Nature's Grave - Nature's Grave

LABEL
Self-released
AVDIO
Bandcamp
GRADE
Ω

Here we have the first release from the yet unsigned american band Nature's Grave, which in my opinion needs a major release on a label soon. Why do you ask? Because the album are awesome in so many fucking ways!!!

I can't get enough of this gray smouldering masterpiece. The music are reeking with NWOBHM and creative desire together with some good ol' crust on the top. They dare to step outside the traditional laws and play what a hell they want. Take the song Baba Yaga (the best track) for example, it's basically a pure Heavy Metal song but with some screams added instead and its shitting-in-my-pants great!!!

The production is great for the purpose with a quite damp and old school sound to it, with great high pitched vocals (a girl on the vocals, holy shit!!!) and fucking great guitar melodies that commute from classical BM to HM and dirty fucking crust. Its an extremely catchy and captivating album that feels in the whole feeble body. Don't you dare to miss it!!!

Frozen Dawn - Those of the Cursed Light

LABEL
Xtreem Music
AVDIO
ReverbNation
GRADE
α

I didn't have any high hopes for the Spanish band Frozen Dawn, which I never had heard before. But what a fucking permafrost punch in the spline their latest album is, it bloody fucking awesome!!! It starts of in an ice cold blizzard of supremacy with the first track Banished, the Everlasting Confinement, and then it just gets better with the next song Blackened March, which is one of the best tracks on the album, and probably one of the best songs I have heard this year so far!!! (Yeah I go so fucking far!!!)

Its an adrenaline filled album, that keeps the blood pumping blow subzero with its blistering cold songs and melodies done in the right way (think Watain light). It has a quite clean production which works perfectly here to bring out the coldness and the anti-human forces of nature.

If you want an album with great melodies, a somewhat mid nineties feeling to it and that hits like an devastating icewind, then you can't go wrong with this release.

Stilla - Ensamhetens andar

LABEL
Nordvis Produktion
AVDIO
Spotify
GRADE
Ω

Ohhh here we have the latest release from the swedish band Stilla. Theres no question about the band consisting of competent people with musicians from bands like Begraven. Armagedda and Kaos Sacramentum, which you clearly hear in the music.

The disc are packed to the limit with great atmosphere that gives me the creeps down my bloody spine in total delight!!! It paints a beautiful composition of the swedish nature both in the words and the divinely preformed music. Its like they have taken the best parts of swedish BM, beaten it brutally with a progressive stick and here we have this magnificent creation!!!

I fucking love every second of this opus. From the forest smelling acoustic guitar parts, the atmospheric "Burzumesc" synthesizers, to the Armagedda sniffing sound of it all. And if that weren't enough are the record extremely varied. No song sounds the same as the previous one. Every track are a new woodland to explore and cherish in pain, famine and pestilence. To top it all of are all the lyrics in Swedish, and I'm a fucking whore for songs in that language!!! To sum it all up, old ideas in a great new format!!!

Tare - Ritual Degradation

LABEL
Eternal Death
AVDIO
Bandcamp
SCORE
8,5/11

Its dirty as the intestines of a dying goat. Noisy as a bonesaw penetrating a frozen carcass and primitive as fuck!!! Its Ritual Degradation by Tare!!! Its an extremely raw listening experience you get from this album with some great catchy riffs, all in midtempo of course.

It has this kind of punkish feeling to it with its simpleness and peeled sound (and the bloody vocals) with only the essential. It has an really filthy sound to it with the great high pitched desperate screams and ear bleeding distortion. Its all a porridge of old school unclean noises and I wouldn't want it in any other way!!!

Odem - The Valley of Cut Tongues

LABEL
Daemon Worship Productions
AVDIO
Bandcamp
SCORE
8/11

The russian trio Odem delivers an heavy meat punch dipped in pitch black tar with their latest EP. I weren't certain at first if I should write about this release because its almost just pure Death Metal mayhem here. But at a closer scrutiny I did actually find some nice BM layers to every song so it qualified, so fucking enough about that!!!

Its impenetrable dark and gloomy with guitars heavy as marble pillars on the bottom of the sea. It has some great technical DM parts here and there with overtones and the shit you expect with the genre together with the classical dark vocals from the abyss. Its all blended together with some interesting BM riffs throughout the four track EP which binds it all together in an unholy piece of music for the dead!!!

