Metal Bandcamp

Antero Sleeps - Titan

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:05:00 +0000

Review by Aaron Sullivan.

Out of the big state of Texas comes the big concepts of Antero Sleeps. A band that combines original Sci-Fi stories with Sludgy DOOM. As it says on their Bandcamp,

In a different age, there was a planet populated by genetically perfect people. They lived in peace until an accidental discovery, on a distant moon, unearthed an alien weapon that threatened to destroy them all. We are telling their stories.

Indeed they do. With songs that are packed with power and emotion. Each song feeling like it’s own chapter. Atmosphere is something they are going for and there is tons of it. Calling to mind bands like Neurosis. Songs are sprawling landscapes built by the notes played. The guitar chugs and buzz’s away along side throbbing bass and pounding drums. Vocals are harsh throaty yells. The music is infectious and in no time you find your head bobbing with it. No song under 5 minutes and thanks to all the twist and turns within, no song feels overdone or too long. No matter how heavy they get there seems to be an underlying beauty to it all.

This is a band that is perfect for fans of Yob, Neurosis, and early Mastodon. These guys have the music and the concept, and when combined they have something that really can set them apart from the pack.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

The original stories Titan is based on is available on the Antero Sleeps blog.

Ordo Obsidium - Orbis Tertius

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Mon, 20 May 2013 05:54:00 +0000

Art by Médan Savamhel

Ordo Obsidium's album Orbis Tertius from 2011 is available on the Eisenwald Tonschmiede Bandcamp. The is black metal mixed with the atmosphere and melodies of funeral doom. The songs skillfully combines chaotic black metal and moody funeral doom into emotional roller coaster rides. As the album progresses the doom elements gets more prevalent, culminating with the majestic "By His Unflinching Hand". The emotive acoustic outro to that song is an example of the little touches (acoustics, tasteful synths) that Ordo Obsidium deploys exactly where needed. In fact Orbis Tertius is an album where everything feels just right. The production hits the sweet spot between sounding raw and analog (it was recorded to two-inch tape), and being clean enough to enjoy the instrumentation (and there is much to enjoy). And the vocals... as the merry Lurkers so eloquently put it: "His voice is at once a tour-de-force of distress and hopelessness and then a harrowing call to arms". Highly recommended.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Kongh - Sole Creation

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:37:00 +0000

Review by Justin C.

Kongh's latest album, Sole Creation, is available on the growing Bandcamp page of Agonia Records. The band has just two members, David Johansson and Tomas Salonen, but they make a mighty wall of sound in a genre I'll call "high-intensity doom."

I think it will be clear why I'm going with the "high-intensity doom" label when you hear how this album charges out of the gate. The opening track, "Sole Creation," quickly builds to a thundering riff over a tribal-sounding drum pattern. If this doesn't make you want to go on a King Kong(h)-style rampage of destruction, then I don't know what will. There are plenty of stately, doomy tempos on this album, but even if the speed ebbs and flows, the intensity stays high.

The lyrics of "Sole Creation" and "Tamed Brute" both describe some kind of beast, imprisoned against its will. How the beast came to be and how it was captured aren't clear, but the rage is unmistakable. Vocalist David Johansson has a wicked guttural, but he mainly sticks to clean vocals throughout the album, using his growls as punctuation. The vocals may be clean, but they have a very satisfying rasp that works very well with the music. I hear bits and pieces of 90s grunge in them, particularly Alice in Chains, with some hints of early Ozzy, but Johansson's vocal style is ultimately his own, filled with eerie menace. It also doesn't hurt that he's a good singer, period.

I don't normally geek out on production--I'm fairly tolerant to anything but the very extremes of quality, but it just so happens that this is a fantastic-sounding album. Salonen's drums are clear and well-balanced, and Johansson's guitar tone is growling but still focused, with the thundering bottom end serving as a great counterpoint to the winding lines he often plays above the foundational riffs.

I feel like this album didn't get a lot of attention in North America, but hopefully its availability on Bandcamp will change that.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Cssaba - Underground Lo-Fi Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:34:00 +0000

Review by Majbritt Levinsen.

So a mail landed in my mailbox telling me a 'new' album from Cssaba was available on bandcamp. As I am a curious person I had to go hear what it was all about. I hit play without any pre-conceptions and the first track "Nails" from the album Underground Lo-Fi Songs started to fill my headphones with a dark industrial beat and atmosphere that lead my first thoughts to NIN. As the track progressed I couldn't help thinking that this was a weird combination of NIN, Locrian and Terra Tenebrosa, but in a dark ambient industrial version.

This is experimental ambient industrial black metal and according to the little info I have been able to dig up, this is a one man band from Poland with Michał "Nihil" Kuźniak behind it all. The album Underground Lo-Fi Songs was originally release in December 2012, but is now made available for download on Bandcamp by Metalhit.

I don’t know why this album appeals to me as it does, as it isn’t really anything I listen to normally as this is way too industrial for my likings. But there is something in the almost droning background ambience, the repeated beats, the dark sounds and the chanting vocal that somehow manages to keep me interested, and a strange calm finds itself in me. "To The Moon" is a perfect example of this.

The tracks all have the same atmosphere, mood and offer little variation in regards to pace, which holds this album together just perfectly. One would maybe think the tracks and the entire album were on the more monotone side of songwriting, but I like the straightforward no-nonsense drive the songs have.

Well if you are up to something different, this is it!

