[Music] Metal

[Gungnir]

Been listening to this album for a week now, almost forgot how fucking good it was.

[tlitd]

This is a remarkably accessible form of black metal, I'm suggesting it mostly for the casual listeners of the genre. It's so tame and mellow that it should be appropriate for "getting your feet wet" purposes. Frankly, at times it doesn't even resemble metal - black metal much less. It's just music, and it can be enjoyable on its own if you simply ignore its roots: Planetshine - A Journey Into The Unknown.

As for the following two albums, I'll address them at once because they both share the same intention of paying homage to the good old times. They achieve that in vastly different ways, though: Grafvitnir - Venenum Scorpionis is an example of generic (and rather flat) Scandinavian black, it sounds too damned "clean" to me; Mournhel - Obliteration sounds anything but clean and sterile. To no one's surprise, I prefer my black metal to be vitriolic and loathsome hence it's effortless to infer which of the two albums brings me home.

[Zeph76]

Yet more insanity by Devin from his upcoming album.

[tlitd]

This album is undoubtedly as fresh as it gets, I've taken it for two back-to-back spins already. It's... nice, hehe - but what classifies as "nice" for an avid listener of black metal will be repugnant if not outright incomprehensible to most other metalheads, therefore I'll issue a warning without delay: Bašmu's Enshrined in Eternity is not for the casual listeners of metal, it will get your kvlt-o-meter to peak at about 9001. Despite the low-profile figure, Xûlthys is a name to be remembered to a serious listener of black, spawning several very interesting solo projects during the last couple of years. This fine gentleman delivers!

[Kreo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wy-W-pYlds

Most metal non metal song. Had a sudden urge to conquer Holy Roman Empire.

[Paarthurnax]

EQUIPOISE - Demiurgus

This is peak tech death.

[tlitd]

Right, let's add a couple of suggestions both released last year. To delicate pansies a purely instrumental post-rock album: Spurv - Myra. It's a really tame experience, therefore it has the potential to reach a much broader audience. A people pleaser, I guess - but that's unfair, because it certainly has merits on its own. Give it a spin if you're not rabidly adverse to post-rock.

And to old perverts such as myself a gripping solo black project: Seiðr - Withering. The dude has been around for a while, experimenting into various other solo projects in the past. He's firmly entrenched into the underground, though, most likely the bulk of his audience is Danish as himself. Don't let that dishearten you, the aforementioned album is an enthralling example of raw black.

[tlitd]

Nodding back at the good old Moroes: time, never enough time. And I've been reminded of its scarcity this week, the last few days were frantic with releases which absorbed both time and attention.
1. Csejthe - L'horreur de Čachtice. Relentless pacing, unwavering assault. At times almost cacophonous into a voluntary and self-assumed overemphasis.
2. Amdusias - Away... From Them. To get the obvious out of the way, it's merely a demo. A compilation of sketches and fragments. Don't let that misguide you, an abundant melancholy shrouds these disjointed efforts and renders them enjoyable if you're used to the gloomy minimalism of raw black and/or dark ambient.
3. Drawn Into Descent - The Endless Endeavour. A definitely charismatic exercise in atmospheric black, with the added disclaimer of graduating into various post-black flavors every now and then. It's as mellow as you'd expect it to be, casual listeners of black won't struggle assimilating it.
4. Akasha - Canticles Of The Sepulchral Deity. It illustrates the mindset and approach of Csejthe, but it pushes the psychosis even farther. Most likely it will be an acquired taste, I'd say; both #1 and #4 are good albums, but their flamboyance can become tiresome occasionally.

Bethlehem snip

Hehe, what an eclectic amalgam of bits and pieces, it's quite impressive to witness them actually coalesce together; sounds interesting, a noteworthy teaser to harbinger their latest release. On an otherwise related note, my cluelessness is unraveled: I haven't listened to Bethlehem for so long that I had no idea they started to work with Yvonne from DNSC.

[tlitd]

Doubtlessly, this pair of albums shouldn't be considered within the rigid frame of a particular style of metal or another. They deserve the attribute of being "transcendental", in my opinion.
1. An Isolated Mind - I'm Losing Myself. Let others be concerned about the menial dichotomies (is it black? death? blackened death?), and absorb wholeheartedly this acoustic flow of dissonance instead. Thinking about this album, I conjure the concept of sand castle; it's deliciously experimental, as if a child was playing in the sand. And it's probably meant to be experienced in a similar way, surfing them surges! Yes, yes, it's silly reference to the one and only Surf Rider which has been cast into immortality by Tarantino.
2. Sacrificia - Pestilentia. What a jewel of a release, there aren't nearly enough praises to describe the unadulterated joy I find listening to it. An astute observer will remember perhaps that I've already recommended another release of Sacrificia this year, but the current one is drastically shifting the paradigm. Whereas the previous Nostalgia favored a dark ambient setting and theme, Pestilentia is a seamless transition from one aperture of the black metal spectrum to another (atmospheric to symphonic to neoclassical to progressive, even featuring the occasional dungeon synth bits here and there). This album isn't just good; it isn't merely an effortless candidate to a purposeless "album of the year" listing. To me it's jaw-dropping in the most non-metaphorical sense.

