Ambient – Page 10 – Wonderbox Metal

Rue des Cascades – Odes to Love, Flames to Paris (Review)

This is the début album from this Swiss post-hardcore/sludge band.

There are only two tracks on this release, but lasting 39 minutes in total there’s more than enough content to keep people happy. Although, as we’ll see, happiness might not be the best term used in conjunction with the music on here.

So what do we have here, then? Rue des Cascades play music that combines ambient/post-rock quietness with louder post-hardcore/sludge sections. This is quite atypically done, though, and isn’t a case of simply juxtaposing clean/distorted or Continue reading “Rue des Cascades – Odes to Love, Flames to Paris (Review)”

Messa – Belfry (Review)

This is the début album from Messa, a doom/drone metal band from Italy.

Messa provide the listener with almost an hour of occult retro doom and dark ambience.

This is akin to a strange-yet-effective mix of Sunn O))) and Pentagram, with deliciously seductive female vocals included. Some tracks are dark ambient/drone, full of mysterious atmospheres and distorted malice, while others take Continue reading “Messa – Belfry (Review)”

Astral Path – An Oath to the Void (Review)

Astral Path are an atmospheric Black Metal band from Canada. This is their début album.

This is the kind of modern, expansive Black Metal that so many bands seem to do so well these days. If you’re a fan of bands like Wolves in the Throne Room, Chaos Moon, Midnight Odyssey, Krallice, Mare Cognitum, Deafheaven and their ilk, then you should also like this.

Astral Path’s music combines this type of stargazing, cosmic Black Metal with ambient soundscapes to create atmospheric Black Metal that seems to roll out of the speakers in a pool of spectral fog. Continue reading “Astral Path – An Oath to the Void (Review)”

Schammasch – Triangle (Review)

Schammasch are a Black Metal band from Switzerland. This is their third album.

Here we have a bold, monster of a release; divided into three parts, each lasting about 35 minutes, the entire body of work clocks in at a massive 105 minutes in length.

Schammasch play forward-thinking music that’s rooted in Black Metal, but also visits other styles such as Doom, Post-Black Metal and Progressive Metal.

Continue reading “Schammasch – Triangle (Review)”

Spektr – The Art to Disappear (Review)

Spektr are a Black Metal band from France. This is their fourth album.

Spektr specialise in harrowing Industrial-tinged Black Metal that laces elements of Ambient throughout this bleak journey into the fractured darkness of the human psyche.

Blackened melodies are twisted and warped to fit the band’s grim vision of what the music should sound like. Spektr have never been a standard Black Metal band and on The Art to Disappear they continue to provide a nightmare soundscape onto which they paint broken ideas of urban claustrophobia and mechanised fear.

Listening to Spektr is like listening to the living embodiment of a rhythmic, pulsing evil. They have always been somewhat of an acquired taste for this reason, as their non-standard take on the genre is simply too much for some. This is music that pushes boundaries by the very nature of the terrible conceptual understanding of horror that lies at their very core.

The Art to Disappear plays out almost like a film soundtrack, ebbing and flowing with different darkened moods throughout the 41 minutes playing time. Although, if this actually were the case, I imagine it would be the most terrifying film of all time. It’s a very holistic album for this reason, with each song acting as a different scene, each more upsetting and disturbing than the last.

All credit to them, this level of unpleasantness is not an easy one to achieve.

Dare you listen to this?

Telerumination – Telerumination I (Review)

Telerumination are from the US and this is their début release. They play Atmospheric Black Metal.

Purely Ambient/Drone/whatever music doesn’t really do it for me most of the time. Sure there are exceptions; I enjoy bands like Haate and Pogrom, as well as Wolves in the Throne Room’s experimentations. From a non-Black Metal perspective, you also have releases such as those from IIVII and Aires, which I have also taken to quite nicely. For the most part though, it’s not for me.

