Category Archives: Review

Underground Sounds: Romowe Rikoito – Namawār

Label: Dangus
Band: Romowe Rikoito
Origin: Lithuania, Old-Prussia

Forgotten words, forgotten places

I’ve penned something about this band before. I was intrigued by their approach of a forgotten language, the dedication and bravery in trying to put these ancient pieces back together and reinvoke a culture. The group Romowe Rikoito has done five albums this far. I’ve not managed to grab a hold of those first two, but it is on the third where they immerse themselves in the forgotten world of the Prussians.

Let me give you a little background, since Prussia often makes people think of Germany. Prussia was a Baltic nation though, but washed away by German immigrants from the 14th century onwards. The language disappeared in the last century. A people forgotten so to say. Brave revivalists put new life in the language. Romowe Rikoito is instrumental to this effect. We can actually call this modern Prussian.

The gentle opener is ‘T T T’, with the soft voice of Alwārmija resounding warmly over the trickling tones. Main man Glabis Niktorius has a certain bite to his voice, a particular tang when he pronounces the words in this ancient tongue with conviction and resolve. The music of Romowe Rikoito is like a gently trickling brook in a hidden grove somewhere in the ancient lands of the Prussians. Gentle bells and other metallic instruments play a pleasant song for the weary wanderer.

On songs like ‘Rōma[nā]wa’ we hear the percussion work its magic, weaving a song without ever really hitting a melody. It creates the feeling of ambient, of something natural in harmony with the universe. The music holds on to something meditative, something ritualistic that soothes the mind when listening to it. It’s melancholy is also hard to miss on songs like ‘Waīstis waistā’. Even the voice of Niktorius has an element of desire to it, an almost gasping hunger for life of the forgotten ways of the Prussians.

This album tells you secrets, it whispers in forgotten tongues and takes you away to a different place. I really recommend you listen to this closely, because it is one amazing record.

 

Underground Sounds: Veldes – The Bitterness Prophecy

Label: Independent
Band: Veldes
Origin: Slovenia

With ‘Ember Breather’, Veldes released one of the most haunting and grand black metal albums I’ve heard in recent times. Just last April the group, which is Tilen Šimon, came with a new record titled ‘The Bitterness Prophecy’. Where the last record was autumn, this is the winter.

Veldes is quite a productive band with a specific aesthetic, which I really like. The minimalism in the compositions offers something very comprehensive and easy going for the listener. Not everyone seems to enjoy this evenly much, but I think it creates a particular sound that may not be as dense and hectic but carries a straight forward feeling and emotion with it.

The album is not one with short, bursting songs, but long epics full of swooping passages and high peaks. There’s a tranquility to it, as there is to the forest in the winter times. The music simply soars, while the rhythm section drives the sound ever onward with fierce, but controlled drums. There are languid passages, to really dream away with. There is a lot of beauty here with beautiful melodies and a warm melancholy.

I particularly love ‘Seeking The Land Beyond’, as it is the perennial quest for most listeners of this music style. To escape into a different realm for even the briefest of times. Veldes takes you there. ‘Ancient Remedy’ is the shortest track on the album, but then again it is an instrumental break of peaceful piano music before we launch into ‘Hollow Antlers’. Now there’s a ferocious climax to a great record with a big finale of hard hitting drums and warm guitar parts. The drums sometimes sound a bit lifeless I have to say, but the overall effect stands tall.

 

 

Underground Sounds: Rimruna – Der Hatz Entronnen

Label: Naturmacht Productions
Band: Rimruna
Origin: Germany

Rimruna hails from Berlin and its two members are also active under the name Drangskapur. Rimruna has been active as a project since 2011 and this album is the second full length for the duo. The last one came out back in 2014. The title ‘Der Hatz Entronnen’ translates as ‘Escaped from hate’.

The music of Rimruna fits well into the German tradition of folk-flavored, atmospheric black metal. Thematically the band appears to have a particular fascination for the winter season. Much effort goes into the lyrics for this band it would seem. They are written in German, which might be a bit of work for you, but totally worth it. Being part of the Naturmacht stable, this group fits right in with their sound.

The dark folkloric sound is as dark cloud gathering and following you. Strong, galloping rhythms and drum rolls hit home, while the guitars seem to produce a thin but compelling sound of swooping dissonance. The gnarly vocals are as bent and twisted as old tree trunks sticking out from the snow, with the particular bite the language allows for.

The sound holds a clarity, which gives it a direct and melodic feel. On the other hand, it also makes particularly the rhythm section sound pretty raw and aggressive on a track like ‘Tor der Zeit’, where the melodies meander past, while the drums assault the hearing. That contradiction in sound is one of the great alluring powers of Rimruna, who truly drag the listener in all directions and often sound close to some of the blackgaze bands of these days. The sound is harrowing, but filled with melancholic melodies that take the listener along.