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Ade - Spartacus

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:28:00 +0000

Artwork by Phlegeton Art Studio

Ade's new full-length Spartacus is available on the Blast Head Records Bandcamp. The Italien band calls their music "Ancient Roman Death Metal" and it is a fitting moniker. Technical death metal played with a brutality that matches the battlefields of yore, and infused with traditional instrumentation. The little bass flourishes, guitars leads, and drums fills so typical of technical death metal, are replaced with short sections featuring ancient string instruments like the lyra and the oud. There's also well integrated parts with tribal drumming, female vocals, and haunting choirs. They create the proper "ancient" atmosphere without making Spartacus sound less metal in any way.

The metal elements themselves are top notch. The drumming (by George Kollias of Nile fame) is intense. The singer uses a raw mid range style that fits perfectly with the music, not too high or too low. The guitarists are given places to shine like the piercing lead in "Duelling The Shadow Of Spartacus". The bass, well, I don't know, because Spartacus is wrapped in a clear modern production where the bass isn't given much room. But that is a minor flaw that doesn't really detract anything from this energetic and engaging album. Check out Erik Thomas' review from Teeth of the Divine, then jump into the fray.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Deathcode Society - Ite Missa Est - Indiegogo campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:53:00 +0000

Review by Justin C.

Deathcode Society describe themselves as "symphonic black metal." I usually get nervous when I see "symphonic," fearing music dripping with cheesy-sounding synths and overwrought choral effects, but there's no such problem on the band's two-song demo. The synths and electronics are tastefully added to machine-gun drumming, melodic black metal riffing, and a distinct bass presence. Even when the symphonic-like elements take center stage, as they do in a brief interlude in "The Inner Vortex," they're so well written and arranged that even the most skeptical of us have to admire them. The vocals take the form of a fiery, mid-range rasp. They've recently changed vocalists, but the band has helpfully posted two snippets of their new vocalist singing their demo tracks on their Bandcamp page, and the new guy is obviously up for the job.

Seraphic Requiem - New Singer 2013 by DEATHCODE SOCIETY	1:45 of "Seraphic Requiem" with the new singer.
The Inner Vortex - 2013 New Singer by DEATHCODE SOCIETY	1:26 of "The Inner Vortex" with the new singer.

The preview of the new vocalist is relevant because Deathcode Society is crowd-funding their full-length album at Indiegogo. For the uninitiated, sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer bands (and other artists and craftspeople) a way of funding their projects with support from the public at large. Backers can choose how much or how little they want to contribute, and in turn, they get a sort of "pre-order" package of their choosing. There's a little more risk involved, since the projects at hand are usually still in progress during the campaign and you can't go back and cancel your pledge once the campaign is complete, but the plus side is that you can help support a band that doesn't have access to huge record label advances. I've personally done this a couple of times already, with albums from Byzantine and Dreaming Dead, and it's been a lot of fun. I even kicked in some extra money to Byzantine for an extra reward, in the form of the complete guitar tablature for the album.

So if you think Deathcode's music is worth it and you have a little cash to spare, consider helping their funding along. They've chosen a Flexible Funding campaign, which, unlike Kickstarter's all-or-nothing projects, means the project can still be successful even if the full funding goal isn't reached. (If you haven't supported any crowd-funding efforts before, see Indiegogo's FAQ page for more details on how these things work.) Deathcode's campaign closes on May 27th, 11:59 U.S. Pacific Time. Even if you're not interested in the campaign, you can still get the excellent demo for a measly $2.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Taurus - Life

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:11:00 +0000

Review by Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published here by Exclaim.

Taurus are a psychedelic doom duo from Portland, OR, that are self-releasing Life as they prepare to support doomed and blackened folk band Agalloch on their summer tour. Taurus are composed of guitarist/vocalist Stevie Floyd (Dark Castle) and drummer Ashley Spungin (ex-Purple Rhinestone Eagle). Life is composed of a single 35-minute movement, which is divided into two parts, recorded live-off-the-floor in A Studio With No Name and mastered by James Plotkin. The fruits of their labours are drones and drools, shakes and shambles, a darkly monstrous and emotive piece of doom.

Photo by Karen Mann

Were this album an example of a literary genre, it could only be a work of horror. The atmosphere is as grim and ominous as mist rising from unhallowed ground, skulking around broken gravestones. The vocalizations are eerie and pained, the wails and moans of restless ghosts, while the drums crash like things breaking, somehow miserable. Rather than liner or circular, the structure of this drone project comes in waves, ebbs and flows that crash and then abate. While Life is undoubtedly a challenging and difficult work, it also leaves a cold ache in the joints and echoes in the listeners' head long after you stop listening.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Demoncy - Joined In Darkness

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:44:00 +0000

Artwork by Michael Riddick

Demoncy's Joined In Darkness from 1999 was remastered and re-released by Negative Existence in 2007. This is truly eerie black metal. The use of 7-string guitars and 5-string bass creates a bottom heavy almost doomy sound. The drumming is utterly mechanical, and the production sucks all remaining life out of this. Combined it is a droning wall of dread over which you can hear a corpse whisper to you in his inhumanly cold voice. Chilling tales about summoning evil:

Demonic entity of night
I call thy name
Come before me
Of thy own free will
Cursed are the sorcerers
That bind you against your will
Show thyself in true form
Thy hideousness is beauty

("Demoncy") or surprisingly beautiful odes to the eternal cold:

And after all has failed and died
The sun will turn to dusk
Earth becomes as cold as the souls within it
Sleep to last bright day
Awakened by the silence of snowfall
A beauty beyond belief
Embodied in eternal white

("Winter Bliss"). This is an album that may take a few spins before you succumb to it's dark atmosphere. It is generally hailed as an early USBM classic, and I think that praise is well deserved.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Yawning Sons - Ceremony to the Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Sat, 11 May 2013 14:27:00 +0000

Review by Aaron Sullivan.

