Author Andrew Doherty
A new Haken album is always a treat. Grandiose, playful and above all prog, all of the band’s back catalogue has burst with imagination. My personal favourite is “Affinity” (2016). But I can hear harrumphing from other followers of the… Continue Reading →
The sister album to “Helionomicon”, which is being released at the same time, this one promises a hybrid of technical death and black metal. Sure enough what we have is a whirlwind of furious, technically-oriented shapes. Roaring, echoing vocals supplement… Continue Reading →
The sound of this band of 14 years is described as “a brutal mix of traditional metal metal meets 90s hardcore type sounds metal and a stoner-in-thrash alley”. The key here, I suspected, was always going to be the energy… Continue Reading →
Billed as post metal, this album promises a wider artistic edge with the addition of the jazz saxophone, violin and cello. The song titles alone suggest melancholy and intrigue … “Others are Gone. I Don’t Care”, “Feet in the Swamp…. Continue Reading →
30 years of existence, Norwegian, 7 albums including this one, and 3 active members of Khold – that’s Tulus in a nutshell. And it’s black metal of course, a fact which is even less surprising when you know that the… Continue Reading →
This curiously titled work comes from Kringa, a band which has been around for 13 years and which has now released two full albums along with some eps and demos. Essentially a black metal band, one thing which comes across… Continue Reading →
This album is painted as one of contrasts, with dissonance, technical and brutal death metal, jazz and prog thrown in. This is the album from this band who released their first in 2012. And indeed the first song is called… Continue Reading →
“Maximum speed. Minimum fuss”. And a lot of blackened death if I remember their previous work rightly. Vahrzaw is a band with a 30-year pedigree so has had plenty of time to fine-tune its soundscapes. The title of this album… Continue Reading →
Moshpit anthems, thrashy punishment, riff tornados, buzzsaw guitars and haunting melody are all mooted as part of the package of this album from Finland’s Anzillu. With experienced operatives behind the production and mastering, this all sounded promising. And what a… Continue Reading →
If you would like an audio depiction of a girl taking a 2TB usb stick off her keychain, and plugging it squarely into a swamp of a tiny planet, here’s the place to come. This ambitious work is a prog… Continue Reading →
Not only is this self-proclaiming black metal cacophony, but we’re told it is “punctuated by giallo horror movie inspired synth and foreboding atmosphere”. It’s all about what’s going in the ecosystems at the bottom of the ocean. “The Abyssal Plain”… Continue Reading →
It’s all about blackness and abysses. The artist must have been watching Breakfast TV, or the German equivalent of it. “Reue” (Regret) is Leipa’s second album. The man behind it known as Noise is also responsible for Kanonenfieber, a more… Continue Reading →