Twelve of Confusion - Worldsun review

Year : 2013 to 2016
Genre : Modern Metal/Black Metal
Label : Independent
Origin : Finland
Official site: > - here - <

Black metal has numerous fields of operation that it could work supremely well on, and one of these production commitments deliberately seek to engulf the listener into the mere remnants of what once might have been a perfectly valid set of instruments, but THEN came The Black, and took most of the volumetric essence with it.

This approach emerges excellent at conveying a sense of the nietzschenian superloneliness, as you most often feel that there is something to intently behold and secretly scrutinize beneath the layer of black, but you, as listener, should not be entirely comfortable at the prospect of the veil being removed. Finland-based Twelve of Confusion is a firm admirer and practitioner of said sub-genre of voyeuristic soul-torment, and their monster length double CD effort "Worldsun" comes to burn some well defined holes into Carl Sagan's fabric of the cosmos AND into your soul, if you think you happen to have one. Let us see the temperature posthaste - read on to know more.

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Charming Timur - A Brief Moment of Existence review

Year : 2014
Genre : Experimental, Metal
Label : Independent
Origin : Finland
Official site : > - here - <

This review starts out with a brief, introductory quotation snippet taken from the official BandCamp site of the reviewed contribution.

"Charming Timur is a one man musical planecrash not limiting to any genres in particular, but mostly revolving around Modern Metal, Nu Metal and various genres with the word "Post-" in front. Located in Helsinki."

The name of the game indeed is massively guitar centered silence massacre, coming to you focused and fine tuned along the rather brave-, nevertheless rigorously controlled variety. While the given musical space is molested with scientific grit, the production values reflect a constant awareness of how to prevent bleedthrough between the sonic elements, so each and every component is displayed in their respective anatomy in fully exhibited fashion.

Charming Timur is correct in saying how his personal taste of metal encompasses multiple fascinating extremities of it, since, interestingly enough, metal - as a main genre - itself incorporates a myriad variants of musical rhetorics and modal characteristics. As such, while the album starts out with a gritty/hefty mid-tempo opening that surely gets you in the mood to get through a door without ever touching a door knob, the second track is an immediate-, both risky and ballsy tour of trepidation into such a relentless brand of heavily sludge infected black metal that brings to mind immediate and rather pleasant Lord Mantis connotations. As you subject yourself to the full value experience, Charming Timur's definite and eloquently channeled black metal fascination is rendered rampant/evident in front of your curious ears and pineal gland. Read more to know about this album.

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Australasia - Sin4tr4 review

Year : 2012
Genre : Instrumental Progressive Metal with a Black Metal flavor
Label : Golden Morning Sounds
Origin : Italy
Official Site : > - here - <

Italy's Australasia has cultivated a music format which is ripe enough to base a full length debut on without having to reinvent its premiere components. The reoccurring central agenda is to summon music from a tame direction at the start, THEN the more intense side of metal is revealed, almost always through two variations : mit-tempo, and finally, with considerable speed that  finds pleasure winking at stone-traditional thrash metal rhythm patterns - a positive, not a negative. By the time a certain song has showcased all the aforementioned structural elements of different modal tints that are calling the song into life - it already has a healthy amount of content to offer intriguing variation without you even noticing it. It is pretty safe to say that the disc has no weak moments, and this is the result of how the album realizes its own current capacities, and decides to wrap things up before they would start to recycle their previous statements. Read on to know more.

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Ihsahn - Eremita review

Year : 2012
Genre : Black Metal Interruptions
Label : Candlelight
Origin : Norway
Rating : 8.2 / 10

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When a 2012 metal release features post-breakdown Nietzsche - he is your papi - on the covert art, you know you have music to listen to, and this one is the solo project of Ihsahn, who primarily is renowned as the ex-fronter of prestigious Norwegian black metal ensemble Emperor. I became remotely familiar with the style of Ihsahn through the latest to date Jeff Loomis solo album, - "Plains Of Oblivion, AKA. "POO", but the album kicks the ass as opposed of buckling out of it, pardon my French" - on which he - Ihsahn - lends vocal talents on one of the songs. Jeff Loomis delivers a solo on THIS album from rebound position, so things are even.

The package is pretty clear, consistent and efficient at what it wants to do. The main agenda is to entertainingly deceit, as oftentimes the disk administers the maelstrom-type of chaotic black metal, which gets playfully interrupted by either a much tamer-, almost hard rockish hook from time to time, or, even by a shamelessly gentle and easily accessible mini-session. The first song is an example to this method right away, but rest assured that the compositional behavior realized in the opening track is one that is propagated throughout the release with solid appeal. Read on to find out more about this.

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Impiety - Ravage & Conquer review

Year : 2012
Genre : Black Metal
Label : Agonia Records
Origin : Singapore
Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Impiety is one of the Great Ancients of black metal warfare as far as I know, as the Singaporean ensemble has been around since 1990. Their previous output consisted of one monster length track of 39 minutes, yet this particular fresh installment the current review is about employs the more orthodox method, giving you eight songs for 48 minutes of minigun-intensity.

Indeed, the package slaughters silence down with the assets you see expressing themselves on the cover art. Witness the instruments of relentless destruction waged by Mr. Baphomet, reigning on his throne of infinite punishment and steady pestilence. Judging by the expression on your excuse for a face, you must be one legendarily lonely motherfucker. This is one of the pleasant occasions when the music sounds exactly as you would expect it to sound like based on the cover art of the album. I already was talking about miniguns, and not because I am a weapon lover, - I never in my life have shot a weapon so far, and I do not feel the urge to do so, either - but because of the overall temper of this delivery. Read on to find out more about that.

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Burzum - Umskiptar review

Year : 2012
Genre : Black Metal with a tame character
Label : Byelobog
Origin : Norway
Rating : 8.5 / 10

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Varg Vikernes' Burzum project once again emerges to declare, and the music has changed in temper, but, not in style. If you have listened to the Belus and/or the Fallen LP, then you are familiar with the overall tone this disc similarly submits to, but! Regardless of the tonal reminiscence, the Umskiptar LP - "umskiptar" means "metamorphoses" in ancient Norwegian lingo - is definitely much more peaceful and - logically enough - much less "fiercely disillusioned" (is that a proper term at all for Buzum, I'm not sure?) - than what you probably would anticipate from Mr. Vikernes based on his previous outing.

And you would be quite wrong, too : as just suggested, Burzum never was discontent OR afraid of the darkness, - "burzum" means "darkness" in the Tolkien lingo used in M(u)(o)rd(e)(o)r - it made peace with it a long-long time ago, and the music itself is a testament of that peace. The darkness indeed is a relentless and humorless teacher. Did you take advantage of the occasion and reassessed your reality during the last household-blackout in the complete darkness, or, did you hurry to make some emergency light? Varg Vikernes surely has a Grandmaster Degree in darkness science, so it is interesting to witness that now he showcases the tamer side of the - uhm - anti-spectrum. Guys, let's talk about the music.

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Enthroned - Obsidium review

Year : 2012
Genre : Black Metal
Label : Agonia
Origin : Belgium
Rating : 9.2 / 10

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Enthroned has been around since the early '90s, and is considered by the under-connected underground to be among the elite representatives of the black metal genre. This usually means that you hardly will read frequent interviews with these artists, and their live performances are much more ceremonious and memorable than those of a black metal ensemble for which sacrificing a retirement home community on stage is pretty much Friday night.