To speak of Yawning Sons one must first speak of Yawning Man. Yawning Man came from the same California deserts that birthed Kyuss. In fact they started in 1986 (although nothing was released until 2005), jamming in garages and at parties to the very people that would go on to form Kyuss. Their influence on the desert rock scene in tremendous. Kyuss even had Yawning Man’s drummer Alfredo Hernández join the band for their last album (...And the Circus Leaves Town) even covering a Yawning Man song, "Catamaran".

Yawning Sons came about when Yawning Man’s guitarist Gary Arce was asked by the UK band Sons of Alpha Centauri to produce their album. As it says on their Bandcamp page,

Upon the first day of working in the studio, it was clear that something special was taking place. Within the space of a week Gary and the band would work together to write and record their own collaborative album. The resulting sound is like no other experienced before.

The resulting sound is one that is mostly instrumental and totally laid back and hypnotic. This may be an album recorded in the UK but the sunshine of the California desert is all over it. Echoey guitars over solid bass playing. Drumming that is not about power but about driving the songs. The atmosphere created on these songs give me a sense of flying over vast landscapes. Enjoying the peace and serenity of the scenery below. Vocals are provided on three different tracks by Scott Reeder (The Obsessed, Kyuss) Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson, Desert Sessions) and Wendy Rae Fowler (Queens Of The Stone Age, Mark Lanegan Band, Unkle). Each adding a change of pace on an otherwise instrumental album keeping things from getting stale.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Graves at Sea - Documents of Grief - Split with Asunder

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:10:00 +0000

One of the most anticipated concerts at the Heavy Days In Doom Town festival was Graves at Sea's closing set on Saturday. The band returned to active duty last year after a 4 year hiatus, and this was their first European show ever! And let me tell you, they absolutely killed it. Their blend of doom and NOLA sludge riffs carried by Nathan Misterek's blackened rasps, works so goddamn well live. The Heavy Days In Doomtown set was one hour of pure primal metal.

Photo by 4:30am from the HDDT concert.

Check out Repulsive Revolutions' lively description of the moment when Graves at Sea kicked into "Red Monarch" from their 2003 demo:

When the intro twists into that opening riff, the whole room loses it. Heads are banged, beer is spilled, stages are dived from... it's one of the best moments of the whole weekend. The guitars ratchet the tension up with each repetition of the riff, the drums build and build but never quite lock in, the whole thing threatening to erupt at any moment. And then it does, and I almost destroy my face against the stage. This is what music is capable of. Sheer fucking bliss.

Nick Phit and Lola Henderson. Photos by 4:30am from the HDDT concert.

The new lineup includes Lola Henderson on bass and Chuck Watkins on drums (and that is one massive rhytm section) in addition to original members Nick Phit on guitar and Nathan Misterek on vocals. Currently the band is touring Europe together with Meth Drinker (tour dates on Facebook). Go see them if you get the chance, you wont regret it.

The band is also working on new material. According to the above Facebook page Seventh Rule Recordings is "is slated to do a release with Graves in the next couple months". In the meantime you can check out a couple of their old releases on the 20 Buck Spin Bandcamp. Their 2003 demo (favorite track, the aforementioned "Red Monarch"), and their 2005 split with Asunder (favorite track "Pariah") which has just been made available for purchase.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Unsacred Seed - Unsacred Seed

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Fri, 10 May 2013 00:39:00 +0000

Artwork by Eric Styler

Canadian band Unsacred Seed has just released their self-titled debut album. This is well done groovy blackened death metal. Very solid riffing, not super brutal or technical. Unsacred Seed seem to focus on writing memorable songs (and more often than not they succeed in doing so), in that sense they remind me of Bloodshot Dawn. And like Bloodshot Dawn they know the art of badass soloing, each song contains one or more well played and well integrated solo. As for the production, the band says "the album has a raw, slightly imperfect sound", and that is right. Is is also good. So much modern metal has an overly clinical sound, with horribly replaced drums. I think the slightly raw production makes Unsacred Seeds take on modern metal more interesting. And I think you should check them out.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Locrian – The Clearing & The Final Epoch

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:31:00 +0000

Review by Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published here by Exclaim.

Locrian are one of those consummately creative bands that take genuine pleasure in their ability to sweetly torture and shock the listener. Combining the fine textures of excellent ambient metal with the stately reserve of European doom and the ability to surprise that only the finest experimental metal can boast, The Clearing & The Final Epoch is truly rare for its aesthetic balance, musical excellent and imaginative scope. Both halves of this double album fit together surprisingly well, considering that the first is a re-release of their acclaimed 2011 effort, The Clearing, and the second is a collection of previously unreleased material.

Photos by Carmelo Española.

Opener "The Clearing" spends nearly half its length offering subtle embellishments on a single hypnotic pulse before fragmenting into an eerie, broken soundscape pierced by distant screams. What is so consistently wonderful and upsetting about Locrian is their ability to play with texture. The bright electronic wail that begins "On A Calcified Shore" is iridescent and impenetrable as nacre, but gradually, the song begins to flake apart and then melt, by the end devolving into a wet, squishy, enveloping sound, lush and organic. And then there is "Omega Vapours," an 8-bit black metal track that is an absolute revelation. For merciless clarity of vision, The Clearing & The Final Epoch is a rare gift.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Anciients - Heart of Oak

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Tue, 07 May 2013 07:05:00 +0000

Guest review by Sean Golyer.

