Black metal – Page 237 – Wonderbox Metal

Root – Viginti Quinque Annis In Scaena (Review)

Coming from the Czech Republic; Root play Black/Dark Metal and this is a live album spanning the band’s 25 year career.

The songs are veritable feasts of riffery that show the origins of Black Metal and darkened Thrash and are used effectively to create highly enjoyable Old-School Metal. Well-written songs in the hands of veteran Metallers was always going to end well.

The vocals are experimental, playful, varied and above all commanding and powerful – this is a singer who knows exactly what his voice is capable of and revels in showing off its abilities. He lends a very unique sheen to an already strong musical passage.

Boasting a raw yet clear and dynamic sound; this live album really makes you feel part of the show. More than just a recorded document it allows the songs to breathe and flex their considerable musical muscles and expand into your head so that you can feel the blood, sweat and passion exuded by the band.

A lot of live albums fall short of the mark for me, but this one does everything it is meant to do. As an overview and celebration of Root it’s just a great performance.

Inferno – Omniabsence Filled By His Greatness (Review)

Coming from the Czech Republic veteran Black Metallers Inferno start off their sixth album quietly and softly with PERVASION… before blasting off with first song proper, The Firstborn From Murk.

An enjoyable album that takes the Swedish Black Metal template and injects more of an eerie melodicism into it. After listening to this album I’m convinced this is an area worthy of exploration and Inferno have made a good start.

Inferno write long songs filled with dark praises and incantations to forgotten powers. The drums may spend a lot of their time going at full speed, but the guitars don’t always follow suit, creating a juxtaposition that probably shouldn’t work as well as it does.

In amongst the aggression and hatred on display in these songs there is a feeling of sorrow, of something lost or perhaps never had. This is chiefly displayed in the mournful guitar melodies and plaintive tones explored by them.

The vocals are low in the mix and combine the epitome of brutal Black Metal rasping with deeper, darker vocalisations. They play their part alongside the subtle keyboards and effects to enhance the overall feeling of the aforementioned juxtaposition between melody and brutality; light and dark; beauty and terror.

Fans of Black Metal can’t go too wrong here – give Inferno a listen and let the fires wash over you.

Ævangelist – Omen Ex Simulacra (Review)

Ævangelist are from the US and play a Death/Black Metal hybridised sound. They should probably just be referred to as Extreme Metal as the starting points are Death/Black but these two genres have long ago been corrupted by the taint of Ævangelist and turned to their own purposes.

Indeed, the stench of corruption and a deep-seated malignance is strong with this album. It starts off slow and quiet, gradually building in disconcerting sounds and sinister effects before the Hellish guitars and drums kick in.

The evil sounding effects and noises never stop. It’s like having your sanity eroded slowly over 64 minutes, culminating in the final track Abysscape at which point you’re well and truly lost and without hope.

On paper this is essentially Extreme Metal forged of Death and Black, with added electronics and Industrial effects, however on album this translates into a horrific beast that’s surely the aural equivalent of damnation. Ævangelist create tortured sounds and daemonic vocals so well one begins to wonder if they know something the rest of us don’t…

There are many subtleties and nuances buried beneath this avalanche of twisted sound, and repeated listens are required to fully extract the hidden messages contained in this burning maelstrom of nightmare sounds. Do you have the stomach for it?

Nefandus – Your God Is A Ghost (Review)

Nefandus are from Sweden and ply their Black Metal trade with passion and gusto.

Black Metal gone stoner doom? Not quite, although second track Temptress of Thantifaxath makes a damn good case for it. At least for the first part of the song and then it changes into a galloping NWOBHM-style riff followed by the stoner riffing once more with a nice solo on top. And this is only one of the four top-notch songs on here.

The remaining songs are more traditional than this one, but no less special for it. The riffs speak for themselves, and the band makes full use of them.

Favourite Track: Temptress of Thantifaxath. Variety is great especially when done well.

