Hear Hole Aholics

Darkthrone - Transylvanian Hunger

2011-11-30T13:55:00.000-08:00

Darkthrone achieved so much in the early 90's with no motivation but to make purely satanic black metal. First they helped germinate the sound known merely by their circle of like-minded Norwegian teenagers with "Goatlord" and "A Blaze in the Northern Sky." "A Under a Funeral Moon" was a raw exploration of the catharsis of this new sound and song craft. Having arrived upon "Transylvanian Hunger" and reaching what I believe to be their pinnacle in this journey in just three years is remarkable. This band was gravely inspired and flourishing with productivity, much to the satisfaction of nearly every black metal fan to ever lend the genre their attention since 1994.
The personality of the songs on these albums is so refined and honed that to try to find comparable musical influences has always proven difficult for me. Of course a heavy Bathory and Venom element is there in the forcibly driven pace of everything, but the riffing seems to call upon very noodly and cantankerous buzzing kraut rock. At age 22 Nocturno Culto's style of playing repetitive dissonant chords and harmonizing with lead guitars to achieve a memorable, vivid melody is remarkable in its own right.
The production value on this album mirrors the song writing in this sense. At first listen I'm always forced to take a step back to remember how to listen to this album. Its got an obscure, glossed over and murky hiss to it all. At the end of some of the songs you can hear the instruments all brought to silence, and all that is left is the extreme tape hiss that lends so much to the atmosphere. The lack of clarity beckons you to focus your ears upon the droning subtle melody. The more you tune your attention to its permanent barrage of darkness, the more you enter its despicable realm of utter satanic majesty. One of my favorite characteristics of black metal is the interplay of rhythm and lead guitar to achieve complex harmony and melody.
To think that frantic, buzzing, clashing, racket can be so evocative, enigmatic, ethereal and beautiful is a challenging notion. The fervor that these 19 year old Norwegians found use for over the course of three years will never be equaled again. The greatest black metal albums of all time have already been written, fortunately one of them is Transylvanian Hunger.

Illegal

2011-10-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

So today I was doing some browsing and I happened upon an MP3 blog and I saw that it offered the new album from Amorphis. I've never really been a fan of this band but I keep reading great things about their albums, and I haven't heard anything current since "My Kantele." So I decided, "Meh, I'll give Amorphis another shot and give this a listen." When I went to download it, I got a message that it had been removed due to a reported violation. I've been seeing this more and more lately as I 'm aware labels are cracking down on blogs of this nature, and some sites follow through with removal requests. Without getting into a whole debate about the whole mp3 argument, I just felt a tad miffed. I wanted to hear Amorphis, and their label Nuclear Blast, was making it so that I couldn't listen to Amorphis. Isn't that a little backwards?

Bad Music

2011-10-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Death Grips' "Exmilitary" album the other day. This is an album I'm still struggling to decide if I even like, but I keep coming back to it from time to time. If you haven't heard it, let me just say that its really weird and you're probably not gonna like it. Anyway it did manage to get me thinking about how I'm having a hard time describing reasons that I don't like it, and I think its mainly because of how original it is. Thats not to say that I've decided yet that I dislike it, but I can more easily say positive things about it than negative things. If you played me some top 40 country I'd most likely hate it and it would be easy to say how bad it is because I've heard what they're doing a thousand times before. I easily have a frame of reference and I know straight away that I hate it. So its much easier for me personally to say that something sucks because it sucks exactly like something else that sucks. I would guess most people would be the opposite and say "oh I like this, it reminds me of Lady Antebellum." Or at least they would say that its not bad because it sounds like something that they think is good or have heard before. They say people are always afraid of things they don't understand. I think over the years of being a huge music nerd I've grown accustomed to seeking out the absurd, the original, artists that defy boundaries. Artists that do that are the only real catalyst to progression within the art. So I defy you next time you say something is bad. I dare you to ask yourself why you think it is bad. If you had no frame of reference for what bad was, would it still be bad?

So here is Death Grips. I'm impressed by it and I applaud it for it's ingenuity, but I'm still on the fence about the album as a whole.

Playlist

2011-10-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

Havent posted a playlist in a long time. Been really busy with a new job and new house and such. Been discovering lots of new great music.

Midlake - the Courage of Others [ Lush and extremely well written folk. Has a real 70's vibe to it, but far from boring and really really catchy ]

Lugubrum - De Ware Hond / Albino de Congo [ One of my favorite black metal bands, still as original, contorted and relevant as ever ]

Isengard - Høstmorke [ This is a huge classic, always worth singing along to]

Melechesh - Epigenesis [ Headbanging fun for all ]

Merkaba - Bones of the Sacred Forest [ Undeniably powerful and evocative modern black metal, i'll be listening to this for a long time ]

Horn - Naturkraft [ Traditional raw german black metal. Well written from start to finish ]

Yearning - Plaintive Scenes [ I've always liked this band, nothing too ground breaking but an album definitely worth owning ]

M83 - Hurry Up, Were Dreaming [ This give me a raging 80's hard-on. Wonderful album ]

Septic Flesh - Esoptron / Temple of the Lost Race [ I've always been kinda tepid with this band, but i found these releases to be a little more "gorey" than the other more greek romantic sounding stuff ]

Cry of Silence - Wandering Through pagan Times [ THIS is the new Xasthur. Xasthur who? ]

Cromlech (swe)

2011-09-23T17:46:00.000-07:00

I discovered this band years ago when I was doing some research on the amazing Eucharist. Technically somewhat unrelated because the guitarist of Cromlech only played in Eucharist for a short bit after Mirrorworlds was released in 1997, but the two bands styles can be easily compared. They may not have made much of an impression having never released a single album, but Cromlech leaves behind a handful of absolutely blistering melodic death / black metal songs spread across 5 releases totalling 15 songs. I want you to download them below and listen to them all. If listened to properly they will cause blistering in your groinular region. The performance, creativity, and intensity are unmatched.

DOWNLOAD HERE PLEASE

Performance

2011-09-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

The last time I was in Chicago, I was able to spend some time with my friend E from the band Njiqahdda. We got to talking about performing music live versus putting out albums. E has managed to release 46 albums in the last three years, and hasn't performed the music live once, so needless to say the man knows what he is talking about. For years I have personally enumerated reasons for not playing live, but the reason E offered was something I had never considered. His answer explained my sentiment better than I have ever been able to. He explained that performing music is not creating music, and he was only interested in creating music. Most people consider performance something that goes hand in hand with creating music and being a musician. The difference between creating it and performing it however, is night and day to me.

Performing music on stage for humans is an act. It is a portrayal, a visual and human interaction of the medium whose subject matter and demeanor can often be the exact opposite. It relies on many people and a lot of money to be able to fall into place. The relevance of the audience when creating music pales to that when speaking about performing music on stage.

Would you really want to see Deathspell Omega's "Paracletus" album performed on stage? I for one like the album so much that I would hate to subject the music to such potential scrutiny. Would you want to listen to early Mortiis or any of Arcana's discography on stage? If you can find a reason to say no, then so can any artist.

Insight

2011-08-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

A really good friend of mine and I were talking about music the other day and he arrived upon a very compelling point that I had never considered until then. I thought I'd share it with you in the hopes that it intrigues you as well. This definitely wont apply to the average music listener so I hope this is able to resonate with you.

I was talking about how I wanted to achieve optimum audio quality with a music project I'm working on, and I presented my goals to him. I feel like my goals were somewhat rendered irrelevant by what he then said. The audial fidelity of any recording (actually EVERY recording) is entirely subject to representation that it is being given; ie listening to it on a burned CD on a small stereo, listening to it on vinyl with nice speakers, or streaming it online with a pair of ear buds. No matter what the recording sounded like when it was created, it will invariably sound very different with every other listener's listening configuration and setup. Therefore this lend a lot of validity to the idea of performing music live, and listening to it in person as the artist intended it to be heard.

So the idea that every person hears every album differently, and largely different from the artist has had me in a lot of ponderous moods this week.

Thanks for reading.

Liturgy - Renihilation

2011-06-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

After reading Chris Grigg's open letter to Liturgy's Hunter Hendrix, I was compelled to give Liturgy's album an honest listen. All politics aside, there is probably some music here and I'm compelled to listen to it and reflect upon it, mostly because I'm really bored.

Though I encourage an open minded approach to black metal, several upheld traditions make the genre a very reliable and enjoyable style to many of us. When a less thrash oriented, more atmospheric type of band attempts to build some sort of tangible emotive atmosphere, production value lends a lot of credibility to the overall communication of said atmosphere. Regardless of whatever intentions this band has with their style of music, the recording quality and overall fidelity is shit. It sounds like a bad mastering job pressed to vinyl then played through my mother's "vintage looking" wooden record player that she got at K-Mart. The guitars are annoyingly hard panned and tinny, buzzing and unpleasant. Zero cymbals are heard and all Im getting out of the drummer is constant blastbeats that make me want to go to sleep. If you pay close attention there is a monotonous bass tone that isn't really offering anything musical to the album. Oh and the vocals, well I almost forgot about the vocals. I guess they sound ok. Take all of that and unnecessarily compress the hell out of it all out of habit and you have what this album sounds like. Its probably what our parents all think black metal sounds like only this really sucks to listen to. Its seriously taxing on the ears. Maybe that's what they were going for, who knows?

I'm going to give Liturgy a hell of a lot of credit here and go with the assumption that they have engineered an entirely new mode of chaotic black metal in that all musical idealism has been shed. Liturgy have said "Fuck melody, fuck composition, fuck any goal of making memorable music having character, personality, structure or originality. Lets just take all the sonic qualities of black metal and do whatever we can get away with." Renihilation is the musical equivalent of clicking on an internet advertisement promising you a 55" HD television only to come up with a trojan horse that infects your computer with shitty fucking music. So in that respect...sure, the album is really chaotic and has all sorts of "not good" floating around just meandering, stumbling, tumbling and crashing into a picnic table like a drunk bum.

You know how sometimes bands will play a really powerful song (usually in the live setting at the end of a set) and then outro with that syncopated slowing down type of thing? I could be wrong but I believe its called "trash cans." You'd know what I mean if you heard it. Anyways this whole album feels like that, only I guess it sorta sounds like black metal. I honestly hope not a single human being lets this album at all represent the black metal genre to them.

I want my 40 minutes back :-(

Murder the Mountains

2011-05-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

Like showering at my moms house, stepping into a genre I don't normally pay attention to just feels really weird, but I really liked the new video from Red Fang. I liked it so much that I decided to check out the album. I didn't buy it, I downloaded it because Relapse owes my label a serious amount of money. Which is honestly too bad because if anyone in the underground deserves yours or my money, its this band. I put these hard working fellas up for the night a few years ago and we shot the shit and drank PBRs til 4 in the morning on my porch. I feel more inclined to send these champs a box of frozen hot pockets rather than giving money to a label that earns its way on the backs of smaller and less fortunate labels.