From the shores of Vancouver emerge heavy metal newcomers Anciients and their debut full-length album Heart of Oak. Drawing from nearly all corners of the metal spectrum there’s a little bit of something for every metalhead out there. Thrashy chugs, progressive weedily-doos, blackened tremolos, sludgey chords, post-metal atmosphere, and guitar solos all thrive in Anciients’ world. Not to mention the varied vocal performances ranging from growls, screeches, and singing.

Technical talent fuses with an excellent sense of interesting songwriting and pacing that kept me engaged throughout. There are no gimmicks or fancy soundscape filler here (save for the acoustic interlude "One Foot in the Light"), just pure heavy metal. In that sense, some listeners may become a bit fatigued by the sound partway through. There aren’t any particularly surprising dynamic shifts or crazy experimentation going on here. The production and mix is superb, but one may get a hint of sameness throughout. Fortunately, what the band lacks in sonic innovation they more than make up for in the riff department. Every passage lasts just long enough for me to enjoy banging my head to before changing up the pace while the vocals swap between various styles at all the right moments.

Fans of progressive metal heavy-hitters like Opeth or Mastodon may not find a whole lot new here, but there’s certainly plenty to enjoy. Easily one of the most well-rounded and solid debut albums a newcomer could muster. Keep an eye on these guys and support them on Bandcamp and at their upcoming live performances.

Favorite Track: "Faith and Oath".

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Boneworm - Boneworm

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Sun, 05 May 2013 23:20:00 +0000

Review by Ulla Roschat.

Boneworm are a three piece Sludge/Doom band from Portland/Oregon/USA, formed in 2012. Their self titled debut album was released in the same year! The album consists of only three songs but with a runtime of about 42 minutes overall, and the shortest song being 12:55, all of them can be called long, unhesitatingly.

Boneworm play sludgy doom with sprinkles of psychedelic and post metal sounds. Their style is a quite unique combination of slowness and heaviness with a kind of minimalistic attitude and a definitely sweet melvin-ish vibe to it. With these ingredients they create torturing dark atmospheres of desolation and hopelessness.

Each song takes about 666 years to expand and pour their viscous corrosive venom into your ears and unfold gloomy soundscapes in your head. Ostensibly unobtrusive, but relentlessly intense and menacing they carry a sense of omniscience and inevitability where no hurry or outburst of rage is necessary. You are doomed, there is no way out of it. And Doom is the essential thing you hear and feel throughout the entire album. All is sounding very immediate, direct, natural and organic. Despite their dazed-snail like tempo everything sounds right on point. Every evil riff, every delusive escape promising psychedelic guitar part, all is set perfectly right.

This exciting and beautiful gem of an album is bursting with originality and creativity. It is not an easy listening thing. The album is demanding and exhausting and you will feel the agonizing, gnawing slowness and heaviness in each second of it, but the intrinsic hypnotic attraction and the bewitching intensity and depth you will feel all the same.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

The Psyke Project - Guillotine

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:16:00 +0000

Review by Majbritt Levinsen.

1st of April 2013 the album Guillotine from Danish sludge/hardcore metal band The Psyke Project was released. This is brutal blackened sludgy post-hardcore at it's finest. Martin Nielskov's vocal is raw anger/angst filled roars, that suits the music just perfectly. The massively rumbling bass, delivered by Jeppe Skouv, vibrates and chugs along together with drummer Rasmus Gajhede Sejersen's skilled playing, creating a stable rhythm section. This gives a firm structured contrast to the guitars that plays with your ears and brain in a most tickling way. Behind the guitars are Mikkel Vadstrup Schmidt and Christian Bonnesen.

The album offers much variation among tracks, but also within each track. They are all connected by the same overall sound and feeling though, making Guillotine a very homogeneous album. If I have to pick a favorite it would be the eerie "Partisan". It's Dark and haunting, and the repeated outcry from Martin "And we pray for something that will never happen", just feels so right and so perfect. When "Partisan" releases it’s grip on you "The Mute" firmly reels you back into this darker corner of this album. The track 'Empire' continues in the same vein, but after these three darker tracks, the album continues in the angst-filled brutal pounding hardcore style. In the later part of the album we get a little breather with the instrumental ‘When Man Became God’ showing a lighter side of the band.

The lyrics are very much on the dark side of life, the internal struggle of mankind, the ever searching for something better, anger, discontent, meaningless life. Not happy lyrics I tell you! And to finish this off, I leave you with the final lines from the final track "Menneske" (Sung/yelled in Danish):

Vi prøver at finde den rytme, den dans, den form der gør os tryggest.
I sådan fuldkommenhed vil døden lure

And isn’t it just so...

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Sinistrous Diabolus - Total Doom//Desecration

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:03:00 +0000

Review by Craig Hayes.

Twenty years. That's how long we've waited for Sinistrous Diabolus's debut full-length, Total Doom//Desecration. Back in 1993 the Christchurch, New Zealand-based band released Opus One, a three-song cassette that has long been recognized as one of Australasia's most influential extreme metal demos. Opus One was reissued recently by Dark Descent and Goat Gear (selling out immediately), and its importance for NZ's underground metal scene--or for anyone who has drawn inspiration from its chasms of putrescent death and even more festering doom--can't be understated.

