Black metal – Page 223 – Wonderbox Metal

Solace of Requiem – Casting Ruin (Review)

This is the fourth album of Technical Blackened Death Metal from Solace of Requiem. They come from the US.

It’s fairly unusual for Technical Death Metal bands to have anything to do with the Black Metal style. It’s not unheard of of course, just relatively rare, so I was looking forward to hearing this band to see what they did with the style.

Straight away it’s apparent that they are very technical and they do wear their Black Metal influences on their sleeves.

The music is a dense, twisting affair. Technical Death Metal riffs fly everywhere at the speed of thought whilst Blackened keyboards and sounds add to the cacophony. High pitched Blackened screams add a further layer of evil and the entire thing reeks of a complicated rot.

It’s impressively harsh and the addition of the Black Metal influences to the Technical Death Metal core is atypical and done rather well.

The higher screamed vocals are joined by more traditional growls, once again sealing the deal between genres.

There are some great riffs here and the technicality doesn’t become overbearing or done just for the sake of it. Sometimes the band hits upon a great sounding mid-paced riff and they just let it settle in for a while and lot it flow naturally, which is a great thing to hear. This is frequently added to by keyboards and solos and the end result is very satisfying. As songs they work, and the entire album is top work by this band.

Everything is recorded well and the music is crisp and clear. These songs whirl by at lightspeed and you can’t fault the performances. As this is their fourth album they clearly know what they are doing by now and have the talent to achieve their goals.

This band remind me of someone like The Black Dahlia Murder if they had a lot more blazing technicality and Black Metal in their sound. It doesn’t completely describe Solace of Requiem of course, but it’s a good starting point; throw in some Spawn of Possession, Immolation and Arkhon Infaustus and you’re on the right lines.

Casting Ruin is a monster of an album and quite an achievement. By incorporating Black Metal into their sound they successfully differentiate themselves from hundreds of standard Technical Death Metal bands and immediately set themselves apart.

This is an album that is better than most and won’t settle for being ordinary. Solace of Requiem have their own identity that serves them well and they’re just waiting for you to discover them.

Do it now.

TKNKNTJ – 2008-2009 – Takaisinvaellus/Täällä Helvetissä Olen Aina Valaistunut (Review)

Here we have two demo recordings from Finnish Black Metal band TKNKNTJ – Takaisinvaellus originally released in 2008 and Täällä Helvetissä Olen Aina Valaistunut originally released in 2009.

Takaisinvaellus is the longer of the two releases at just under 28 minutes, with Täällä Helvetissä Olen Aina Valaistunut clocking in at just under 16 minutes.

This is Underground Black Metal with a surprisingly satisfying sound that hits all of the rights spots for people who have a lust for all that is Blackened.

The vocals are scathing and full of razorblades. The rhythms and patterns of the vocalist are pleasingly interesting and although he pretty much has a standard Black Metal croak, it’s nonetheless a great voice delivered with passion. Not content with this, however, we’re also treated to a cleaner approach on occasion and the singer pulls this off admirably. He’s sometimes backed up by the odd deeper growl as well.

The band primarily play upbeat and fast but they also have enough slower, sinister passages to keep things varied and interesting. Blackened melodies seep out of the speakers like insidious rotting worms ready to corrupt the unwary and eat away at the unworthy.

This is evil music created for the love of darkness and sin. There is a malevolent aura to the grimness of the tracks on this release.

The fact that these were originally demo recordings is hard to believe in some ways as the quality of both the music and the recordings are better than some albums from similar bands.

Check them out.

Sangus – Saevitia (Review)

Sangus are a Black Metal band from the US.

The band play raw, ugly Black Metal that is capable of boiling blood at a hundred paces. This is infernal stuff that channels the underworld into 5 tracks of scorching, noisy Black Metal that recalls bands like Black Witchery and Watchmaker.

