included.
Battle Dagorath's sixth and latest album is a monster of cosmic proportions. It consists of eight tracks spanning 73 minutes of expansive and sprawling cosmic black metal interspersed with spacey ambient interludes that serve as a breathing space to allow the listener's mind time to settle before the next interstellar journey of discovery. The theme of the album seems to be the belief that some kind of spiritual nirvana can be attained by contemplation of the awe-inspiring majesty of the universe (and who am I to disagree?) Several of the tracks, particularly the longer ones such as Phantasmal Eye of Dreams and Conjuring the Starwinds, through the repetition of their themes and the overall expansive nature of their atmosphere, do possess a certain meditiative quality to them that allows the listener to float away in a kind of out-of-body experience and forget earthly cares as they traverse this metaphorical galaxy.
The production is crisp, allowing the sound to be particularly well defined - not a single note has been lost or buried. The black metal elements are cold and harsh, the keyboards filling out the atmosphere and the vocals are distant, yet at the same time, immediate and savage. This style of black metal obviously has it's roots in Emperor's back-catalogue and you can definitely hear hints of tracks like Cosmic Keys to My Creations & Times and The Majesty of the Nightsky in Battle Dagorath's music. If you are a fan of Mare Cognitum or Darkspace's style of space-themed atmospheric black metal then this should definitely appeal.
I'm not super-familiar with these Finns, but of their releases I have heard to date, this is my favourite. A tempestuous, yet melodic, black metal exploration of man's inner turmoil that takes the form of eight well-written and faultlessly executed tracks that revel in their furious savagery. Even so, they never lose their ability to connect with the listener and despite the subject matter of alienation and self-doubt it is a surprisingly accessible album.
These Polish thrashers have been quiet since releasing a couple of EPs back in 2015 and 2016, but four years on and they are here releasing their debut full-length, Behold the Realm of Darkness. There's nothing life-changing here, but what it is is old-school, flat-out Sodom-worship that draws on both punk and black metal to greater or lesser degrees. It's all fired off at 90 miles-an-hour with little time allowed to draw breath, but it is solid, energetic and aggressive thrash metal that doesn't disguise it's influences, but does have an endearing honesty about it.
This is the debut album from Brazilian Caio Lemos, by way of his one-man atmo-black outfit Kaatayra, the first of a couple of albums released under that moniker in 2019. I've got to say, I'm already a big fan, the material is varied and effectively atmospheric, influenced by tribal rhythms I presume are Brazilian in origin, with manic drumming, particularly on Valhacouto de lírios, when I thought he'd brought Animal from the Muppets in to guest! The only real downer for me was the first half of the final track which, for reasons known only to Kaatayra himself, takes the form of some crappy electronic house track.
What the fuck happened to Holy Moses between debut Queen of Siam and this, the follow-up? I'm guessing someone locked them in a room and played Kreator and Sodom albums at them twenty-four hours a day. Well, either that or they heard Sacrilege's Behind the Realms of Madness and realised that if they wanted to be taken seriously as a female-fronted thrash outfit then they had to up their game. Luckily, that is exactly what they did as this is a million miles away from the NWOBHM-influenced speed metal of that debut. This is gritty and aggressive, neck-breaking thrash with incendiary solos and an impressively evil-sounding, hardcore-influenced vocal performance from Sabina Classen that shits on the likes of Angela Gossow and co.
The album's ten tracks flash by in a head-spinning blur and seem over in a matter of minutes, although it does actually last a little over half an hour and will have you leaping for the replay button, particularly if you are familiar with the debut, as you may not be able to absorb what you just heard. I really don't think you can overstate the improvement this album made over it's predecessor and is such huge leap it has actually made me negatively re-evaluate my rating for the debut. If you are any kind of fan of Eighties thrash you owe it to yourself to check it out... NOW!!