In the world of lugubrious Antipodean death and doom you can certainly hear Opus One's echo to this day. Much like similarly revered NZ metal veterans Vassafor, who recently released their throttling full-length debut, Obsidian Codex, Sinistrous Diabolus played a crucial role in constructing the aesthetic framework of the gloomiest, dankest, and staunchest end of the NZ metal scene. Things have come full circle in recent years for the band’s frontman, N.K.S., as his role in providing eerie noise-scapes on Stone Angels' magnificently shadowy sludge debut, 2011's Within the Witch, has seen members of that band join Sinistrous Diabolus’s current line-up. However, the darkest gods have truly aligned with N.K.S having also featured in the line-up of NZ's most (in)famous doom cult acts Witchrist and Diocletian--and both bands continue to honor the artistic vision Sinistrous Diabolus first evoked back in 1993.

Given Sinistrous Diabolus's history, legacy, and influence, and of course the unabashed title of Total Doom//Desecration, it'll come as no surprise to hear that the album’s contents are supremely dark and iniquitous. If references are required, think of it as a blend of the old-guard of death and doom (Incantation, Asphyx, Thergothon, and disEmbowelment) meeting newer purveyors of morbid and malicious eccentricity (Abyssal, Mitochondrion, or Portal). However, keep in mind, N.K.S has been honing the blade for 20 or so years now, and Sinistrous Diabolus do have a sound very much of their own. They call to mind the classics, of course, how could they not? But somewhere in that mix of old and new is Sinistrous Diabolus, crouching in a cave, roasting the bones of sacrificed Christians over a roaring fire.

Total Doom//Desecration is 40-plus minutes of Stygian atmospherics and soul-crushing, grinding doom. Within, Sinistrous Diabolus revisit older tracks, reconstructing them into more intimidating form, with monolithically heavy and murky passages of faster death-metal riffing, and grim soundscapes burying melodies under churning, frequently harrowing, requiems.

"Wipe out Christianity (Exordium)", and the 12 minutes of ritualized misery on "Wipe out Christianity (Pestis)" seethe with an (obvious) abhorrence of doctrine and divinity. The hawkish chimes and drones--flecked with Orthodox timbres and battering percussion--on "Gate of Hell" plummet into the uber-downtuned roil of "Sleep of the Damned Pt. I". And the album's highlight, "The Essence of Divinity Given to Abstractions of the Human Mind", is a colossally menacing composition--inexorably building layer upon layer of apprehension and tension towards its maelstrom-like zenith.

What defines Total Doom//Desecration is Sinistrous Diabolus's ability to maintain a sense of trepidation and corruption, underscored by intense despair. Alternating between old-school mid-tempo lurches, pitch-black feedbacking noise, and surges of dissonance and technicality intensifies the palpable reverberations--and drowning harmony in quagmires of immeasurable filth only amplifies the undercurrent of torment and torture.

Total Doom//Desecration is utterly barbaric, but not just musically. Sinistrous Diabolus conjures dread, and it's a perverted and pitiless kind too--the band taking obvious pleasure in generating plenty of discomfort. The album makes for disconcerting listening, but, of course, it’s that unsettling nature that makes it such a successful release. It evokes what we all ponder in our darkest moments, and what any fan of catastrophic doom adores; that relentless and inescapable march to death.

The production on Total Doom//Desecration deserves mention too, because no such catalogue of ruination is ever going to be effective without the appropriate audio wretchedness. The album is thick and sludgy, and magnificently oppressive. With a similar mass, though less ornate, than a latter-day Esoteric, Total Doom//Desecration comes with all the raw asphyxiating weight of Winter or Indesinence. Vocals are scraped from the bowels of the earth, with sepulchral growls and indecipherable guttural chants reinforcing the album’s bone-chilling harshness. Instrumentally, the pummeling percussion, rupturing bass, and distortion-laden guitars have equally important (and equally audible) roles in contributing to the significant and notably tarnished magnitude. But what is also of note is what's behind all the noise. In those moments when Total Doom//Desecration is at its most somber, and the yawning mouth of its godforsaken depths are most exposed, there's a strong sense of something truly malevolent lurking within--something just out of sight, but something that repeated listens will clearly draw to the surface.

Ultimately, Total Doom//Desecration is ample reward for the wait. Obviously, expectations were high, but N.K.S is an artist bent to perfection, so wait we did--and it didn't help that he suffered a horrendous hand injury in an industrial accident a couple of years back. Still, it's 2013, and the debut is here, and for fans of deafening death and doom with an ear for old-school intensity (and a boiling hatred of religion) then Total Doom//Desecration is well worth checking out. For any metal fan in the southern hemisphere, it’s obviously an essential purchase; for everyone else, doubly so. After all, Total Doom//Desecration is a piece of cult metal history, and we can only hope the future is just as musically formidable and forlorn.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Note: Opus One is available as a free download on the group's Bandcamp page. You can get Total Doom//Desecration there too, but beware that it seems you will only be getting half the album if you buy it there...

Agrimonia - Rites of Separation

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:38:00 +0000

In a short time the Southern Lord Bandcamp has doubled in size. The latest addition is Rites of Separation, the brand new full-length by Swedish band Agrimonia. We covered their self-titled debut here and thankfully Rites of Separation is much more of the same. Sludge. Post-metal. Crust. Epic, well written songs that consists of many diverse movements, like some of the longer Opeth songs. Terrific harsh vocals by Christina Blom (with the fitting nickname Crustina). Excellent production, and tons of anger and aggressiveness. And it's precisely Agrimonia's aggression that makes them stand out, as Austin Weber so nicely explains in the No Clean Singing review

In general, the label of post-metal describes a cocktail of sludge, doom, and hardcore ideas shaken and stirred into a longer song structure [...] What this usually sacrifices is speed and aggression, since those qualities are not the primary focus. However, Agrimonia do not follow that path. Their take is gritty and vitriolic, adept at punishing you in waves, with a strong affinity for crushing heaviness.

