Whetting appetite for the spring times
Last month was action packed: first I went to another city to get drunk with friends on animation festival, then international (at least wide celebrated in Russia) Women’s day hit my liver once again. All this was mixed with new music arrivals. Today I got two packs from Rise Above containing proper stoner rock and week ago I got nice neofolk pack plus some industrial and metal. Above it all the winter has come to an end, which is good because I’m tired of severe frosts and mountains of snowdrifts around. So let me begin my silly uber-short reviews of music.
Ghost – “Opus Eponymous”. I spotted this band in Rise Above catalogue but wasn’t interested that much first. But the next time I spotted it, I was mesmerized after hearing samples from their myspace. The awesome blend of metal of 70s and pop sounding vocals telling pure satanic lyrics hooked me immensely. This album is in my playlist daily now. The band managed to use old methods to achieve something fresh. Highly recommended!
Got full Rise Above discography of Orange Goblin. It includes 5 CDs full of stoner metal. I like the warm sound of the band, and variety of songs, from fast to rather heavy slow ones. The band was omitted by me for quite some time, but finally the time has come for it to arrive to my collection.
At the moment I am researching neofolk genre more deeply than usual. Probably because spring has arrived and I’m looking for something fresh. This time it’s:В Dannagoischd – “Emm Dichda Ondrholz”. Austrian neofolk band featuring forest recordings and rather rhythmic songs with guitar. The album is opening with the sound of starting campfire , like, let’s sit near the fire and listen to the forest songs, very nice. You can make an impression of the music from their official video here.
Sturmpercht – “Schattenlieder”. This one is more varied. It features austrian folk songs performed with wide range of instruments and of various pace. Interesting album. Good point here is that it features some songs by Gerhard Hallstatt of Allerseelen. I like them most because of their calm nature and his voice. Their myspace page features some bits from this album.
Sangre Cavallum – “Patria Granitica”. This one is more ambient type of folk. It’s very varied from track to track, there are as ambient or even experimental tracks, pure folk tracks and even folk with military motives like in this song. Very nice meditative album, but rather cold sounding, granite cold.
O Paradis – “La Boca Del Inferno”. Quite experimental album. Alot of drones together with usual O Paradis style of songs. Discogs labels it downtempo even, I’d agree with that. Main feature of the album is of course Demian vocals. But overal album isn’t that easy to listen to as it has some absolutely experimental tracks which require special state of mind.
Liquidated Error / Ragnar – “Split” – Dark ambient and drone noise from Germany. The fact that it’s released on L.White records moves this release to the industrial noise camp automatically. Liquidated Error features low frequency drones and vocals and Ragnar is more chaotic and no less dark and sometimes very deep. Quite interesting release of the acts previously unknown to me.
I.Corax – “Spectral Metabolism” – Very nice dark ambient from Finland. Released on Kaos Kontrol it features rather complex and interesting ambient of Inade class. Entire album is one big trip to subterranean depths with cave echoes, underground water streams and alot of industrial samples which make it very dark and complex. Rather nice album!
Enslaved – “Axioma Ethica Odini”. I couldn’s miss this album as I’m going to Enslaved show В next weekend that promotes it. The music on this one is something new from the band. Melodic tracks with clear vocals are very attractive and catchy, yet album features trademark Enslaved speed metal with harsh vocals. Album makes very fresh impression. I like that Enslaved still deliver very quality stuff.
Marduk – “Wormwood”. For some reason I decided to get this Marduk album. It turned to be rather complex album, with tracks of different nature. I liked that there are very slow bits as I am slow metal fan. Still the music is cruel and brutal as expected. Most of all I liked second track Funeral Dawn as it’s quite heavy pounding under sawing guitar. I think this is the track that attracted me when I was listening to samples prior buying this CD.
Mayhem – “Ordo Ad Chao”. I’m still gathering Mayhem slowly. This album is very weird. First, it’s recorded very weird way: it feels a bit muffled and sounds synthetically raw. I’m not sure what causes this but maybe that’s the idea behind it. Of course vocals by Attila are top, this is what basically attracted me most. Second, there are absolutely awesome fast tracks. I like their complexity and mood: cruel and bloody as usual. Rather nice album, I need to get used to the muffled sound though, as such complex music doesn’t fit well with it in my opinion.
Ex.Order – “Shuchu Ryoku”. Finally new Ex.Order! As expected, it turned to be a quite good dark ambient / industrial album. Dark techno and mad politics atmosphere is what Ex.Order mastered very good these days. Very nice multi-layered sound with deep dark ambient side and brutal industrial side.