In My Shiver - Delicate Poison

LABEL
Hypnotic Dirge Records
AVDIO
Bandcamp
SCORE
7/11

I try to keep this on short. The album consist of a mixture of depressive rock and "BM"?!? Not the most original combination, but it fucking works and brings my mind to bands like Lifelover, but not even near as demented as them of course. There are shitloads of clean singing and electronic effects on the album as well. Not really my taste, but it works if you're into that gluttonous stuff.

The production has an plastic and synthetic feeling to it, that surely makes me depressed at least. The whole album sounds very digital and modern (if modern is a good word is up to you). The album are at least well played and there are some interesting kind of technical parts to explore. Recommended for those that are into the more modern sounds and digital shit like autotune!!!

Sol Negro - Dawn of a New Sun

LABEL
Headsplit Records
AVDIO
MySpace
SCORE
8,5/11

Here we have a re-release that originally came out a couple of years ago, but here we are now with a blood red cover instead of the black and gray one on this doom influenced dirty jewel. I can't help thinking of Celtic Frost when I'm listening to it, I hear its presence in the songs structure and the production as well. It leaves me with an authentic old school feeling deep in the eardrums, that could as well have come from Switzerland in the late eighties instead of present US.

Its an painfully pleasant experience to find a release with that sound nowadays. Its simple and midwinter dark with an real heaviness to it, with that great end of the world sound to it that I can't get enough off. Its slow and rumbling like an old volcano waiting to have its fatal eruption. Don't miss this smoldering old school feist!!!

Vietah - Tajemstvy noczy

LABEL
Possession Productions
AVDIO
Soundcloud
SCORE
9,5/11

I go straight to the fucking point, this is some high fucking quality music we are dealing with here. It ain't often I get so mesmerized and sucked in to a release as this one. It has something real special (not in the retarded kind of way). Its not the atmosphere this time, its more about the pure execution och brilliancy of the music writing.

The music on this album are the brightest star here as you probably already have guest. Its like its from another dimension, it captivates my all scenes and always finds its way to stay interesting, despite consisting of four lengthy tracks with an average length of about ten minutes each. Its all performed in an excellent rhythmic way that always progresses forward and never looks back. Its majestic without any pompous amounts of synthesizers and electronic defects.

And the vocals in russian aren't fucking bad in any way either, its the raspy almost regurgitating kind that fits the whole experience perfect as well. The one-man project Vietah from Belarus do almost everything right. Its easy to take in, takes some time to digest the whole experience and it stays as a solid divine journey. Can't recommend this release enough for you!!!

Woods of Desolation - As The Stars

LABEL
Northern Silence Productions
AVDIO
Bandcamp
BVY
Northern Silence
SCORE
9/11

This is an album that really has grown a lot on me. My first impression where that this was just another one of all those mediocre one-man projects out there, but its anything but mediocre, its quite unique and delicate in its way.

Its an album thats heavy on the atmosphere, I feel both isolation and serenity within when I'm listening to it. Its like an ice cold windswept feeling on the outside, but with a cozy warmth within. Its impressive how a band from Australia can create this feeling of a frost coated pine forest in a blizzard storm, that just feel so fucking northern!!!

The production together with the solid performance on the album are the brightest stars. It like a thick impenetrable forest of grinding guitars together with an tortuous voice from the lightless depths of the woods. Add that together with a keyboard that are used in a excellent way. Its almost always in the music, without becoming predominant, its just there to enhance the atmosphere yet another notch. I highly recommend this album for those that are looking for something slow, melancholic and atmospheric!!!

Preludium - Redemption

LABEL
Transcending Obscurity
AVDIO
Bandcamp
BVY
Transcending Obscurity
SCORE
9/11

The fourth full-length release from the polish band Preludium starts of with full fucking force, with new energy and strength beyond any boundaries. The music is heavy anchored in death metal with BM as the blood running through the veins of this massive beast. Its actually one of the most successful combinations of BM and DM I ever have heard to be honest. Its dark and gritty but at the sametime crisp and heavy as a fucking celestial body. 

They use the somewhat classical formula with one under the earths crust dark voice together with the more agonizing high pitch vocals, which gives a great variation to the album. That together with the excellent writing (Lyrics inspired by the yogi Sri Paramahansa Yogananda), performance and technicality of the album and you have a great fucking disc of destruction and illumination!!!

Sado Sathanas - Nomos Hamartia

LABEL
Naturmacht Productions
AVDIO
Bandcamp
BVY
Naturmacht
SCORE
7/11

Be prepared to be sodomized in your ear canals by the german sadistic sextet Sado Sathanas. The band serves up a quite mixed experience on their second full-length album that can be pretty hard to get a grip on. Its filled with instrumental passages that oozes a carnal and infernal atmosphere. You can almost hear the hellfire rising and the tormented screams!!! Despite being a band that consists of a fucking horde of members, so is everything in a nerveracking symbios and the keyboard brings a nice layer of mood to the music without taking over.

