Metal – Page 479 – Wonderbox Metal

Perihelion Ship – A Rare Thunderstorm in Spring (Review)

This is the début album from Finnish Progressive Metal band Perihelion Ship.

I like a good bit of Progressive Metal and was intrigued by this release in particular due to the striking cover art.

Featuring Hammond organ and mellotron, Perihelion Ship have captured the essence of 70s Progressive Rock and combined it with a more modern Metal influence à la Opeth and the like to produce a very enjoyable album that mixes both eras well.

The vocals alternate between cleans, screams and growls, depending on the needs of the song. As mentioned previously, Opeth are a clear influence here, but this is only a starting point for Perihelion Ship and they have enough of their own personality and style to make A Rare Thunderstorm in Spring their own. It’s also quite interesting that as the album progresses the band seem to almost come into their own more and more, with the Opeth influence receding further and further into the background. Intentional? Who knows.

The tracks are atmosphere-heavy and full of light and shade, with the music reflecting the different vocal styles in many ways. There’s good depth here and it’s easy to return to this release for further listenings.

The album is crowned by the final song, the title track, which is a 21 minute epic that rounds the album off in impressive fashion.

A recommended listen.

Sarke – Bogefod (Review)

This is the fourth album from Norwegian Black Metallers Sarke.

With band members from such esteemed groups as Darkthrone, Satyricon and Khold, this band features a high pedigree and a wealth of experience, all channelled into these 35 minutes.

The familiar darkened twinge of sinister and mysterious Black Metal riffs is joined by less-familiar leads and solos and a Thrash Metal influence in some of the heavier riffs. It’s a predominantly Black Metal work, but there are enough Metal and Thrash elements to make Bogefod more than just a pure Black Metal release, even though it’s all smothered with dark atmospheres and blackened aesthetics.

The songs are well-written with lots of juicy guitars, both of the Blackened Thrash and more traditionally Black Metal variety. The songs keep their pace nicely without going too far either way and there’s lots of memorable moments.

I like that the band don’t play it safe and repeat the same type of song over and over. There’s a decent amount of variety on this release, with the various influences of the band members showing up in different places; each song has an identifiable personality of its own. I particularly enjoyed Barrow of Torolv‘s Doom-infused atmospheric darkness, as well as the female vocal-led Dawning. Very nice.

The screamed vocals with an edge of attitude should be familiar to most, (all?), Black Metal fans and it’s always a pleasure to hear the singer’s voice. His performance is right where it needs to be on these songs and he contributes quite a bit to the catchiness of some of the tracks.

Keyboards are included and these are subtle enough to not overpower the rest of the music, but prominent enough to really add another layer of depth to the songs.

I really enjoyed this album. It has enough going on to keep and hold the interest, but is short enough to not overstay its welcome. Repeated listens bear this out, and Bogefod just gets better the more you listen to it.

Check it out.

Teething/Feastem – Split (Review)

Feastem are from Finland and Teething are from Spain. Both play Grindcore and they have come together to unleash this savage split on the world.

Teething start things off and offer up three tracks lasting four minutes in total.

Their music is fast, furious and full of aggression, just the way we like our Grindcore. They slow things down here and there and offer up some mid-paced groove with a Punk edge that adds to things quite nicely.

For the most part the vocals are halfway between shouts and growls, finding that sweet spot between the two that sounds harsh as Hell.

It’s a brief few songs, but enjoyable. Their blend of extremity and energetic Punk know-how makes them the epitome of Grind in many ways and if you like the style it’s hard to find fault with them.

Feastem are up next and also offer three songs, lasting a slightly longer five minutes in total.

Compared to Teething, Feastem have less of a Punk influence and offer streamlined, sharp Grindcore that has a more modern edge than their Spanish counterparts.

The tracks are full of blasting mayhem, not happy unless they’re doing their best to damage the listener’s ears by any means necessary. There’s a decent Extreme Metal influence to the guitars, although you can still hear the Punk/Hardcore influence too.

Scathing screams are the main mode of delivery for the singer, although deep growls do join in on occasion.

Another top quality Grind split between two bands that represent different points on the Grind spectrum in some ways. Which you prefer will depend on your personal preferences, and for me it’s hard to say – occasionally Teething’s more traditional approach wins the day, whereas at other times I love the blasting speed and modern delivery of Feastem. Either way, this is short enough to enjoy again and again and packs a punch regardless.

Highly recommended.

Serenity – Codex Atlanticus (Review)

This is the fifth album from Austrian Symphonic Power Metallers Serenity.

This is a bombastic, larger-than-life album that boasts impressive orchestration and bucketfuls of sugary melodies.

Bands like this can so easily lose track of the Metal component of their sound, but Serenity remember this and include plenty of tasty riffs alongside the symphonic feast that they serve up so well.