Hey, this is about how rad Red Fang is, so I'll do my laundry at my mom's instead of here. On "Murder the Mountains" these beards show a great stature of maturity and songs nailed to the fucking wall with 8 inch spikes. They sound like they're having a fucking blast playing these songs and it exhudes throughout the album. What I feel sets these guys apart from their counterparts of the genre is that they never quite let you get bored, which I easily do both with this genre (Indian, Electric Wizard, Reverend Bizarre) and even other genres. There are no token "tripped out" bong rip breakdowns, no silly witch intros, and not a bunch of generic Maiden riffs mucking about, basically this album contains zero bullshit. I'm really liking how playful and experimental they've gotten with some interesting and innovative second guitar work, use of piano, acoustic guitar and synth / atmospheric parts. Each member totally shines as an instrumentalist for the majority of the record. Their playing really drives these songs forth with a solid live sound and a familiar fervor.

Two strengths that Red Fang bring to the table: groove with more power than most metal bands are achieving today, and GOOD FUCKING RIFFS. If you don't believe me check out the song "Number Thirteen" at about 2:26. That riff is like an airplane full of coffee smooching your prostate right in the fucking brain stem. The riffs are not cheesy and rather memorable. I'm sure I'll be humming the riffs along with the record by my fourth listen. In fact what initially brought me the point of giving the whole album a listen was that after seeing the video for "Wires" only one time, I was singing the chorus to myself in the kitchen a few days later.

As always, a band jumping on with Relapse is a big step. With Murder the Mountains they have taken it in stride and shown that this was a wise move for all parties involved. I hope Relapse really pans out for Red Fang because I know they deserve everything they achieve.

Demonaz - March of the Norse

2011-05-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

In 1999 I was literally pining for the new Immortal album "At the Heart of Winter" to come out on a daily basis. Demonaz was then and still remains my favorite guitarist based solely on what he did on the first four Immortal albums. I had spoken to Harald (Demonaz) on the telephone earlier that year after I had heard he had quit Immortal due to carpal tunnel. He assured me the he would be back playing guitar in no time and all would be fine for us die hard Immortal fans. What happened after hearing the album was nothing short of a breakdown. I hated it. I pretended that it didn't exist for 5 years or so. To this day it takes a bit of a memory jog to correct my notion that Immortal died in an ice storm in 1998. After Damned in Black and Sons of Northern Darkness came out...and I heard them, I was further proven that this band was unrecognizably disfigured. In recent times I have become a tad more forgiving, and I can listen to At the Heart of Winter once a year or so without puking. Though laughable I thought the "I" self-titled album was somewhat fun and the newest reformed Immortal album was the better of the "era 2" albums.

To me the new style that Immortal (and this album) dons is cruel and criminal due to the overwhelming amount of creativity, ingenuity and character that the earlier days had. March of the Norse sounds like something straight out of 1986 only with far worse and more flaccid, underwhelming production than bands were achieving those days. March of the Norse could pass as an embarrassing Bathory album on any day of the week. The arena rock solos and leads are just about enough to give me the runs. The only redeeming quality found on March of the Norse is decent song-craft. Two riffs per song played in two different alternating keys for dramatic effect, acoustic interludes, alternating between chugging electric guitar riffs and ring out type riffs, then choruses about mountains and trees repeated until the song fades out. If that sounds like a good time to you nine times over, then you're in for a party, man!

I like other stuff too!

2011-03-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

I LOVE OLD IMMORTAL

2011-03-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Clean Mountain

2011-03-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

I'm proud to announce that you can now download the entire discography of my project Clean Mountain here: http://www.last.fm/music/Clean+Mountain

Brulvahnatu

2011-03-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

I demand that you lend me your ears for a moment. About two weeks ago I took on the task of working for Pagan Flames as a real actual job that pays me and stuff. So far its been nothing but pleasure. It doesnt even feel like a job and when I get paid real actual dollarbucks I'm all like WOAH. One of my goals going into this employment was to take on a new artist, and already I am enamored with delight to announce that we'll be releasing the newest onslaught from Canada's Brulvahnatu this summer. Its called "Menstrual Extraction Ceremony" and you can experience a good portion of it by going here: http://eternalobscurityrecords.blogspot.com Its not exactly our standard fare of black metal, its not traditional by any means, but its eerie, original, entertaining, and strikingly challenging. We want to maintain a diverse but focused hordes so this couldnt be more perfect. Brulvahnatu's sole creator Kib Sreng is also a prolific painter and his works can be seen here: http://kibsreng.blogspot.com/. On top of that we have a new incredible full length from Njiqahdda, Panopticon's newest split with Wheels Within Wheels and another embattled opus from War Plague.

Hellwitch - Syzygial Miscreancy

2011-02-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Look up "over the top" in any metal dictionary and this album is featured right there. This album is so chock full of all different types of metal that categorizing it can be treacherous. The playing on this is phenomenal, the song writing is unique and mind blowing. Luckily too is that Scott Burns did a wonderful job of producing this mighty slab. I would say that Syzygial Miscreancy is something like taking Death, Nu-Gorguts, Atheist and 5 handfuls of Discordance Axis and splatting them at a wall. Its a low down shame that this band didn't get a Nobel peace prize for their efforts but hey at least they have this sweet album to listen to, and so do we:

DOWNLOAD

"Revelry"

2011-02-15T00:10:00.000-08:00

In the late 90's several European metal bands took a left hand turn and it was all of a sudden well suited for many bands to be avante-garde, "jazzy", or neo-whatever. Its hard to say what Beyond Dawn's ambitions were around this time but Revelry came at a perfect time for people interested in this movement. The uber-dreary pace and rejection of excited tempos and repetitious melody have been shed, and its clear here that Beyond Dawn are steady on a different direction, even if the direction they were on before was quite different.

Along with a lot less claustrophobic production, more rock oriented drumming and singing, and less reliance on heavily distorted guitars are what lend to Revelry being a more in this vein than Pity Love was. I have to cringe whenever I use this term "avante-garde". I understand the intent in its relevance, but I feel like its more of a genre unto itself rather than a genre referencing anything prior...as stated in its moniker. Just because a band uses horns, or unconventional instrumentation or song structure, certainly doesn't make them avante-garde. However, the term punk used to mean that which was different from regular music, and then once that became regular, alternative sprung up, then all these post-____'s came about. So I take issue with this proverbial "chasing of the tail" that we music nerds do. I find it as if people will use a rejection of a certain genre to sell music and I usually prefer to stay away from labels and genre's anyways because more often than not it robs the art of its identity. I do wholeheartedly feel like a lot of these bands were seeking their own new grounds at this period in time but I cant explain how so many of them ended up sounding so similar. Anyways I should talk about this album huh?

After a pretty accessible start the album takes off at track two. Consisting of a strong upbeat tempo and catchy horn riffs that give the song a unique blend of ideas. The reliance of electronic instrumentation becomes more prevalent here. Beyond Dawn consistently achieves their dirgey slowed down mirth of gleaming depression and I respect them immensely for that. They have a knack of going about it in so many different ways. In the middle section of the album it tends to drag on a bit I have to admit. Until "Breath the Jackal" which is probably the albums best tune, there isn't much to munch on after track two. Vocally here Espen is lazily carrying his patented tune, not unlike a more spoken and whimsical version of Michael Gira, only "real" singing more during the more urgent choruses.

As a whole this album suffers from being kind of same-y, as in after a few good tracks it tapers off into a handful of songs that all sort of clump into one ball with few memorable highlights. These songs only serve to fulfill the demeanor of the album and all in all I'd say this is the turning point for the band as we'll see with Electric Sulking Machines, which is an even greater leap into the unknown.

Update

2011-01-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog. I'm so very sorry for the neglect. I never wanted to be this type of blogger, and yet, here we are. Either way I've gone through many changes, but I am once again a free man. I will blog again. In the mean time you can check out my new Podcast here: http://necrokast.blogspot.com and please be dangerous.

Ben

Good news

2010-09-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

Computer works again, Ive been downloading an insane amount of music to get my fix and I have lots of cool releases to discuss. Also take a look at the Seasons of Mist website here: http://e-shop.season-of-mist.com See anything wrong here? WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THOSE PRICES? I know they include shipping but wow, I suddenly thought I was on an Ikea website.

Bad News

2010-09-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

My computer is totally broke. No internet. Working two jobs currently, moving in a few weeks. Hoping to write a review of my favorite album "Battles in the North" for Jason's "Black Metal Revolution" book whenever I get a chance.

Playlist:
Korova - a Kiss in the Charnel Fields
Korova - Dead Like an Angel
Belmez - Behemoth
In the Woods - Heart of the Ages
In the Woods - Omnio
Pig Destroyer - Prowler in the Yard

Stuff I wish I was listening to:
New music from Melechesh, Inquisition, Akerbeltz, Perdition Temple, and Jaldaboath

In the mean time my guitarist from Satan's Almighty Penis and I have begun yet another new band wherein I am mainly writing the music. The style is in the vein of Isengard, Troll, Otyg, and Falkenbach. Also my other band When Bitter Spring Sleeps has a split Cd with Panopticon coming out on Pagan Flames any day now. You can pre-order it for $8ppd at www.paganflames.com

Nausea

2010-05-26T07:54:00.001-07:00

I am infinitely sickened by how "metal media" as a whole is largely responsible for the worst fucking reviews I've ever read. I havent read a non-worthless review of anything in years! I hope you few readers can appreciate that I try to offer an alternative to what heaps of magazines, endless stupid fucking blogs, and sites have to offer.

Thanks for reading.

I want you to have this...

2010-05-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

The other day I really wanted to listen to Vorak. The CDs were all the way upstairs in my bedroom and I was too lazy to go get them. So I decided to look for Vorak MP3s. I had a hell of a time finding any on soulseek or on blogs, so I'm here today to spread Vorak MP3s to the world.

Vorak is one of the most preposterously head scratching bands in black metal. All I know is I fucking love them. Imagine chaotic all directly recorded obnoxious drum machine black metal with digital eagle screams for vocals, combined with Wagner-esque piano interludes.