For my money Exumer are one of the great underrated 80s thrash outfits. This is probably due to the fact that they only released a couple of killer albums before calling it a day in 1991 (although they did reform for a one-off show at the Wacken Festival in 2001, then going their separate ways until 2008 when they again got back together as they remain to this day) and the fact that they didn't originate any particular style of thrash themselves, but built on styles developed by others. Forming in 1984 (as Tartaros) in Frankfurt, thrash metal history has seen them overshadowed by their more illustrious countrymen, Kreator and Sodom, but believe me, although their albums don't have the originality and fire of a Pleasure to Kill or Persecution Mania, they can certainly hold their heads high in such illustrious company and are well at the head of the second tier of thrash bands that features the likes of Exodus and Testament.
Rising from the Sea is the 1987 follow-up to the previous year's debut, Possessed by Fire and received wisdom says that this is the inferior of the two albums. I, however, wish to disagree on this point. The first is a fine record, no doubt, with some killer tracks, but this is a more consistent album in my opinion. Sure, it's not the most original thrash record ever, borrowing particularly heavily from Slayer, that in itself being the sole reason I don't give this a five-star rating (the lack of originality, not them borrowing from Slayer!) That said though, of all the albums the mighty Slayer have influenced, this is certainly one of the best. New vocalist and bassist Paul Arakari sounds a lot more like Tom Araya than Possessed by Fire's Mem Von Stein, probably the main reason for the comparisons, although the similarities appear in other areas too.
Arakari opens first track, Winds of Death, with an Angel of Death-style scream and we're off and running. This isn't really an album of breakneck, headlong thrashing, but is more of a chug-heavy mosh-a-thon. The solos are of the piercing, shrieking, tortured-metal-sounding, weaponised type championed by Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. The bass gallops along, despite not being dominant enough in the mix and the drums are effective but could do with sounding a bit crisper. The tracks themselves, despite not being super-original, are pretty memorable and are definitely very enjoyable, Rising From the Sea, Decimation and Shadows of the Past being the stand-outs. This is physical, not cerebral metal and isn't meant to be thought about too deeply, but to be experienced in a way that leaves the listener sweaty and knackered! Neither is it supposed to be highly technical, so what more can you really want from an old-school thrash album than to feel like you've had your ass kicked, at which this is supremely successful... and I for one love this shit.
Convocation are a Finnish duo comprising multi-instrumentalist Lauri Laaksonen of death metal outfit Desolate Shrine and vocalist Marko Neuman of Dark Buddah Rising. They play epic and funereal death doom with great heaving, sorrow-drenched riffs and vocals that range from rasping, black metal-style shrieks to the more usual gutteral growling of traditional death doom and occasionally MN's unique, quite high-pitched clean style.
The album's four tracks span 45 minutes and as such are afforded the time to expound on their bleakly ominous atmospheres. The first two tracks, Martyrise and The Absence of Grief are fairly typical and really well done examples of this kind of epic death doom, taking their cue from bands like My Dying Bride, but shorn of the gothic overtones, which is just fine by me as I think it makes for a more pure doom experience. Third track, Misery Form, however, is a bit more ambitious, after it's unsettling intro it settles down into similar style to it's predecessors until just after halfway when it takes a more esoteric (small "e") turn and ends up sounding a lot like last year's Waste of Space Orchestra album, Syntheosis, of which Marco Neuman was part. Final track, Portal Closed, is an instrumental that again begins in conventional doom manner but which segues into a more reflective and calm finale, as if the listener has ultimately reached some place of tranquility after the myriad trials that previously beset them.
I really enjoyed this album, it's core of epic death doom is elaborated on just enough to sound fresh and new, whilst still retaining what makes death doom so appealing (to me anyway) in the first place.