So, what’s this got to do with Telerumination? Well, over the years it’s occurred to me that one of the main things, (although not the only thing), that is missing from the style is drums. I’m a percussion man. I love drums, beats and everything associated with them. This rather long-winded introduction is essentially a way of saying that Telerumination is, at heart, a Dark Ambient release, only with percussion.

Hmm. Maybe I should have just said that at the start, brevity being the soul of wit, and all that…

Anyway, low-key drums, creepy, understated screams and the odd bit of guitar is added to a strong synth-based core to create music that takes the best of Dark Ambient and, in my mind at least, improves upon it.

One of the brains behind Telerumination is the guy who does Natanas, so in a way you can view this as a less evil, more atmospheric version of his work with his main project. Telerumination does have a restrained malevolence to it, but nothing like the overt nightmare sounds that Natanas fosters so well. If Natanas is a portal into the underworld, a vision of Hell and all damnation, then Telerumination is a mirror that shows what’s behind the suffering; the subtle torments that lie underneath.

This is an oddly relaxing release. I mean, it probably isn’t if you’re just Joe Public and you had to listen to it. God knows what they’d make of it. I imagine it would probably give them nightmares. For us seasoned music fans though, it’s as if a swathe of sentient darkness has been filtered through a lens so that only the finest and most subtle of horrors were allowed through, creating textured explorations of distilled Black Metal that can comfort and amiably disturb those who have the will to succumb to its soothing terror.

This is an impressive collection of music that succeeds in its task of spawning a Blackened Ambience that improves upon the purestrain parent style to become something greater.

Turn off the lights and enter the world of Telerumination.

Todesstoss – Hirngemeer (Review)

This is the seventh album from German Black Metal band Todesstoss.

At 75 minutes in length this is a long album that only contains 3 tracks. I mention this purely to set the scene for the kind of sprawling, unconventional, Blackened vision that Todesstoss have.

This is Experimental Black Metal that takes the serrated core of Black Metal and adds Electronica, Ambient, Martial, Dark Rock, Avant-Garde and Depressive tendencies to it, creating songs that are unhinged marvels of deranged darkness.

Various instruments and flashes of sound compliment the core instrumentation and the mangled, psychotic vocals punctuate the music like stab wounds. His violent outbursts are quite disturbed and fit the uncompromising music.

Think bands like Bethlehem/Burzum/Deinonychus/Dødheimsgard, only stretched out to the extreme.

There are a lot of themes and moods spread across these tracks and it’s clear that a lot of work and effort has gone into perfecting the meaning and rationale for the existence of every part of this music. To some listeners it may seem as if occasional bits of noise or instruments are randomly inserted here and there, but I suspect that everything is where it is for a reason.

These certainly aren’t songs in the traditional sense, but rather canvasses of sound that are used for exploratory experimentalism by their creators to give voice to what dwells inside them. It’s a fascinating insight into a warped psyche as portrayed via the medium of mutated, corrupted Black Metal.

This is not an album you enjoy in the traditional sense. It’s an album you survive, and then, suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, you develop an affinity for the abuse it puts you through and eventually go back to it time and time again for more punishment.

Let your re-education begin.

Ancient Moon – Vvulture (Review)

Ancient Moon are an international Black Metal band and this is their début album.

This release contains a single track, Preastigitum Altareas, lasting just under 29 minutes in length.

This is raw, underground Atmospheric/Ambient Black Metal with a fuzzy guitar sound and a deep malevolent aura to it.

Ancient Moon’s Black Metal combines a strong Ambient/Drone influence, resulting in their music being comprised of several levels; layers and layers of darkness and filth are merged together to create a soundtrack of horror and ritualistic nightmare.

The music is hugely atmospheric and speaks of a rolling storm, gathering on the horizon and slowly, inevitably drawing closer, bringing ruin and devastation to all that it touches. This churning maelstrom is dense, impenetrable and evil to the core.

Like any storm, there are moments of calm throughout; Ambient respite amidst the Blackened winds. These are lonely, desolate places though. They act as breathers before the crushing suffocation of the music’s sheer weight is bought to the fore once more.