The songs are full of Crust and bile as they tear through the short playing time on this release, (a scant 15 minutes that goes by in a blur of whiplash and black tar), and afterwards you’re left wondering what the Hell just happened.

Although primarily concerned with making a horrendous mess of your insides with their focused, direct assault; the band do know how to insert a few Blackened melodies into the short songs and even have time for the odd guitar solo/lead now and again.

There is an impressive amount of rumbling threat to these songs. The violence is out in the open for everyone to see yet there’s always the hint of worse things to come just beneath the surface.

The final track Ossos: SSS is the longest one at almost 6 minutes in length and is a bit different from the ones that precede it. This track is all about the experimental noise and dark sounds. It’s an interesting choice for a closer, although personally I would have preferred another Black Metal track similar to the ones before as these were all so good.

This is a great little release filled with bark, bile, anger and nails. Highly recommended.

Sterbenzeit – L’Oltrenotte (Review)

Sterbenzeit are from Italy and play Black Metal. This is their second album.

This is raw Black Metal with slight ostentation mixing the style of early-era bands such as Dimmu Borgir, Darkthrone and Satyricon.

There are no keyboards so the ostentation comes in the form of some of the guitars – the band’s riffs are highly atmospheric; the impression of mystery and of a boundlessly vast and uncaring cosmos is a powerful one.

Blackened rhythms and icy melodies propel the songs and I really like the fact that the band have succeeded in creating atmosphere with dark riffs alone.

The drums are low-key but prominent enough to be a integral part of the songs. The bass is very subtle but is actually audible beneath the fuzzy guitars. It provides a bedrock of support for the tracks and shouldn’t be discounted.

The shrieking screams of the vocalist accompany the music and are befitting the style they play. It’s a standard Black Metal scream but it’s done well and there are no complaints from me about it; his voice scrapes and bleeds Blackened aggression and passion for the cause.

L’Oltrenotte is true to the early Black Metal style and the band have created a worthy piece of Black Metal art.

Fornicus – Storming Heaven (Review)

Fornicus are from the US and this is their début album. They play Black Metal.

Featuring a previous member of the brilliant Aeons of Eclipse, I was excited to see what Fornicus had to offer. Storming Heaven is 8 tracks in 39 minutes – 6 originals, one intro and a Sepultura cover.

This is unholy Black Metal with an evil feel that recalls similar bands like Satyricon and Marduk. There is a touch of Death and Thrash Metal here and there, including some deeper growls in addition to the normal Black Metal vocals.

The songs are fast and heavy with Blackened melodies coating everything. They also have an ear for a good mid-paced riff and sometimes find a great groove to get stuck into and make the most of. This is frequently enhanced by the aforementioned Blackened melodies that seem to seep out of the speakers like liquid silk and pour straight into your ears…

Well, suffice to say it sounds really, really good.

Storming heaven is very well written and the songs have a good rhythmic quality to them. This isn’t just confined to the guitars though as the vocals also follow similar patterns; it makes for a very satisfying listen as the guitars and vocals sync up and become greater than the sum of their parts.

This is not faceless Black Metal with no personality; these songs have bite and the band have talent. A well-recorded sound rounds off a very strong package and Storming Heaven is definitely one of the more enjoyable straight-forward Black Metal albums I’ve heard this year.

Highly recommended.

Autumn’s Dawn – Gone (Review)

Autumn’s Dawn are an Australian Post-Black Metal band and this is their début album.

The band play an interesting style of music that has its origins in Depressive Black Metal but has developed into more of a Shoegaze, Post-Rock entity which has plenty of melody and even an Indie feel in places.

This may be an album rooted in the darkness of Black metal but it has long transcended those beginnings and now travels waters brighter but no less melancholic.

The songs are relatively upbeat and feature very atypical clean vocals; atypical in that they sound more akin to the type of voices used in commercial stadium faux-Metal than this kind of music. Harsher screams are also used and these are more in keeping with the style. The clean vocals really do add a differentiating point to the tracks however, although I imagine they’ll be quite contentious for some purists.