[avitush]

I've been an Eluveitie fan for almost half my life and am pretty excited about their new album that's coming out in a couple of weeks. Everything I've heard from it so far sounds good.

I was a bit worried over the lineup changes (particularly when Anna Murphy left) a couple of years ago, but they seem to have found suitable replacements.



- - - Updated - - -

Also the new Amon Amarth stuff sounds good.

[tlitd]

A slew of interesting releases last week, will enumerate them briefly as I'm short on time.
1. Mŕk - Delumination. Raw.
2. Suicidal Madness - Dégénérescence. DSBM.
3. Aoratos - Gods Without Name. Naas, a name that will probably catapult the album on many AOTY listings. Not so sure myself that it has managed to at least reach the same level as The Dreaming I, released under the Akhlys banner.
4. Vaina - P U R I T Y. Really solid dark ambient (/noise), but it will creep out the uninitiated. Not for casual listeners of black.
5. Funérarium - Crepusculum. Atmospheric.

Give them a spin if you're into black, my circumstantial laconism doesn't do them justice.

[Laerrus]

Finally!

[Duilliath]

[tlitd]

Latest releases which have captured my attention:
1. Obscuring Veil - Fleshvoid To Naught. Look, it's almost guaranteed you won't understand it after the first audition; quite likely that you'll fail to discern its intricate layers with the second. It happened to me too, the first few times the unsuspecting listener is bound to become bogged down in chaos. A display of entropy, for which you'll need time and patience. Enjoyable only after you've decrypted it, their intentional obscurity will be achieved effortlessly. Not for casual listeners of black metal.
2. Revenant Marquis - Polterngeyst. Take the whimsically adorable ingenuousness of doom, then desecrate it through the means of raw black. The forlorn roots are indeed still traceable, but the perversion is all-encompassing. For a hilariously descriptive analogy, conjure the image of Little Red Riding Hood getting deflowered by the Big Bad Wolf; that's roughly the level of relevance of the doom remnants over here, stylistically present but otherwise functionally extinct.

[Duilliath]

Dude. Seriously, knock it off.

You read like an edgy 18 year old trying to show how kvlt he is.

Repeat after me: There are no casual listeners of black metal

That whole 'blacker than thou' attitude is getting more aggravating with each passing post.

[hellhamster]

https://abyssal-home.bandcamp.com/al...thropinization
How did I miss this last year? I'm not really an Abyssal fan but with how much hype there was surrounding their previous album I thought any new music by them would get more recognition than none at all.

It was a split.

[Paarthurnax]

Dude. Seriously, knock it off.

You read like an edgy 18 year old trying to show how kvlt he is.

Repeat after me: There are no casual listeners of black metal

That whole 'blacker than thou' attitude is getting more aggravating with each passing post.

[Ivanstone]

10 Problems of a BLACK METAL head

WHAT KIND OF FOOL PASSES ON THE OPPORTUNITY TO LISTEN TO SHEIK YERBOUTI??!??



Ok, its not metal. But Zappa did actually expect his band to able to play metal/reggae/ska/etc. versions of his songs. Use your imagination.

[hellhamster]

It's new Abyssal music though. I wasn't expecting the same hype they got for their last album but I would expect at least some of the websites I frequent to pick up on it.

Whatever though, that's in the past now. You don't drop by here very often anymore, how's life been?

Busy, also not much to talk about, no great releases in the recent past bar a few exceptions. Metal in general is becoming stale for me I guess. Every once in a while, and I mean like maybe once a year, some band releases something exciting that reignites my interest, but overall it's stuff that repeats itself. I also listen to overall a lot less metal.

[hellhamster]

If I had to say last year was probably one of the best years for metal for me since I started actively following new releases (~2013). At least in terms of its peaks. But yes, for people familiar with metal there's too much derivative shit out there. Still, I always keep a list with upcoming releases. Lice (Teitanblood/Kvarforth collab), Gaahl's Wyrd, Idle Hands and Bethlehem all have albums coming up that sound promising.

I'm still looking for better ways to keep track of new releases outside of metal aside from the terribly biased RYM.

There's sputnikmusic but it's pretty terrible as well.