The singer does a great job of adding further atmosphere and presence to the sound by his assortment of deep cleans, semi-cleans, growls and screams. At times, combined with the music, he sounds downright scary. On occasion his vocals are like chants, at other times they are invocations, at other times they’re announcements; like a dark herald proclaiming the end times, it’s a message to heed and be fearful of. He really does have an excellent voice and his performance is top-of-the-line. Sometimes vicious, sometimes majestic, always intimidating.

The same of which can be said of the music too. In fact, this is less like music and more like an impending unnatural disaster that has been pulled up from Hell and unleashed upon a helpless world to make it die.

Vvulture does its job extremely well and if you like harrowing Black Metal with lots of atmosphere and swirling blackness then Vvulture is definitely for you.

Extremely highly recommended.

IIVII – Colony (Review)

IIVII is a solo Ambient project from the US. This is his début album.

This is an album of expressive, minimalist soundscapes; Electronica fused with a cinematic, Sci-Fi quality that seeps from the tracks like a foreboding aura.

Stylistically this is the moody spiritual sibling of Celestite by Wolves in the Throne Room. The feeling is that with Celestite you’re gazing up at the heavens, marvelling at the vastness of the universe, while with Colony you’re surrounded by space in the cold, empty embrace of the cosmos.

You really do feel like you’re on a derelict space station orbiting Saturn, with the crushing enormousness of the galaxy weighing down on you. You’re watching, waiting, feeling.

Colony is oddly moving, with each song acting as its own narrative while still remaining part of a larger story-arc. The music shapes the listener’s emotions as it progresses, drawing you in, ever closer, until you feel like you’re right in the midst of the darkness. With pretty much everything designed to give the impression of cosmic wonder and isolation, Colony succeeds on every level.

The cover art is somewhat of a perfect visual representation of the music in many ways. In fact, IIVII is crying out for a visual aspect to accompany the music. It’s not that the music isn’t enough on its own, (it is), it’s more that it has an entire other level to offer the listener; a visual medium to enhance the soundtrack.

This is expertly judged, with each track really giving the impression of a far-flung, lonely colony, adrift in the endless night. It’s the perfect soundtrack for its science fiction-theme.

Perfect for lonely, dark nights.

Hope Drone – Cloak of Ash (Review)

Hope Drone are an Australian Post-Black Metal band. This is their début album.

Well this is a long one; 7 tracks across 77 minutes. Hope Drone don’t do things by halves it seems. But then why should they? This kind of music demands complete immersion and Cloak of Ash provides ample opportunity for this.

The music has a Black Metal base onto which is built Post-Black Metal wanderings and Atmospheric Sludge Metal influences.

Hope Drone take the Cascadian Black Metal template and use it to fashion themselves a wide-reaching, emotive album that’s highly textured and richly delivered. All speeds and tempos are catered to as well as heavier and lighter sections, which means that Cloak of Ash is a diverse and pleasurable listen that succeeds in painting in shades of darkness and light.

The Black Metal is never too far from the surface. Even the Post-Metal and Sludge/Doom elements of their sound have that Blackened twinge to them, although that doesn’t stop them from dripping with a darkened beauty. The band can play ugliness and aggression extremely well, but there are enough moments of resplendent glory and delicate allure here that it’s easy to become mesmerized with the band’s hypnotic performance.

The lighter elements are augmented with some Ambient/Drone interludes. When these segue gently into incredibly effective mid-paced atmospherics it’s a very uplifting and transcendental experience. Of course, I’m aware that words like transcendental get bandied around far too often when describing bands like Hope Drone, but it fits like a glove and conveys the appropriate feeling that the band can sometimes create.

The agonised screams are harsh and unforgiving, reminding you that no matter how the music sounds or where it takes you, this is still music forged from the underworld.

Hope Drone have truly created a wonderfully realised piece of Blackened art. I’m thoroughly impressed and completely in thrall to it.

An essential listen.