My initial stance towards Enthroned was open minded skepticism spiced up with a tame troll attitude, as I was very eager to be subjected to the so called "elite" black metal, and was ready to whine like a little bathroom bitch if I'd had felt that I got anything less than that. Oh boy, Enthroned kicked my ass to hell without a return ticket, so I write this review from under the robust ass of a bile demon. Read on to find out more about this exquisite black metal delicacy.


Obsidium simply is 39 minutes of equally super-straightforward and super-exigent black metal. The flow of things is rabid, the band shows no interest in tamer passages than rigorous mid-tempo, while the most favored rhetorics is reliant of relentless blast beats that border in character on death metal, but the sonic mass that surrounds the drums always conveys good old fashioned soul-eradicator black metal warface, that which always shows mercy at the very last moment, pointing out the evident, that it is "just" for fun.

I dare say that this disc is a pretty consistent flow of hooks, as it is clearly revealed if you care to focus your attention on the data. Quality riffage trades the door knob to another riff of different character, well before the respective expiration date of any one of these luscious sonic constructs. The mood, as hinted, is classic skeletal/lich black metal, but it is done so honestly and beautifully AND with such ripe of a style and set of skills, that frankly, I think it is more peaceful and relaxing than anything else.

What I enjoy particularly about the release is its ability to come forth with an exceptionally natural flow of elegant structuring. If you listen to the instrumental variation in the song "Deathmoor" starting from 1:37 to the climax, for example, I think you will grasp what I mean when I say Enthroned places especially keen emphasis on taking you, the listener, seriously. You are never harassed with second tier data, and the flamboyancy that the top of the heat black metal thoughts are coming to you, are communicated and presented very flexibly and so supremely clearly. The band looks good whatever they are doing, because they are doing everything with heart, and without a concept of doubt on board. The little intricacies are present throughout, like the "launching comet" solo guitar that sings its one note song of declaration of independence at 0:53 in the track "Oracle of Void." This is the crystal clear music of the blackest dirt, and, as such, it is an immediate recommendation.

Rating : 9.2 / 10

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Dodecahedron - Dodecahedron review

Year : 2012
Genre : Chaotic Black Metal with Ambient and Funeral Doom tendencies
Label : Season of Mist
Origin : The Netherlands
Rating : 7.9 / 10

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Dutch Dodecahedron's take on extreme music weighs on the curious soul as an inventive combination of madness-level black metal with a notable funeral doom and ambient affection amidst its focal interests.

This LP has a set of  key behaviors, and, while some of these narrative stances are ready and able to subject you to top of the food chain stimuli, the reoccurring drive to render freely positioned atmospheric interludes, - synonym : drunk-ass jamming - and, to fire the cannons of madness via a relatively predictable strategy of sonic punishment administration, - more on this later - the record is not at all shy to reveal its precious limitations, either. Read more to find out how this contribution seeks to put a bounty on your sanity.


Dodecahedron's self titled affair, no doubt, meant to be listened as a full spin, and that indeed is the way the release is able to convey its intentions most efficiently. As suggested, the shape of music you will hear on this carnivorous LP belongs to a particularly chaotic rendition of black metal, - which you have heard before - and the production values largely are akin to what you would anticipate from the modernistic standards of the genre, too. As such, the sound is much more clean than that of early contributions of the style, yet its intentions are not a tad less vile. Quite the opposite : the vileness factor is particularly strong on the LP, and, in my opinion, reigns among the autonomous aspects the record is able to deliver convincingly and looks best along. These intense mid-tempo segments always sound to sport clearly identifiable hooks and ideas, and the flow of the sonic data finds superb melodies to transmit fine stimuli from the narrow field shared by decaying classical music and zombie-infestation-groove metal. In other words : necessarily great stuff. This eminent tendency though is not ubiquitous on the delivery, as the album will exhibit its segments of API - Absolute Peak Intensity - with no other notable method in its possession than to engage everything in the vicinity that is capable to produce a sound. While the approach is legit, of course, its limitations become evident as soon as there is a lack of adventurous-, at least semi-precise route to take through the various sonic domains. In my opinion, the LP could use more sense of definition when engaging full power punishment. Hell, I should be careful what I wish for.

Other aspects that demand separate mentioning are the funeral doom / extreme-sludge leanings of the output. Track number 3, called "Vanitas" is one awesometacular funeral doom track, one that masters of the genre would gladly call their own declaration. It is genuine soul-disturber stuff with a perfect sense of the aforementioned-, special musical percepts of decaying classical vibes, coming to you with the power of a gargantuan Space-T-rex. I'm in all the time. The similar feeling once again emerges rampant/unalloyed in the climax of track number 6, "View from Hverfell II : Inside Omnipotent Chaos". The prolonged mid-and outtro sequence gives you a menacing funeral doom riff very reminiscent to the main riff of Pantera's "This Love", now coming to you with superb poly-rhythms, dwelling amidst larger than life decay-atmospherics. Moments of exquisite sonic entertainment.

One other thing the release seems and sounds enjoy doing, is to throw you in front of freely positioned musical spaces ambient interludes. I have nothing against these entities as concepts, yet, I do not think that they are THAT much effective on the release. I especially am unhappy with the freely positioned musical spaces. I mean, they are not bad, sure, but they aren't any more stellar than what I would expect to hear form a drunk-ass live black metal band jamming around. The ambient interludes have their decent moments, but I'd prefer them to touch-, or shatter me instead. Other than that, don't let the not-too-high score fool you. Remember, I scored this delivery as a full spin, and, whenever I do that, I especially am in troll mode. Thank you for your attention. Dodecahedron's Dodecahedron. H. P. Lovecraft : Approves. This is a mindhack.

Rating : 7.9 / 10

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Nazhand - Complicated Antitheses review

Year : 2011
Genre : "Blackness Music", Black Metal
Label : Metal Throne Productions
Origin : Iran
Rating : 8.5 / 10

Nazhand is a black metal act from Iran, and its Complicated Antitheses demo is as discomfortingly authentic as a local riot footage made by a cell phone - to say the least. It sure seems to be an interesting question to pose what kind of extreme music is given birth to by souls and nervous systems shaped and formed by the Iranian consensus reality, and let me tell you that the results are pretty disturbing AND culturally/sonically relevant. As far as I ""know"", - (from the media) - many natives of Iran feel a constant-, suppressed urge to leave their homeland, wanting to flee from the pseudo-democratic oppression propagated by the local government. Legislated atrocities are commonplace, administered by the power as parking tickets.

Nazhand's music renders this rampant experience of instinctive disillusionment, anger and hopelessness with a degree of authenticity that needs and tolerates no criticism. How can be disillusionment "authentic", when you have no actual experience of the things you are lacking? You don't need to have free will to know that it is your birthright to have it. The experience of lacking freedom and free will, is the operational field of the unacceptable disillusionment, because the heart and the mind have a collective, autonomous right and natural desire to possess freedom and free will, and both instinctively know when these birthrights are radically interfered with. As such, being a rebel when your freedom and free will is interfered with, is not only your option, but your duty. Guys, let's talk about the music.