At less than 20 minutes this EP simply whets the appetite and leaves the listener wanting more. But ’tis better to have tasted the fruits than to never have known…

Glorior Belli – Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls (Review)

Opening with a Stoner/Doom riff to die for, Glorior Belli know how to get things started. This French band play a Sludge/Black Metal combination with a heavy southern US vibe that makes them both instantly familiar, yet also very unusual. Like that estranged friend you have a bad feeling about from years ago but can no longer remember why.

The vocals sound like serrated glass being drawn across stone and are impressively savage. Initially such harsh vocals can seem slightly at odds with some of the more southern-style riffs; indeed the combination of the stoner and Black Metal vibes on the whole takes some getting used to on first listen. Later, you wonder why you thought there was anything untoward going on, as on subsequent listens the transitions from Black Metal atmosphere to all-out Stoner Rock-athon seem much more natural and unforced.

In fact; as you listen to the album and get to know it it’s precisely this seemingly-jarring, (at least initially), melding of disparate styles and feelings that elevate this release from just-another-Black Metal album, or just-another-Sludge album. These are the hooks that keep you returning, that lend a far more traditional Metal and Rock swagger to the Black Metal foundation.

An album to divide; Sludge fans will probably find this easier to like than Black Metallers, although music is subjective of course and it’s always dangerous to make generalisations or assume too much. Combing the two different genres into Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls was always going to be a gamble for the band; I think it has paid off in the main, but the question is will people stick around long enough to accept it? Hopefully.

Like someone has smashed together Black Metal and Blues Rock then picked the best looking pieces and rebuilt them together in the form of Glorior Belli. If you can embrace the merging of the styles, (and you should), then you have an enduring album worthy of repeat visits. Try them out!

Interview with We All Die (Laughing)

In the very near future We All Die (Laughing) will release their first album Thoughtscanning, an ambitious and absorbing début that’s sure to earn them many an accolade. I was honoured to get to ask them a few questions about this involving musical journey.

For those that are unfamiliar with We All Die (Laughing) – introduce yourself!

Déhà (all instruments, vocals) : WAD(L) is a band (not a side project) from myself & Arno Strobl, making some weird but effective mixture of progressive dark metal, with black, doom, blues & jazz influences. Don’t expect something too fancy/avant-garde (yet?), this release is dark and depressive as it should be. We’re existing since 2012, we released recently the début, “Thoughtscanning”, a 33-min piece of dark metal, through Kaotoxin Records in 2014, preorders finish soon by the way, so get it since you’re getting a bonus track, which is a cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black”. The album was recorded at my former place, in Belgium (HHStudios) – the mix & mastering was made by El Mobo from Conkrete Studios. The dream production.

As the band is a collaboration between two artists who are already involved in other bands – can you tell us a bit about the background of the band and how the project started?

D : It all started by having a normal contact with Arno concerning my German band “Maladie”. We discussed about plenty of things, musical & cooking mainly, and as Arno is one of my 5 influences with singing, I was really eager for him to listen to my stuff. I sent him the demo version of what became this album, and he was loving it so much that we finished talking by “We have to do something, asap” and voilà.
Arno (vocals) : As every single artist uses to say in every interview in the world : “It came out very naturally”. Sometimes you meet someone and click at first sight, it feels natural to launch a common project. Needless to say it’s not every other day that you feel the need to invest yourself in a new band with a person that you just met. It’s all about intuition, In that very case, my first meeting with Déhà was almost surreal. We were like “Guy, you just said what I was about to tell you”. A kind of magic, to quote that famous Genesis track (oh wait, was it The Police ?)

What was the inspiration behind Thoughtscanning?

D : As cheesy as it sounds, catharsis. Inner envies, self destruction, thoughts, philosophy, …
A : Years of mental cancer that eat you from the inside. Lack of self confidence, guilt, fear… Basically, the main disease of our era, along with back suffering of course. Both of us have a very different way of shouting out this kind of feelings to the world. But we tried to express it together; and here’s the result.

What influences did you draw on when creating this album?