Simply put Rites of Separation is a great album, it's the metal equivalent of tasty dish, that combines elements from different kitchens just right, and leaves you full and entirely satisfied.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Cult of Erinyes - A Place to Call My Unknown

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Thu, 02 May 2013 06:02:00 +0000

The enigmatically titled A Place to Call My Unknown by Cult of Erinyes, available on Les Acteurs de l'Ombre Productions Bandcamp, is a hidden gem of majestic black metal. This is the Belgian bands debut full-length from 2011; the previous EP, the raw Golgotha was featured here. In an interview with Mortem Zine, Cult of Erinyes stated that "With the full-length, we worked on the sound a bit more, but I think we still managed to keep it rather organic as well".

And yes, production values on A Place to Call My Unknown are good; the sound is large and forceful, this combined with the harsh vocal performance by Mastema makes for a pretty aggressive sounding album. The aggression is tempered by the varied songwriting though. Songs take their twists and turns, and tempos vary. Brutal riffing gives way to more atmospheric parts, some utilizing clean singing. The drumming, by Baal, is nuanced for black metal, it backs the songs with interesting fills, and the riffs with speedy blasting.

In another interview, with Don't Count On It Reviews, Corvus (Bass, Guitars, Keyboards) describes the music as "ritualistic" and says that "It’s the reason why almost all the songs have a precise moment where everything will implode". He goes on to mention the second part of "Black Eyelids" as the best example, and rightly so; when Mastema intones "My hands are shaking almost constantly" shortly before the song explodes, the tension is palpable. According to the interview, Cult of Erinyes had the skeleton of the next album in place, and in 2012 they released a split with Zifir. I hope that album finds a home on Bandcamp too.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Paroxsihzem - Paroxsihzem

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:22:00 +0000

Review by Atanamar Sunyata.

Art by Krag from Paroxsihzem

I’m a sucker for guitar tone. The right shade of raging will draw me into an album; the right riffs will make me stick around. On their debut full-length, Paroxsihzem roll out a sound that inhabits a buzzing, balmy circle of hell. The guitars recall the distinct distortion of Tom G. Warrior and the warm swarming of Amon Amarth. The milieu is death and the attitude is bestial; I think you get the picture.

Paroxsihzem are astoundingly heavy at any speed. Bulbous riffs burst with catchy crunch as they twitch in spasmodic bursts. The beefy blasting is far more engaging than the average death sprint. The drums are particularly enjoyable, benefiting from a sound that reflects nicely off of the pungent guitar tone. Paroxsihzem is seething with chaotic fury; this is the rallying cry of an army bent on bloodshed. The incomprehensibly irate vocals are executed with the cadence of a youthful Chris Barnes, enhancing the album’s crazed character.

Paroxsihzem utilize the cryptic-soundclip-as-extra-band-member schtick; it works quite well. This device on top of a grinding-death smorgasbord is evocative of Dragged into Sunlight’s Hatred for Mankind. In fact, this is how I wish a follow up to that album might have sounded. Paroxsihzem is printed without lyrics, so any inherent message is obscured; I’m happy to walk away from the album with a massive, mindless rage-on.

I’ve had Paroxsihzem in rotation since Dark Descent unleashed its magnificence upon the postal system last year. It was quite rightly amongst my favorite albums of 2012.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Batillus - Concrete Sustain

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:29:00 +0000

Review by Justin C.

We've all had the experience: A band you've been following puts out a new album. You get it, press play, and think, "Wait, this isn't the [insert band name here] I remember! Why did they change their [sludge/doom/black/death/etc.]?" I had that experience with the new Batillus album, Conrete Sustain, but I'll tell you why it will all be O.K.

Photo by Carmelo Española.

If the band's last album, Furnace, was a sludgy/doomy affair, then Conrete Sustain shows them giving more space to their industrial influence. The opening track, "Concrete," features a lock-step marching tempo under fuzzed out guitars and bass with singer Fade Kainer barking, "Sustain and dominate!" like a brutal commander. Straightaway, you hear how well suited Kainer's voice is for this style of industrial metal. His voice is focused and raw, and it makes me want to run around my office shrieking orders at my coworkers. More than I usually do, anyway.

To be fair, this change isn't as huge of a shift as I thought on first listen. After all, the second track on Furnace, "Deadweight," churned along like the soundtrack from one of the Terminator movies, with Kainer screaming, "Fall on your knees!" What we get with Conrete Sustain is really an extension of that sound. The songs are spare and tight. There are no walls of sound here--these tracks are pared down to their simplest elements with plenty of space for the individual instruments to breathe.

Photo by Carmelo Española.

And if you're worried that the band has completed abandoned their doomier sound, don't be. The nearly 9-minute-long closer, "Thorns," rumbles along at an appropriately slow pace, with deep, rumbling vocals only punctuated by Kainer's harsher screams. It's a beautiful, melancholy epic with poetic lyrics about releasing pain.

