Manes are from Norway and this is their fourth album.
Following on from their last release Teeth, Toes and Other Trinkets, which was an anthology, this is the first new Manes album in seven years.
Manes play a beguiling blend of artistic Rock, Darkwave Trip Hop, Avant Garde and 80’s-style Pop. It’s subtle, charming, disarming and insidious.
These songs have a laid back quality to them that’s almost detached from the actual music; as if something has been created by the music that hovers just out of view yet its effects can be felt by a lasting aura of deceptive comfort and false familiarity. This lends the songs a certain flavour of the otherworldly and the different.
There is a low-key catchiness to the tracks as well. Again, it’s a subtle affair, as even though the songs obviously contain hooks the first time you listen to them, it takes multiple listens for them to fully work their magic. Such is the nature of all great albums that have true longevity and depth.
There is so much to experience here. Manes create across a vast canvas using a rich palette of colours. There’s a lot that’s easily missed on first glance and only after taking it in for a good amount of time can you really appreciate what they have done here.
The singer’s captivating vocals are on strong form and the bleak-yet-uplifting-yet-not melodies that he uses complement the instruments perfectly adding layers of emotion to already emotive and layered songs.
This is music for dark nights and even darker activities. This is music that drips with soul and is ethereal in nature.
Fans of bands such as Arcturus, Ulver, Lethe, Dødheimsgard, Green Carnation, In The Woods…, etc. will lap this up, and with good reason.
Lo-Pan are from the US and this is their fourth album of Stoner Rock.
Bursting straight out of the speakers with the kind of direct, fat riffing that lets you immediately know where their priorities lie, Lo-Pan make a noticeable entrance.
The lazy, melodic vocals recall the early 90’s where there was an embarrassment of lean, hungry vocalists filling the airwaves with choice melodies. Lo-Pan’s singer reminds me of these times and his voice is like liquid honey.
Like a joyous cross between Soundgarden and Torche; Lo-Pan give me a big happy smile and make me want to stomp around to their colossal riffs whilst grinning like a maniac.
The songs on Colossus are instant gratification and sound like they’re very much written with a live audience in mind. As such they’re high energy, catchy and have an easy rolling attitude about them.
Lo-Pan are surely the latest incarnation of the Stoner Rock gods, sent from on high to teach us lesser mortals to rock the fuck out.
Orange Goblin are from the UK and this is their eighth album. They play Stoner/Heavy Metal.
At this point Orange Goblin are pretty much a UK institution in their own right and their storming new album will once again seal their status as one of the best this country has to offer. When you want good, honest, balls-to-the-wall Heavy Metal with swagger, groove and attitude; accept no substitutes.
Mammoth riffs and thick grooves are once again tirelessly thrown out by the band with reckless abandon, heedless of the hordes of lesser bands that they show up by simply existing.
Orange Goblin have always excelled at writing just good, old-fashioned songs. The type of songs you can either sit back and enjoy or actively get involved with. They’re as catchy as bag of hooks.
The shocking thing is that pretty much every song here is a stand-out track. Although the taster songs are The Devil’s Whip and Sabbath Hex, they could almost have picked any song at random and had it be a single.
That’s not to say they all sound the same, however. If anything, the band have introduced more variety onto this album and it makes for a very complete sounding collection of songs. From the shorter, more upbeat songs to the longer blues-infused pseudo-jams, to Classic Metal-infused anthems and everything in between; Back From The Abyss hits the spot.
The album is backed up by a warm, gritty recording that pulses with vitality and life. The guitars sound huge, the drums are deeply satisfying and the singer’s voice is on top form.
Orange Goblin have always released top quality albums and Back From the Abyss is one of their best. Be sure to check it out.
Violet are from the UK and this is their début album.
Violet play en energetic mix of Metalcore, Post-Hardcore and Rock. It’s on the more commercial side of the spectrum certainly, but the passion and enthusiasm is real.
For comparisons think elements of bands such as From Autumn To Ashes, Eighteen Visions, Bleeding Through and Coheed & Cambria.
The band are a six-piece who boast two vocalists, plus vocals from one of their guitarists; they carry a fair amount of diversity due to this. Snarled, Metalcore vocals and clean singing share space with the music being similarly divided between the heavier and lighter sides of the musical spectrum. The clean vocals are sometimes a little too Pop for my tastes, but the shouted vocals make up for this deficiency.
The music is nicely enhanced by keyboards, effects and sounds that give all of the tracks a silken sheen and add a bit of depth to the tracks.
The songs are catchy enough to hold attention, although the sugary cleans can be a bit too sugary on occasion. If they added a little bit more bite to their attack and reined in the more Pop aspects of their sound then in my eyes they’d really be a force to reckon with. On the other hand though, this is clearly an important aspect to their sound that they enjoy and no doubt many others will also.