Download Rhetoric of the Supermen:

http://www.mediafire.com/?hwzky5zehzg
and Triumph of the Will:

http://www.mediafire.com/?drwzgwhnzzm

Heavenly - Sign of the Winner

2010-05-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

When I first decided to review this album, the day I got it, I thought to myself "Hey, it might be a cool challenge to review the album without even mentioning Helloween!" Well I've already mentioned Helloween, and I'm not up for a challenge, so I hope you've heard Helloween, otherwise you'll be pretty much in the dark. Oh, and before I go any further, when I compare Heavenly to Helloween, I mean Helloween right around the Keeper of the 7 Keys parts 1&2.
When it comes to power metal, I like bands that do it with total authority and character, as if they are seriously convinced that they invented the genre. That's one thing that's undeniable about Heavenly, they play power metal as if they've never even heard Helloween, if you ask me Helloween invented power metal. Heavenly has the knack for great chunky bombastic yet melodic riffs that give any song its backbone. Theres an excellent use of keyboards throughout the album. There's even the fucking token Helloween parts where the keys and the guitars play the same 16th notes.
Could Heavenly's singer sound anymore like Michael Kiske used to? Actually, I'm going to give him more credit than that. Heavenly's singer, Ben Sotto takes the helm with an even stronger presence than Michael Kiske did with Helloween. Hes got an even more incredible range than Kiske, and he uses it superbly. In fact Ben does a lot less of the lower toned stuff that Kiske sometime did. Ben has obviously studied his Kiske, there's so many little tendencies that Kiske had, such as rounding off a stanza of lyrics with an extra accented word and a rhythmic delay on that word will follow.
Heavenly's drummer has a great unique style all his own, just Ingo did, hahah. He'll throw around some typical rock beat high-hat / snare stuff, but not for very long. He likes to do a lot of interesting snare fills, like Ingo always did. Hes got what I like to call a good meat & potatoes style. Meaning hes perfect at doing the regular stuff and he always nails those parts, but he goes just above that and shows that hes not there to show off but to drive the song where its supposed to go and to do so with a lot of conviction. You won't hear a lot of 16th note bridges or fills from him.
Sign of the Winner has everything a power metal fan is going to be undoubtedly looking for. Melodic majesty, scrumptious syncopation, shreddy guitar / double bass passages with great catchy vocals atop them. Its almost as if Heavenly got fed up with what Helloween have been doing since the departure of Michael Kiske and broke into their studio and recorded Sign of the Winner. One thing I cant help but laugh about is that there have been two Helloween Tributes and two Heavenly albums since the year 2000. Heavenly were not on either of the Helloween tributes. Both Sign of the Winner and "Carry Your Heart" (2000) are tributes to Helloween. To end this, I have to apologize for all the Helloween talk, but honestly, the resemblance between heavenly and Helloween is absolutely uncanny.

Deathspell Omega - Si Monumentum Requires Circumspice

2010-05-06T15:39:00.000-07:00

Its been a very long time since I heard a black metal album this epic and sinister at the same time. This album is a very different direction for DSO, and black metal in general I think. The biggest difference you will notice for DSO is the vocals. They are a very atypical low, sort of spoken gurgling, never screaming. The drumming is a lot better than on previous efforts and add a very rich and echoey texture to all of the droning downtuned guitarwork. The overall tone of the guitars is very original. They arent high pitched super distorted walls of blood that engulfs your face. The beautifully mastered guitars (by that I mean two guitar tracks and bass) are masterfully mixed to a very unabrasive but allthewhile potent tone that makes the whole album very inviting and listenable.
This album as a whole exhudes a unfamiliar and new stench of rotteness that no other band has ever attained. Theres just no comparing this release to any other.The best part about this album, as much as I love this installment, is that this is a concept album which is the first in a three part trilogy. So we can expect two more great albums of this magnificent stature in the near future if everything goes as planned. If you ignore this release or the next two by these geniuses, you will be hurting for a long time.

Deteriorate - Rotting In Hell

2010-05-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

Holy crap this is an absolute lost classic. I hadn't heard of these champs until I got the JL America comp called "Brutal Aggression." What I love about a lot of JL America's releases is that they captured a very specific era in death and black metal that was and is very representative of the past and the future of what would become of the genres and bands that JL America represented. Back when JL America seemed to clamor to get these releases out, it was a level playing field between bands like Immortal and Goatlord, or Masters Hammer and Nokturnel. In addition, it wasn't only the label that was representing the US and European scene so honestly, but each of the bands represented their own niches within a plethora of genres in such a remarkably bold manner that each JL America and Turbo USA release still stands as a pertinent bookmark in the timeline of metal. Immortal's "Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism" represented the budding Norwegian scene that would grow to dominate the black metal scene. Let me get back to Deteriorate. What my point boils down to is that "Rotting in Hell" stands as a good example of what a lot of great underground death metal bands were doing in 92 / 93.
To start things off the right way, "Rotting in Hell" opens with a morbid intro of distorted screams over an ambient death wind. After about a minute of this the pummeling death machine that is Deteriorate rolls into town. The excellent production on this is immediately evident. The drums are clear as a bell, the guitar tone is thick, crunchy, and powerful. The vocals are artfully given a great stereo trick here the left speaker is a millisecond delayed from the right. It does for the vocals what reverb or delay does but without compromising any clarity and the decay is immediate. For the rest of the album you're going to bang your head the entire time as "Rotting in Hell" offers up a bottomless bucket of chunk, sludge, and sick melody. Your dinner also comes with a complementary choice of blastbeats, skank sections, or hooky breakdowns.
All in all I think its sort of redundant for me to dissect this album and tell you all about every single second of it. Its just an absolute death metal classic and you'd be a total fool not to pick it up if you ever get the chance. The chance might be rare because JL America stuff is sort of rare, but right now Deathgasm Records has a ton of JL America stuff on sale after he unearthed a bunch of it in a recent buyout. Also I don't have a weblink for an official Deteriorate site but I recently heard they are still together with a different vocalist.

Blut Aus Nord - MoRT

2010-05-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

I like to think of Blut Aus Nord as a monstrous creature living beneath the surface of a blackened lagoon. Each time it rears its head at the surface we see an even more decayed, bloated, pallid and disfigured being, going back down to the depths to further erode what was never a holy being. The last time Blut Aus Nord reared its head we were blessed with "The Work Which Transforms God," a ghastly album of black metal with strange bending and contorted riffing coupled with percussive fury and eerie enigmatic vocals. "The Work Which Transforms God" is almost a pre-requisite to "Mort." If you picked up "Mort" without ever hearing black metal, it would be like sending a blind child into a dark cave to look for a dead bobcat made out of clouds.
"Mort" is a vague and complex menagerie of asymmetrical tones, discordant tangents and constantly diverting elements whirling about. There are no stable or solidified elements here. Lazy drum patterns pan from the every direction while unfamiliar vocals noises emerge from beneath your cerebral cortex. The loose fitting textures and almost serene anti-harmonies weave one of the most intricate and spacial listening experiences I have ever witnessed with an other-worldly authority. Each track on this album could be described as an instance of conversion. Non-chalant guitar noodling, unmusical ,all too unhuman percussion, and ghastly vocals float about in your mind until they converge in one axis causing the aural havoc that is "Mort."
"Mort" is an album that you need to prepare for in order to truly digest it. Actually I'm not so sure that it is you who does the digesting, this album has digested me every time I have listened to it.

Beyond Dawn - Pity Love 1995

2010-03-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

To this day this album still sits well apart from any similar artists that I find it hard to keep familiar with the album. Its the perfect step taken after the prior ep being a bit more developed in the dreary and abysmal department with a vivid parlay into more unique playing, arrangement and atmosphere. The album is good at towing the line between never galloping too gallantly and trudging along heavily and sluggishly. I find a lot of maturity in the more consistent nature of Pity Love as the band finds a more bombastic and powerful inertia to their doom trodden 90's rock sound which incorporates several electronic elements to the fold. As a debut this album is a good indication of great things to come, yet dissimilar to anything else in their discography apart from the EP.
In a recent interview with Espen (the singer) an interviewer called his voice detached and distant. I thought this was as accurate a description I could muster, but along with it I would say there's a discouraged, and almost mocking tone about his sultry and underexerted style of singing. The way his vocals, the guitars and horns mesh and harmonize on all of these songs is what I reach in the cupboard for when I have the Beyond Dawn munchies. He really is a unique singer maybe more for what he doesn't do than what he does, but I have a hard time tearing the guy down when he can be so different without relying on cheesy melodies or being a memorable caricature of himself. Come to think of it a lot of what I like about Beyond Dawn is their confident reluctance to be appealing by normal means. Every instrument lends itself to the overall "sold as-is" demeanor of Beyond Dawn.

The guitar work never overbearing or inaccessible is intricate and tasteful. Sometimes clean, clever pedals and production give a vast effect to what could easily be somewhat monotonous playing given the repetitive nature of this mid paced and "doom-esque" music. Either way, I give a lot of merit to this band for giving so much life and power to the sour and plodding music they breath life into. Ive never heard music utilized to put such urgency and strain on an imminent depraved state of consciousness.

Pity Love is where most from the metal community step into Beyond Dawn's realm, but I find it merely the first of several significant full lengths from this band, and a great access point to the rest of their albums.

Longing for Scarlet Days 1994

2010-03-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

Many things impress me about this ep but what struck me at first listen back when I first got this was how out of left field it was, and how thoroughly well arranged and played it all was. Its like nothing else I've ever heard, but it almost sounds like its an album better belonging to some genre I'm not familiar with.

Sonically the music offers a lot of what metal does and it creates a somewhat familiar atmosphere of downtrodden despair as you might find with Paradise Lost or Disembowelment. However the way they go about I would liken more to something like Swans on the Great Annihilator (which came out in 1995). There is a certain washy, breathy and compressed direct analog sound (like on Ride's "Nowhere" album) that lifts this and Pity Love to another level. The drumming is quite varied and mid paced and borrows heavily from whatever standard styles some hard rock or grunge drummers might reference frequently. This is one thing I think that keeps this band from being downright metal. Better than any other band in this plane Beyond Dawn use horns to great effect here, even more on Pity Love, and throughout their discography. Another reason this ep is so impressive to me.

Though there are only four songs and the last track is sort of more of an outro, the vibe established here is undeniably fluent and had this been a bigger release overall, I'd day this was hugely influential on a lot of bands who are doing "post-_____" these days.

Beyond Dawn: Reviewed

2010-03-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

Today I was listening to the local country music station on purpose as I do from time to time, just to reflect on the music and get my thoughts flowing. From what I can gather there exists a traditionalism or rebellion towards any progress or deviation from the known patterns and footsteps that have been taken before. I thought that this was what sucked about modern country but within seconds I realized that not only does this standard flourish in all music, but a lot of metal as well. I have often thought that black metal is something that the genre's musicians feel the need to live up to. It has become a costume that you are entitled to bear only if you play the known role well. Actually anyone is entitled to bear it but only few do it well. Anyways one of my main goals with this blog was to highlight bands who I appreciate for acting somewhat independantly of these get-ups.

My relationship with Beyond Dawn has been strange over the years, and rightfully so given their incredibly varied discography. I reach for different albums at different times but they all give me a great satisfaction I've come to savor in this great and overlooked band. I want to do something unique here so I've decided to review all of the Beyond Dawn albums over the coming days, weeks or months. So look for something on Longing for Scarlet Days soon and more soon after.