This is Post-Black Metal and Shoegaze but without the deep-seated misery that those kind of bands usually revel in. The darkness is there, certainly, but the driving Rock influence to their sound buries it under hopeful harmonies and Post-Rock melodics. The album has more in common with Katatonia and Paradise Lost than it does with bands like Forgotten Tomb.

This is somewhat of an eclectic album as it’s rare to hear Rock, Shoegaze Black Metal and Indie all in one place. Not only do we have that here but the band do an exceedingly good job of keeping it from sounding disjointed or messy.

Autumn’s Dawn are somewhat of a unique band in many ways. Although this will inevitably mean that a lot of people won’t take to this and it will slip through the musical cracks, it also means that for those who are willing to give it a chance this is a hidden gem waiting to be discovered.

In a way it’s a real shame as with the right backing and exposure there is a lot of potential for a much wider audience for Gone, and all without compromising the artistic integrity of the music.

Time to try something a bit different and give Autumn’s Dawn a listen.

Exordium Mors – The Apotheosis of Death (Review)

This is the début album from Exordium Mors who are a Black Metal band from New Zealand.

This is Black Metal with a Thrash influence and songs that are interesting and well developed. The riffs are powerful and propel the songs onwards and upwards in a blaze of raw melody and colourful leads.

The band have a strong grasp of dynamics and have lots of ideas that they pour into The Apotheosis of Death. This makes for a fascinating and satisfying listen as Exordium Mors provide an important lesson in Extreme Metal in 54 minutes.

It’s a chaotic frenzy of Blackened Thrash and bloody sacrifice. It’s frenetic, impassioned and coursing with vitality. It’s imbued with a terrible majesty and undeniable presence.

Exordium Mors have built up their own kingdom of Extreme Metal and lord it over their subjects with the confidence of those who know they are untouchable in their own lands.

The Apotheosis of Death is varied and interesting and you’re never sure what dark labyrinth the band are going to explore next. The savage Blackened brutality of the songs is a multidimensional, expertly realised and fully textured Extreme Metal reality that the band have carved out for themselves.

This is an advanced album that’s probably not for the casual listener. For hardened Black/Extreme Metal fans though this is what you’ve been waiting for.

Interview with Uburen

Uburen’s début album Withered Roots is a fiery homage to the band’s Norwegian heritage done in a much more aggressive style than is the norm for most Viking/Pagan bands. I asked some questions to find a bit more about them…

Give us a bit of background to Uburen

Uburen is a 3 piece band formed after ending other music projects. All members had a common interest in Norse mythology and the old Norwegian culture and wanted to form a band that would deliver both musically and as a live preforming band with a stage show that will not be forgotten right away.

What are your influences?

Bands that influence us are many, but among some of the more known bands: Enslaved, King Of Asgard, Varg, Vreid a lot of the underground bands also offer a lot of inspiration for their music and their will to continue on self economy.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

Nowadays we listen to a lot of various bands such as Woods Of Ypres, Wyrd, King Of Asgard, Solstafir, Khold.

What did you want to achieve with your new album?

We would like to spread our music and the message of a dying culture, meet new people have some drinks and play concerts.

Uburen Band Are you happy with how it turned out?

With a budget nearly none from our own pockets we ourselves think its pretty decent, but can’t really measure up to Amon Amarth or Enslaved.

Tell us about your sound – it’s a lot heavier and more extreme than a lot who play this Viking style

The sound on Withered Roots is heavily inspired by folk and black metal, but not “nice sing-along boy-scout-campfire” music or music is inspired by the frontline on the battlefield and we try to captivate the macabre, anguish, anger, fear, hate, despair and all the raw emotions.