Overall this is a good début from a promising young band who could feasibly do very well and have a great potential to appeal to a much wider audience than the average Metal band.
Earth are from the US and this is their eighth album.
Primitive and Deadly – a great title and possibly a good description, although I’d favour monolithic and intelligent as a better one, (description, certainly not title).
Earth have created an impressively realised down-beat soundscape on this album. After a fair few releases that were very minimalistic and largely on the softer/acoustic scale of things, on Primitive and Deadly they flesh out the sound a bit more, featuring more prominent drums and electric guitar.
The core Earth sound is here and the band’s riffs are intimately familiar, like a long lost friend. Earth have always held somewhat of a hypnotic fascination for me. It’s the kind of music that you can easily lose yourself in. Total immersion music.
The entrancing melodies and slowly unwinding structures belie a thoughtful songcrafting process. This is without a doubt the heaviest Earth album I’ve heard, but it doesn’t detract from the recognisable and innately inner quality that’s 100% Earth.
After a lot of instrumental work on their last few albums it’s also nice, and a little surprising, to hear some vocals included in this release also. Male vocals make an appearance in the second track There is a Serpent Coming and are soulful and dripping with emotion. They instantly remind me of Soulsavers, which is a good thing as it’s Mark Lanegan who does vocals for both. He reappears once more on Rooks Across the Gates with another sterling performance.
Female vocals make an appearance on the third track From the Zodiacal Light courtesy of Rabia Shaheen Qazi of Rose Windows. She’s not someone I’m familiar with, which is something I’ll have to rectify as she has a textured, luxurious voice that sits atop Earth’s hazy, pondering music like the tastiest of sugary treats.
Overall this is a bigger, grander Earth than ever before. Primitive and Deadly is fully-realised and an even richer experience than their already very-high-quality minimalistic work. It’s a revelation to hear a band like this flex their musical muscles and add to their central identity whilst simultaneously keeping their core sound intact.
Flawless and essential; for all fans of everything Doom.
With their latest EP It’s Time to Paralyze The Von Deer Skulls have shown a willingness to experiment and test the waters of their burgeoning sound. Find out more below…
For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!
Peter: Hi, we’re The Von Deer Skulls a France based band. We’re a trio, but some other musicians play with us sometimes. We play something the press defined as Rock Doom Ambient, sometimes Indus or Post-Rock.
Give us a bit of history to The Von Deer Skulls.
Freke: The band started in the end of 2012, we have recruited Peter at the beginning to make the visual stuffs of our last band (The Dead Sound), but after talking a long with him we decided to make a new project.
Peter: Yeah at that time I worked on some songs that have become the basis of the project, then we wrote the song “B*tches Of The Wood” which is the one was entirely composed for the band like the interludes, intro and outro.
Hektor: Then we decided to make our biography like a history to serve the visual aspect of the band.
Where did your band name come from?
Hektor: The band name come from the artist pseudonym of Peter (Peter Skull), because like a leader to the band, and the “Von Deer” come from the semi-fictional biography of the band and because we have often antlers on our video-stage costumes.
Freke: It’s also to making us a family.
What are your influences?
Peter: Influences are from everywhere, each one listens to different things, I’m a big fan of Jazz, Tool, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, indus things. Hektor listens to a lot of Post-Rock, Electro, but also Radiohead, Kadavar and Freke listens to old Rock ’n’ Roll like Black Sabbath, and some loud things like Sunn O))) or Indus.
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
Freke: Right now I listen to a lot of Kadavar, go to listen this German band if you don’t know, otherwise some old Marilyn Manson & NIN period.
Peter: On my side, I listen some more soft things right now as The Decemberists, Miles, Coltrane and Goon Moon and Pelican a lot.
Hektor: I listen some Queens Of The Stone Age’s songs, Pelican too and the Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s discography.
What did you want to achieve with your new album?
Peter: We would like to record songs which are the beginning of the project, to know each other a little better as a band and to show the public who we are. But it is just the beginning, a presentation.
Are you happy with how it turned out?
Hektor: Yes, we think that’s a good beginning. We worked hard to develop the visual aspect as much the music, both are equally important in our universe.
Freke: We were actually surprised to have such good returns.
Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process.
Freke: Peter works on the structure, and we’re making all the atmosphere.
Peter: As for the songwriting process it changes according to the songs. Sometimes we want that song sound like that and sometimes they grow up alone.
How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?
Freke: I think the next songs will be more loud, maybe more direct.
Peter: We’re working on it right now, some different songs, some heavy, some more ambient, but yeah maybe more direct for the moment.
Tell us a bit more about the visual aspect of your band.
Peter: As we say before the visual aspect is as much important than music. Because it opens so many possibilities. At first I’m a visual artist, I love painting, shooting videos… for this band, because we create our own mythology and histories with that, it’s like a tale what we are proposing to the people, with the costumes, the videos…
Freke: And it’s also a way to distance ourselves from what we’re doing. The important isn’t what we look like, important is the music, the tale.