A four-track EP, inspired by spring and summertime that opens with a wholly new track entitled Doom for the Red Sun, which doesn't sound as you may expect from the title. It is a doomy-sounding track, but it is wholly acoustic and does have a certain ritualistic and rustic quality. Folky wicca doom that's more than a little Wicker Man. The second track, La sella del Diavolo, dates from the band's Cult of Black Friars sessions and is a fuzzy, psych-doom instrumental that drives along like an open-top motor down a country lane on a sunny day. Astroflower is a cover of an old track from guitarist and vocalist Kjxu's old band Wild Duck, another chunk of fuzz-drenched psych-doom that doesn't do anything special but does have a really satisfying tone. Final track The Hound of Harbinger God is remastered from a 2015 split 7" with fellow Italian doomsters, Bretus. This is a more straight-up doom offering of nearly nine minutes. It's a decent slab of doom, but for some reason it feels like the remastering has left the track feeling a little hollow. All in all not a bad way to spend half an hour, but the opener is the stand-out for me.
Chrono.naut was a track from Electric Wizard's earliest days, when they were still called Eternal, and has also appeared on a split with Orange Goblin, but this release was a 10" EP released on Man's Ruin Records with the track split into two. Side one is the more structured part of the song, and it's stoner doom would even sound familiar to fans of later Electric Wizard releases (although it is a little muddy-sounding). Side two is a big contrast, a surprisingly mellow, laid-back, pychedelic jam that should be accompanied by copious amounts of acid and a Liquid Len lightshow. This second section may not really appeal all that much to fans of the later material, unless they are also big fans of hallucinatory, psych-jam bands (and why wouldn't they be?)
Listening tip: makes a for a great comedown if played straight after the drug-fuelled rampage of the Supercoven EP. Play the two back-to-back for a killer ride!
While I really like some of Electric Wizard's post-2003 output, particularly the trio of We Live, Witchcult Today and Black Masses, where they really made their name was in the heady days of the Jus Osborne, Tim Bagshaw, Mark Greening three-piece's extended stoner jams. This EP was originally released in 1998 on Bad Trip as a limited edition 12" of 1000 copies. Jammed between Come My Fanatics and Dopethrone this goes even further down the stoned-out, trippier-than-thou road than even those mighty stoner classics, with only two tracks for it's 32 minutes this is throbbing and pulsingly hypnotic doom metal with enough chemical enhancement to anaesthetise an elephant.
Side A, Supercoven, relates a Lovecraftian tale of the summoning of ancient evils that is a slow build through layers of smoke-wreathed, plodding doom until the listener is forced to confront those malicious entities that have sat in wait through countless aeons and the song kicks up in pace and hits you with a tripped-out wall of sound. Strangely Jus Osborne's voice on this sounds like a cross between Kurt Cobain and John Lennon on Helter Skelter (so no drug connotations there, then!)
Side B, Burnout, is a pacier affair, it's doom taking on a distorted Hawkwind Space Ritual vibe (so, again, no drug connotations there either). As the lyrics intone, "imprisoned within my brain, dried and burnt out, chemical stained", Bagshaw and Greening keep pounding away and provide the huge sonic backdrop for Jus to just go ahead and do his thing, man, jamming like his life depended on it.
This is the satanic, drug-damaged bastard biker offspring of the 60s and 70's psychedelic movement come home to roost. There ain't no Nirvana to be reached here, this is stoner nihilism run riot and is where the real Electric Wizard stand up to be counted.
I love the blending of middle eastern traditional music with metal. Al-Namrood's Saudi folk music is alloyed with manic and ascerbic black metal for one hell of an exhilharating and atmospheric ride. Singer Humbaba, sounds an awful lot like Serj Tankian and I can't shake the notion that System of a Down might well sound something like this if they turned their hands to black metal.
Mammon's War was released fully thirteen years after previous album, Messiah of Confusion, during which time Count Raven had split and reformed a couple of times leaving Dan Fondelius as the only remaining founding member. Luckily for us this was no ill thought out and cynical attempt to relive former glories and resulted in the band's best album in my opinion.
It may be a bit obvious and lazy (albeit correct) to state the fact that this sounds an awful lot like 1980's Ozzy Osbourne and there are several tracks that could be compared to tracks on Ozzy's debut solo effort, Blizzard of Ozz, although without the amazing guitar antics of a Randy Rhoades, obviously. This similarity is apparent from the off with the opener The Poltergeist sounding very much like Steal Away (The Night) and second track The Scream coming on like Mr. Crowley. The album's overall vibe is more doomy than Eighties Ozzy for sure, especially on tracks like The Entity and the crawling, despondent-sounding A Lifetime. Interestingly, bridging these two doom-ridden heavyweights is the synth-driven title track that certainly wouldn't have felt out of place on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and would probably have been preferable to Who Are You.
