Azooma are a death metal band from Iran. This is their debut album.
This is progressive death metal that sees the band upping their game from their already quite impressive debut release A Hymn of a Vicious Monster. The Act of Eye continues and refines their style, mixing Opeth and Death with elements of more modern bands such as Obscura, Gorod and Gorguts. Continue reading “Azooma – The Act of Eye (Review)”
Cairiss are an atmospheric/post-black metal band from the UK. This is their debut EP.
Now, here we have something very impressive.
Cairiss’ music is atmospheric metal that takes a good amount of black metal influence but builds on it with post-metal knowledge and application.
The singer has a voice that does the music justice. Her harsh screams are savagery Continue reading “Cairiss – Fall (Review)”
Sov are a Black Metal band and this is their début album.
Sov play underground and honest Black Metal that might superficially seem like the standard fare at first glance, but a deeper scrutiny reveals a band with impressive creative power and a lot of raw talent.
This is an interesting release in that it manages to cultivate an air of both natural forest-dwelling and sophisticated blackened art. The music is suspended between the more naturalistic elements and the modern, progressive influences so that these six tracks are a pleasing blend of the early second-wave style and a more up-to-date interpretation of the genre, à la Watain and Deathspell Omega. Continue reading “Sov – Aklamerad Kalamitet (Review)”
This is the second album from Indian Extreme Metal band Demonstealer.
This is a very ambitious album. Across 9 tracks the band deliver 57 minutes of music that straddles Death, Black, Thrash, Progressive and Atmospheric Metal to deliver an epic journey.
Recognisably Death Metal at their core, Demonstealer skilfully incorporate the above-mentioned aspects into their sound so that we have something that the likes of Nile, Behemoth, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Septic Flesh, Opeth and other such envelope-pushing bands should be proud of.
This Burden Is Mine hops between genres with ease. One moment it might be all blasting and mayhem, while the next it may be soft, reflective and shamelessly progressive. And then you have the atmospheric, symphonic elements, where the keyboards get to shine and the emotive side of the band is ramped up to full capacity. The band also have a melodic flair that adds a lot to the tracks, with plenty of tasty leads and solos thrown into the mix.
Pure Death Metal growls are accentuated with a more varied delivery of screams, shouts, clean and semi-clean vocals, professionally done and perfectly judged. You’d easily think this album had more than one singer, rather than just one very talented vocalist.
Although this album is extremely diverse and varied, it carries a holistic cohesiveness with it that speaks of the quality songwriting and talent that the band are capable of. This Burden Is Mine is extremely impressive and a rich, evocative listen.
Well well. Albums like this don’t come along that often. This should be embraced and celebrated by all Metal fans as the tour de force that it is.
Essential.
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.
Necrosavant is a one-man project from Sweden. This is his début album.
In an unusual move for a début album, this is one single track that lasts 45 minutes. Also unusually, this is Blackened Death Metal with a style that kind of falls between that of Behemoth and (old) Opeth.
Not content with doing vocals and playing everything on this release, the brains behind Necrosavant has also drafted in some other guests to add to the mix.
The music has the muscularity and occult auras of Behemoth and the progressive and melodic know-how of Opeth. The track ebbs and flows, picking up themes previously discarded, only to breathe new life into them again as the listener becomes re-familiarised with different parts of this immense song.
The guitars are nice and thick and there are a lot of tasty riffs on here. Plenty of solos and leads add colour, but it’s frequently the well-written rhythm guitars themselves that elevate this to a top-notch position.
The music has the feel of a dark epic in more than just length and the brutal atmospheres that are created reverberate with meaningful impact and emotive delivery.
If you think that a 45 minute Blackened Death Metal song would get old very quickly, you’re dead wrong. There’s so much on offer here and so much talented Metal being delivered that it’s hard to imagine that this is essentially the product of just one guy.
This is hugely impressive and enjoyable. This one is a must.
This is the third album from US Progressive Black Metal one-man group Terra Deep.
The music on this release is a complicated and sophisticated Progressive Metal feast that’s born out of the corrupted undergrowth of Black Metal’s fertile roots. Progressive and Post-Black Metal elements take control of proceedings quite early on, reinforced by a dark core of frozen steel.
Deep, unsettling growls, evil shrieks and powerful cleans all add a multitude of texture and feeling to music that successfully combines the cold malignance of Black Metal with the expansive, exploratory nature of Progressive music. This is further enhanced by elements of Doom/Depressive Black Metal that add a forlorn, lonesome sheen to some of the tracks. It all adds up to a multifaceted release full of quality music and songs that engage.
Richly textured tracks seem to bleed shades of pain and grim tidings, while still fostering a highly emotive side that connects with the listener in a visceral way. The songs are advanced exemplars of what can be done with a Black Metal base and a will to explore.
The production is solid and allows the music to hit the right balance between heaviness and nuance. It’s a good sound that satisfies and does justice to the differing parts and influences that make up Part of This World, Part of Another.
