I want you to have this...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 say this was hugely influential on a lot of bands who are doing "post-_____" these days.

Beyond Dawn: Reviewed

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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.

my beard grows as steadily as my contempt for christ.

Manes - Ned I Stillheten

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.