To Kill A Child sounds like a deeply personal song for Dan Fondelius, describing a father's tough decisions to make about his suffering child, which is followed by the acoustic track To Love, Wherever You Are, the two songs combining to provide the emotional heart of the album. Magic Is... is a return to the vibe of the first couple of tracks and is as much trad metal as doom metal. The subsequent Seven Days is most definitely doom metal though, but is one of the weaker tracks on the album despite featuring the only guitar solo of any substance. The album is closed out by another synth-driven track, Increasing Deserts, that along with the previous track leaves the album with a bit of a weak ending for me. At getting on for seventy minutes, I think the band would have been better advised to give these last two tracks a miss and would have put out a better album because of it. I think in future I'll just eject the CD after Magic Is... and pretend that's the album they meant to make!
My ignorance knows no bounds and Inquisition are another band that I have had little interaction with, other than their 1998 album Into the Infernal Regions of the Ancient Cult that I quite liked. Anyway, fast forward twelve years to this and the Colombian/US three-piece had become a duo, controversial main man Dagon providing guitar, bass and "vocals" (we'll get to that later) and Incubus the drums.
The music is mainly savage, visceral black metal with pummelling drums and brutal riffs that has quite a full sound for BM making it feel like it was recorded by a death metal producer. The songs flash by and the overall aesthetic is one of overarching cosmic evil. The obvious exception is Desolate Funeral Chant, which as you may have guessed from the title is more in the vein of blackened doom metal with a slower tempo and a more ominous atmosphere than the rest of the album. The most problematic aspect of this release (aside from the questionable morality of at least one of the members) is the previously hinted at vocal performance. It has been most often compared to Abbath's croaking delivery style, but I don't think it is as good as that. The words aren't really sung, but intoned in a little-changing monotone that sounds like a chain-smoking evil goblin with a sore throat. In other words they are an acquired taste and I'm not sure if it's one worth acquiring.
Anyway, to summarise, the music is great, the vocals are certainly unique, albeit divisive and there's a huge moral cloud hanging over the band, making it an interesting listen that leaves you with an ambiguous and uncomfortable feeling after.
As -(16)- close in on thirty years of existence, they sound as pissed off as ever. This isn't the mere grumblings of grumpy old men, but the savage apoplexy of true rage at the state of things. The band's more veteran status has allowed their anger to become more focussed, no longer is this the general adolescent rage of bored and pissed-off teenagers, this is well-targeted, venomous exasperation. Musically this is loud and heavy down-tuned sludge riffs wrapped up in hardcore punk attitude and raging anger - anger at others (Harvester of Fabrication, Kissing The Choir Boy), anger at self (Agora (Killed by a Mountain Lion), Acid Tongue) and anger at the world in general ( Screw Unto Others). When trying to explain that the band attempted to inject some positivity into the album, guitarist and vocalist Bobby Ferry said "The best we could come up with is loving your dog so much, you'd end up killing yourself if the dog dies." Yet despite Ferry's claim, there is a sliver of positivity, particularly on Candy in Spanish and Summer of '96 where the lyrics refer to the hope that a broken man's children can give him and his wish for a better life for them, although even this is tinged with regret for his own desperate existence.
So, even though the album is almightily heavy and raw, seething with barely contained rage, it is also conversely quite an emotional experience, especially if you can identify with any of the lyrical themes, that may leave you feeling drained.
Colosseum were formed in 2006 by Juhani Palomäki and Janne Rämö, both members of Finnish doom outfit Yearning, in order to explore doom's slowest and most monolithic sub-genre, Funeral Doom. Sadly, the band's career was cut short in 2010 after three brilliant albums when Juhani Palomäki tragically committed suicide at just age 32.
