This is the third album from Terra Tenebrosa, a black metal band from Sweden.
Terra Tenebrosa are definitely one of the stranger, more imaginative bands out there at the moment. This is experimental, avant-garde metal with a blackened side and all manner of sinister and misanthropic vibes.
If you take a mutated, warped black metal core, and add in Continue reading “Terra Tenebrosa – The Reverses (Review)”
This is the début release from UK Death Metal band Vorage.
This is dense Death Metal that’s akin to a churning maelstrom of distortion and abyss-like darkness.
Vorage can be compared to similar bands such as Portal, Mitochondrion and Ævangelist; they specialise in creating nightmare soundscapes in which horrors come to life. Mix this with a Morbid Angel influence and you have a band that means business.
Vorage are dirty, murky and impenetrably evil. The music sounds like it has been dredged up from the darkest, dankest pit in order to savage Death Metal’s soul, corrupting it to its malevolent will.
There’s only three songs on this release, but it’s still 20 minutes of music that will be too off-putting for most to stomach, but if you can hack it then it’s a grime-ridden gem of a release.
There are a few tasty riffs here, hidden beneath the swirling gloom, but it’s mostly about the atmosphere and things that lurk in the fog. Obscure melodies occasionally add sick, warped light to the cacophony, only to disappear again shortly after being birthed.
The vocals are indecipherable guttural incantations, bereft of humanity and rich with malice. It’s all very enjoyable, as far as these things can be enjoyed, of course.
A very promising release from a band who know how to weave terror into the fabric of their Death Metal assault. Recommended.
This is the third album from Australia’s Mekigah. They play Industrial/Classical Doom.
This is a tortuous combination of Doom, Noise, Industrial, Ambient and Classical that somehow ends up pulling you into its embrace before you even really know what’s going on. I’m not a huge fan of Noise and a lot of Ambient leaves me cold, usually because there’s nothing to draw you in. Litost is different.
Here we have elements of Noise and Ambient but they’re joined by the usually far more spirited Classical style. Orchestral sounds and emotive synths provide these minimalistic elements with a vibrancy, albeit a dark, malevolent one.
On top of this we have the Industrial aspect to their sound, and, of course, the Doom. This is not a guitar-oriented project though. It’s there, but used just as one instrument of many. Guest musicians aplenty feature on this release, providing everything from vocals, to mellotron, to taishgoto.
Vocals are few and far between. When they appear they’re quite varied and performed by multiple singers across the album. They’re usually quite low-key and are frequently employed as just another method of delivery; another instrument in this disturbing symphony.
This album is surprisingly emotive and engaging. The layers of synths and orchestral sounds work perfectly with the harsher Industrial base to fashion songs that work their way into your subconscious like hooks into flesh.
There’s a Gothic element to this music, but it’s one that has been killed and buried so that its influence is felt through the remainder of the thing that’s growing in its place. Almost as if the remains of a Gothic ancestry were feeding the music we hear here, so that the influence seeps into the cellos and Industrial sounds almost without anyone noticing at first.
If you’re into music that fuses the Industrial and the emotive with a dark atmosphere then this is definitely one to track down. Whether you’re a fan of Ævangelist, Axis of Perdition, Cloak of Altering, Ulver or Indian, Litost has something to offer you.
A very impressive release; I wasn’t expecting something to merge darkness and light so completely. Litost is a thing of grim beauty.
This is the fourth album from Natanas, a one-man Black Metal band from the US.
Another month, another Natanas album…
Okay so I exaggerate, but the man is Hellishly productive. And it’s good stuff too. He may have manufactured some form of Black Metal assembly line but his Quality Control department are clearly paying attention to the goods that are produced.
Having said that of course, this is clearly not for everyone, which is something I’ve mentioned before about the last two Natanas releases All Is Permitted and Treachery; the casual listener, the casual Black Metal listener, even, will probably find this a tad challenging.
If you like your Black Metal dark, challenging, atypical and in the vein of bands like Xasthur, Portal, Mitochondrion, Enbilulugugal, Ævangelist, etc. then Natanas is worth checking out.
Also, I’m sure his screeching vocals have gotten higher, raspier and wetter this time. It sounds like he’s rupturing himself every time he opens his mouth. This is not a complaint of course, rather the opposite. He takes time out from trying to turn himself inside out though, as other vocals are included from spoken word to deeper screams that almost remind of Neurosis/Crowbar in style.