The music on this demo is sick. I have no clue why it is labeled as a demo, because it seems to weigh in as a legit full length to me, with 46 minutes of seriously fucked up sonic content, and that, of course, is a positivity. The album sounds evil and hollow, as it would seek to - in my opinion, with great success - represent all the feelings its creators have to bear and endure as result of their immediate habitual, emotional and ideological surroundings. In this regard, the music herein is a method to get rid of the slitherer spirit tar, and THIS particular rendition of it, I dare say, is one you will not easily forget. Imagine Burzum with a cybernetic tint, - Major Maxim, anyone? - subtract all beauty whatsoever, and you are third-way there.



Major Maxim thinks nothing of you.

The record primarily is a mid-tempo build with the occasional tendency to bring the pace to a restrained-but-still-steady cybernetic crawl, feeling no urge whatsoever to violate the stone-traditional rules of ancient black metal. In other words : if the band finds two strong harmonies, then they - fortunately - won't relent playing them for you until those harmonies reveal their true meaning of malevolent menace, ready and able to start to chew on your soul, which, of course, is the central idea of this Iranian spin.

I especially am content - as a proper pervert - with the vocals on the delivery : the opening track starts out with a calmly paced synth intro of relative mood-disturbance power, but, when the heavily distorted, under-a-cosmos-of-suffering grade vocals are coming in, the tone of the stimuli changes radically, and not for the pleasant. Listen the opening track from 2:09 : oh my God, this is some sick fucking vocals in a truly sick place in the fabric of the mix. The sonic data, in my opinion, is exceptionally dark, discomforting, evil and smartly paced throughout the record, as result of the combination of the cybernetic Burzum rhetorics and the most seriously warped/distorted/tormented vocals I have heard so far.

Nazhand is into what I used to refer as "specter" or "lich" black metal, as the sonic weight of the album is more of a broken spectral character than that of good old fashioned groove metal meat-mass. It's relevantly broken, beautiful ugly music that wants to know if its creator is willing yet to reinvent herself/himself when the music is over, or not. The release comes to its conclusion with an instrumental epic, and I personally am not happy with the fade-out it chooses to end up with, via arriving to a simplistic piano arpeggio. Other than that, the release does not give the sear promise of a shit if I am content or not with it, and that is what it makes it an immediate recommendation. Nazhand's Complicazed Antitheses takes you to places you are grateful you do not have to stick around at, and also places you need to check out if you are serious about your extreme music.

Rating : 8.5 / 10

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Alcest - Les Voyages De L'âme review

Year : 2011
Genre : Shoegaze / Retirement Home Black Metal
Label : Prophecy Productions
Origin : France
Rating : 8.5 / 10

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Alcest is a musical project in which fundamental band member Neige attempts to channel messages and emotions from a foreign land he is in contact with. With the earlier body of work of this band being partly misunderstood-, many have thought that the squad's previous outings are sinister, whereas they sought to be hypnotic and peaceful - Alcest indeed moved towards a direction that reveals the respective characteristics of eloquent, harmonic shoegaze music and retirement home black metal. This latter subgenre, of course, is not entirely over-populated yet, so Alcest's work certainly sounds to be quite relevant with the tremendous charm it has the capacity to account for. The album is a super-pleasant surprise in my opinion, as it does not concern itself at all with meta-expectations, finding and sharing peaceful, caressing content that I dare say, oftentimes is of transcendental significance. I will attempt to validate my claim in the body of this Alcest - Les Voyages De L'âme review. Read on if you want or don't.


This release is peaceful all the way through, making use of the orthodox black metal elements in a way so those are free to reveal their secretive tender side without inviting you to call treachery. Alcest's latest offers the content through a smartly limited set of compositional techniques, and, as result of this, the band is able to deliver SOME harmonies of unique significance - more on those later - while the bigger part of this release is "just" pleasant, straightforward, tame black metal that lends you a shoulder to put a head on, and the most aggressive it will get is a funny interlude in track number 2, in which the fronter reveals the Varg Vikernes for a minute or so.

The release makes use of a "real-and-natural" sounding production environment, and scarce are the times when the data seeks to invade you with fabrics having a lot of sounds parked into them. Even when such a thing happens, the wall of sound structures of the release demand immediate recognition : a central harmony always serves the function of a lighting tower, the tides are not intimidating, and you would have a hard time ending up lost in here, no matter how hard you tried.

The music of U2 gives me the shivers, probably because of the singing that I think lacks charisma and dignity, but, strangely enough, regardless how a particular mood calibration of this release reminds me of that findable in U2, in this record, I find the mood charismatic, charming and relevant. I promised to address the moments I think this LP shows true brilliance through, and that is the track called "Beings of Light". A very simple-, but heart-wrenchingly beautiful harmonic structure submits your awareness into blissful submission, and that's going to be be good fun. Alcest - Les Voyages De L'Ame sounds to me as the precise counter-pointing of Blut Aus Nord's trilogy, that which is expected to conclude this year. Listen to this, too, because if everyone listens to Blut Aus Nord, only, than that is so anti-underground, you feel me?

Rating : 8.5 / 10

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Burzum - From the Depths of Darkness review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal
Label : Byelobog Productions
Origin : Norway
Rating : 9.6 / 10

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"From the Depths of Darkness" is a special - more on this in a moment - compilation album of legendary black metal one man band Burzum, "fronted" and maintained by the Original Black Metal Pope Varg Vikernes. By the way, "burzum" means "darkness" in a particular fictional language that has been developed by J. R. R. Tolkien to be used in his fantasy contributions. This compilation disc is more than an everyday average compilation release, and the reason behind this is none other than Varg Vikernes took the time and effort to re-record every single track he re-delivers on this release.

The majority of the songs are coming to you from the 1992 LP "Burzum" and the 1993 release "Det som engang var", and the creator does not at all want you to regard these new variants as the "proper" ones. These are new renditions of songs that already have been recorded, making it a special occasion by which the artist covers himself. It is nothing like a series of "simple" remasters though, and "more" would be an inappropriate term, as well. Here is why : the original vintage tracks, of course, are still sounding with that lightweight skeletal vibe, which in my opinion is a key element of the charisma of the genre, while, their new variants have intentionally been beefed up in radical - also sober - fashion to state their timeless verdicts once again, now with recent days production standards. Guys, let's talk about Burzum when it's ripped like fucking Rambo.


It doesn't take more than a few seconds to be mesmerized and steamrolled by this stoically demonic sonic entity if and when you decide that you are ready to accept it in the exact form it reigns in, signifying your willingness to actually hear it out. How. Appropriate. This compilation behaves in a very respectable manner, because it offers the rule book right away, and the first two sentences translate to :

"Oh hi! In a second, you will be mindfucked, and now is the time to chicken out, IF."

Varg Vikernes' music never ever lacked profound magic, as this man has exceptional talent of creating organic connections between separate sonic entities and making you the witness of their lush rendezvous. This music is very peaceful with the fact that it knows no peace other than the act of embracing the complete lack of it, and it would be a plain mistake, in my opinion, to regard ANYTHING from this body of work as negativistic. It sounds more like "honest" to me, and "honest" is the only kind of music or art worth listening to-, or checking out. Varg Vikernes doubtless has exceptionally deep access/connection to the "mere meaning" of darkness, which enables him to present the endless qualities and "patterns" of it with fluent inventiveness and sonic exigency.

