drone – Page 17 – Wonderbox Metal

Locrian – Infinite Dissolution (Review)

Locrian are a US Experimental Post-Metal band and this is their latest album.

Featuring an album cover that makes me feel uncomfortable and like I’m going to go insane, (courtesy of David Altmejd), this is music that caters to people who want more from the bands that they listen to, and more is what Locrian provide.

Locrian play Post-Metal that contains Avant-Garde, Black-Metal and Industrial elements. Electronics, keyboards, piano, samples and a whole host of other instruments grace this album in addition to the standard instruments. Two songs also contain guest female vocals as well. All of this should give you an insight into how much depth, variety and interest there is to be had here.

Elements of Drone, Noise, Industrial, Post-Metal and Black Metal all clash into a wonderful melange of music that reminds of some twisted cross between Russian Circles and Blut Aus Nord.

This is a highly textured and multi-faceted release that requires repeated spins to really make its wonders known. There’s a lot of different things going on here and it’s easy to miss some of it the first time around, especially as there’s a lot of subtle sounds and effects going on in the background, almost behind the main event, so to speak.

There’s a resplendent darkness that seeps from this music like a sentient and malevolent oil stain that’s searching for ways to get into your body. Something here doesn’t have your best interests at heart and it’s subtle, insidious and unfaltering in its desire to do harm.

This is music to get lost to and get lost in. The band have a talent for creating soundscapes that sear your thoughts and burn the mind.

Highly recommended as your dose of something different and sublime.

Angakok – Angakok (Review)

Angakok are a Sludge band from Belgium, and this is their début album.

Angakok play Sludge/Doom mixed with moments of Drone/Ambient respite.

This is Neurosis-inspired Doom that’s nicely heavy when it needs to be. Mix the Neurosis influence with that of, say, Zatokrev and you have an album that, (slowly), stomps over everything around it.

The Ambient and lighter moments give the album some shading, but the heavier side of the band is the main event; these asides are essentially delaying the heaviness so that when it returns it sounds even more immense.

The music really takes Doom to its black heart; the heavy guitars are slow and crushing, although they do pick up the pace when necessary. There are some good, winding melodies used on these songs and the mood of despondency and bleakness never ends.

The songs are darkly enjoyable, and it’s a collection of tracks that make for a engaging journey with the band.

The vocals are anguished, drawn-out screams, not dissimilar to those used in Neurosis. The style sounds a natural fit with the Sludgy guitars and the performance is not one to find fault with.

The album is well-recorded and seems to be able to be both murky and clear at the same time. It suits the band’s style and the music benefits from it.

I enjoy music like this, especially from a band like Angakok as they clearly know the genre inside out.

Check them out.

Convulsif – CD3 (Review)

Convulsif are from Switzerland and this is their third album.

Well this is quite insane. Imagine Ephel Duath, Fantômas, Blut Aus Nord, Atomsmasher and Sunn 0))) all working together to bring on the apocalypse…it’s intense.

The recording is first rate, with everything sounding clear and precise, but not overly so. I especially like the bass presence, which provides a full contribution to the aural chaos.

This features eclectic Metal, freestyle Jazz and Progressive workouts as well as Drone/Doom sections, all plastered together in a melange of Blackened undertones. What to classify this as? Who knows, but it’s pretty damn good. I suppose you could loosely term it Experimental Black Metal, but Convulsif are a band that genre tags just don’t work for.

There are no guitars, which makes CD3 an even more interesting listening experience. Instead, we get drums, bass, clarinet, violins and electronica. Just what the (mad) doctor ordered.

And when you think you’ve heard it all, they do something else that makes you sit up and take notice. The unexpected, demented screaming that suddenly appears just when you’ve taken them for an instrumental band is a case in point.

This is highly creative and individual music that nonetheless manages to create coherent atmospheres across these 29 minutes. The eerie sounds and otherworldly noises emanating from this recording is a testament to the talent of the individuals involved in its birth.

CD3 just needs to be experienced. This is challenging, interesting music that demands your attention.

I love this. What’s not to love? You’ll love it too. LOVE IT!

Sigihl – Trauermärsche (And a Tango Upon the World’s Grave) (Review)

This is the début album from Polish Black/Doom/Sludge Metal band Sigihl.

Sigihl play their Black Metal with added elements of Sludge, Doom and Drone.

This is special, in a disgustingly infectious way. There’s no guitar, but there is a saxophone. Sigihl make Black Metal art by their own rules. It’s intriguing, depraved and utterly compelling.

Calling it Black Metal though is a bit misleading, as although Black Metal is an integral component of their writing, equally important is the Doom/Sludge influence.