The songs are enjoyable and well-written, making the most of the European style. Featuring all kinds of catchy and memorable hooks, melodies and harmonies, it’s an easy-to-like album, as long as you’re a fan of the genre, of course.

The singer has a strong voice that carries the tunes well. I like that he has a personable, charismatic side that is almost at odds with the flashy nature of the music in some ways. It has an earthy quality to it, even when he’s belting things out in true Power Metal style.

Production-wise, an album like this can really suffer without a suitably huge and ostentatious sound, but it’s clear that Serenity have spared no expense in this department. Everything sounds bright and shiny, polished and professional.

I really enjoyed this. In a genre that is well past its saturation point, Codex Atlanticus has enough personality and character to hold interest and is performed well enough to keep it.

Highly recommended.

Skáphe – Skáphe² (Review)

This is the second album from US Black Metal band Skáphe.

This is Black Metal that’s uncompromising, unsettling and uncomfortable. It’s a claustrophobic maelstrom of suffocating blackness that has strange, eerie melodies trying to escape it yet they keep getting sucked back in once more, like light trying to escape the event horizon of a black hole.

Unhinged vocals accompany the wild ride of the music, sometimes seemingly layered upon themselves, sounding like daemonic voices from the darkest void.

Skáphe don’t do things by halves, it seems.

The music on this release has a stronger than normal recording for this type of thing. So much so that you can hear and make out every aspect of the stifling darkness that the band create. It’s like drowning in tar, but an unusual tar; one that you can clearly see the constitution of, so that it makes the asphyxiation all the worse.

This unusual combination of clarity and murk works extremely well and Skáphe² is an extremely powerful album because of it. Something like this would be very easy to mess up in lesser hands due to the propensity for it to occlude or obscure itself, but the songs on this release stay focused, despite the heavy layers of grimness and desolation that the band wrap the album in.

This is 37 minutes of cleverly designed horror. It’s coming for you and you know that there’s a malevolent intelligence lurking behind the crystal clear fog, just waiting for you to get too close.

You have been warned.

Morth – Towards the Endless Path (Review)

Morth is a one-man Black Metal band from Bulgaria. This is his début album.

This album has plenty of occult melodies for the listener to enjoy. Sometimes these melodies can seem quite jaunty or folksy, which is a nice touch among the overall darkened vibes that Morth creates.

The long songs have an epic feel and there’s plenty of atmosphere to soak up here. The music is expansive and seems to revel in a certain primitive sophistication that some of the early Black Metal bands found themselves experimenting with. It’s the kind of music that makes me feel nostalgic and never fails to raise a grim smile.

Synths and keyboards are never too far from the action, wrapping the twisting melodies in their dark embrace.

Vocally we get trademark Black Metal croaking screams that fit the music perfectly. These vocals are absolutely of the classic style and go hand in hand with the classic atmospheric music.

This is well-constructed atmospheric Black Metal with a nice line in melodies and uplifting leads and synths.

Very enjoyable.

Interview with Frozen Ocean

Frozen Ocean’s latest release The Prowess of Dormition is 25 minutes of quality atmospheric Black Metal. Wonderbox Metal caught up with the brains behind the project once more to find out a bit more information…

For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!

Hello. I am Vaarwel, the only person behind this project.

Give us a bit of background to Frozen Ocean

Frozen Ocean was founded in 2005 and had 10th anniversary last year. I always be the only member of this project, and will be. “The Prowess Of Dormition” is nineteenth official release.

What are your influences?

I usually try to avoid influences to create something original, but for “The Prowess Of Dormition” I can mention Vinterland, Thy Catafalque and obscure Russian band Valhalla as entities that inspired me somehow.

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

I generally listen to brutal and technical death metal, so I’d like to recommend to check upcoming Wormed album named “Krighsu”.

Give us a bit of background to The Prowess of Dormition – any particular concepts or ideas you want to discuss?

“The Prowess Of Dormition” has no particular concept or plot, but all the songs are about struggle in philosophical sense, as entity overcoming the hindrances. Struggle is the only thing that can make us better than we are and pushes the evolution forward.

How do you go about writing your songs?

I write the music first, keeping in mind the title and concept, and only then write the lyrics. I record all instruments and vocals by myself, and do all the sound work as well.

How did the recording process go?

Relatively fast.

What’s your favourite song on the album and why?

Title track, I guess, because it is the quintessence of whole EP both in music and in lyrics.

What does the future hold for Frozen Ocean?

Something new and unexpected, as usual.

Horrified – Of Despair (Review)

This is the second album from UK Death Metal band Horrified.

Horrified’s début album Descent into Putridity was a maggot-filled coffin full of raw, underground Swedish-influenced Death Metal. Things have changed since then, it seems.