Vikernes, think what you want about the dudette, but have zero doubt about the following, is a top of the food chain hookhunter with such awareness of the intent of menace that it commands the character of darkness to be consent to share more about itself than its mere obtrusive nature of void.

This is robust music, now with robust production form, too - but keep in mind that the skeleton variants of the vintage originals are superb fun, too - and, if you give it the serious ears with the courtesy of listening to the content, then "simply disliking" anything on this spin, "simply does not make sense", in my opinion. It is too crystal clear in its intents and shapes to tolerate such a rudimentary and cheap behavior-pattern to relate to it with. Disliking it is not enough, because it has no effect on it. So you will have to come up with some more relevant counter-attack to puzzle Varg Vikernes.

But, notice this : the music of Burzum does not at all seek to cause fear-, not even discomfort in you. It is the praising of another kind of beauty on the opposite side of what meta-perception can immediately recognize and embrace as consensus-beauty, but the beneficiary thing is that once the spirit attempts to accept and attempts to understand the sonic language of Burzum, - which is clear like a bitchslap, trust me - then the spirit necessarily becomes more finely calibrated to handle the shape of things to come. Fear has infinite faces, but every each one of them screams for peace.

Rating : 9.6 / 10

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Cormorant - Dwellings review

Year : 2011
Genre : Progressive Metal with Black and Sludge tendencies
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.5 / 10

Cormorant is an independent progressive metal band that exhibits zero interest in modern day production wizardry, and brings to you instead all elements of the classic-, stone traditional metal sound in their unalloyed bare amp lushness. This strategy equates to a fabric that is out to affect by sheer-, intimate amp charisma, but the compositional work on this release breaths life to a series of so bravely varied songs - mainly epic ones in proportions, around the 10 minutes mark - that the album's much welcomed "seriousness" about ripe musical entertainment is truly rare to witness and a privilege to hear.

Cormorant, thank God and Co. and the band members, does not take you, the listener for a lobotomized sloth on newly developed sedation pills, and assumes that once you have been served a nice arpeggiated section, then you - mysteriously enough! - will know that you have just been served a nice arpeggiated section without having to listen to it for yet another minute. In the next moment, you find yourself in an exceptionally unforgiving black metal build, and you can't be sure how long it will last, and where it will take you. As such, this LP exhibits much more ripeness and ultimate value than an average commercial record - even a solid one - does, because it is not satisfied with "just" delivering, it is in a constant-, superb effort to do that with a clear artistic conscience. Not something you can assume from every one of those. (Artists.)

While this behavior of delivering traditional metal with top production values rhymes with that of robust relative soulmate act Hammers of Misfortune, Cormorant sports a more rabid spectrum of favorite moods and genres to stroll along. Fear not : everything the band touches, is operated with a sober mind and trusty hand, and "ambition", as mere entity, is never enjoys the position to project itself as a malevolent harasser of the resultant stimuli, which no doubt is of top of the heat quality herein, packing that especially rare trait of being able to offer true sonic content, no matter the turn the flow of the music takes. Read on to find out more about this significant LP.


With 55 minutes of relentless-, stone classic metal sound in which the only-, but, doubtlessly quite relevant variant is "just" music, - yes, I have just lost a level - Dwellings is as triumphantly efficient as it is demanding, which is yet another similarity the band seems to share with Hammers of Misfortune. This LP, though stable as a stronghold with a Lich Emperor in it, is exhausting as a full spin, yet, once touched, it satisfies with nothing less than that. At least. The instrumental content on the album is especially organic as far as the dynamics the record is fond of utilizing, and no doubt the fabric manages to remain complex and soberly varied without having to rely on cheap techniques like forcing random scale patterns into existence along the function of doing just that, like in a Dream Theater "let's see who ejaculates next!!" wankmarathon.

The record, wisely enough, refrains from seeking to declare one particular favorite sense of mood to build for all the way per song, and has no problem trading grandiosity for chill or especially rabid-, zombie-in-your-bed-grade black metal for legit sludge. During 55 minutes, the album has a whole lot of real estate to prove that it knows how to entertain the ears, and you will never find this release being afraid of letting something go, or being obsessed with any of its creations. Track number 4, called "Junta" is a good example of how flamboyant and restless the fabric can develop to be as herein, and, take note that you hear the majority of these elegant sonic elements only for a brief amount of time. Which is all the more reasons for you to revisit them later.

Thanks to its commanding behavior of not being afraid to release something, - to release anything, for that matter - and entertain on without you protesting for the elements your ears have been just deprived of, Cormorant's Dwellings emerges as a rare contribution that simply does not acknowledge the concept of running out of legit musical ideas, regardless what direction the music takes. And it takes a lot of those, and it is safe to say that the territory it arrives to is never vacant of a central mood that is reigning on that particular territory with a crystal clear mind an an iron fist. Make no mistake, the most powerful drug of them all is sobriety. For your information, the album demands multiple listens, which is the least you can expect from music worth doing that with.

You can buy the album through > - this < - site, and doing so goes directly to the artists, so they can continue to work and deliver.

Rating : 9.5 / 10

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Leviathan - True Traitor, True Whore review

Year : 2011
Genre : Drone Black Metal
Label : Profound Lore Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.0

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Jef - with a single "f" - Whitehead, A.K.A Wrest is the central figure of American black metal one man band Leviathan, in which he is responsible for all vocals, lyrics and instruments. This release has a rather unique character to it, because it was conceived after / during Whitehead underwent a stormy period of personal experiences, and you can allegedly tell the same about his ex-girlfriend. Noise Shaft openly despises physical violence and finds art an acceptable place to portray it in AND lock it in, and, also a place to get rid of all real life desire - if there is any - to exercise violent acts. Why do I say this, you ask. Here is why : according to Wikipedia, quotation starts : "Jef Whitehead was charged with criminal sexual assault and aggravated domestic battery on 9 January 2011 and held on $350,000 bond after allegedly attacking his girlfriend and raping her with tattoo tools. Whitehead was released after the bail was dropped to $100,000."

Beyond considering physical violence unacceptable, semi-worthless critics has no business nor function offering opinion on the matter, because it would necessarily be one to be resonated from a self-claimed "higher moral ground" that is more about the person who is standing on it than about the circumstances he is offering his impressions about. Only the ex-girlfriend, Wrest, and God knows what actually happened for real, and all other beings should probably be confident that everyone will get what they have sculpted for themselves, in the long run. The mills of God are grinding slowly. But they ARE grinding. With that, I see no need to add further thoughts to the legal connotation, but still remain super-curious of the black metal music Jef Whitehead came up with while living the real life turmoil the content has been recorded in. Ladies and gents, let's talk about the music.


True Traitor, True Whorror sounds significant, sick, massive, brittle, ugly, disgusting, interesting, deranged, unhinged and most importantly, rampant. One thing is guaranteed : you won't be able to get away with the actual lyrics-, in fact, not with a single proper word of those - that Wrest is voicing through 342342423234 effect processors, but it is not primarily important, not for this moment. The lyrics will be something to behold upon their release, but Whitehead really would have to be super-unwise to condone violent/threatening lyrics on an album while facing a series of trials. The titles of the tracks are indicative of violent acts on their own, so that should be sufficient enough to defend against at the court, I imagine.