These five songs are impressively-realised affairs that speak of the experience and talent of the brains behind the outfit. He obviously has a coherent and well-rounded vision for Terra Deep and has the ability and skill to achieve it.
If you combine Opeth, Enslaved, Forgotten Tomb and Ihsahn then you’ll have a good idea of Terra Deep’s style.
There really is a lot here to offer the discerning Extreme Metal fan and I can’t really recommend this highly enough.
Chiral is an Italian one-man band. This is his second album.
I have enjoyed watching Chiral’s development over the course of his releases that he’s put out so far. From the primitive Proto-Death/Black Metal of Winter Eternal, to the frozen Blackened landscape of Abisso, to the more ambitious Atmospheric Black Metal of his splits with Haate and Nebel Über Den Urnenfeldern/Eternal Sleep…the brain behind Chiral as consistently impressed with both the quality of his music and his progression within it.
So what of this latest release then? Showing that he doesn’t sit still, Night Sky continues the previously developed themes of Atmospheric Black Metal, only this time adding a Post-Black Metal element to the music, resulting in an album that favours mood and texture over all else.
For a surface comparison to to other bands, I’d say Night Sky combines elements of Wolves in the Throne Room, Falls of Rauros, Falloch, Vinterriket, and Opeth.
The songs are long and ambitious tracks that show a love of both Black Metal and a more naturalistic sound that is quite atavistic in its realisation. Folk melodies and influences would be an appropriate description, although it feels somehow older than this.
Acoustic passages, Folk instrumentation and Progressive Metal tendencies work together with the icy, Blackened core to create Atmospheric Post-Black Metal that takes in many influences over the 58 minutes of material and ably demonstrates the talent and skill of Chiral.
These songs are slow-builders; ramping up the atmosphere and emotional content over the span of the playing time and layering just enough keyboards and extra instrumentation on top to really provide a consistent sense of space, flavour and feeling.
So there you have it. Another quality Chiral release, his best work yet I’d say.
Fans of Atmospheric Black Metal take note.
Effa Lente is a one-man Irish project that plays Instrumental Progressive Rock. This is his first release.
Apparently inspired by watching a Quentin Tarantino film, this is noticeably cinematic music that has a lot of different moods and themes throughout its 45 minute playing time
Did I mention that it’s just one 45 minute track? Well it is.
Various moods, emotions and feelings play out during this extended playing time and the impression is very much one of a Progressive Rock film score.
It’s as if Steven Wilson, Anathema, Opeth, Queen, King Crimson, Glorie and The Monroe Transfer all got together to score a film. It’s a very impressive listen that manages to fully engage and hold the attention despite not having any vocals to act as a focal point.
The music jumps around all over the place in a seemingly natural way, rather akin to how the different scenes in a film move from one to the next. It never seems jarring and almost has a narrative feel to it as different themes are taken, explored and then left until we meet up with them again at a later point for either a resolution or a cliffhanger.
70s moods and contemporary Rock sounds merge together in a cinematic melange that is very impressive. Considering this is the brains behind the outfit’s first attempt at doing something of this nature it’s a huge success.
Not just a listen, but an experience.
Bearstorm are from the US and play Progressive Black Metal. This is their second album.
Bearstorm. Say it again, slowly. Bearstorm. Fantastic name. I was expecting something utterly ferocious with a name like that, but Bearstom are nothing if not surprising. They do have a ferocious element, but for the most part there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on here.
The music is a curious mix of Progressive wanderings, Blackened bite, Technical Death Metal Jazz-wizardry, Post-Metal experimentalism and Southern Sludge.
Their sound is pleasingly hard to pigeon-hole actually. The Progressive Metal influence is apparent from the start and infuses everything else at a deep level. The Black/Death/Sludge/Post-Metal influences in their sound take their cues from this and the band have interesting music at the very core of their being.
I suppose…Mastodon meets Enslaved meets Opeth meets Inter Arma meets Ephel Duath meets Pyrrhon…
The songs are varied and individual affairs. There’s a lot of ideas on display and Bearstorm never shy away from being different or going their own direction. It’s to their credit, as too many bands simply ape what has gone before them, so when a band like this comes along it’s a real pleasure to see them doing something different form the norm and attempting to forge their own sound.
Vocally the singer has a largely Blackened scream that’s supplemented with pitch-black growls on occasion. In many ways the guitars are the focal point of Americanus and the vocals provide an undercurrent to these. They’re done well though so there’s no real complaints from me on this score.
Clearly a lot of time and effort has gone into Americanus, to the point that the band have re-recorded the entire album for maximum effect; this is a re-recorded and re-issued version of their 2013 album. Having never heard the original version all I can say is that this version sounds pretty damn good.
An interesting, exciting and fresh-sounding record; Americanus is more than deserving of your attention.
Favourite Track: Glacial Relic II. An epic that’s Progressively atmospheric and even contains a Country influence. Amazing.
Wonderbox Metal 