This album is a gorgeous testament to the man's art, an amazing album that is as close to funeral doom perfection as it is reasonable to expect, in my opinion. The atmosphere created is one of immense majesty, overlaid by a mournful sombreness made more poignant by the eventual fate of the band's driving force. Feels like walking through a long-abandoned and ancient, yet still impressive, city such as the one featured in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness or the ruins on the sacred island of Delos in Greece. A huge weight of history and accomplishment forgotten and dimmed by the passage of time, its previous might and majesty now only remembered deep within the stone wrought by masons and sculptors long-gone.
The riffs are heaving and slow as you would expect, albeit certainly not the slowest tempo in funeral doom and the keys add a substantial layer to the atmosphere without swamping the sound at all. A number of guest musicians contribute classical instruments such as violin, cello, flute and trumpet for an even richer and more deeply mournful atmosphere. For me though, it is Juhani Palomäki's voice that really sets Colosseum apart, I absolutely love the timbre of his vocals, that deep, rasping growl that shakes you to your core is one of the most doom metal voices ever caught on record.
This album does seem to be the least well-liked of Colosseum's three full-lengths and I'm sorry for being so out of step, but this is one of my all-time favourites being both immaculately heavy and yet still remaining accessible due to its generally shorter and relatively melodic songs. These Finns are worthy of standing alongside funeral doom's most elite acts and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of their albums to all fans of the sub-genre.
I first crossed paths with RATM after catching the Freedom video on MTV and it's exposure of the injustices against Native Americans as personified in the heinous miscarriage of justice against Leonard Peltier (shit, some things never change...) Anyway the video had such an effect on my subconscious that when I saw this in my local CD store I grabbed it without thinking. I don't much like rap, apart from the odd album like Straight Outta Compton and It Takes a Nation of Millions so I've never given it much ear time and rap rock like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers leaves me cold, so this was a bit outside my comfort zone.
But, hell, this is one great record - angry and intense, but not in a misdirected "hit out at everyone" kind of way, but in an invigorating, energetic and focussed tirade against those who deserve it. I can't in all honesty say if I would dig this to the same degree without the political message, but I think the music is strong enough in it's own right to command respect. Testify, Calm Like a Bomb, Sleep Now in the Fire are all stone-cold classics as far as I'm concerned and the lyrical content elevates them even higher. This album is every bit as relevant today as when it was released over twenty years ago and that is a hell of a testament to it's passion and power.
I took a shedload of mushrooms once and had a trip where I was soaring up among the clouds and I could see what looked like the whole world laid out below me. There was this giant tree that towered above everything else and it said to me "everything will be OK" and you know what, it was. The first part of Écailles de lune strongly reminds me of that as if that moment of hope was put into music and if that was all I got out of this, then that would be enough for me. Luckily, the second part of Écailles de lune is even better than the first and is my favourite track on the album, veering from frosty atmo-black to dreamy shoegaze effortlessly and seamlessly, both parts combining for a nineteen-minute epic of gorgeous music.
Side two kicks off with Percées de lumière, which is pretty solid and may be the most black metal track on the album. This is followed by a short and fairly pointless ambient piece before Solar Song comes floating in on a fluffy white cloud, shining it's rays of hope down on all below. The album closes with Sur l'océan couleur de fer, a dreamy piece that feels like floating away to a restful doze on a sunny hillside.
Some albums have a perfect time and mood and listening to this on a Sunday morning in early June just feels so right. It used to be Souvenirs d'un autre monde, but I think this has now taken over as my favourite Alcest album. Neige showing other, more ham-fisted exponents of blackgaze, exactly how delicately the genre should be approached.
Edinburgh's King Witch have unleashed a bit of a monster with this, their second album. Released two years on from their well-received debut, Under the Mountain, the band have really upped the ante. Body of Light clocks in at a nudge over an hour, but as well as the overall length, the individual tracks are longer and each has expanded to fill all the available space afforded to them. This expanded format really suits the band's epic doom and the extended runtime allows the tracks to resolve themselves more satisfyingly. There is a nice variation in pacing throughout the album, whether it's kicking our asses with killer heavy metal as on the title track opener or Witches Mark or crushing us mercilessly with huge doom riffing as on Of Rock and Stone or Beyond the Black Gate, it does it with a style not all bands have the chops to be capable of.