Svenske Metall

2010-03-08T16:28:00.001-08:00

I have been on a Swedish black metal kick lately and I wanted to share some of my favorite gems with you. I know a lot of this stuff could be considered classic and some of you aren't familiar with any of it. So I wanted to shoot somewhere in the middle. This handful of songs highlight their tendency for tasty melodies and intricate percussion, as opposed to other Swedish acts such as Watain or Ofermod. I stayed away from the obvious Dissection, In Flames, etc here. Also please try to ignore any Peter Tagtgren production here.

Download here

Burzum - Belus

2010-02-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

Norway's most prestigious arsonist is out of jail and he's hit the ground running releasing his first metal album since 1996's Filosofem. While the motivations behind Belus' existence can (and will endlessly) be volleyed we have a pretty decent return to form. The overall sound leaves a bit to be desired. I liken it to something like Gorgoroth's "Destroyer" or something. Guitars recorded direct, drums buried beneath the guitars, etc, you know the drill. The riffing is really all over the place, its pretty clear that he spent some time playing guitar in jail but never actually got around to being good at it. Musically it's still somewhere between Mayhem's only good album "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" and Burzum's "Filosofem." You'd have to be a fool to hear this and not see that Euronymous' riffing style rubbed off on Varg as he planted a knife deep within his back 23 times. To me, Varg's strong point is his use of guitar harmony which really is a cornerstone of black metal and here he uses it as much as we are used to and to great effect. He has started using more complex riffing with a picking style more akin to death metal or tech-thrash type stuff, and I find it rather distracting. On the song "Sverddans" he uses it to beat a dead horse to death and its pretty drab and boring. There are other parts on the album where its pretty bothersome and redundant how incessantly he carries on with it but its not like he's trying to be Spiral Architect here.

Like the guitar work his drumming has improved a hair as well. His nothing flashy meat & potato chips approach on the former albums worked just fine, hes stepped it up a notch here to keep up with the times. It seems like it may just be a byproduct of whatever stupid ethos hes got rattling around in his head these days but it is significant and it does pair well with the 8% more intricate song writing and guitar work.

Atmospherically speaking I've always applauded Burzum for being able to muster that black metal sound that made him famous because he really is good at it, and with its prevalence here on Belus' it will make this a memorable album that stand out among what else is going on nowadays. Its relevance though I find dated and I feel sorta the same way I did about Beherit's come back album. I guess I could say i'm impressed by it and I'll be curious to hear what he comes up with until the next time he tries to take over the band of a mustached norwegian by stabbing him in the back.

Obsequiae Interview

2010-02-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

I recently completed my interview with Neidhart von Reuental and Blondel de Nesle of Minnesota's Obsequiae. They have just released an amazing demo on Bindrune Recordings which you can pay whatever you want for. I havent written an interview in while so this isnt my best work. Either way I really respect these guys and their music is incredible, so I hope to cast some light on them by bringing you all this:

http://hearholeaholics.blogspot.com/2003/02/obsequiae-interrogated.html

Zero Tolerance

2010-01-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

Just a heads up: there are two very interesting interviews in the new Zero Tolerance magazine: Portal, and Blood Axis' Michael Moynihan. News of a new Blood Axis album sent tears of joy running down my face.

Update...

2009-12-30T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hello all. Just wanted to give a quick update. I've been working on my interview with Obsequiae for a bit now, and it will soon be posted here. In the mean time, you can pay whatever you want for the demo from Bindrune Recordings, I highly recommend that you do so.

2009 Top Ten

2009-12-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

Well ive decided upon my top ten metal albums for the year. What an incredible year for metal. So many bands are doing all sorts of unique things while others are not. I hear so many people complain about stagnation in metal and yet they refuse to explore enough to find the good stuff.

1) Skagos - "Ast"
2) Njiqahdda - "Yrg Alms"
3) Ruins of Beverast - "Foul Semen of the Sheltered Elite"
4) Panopticon - "Collapse"
5) Kill - "No Catharsis"
6) Incursus - "Eternal Funeral Trance"
7) Absu - "Absu"
8) Wolves in the Throne Room - "Black Cascade"
9) The Chasm - "Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm"
10) Funebrarum - "The Sleep of Morbid Dreams"

Honorable mentions:
Pensees Nocturnes - "Vacuum"
Sad Legend - "The Revenge of Soul"
Salute - "The Underground"
Altar of Plagues - "White Tomb"
Tenebrae in Perpetuum - the new one.

2009-11-17T18:24:00.001-08:00

my beard grows as steadily as my contempt for christ.

Manes - Ned I Stillheten

2009-10-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

When I listen to stuff like this its hard to remember that it wasn't recorded in the year 1216 by a cave dwelling hermit. However archaic this actually isn't, its significance along the timeline of modern black metal is vast. In 1994 when this was released by the band on cassette it was so forward thinking and embellished in its character that it was probably really hard to nail this down. This band never really caught on but the ideas created here and at this time by a few others like Striid, and Ungod lived on and flourished recently through bands like Xasthur...and Xasthur. Definitely Xasthur. A lot of bands labeled "bedroom black metal" fall into this category. All these associations aside it truly stands on its own two feet being lent no credibility from the genre it created.

Its hard to say how intentional the lo-fi quality of this demo was and how much can be credited to a novice lack of skill by the band, but I often find that elementary decisions behind the 4-track are the meat and potatoes of the atmosphere on some of my favorite records. If you think about it, every record is a certain combination of thousands of decisions sometimes made by several people, sometimes by one. When one of those persons is Peter Tagtgren, and makes the same decisions incessantly, regardless of the artistic character of the band, it can sound like far less correct decisions were made about an album. A lot of people would tell you that the sound quality on this tape is perfect...and I would agree, though its almost hard to figure out how to listen to it. Everything is drenched in delay and sounds like its echoing throughout miles of pine needles in a dim forest. The vocals are varied, sometimes whispered, at other times a baneful wail. The guitars are distant and blurry but somehow it all gathers up nicely.

Musically, I look at this demo a lot differently now than I did when I first discovered this in 2001 or so. Sure, its a really necro sounding black metal demo but these songs have a much grander and vampyric nature to them. I could easily see these songs being played by an orchestra as the soundtrack to a movie like Bram Stoker's Dracula. They have a very theatrical presence to them. The wonderful arrangement and orchestration unfurls down the carpathian mountains and descends as a fog into your MP3 collection...hopefully. Unless you want to buy the shitty Unveiling the Wiched re-issue that Hammerheart put out. Kyrck put out a altered version of it last year as well, titled "Solve et Coagula" but I still feel this demo is perfect the way it was 1994, so just download it or pay $150 for it on eBay.

Misery's Omen - Misery's Omen

2009-09-28T17:27:00.001-07:00

Though it hasn't been very well documented here yet, I have a REALLY soft spot for anything Damon Good is involved in. My favorites being Portal, Mournful Congregation, Stargazer and the subject of today's swollen appendage, Misery's Omen. The material on this fucker is almost a decade old and still is aeons ahead of our time. To think that stuff this great was coming out back then and I wasn't aware of it still boggles my mind. It took 5 years for it to make my lap melt in ecstasy and still today 5 years after that, its seldom mentioned.

Ive brainstormed for far too long just to think of a reference point to pin these guys down with and I come up empty. The closest thing I can really come to is Symbolic era Death with a much proggier and disharmonious leaning, and dwelling in a puddle of gelling and moldy blood, guts and precambrian juices for centuries. I like putting on this album when I want to feel like I'm steering a vehicle down a densely forested mountainside at 165mph with no brakes. Its chaotic, vicious, unnerving and has a constantly unconstant gallop. No instrument, element, style or behavior here is prevalent other than what I've already mentioned.

This collection of two demos takes confident strides among earth melting doom moments and without hesitation bursts into infernal moments of bombastic treachery. The strength of this band is the blatant confidence with which they unholster vivid yet dreary weaponry. Some moments bear strong similarities to a more melodic Swedish sort of band but usually they play more discordant and atonal riffs. The bass playing is remarkably unique and used so effectively to elevate these songs to a much more musical level, also furthering the putrid stench this ep will always leave lingering in your skull. The only problem I've ever had with this EP is that its a little too short. This is worth tracking down if you want to hear something completely original and accomplished as it is terribly underappreciated.

Death in June - Oh How We Laughed

2009-09-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

Falling loosely within the same genre somewhat as the previous album I reviewed, only capitalizing on everything that it was lacking, I have held this album close to my heart for almost as long. I respect this band greatly and can appreciate their music, but this live album puts a black spotlight on them that I feel none of their albums can touch.

This live album was recorded in 1982 when a young DIJ was opening for Nick Cave's Birthday Party and is mostly songs from their debut "The Guilty Have no Pride" and "Burial." Though these songs portrayed correctly on their respective releases lend themselves to a trend at the time of removing the human elements of music to live up to and mimick the technological revolution at the time, I have always felt that these songs breath so much better with an air of haunting reality on the blackened stage they were performed upon. The perfect reverb on Douglas P's vocals, the black shimmer of the dead cymbals, the dry and rotten bass echoing throughout the crowd, the jarring and messy guitar work with a delay pedal cranked to eleven. I get such a vivid image of a young Death in June stumbling through these songs with a fresh conviction known at no other time during their career.

This recording didnt even get a proper release until 1987 and after being in limited print on CD and LP its been since bootlegged. Its a shame that this DIJ release is a little speck in their discography, which is why I've chosen to highlight it here today.

Laibach - Macbeth

2009-09-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

Back when I was just getting into decent music a friend of mine gave me this tape in order to save it from a trash can. I am a sucker for free stuff so I took it. I wasn't really into this sort of thing back then but from the moment I put it in Macbeth took me by the collar and didn't let go. We have had a strange relationship over the years. This album doesn't want anyone to like it but it wants to be known and be heard as having its own identity. Its got a certain staunch and egotistical approach to the common martial and militaristic type of new wave whatever music they were going for here. It's clumsy and brash but all in all I am constantly charmed by its delivery and brash nature. Its fairly well composed and arranged, enough so that it has an accomplished and somewhat believable gait to it, but there is a distinct lack of something human, maybe even personal here. The limited aural spectrum and sequencing found here is what takes every bit of heart and soul out of this music. It doesn't seem like music by humans, but for humans made by some all knowing and strikingly convincing bearded auteur.

The 11 songs are comprised of various low budget synth representations of classical instruments such as "horns," "strings," and "brass." There is an aray of percussion used to establish rhythm and build ebb and flow of song throughout. Sampled and processed pigments are also scattered to paint in what I can only assume is the sounds of the age of MacBeth, which is I believe a Shakespeare play? Either way I am led correctly to think about empires, castles, steeds, fallen heroes and plague ridden villages weeping at an uncaring moon.