D : We’ve been destroying plenty of limits we had. We released ourselves for this album, for lyrics but also for our ways of singing. Arno & I are what I could call “polyvalent vocalists” and we used it for the better on this album. But I can’t say it brought only good stuff, since it’s quite hard to listen to this album without going down with it.
A : Thoughtscanning has been quite a challenge to both of us. We felt we had to spit out the best of our artistic skills while at the same time being true to the initial purpose of the album, which was the lyrical bottomline around disease. It’s a tough thing to stay true to yourself while trying to create something that doesn’t sound too 1) miserable 2) childish 3) exaggerated 4) no 4, sorry. It’s been my constant fear while recording the album not to sound like a parody of depressive metal. Looking back upon what we achieved, I feel relieved, because it definitely sounds like what I/we wanted.

How did you go about writing this album? What was the process involved?

D : I started it in the beginning of 2012, wanting to make something different from what I’m used to do, a bit more complex music but still affordable / digestible (since I’m a huge fan of chaotic music). I took 6 months to make it. Then, like I told you, meeting with Arno, we made the first demo with voices. Then I unfortunately lost my backup harddisk, so I had to re-track everything (which I did in one week in 2013), then one week of cooking / recording voices, sending all that to El Mobo and voilà. We had a lot of funny moments, as well as unfunny moments (hence the music), but we were not stressed about anything (time, deadlines, etc) so this is an amazing memory.

Why did you decide to produce one very long track instead of a selection of shorter ones?

A : This was no choice nor any of a decision. We had this long track that was begging for us to play it and dress it up with sincere words. Therefore we just had to focus on it and give it all our best.
D : I believe that for any length of music, a trip has to be settled. Which means simply that if you feel, as an artist, that this trip shouldn’t be finished in several minutes, you should let it go and vary it. This song, Thoughtscan, is long because the concept demands it. You have to feel the slight variations throughout the album, and the same riffs coming up again sometimes but different, so you can just… feel it.

The album takes the listener on a musical journey through different moods and feelings – how important was this to you when creating the song?

D : That goes perfectly with the previous question : the trip I was talking about, that’s the reason. Plenty of moods, from sad complaints to harsh primal violence, to philosophical questions, to inner wars…
A : Once again this may sound very cheesy but the track is the exact Xerox of life itself, at least the harder moments of it. It’s a succession of sadness, anger, introspection… Depression is a complicated matter. The end of the album that sounds like a light of hope could well be also like the new start of the cycle, and a new dive into darkness. Because that how it goes.

What plans do you have for We All Die (Laughing) in the future?

D : We all will make more music (or die trying). Believe me, this is just a beginning.
A : That’s for sure : we’ll soon have more work on the slab together. I just hope we’ll come out with an album that won’t be as painful to record. I’m not talking about our relationship that’s been great from both ends, but because we had to come out with personal things there that were hard to handle.

Thanks for your time!

Temple of Baal – Verses of Fire (Review)

French veterans Temple of Baal offer up their fourth album to the sacrificial gods of Blackened Death Metal.

Having not heard Temple of Baal since their 2003 debut Servants of the Beast, it is an interesting transformation that the band’s sound has undergone. Originally Black Metal; now they give us a combination of both Death and Black Metal with some quite varied sub-styles and influences apparent throughout the 60 minutes on Verses of Fire.

Sometimes brutal, sometimes more laid back, always dark; songs are played at all speeds and tempos, mainly in an attempt to create a gloomy atmosphere for the listener to get absorbed in. For this release the band have emphasised the importance of a good atmosphere and have created one via rich textures of overlapping genres of Extreme Metal.

Moments of Old-School Death Metal are toyed with; elements of discordant Black Metal; Thrash riffs; Doom sections; full-on blasting – a wide sample of extremity is taken and fused into the songs on this album.

Vocals are mainly in a darkened Death Metal style, although screams and yells are used on occasion to add a splash of colour to the sinister emanations of the singer.

Verses of Fire boasts a very well produced sound that shows off everything very organically and gives a very satisfying listen. You could place this next to pretty much any band and not have it sound weak or inferior in quality.

Temple of Baal have taken a risk by changing their style from their Black Metal beginnings, and with risk comes either reward or failure. I think the risk has paid off and they have been rewarded with a much richer and more ambitious sound that will serve them well moving forward from here.