If you're at all put off by the early songs on this album or the "industrial" label, don't be. It may take a while for this record to sink in for fans of the band's earlier work, but it's well worth the time.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

St Barthelemy's Temple - The Sheol Unfold

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:29:00 +0000

Review by Aaron Sullivan.

Art by Jurictus Neccato

It seems adding elements of Black Metal to your music just makes it better. Like peanut butter to chocolate or adding bacon to, well anything really. France’s St. Barthelemy’s Temple add Black Metal to their DOOM. A growing sub-genre that has it’s share of great bands. With The Sheol Unfold people may be adding their name to that list.

Primitive and raw. These are the first things that come to mind as the music starts. But this is not achieved from a production trick. But rather the overall mood of the music. Guitars have a buzzing grittiness while the bass keeps things low and slow. The drums lumber along with a sludgy feel with only cymbal splashes to add any light to the otherwise dark proceedings. Vocal are blackened screeches. Which is fitting for an album that references Sheol (Jewish hell) and Thaumiel (an evil force in Jewish mysticism). Topics rarely, if ever, used in metal.

With only three song St. Barthelemy’s Temple have laid a foundation that they can build from. Their ability to write Blackened DOOM that is not only dark and heavy but also, dare I say, catchy is something that sets this band apart. The Sheol Unfold proves there is still some uncharted territory out there to harvest.

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Dirge - Elysian Magnetic Fields

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:21:00 +0000

Dirge's Elysian Magnetic Fields from 2011 is industrial tinged atmospheric sludge metal. Tracks ebb and flow, from ambient noise to huge riffs, that moves the songs forward with an almost unstoppable force. The industrial influence mostly consists of tastefully applied electronics, but also more overtly like the intro to the instrumental "Sandstorm", where the drums plays around an insisting bleep. Later in the song the bleep transforms into into a harsh bubbling noise that add an ominous depth to the post-metallic riffing.

The production is dense and layered, this is an album you can listen to many times, and still hear something new. On the other hand, it is also a very immediate album, many of the melodies are quite enchanting. Take the intense ending to the last song "Apogee". Emotional shouting on top of powerful drumming, it took me a while to notice the weird time signature (I'm not a musician, but it's 13/4 according to a review I read). Dirge must also be given credit for using an accordion to create atmosphere here and there. Again, something that you may not hear on first listen. All in all, Elysian Magnetic Fields is an immensely satisfying album, and comes highly recommended.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Woe - Withdrawal - 3

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:47:00 +0000

Review by Craig Hayes.

Design by Justin Miller

Withdrawal, in many of its forms, can be extremely painful. It can scorch your bones from the inside out, thread razor-wire through every corpuscle, and leave you with an unquenchable thirst for mental and physical solace while you ache with pernicious desires and doubts. It's fitting, then, that you'll find an abundance of those very same elements and themes explored on Withdrawal, the third full-length from black metal band Woe.

Withdrawal was produced by vocalist, guitarist, and band founder Chris Grigg, and mastered by Colin Marston. It revisits the pitiless ferocity found on Woe's 2008 debut full-length, A Spell for the Death of Man, mining the darkness of that album for the aforementioned bone-scorching temper. However, Withdrawal also explores the sonic depths and emotional intensity of the band’s sophomore release, 2010's Quietly, Undramatically, similarly binding its maniacal black metal to complex arrangements, all slathered in a variety of ill-tempered influences.

Photo by Casey Carlton.

Woe began as a one-man band and became a fuller unit around Quietly, Undramatically. Withdrawal is the band’s most collaborative effort thus far, with drummer Ruston Grosse and guitarist Ben Brand contributing songs, and bassist Grzesiek Czapla expanding his vocal role significantly. With more songwriting voices being added, Woe's missives are on the new album are stocked with differing shades--albeit all of them still dwelling firmly in the shadows. While there's an unquestionable recognition of black metal's lineage on Withdrawal, creative honesty is the key element here, as it is for similarly explorative acts in the US black metal scene such as Krallice, Ash Borer, Nachtmystium or Deafheaven. Certainly, black metal serves the aesthetic foundation for Withdrawal, but Woe aren't bound to any stringent dictates about what is or isn't allowed.

Photo by Casey Carlton.

Still, adventurism aside, Withdrawal does retain plenty of raw, no-frills second wave rancor, and suffers no shortage of dissonance or malice. "This is the End of the Story" is an utterly pitiless screed with tortured vocals from the abyss, and "Carried by Waves to Remorseless Shores of the Truth" features a vitriolic, and hugely effective, staggering rhythmic flow, winding around a ceaselessly rumbling bass. Grigg and Brand provide deluges of frantic tremolo riffing, with melodies riding atop, or buried within. Czapla's bass work powers through all with a sesmic Motörhead punch, and Grosse's drumming provides for non-stop, dexterous hostility. As far as black metal's hallmarks go, you'll find all boxes ticked here, and the production comes with that crucial corrosive bite. However, though Withdrawal features plentiful venom, there's abundant subtle poison here too.

Photo by Casey Carlton.

"Ceaseless Jaws" halts mid-song for a wonderfully crooked and isolated guitar line to bleed through, before hurling itself back into the pitch-black chasms. "Song of My Undoing" sees clean and noxious vocals combine with tumbling glaciers of poignant doom--all kicked off with filthy crust-punk-influenced assault. The songwriting throughout Withdrawal sees shifts of mood and tone drawn from murky depths, and the result is a cavernous album that plummets into dark emotional depths. The gut-wrenching explorations therein, and the underlying tides of doom, punk and heaving post-rock, are swamped in surges of leveling black metal. Still, for all Withdrawal's outright ruination and brutality, Woe's message is received loud and clear. The album brings both power and pathos to a raft of themes that haunt us all, with murderous hailstorms of riffing recalling the frustrations we all feel when trying to move forward in life.