I guess the band's most obvious feature is Laura Donnelly's amazing vocals, easily one of the most powerful female singers in metal, much in the vein of Benedictum's Veronica Freeman, but that is most definitely not the only selling point with this band. Jamie Gilchrist's guitar work is also outstanding, whether he's shredding a solo or crunching your bones with the force of his riffing, it makes for a powerful twin attack when unleashed alongside Laura's singing. The rhythm section are reliable, strong and on-point and the production is crystal clear, allowing every crunching riff or cymbal crash to be heard distinctly.
An impressive and highly recommended release for any lovers of epic doom or classic metal everywhere.
This was (and still is to some extent) a controversial record upon it's release as debate raged about whether it was even a metal album (which it is), let alone a black metal album (which it may or may not be), exacerbated I think by the "blasphemous" pink cover which couldn't be any further from the black and white monochrome aesthetic of BM (unless it was a rainbow, I suppose).
Blackgaze as a genre is a divisive issue in black metal circles and I can see why many adherents to BM orthodoxy would take against it, particularly as, generally, it has more in common with post-metal bands like Kauan rather than Mayhem, Darkthrone and even (early) Ulver. For me it's a genre who's releases I tend not to pre-judge before hearing (I know we shouldn't with anything, but come on, seriously, who never goes into an album without certain expectations?) The reason is that there are albums under this umbrella that I really like and many that I really don't, so I'm never quite sure which I'm gonna get. For me, this is one of the former, as it has more than enough of an atmospheric black metal influence to satisfy. The songs are airy and expansive, relying on repetition as do most atmo-black releases, along with the pummelling drums, tremolo picking and down-mixed shrieking vocals common to the genre. The post-metal aspect of the record, particularly the slower sections, add a certain melancholy air that, when combined with the faintly disturbing lyrical subject matter coming across as something akin to the internal monologue of a potential serial killer, produce an unsettling effect on the listener.
It's no great surprise that a band that could shake an, albeit small, corner of the musical world like this, hails from San Francisco, with it's history of being a prime mover in both the psychedelic and thrash metal movements, both of which were pretty big revolutions in their particular areas. That openness to new ideas and concepts are integral to Sunbather's success I believe, allowing Deafheaven to forge something original from what is essentially a very conservative genre, the importance of which shouldn't be understated, This is because, despite the lyrics, the BM blasting and the occasional hint of wistfulness, the overarching sound of Sunbather feels very positive (well it does to me anyway) and that is anathema to a lot of the black metal community. So of course the kvltists will scream that this has sold black metal out, but let's face it, they're always pissed off anyway, so that's kind of irrelevant. You really need to go into this without any preconceptions to get the most out of it. There may actually still be too much BM in this to appeal to many outside of the usual blackgaze fanbase and not enough for the BM hardcore, but despite this, for those willing to take it for what it is, there is a lot to like here.
I have no religious affiliation and I don't believe in the occult. If I can't see it or at least have it explained using logic and rational argument then I tend not to put too much store in it. So saying, black metal's themes of satanism and the occult are merely thematic devices to my mind and, besides a couple of exceptions such as Ihsahn and Ghaal, the majority of exponents of black metal feel the same way. I put no more store in these themes than in fantasy tales of wizards and goblins. Of more concern, BM can sometimes be used as a means of expressing some unpleasant political viewpoints and promoting and almost celebrating self-destructive behaviour. However, I have no time for NSBM and DSBM doesn't much interest me, apart from a couple of noteworthy releases.