The music on this disc is bubbling with a possessed kind of intensity, that which is definitely not a very positive kind either, to say the least. Wrest is giving away intentionally thin, - production wise - yet efficient cracked-voice rants about fucks knows what, but you can clearly hear and UNDERSTAND the mere INTENT behind the register he is delivering the vocals in, and there is no doubt in you at all that this register is serving exclusively bad news for you all day long.

What I especially enjoy about this release, are the compositions themselves, and the album's brutally intimate production values : the LP sounds insipidly - in a good way - real and vile, and Whitehead did a superb job at parking the instruments around in the builds at attentively researched places to create efficient sonic functions. Track number 6, called "Every Orifice Yawning Her Price", for example : notice the guitars in this track : they are only as prominent as to make you cautiously acknowledge/feel their presence, and, when you move in closer to flatter their meaning, it is evident that they are here to suck your soul out through your eyeballs, too, which is the least efficient way to start a day.

A keen readiness to offer flamboyant variation is a focal trait of this rascal threatparade : Wrest, fortunately enough, is not one to sabotage cavalcade for too long, instead, he is riding on a pretty constant capacity to affect/shock you proper with the consecutive pattern structure. Mark 3:40 in the opening track, called True Whorror, for instance : a terrible vortex of inhuman voices and wailing guitars invade your receptors, and you have lost that particular war before deciding to wage it. Or track 3, called "Brought Up to the Bottom" : the siren effect is "just" discomforting, but the central riff of the initial sequence takes a deep breath and pulls backwards just to thrust forward and vomit fire on you in the next moment. The album features a twisted sense of lyrical qualities and moods, as well : this very same track reaches a conclusion that revolves around three sorrowful, morose chords that simultaneously assuage and provoke the monstrosities they are witnessing their movement in the vicinity.

It is without any doubt at all that this release is fueled by real deal-, top of the heat creative forces, and the personal experiences that have invited those, are not something I feel the need to offer a necessarily incompetent judgment upon. Let's hope that Jef Whitehead will keep his demons exclusively in his music, because they are looking pretty good in that place, while they would necessarily be pestilence and disease if released any other way. With its superb, garage-charm-intimacy production values and a relentless intent to bully your receptors around in an inventive, exigent and meticulously sculpted fashion, True Traitor, True Whore reeks musical significance all the way through, and I like it.

Rating : 9.0 / 10

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Blut Aus Nord - 777 - The Desanctification review

Year : 2011
Genre : Industrial Black Metal with a cybernetic Sludge flavor
Label : Debemur Morti Productions
Origin : France
Rating : 8.6 / 10

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Blut Aus Nord is here with the second installment of its 777 trilogy. The cover art suggests hypnotic Illuminati connotations with many elements of the consorting symbol language being incapable to represent their meaning via their full efficiency. The All Seeing Eye now is a Yog-Sothothian slime-mess on top of the primordial Pyramid turned upside down, and there are, of course, reptiles, too. What about the guy on the top? The awakening of the proper Human Epitome, or "just" a drawing? No, there really is no such thing in existence as "just a drawing", and France's premiere industrial black metal act shows valiant will to break through human meta-calibration and touch upon the things that purposefully dwell beyond the epitome-hematoma of the "just" and the "is".

The anatomy of the compositional method herein is to create impressively massive-, well researched sonic landscapes that a cyberlich finally feels properly home and comfy at, and the spice on top of things to be witnessed is a strategy to bombard the listener's receptors with a cavalcade of biomechanical sonic entities parked all across the middle frequencies. The album has a more restless beginning and a gradual-, but deceitful tendency to witness decay tinker once it declared its rule set, giving you a sense of cynernetic sludge at the climax, which is quite rare to behold. It sounds like JUST the right music for Doom IV.

If you think you have endured more devastating of a strike before to your astral body then a French (look, me punned, totally!!) kiss from Chaos, then the album should exhibit propensity-evident to remap your consorting sentiments via scientific rigor and ruthless efficiency. Read on to find out more about this biomechanical-, transhumanic rewire device.


Blut Aus Nord's latest probably will reveal its intended full functionality intact and full-paua when the trilogy reaches its completion in 2012. Which, according to certain perspectives, also is the year that Noise Shaft readers will turn into transhumanic light beings. Pha. If you can travel out of-, and into any body you prefer to in order to enrich the existence-experience via free will, then it sounds good to me, amen to that.

This album-, while weighs in as industrial black metal on paper, shows much more interest in revealing more calmly-, but rather menacingly paced cybermeat-structures than to celebrate and resonate the classic mechanics of intensified black metal being on a tier of good old fashioned scythe-related rampage in the front row of 2389423423894239423423 skeletons.

This review now performs an illegal operation to submit to the blind potentiality of Chaos, - not that you and I ever had all that much other chance, anyway - and will start to scrutinize this delivery from track number 2. Track number 2, called Epitome VIII sounds to be one of the most slick contribution of the entire spin. It consists of multiple parts, each with superb respective qualities, and they all share a common denominator via their avid cultivation of the

brutally intimate

Chaos-experience.

The track starts out as an uncompromising piece of diligent insanity-worship, which is a very staggering thing to witness in meat space, because, insanity is the only thing that gets stronger if you choose to fight against it. It is so much more fun to witness it for entertainment purposes, only, so no one needs to get actually hurt, and afterwards/during you have the right to shape your related soul-content to look more beneficiary - or more terrible, I admire your work greatly, Mr. Montana! - on the bigger pictures. Epitome VIII seemingly shows only a momentary escape from the hideous grasp of pain-embodied via its midsection, accomplishing this feat by throwing in rather elegant riffcraft into a bottomless abyss of totally humorless, evil intentions. The riff IS intact, looks good and it rationalizes the notion that right THERE, right THEN it also is your only way out of that fucked up place, but, thing is that you do not dare give hope for the riff at THAT moment. Surprise, surprise : once you are done chasing hope, it starts to chase YOU, instead. Hope is a woman. So real. The elegant cybernetic doom riff paves the sonic landscape to absolutely monstrous beautiful music, music that remains relentlessly abominated and uncompromisingly dainty in its character. You need to hear this one to get where it is coming from, because the music worth listening to is eluded by the stock words. (This is what I call good music review site marketing, too. < - sarcasm.) Track number 3, Epitome IX is a tender, shorter ambient delivery with no danger to encounter - except yourself.

Track number 4, Epitome X comes forth riding on a more tame mood than what you have heard so far on this LP, yet the ingredients of the fabric are consisting of the same-, purposefully tormented aural entities. Regardless of the terrorized background story of these skillfully researched timbers, the first key-structure of this track summons the omnipotence vibe you can bath in via The Who's timeless song Eminence Front, which in my opinion remains as one of the primer epitomes of that mood. During its brisk, bravely shaped progression, track number 4 eventually also sinks into wildspace related pandorum, smothered by a void, godless state from which the only way out is through

- dramatic tams in

The Unbeknownst

- dramatic tams out

and it is looking quite relevant while sinking, too.

Track number 5, called Epitome XI is the music I expect Doom 4 to grace my ears with as the main menu music when I hit escape. If you think I dissed the album with this notion, then your absence from the consorting truth is such indeed that the mere hope of you ever reaching it simply fails to recognize you and vice versa, no matter how hard you two are scrutinizing each other.