The bass-heavy distortion is combined with a saxophone sound that seems dredged up from the most sinister and worrying parts of a Silent Hill game. It’s unusual and instantly appealing. Sigihl have really worked out how to get the most from emotive filthiness.

The wailing vocals are buried by the bass and provide an unhinged counterpoint to the plaintive saxophone melodies.

The repetitive dirge/Drone-like nature of the music is infectious and draws you in, eager to experience the joyful misery that this cavalcade of woe is pedalling.

Sigihl have created a listening experience that’s almost tangible enough to touch.

A very individual release, destined to be tragically overlooked by many Metal fans. Don’t let this be the case with you.

Aires/Rui P. Andrade/Earthly Beasts – Split (Review)

This is a split between the Aires, Rui P. Andrade and Earthly Beasts, all are Portuguese and solo artists/projects. This is a collection of three tracks of Ambient/Drone that lasts just over 29 minutes in total.

As always with these kind of releases I have to be in the mood for them, but when you are in such a mood this split is a good place to visit.

Aires, who we met before with Aires, starts us off with the first track Solvet Cosmos in Favilla. This starts with tense noises and keeps this up throughout the 9:05 playing time, subtly twisting and morphing it at a glacial pace as the track develops. Subtle samples can be heard in the background and the entire thing comes off with an Industrial/Black Metal vibe, almost like an ambient work by a band like Blut Aus Nord.

Initially I wasn’t too fussed by this to be honest, but it slowly worked its insidious charms on my brain and by the end of the track when it starts to splinter and fracture into nothingness I was hooked. Great stuff.

The next track, Turdus Merula, is by Rui P. Andrade. This ebbs and flows with Ambient patience through the 10:46 playing time to create a dark sonicscape that sounds like the aural equivalent of the release’s cover, really.

I like this track as it has recognisable changes within it, flowing between louder and softer moments and undulating as the artist sees fit, eventually descending into noise territory as it begins to unravel near the 9:00 mark.

The final track on the split, Erebus, is by Earthly Beasts and it starts off with some extremely ominous sounds akin to something from the Silent Hill games. Thankfully the track then goes on to do what I was hoping it would do and it turns into quite a harrowing series of sounds and noises designed to unnerve and terrify.

The purity of horror that this song initially creates though does not last, as even though it does carry on the theme some of the noises take on a pseudo-Techno feel and sometimes I almost expect a dance beat to appear. Thankfully it doesn’t but it changes the dynamic of the song enough to create a different mood than the one of pure malevolence that it started with.

Of all of the tracks here this is the most rhythmic, and it balances the background aura of despondency against the harsher foreground rhythmic noise in such a way that the 9:20 playing time flies by and you’re not sure whether to be scared or relieved.

This is a great showcase for three talented artists. If you’re partial to Drone/Ambient sounds then I heartily recommend you go and get this.

A varied, enigmatic and above all quality release.

Twilight Fauna – Hymns of a Forgotten Homeland (Review)

Hymns of a Forgotten Homeland is the fourth album from this one-man Black Metal project from the US.

This is a strange and, I would guess, deeply personal release. It’s an album that’s all about creating mood and atmosphere and will undoubtedly not appeal to the vast majority of music fans out there, probably not even most Black Metal adherents.

Why? Because this may be rooted in Black metal but it’s equal parts acoustic/Drone/Ambient in scope. The tracks seep together with dark ambience and seem to corrode at the edges when you listen to them.

The brain behind the project creates a harrowing soundscape of brittle Folk and Blackened Depressive noise. It’s an ode to nature filtered through the Blackened tar-stained lens of Black Metal.

Percussion is used sparingly on these songs, with the main propulsion being the guitar work and low key sounds of cymbals and other noises.

Vocals are low in the mix and are entwined with the music; a sort of agonised braying that tugs at the hidden places in the mind.

The journey through these tracks is fraught with distorted longing and a deep sense of loneliness. It’s not an expedition that most people will want to take, and those that do would do well to remember not to leave home unequipped and unprepared.

So, if you’re made of stern stuff and prepared to open your heart to what Twilight Fauna have to offer, then Hymns to a Forgotten Homeland will accompany you on a journey into the raw, lonely beauty of nature.

0 – Silence (Review)

This is the second release from 0, a Greek one-man Blackened Experimental Doom/Drone project.

0’s first album Simplifying a Demon was a surprisingly enjoyable slab of minimalistic Drone Doom in the vein of Khanate only with more Black Metal.

Once more the same foreboding atmosphere hits you. The cloying stench of something dark, dank, rotten and forgotten that slowly, agonisingly rises from the depths of some long lost pit of bleakness. But this time, something’s different.

This time around 0’s music is more considered and thoughtful. If Simplifying a Demon was the birthing throes of something horrific, then Silence is the sound of it growing and discovering itself, learning more about what it’s capable of.