Anyway, to get to the point, Austin Lunn, aka Panopticon, is a far more positive force within black metal circles than is often the case and his well-publicised leftist views are a bit of an anomaly (at least publicly) amongst black metal musicians. Panopticon plays atmospheric black metal with folk elements, but where Austin sets himself apart is that the folk elements he employs are gleaned from Americana, particularly bluegrass, rather than the more usual European folk music tradition. He is a committed outdoorsman so the themes of nature in all its guises is predominant in his musical themes. Where his experience differs from the majority of BM musicians, he also spent a few years working in social services where he gained an understanding and appreciation of the hardship some people face on a daily basis, so as I'm sure you can appreciate, his is a rare and original voice and viewpoint working within his chosen musical genre. However, don't be deceived into thinking that his views make him uncommitted as a black metal musician as even a brief exposure to his music will reassure you that he is, in fact, the real deal, not in the satan-worshipping, misanthropic sense, but in the returning to nature, respecting the past, uncompromising outsider sense.
So to Autumn Eternal, my second-favourite Panopticon album after Kentucky. Beginning with a gentle piece of bluegrass-inspired americana, Tamarack's Gold Returns, you may be lulled into a heavy-lidded sleepiness that leaves you unprepared for the sweeping majesty of Into the North Woods as it kicks in with its busy drumming, post-metal inflected guitar and Austin's distant-sounding shrieks. As you take this in it soon becomes clear that this is a different kind of black metal. I'm sure you're thinking "Hmm.. black metal with post-metal means blackgaze", but this both hits harder and expresses more grandeur than any blackgaze I've ever heard. In fact this really isn't any kind of -gaze at all, being more direct and focussed than the haziness and absence that term implies, being very much "present". After the title track comes one of my favourites, Oaks Ablaze, which sets off in a blistering wall of sound with a powerful thumping melody before hitting a still space at around the halfway mark of its eight minutes where it pauses for breath before launching into a pummelling crescendo. Following track Sleep to the Sound of the Waves Crashing follows a similar structure, where the quiet middle section is, in fact, like falling asleep to the sound of softly crashing waves, before chiming, bell-like notes signal a hurtling climax to the track. In fact this structural device of soaring, expansive songs that hit an eye-of-the-storm moment of calm that each expresses differently as a counterpoint to the more "bombastic" sections is prevalent throughout the whole album and binds it into a cohesive whole.
This is obviously an album made by a person comfortable with where he is musically and confident in his ability to express himself through that music. Professional sometimes sounds like damning with faint praise, but A.L. is a consummate professional and an absolute master of his trade. In a genre that has more than its fair share of average musicians, poor songwriters and reprehensible characters Panopticon can stand proudly, head held high, as a true class act.
Ireland's Mael Mórdha are not a band I have been particularly well acquainted with. The only album of their's I've listened to much being 2013's Damned When Dead which wasn't bad, but didn't really inspire me to check out the rest of their back catalogue. So when I saw that the instrumental core of the band were forming a new doom outfit after placing MM on hiatus, my reaction was pretty much "[shrug] so what?!" Well more fool me, because Death the Leveller are superb and exactly the type of doom band I dig most. They play the kind of epic doom metal that pays enormous homage to the classic heavy metal bands of days of yore that Solstice have made their own since New Dark Age twenty-odd years ago.
This is ostensibly their debut album as the self-titled release is officially an EP despite being 38 minutes long (only a couple of minutes shorter than this), but that is neither here nor there. In common with that first release, this comprises four tracks hovering somewhere around the 10-minute mark - a perfect length that allows the tracks to settle in and weave their magic whilst feeling neither over-long nor underdeveloped. The bands chief currency are huge, booming riffs that are expansive and doom-laden as if, like a musical Nostradamus, they presage the coming of some all-consuming disaster, either on a personal level or in a wider sense. Vocals are provided by Denis Dowling who's previous bands include little-known Irish tech-thrashers Cursed Earth. Denis' vocals are strong, yet still emotionally charged, performing a brilliant balancing act between the power of a Morris Ingram combined with Patrick Walker's ability to convey real emotional fragility (check out "So They May Face The Rising Sun" for an example of what I'm getting at). I find it difficult to believe that a singer this good has not become more well known in metal circles.