I can harp all day about the somewhat cheap nature of this release, and knowing nothing else of this bands discography turn my nose up at it for fear that I might end up with a lap full of their stuff if Im not careful. After all though this album rules, it always satisfies me. Its like a dirty woman I go back to every few years when I'm in the mood for mild drug use, alcohol abuse and the risk of an STD just to have sex with a woman that I dont have to call the next day.

Ghouls of the Forge

2009-09-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

Well fall is embarking on us and the end of the year is drawing near. I'm starting to think of how my best of '09 list might look as well as reflect on an exciting new wave of genre-humping happening in BM. This year lots of genres crept their way into the bed of black metal and lots of sweet babies were made. Everyone is tossing the "shoe-gaze" term around like its going out of style all over again. Personally I try to shy away from giving albums such finite classifications as I cant imagine its ever an artist's intention to create music in such a way. Styles emerge from peoples brains and however we classify them is rather trivial in the end. However I am excited to see that there are several artists taking strides at blurring these classifications and creating some wonderful music with ingenuity at the forefront of their steed. This to me is the true nature of black metal. Hacking down barriers and thinking boldly in the name of defiance, and using these characteristics to make music in tribute to this quality in man.

The new Peste Noire shows a lot of promise:
http://www.last.fm/music/Peste+Noire

Pensées Nocturnes is taking "depressive" to a new level:
http://www.last.fm/music/Pens%C3%A9es+Nocturnes

The new Ruins of Beverast is even further off the deep end:
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Ruins+of+Beverast

Njiqahdda from Illinois is as productive as it is enveloping:
http://www.last.fm/music/Njiqahdda

Skagos is throwing emo in the pot and stirring it up:
http://www.last.fm/music/Skagos

Panopticon is all over the place but brilliant all the same:
http://www.last.fm/music/Panopticon

Forging some really unique "indie" black metal here:
http://www.last.fm/music/Hennes+Siste+H%C3%B8st

This should continue to be an exciting new year and who knows what 2010 will bring us. I see a greater chasm growing even wider between the underground and those bands that you see in all the magazines like Behemoth, 1349, Enslaved, etc. This makes that mediocre stuff seem all that much more trivial in the end.

Skagos - Ást

2009-09-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

Do you ever listen to an album and after your first listen you feel like you know it really well? I find this happening to me when an album fills a void for me. Or completes a connection, and makes a next logical step in the progression of a certain marriage of styles or atmospheres. I feel familiar at these times because I feel familiar with what I want to happen, what I need a band to deliver. I always need it until I find it.

Whether you like them or not, Wolves in the Throne Room is making an influence. I'm not 100% confident saying that Skagos is hugely influenced by Wolves, but that Skagos takes many of the same elements and influences and has recorded the next logical step beyond that which Wolves in the Throne Room perfected.

Skagos has big riffs. Big, huge, churning, long, traveling kinda riffs, but they come in many different types. This album's charm though not uncommon, is the use of ebb and flow. Riffs drift and build and are harmonized upon and build rhythmically as the percussion also fantastically builds the repeating riffs until they soar and pick up tempo. All of the instrumentation is used magically to achieve this effect. Clean choral type vocals, bongos, acoustic guitar, killer bass playing, you name it, its all present and totally ruling. This band along with a growing number of cohorts (including Velnias) among the youthful genre employ a familiar style based on this technique: establishing a simple power chord or note that is often returned to and built off of for most of the song. For me this can be likened to the strong choral elements of the first Ulver album. This may not sound like anything all that original in black metal and I'm not saying it is extremely so, but I find its a strong tendency and a thing I like a lot about this album.

Overall "Ast" is an exciting mark of birth upon a genre that I hope I never get sick of. If the fact that Skagos' members just graduated high school in May is any indication, there is a bright future for these gents, though I'm afraid to report that after two forthcoming splits or so and a full length Skagos will cease to exist as reported on their page.

http://www.myspace.com/skagos

Incursus - Eternal Funeral Trance

2009-08-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to write this review for over three years. In July of 2006 Incursus took the pulpit at the Gathering of Shadows deep within the woods of the Colorado mountains. I took to the hillside under a pine tree and I lay down peering toward the stage lit by the full moon, burning torches and two cauldrons of burning roadkill on either side of them whirling throughout the enigmatic night sky. What was conjured at this time will never be paralleled again. The true potential power that black metal art holds was risen and it fully harnessed my mind during this time. To take part in a ritual with as much power as this is a highlight of my life. Having said that, I awaited for three long years to see if Incursus could release an album that captured that demonic energy and make it as effective as their live ritual was.

Yesterday I received "Eternal Funeral Trance" in the mail. This album is a hellish maelstrom of evil. Nothing can top seeing Incursus live but this album is the next best thing. The riffing and the production remind me of the faster moments of Inquisitors era Deathspell Omega as well as the Manifestations 2002 album. No bullshit fast paced tremolo picked chords are abundant here. At times this fits in nicely with some faster bands like Handful of Hate and Black Death Ritual but its hard to categorize it for that because the M.O. here isn't speed, its to conjure the most diabolical music known to man. I can verily say with great heartiness that this record accomplishes just that with fervor and accomplishment. The drumming is competent and fairly one dimensional, which is what this sort of thing calls for: high hat blasting til the heavens collapse. I found the vocals rather unique here. They are somewhat of a rasp and half whisper. At times there are extra vocal overdubs that drive the powerful atmosphere further. I can tell that I will be playing this album quite a bit in the coming months. I strongly urge you to pick it up if this sounds like anything up your alley. Hails to Tomas and Forever Plagued for finally getting this album out.

10/10!

Autumnal Winds - Venerari Sacra Mysteria 2005

2009-06-15T00:32:00.000-07:00

I want to bring to light a rather overlooked demo from a talented band called Autumnal Winds from Minnesota. This demo satisfies well a very melodic, vivid and well composed style reminiscent of early Greek and Swedish metal bands of the early to mid 90's and not the ultra-produced hyperspeed Necrofaggot bands that come from these countries today. The music bears a strong resemblance to early era Ophthalamia.

The melodic harmony of the lead and rhythm guitars as well as the dual vocal style are the main selling points, but also note-able here is a superbly clean and candid recording. This lends even more credibility to the sparse and lush atmosphere achieved. The mid paced songs travel the listener fluently through well played, unique and remarkably stylish riffery which range vastly from many different known techniques. The song writing is not very repetitive, and incredibly solid. Its very apparent that a lot of thought and creativity inspired this release. Among all this very pleasing and arid listening is my only complaint about the album. The drum machine sound is rather cheesy. Its not so much that it sounds all that bad, but I know that this album would be helped greatly if this were a real drummer playing these parts. This is why I'm incredibly thankful that Tanner is re-recording these songs with his new band Obsequiae which emplores an incredibly talented drummer who is in also in a band called Mortality. The drum machine kit ued could be incredibly worse as I have heard on other albms, but here its just very dry and drab. On a final note there is a prevalent use of keyboard which accompanies well and further embellishes the remarkable guitar work.

If this sounds of interest to you at all I urge you to give this a listen if you can and also be sure to check out the excellent Obsequiae when their debut comes out. You can already hear a few remade versions by following this link: http://www.myspace.com/obsequiae Also Obsequiae has agreed to let me do an interview with them once the demo comes out, so be sure to check that out once its completed.

Paysage d'Hiver - Paysage d'Hiver

2009-05-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

When writing reviews sometimes it feels severely limiting to use mere words to describe a profound and involving media such as music. When is comes to an album like this, words that put this music into perspective are few and far between.
When I first listened to this I was in a small village in western Ireland. I had holed myself up in a 100% pitch black bedroom when I pressed play. From the onset, the world that Wintherr has created on this album began to draw me in. In such an otherworldly manner my aural palate was filled with whirring, buzzing guitar distortion playing rather long and memorable evocative riffs. The repetition of the riffs is key to the atmosphere here. It draws you in more and more in a hypnotic whirring daze. The fidelity of the guitar recording is so misshapen and almost unfamiliar that you begin to fill in the blanks, telling yourself what you are hearing from time to time. The drums are so buried in the mix, that when audible, they are moreso an inferred afterthought. The tempo is more determined by the guitar playing than the drumming. Amidst this web of callous otherworldly hell is a painful ethereal shrieking that is only heard in black metal. The vocals are sparse, and like the drums sometimes meld in with the all involving guitar distortion so much that you cant quite be sure if you're hearing the recording or if your mind is becoming numb.
On a majority of Paysage d'Hiver's songs there is an accompanying yet subtle keyboard heard, often playing the main guitar riff. This is one element that I think draws a parallel to Wintherr's other stupendous band Darkspace. In both Darkspace and Paysage d'Hiver, minimalism is used exactly how it should only be used. Rather than taking on the form of typical music in a way that pleases listeneres with melodies, choruses, tempo changes and lyrics, a vivid atmosphere is formed from codependant and cohesive elements and textures. This I believe is a wonderful testament to the breadth of what we as humans have left to explore with music.
I am tempted to say more about this great great album but I dont want to give away all the details. If it sucks you in and you listen to this album, you are in for an infinity of distance for it to do so.

1349 - Revelations of the Black Flame

2009-05-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

From the onset of this album it is clear that 1349 is reaching outside the box for a new direction. Sailing far away from their last album Hellfire which was pretty much a death metal album with black metal tuning, they seem to be trying to incorporate more experimental and atmospheric elements into the fold. While this is mainly ineffective and messy most of the time, when there is some actual music going on, its really convoluted and messy. Gone is the brilliant riffing found on the debut EP or Liberation, gone is the brilliant hyperspeed blasting of Frost, gone is the...metal! This is like a "flash in the pan" ambient / soundscape album with the occasional minute and a half or so of music.

The album was co-mixed by Tom Fischer of Celtic Frost. Why? You got me. The guitars are severely over driven and a murky muddy mess which also buries the drums in the mix. While not a whole lot to write home about, i'm actually pretty impressed by the way the vocals sound on here. Lots of varied unique engineering and panning that breathes life into an otherwise standard vocal performance.

The song writing on here is flaccid and underwhelming, but the riffing is just downright boring. There are several riffs on here that make me think I'm standing in guitar center watching some dork fuck around on an Epiphone. I think 1349 decided that it had been too long since their last release, so the guitar player threw some riffs on a tape and sent them to Frost. During the lunch break he got on the one day he took to write and record Satyricon's "The Age of Nero," he whipped up 15 minutes of drumming over the riff tape and sent it to the singer to add his stuff.

After suffering through this whole shitbarf of an album, I can honestly say there is only one song that is even a song. Track #4 "Maggot Fetus...Teeth Like Thorns" is a somewhat speedy turd that actually feels like a song, but its merely ok at best. While I wasn't a fan of Hellfire, I would take it over this album any day. Stop wasting our time and give us something worth downloading.