In all, Withdrawal offers a means to purge your exasperations and discontentments, and it does so with dramatic and dynamic confidence. In wrestling with those issues, Woe exhibits a great deal of artistic freedom, making the album ever more personal and resonant in the process. Play it loud, play it long. Kill the demons that plague you, or summon them into being. How you use Withdrawal is up to you. What matters most is that it’s just the kind of album we need to accompany or confront our grief, doubt, pain and--most importantly of all--our very darkest fears.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Woe - Withdrawal - 2

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:23:00 +0000

Review by Adrian Tan.

Design by Justin Miller

So what exactly is it that makes Black Metal anyways? This has been the question that have gotten me thinking for the better part of the day. Consciously thinking about this, it makes me realize exactly how little a tag like “Black Metal” really convey these days.

I mean, it really doesn’t describe all that much really. If I were to tell you that a band plays Black Metal. What would you be expecting? Basement quality raw (some say shitty) atmospherics? Grandiose (some say pretentious) orchestrations and symphonics? It is little wonder why “sub-genre” tags have become the topic of obsessive contention and the source of many a hurt (butt or otherwise).

All this makes it quite intriguing for me as I attempt to communicate the music of Woe and their latest outing on what would be their third album “Withdrawal”. It is with this note that I refrain to classify though simply saying that they play Black Metal is tantamount to not saying much.

Photo by Casey Carlton.

Woe plays a brand of metal (mostly Black) in a vein that is truly quite unique. The music concocted in their latest offering is a melting pot of creative musical ideas that sprawls across the genres of metaldom (and then some). Where songs like “Carried by Waves to Remorseless Shores of the Truth” pummels relentlessly forward with Death/Thrash metal ferocity, others like “Song of my Undoing” is an exercise of refrained aggression wrapped around Post-Metal/Rock sensibilities. There is more going on here than the flavours you can find in Ben & Jerry’s confectionary mutations. And it is just that which makes it all the more intriguing and palpable - familiar flavours mixed in such ways that you’ve never thought possible. It takes skill and vision of the utmost degree to be able to pull this off with coherence of any sort. And here it’s all nailed to a precisely to the T.

Material aside, in the time between, Woe have clearly matured immensely as a band and it comes through in the music.Tight-as-fuck delivery, near-effortless dynamics as the playing shifts between musical phrases within songs plus mind-bendingly killer lead guitar and bass work interwoven within the subtly shifting lattice-work of compositions - the band have developed their musical chops; honed to a whole different degree.

Here is an album that is a testament to the continued organic musical evolution from a ceaselessly creative and ambitious young band. For me, this collection of tunes hit home in all the right places. Yet another worthy addition to the well storied pantheon of Black Metal (or “Modern-Progressive-Deathened-Post-Black American Metal” to be precise).

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Woe - Withdrawal - 1

noreply@blogger.com (Max Rotvel) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:35:00 +0000

Review by Justin C.

Design by Justin Miller

If my iTunes play count is any indication, then I loved Woe's last album, Quietly, Undramatically, with something approaching obsession. At the time, I thought Woe had some of the best black metal going, U.S. or otherwise, and their new album, Withdrawal, has done nothing to change my mind about that.

Photo by Casey Carlton.

Withdrawal finds the band taking the primal, in-your-face black metal of Chris Grigg's one-man-band days on A Spell for the Death of Man and mixing it with the compositional complexity of Quietly, Undramatically. Woe writes songs that have honest-to-goodness movements in them, much like classical music pieces. (I take classical guitar lessons, and I think it's telling that they've been my go-to band for the ride home from those.) "Song of My Undoing" is a perfect example. It starts with a raunchy, punk guitar riff and the lyrics, "When I was young, I believed that I'd be complete and one day I would see that life is beautiful," but this is no simple, three-minute punk song about lost innocence. The song twists and turns through relatively slow sections with mournful, cleanly sung vocals, and bouts of complete viciousness with screeched declarations like, "The sum of virtue is rot." I count at least three distinct movements in the song before it winds its way back to the main riff, only to mutate again into another whirlwind of black metal goodness to wrap the track up.

As if the epic song structures weren't enough, the album is filled with little touches that set it apart from any garden-variety black metal release. "Carried by Waves to Remorseless Shores of the Truth" is a furious storm from the outset, and the lyric, "Eyes are wide with fear and clothes are soaked from terror," is a pretty good description of what listening to this song is like. But the push-and-pull syncopated sections and a tasty guitar solo take what could be an exhausting blast of sound from a lesser band and make it compelling. Or take the slight pause in the middle of "Ceaseless Jaws," where everything stops and a variation of the main theme is played alone with minimal distortion, just to remind you that this maelstrom all hangs together because of well-crafted melodies.

Photo by Casey Carlton.

All of the musicians are at the top of their game here, but Grigg's black metal howls sound even more vicious than previously, if that's even possible. They're also complemented by bassist Grzesiek Czapla, whose deeper howls add another dimension to the music. He's not just a back up vocalist, either. Czapla takes on full verses, and he and Grigg trade lines in "All Bridges Burned" as if it were some kind of demented duet.

If you're at all interested in how far black metal can be pushed without losing any of its ferocity, you'd be well advised to check this album out.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]