Shane Cahill's strong drumming carries the songs forward and maintains the momentum while Dave Murphy's bass backs up the guitar riffing to add extra depth and power to the overall sound. All in all this is a band that has obviously honed their songwriting and technical skills and have found it easy to gel from their time together in Mael Mordha. Couple this with the addition of such an accomplished vocalist as Dowling and you have one hell of a doom metal band. I'm impressed and believe me, I am one cynical, jaded bastard nowadays so that's saying something!
Mysterious Germans Hexenbrett unleash their debut full-length album a year on from the Erste Beschwörung EP, a release that caused a minor splash in black metal circles back in January last year. If you read the blurb on the Bandcamp site then you would be forgiven for expecting an album that completely breaks the black metal mold which, to be honest, is a bit hyperbolic. What it does do however, is heavily raid the Darkthrone back catalogue and their penchant for marrying black metal and traditional heavy metal and diverts it into an exhilharating side street that runs parallel to the more mainstream world of black metal. Weirdly, the track titles are in a number of languages - German, Czech, Italian, French and Spanish, but most translate to a title you would expect from Glen Danzig or King Diamond - The Tomb Of The Living Dead, Corpse Burner and Through Seven Doors To Hell.
It's an enjoyable album that doesn't feel as po-faced as a lot of black metal and would probably be great for a midnight party in the local churchyard.
Armagedda have always revolved around the core duo of guitarist/vocalist Graav, mainman of solo project LIK and bassist/guitarist Andreas Petterson, vocalist of Stilla. Beginning life as a trio named Volkermord in 1999, they released a twenty minute demo before a permanent name change in 2000. Despite a bit of chopping and changing of the line up, the duo released a number of EPs and splits and three albums before calling it a day in 2004. Fifteen years later they released a couple of digital singles via Nordvis and here in 2020 at the height of Coronageddon, they are properly back with a full-length album, released on digital and CD, again by Nordvis.
Svindeldjup Ättestup is medium-paced black metal with a real old-school vibe, somewhat unsurprisingly for a Swedish band that dates back to the 1990s. Instead of an all-out, chaotic blastathon there are actually some pretty good tunes here, such as Ond Spiritism. A couple of tracks are unusually slow (for black metal) and although I would hesitate to tag them as doom metal they are certainly of a tempo more in keeping with doom. There is still a frosty and hateful vibe perpetrating the album and believe me when the duo let loose with the blasting, it rips.
All in all a decent comeback album and one that still feels relevant despite the time elapsed since their previous release. I'd give it 3.75 / 5.00.
Brume's first EP Donkey, released in 2015, was much lauded by fans of female-fronted doom metal, so this follow-up, the band's debut full-length release was much anticipated. Thankfully Rooster built on that early promise and didn't disappoint the fan base the band had built up during the intervening two years.
The album gets right down to business and opener Grit and Pearls is a ten-minute track that begins with some slow and heavy riffing overlaid by Susan McMullan's strong, yet light, vocal touch, increasing in tempo as it builds to a climax and setting a high standard for the rest of the album. It continues in similar vein for most of it's runtime, inviting the accusation of a lack of variety, I suppose, although someone who would make such a complaint is probably not much of a fan of doom metal anyway!
The album does hit a softer patch towards the end of Call the Serpent's Bluff which then runs into the acoustic ballad Welter that sounds more like Tori Amos or Patti Smith than Pallbearer and is a nice, airy interlude to relieve the crushing weight of the music up to that point. This, in turn, leads into closing epic, Tradewind, the album's longest track, which also begins gently before once more dropping the doom.
This is overall an an album of strong riffing, a powerful and well-defined rhythm section and nicely contrasting female vocals. There's no heavy metal histrionics, there isn't even much of a solo until Tradewinds and the album exhibits a satisfying discipline in it's songwriting, being absolutely a straight-up doom metal record and is completely free of any "witchy" occult referencing psychedelic touches that is so common amongst female-fronted doom acts. One for the fans of "true doom metal".