Bell Witch are a funeral doom band from the US and this is their fourth album.
Following on from 2017’s now-classic Mirror Reaper, (by way of 2020’s collaboration with Aerial Ruin Stygian Bough: Volume I), Bell Witch have unleashed another giant work of funeral doom art. Continue reading “Bell Witch – Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate (Review)”
This is the second album from Ggu:ll, a blackened doom band from the Netherlands.
Featuring ex-members of Dodecahedron, Ex Est contains 45 minutes of music that’s sharp, bleak, and harsh. With the promo blurb stating that Ex Est is for fans of Mizmor, Bell Witch, Lord Mantis, Bongripper, and Funeral Mist, I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Let’s dive in… Continue reading “Ggu:ll – Ex Est (Review)”
This is the fourth album from one-man blackened doom act Mur.
Cut the Rivers Vein spends 51 minutes mixing together doom, post-metal, and black metal, with elements of folk, ambient, and drone, to great effect. Continue reading “Mur – Cut the Rivers Vein (Review)”
This is the second album from UK solo atmospheric black metal band Ethereal Shroud.
Now this is my kind of album. The album boasts three colossal songs, with a total duration of 64 minutes; Trisagion is a dark odyssey that’s well-worth embarking on. Despite being essentially a solo work from a creative perspective, there are a number of other musicians on the album that help to flesh out the artist’s vision, providing bass, viola, drums, and female vocals, (the latter on the 28-minute opener Chasmal Fires). Continue reading “Ethereal Shroud – Trisagion (Review)”
This is the debut album from Atramentus, a doom metal band from Canada.
Stygian is a monster of dark funeral doom. Three tracks sprawl out over 45 minutes, promising nothing but glacial moods and barren hopelessness, and delivering. There are two colossal songs that bookend a shorter ambient piece. Continue reading “Atramentus – Stygian (Review)”
Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin are both artists from the US, and they have teamed up to bring us 64 minutes of mournful doom. Although no strangers to working together, this is their first fully fledged collaboration.
This is a darkly beautiful work, constructed from Continue reading “Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough Volume 1 (Review)”
Dead to a Dying World are a blackened doom band from the US and this is their third album.
2015’s Litany was a sprawling, ambitious album. It was also very good, although this new release is something quite new and special in some ways. The band have returned with the even more expansive and developed Elegy. Showing greater focus of delivery, (49 minutes vs Litany’s 73), Elegy is also wider ranging and boasts Continue reading “Dead to a Dying World – Elegy (Review)”
2017 was an amazing year for music, with so many top-notch albums seeing the light of day. I pretty much say this every year, of course, but that doesn’t seem to stop it being true. With this in mind, the 2017 list was especially hard to put together, and I agonised over this one more than I did for any of the lists in previous years.
As is traditional, I also want to mention some releases by bands that could easily have made it onto the list, and should have by many rights, if only I could have somehow managed to fit them all in –
Abhorrent Decimation, Amenra, Apes, Artificial Brain, Au-Dessus,
Celeste, Desecrate the Faith, Earth Rot, Earth Witch, Falls of Rauros,
Full of Hell, Gnaw, Gutslit, Helpless, Henry Kane,
Hundred Suns, Ingurgitating Oblivion, Into Orbit, John Frum, Karne,
Kval, Livid, Morbid Angel, Primitive Man, Craven Idol,
Slow, Soulskinner, The Kennedy Veil, Ulsect, Wildspeaker.
I urge you to check out all of the above releases, in addition to the ones in the actual list below. I could probably keep adding more bands you should give a listen to, but a line has to be drawn somewhere, I suppose.
So, without further ado, let’s get right down to it… Continue reading “Wonderbox Metal End of Year List – Best Metal of 2017”
Bell Witch are a doom band from the US and this is their third album.
My my, what do we have here? One single colossally sprawling slab of grim funeral doom that lasts a monolithic 83 minutes? Yes please! Continue reading “Bell Witch – Mirror Reaper (Review)”
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