Beherit - "Engram"

2009-04-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

Best come back album in black metal ever. Given that statement, this album is only "pretty good." I'm not a fan of come backs...at all. I know the circumstances surrounding every one of them differ greatly, but really, if you bury a band, keep it there, here is why.

Its just not a viable thing now that umpteen bands have taken the path Beherit paved so much further than they ever did...and certainly not 16 years after the release of their last metal album "Drawing Down the Moon." SIXTEEN YEARS!!! That albums kid can legally drive now. Engram is great for what it is, its definitely Beherit, but the conundrum with this sort of thing is you cannot evolve when you come up with this sort of sound, and you also cannot expect it to always sound new, relevant and innovative. Innovation is always specifically dated; and in music, especially strange demonic devil music, when something has lost its potency, its as flaccid as Stephen Hawking's hoo-hoo. I cant think of any bands "come back" album that rules. Given this heap of an opinion, I respect someone who can put all this aside and judge the album on its own accord.

Every second of this album is most definitely undeniably Beherit. More along the lines of The Oath of Black Blood and further removed from the more atmospheric leanings of Drawing Down the Moon. Its got a lot of vicious ferocity which is played in the trademark nihilistic and vitriolic manner that only Beherit can manifest. Holocausto's unforgettable barking vocals, the riffs that know no melody and barbaric caveman drums are all here. At times the recording is a bit too showy and full sounding. Beherit definitely have their fair share of recordings that sound like the engineer was strangled to death with razor wire, and most of the time that worked to their advantage. Here the guitar is vast, meaty and very synthetic sounding. Its done well enough to make this a very devastating record but I still have my qualms about how "normal" everything sounds on this. Excluding vocals, sometimes I feel like moments of the record could be mistaken for a new era Candlemass or Reverend Bizarre part.

All in all I'm really surprised this album is good but again I just feel like its relevance is significantly diminished. The barbaric black metal convoy left Beherit back in the woods 16 years ago but hasn't forgotten how great this band truly once was.

Gentle Giant - the Power and the Glory

2009-04-14T17:11:00.000-07:00

Gentle Giant is by far my favorite musical discovery of 2008. I still don't know much about this band and I've only perused the albums chronologically from 1970-1974, which were actually incredibly prolific years having released six albums in that time. I chose this one to review because it has so far been the most enjoyable in a plethora of ways, and it has most of the songs that they performed live on a Belgian TV appearance from 1975 which is what initially entranced me about this great progressive band.

Gentle Giant fall best within the fellow countrymen and prog chums of their day: Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and Van der Graaf Generator and maybe even Jethro Tull. What sets them apart though is going to be hard to put into words though its clear to me. They have such a fervor for variance and creativity. They are unrelenting in painting the songs on this album with every tasty characteristic and vivid personality trait that they have to offer. Nothing is held back.

The bedrock upon which Gentle Giant's space station is built upon is rhythmically playful melodic synth work accompanied by gleeful, whimsical, and sometimes dissonant vocals. Each sci-fi themed tune is an experimental journey laden with catchy and masterful percussion, which drives forth the varied tempos from groovy stuff to sometimes jarringly technical wankery. When a lot of modern technically proficient drummers can shred their kit to pieces, drummer John Weathers knows his way around a groove without sounding too showy. While the guitar players are also awesome, I don't want to get off on a tangent here. Its important to note that no single member or instrument on this album is doing more than crafting and performing the Gentle Giant armada as a whole.

I dont know much about the limitations and abilities of studios in 1974 but I want to point out also that the recording on this album is unbelievable. It really takes Gentle Giant's style to a new level with great recording, panning and mastering that doesnt sound like a dusty old 70s record. Everything has a nice warm mid range tone that isnt mushy or convoluted.

If you're looking for something to come back to again several times for years to come, this is a must have.

Storm - "Nordavind"

2009-03-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of band that should only put out one album and then be done. Its a great idea but needn't be carried further than this one terrific slab of an album. Out viking-ing this album is unflattering and unpossible. While Isengard's "Høstmorke" and Otyg's "Alvefard" do come close, both are well established enough within their own persona that I wouldnt say they are frighteningly similar. While some tracks on here are traditionals (other bands doing the same songs can be found on soulseek), the whole album plays wonderfully ending in the epic "Noregsgard" which is a song that can also be found on Darkthrone's Panzerfaust with different lyrics. The music is very mid-paced and maintains a steady consistent pace which builds a staunch and catchy nature to the songs. Sung in Norwegian primarily by Satyr Wongraven, the vocals are always a perfect complement to the irresistable guitars. Kari Rueslatten's angelic singing can do no wrong here. Most of the time she lends backing vocals, but she really shines on "Langt Borti Lia" which she gets the spotlight on. Her incredible voice can album be heard on early 3rd and the Mortal albums. This is an album I have loved and come back to repeatedly over the years, and it never fails me.

Update

2009-02-01T20:19:00.000-08:00

I know it probably seems like I've forgotten about updating this blog already but that is untrue. Ive been working on what will probably be the hardest review of my life. I cant wait to publish it, but in the mean time, just sit tight.

Keep of Kalessin "Through Times of War"

2009-01-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

Here's an all too dusty item from my collection. I see a lot of hype for this band lately, but little mention of their debut full length "Through Times of War." This is a solid release with a fair amount of diverse and atmospheric stuff going on. A lot of comparison could be drawn to early Satyricon and Emperor's work because of the layering of synth and often used power chord riffery.

The interesting thing about this release is that its the first of its kind to incorporate a heightened focus on a more angered and intense element while maintaining a great roving, galloping pace about it all. Its a teetering balance to stride but I think its success is proven in how memorable the riffing and song writing is. While I liked the next album "Agnen" a lot, I think this was the bands downfall that led to them now playing lazy and forgettable death metal ala Behemoth.

Its a very guitar heavy album but there is a fair amount of not so intrusive synth use and the vocals while competent and somewhat evocative, are sorta back seat on this knightly steed. The drums are gargantuan and perfectly reproduced by studio Brygga. It should also be stated that there is some noteworthy bass playing here, which is something I rarely take notice of due to faulty recordings within this genre. The album opens with some great memorable catchy melodic nordic type stuff which lasts strongly until the fifth song which changes it up a bit with a more dirgey and repetitive song, which is a preparatory precursor to the fucking infernal warmongeror that is "Obliterator." The album's closer is more of a return to the bands penchant for slower paced monotonous atmospheric material. Its got a lot of spoken word vocals and reverb laden guitar harmonies but all in all its not the best song on the album. After a few minutes of silence there's another song, its some bonus material that I'm going to forget is on here because its really stupid. It sounds like they had an unused second guitar track and the band recorded some improv stuff over it. Unnecessary and not worth having it on there.

Troll - Trollstorm Over Nidingjuv

2009-01-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

Here's an album I hadn't listened to in at least ten years. Upon re-inspection I cant shake the feeling that I'm listening to a current BM release. This could unmistakably fit in with something released today. It reminds me somewhat of whats been coming out of Trondheim, Norway lately. Celestial Bloodshed and all those young misanthropes. The only thing that sets this apart from current stuff is that I feel like there's a stronger sense of innovation for it's time. This is evidenced by the varied instrumentation and style. I dislike when it feels like a band is out to prove a point by driving the nail too far into christ's already limp wrists. There are too many bands just beating a dead horse in the interest of a revivalist movement of this sort of early 90's black metal. If there is even a line between this revivalism and redundancy, its a thin one at best.

Though its a short listen, this is a great EP of mid-paced, unmelodic, nordic black metal from Nagash, who is better known for his contributions in Dimmu Borgir, is a memorable and worthy example of grim nordic art with the occasional viking-ish leaning.

Download: Troll - Trollstorm Over Nidingjuv

Top Metal Releases of 2008

2009-01-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

Horna - "Sanojesi Aeaerelle" Seven years after initially hating this band, I never thought I'd be this enthralled with Horna. This album has so much to offer, everything about it is impressive.

Dead Congregation - "Graves of the Archangels" Christ is dead because of this ugly slab of death metal. Grab a fork and get ready to eat some fucking riffs.

Baptism - "Grim Arts of Melancholy" This was such a surprise, nothing else was this overbearingly desolate in 2008. These guys got way better and will continue to get better.

Nachtmystium - "Assassins" This is a thoroughly experimental melding of pop / rock and metal. Its a very ecclectic and accomplished feat for these guys.

Braindrill - "Apocalyptic Feasting" This album is out to deflesh you, and it accomplishes just that. Insanely technical and bludgeoning, you cant help but get suckered into thrashing to this album's unbelievable fury.

Deathspell Omega - "Manifestations 2002" So glad this was released. Its a nightmarishly misanthropic slab of unholy bleakness. This is real black metal.

Virus - "the Black Flux" We are all lucky to have such an geniously composed album. There arent many bands out there that are this forward thinking and tolerable.

Leviathan - "Massive Conspiracy Against All Life" Finally, a good Leviathan album. This is one raging beast of a record. Very diverse and yet focused in its direction and execution.

Deathspell Omega - "Chaining the Katechon" See my review below.

Darkspace - "III" Though I prefer II to III, this is another bleak glimpse into the blackest void ever imagined. This album will consume you!

Honorable Mentions:
Coffins - "Buried Death"
Miserys Omen - "Hope Dies"
The Black - "Alongside Death"
Morbosidad - "Profana la Cruz del Nazareno"

2009? Anyone?

2008-12-20T07:16:00.000-08:00

The coming year may usher in some new gems within the metal genre. It already looks better than 2008, but only time will tell. Furthermore, I wish to enumerate the reasons here.

- First of all Gorgoroth. BOTH OF THEM. I'm more excited about Infernus' version due to the recent re-installation of once former vocalist Pest as well as former guitarist Tormentor. While the legal dispute drags on for the namesake of the band, Gaahl's version of Gorgoroth will also release new material. Despite this, let me just go on record as saying that this band has always been an abortion that gets lucky half of the time. Why the hell cant Infernus secure a real line-up?

- Though I'm a huge fan of their early work, I highly doubt any new material from Immortal will even be worth downloading, but you never know. When is the last time you heard a decent re-union album? Then again, when was the last time you heard a decent Immortal album? 1997 is the correct answer.

- Though I'm getting a little sick of hearing about it without having an actual product for several years now, there is still talk of a new Thorns album being unearthed.

- Elysian Blaze will darken thy path with some new stuff next year. If their contribution to the previously reviewed split is a competent glimpse, I will be very pleased.

- Supposedly Finland's Warloghe is working on new material. I'll believe it when I hear it.

- With new drummer Dirge Rep (enslaved, gehenna), Sweden's Craft are working on a new album entitled "Void".