смертность has a good amount of variety within its self-imposed framework, with the album retaining the tribal, hypnotic, pseudo-Industrial feel that Treachery did so well. As such this is a very holistic album; listening to a song in isolation is all well and good, but for the full effect it’s best to put on the entire album and just get lost in the murk.
Every time I listen to Natanas by the time I get to the second or third song I’m totally absorbed in the dark, unfriendly, bleak, rotten, urban sprawl that seems to be described. The low-key, lo-fi, production actually adds to the feeling of the album rather than detracting from it.
Natanas has always been a band that goes against the odds for me. If I had just flicked through one of these albums I’d probably think, “No, I don’t think so”, but against all expectations and prejudices смертность, and the previous albums…well, they just work. The various disparate elements and the raw, uncompromisingly lo-fi sound gel into something that just does it; it hits that hidden spot that you didn’t even know you had.
As such, I’m a big supporter of Natanas and heartily recommend that you give смертность a try. It may not do it for you, but who knows, maybe it really, really will…
Desolate Shrine are a Death Metal band from Finland. This is their third album.
This is not your standard Death Metal. Oh, all of the features and identifying marks of the genre are present and correct, but this is a more mature, expanded beast than the average.
Desolate Shrine specialise in dark, malevolent Death Metal that’s epic in scope. This is over an hour in length, with some tracks having well over ten minutes duration.
The band complement their Death Metal core with a few Black/Doom influences and overall The Heart of the Netherworld boasts evil atmospheres and gloomy auras.
The songs have a lot of meat to them and there is plenty of variety and interest to be had here. Slower, atmospheric parts, brutal riffs, lighter mood-building sections, rhythmic destruction; Desolate Shrine have it all.
Deep growls are accentuated with the occasional scream. The singer has a powerful voice that lends the songs an inhuman component and brings out their otherworldly side even more than the music already does.
The sound of the album matches the content; it’s strong and clear enough to do the band justice but murky and grim enough to bring out the sense of ritualistic nightmare that the band create.
Three albums into their career and Desolate Shrine have clearly mastered the art of writing involved songs that are wrapped in darkness. Think of a band like Ævangelist only with less of a pure-horror Black Metal viewpoint and more of a powerful Death Metal one.
This is a top quality album of horror Metal if ever there was one. Check out Desolate Shrine today and try not to soil yourself.
Assumption are a Doom/Death Metal band from Italy. This is their début EP.
Assumption sound grim, dark and evil. Featuring members of the gruesome Haemophagus it should come as no surprise that The Three Appearances is full of mouldy and decomposing delights.
Cavernous, echoing Death Metal growls seem to be generated through an abyssal fog of misery and pain. Surely something like this can’t be good for you?
The music is murky and ancient, lumbering around like a forgotten, decaying god that’s slowly transformed over the millennia into some form of shambling horror.
Reminding of recent albums from the likes of Encoffination, Ævangelist and Sempiternal Dusk, this is the latest album to blend both Death and Doom into an absolute terror of an album that’s designed to loosen the bowels and scar the soul.
As rotten as what’s left in the sewer and as black as the void, Assumption do a great job of describing the essential futility of life; decay always sets in, entropy will get everything in the end and ultimately there’s very little point. So why bother? Why bother at all?
Well, paradoxically Assumption themselves have given us a reason to continue; their music. This is worth taking the time to listen to.
What a glorious, rancid, noxious find this has been. All hail Assumption!
H5N1 are from Canada and play Death Metal with an Industrial feel and an apocalyptic vibe.
The album artwork is a bit disturbing and atypical, and H5N1’s music follows suit.
This is apocalyptic and gloomy as Hell. They have a dirty sound that conjures images of toxic smoke clouds and vast factories mechanising the art of death.
Theirs is almost a Black Metal sound in the sense that it’s quite underground and raw, but instead of a typical Black Metal offering it’s filled with barbed Death Metal and brutal, guttural vocals.
A Time of No Tomorrows strays even further from the normal Death Metal sound by employing occasional keyboards to provide sinister punctuation to the tracks, as well as the fact that the band employ a dual bass assault that keeps things both heavy and filthy.