What’s next for The Von Deer Skulls?
Peter: Next, we’re working on new songs right now like I said, we hope to record them at the end of this year or in the beginning of 2015. And we’re going to do new videos to go with it.
Hektor: Yeah, don’t forget to follow us, new costumes and visual stuffs are on the go!
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.
Ghegga are a Scandinavian band and this is their début album.
Ghegga play Electronic/Industrial-influenced Alternative Rock. These influences are embedded into the core of the band’s sound; rather than just add a few keyboards to their main instruments as some bands do, Ghegga incorporate these additional noises, sounds, etc. into everything they do so that the Industrial aspect is an integral part of their approach.
Obvious references would be a band like Nine Inch Nails, although it also brings to mind lesser known acts like Sunna and Gravity Kills. Think of these, add a more Techno/Aphex Twin influence to things; then strip away everything glossy and bright and you’ll have an idea of the Ghegga sound.
There are some good beats on this release and the songs work well as a stylistic whole. This is a bit too Industrial to be overtly commercial and is more like an underground Techno band who have discovered Rock and the beauty of guitars.
The vocals add to the underground Techno feel of the album. Sometimes melodic, sometimes spoken, sometimes threatening, sometimes conspiratorial, sometimes roguish; the vocals are a bit different and wielded like any other instrument to be warped and manipulated artificially by the band.
The tracks are very inorganic; they reek of mechanisation and industrialisation whilst maintaining a techno-darkness undertone that informs the central theme of the tracks. This is the soundtrack to an urban nightmare set to the backdrop of street-level warfare.
This is an interesting release from a band who have chosen to go down the road less travelled for this style of music. It would have been so easy to inject a glossy sheen to this kind of style and have anthemic choruses covering everything like sickly-sweet sugar. Instead we have a grittier vision of the future of music, one where urban decay is rampant and mechanised grime stalks the innocent.
If you’re looking for something a bit unusual then look no further. Delve into the world of Ghegga, just make sure you bring something to protect yourself as this land is not for the unwary.
Autumn’s Dawn are an Australian Post-Black Metal band and this is their début album.
The band play an interesting style of music that has its origins in Depressive Black Metal but has developed into more of a Shoegaze, Post-Rock entity which has plenty of melody and even an Indie feel in places.
This may be an album rooted in the darkness of Black metal but it has long transcended those beginnings and now travels waters brighter but no less melancholic.
The songs are relatively upbeat and feature very atypical clean vocals; atypical in that they sound more akin to the type of voices used in commercial stadium faux-Metal than this kind of music. Harsher screams are also used and these are more in keeping with the style. The clean vocals really do add a differentiating point to the tracks however, although I imagine they’ll be quite contentious for some purists.
This is Post-Black Metal and Shoegaze but without the deep-seated misery that those kind of bands usually revel in. The darkness is there, certainly, but the driving Rock influence to their sound buries it under hopeful harmonies and Post-Rock melodics. The album has more in common with Katatonia and Paradise Lost than it does with bands like Forgotten Tomb.
This is somewhat of an eclectic album as it’s rare to hear Rock, Shoegaze Black Metal and Indie all in one place. Not only do we have that here but the band do an exceedingly good job of keeping it from sounding disjointed or messy.
Autumn’s Dawn are somewhat of a unique band in many ways. Although this will inevitably mean that a lot of people won’t take to this and it will slip through the musical cracks, it also means that for those who are willing to give it a chance this is a hidden gem waiting to be discovered.
In a way it’s a real shame as with the right backing and exposure there is a lot of potential for a much wider audience for Gone, and all without compromising the artistic integrity of the music.
Time to try something a bit different and give Autumn’s Dawn a listen.
The Von Deer Skulls have their origins in many different countries and have a suitably unusual sound to boot.
I suppose the best way to describe this band is Experimental Rock with elements of Drone, Ambient and Electronica/Industrial.
The tracks here are largely laid back, relaxed affairs. Low-key riffs and sounds move the compositions forward whilst soft vocals and gentle noises punctuate the flow.
This is relatively easy listening and the overall mood is an atmospheric one. Although I wouldn’t describe them as having a dark sound per se, it’s certainly not a bright and hopeful one either. They seem to be aiming for a slightly creepy, unnerving sound and I think they’re headed in the right direction.
The guitars are largely lo-fi but the distortion is noticeable here and there. They even approach a Rocky beat in places.
This is a good release from a band who are still finding their sound and these songs give them a good base to work from. If you enjoy this kind of Experimental Post-Rock then The Von Deer Skulls should be right up your street.
Give this band some of your time and see what you think.
Manes are from Norway and this is their fourth album.
Are you happy with how it turned out?
Wonderbox Metal 