Silence’s landscape is minimal and desolate, but for all this it is also a textured and alluring one. The songs wrap you in their deadly embrace and slowly take you into their world, warmly embraced by the darkness.

The Black Metal influence is still there on this release but it’s more subtle and less overt than previously. Silence has more of a droning Doom feeling, like some of the work by bands like Earth, Blackwolfgoat and Om, albeit a Blackened version of these.

The vocals have developed also. Black Metal shrieks are still in attendance but these are now very much a rarity. For the main vocals we are now treated to some very well performed and varied cleans that wouldn’t be out of place on more traditional Stoner Doom releases. Powerful and ominous.

Overall Silence is a positive progression for 0. The development shown on this album is really something and the songwriting has come on in leaps and bounds. I’m happy that 0 is not resting on its laurels and is continuing to push the boundaries of what a bass and a voice are capable of.

So get lost in the misery and enveloped in the Silence of 0.

N/ill – Black Marble Carapace (Review)

This is the latest EP from Germany’s N/ill. N/ill is a one-person project playing Ambient/Industrial/Drone/Electronica/Rock.

This is a collection of dark soundscapes that use electronics and sounds to create atmospheric pieces that are reminiscent of Shoegaze Post-Rock only from an Industrial/Electronica standpoint.

The songs are slow builders and rise and fall like the ebb and flow of the tide. Rather than sounding organic though these tracks are largely artificial sounding, but not in any bad way. They come from a place of technology and show that this is not any barrier to evoking real feelings in songs.

When vocals appear they are ragged and heartfelt, lending the tunes the feeling of a singer like Mark Lanegan set to a backdrop of Nine Inch Nails-styled proto-Industrial Rock mixed with a synthetic Earth. Or they are female and come across as a stitched together sample that permeates the music like permanent ink.

These compositions are well written and the 33 minutes of music here comes across as a bleak soundtrack to a post-modern film. Each track has its own identity and it covers a diverse range of genres and styles across the 7 songs.

Before listening to this I wasn’t sure what to expect – the cover and the name didn’t give much away, so I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the contents.

This release has the potential to transcend the usual genre limitations and make a mark for itself. With the right exposure/backing it could do well.

Black Marble Carapace is the product of a very talented individual. If you’re looking for something a little different then check this out and lend him your support.

Blackwolfgoat – Drone Maintenance (Review)

This is the third album from Blackwolfgoat who hail from the US.

This is Progressive Doom/Drone. I have enjoyed the previous Blackwolfgoat release Dronolith, and Drone Maintenance continues the core sound only with more variety than previously. Everything is still focused around the electric guitar but now there are added sounds and instruments, including acoustics, percussion and even the odd vocal.

Drone Maintenance is an enjoyably diverse release that comes off almost like one of the more commercial Electronica/Techno releases in the feel of the tracks, how they are made up, what they consist of and the diversity of delivery and expression – the only caveat to this of course is instead of this being delivered in an Electronica/Techno style it’s delivered in a Doom/Drone style. This impression is further increased by the various interludes and samples, etc. that are included on the album. The point is that this is an accomplished release that covers many bases and moods in the 37 minutes playing time.

The semi-concept of the album, (summed up essentially by the title and the lovely artwork), is also a pleasing one.

The musical journey that Drone Maintenance takes the listener on is one of subtle highlights and carefully crafted nuance. Sadly, this album is never going to have a huge audience and will probably be dismissed by the average music fan. This is a huge shame as it’s relatively easy listening and is orders of magnitude better than most of the nonsense that passes as popular music these days.

Blackwolfgoat has a massive amount of potential, most of which will go unrealised in the wider musical scene. Make sure that you don’t miss out though; get listening to this now.

The Haunting Green – The Haunting Green (Review)

The Haunting Green are from Italy and play Doom.

Featuring guitar, drums and electronics, The Haunting Green have an interesting sound that combines Doom, Post-Metal and a touch of Drone to create 28 minutes of dark, emotive music.

The soundscapes the band create are textured and impressively detailed. The added but relatively subtle electronics flesh out their sound in a way that enhances the tracks a great deal.

The vocals sound anguished and tortured which lends them a personality missing from a lot of generic shouters out there.

These are well-written songs that grow and spread the more you listen to them. The merging of Post-Metal and Doom means that we get to enjoy both the introverted subtlety of the one as well as the extroverted heaviness of the other.

I really like this release. It’s a very good example of music taking liberties and experimenting with the basic sound of a subgenre, resulting in something a little different from the average. The quality levels on this are through the roof and it’s a convincing, compelling and complete experience.

Give The Haunting Green some of your time. You won’t be disappointed.