If you weren’t sure about Temple of Baal in the past, or have just been unfamiliar with them, then this is the album for you. An hour long of top quality Extreme Metal.

Tjolgtjar – Kjal Tjormejn (Review)

The highly prolific Tjolgtjar come to us from the US with the latest full-length Kjal Tjormejn.

This album contains two tracks over the length of 47 minutes. The first song Kjal Tjormejn Part 1 is only 5 minutes long and just seems to be a cut off version of the main 42 minute song Kjal Tjormejn.

This is an epic composition of strange, angular Black Metal. Riffs and melodies stick out and criss cross each other like no-one’s business, and the entire wonderful track is something akin to a Black Metal 70’s Prog masterpiece; like Mütiilation covering and corrupting Pink Floyd or something. It may sound odd on paper but it definitely works. Add to that some, (blackened), Southern Rock riffs and others that sound like they could be, (blackened), action movie soundtrack riffs, you have a varied and interesting release that’s essentially a great listen from start to finish.

The vocals have an approach of Black Metal shrieks and various cleaner strains ranging from moaning to falsetto and most in between, although the main emphasis of the album is the diverse musicality on display.

The production is underground Black Metal, and quite brittle sounding, but that sense of fragility somehow manages to enhance the music. Everything is also clearly recorded giving the inventive music the space it needs to tentatively creep out of the speakers and infect your brain. In fact this sense of a spiky, angular Black Metal sound combined with a sense of brittle fragility is quite endearing and only serves to enhance the inspired, ambitious music.

A release like this won’t be to everyone’s tastes of course, but if you are open to it there is a lot to enjoy here.

Cosmic Infusion – Cosmic Infusion (Review)

Here we have Indian Symphonic Black Metallers Cosmic Infusion with their first release, a 32 minute journey into the nightside.

From the very first couple of seconds I knew I was going to like this. It instantly has that early/mid-90’s vibe that makes me so nostalgic for the mystery and otherworldliness of Black Metal as I was first discovering its dark charms.

Giving off the same vibes as bands of this era this is instantly familiar and yet fresh and inviting as so few bands do this nowadays, and even if they do they inevitably come across as copycats or merely trying to recapture lost glories. Cosmic Infusion are better than that due to the mass of talent they have and the fact that they’re just so damn good!

Vocals are mainly the standard Black Metal shriek, (done well), but we also occasionally get treated to some heroic-sounding clean vocals which are rousing and welcome.

The music is exceptional – taking the standard 90’s blueprint of mystic guitar riffs and heavy orchestration to create hymns to blackness that really do conjure up images of black masses and Satanic rituals.

This, along with the recent Gutslit album, demonstrates a growing hotbed of talent from India. With these kinds of bands as forerunners the region deserves more recognition for services to Metal.

Cosmic Infusion have crafted an excellent first release that will hopefully prepare them well for their first album at some point in the future. Based on the strength of this EP I’ll be salivating at the prospect.

Get this.

Corpsessed – Abysmal Thresholds (Review)

After a disconcerting intro, Finnish Death Metal band Corpsessed proceed to terrify the listener with their thick and impenetrable evil sound.

Of Desolation starts things off and just oozes menace and class. Sounding like it has been transported to this plane of existence from some horrible Hell-dimension, the band proceed to channel 48 minutes of thoroughly upsetting music that uses sound as a warning of what’s lurking in the darkness.

The band evoke strong feelings of dread and fear with their songs through skilful use of dark melodies and subtle additions of Black Metal touches to their sound. Indeed, although Abysmal Thresholds is thoroughly grounded in Death Metal there are detectable influences from the Black Metal camp that serve to enhance the innate sense of wrongness and ungodliness that these songs inspire.

Corpsessed have mastered the art of atmosphere there’s no doubting that; these tracks bleed malevolence. The guitars create a foundation of unease from which the songs are moulded while the guttural vocals underscore everything and spread their darkened word.

This is more than a mere album; this is like a message from some damned, horrible place. Each song is a new word and by the end of it you’ve lost your mind. I can’t get enough of this! This is Death Metal at its best – dark, scary, heavy, brilliant.

This album sounds like the aural equivalent of Death itself.