This particular Doom video game vibe is even more pronounced in the follow-up track, which is titled : Epitome XII. (Wonder if there is a hidden message in the title??????????????????????,,,,,,,) This installment is an easily accessible, simple, but very powerful build in character, with a superb, mid-frequency soulcrusher riff relentlessly burying all hope under places even Oblivion chickens out at. The riff gets complimented by a haunting, massive chorus from time to time, and the whole track is out there to eat you alive.

As hinted not so much long ago, the percept that the album shows a more observatory stance towards abominated aural entities than to make a vile kind of love to them, is pretty deceitful, which is a good thing, because the main idea herein - obviously enough - is to entertain. The album wraps up with a prolonged-, smartly crafted ode to insanity and/or radical spiritual discomfort.

To be totally frank, - which exactly is why you are here, I hope - I'm impressed with the monumental production values of the release, because it features such obscenely crowded areas from an aural point of view, that the unquestionable integrity of the data is a superb accomplishment. The vocals are tremendously effective for what they want, too. They deny all joy and seek to embrace the seeds of direst needs, and this exactly what makes this record work so efficiently. Nevertheless, I do have the hunch here and there that I'm listening to a fantasy-themed '80s pinball machine demoing to itself without the sear promise of a coin present in the neighboring cosmoses, as far as the compositions themselves go, ON OCCASION. Emphasis on "occasion". Before you BFG my ass away, let me tell you this : I think the record has a quite powerful character-, it is packed with quite a few flashes of profound brilliance, yet there also are decisions on this spin to let a superb build wither away here and there. Minute 7 mark of the opening track comes to mind : from that point on, the structure is spiced up by inventively sculpted and thrillingly rhythmized machine gun drums, but it quickly turns out that their mere occurrence is the effective catharsis of the song itself, and they won't take you anywhere, because they have no destination assigned. Boosh!

This still remains the full-spin record you could consider as background stimuli if to summon Beelzebub to ask 1 single question from him, yet minor blemishes in its fabric prevent it from emerging as a primer variant on the Ultimate Chaos Testament. Like this. I liked one particular sentence of this review dearly, so I will reshape it in order to wrap this review up. Blut Aus Nord's second installment in the 777 trilogy is your ticket to take an exhaustingly thorough stroll in the dire company of a brutally intimate Chaos-experience.

Rating : 8.6 / 10

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Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal
Label : Southern Lord
Origin : United States
Rating : 5.0 / 10

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Wolves in the Throne Room still wants to make you lie on the floor and cry as it channels relentless audio data that does not give you all that much other chance than to submit to its openly cleared agenda, anyway. Celestial Lineage shares a variety of pivotal elements that all make it a passable-, but, in my opinion, epically far from great or particularly efficient spin for its own ambitions. Not surprisingly, the record comes to you in pitch black, waves a scythe and it is not loving you at all, and it is very hard to not notice how the entire build swims in foams and successive foams of relentlessly abused reverb effects, stacked on each other like it is the last day of their painfully misunderstood prime. In short : what the album lacks in content, seeks to emphasize by repetitious effect-wizardry, at least, it sounds to me like that. Subtract the bigass reverb effect from the opening track, and you end up with a very average black metal build, and I do not even know what it wants from me. But I do know I don't want a thing from it.

Noise Shaft despises cynicism openly, and, on occasion, it commits it to strengthen this valiant directive. The album features around five minutes of passable-, but not all that memorable or inventive atmospheric elements, featuring Mr. Blowing Wind, Mr. Cracking Fire, and Mr. Bored-ass Male Chorus. The main operational field of the release is the ASAP-rendition of traditional soulslicer-grade black metal, but, without the harmonic magic of Burzum or Septic Mind on board. Check out the ambient section of this cosmic soulcrusher track from Russian Doomers Septic Mind if you want. On Celestial Lineage, more emphasis is placed on the mere act of the sloppy slicing than on the exact shape of the scythe that gets complimented for the moment. In other words : while melodies and different frequency vibrations are presented along a cumbersome sense of sweaty variation, the content, not surprisingly, never chooses to stray away from the artistic behavior of directing the fullest attention to the tinkering of decay. Wolves in the Throne Room's Celestial Lineage seeks decay so much, it decays while doing that. Read on to find out if this decay process signifies any danger at all for the attention span resonated by the Oh!, so curious mind.


Of course not, this is a pretty risk-free effort. Saved for its short, ambient atmospheric interludes, Wolves of the Throne Room's latest sounds like deeply traditional black metal that does not seem to seek to reinvent, to add to any sacred/blasphemous elementary rule of the coarsest form of the genre. The compositions are relying on extremely wet keyboards and possessed guitars with keen desire to make love with the tremolo, both elements supporting the spouting type vocals you have heard many many times before. Yet, I must say I do not find the spouting on this record as - uhm - "natural" or authentic like on a Burzum record, for example.

An even bigger concern to raise and remain serious about, is the mere quality of the compositional work on this release : there is nothing wrong with the builds as sonic constructs, and there is nothing "with them/ in them" beyond the fact of nothing being wrong with them, either. The tracks are lengthy, show not all that much muscle worth eyeballing or touching multiple times, and each of them share this relative misconception of soaking every bit of sound into effect-madness for the sake of making it wet and highly intimidating. The intent crushes its subject now, though.

The spouting, and the eerie, occasional female chorus which is a secondary extra attraction of the LP, both wear out quicker than the average charm you end up from the touch of a rampaging female lich, and frankly, the sonic mood-register the album cares to move its monumental ass around to discover, is pretty limited when my snob mode is invited to spout out its own impression. The LP has some shamelessly masturbatory moments in my opinion, track number 5 comes to mind as an immediate example for this. Track number five is not as great as it pretends to be. The only thing I found interesting on this release, is the closing sequence of the last contribution, where a wall of sound structure of soulslicer guitars and synths that are seeking to eradicate all will to live, are increasing in volume, producing the only period of this album I could give a moment of honest interest for. All other things on it sound "uhuh" to me.

Rating : 5.0 / 10

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Absu - Abzu review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal Thrash Metal hybrid
Label : Candlelight Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.8 / 10

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The Absu to date is a rabid black / thrash metal act that simply can't be arsed to spend seconds / minutes spouting at a random crimson moon with a corpse or two while riding on the same tremolo layers for wrist-slicing effect. Absu gives you that classic feel of unforgiving, Emperor Palpatine-grade black metal, but it mounts thrash metal rockets on all possible points you can think of along its body.

Opening track called Earth Ripper is a strong example of the elegant plan of the record : the fabric herein, though easily decipherable, remains relentlessly heavy BUT valiantly playful and alive, nevertheless. An elegant riff runs around left and right on top of good old intensified thrashing, and the madly rhythmized vocal / lyrical contribution of drummer / vocalist Proscriptor McGovern is a total fit for the extremely pissed off status report the song registers as. The LP has an occult theme to it, yet the structures - fortunately - show much more interest to reveal the Mad Mage in Intense Summoning-vibe in a larger than life, hilarious comic book fashion, and has no intent to wage a full scale war on your will to exist. If you want to hear occult black metal getting chased around with the big ass minigun of thrash for a change, then you need not to look further. You need to read on, oh!, useful infidel.

