Ultha – Converging Sins (Review)

UlthaThis is Ultha’s second album. They are a black metal band from Germany.

Now this is quite the find. Mixing elements of Burzum, Emperor, Wolves in the Throne Room and Lycus, Ultha mix old and new black metal with some crushing doom influences to produce 63 minutes of bleak melancholy and dark allure. Continue reading “Ultha – Converging Sins (Review)”

Dreariness – Fragments (Review)

DrearinessDreariness are an Italian black metal band. This is their second album.

Dreariness combine depressive black metal with elements of post-black metal and shoegaze. The result is an impressive album that boasts a lot more depth and atmosphere than the majority of their depressive peers. Continue reading “Dreariness – Fragments (Review)”

Omnizide – Nekroregime (Review)

OmnizideThis is the second album from Swedish black metallers Omnizide.

As the follow up to 2014’s very pleasing debut album Death Metal Holocaust, Nekroregime continues the band’s blackened assault on the senses, added to and infected by some good old-fashioned death metal influences here and there. Continue reading “Omnizide – Nekroregime (Review)”

Créatures – Le Noir Village (Review)

CréaturesCréatures is an avant-garde/experimental black metal one-man project from France and this is his debut album.

The vocals on this release are quite varied, shifting and morphing in line with the demands of the music. Apparently multiple guest vocalists contribute to the tracks, each having a different part to play in the narrative.

Sometimes we get a voice that’s full of commanding authority and blackened malice, sometimes even Continue reading “Créatures – Le Noir Village (Review)”

The Promise of Plague – Sleepwalking into Armageddon (Review)

The Promise of PlagueThe Promise of Plague are an industrial black metal band from the US. This is their debut release.

Featuring members of Fatal Step, Astrum, Empyrean Asunder and the mighty Abominant, here we have 16 minutes of raw black metal with industrial/modern influences that place it somewhere between the underground and a more accessible area; not quite polished and commercial, but potentially getting there. Continue reading “The Promise of Plague – Sleepwalking into Armageddon (Review)”

Siberian Hell Sounds – Svengali (Review)

Siberian Hell SoundsSiberian Hell Sounds are from Australia and play black metal/blackened hardcore. This is their latest EP.

This is 18 minutes of blackened intensity and underground rage. Taking the basic imprint of black metal and running it through the grinder, Siberian Hell Sounds have poured hardcore and grindcore influences liberally over themselves so that their black metal is as abusive and contagious as possible. Continue reading “Siberian Hell Sounds – Svengali (Review)”

Rudra – Enemy of Duality (Review)

RudraRudra are a blackened extreme metal band from Singapore. This is their eighth album.

Despite being around for a very long time at this point, and despite having first heard of them an almost equally long time ago, this is my first actual encounter with Rudra and their so-called Vedic metal. Continue reading “Rudra – Enemy of Duality (Review)”

Earth and Pillars – Pillars I (Review)

Earth and PillarsThis is the second album from Italian black metal band Earth and Pillars.

It starts off softly, leaving you unprepared for what lies within…

This is atmospheric black metal with long songs and epic ambition.

Mixing repetitive atmospheric mood-pieces with suffocating Continue reading “Earth and Pillars – Pillars I (Review)”

Interview with Downfall of Gaia

Downfall of Gaia Logo

You know that feeling when you listen to a band’s album and you just know that you’re going to be enjoying and exploring it for years to come? Downfall of Gaia’s latest release Atrophy is exactly one such release. I’m listening to it again as I write this, and it makes me quite excited to think that years from now I’ll still be listening to it, only I’ll know it even better than I do at the moment.

With a desire to find out some more about the band behind this superlative album, how else to get to know Downfall of Gaia even better than to reach out to the vocalist/guitarist of the band, Dominik Goncalves dos Reis, for a chat…?

What are your influences?

We are influenced by a lot of things. Musically I would break it down to black metal, doom and sludge as the main influence. Continue reading “Interview with Downfall of Gaia”