Welcome to the world of Vanha. On the one hand it’s a very bleak and desolate world, filled with heartache and misery. On the other hand though, it’s a world full of rich beauty and textured emotive soundscapes. Within the Mist of Sorrow charts and documents themes of suffering and sadness in such a way that the listener is moved by the music and the emotive performance within.
Jan “Janne” Johansson (Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards) and Jesse Oinas (Drums) are Continue reading “Interview with Vanha”
Aseethe are a doom band from the US. This is their second album.
I like Aseethe. Over the years they’ve produced a very respectable body of work, one which is most enjoyable and should be checked out by anyone into doom with drone-like qualities and plenty of heaviness. Continue reading “Aseethe – Hopes of Failure (Review)”
This is the second album by Uncoffined, a doom/death band from the UK.
Featuring members of Winds of Genocide, Ceremonies of Morbidity is chock full of long songs and morbid atmospheres, as the title would suggest. Continue reading “Uncoffined – Ceremonies of Morbidity (Review)”
Vanha are a doom/death metal band from Sweden. This is their debut album.
This is atmospheric doom metal with some death metal elements added in for extra bite, primarily in the vocal department.
Rooted in the old school doom/death style of the 90s, Vanha combine heaviness, melody and sorrowful keyboards to produce an album that manages to crush both physically and emotionally. Continue reading “Vanha – Within the Mist of Sorrow (Review)”
Prisoner 639 are from Belgium and play grinding powerviolence. They have teamed up for this split with Dutch sludge band Throw Me in the Crater.
Prisoner 639 get things going in a slow-burning fashion, opening up with lots of noise, distortion and feedback. Before long some drums and bass enter the fray, producing grim sludgy sounds. After a couple of minutes of this the Continue reading “Prisoner 639/Throw Me in the Crater – Split (Review)”
Yes, it’s that time of year again. 2016 has been a phenomenal year in terms of metal releases, and here I’d like to pay tribute to my top 25.
As always, it was very tough to compile this list into any form of decent order, and I’m sure, (again, as always), that if I were to do this again, the list would look quite different.
I’ve limited the list to a mere 25 releases, so there are necessarily sooooo many good ones that have been missed out. Below are a selection of some of my other favourite releases of 2016, all of which made it into some previous version of my top 25 before I settled on the final one – Continue reading “Wonderbox Metal End of Year List – Best Metal of 2016”
Revelations of Rain are a doom/death metal band from Russia. This is their fifth album.
This is music with a richly melodic streak running through it. Taking influence from the classic old-school doom/death bands in the 90s, the band pump out 8 tracks of heavy, emotive metal, full of dark colour and deep impression.
Delivered with a traditional authenticity for this kind of music, Revelations of Rain know Continue reading “Revelations of Rain – Akrasia (Review)”
This is the debut album from Ukrainian blackened death/doom band 1914.
I really enjoyed this band’s 2016 split with Minenwerfer, so thought it was time to catch up with their 2015 full-length album Eschatology of War.
With a World War I theme, Eschatology of War is a heavy, martial beast that relentlessly marches forwards overcoming all opposition with strength of numbers and a formidable will. Continue reading “1914 – Eschatology of War (Review)”
Suffer Yourself are Ukrainian/Swedish and play atmospheric doom/death metal. This is their second album.
This is atmospheric doom/death with an emphasis on long, slow songs that are filled with morbid beauty and hopeless despair.
The pace is torturously slow, but we like it that way. The band take their time to carefully build atmosphere through relentless heavy distortion and lighter, more restrained passages; frequently combined together. Continue reading “Suffer Yourself – Ectoplasm (Review)”
Worm Ouroborus are a doom band from the US. This is their third album.
Combining doom, dark ambient, Gothic rock, post-metal and neo-folk, Worm Ouroborus are the kind of band that easily stand out from the rest of the herd. This is not typically something you hear every day. Well, unless you listen to them every day from now on, of course. Continue reading “Worm Ouroboros – What Graceless Dawn (Review)”
Wonderbox Metal 