- According to their myspace, Lamented Souls are working on a debut full length. After eleven years of not having new material I wonder how different this will be.

- Fungoid Stream? These criminally underknown Lovecraftian doomsters were supposed to release "Oceanus" this year but I guess 2009 will be the year for it to happen.

- After hearing Absu's side of a split 7" with Rumpelstiltskin Grinder out on relapse this year, we are in for a maddeningly thrashful opus from the new line-up. Let's hope they debut a few new tunes at the next Maryland Death Fest which I hope to attend.

- Nokturnal Mortum are supposedly gearing up for new stuff and also playing a few first ever gigs in Finland with Temnozor.

- Filling recent years' lack of good doom will be Mournful Congregation if all goes as planned. This will be out January 20th

- Following VVORLDVVITHOUTEND is something I wouldn't wish upon any band, but if any band can top it, Katharsis is the band for the job. I really look forward to this with curiosity.

- Wolves in the Throne Room tell me that March is when we will see a new album from them. Expect longer songs, and more dying.

other notable possibilities (because this is getting boring):
Black Death Ritual
Darkwoods My Betrothed!!!!
Clandestine Blaze!
Ruins of Beverast
Dawn?? (Pffft probably not)
Funeral Mist
Beherit? (we shall see)
Negative Plane
Drudkh
Necros Christos
Altar of Perversion
Archgoat

Deathspell Omega - Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum

2008-12-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh, this band is such a giving band. I hadn't heard a word about this release until a week before it's release so it was a very pleasant surprise. After umpteen utterly satisfying listens to the song "Chaining the Katechon." I am able to put it into words here.

Furthering their notoriety as purveyors of abandonment, even more morosely sour and disheveling harmonies are strewn about here, molding a capable and colossal pyre of intricate yet obscure morsels of sound. While there are certain negative things that can be said about this release, which I will get to later on, I am most happy with it because I feel like its the most fluent and lethal display of the arsenal of characteristics that they have mastered since their transformation on the "SMRC" album. Where virtually every other band in the black metal genre illuminate a facade or portray a pre-determined mythological demon with dull and worn out fervor most of the time only to live up to what has been done well in the past, Deathspell Omega have flayed another dimension in which their discordant tones and murky harmonies bind in an elegance mastered singularly by these strange fellows. Most note-able on this song is that intensely fast tempos are far more frequent and possibly a little less spurty. There's a lot less drawn out slower minimalist moments to get caught up in as was seen in their "Fas.." disc. The incredibly unique guitar work found on here is moreso the threshold upon which this song works from. While the rhythms are pretty vanilla albeit fucking furious, you'll find a plethora of strange riffing utilizing an all too perverse style of harmonizing that I don't think Ive heard anything similar to.

Apart from all the worshipful things I could spew about this band and disc, I want to point out a negative thing that could be said about this stuff. I only want to bring it up because I feel that it is arguably justifiable. Consistent with, and infinitely empowered by Deathspell Omega's abandonment of all things prior and known, I feel compositionally speaking that this song can be characterized a meandersome smattering of brilliance. In some ways it reminds me of the aural mind fuck that Blut Aus Nord's "Mort" album was. Some more lead headed metal fandom of the traditional ilk might find this sort of album a chore to listen to, what with the vapid air of renewal and innovation that I feel makes this such a unique and challenging listen.

Great Kat is a FAKE!

2008-12-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

I feel like I've been lied to for a long time. The Great Kat is this not so famous guitar player that really wants your attention for playing top 40 classical songs on her guitar in a very fast thrash metal style. Sort of like Joan Jett meets Yngwie Malmsteen I guess. Shes never played in any "band." Apparently she was just born famous with a scrunchee around her wrist, worthy of being worshiped. She has apparently won all sorts of accolades from dorky guitar magazines and such. My friend rented this DVD from netflix to satiate his curiosity about her, and hopefully see some impressive guitar playing. Given the circumstances you would think this wouldn't be hard to find on this dvd but it is in fact exactly what the dvd is devoid of! There's 5 shoooooooort videos which are ridiculous and don't show any footage of her playing guitar. Its pretty apparent that they are waving cameras around her enough that you cant see her fumbling about the fretboard in a severely amateur fashion. I didn't actually count, but I think there's more footage of her tits than there is of her playing guitar. The "live in Chicago" footage is a laughably faked performance that also doesn't have any footage of her playing guitar. So we resorted to youtube, figuring there's gotta be something there. I invite you to check out her official channel there: http://www.youtube.com/user/KthomasPR

The longest video contained there is :15 in length. Rather telling, eh? The only footage we were able to find is this: As you can see her stage antics are way more important than actually playing music, and all the music she actually does play is conveniently simple thrash stuff with some tremolo picking but definitely no "shredding." At the end of the DVD you'll find the toll free number for the Great Kat Hotline! I called it and its been disconnected. I tried the long distance number too, its her work number! Some agency, the message said "press 4 for Kat." So not only is this dvd worthless, but I am also calling the Godawful Kat out on feeding us nothing but lies for years. Great Kat I'll believe youre a shredder when you come to my house and play guitar for me. Until then, you are total bullshit.

S.V.E.S.T. - Urfaust

2008-12-03T20:32:00.000-08:00

I have to admit the only reason I am giving this a second listen is in anticipation of the forthcoming split with Deathspell Omega. I remember listening to this a long ago and being apalled by it, but I forgot to note specifically how and why. I am initially offended because I feel like someone, maybe more than one person, expects me to listen to this without immediately turning it off. Usually when I read a review of someone calling an metal album "unlistenable" or "total garbage" Im instantly dying to hear it. Usually I find it to be decent at least. People say Beherit sounds like total shit. Some people like me are aware that it sounds the way it was supposed to sound. So please understand that I do know how to listen to and enjoy music that sounds like static to other people. I'm a big fan of World (jap), Masonna, Rehtfa Ruo, Paysage d'Hiver, and so on. This is an album where it is clear to me that the audio fidelity or lack thereof was more important to someone than the music that was written for the album. It sounds like listening to the radio between three different stations. One of them is playing old Mutiilation rehearsals, another is the 24 hour crappy guitar solo channel, and another is playing hearts of space. Ignoring the sound quality, the music isnt anything special. S.V.E.S.T. play chaotic sort of fast obnoxious black metal with some thrash elements involved, somewhat typical for French stuff of this era. Theres a few somewhat clever guitar / synth harmonies strewn about but certainly nothing that makes it worth listening to this album for any length of time. Its not often that I will thoroughly dismiss a underground black metal album and regard it as having zero merit, but this is an exception. If its any advice to someone who has yet to hear this album but is curious to do so: move on, nothing to see here, NEXT.

Lyrinx / Elysian Blaze / D.O.R. - Universal Absence

2008-11-30T16:38:00.000-08:00

Here is a three way split between three very similar bands. All playing a type of black metal that I've been hearing a lot more of lately. Its really thinly produced spacious and laden with reverb. The music is really mid-paced to slow and often quite dirgey. Almost like doom's aesthetic only on a higher intonation. Anyways Lyrinx kick it off with some really repetitive material that relies moreso on its tinny production that the music being played. Its decent at times, but more forgettable than anything. Elysian Blaze offer us a glimpse into what may perhaps be somewhat of a new direction for them, furthering what they displayed with prowess on their "Levitating the Carnal" opus. The track "Black Hole Euphoria" takes on a much more grueling and agonizing pace, drudging along like an night fog. The sound here reminds me a lot of newer Nortt only this tends to keep my attention a bit better. This song has such an ethereal and downtrodden pace to it, I really cant get enough to it. I cant imagine how awesome there forthcoming double LP is going to be. By the time D.O.R.'s material rolls around, i'd be surprised if anyone is in the mood to listen to them. Which is sort of a shame because they're not all that bad, but again, relying too heavily on the lack of production value here.

Weird Truth / Membaris - Conspiracy split CD

2008-11-28T17:58:00.000-08:00

Its easy enough for me to say that this split is noteworthy because it is a lot better than bad black metal. Though that wouldnt really be fair, its strength lies somewhere between that truth and the fact that some fairly remarkable German black metal can be found on this release. Coming straight at you with a most vaguely unmenacing moniker, Weird Fate's music reminds me a lot of Lunar Aurora's "Weltenganger" in that the guitar work is intricately played but vastly written. Some similarities could also be drawn to the mighty Nightbringer of the U.S.A. Weird Fate's modus operandi runs the gamut anywhere from a somewhat dry "violent" nature to a more developed and mature atmospheric melodicism. They do so rather fluently, but this band really shows their novice tendencies when they do the somewhat redundant violent stuff, which is where I tend to lose attention. The production on this is top notch and I feel it does a great justice to the bands ability to harness the power of black metal and convey their emotion and atmospheric strength vividly. Aside from a few rather long winded passages and the occasional non-metal meanderings (see: fruity piano parts, exhaustively synth laden dirges, frolicky acoustic interludes) This stuff is realy good. Weird Fate are great at playing their instruments and with any luck they will be a band to keep an ear on quite soon.
Membaris have a somewhat similar demeanor as Weird Fate but have a way more speedy galloping tempo to their stuff. Im finding their half of the split to be more on the forgettable side because I've heard heaps of bands playing in this fashion. Its all decent but only as good as the rest of it. The riffing is a lot less musical, the vocals are a barely even a noticeable element, and the drumming is predictable. This sort of reminds me of Orcustus.