Tell us about your lyrics

Our lyrics focus around the darker side of the Norse history and mythology from the tales of creatures such as “Nøkken” the disapearence of men lured in and suffocated in the cold lakes fact based stories of brutal executions such as the “Blood Eagle” songs that tells stories with underlying words from the old sagas for instance about never giving up fighting ’til you die. Not trying to avoid your fate, keep walking through every winter.
Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process and how you create your songs.

The song writing process varies from song to song, usually one of us has a riff or bits of lyrics then we sit together think it through, what feeling and what message we want to tell when the song is put together we play through couple times take a break for at least 1 week to reflect if its how we want it to be.

In my review I say “Imagine Enslaved if they were less Progressive and more aggressive, or maybe Amon Amarth if they used Black Metal as the basis for their sound rather than Death Metal”. What are your thoughts on this?

It’s and honour to be compared with such bands as Enslaved and Amon Amarth we are all fans of them since way back, but we have not intentionally tried to sound like anyone. Our sound has just formed itself from our own minds.

How do you see your position in the wider Black Metal musical framework/genre?

Can’t say that we have given much thought to playing within a certain genre like Black Metal or Folk Metal its just music inspired by old Norwegian history and folk lore and our past is grim so that we sound like Black Metal just happened.

How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?

We have no planned direction for our music nor for our lyrics, it will continue to evolve with us. No compremise.

What does the future hold for Uburen?

At the moment we are looking into playing at festivals around where we are wanted. We have some booked, but those are secret for now we would also like to go into the studio again in the not to distant future whenever our pockets allow it. Maybe even another music video.

Thanks!

Australasia – Vertebra (Review)

Australasia are from Italy and play Post-Black Metal Shoegaze.

Well, I love the album cover, so that’s a good start.

These are largely short compositions although they have all of the time they need to make themselves felt.

These are songs that are as emotive and translucent as any in the style. They take the listener through the usual gamut of emotions typical of Shoegaze releases of this nature.

Post-Black Metal comes about when Black Metal and Post-Metal meet, as can be expected from the name. The addition of the Shoegaze tag usually specifies something similar, only in my experience tends to mean that the band have a fragile, brittle sense about them; not in any negative way but rather in the sense of everything being pushed and focused into making the songs as expressive and emotive as possible.

In Australasia’s case the emphasis is on the Post-Metal side of the equation rather than the Black Metal side, (although this aspect of their sound is still present). In addition to this the band also employ some Electronica influences and use this as a further aspect to their sound.

All of this describes Australasia perfectly as they have the hauntingly fragile delivery and highly evocative emotional appeal that typifies this kind of music. And they do all of it very, very well.

There are largely no vocals, so the instruments take centre stage. The only exception to this is some female vocals which are strong and assured; they appear very briefly as a small but important enhancement to a few tracks.

A recommended listen for seekers of sensation everywhere.

Vermin Womb – Permanence (Review)

Vermin Womb are from the US and this is their début EP.

Made up of members with an impressive Extreme Metal pedigree, (Primitive Man, Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire), this releases takes that collective knowledge and experience and funnels it into a veritable natural disaster’s worth of extremity and violence given form.

This is a combination of Sludge, Grind, Death Metal and pissed off Hardcore. It’s not for the faint-hearted and sounds like the end of the world is coming. It’s brutal, nasty, and very, very heavy.

The songs here combine the ferocity and general disdain of Hardcore/Grindcore with the murky evil of Sludge and the brutality of Death Metal. There’s even a Blackened edge.

Take Eyehategod, Brutal Truth and Anaal Nathrakh, mash them all up, put the remains in a blender, force feed the resultant slop into a few hapless victims and the resulting screams of pain and agony will sound a bit like Vermin Womb.

The singer is probably one of these unfortunates as it sounds like he’s been gargling liquid nightmares and is now vomiting forth the worst of his experiences.

This is impressively ugly and it takes real determination and talent to create Metal this heavy and grotesque.

Absolutely horrible music that you can’t afford to miss out on.