Abzu is composed of two main sections, and the common denominator of those is the old school, bravely and smartly varied reckless thrash metal, which though speaks the language of black metal. As for the two main sections, the first twenty minutes of the record is composed of five gritty, furious tracks with respective running times around 3:30 to 5:00, while the second part of the release is a monster-track nearing 15 minutes. It is a kind of deceit, though, and here is why : this second section, dominated by the monster-track, sounds to contain autonomous smaller tracks of similar character, only these have been embedded into one. So, don't expect an epic declaration of progression or something like that.

As hinted, the forms and general shapes of things and patterns you hear are black in character, but they are incoming along the structures and methodologies that are super-common to thrash. This inventive pairing is toppled by the tight, sanely balanced - regarding its frequency of occurrence - vocal presence. The vocals, while they are belonging to good old fashioned spouting at heart, pack legit, tight power, and it is notable that they are not faked in a GTFO fashion, like in metalcore.

Absu's Abzu sounds like the inner sonic outburst necessarily conceived by the panicked mind of a mad wizard who accidentally messed up his highly illegal demon summoning pentagram, and now he assesses his experiences for the fabric and related sake of All Unholy Remembrance, knowing that the demon he just invited will have the fat right to rip him to tiny pieces, and has zero doubt that it will do, too. Proscriptor McGovern addresses the highly mysterious, and none less vast perspectives and soul-swallower entities of Enochian Magick all over the LP, and his related lamentations find infinite ways to shoot out genuinely "heavy-sounding word pairs", so to speak, and this is the main idea herein. You don't necessarily need to look for direct meaning to the lyrics here, they can be understood through the mere moods of the words they sink into you as.

Absu's latest reveals a demon finger through the portal, and, once you are curious/reckless - or both - enough to move a step closer, the hand shoots out and pulls you through. 35 minutes is JUST the right amount of time you want to spend on that other side, which is another little something that makes this record a solid black-thrash delivery that has a sober understanding of its own grit and recklessness.

Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Glorior Belli - The Great Southern Darkness review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal / Doom / Sludge hybrid
Label : Metal Blade Records
Origin : France
Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Glorior Belli's latest opens a voodoo portal on you that transfers your sorry ass to the immediate vicinity of an extremely irritated and 3 meters long crocodile in Naouleens, - pronunciation : New Orleans - so the plan of this spin is none less than to consort the exquisitely massive and monumentally lazy nature of sludge music with the restlessness of especially unforgiving black metal.

The Great Southern Darkness - try to find the very sloppily hidden tribute to The Great Southern Trendkill in the title - comes to you with a core that declares this delivery as a black metal album at heart, yet the LP's highly grim character packs the aspiration to claim the southern vibes via a good amount of elegantly researched methods that reek the fat promise of good old impending doom. Read on to find out more about these elements, or be voodooed proper, biatch.


The compositions on this record are both solid and flamboyant, and all primer components of them - black metal, dainty doom and bloated sludge - are presented in an eloquent, well varied fashion. None of the respective methods of the ingredients get abused at constant top-efficiency to harass the epitome of instant effect. In other words, it must be pointed out that this album, wisely enough, does not seek to serve out your anticipations by blast beating your misery on the altars of instant southern sludge, it instead is focused to give a kind of doom-tinted black metal, that which gets constantly assuaged by a much more calmer - but still mean - stroll along the southern sludge vibes.

The closest the album comes to-, and fulfills your initial anticipations you are likely to cultivate, is the third track, called They Call Me Black Devil. This song gives you a superb rendition of southern sludge having an explicit affair with specter-black metal, and the next track that follows this one up, sounds extremely strong with its unalloyed misery spilled all over the place in the style of a more sorrowful kind of doom, that which though still has the will to move on. Oh, and the fact that the track's first segment has nothing southern about it, is an embarrassment to complain about.

One beneficial key factor of Glorior Belli's latest declaration is its capacity to surprise you without end while the spin lasts. Once you find yourself more and more accustomed to any central moods the album is fond of revealing, the more closer you are to a dramatic change in the fabric of things. These changes never trade variation in for less efficiency, and an intact build that has sober capacity to flatter and consort traditional black metal / impending doom and massive sludge, indeed is established and decently delivered. The last 20 seconds of the album is especially rabid compared to the character of the release. Why did I just say that? Because I just have heard it.

All in all, The Great Southern Darkness delivers ruthlessly, despite any qualms a culturesnob position may give birth to. If you have enjoyed this release, you may also find luscious pleasure in a death / doom hybrid, scrutinized herein. As for The Great Southern Darkness, the naked intent to consort black with thick sludge and slim doom, results in stable, mean success with razor sharp crocodile teeth, and it seeks to rip out a piece of you. As a start.

Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Trendkill Method - Affective Arousal review

Year : 2011
Genre : Groove Metal
Label : Sonic Blast Media
Origin : Latvia
Rating : 8.5 / 10

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This Latvian groove metal formation with the name "Trendkill Method" either tries to hide its immense Pantera influence without all that much noticeable avail, or embraces it instead by admitting it in a perplexedly violent and super-submissive fashion. Wait, wait, wait - you don't get it, man! The cover art of this release has a buzzsaw-wrapped female body with an ear as a head, man, surely, I MUST love THIS?!

Granted. Coming to think of it, it really does not matter that much at all, because, apart from the pretty damn close to z-grade exploitation - nevertheless, as noted, also pretty damn efficient - cover art Affective Arousal initially punishes you with, the music of Trendkill Method - regardless of its shape, its orientation and its mass density - kicks your ass to hell and back, and that is sufficient.


Affective Arousal is a record that uses the intrinsic worship of the groove to bring you rampant energies unalloyed, showing zero regard to the recent and - in my opinion - misplaced "tradition" of incorporating melodrama on occasion, so an acceptable pair of grooves could affect you again upon comeback. Once the grooves you offer are great and pack the legit bite, there is little if any need to deliver profound intermissions between them.

The main attraction on Trendkill Method's latest is the vulgar display of love for the rumble, and hell, that is all you want from groove metal at the first place. The primordial factors that give Affective Arousal's rendition of the rumble all the chance in the world to convince you to give a head to bang, are the brute elegance of the grooves, paired up with the rhythmic intricacy they come to thrash you into the wall with. Keen and exigent sense to respect, to summon and to properly worship the infinite faces of the aggressive groove is on constant display here, seeking AND finding the equally infinite faces of the rumble the groove expresses its ultimate nature through. There is no doubt at all that the favorite fixation of the release is the lowest possible note that is producible by the stringed instruments, but one must ask : if it sounds good, then who gives a sear shit if it is?

Structurally, the compositions are consisting of organically connected elements of high octane rampancy, each having their own agenda and rhythmic flavor, yet always keeping their sober touch with the surrounding components to follow them up. Melodic choruses that flatter the feel of stoner rock and well presented metalcore, - aua - are offered, as well. Luckily enough, these choruses tend to manage to entertain the ears with legit musical stimuli, as the singed melodies look pretty muscular on the cleverly structured wall of sound chords that hurry to back those up on these occasions. As such, these melodic sequences do find a way to emerge both as accessible and dignified. Just to give an example : the track called "Reason to hate" has one of the most relevant melodic choruses this release has to state, one that seems to be similar in nature to the chorus of Stone Sour's "Mission Statement". Both of these hooks are great, yet they feed from the same musical scape, a scape not easily expressed if the attempter has zero access to it. Casting an evident light on this scape is a great accomplishment on its own.