H5N1 have done something quite admirable in that they have taken the standard Death Metal template and made it their own. This is not a band that you can easily provide comparisons with other bands for. Most comparisons sharing a similar creative mindspace will probably come from the Black Metal genre rather than the Death Metal one, as this kind of lo-fi, evil music tends to be more Black Metal’s thing. Even Ævangelist who could be a provisional reference point are only marginally suitable as H5N1 have much more of a sterile, cold, industrial evil to them than the direction that Ævangelist have chosen.
H5N1 have created a noxious, pernicious album that is a good listen in its own right but heralds even better things to come in the future from this band I feel. Definitely ones to keep an eye on.
Give them a listen and see what you think.
Natanas is a one-man Black Metal project from the US. This is his third album.
This is a very prolific project and this is the third album from Natanas this year. I reviewed the second album All Is Permitted not that long ago, and already I find there is this new release.
All Is Permitted was in the style of bands such as Xasthur, Portal, Mitochondrion, Enbilulugugal, Ævangelist and the like, and Treachery continues the theme.
Treachery feels like a good progression, (in a short period of time), from the previous album in that it, as a whole, feels more coherent and better constructed. The tracks are still raw, lo-fi expressions of hatred and malevolence, but this time they seem to gel and work better than previously.
The vocals have improved also, and this time they seem to have more bite to them, as well as being generally higher pitched and sharper.
Although the tracks here still have a pulsating organic looseness to them there’s also much more of a pseudo-Industrial and an almost hypnotic, tribal influence to them as well. Discordant, murky drum ‘n’ bass for the Black Metal generation? Maybe, but this album definitely has a more percussive edge to it regardless.
I said last time that this kind of Black Metal is not for everyone, and that still stands. It is, however, an enjoyable sidestep from the bog-standard and has a lot to offer those with the time, patience and stomach for it.
Give it a listen.
Ævangelist are from the US and this is their third album. They play Death/Black Metal, of sorts…
Following on from their horrifically terrifying second album Omen Ex Simulacra, Ævangelist waste no time with the first track Hosanna establishing and that this new album follows on from the first in a suitably Hellish and hideous manner.
As I stated about their previous album; Ævangelist are not for the weak of stomach. This is music that tests the limits of what the human mind can endure.
Writhes in the Murk is a suitable title for this collection of horrors as the songs seem wrapped in the murk and writhe as if alive.
Everything seems lower in the mix this time with the exception of the dark noises and sinister effects that blanket everything like a deathly fog. The growling vocals are almost unrecognisable from the ambient levels of darkened atmospherics, although they’re now joined by cleaner vocals as well more akin to Black than Death Metal.
There’s more of a Black Metal influence on this release in general. The atmospheres that Ævangelist create have always had more in common with Black than Death Metal, but this time the guitars, vocal experimentation and overall vibe seems Blacker than ever.
The riffs, when they raise their heads above the sea of nightmares, are sinuous and evil, recalling the dark practices of Axis of Perdition and Blut Aus Nord at their most sinister. The entire thing feels alive and squirming, like something is struggling to be born in the darkest reaches of a pitch-black pit of suffering and desolation.
The band don’t write songs, they create experiences of tormented soundscapes; environments of pure terror, dread and disgust seep out of the speakers as if made flesh.
Holy crap. This album is almost a full hour of punishing music but if feels almost ten times that; time seems to lose all meaning as the music pulls you into its dark, sickeningly warm embrace to lose yourself in the cloying smell of a million forgotten corpses condemned to suffer for all eternity…
This is not for the casual listener. However, if you think you have the fortitude then delve right in. Ævangelist have such sights to show you…
Natanas is a one man Black Metal project from the US. This is Natanas’ second album.
This is atonal, obscure, underground Black Metal that’s more focused on creating particular moods and feelings rather than songs in the traditional sense.
The vocals are deep gargles and spewings; barely-human sounds and daemonic mutterings are the stock in trade of this warped intellect.
The drums are off-kilter and sometimes seem quite out of place with the more organic guitars and bestial vocalisations. I get the impression that this is done intentionally however, thus fostering the strange atmosphere that All Is Permitted shows off.
This is not a release for everyone, not even necessarily the hardened Black Metal fan. This is for people who enjoy bands that put uncomfortable feelings and sounds before everything else, even production values and traditional Black Metal.
Think bands like Xasthur, Portal, Mitochondrion, Enbilulugugal, Ævangelist and the like, and although I don’t think the guy behind Natanas is currently playing at their level just yet, given enough time and development he could be.
If this is the kind of Black Metal that does it for you then check out Natanas and see what you think.
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