Obsequiae Interrogated

2003-02-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

HHH: Why was Autumnal Winds ended and Obsequiae started?
BDN: Let's start with the uninteresting history before we explain the name change since I doubt any of your readers remember or have even heard of Autumnal Winds. I started that band when I was in high school with two other friends that were both interested in underground metal at the time. The demos were produced scarcely and not promoted beyond our circle of friends and our immediate correspondence in the underground during that time. We were just young and way too influenced by what was available to us. I think our style and approach changed every week with the arrival of new packages of demos and albums of killer bands we were obsessed with back then. Eventually we developed a focus and sound but it didn't go far beyond that. And when I was the last one standing, I put my remaining ideas together for a the last AW demo called "Venerari Sacra Mysteria" and recorded it myself. Almost immediately after I finished it, I just kind of put it to rest because it was too much effort to do alone and I was more involved with other bands I was playing in back then. Shortly after, I was contacted by a guy around here who got a copy of "Venerari..." and liked it. We became friends and ended up playing music together. We were both pretty distracted by our respective projects and lives then. Eventually we got around to the idea of actually taking time and working together seriously. But it would be ridiculous to say we "revived" Autumnal Winds. I feel that Autumnal Winds as a whole was more like a period of young, developing ideas that would later evolve into what it was meant to be and that vision couldn't have been achieved without the talent, writing and collaboration of Neidhart. His influence on my playing and ways of thinking were profoundly influential on me. He takes music and art seriously and we share the same passion for the underground, so it was natural that we start something that we could call our own. Autumnal Winds was not the predecessor nor the framework to build upon - more or less the kindling that sparked the fire of what Obsequiae has and is becoming. We have our own identity today.
NVR: There have been a couple of other people who have contributed to this music along the way creatively and technically, but Blondel carried forward the Autumnal Winds thing to the point at which it met me. At the time we were separately doing our own material. I was working on some kind of melodic thrash/death metal stuff, but all in its fledgling stages while I trained myself how to write music, play guitar again and make my own recordings. We were befriended through the demo of “Venerari Sacra Mysteriia,” which I found at a local metal record store. We started talking about and listening to music together and played in various live incarnations of things he and I have both written on our own. The Obsequiae thing kind of happened innocuously out of that. He had tons of riffs and some nearly completed songs archived and we started talking about bringing them to fruition. We decided to start with 3 songs from Venerari because I had a technical learning curve to overcome in recording something while playing guitar, drums and bass, it made sense for us to do something that wouldn't be starting totally from scratch. I've always viewed my role as an embellishment. Venerari was quantized electronic drums, I definitely wanted something more organic and melodic on the drums. So we did a fair amount of re-arranging, I re-wrote the drums, added guitar solos and acoustic passages and spent about a year mixing it, so I guess we more than made up for the time we “saved” by doing material that had already been recorded in some form. But it was a good way for us to find a meeting point aesthetically, since we have very different approaches – his is the medieval/Celtic influence in 2 guitar 4ths and 5ths and stream-of-consciousness riffing – mine tends to be more renaissance or baroque in style and more legato. We try to find the balance between those two different styles.
HHH:If you could be making any type of music, is the music of Obsequiae what you would choose to make?
BDN: Obsequiae is the only output I have where I'm able to create metal that embodies so many of my influences. When I sit down to play the guitar without any context, the riffs I tend to immediately write are riffs that suit Obsequiae. It seems I can't escape the fact that this really is the core of who I am as a guitarist. The way we write and collaborate is unique. And, as a musician, that is fulfilling. We both recognize that there are a lot of roads to travel as musicians. I enjoy a variety of styles of music and different styles of metal of course. So it is beneficial and important to build on those influences and styles. We both play separately apart from Obsequiae in other bands/projects and I'm sure we always will. It doesn't affect our dedication or attention to this band whatsoever. I have always felt a drive to write dark, harmonious metal.
NVR: We've both proclaimed that Obsequiae is most important, although it is only one of the musics we make. All through the process of mixing the demo I was working on future demos for us or preparing for live performance of that material and it started to feel like a second full time job and too bogged down in technical aspects and not enough creativity. So I came to the conclusion that I definitely need other outlets, and I play drums and guitar in other stuff. We've learned that our experiences outside of Obsequiae help us keep a balance within it though - it all contributes. That extends beyond music too - to life in general. Sometimes my ears and brain need a rest and I need to read a book, watch a film or get some exercise...
HHH: What would it take for you to consider music (or metal) dead?
BDN: Perhaps the day interviews are conducted on blogs? Or maybe when crust kids thoughtlessly listen to NSBM, hipsters write extensive articles on black metal almost 20 years after it made its mark and collapsed upon itself when it was given attention and exploited by the media, any 3rd rate thrash from the 90s is now considered authentic and retro, sharing mp3s rapidly is common but the days of writing in your "alternate order" wouldn't even be recognized by today's metal fan, etc. I'm fucking around of course. I really don't care. The internet made all of this convenient. The underground has always experienced sporadic waves of popularity with different gimmicks or inventions. This is no different. Those who were meant to stick around will do just that. The bandwagon will collapse and rebuild itself in time. Extreme subcultures attract people that are extreme - in the sense of emotional extremities. There are a lot of lost, overgrown children who need ideologies laid out for them because they're terrified of the world around them and their own identities. This kind of discouragement can be felt in any community that creates. For music and art to exist, we need extremes. We need minds that can maintain balance and strong art. So long as the will to create is alive - music, art and everything that inspires it will not die.
NVR: Neither will ever die because they're coming from a place inherent in human spirit and creativity. There will always be a minority worthy to carry metal and music forward.
What makes Obsequiae worth making and listening to?
BDN: I have no way of answering why it's worth listening to anyone. The people that have made the effort to get in touch with us have been excellent. They all seem to be the kinds of people who appreciate bands we appreciate, recognize and distinguish our various influences and understand our mark on all of it. I'm confident we'll draw in the kind of listeners that were meant to find it.
NVR: The struggle is what makes it worthwhile, in life and in music. As soon as it becomes easy, it's cheap, not worth listening to and not worth doing. As far as listening to us? That's not for me to decide for anyone else.
Are you Blondel de Nesle also a French oil tycoon or is it only Neidhart von Reuental who harvests black gold?
NVR: If by black gold you mean my boogers that turned black from playing in decaying basements, I have long since retired from the occupation. Now I have a practice space. I'm pretty sure it is slowly poisoning everyone who practices there though...
I know you guys are planning an acoustic release. What sorts of themes and inspirations will be visited with this release?
BDN: We're working on a medieval release, not an acoustic release. This idea came about early on as we're both invested in this style of music. Renaissance and Classical periods have been implemented in extreme metal (I'm thinking Windham Hell not wanking Shrapnel recording artists or failed "folk metal"). But medieval music is explored less if at all. We're arranging 13th century music from Spain, France & England for Obsequiae. It isn't as far removed from what we currently do as far as working with two-part harmony that develops as it repeats a theme. The only difficult task with medieval music is that most of the music is usually arranged so that rhythm is determined by the prayers or poems from which they're derived. Shifting between so many time signatures, making glorious metal but still authentic to the original works... you can see why this is both intimidating to us just as much as a challenge that we can't afford to not attempt. This is still in the idea stage, although we do have the specific songs selected, so I don't want to curse ourselves should it be too ambitious or we become too immersed in recording our full-length which is nearing completion at the moment.
NVR: Well, we talked initially about making a medieval release that was entirely acoustic, but the path has since changed and we can't really talk about it beyond that because we're still developing the ideas. I can say that it will be authentically medieval in terms of the voicings and rhythms – moreso than that which already happens. There will be some medieval acoustic numbers on the next release, specifically with the nylon-string guitar, which I really like the sound of - akin to the lute which is from renaissance and baroque eras.
How did the "pay what you want" policy go with the digital version of your demo?
BDN: We've heard from Marty that several people have bought it. We actually signed with Bindrune Recordings before we even released our cassette and coincidentally Marty was setting up his "digital downloads" around that time. So that's how that happened. We made the covers, dubbed the cassettes but put a Bindrune logo on them to show our early affiliation with the label. But the tapes are getting out there so that's pleasing to hear. I've bought LPs before that have "download coupons" in them where you enter a code and you can download the music if you've already bought the vinyl. I think that's a good idea for those of us who have insane fucking schedules to follow with work, life, etc. As much as I'd like to listen to vinyl all day, it's cool when you can bring it somewhere else on an iPod or whatever. We even received an email from a guy in the Netherlands I think who took our demo to some beautiful landscape he described by a river and wrote to us in detail about his experience listening to our music against the environment.
NVR: Digital mediums have still not evolved to the quality of analog recordings, and they rightly should have by now. That's market driven, which obviously has nothing to do with music or quality. The audio quality of recordings consumed by the average listenership (in the form of MP3's) has been shown to have pretty much the worst fidelity in all of recording history. It's just terrible. But the kids want to cram as much fucking music onto their iPod as they can and don't give a shit about how it sounds. For the stuff posted on our MySpace page and whatnot, I just hope people realize that the quality is abysmal and that its merely a demonstration of a real thing worth buying.

I do think that someone should be able to hear what something sounds like before they commit money to it. And I think that for Bindrune it worked exactly the way we'd hoped – that people still bought the tape. And fortunately most who have bothered have dropped us a nice note to let us know what the music actually means to them and they've obviously invested some real time in it instead of just downloading it and letting it sit on their hard drive with a 4,000 other free albums stripped entirely of their aesthetic.
What do you ask of a person who wishes to wholly grasp your music?
BDN: If someone wishes to wholly grasp our music, I would recommend something else in the natural world to assist with the experience. Sit alone or walk alone somewhere without distraction. Our progressions are subtle and detailed and they demand a relaxed and attentive ear. The harmonies typically always repeat themes while constantly changing within the same contemplative feeling as the sections that came before them.
When we make ourselves aware of our surroundings in a familiar natural place, we begin to notice the subtle changes in things - however immediate they might be or otherwise developing over a great period of time. The air becoming lighter from fall to winter, the moisture on leaves, the scents of what is growing and what is dying around us. Not that any of these are essential to a listening experience. This is a personal opinion but I think it's important to anyone who "wishes to wholly grasp our music". The place and the music can become one, defined experience. And one can influence another positively.
NVR: To give it an honest assessment – to find it worthy enough to actively listen to the entire and official release with the lyrics and invest some imagination in where we're coming from - the way it was meant to be experienced. That's a tall order for most people, I think. I know from comments by various people who have heard us that someone is going to appreciate us more immediately if they're familiar with the roads paved aesthetically by the metal underground and darker music in general. Otherwise they're probably just not going to get it. They're either going to say they don't like the production values or the vocals, but they appreciate the musicianship, but the last thing I want people to notice when they listen to us is the “tricky” guitar parts or how fast/slow the drumming is or whatever. We spend a lot of time making Obsequiae the entire package - thinking really carefully about the arrangements, mixes, artwork, lyrics – all of it conceptually. So I guess if we're going to put in that much effort it would be nice for someone to pay attention for an hour.
Why do you play live?
NVR: I don't know. It's very difficult, primarily because we don't even really write as a live band and we never have enough time to really get good in that sense. We only do like 2 shows a year with maybe a month of rehearsing, and we have to get the live sound right which has been nearly impossible to convey in a foreign space accurately and instantaneously. We'd almost need all of our own gear and another member to rehearse with us to mix it right. It's also a really a lot to expect other musicians to invest themselves enough in our vision to give what's required to it. We've both been lucky enough to find people who are excited about presenting it live and therefore will rise to the level needed to do it justice. So far we've been pretty lucky to find such dedicated people. This past October we both moved and went through relationship transitions, I had an injury to mend and it just would have been too much. We decided ultimately not to put as much importance on it so we can focus on the creative outlet of writing and recording. Once those demo arrangements are satisfactory, then we'll concentrate on the performance aspect – not just for the sake of playing live, but for the sake of having a good recording that reflects months of intent listening to the demos and the delivery of a song from start to finish that feels organic the way a live band would. That's something we touched on with the demo but have learned how to better mitigate with two people since.