Trendkill Method's vocalist surely has the Philip Anselmo going on, yet, this time around, the imitation is acceptable, because the scream register has just the right amount of rawness and presence associated to it, and it sits in the mix in a very well researched place. The aforementioned melodic sequences with clean vocals are equally tight, ultimately. The singer, though clearly lacking the display-worthy animal of a Corey Taylor, does a decent job at delivering the melodies with dignity, humanity and badasness, and it is very respectable that the band decided to refrain from the use of various magical effects to pump up the voice artificially.

Affective Arousal is a delivery even the members of Pantera would probably give the nod on, and this is not something you could frequently say and keep an inner face intact. If you know what is good for your neighbor's spiritual integrity, give this album a spin. And one more. And one more.

Rating : 8.5 / 10

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Book of Black Earth - The Cold Testament review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal / Death Metal
Label : Prosthetic Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Book of Black Earth brings you a hybrid that has nothing to worry about its own capacity to live, regardless how it is composed of two extreme subgenres of violent guitar molestation. This American formation delivers soberly controlled, nevertheless furious death metal by utilizing the tools of black metal, spouting a well placed tribute or two towards classic punk vibes here and there.

The Cold Testament is an LP with tremendous power and charm behind the snarl it stands for at heart, and also one that does not sacrifice its own efficiency for misplaced sentiments towards bloated aspirations. With its 36 minutes, The Cold Testament gives you this exact amount of time you will spend with the demonic hound on the cover, making sure that these 36 minutes will be channeled through an evident intent of beating your psyche to an embarrassing pile of spirit pulp. And beyond.



The relatively short spin time of this noise device is a beneficial trade for the special kind of character this album represents, considering how its fabric seems to follow the unspoken rules of an exploitation movie. The Cold Testament LP runs around with its ass on constant fire, with a crazy mojo in its eyes telling about a not-so secretive hope of how this fire might be contagious upon (ear) contact.

The compositions are mature, well structured, and extremely well controlled, reigning in constant success at rendering a full speed truck with no driver in your vicinity. It is a form of organized sonic massacre, one though that is free of the everyday average cheap magic tricks or obtrusive elements to crave easily harvested musical appreciation. Instead, everything does what it does best on high octane efficiency. The guitar work succeeds masterfully at picking-packing the proper menace while remaining genuinely playful and elegant, whereas the drums bitchslap it at will, just to chase it around on top of - and this IS something - meaningful blast beats.

Blast beats, paradoxically enough, are prone to be abused beyond common sense, as the restlessness they express is an emotional register on its own, and many do seem to satisfy with the act of throwing in relatively irrelevant riffage in the background, hoping that the intensity of the blast beat itself will sell the attraction out, no problem. Book of Black Earth, fortunately enough, takes its vision of constant focus seriously, rendering legit riff on top of legit riff without end, recruiting the mere possibility to deliver rhythmic variations and dynamic shifts as the invaluable tool of tasteful flamboyancy. Sounds logical enough? It indeed does, during the spin of this angry affair. It is clear that The Cold Testament has a whole lot of serious and devoted work behind its, and, as hinted, it does not commit the mistake of offering anything else or less than a fabric of elaborate musical sequences sewn of diligent, mature compositional efforts.

The LP shows a furious face initially, and decides to keep the grin intact along the way. There is a whole lot going on in these action packed tracks, flirting with various prime aspects of the genres they seek to skillfully compliment. The layered tremolo riffing to invite the flamethrower feel of black metal is as present and ready to be unleashed as is the twin guitar pair to smash through you with the intricacy of technical death metal. The Cold Testament has the quite welcomed tendency to offer its inventions in multiple forms, and, as such, you will witness the actual riff in different form and shape on the left and right channels.

As for the vocal performance, melody is not particularly present, and here is why : it simply did not get the fucking invitation card. Good old fashioned chest scream is the name of the game here, that reigns totally and completely free of the over-emoted, somewhat laughable, but certainly miserable direction of other-, vaguely related genres. The Cold Testament is a hell hound weighing around 667 pounds, eager to sit on your chest and demand an honest reaction from you. One thing is for sure : you WILL give yours, after it gave you the thorough stare it is most certainly capable of giving.

Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Frozen Ocean - Vestigial Existence review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal
Label : Nihil Art Records
Origin : Russia
Rating : 7.3 / 10

Vestigial Existence does a diligent, acceptable job at rendering a clear picture of the ancient soul-dirt black metal seems to devotedly fixate itself upon. On paper, Frozen Ocean brings you this blackened kind of metal soaked into flammable fluids of atmospheric punishment.

On the disc, and, in reality though, this is a pretty traditional and archetypical - in the good sense of the term - black metal outing, and the only atmospheric traits it has are the opening track and some flute playing, being introduced at the latter portion of the affair. The choosing of the words is not accidental, as the flute playing herein does not ever pass through the "some flute playing" mark, indeed. Not on this record, which, nevertheless, has some very favorable offerings to entertain your ears and moods with. Read on to find out more about those.



With Vestigial Existence, Frozen Ocean addresses its thorough understanding of the genre's favorite modes of vibe invitation without any particular and/or obtrusive intention to add anything alien or new to those. The main factor herein is a pronounced, super-thick stringed section, that has not much if anything to worry if the drums have less of a presence : the percussion indeed lacks the extreme punch, but it delivers the luscious pulse with convince power and without doubt, and this exactly what the idea is.

In its character, monumental the stringed section may be, yet it does not overkill. As result of solid, sober production work, each stringed sonic cannon has its respective place and field of operation in the mix it can spout its sentiments in, while the fields themselves have a modest, nevertheless doubtlessly existent tendency to create interesting patterns of co-existent sound entities. More often than above or below it, Vestigial Existence delivers acceptably in this regard, giving you a rather efficient starting section, smuggling / hiding the tracks with relatively less efficient sections or twisted beauty in them with a good sense of balance as far as the time they are worth entertaining for.

One of the most impressive additions this album can proudly call its own, is the performance of the vocalist AND the production team, as it sounds like that the vocals are coming from beyond a huge metal door, and you do not want to confront the dude on the other side - if a dude he is, at all. He constantly reigns at the verge of losing it totally and completely, wielding an omni-present and authentic rasp to unleash declarations from an utterly, trustily disillusioned stance of contemplation with.

The compositions vary between relatively slow and medium tempo builds, this time around giving a gloomily suggested middle finger to evident intensity. The relative calmness of the spin does not take away from the quality at all, quite the contrary : it is nice to see and hear an album that dares to choose and maintain a central mood register, as each track is a variation on a similar feel, inviting a sense of coherence - that came out kind of weird - to coat the affair in.

Apart from the flutes, that have nothing else to do than to address their mere presence from time to time, and some tame sections of gloom here and there that crave cheap appreciation just to fail at it masterfully, Vestigial Existence comes to you and remains a spin you can safely hop on if you want to subject yourself to black metal done diligently and traditionally.

Rating : 7.3 / 10

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