Author Andrew Doherty
On the face of it, this album oozes eccentric humour and playfulness. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this band is French and this country has a delightful record of eccentric bands: Akphaezya, Carnival in Coal, Edredo… Continue Reading →
The publicity for this dripped bombast and extravagant claims. The job of matching the hype falls to Deathspell Omega, who might have a chance, given their experience in the world of black metal creations. “The Long Defeat” is their eighth… Continue Reading →
Addictive tunes, juicy riffs and captivating hooks: these are the promised features of this so-called “action rock” from Sweden. Add to this the corny, self-effacing name, and you’ve got this long-standing band’s eighth album. I never know how these “old”… Continue Reading →
I’m going to be a bit lazy and go straight to the artist’s own description: “Pigments is a mix of ambient, electronic and industrial soundscapes. Pigments uses a dark colour palette to create haunting, serene, strange sound art”. I first… Continue Reading →
It’s a true statement that the San Francisco Bay Area is a base for strong, technical metal bands and here’s another in Nite. This is the band’s second album release. Blackened metal is how it’s described but the first thing… Continue Reading →
The plus point about instrumental bands is that they have to be vivid in order to create images in our mind in the absence of lyrical explanation. It wasn’t entirely helpful therefore to read that during the creation of this… Continue Reading →
In typical fashion of this label of dark and extreme metal, the music does the talking. Moluchtas are a Belgian black-death metal band. That’s the information. Let the music speak. This album gets off to an imposing start with a… Continue Reading →
I first encountered Playgrounded in 2012 when they released their ep “Athens”. It is an outstanding progressive work. It flowed, and had great impact without needing to exaggerate or place themselves on a pedestal. Such was the chord that it… Continue Reading →
Zwaard don’t do clarity. This band from the Netherlands do bleak black metal. Other than this information there is nothing. These three unnamed tracks tell us more. The first thing that is striking here is the sound. It’s old school… Continue Reading →
With this album, Californians Cailleach Calling (along with Ukrainian drummer Yurii Kononov) “fuse trancelike Emperial bludgeon with dreamlike melodic ambience, countering vocals of tether-end savagery with emotive, ethereal intimations of deep space”, we’re told. The ambiance is distinctly black metal…. Continue Reading →
This album is the work of Slovenian instrumentalists Shadow Universe, whose promised offer is of a contrast between simmering ambient soundscapes and heavy anxious darkness. There’s certainly plenty of the latter going round in the world at the moment. It… Continue Reading →
It’s good to see Czech band Godless Truth back like an old friend. Some years ago I saw them play somewhere in North London, possibly supporting Vomit Remnants at that pub at Archway, and liked their brutal style so much… Continue Reading →