My impressions are as mixed as the opus it self. Some parts are fucking brilljant when everything falls together in a sinister symbios, like the song P.A.N. Demonia. But then are the parts that just drag on and on without giving me a shit, not even a little raised hair on the back. The good thing though, are that the nice atmospheric parts easily overcomes the shitty meaningless ones. All in all, its an interesting release that definitely have its moments.

Coma Void - Coma Void

I'll try to keep it short on this one, even if this particular release are extremely hard to put on simple earth words. The american one-man project serves up a thick porridge of ridiculous slow and dark doomy guitars together with electronic from-another-galaxy sounds and atmosphere. I have some mixed feelings about it to be honest. It has some great interesting parts and isolated atmosphere with all right vocals. But on the other hand do I find myself thinking its boring as a shit on a sunday. There are definitely some great potential here, with clever idés and all the space building atmosphere. But its in the execution and song writing it fails. I do however look forward for the next release and hope that they will sort all this out by then. Still worth a listen if you're into space themed BM with a heavier and more modern touch. 

6,5/11

Listen and buy it here

Northern Plague - Manifesto

The first full-length album from the polish quartet is a pure fucking manifestation of hatred!!! It heavy as an bunker blasting bomb, brutal as a fist in your rectum and technical as brain surgery. The somewhat overused mixture of BM and DM delivers an somewhat successful outcome, with a heavier emphasis laying on the death metal elements. You can clearly hear the influences from polish technical death metal in the music and its fairly crispy production. But fear not, the album are of course not exempt from BM bits. There are some great fucking stenched mood setting pieces in this farrago of primal odium. You find this melodies underneath it all, hidden in layers of its blastbeating and technicality. And what you find are some awesome fucking melodies that shows of in which state the genre are in today. Its all sealed together in this rage inducing fistfuck in your ear passage. Check this fucker out!!!

8/11

Listen here

Buy it here

Agael - Trost

Its easy to reject Trost as just another Burzum clone (especially Filosofem) at a first listening and go on to the next band. But the german one-man project Agael is so much more than just that. Its an epic album done in a minimalistic way with great spacey atmosphere that will take you back to the time before human existence. 

Its both great in scale but at the same time very small and primitive with its grinding, almost hypnotic guitar riffs together with the use of keyboard in an atmospheric way. Its both the beginning and the end with an endless void between. 

The dark ambient elements in the music are done beautifully without making it into an avant-garde trip of madness, and lends it a perfect lo-fi mood together with the simplistic guitars. Combined with some clean melancholic vocals and sound effects and you have a solid album filled with solitude and loneliness. 

8,5/11

Listen and buy here

Suffering - Chaosatanas

Watch out for this powerful occult outburst!!! The polish band Suffering offer up an energetic release that both are fast, gruesome and ritualistic. The weave together a vivid atmosphere with dragging ear piercing guitars (with a perfect feels-in-the-spine distortion) and the fast blast beating drums (that also plays in midtempo in a couple of songs). Together with the high pitched grievous vocals being chanted possessed like by Armagedon and you have an dreadful symbios from another plain. The production has a very dynamic sound to it that feels very close and natural, (without an fancy effects and other bullshit) and you feel a constant presence through the speakers. Chaosatanas is timeless, it could as well have been done twenty years ago as today. It has this classical sound to it that always are pleasing, with songs and structure that stands the test of time. Check it out if you want a solid experience and not just another "McBM" on the conveyor belt.

8/11

Listen to a sample here

Larvae - Grave Descent

Tonights release are for those that are into slow paced old school death metal dipped in black tar. This is the first full-length release from the americans in Larvae, and what a pitch black near death experience it is!!! Its extremely dark and mellow with the guitars tuned down lower than the floor plates. Its all played in an old school zombie pace with vocals of the more darker kind, which all brings to the doomy feeling of the record. Combine that with guitar riffs that could as well be fetched from the early nineties death metal. Top it all of by injecting some BM atmosphere, and there you have "Grave Descent". But is it any good?!? Hell yeah!!! It packs a lot of interesting riffs and thoughts (and I can't help hearing an american sound to the music, if its a bad thing however is up to you!!!). If you on a shitty day are in the mood for something slower with an end of the world feeling to it, then you can't go wrong with this!!!

8/11

Listen and buy it here