A Swedish Death Metal influence is still apparent, but the band have expanded their horizons and taken in further influence from the more melodic side of the Swedish scene; think bands like Dissection, Edge of Sanity and Eucharist. It’s an interesting and unexpected change of direction for Horrified that allows them to develop their more expansive, progressive and melodic sides, while still including some nice brutality when they want.

As this development sees the band becoming more sophisticated and melodic, there’s a corresponding increase in length in the songs, with a couple breaching the eight minute mark. This allows the band to add the melodic, emotive side to the core of their old-school style, achieving a blistering combination of the two that works really well.

Although I miss the primitive old-school rumble of their début, I must admit that it’s very nice to see a band develop and spread their wings further afield than their early influences. As these influences do still play a part in their sound though, it’s not a total departure. The end result is that they have progressed into an entity that’s far more interesting and accomplished than what they have demonstrated in the past, and Of Despair is a very enjoyable and compelling piece of work.

Oranssi Pazuzu – Värähtelijä (Review)

This is the fourth album of Black Metal from Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu.

Oranssi Pazuzu play Black Metal that incorporates elements of psychedelia and Progessive Metal into its dark embrace.

This is the great thing about what Black Metal has become – it has developed way beyond the initial confines of the original genre into all manner of weird, wonderful and splendid things, probably more so than any other genre in many ways. Purists may disagree and say that Black Metal is one specific thing or another, of course. Whether they’re right or not is largely irrelevant, but what is relevant is that Black Metal has been used time and time again as the base inspiration for many a band’s exploration into wider sounds and different pastures.

All of which serves as a slightly long-winded introduction for Värähtelijä; here is an album that does exactly as previously described – it takes the base of Black Metal but does so much more with it than your average Darkthrone clone.

Here we have music that has been expanded upon with psychedelic and progressive properties, as well as the claustrophobic apocolyptica of Neurosis and the extravagant otherworldliness of Sigh. All of this is wrapped up tightly in an emotive, atmospheric blackened cloud and hidden deep in a murky cave somewhere, awaiting discovery by you.

Yes, you.

The atmospheres created on Värähtelijä are surely born of the void, born from some howling, other place that refuses to conform to our physical laws. Surely? The depth, texture and mood displayed on these tracks is more than most bands manage in a lifetime. That’s not so say it’s always 100% effective in everything it does, but again; it’s way more effective than most bands succeed in being when they add a bit of mood to their music. However, Oranssi Pazuzu aren’t “adding a bit of mood to their music”; this is pure mood music and everything here is designed to emote and emote strongly. And it does.

This is certainly not one-dimensional and there’s a lot of different ideas, sounds and styles incorporated into their trippy take on dark music.

Hugely impressive and a great absorbing listen for anyone into music that takes time to appreciate as it seeps into your mind and takes over.

Vargstuhr – Howlings (Review)

Vargstuhr is a one man Black Metal band from Spain. This is his début release.

Unexpectedly, this album starts with an acoustic, folk-influenced track that has semi-clean vocals chanting rough outpourings. It’s a left-field opener that has a lot of rustic charm. After this, a frosted guitar melody blows in, heralding the next track and just when you think you’re in more familiar territories the guitars drop out and clean vocals appear. Then it goes all raw and evil, and at this point you realise you’re not dealing with an average release.

Howlings pays tribute to the fertile experimentation of the early Scandinavian Black Metal scene, effortlessly recreating the feel of the era and the feeling that anything is possible as the early innovators started to diversify out from the original blackened template.

This is both primitive and sophisticated at the same time. The recording is clearly on a low-budget, and at times it becomes quite unbalanced or strange, (what’s up with the horrible blasting snare drum sound on Howling 5: The Hunt, in Search of the Prey?), but honestly I can’t care that much as for the most part it suits the style of the music and represents a certain rawness and authenticity that I can get on board with. Besides, I’ve heard a lot worse.

The playing and songwriting can be similarly described; this is not the high-polish, high-gloss of the mainstream, this is strictly underground Metal fodder and sounds all the better for it.

Howlings combines atmosphere, melody, folk influences and raw Black Metal into 45 minutes of music that I can’t help but really enjoy. It genuinely takes me back a couple of decades and shows a mind with a keen understanding of the early Black Metal scene when it was right on the cusp of birthing itself into the heavily-fragmented, multiplying, mutating sub-genres of the blackened style that we know today, but just prior to this when everything seemed so genuinely exciting.

Even ignoring all of this though, purely on its own merits, Howlings is a very enjoyable slab of primitive Black Metal that has aspirations for so much more and succeeds in breaking out from the well-worn path into its own trail, writing its own story.

Well done that man.