Still, the sound is rooted in raw black metal and that is what you get mostly. The tremolo guitar play on a song like ‘In Ewigkeit Versunken’ takes nothing away from that, but just makes the story and flow of the album so much more captivating and pleasant. This certainly is a good bit of music!

Underground Sounds: Unaussprechlichen Kulten – Keziah Lilith Medea (Chapter X)

Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Band: Unaussprechlichen Kulten
Origin: Chile

Lovecraft worshipping death metal from Chile

Lovecraft’s work is alive and well in the hands of multiple obsessed bands (as you can read in my Lovecraft collection part 1, part 2 and part 3). Unaussprechlichen Kulten has been stoking that fire for for almost 20 years. They’ve taken their name from one of the fictional forbidden books in the Lovecraft Mythos and have held to the theme.

On this record, which is not their tenth album (in fact it’s the fourth), the band moves towards the New England stories of witchcraft and connections to more sinister, older forms of evil. That makes for some great material for the ferocious death metal this band creates. They take particular inspiration from the female characters or entities depicted in those stories. As the band says:

“This Chapter is inspired by women, the persecution against them by the Holy Office Sacred Congregation (The Inquisition), their essential role in the myth and legend, their place at the witches’ Sabbath, and the profound fear they spread – and still do – in mankind under the concept of Witch.”

So I use that full statement, because I appreciate it. It is hard to really get that from the ferocious, but regal sounding death metal these Chileans produce. There’s a steady flow to their sound, that reminds me of Bolt Thrower (though their sound is way too foreboding and filled with stop-go moments). The vocals of Joseph Curwen (yeah, that’s another Lovecraft reference) are the kind that feel like scraping the coarse bottom of a dirty puddle. It’s all quite intense.

The guitarwork is constantly peaking, screaming and crying on tracks like ‘Sacrificio Infanticida’. There’s no moment of peace for the listener to Unaussprechlichen Kulten, it’s an onslaught of brutality and mighty guitar work. Sometimes the band uses parts that are pretty classic sounding, but in a polished, controlled manner. Actually everything done by these gents sounds controlled, but there’s a constant threat of them blowing the lid off and creating complete cosmic havoc. Opener ‘Unholy Abjuration of Faith’ is a good example. The track feels like oldschool death metal, in all its glory.

In general I think the band sticks to what it knows. They can easily be placed in a more conservative corner. The sound is more or less like that of Immolation, Morbid Angel and their ilk. Heavy and filled with musical excesses, they embrace the extreme. The result is a solid record, that clocks just under 40 minutes. What a trip it is.

 

Underground Sounds: La Torture Des Ténèbres – Civilization Is The Tomb Of Our Noble Gods

Label: Independent
Origin: Canada
Band: La Torture Des Ténèbres

The first time I played this record by Canadian group La Torture Des Ténèbres, I was baffled. I turned it off after a few songs. Maybe it was not entirely what I expected when I read the tag ‘raw black metal’, but the sound makes much more sense if you look a bit deeper. This band creates something that lies between black metal and dense ambient sounds, thus evoking the sound of the city, of urban chaos.

La Torture Des Ténèbres has been around for a while and is the creation of Jessica Kinney. ‘Civilization Is The Tomb Of Our Noble Gods’ is the third album under this name and actually the third album in one year (2016). That makes this a rather productive act.

From peculiar intro ‘Column Of Astrological Memories’ onwards, you get into a weird sort of Sky Captain of Tomorrow -like story telling of past and future intertwined. The intro lets you hear samples, music and conversations, which launches into ‘The Great Escape From Capricorn’. A mesmerizing swirling chaos of music, ambient and noise, that holds hidden at the core vocals and lyrics that speak of a doomed world.

Civilization offers us but one choice. Conform to the collective architecture or perish beneath the weight of aeons.

The music is pretty much the unleashing of torrents of sound. ‘Descending Through Autumn Fields’ is a maddening flow, that somewhere coalesces into a melancholic melody. Surrounding is maddening howls. freakish barks and an overwhelming display of noise. The album is all the way like that, furthermore it never relents for a moment. A harsh experience for the listener, but one that has beauty hidden within. La Torture Des Ténèbres is definitely not for the casual listener I suppose. I t leaves you staring into the abyss, while waiting for the world to fall apart.

A roaring climax comes with the two parts of ‘Into The Metropolitan Abyss’. Two movements of despair and concrete madness. What a powerful record, especially relevant today.

Underground Sounds: Jute Gyte – The Sparrow

Label: Blue Tapes / X-Ray Records
Band: Jute Gyte
Origin: United States

I’ve written before about the music of Jute Gyte, which I wrongly wrote as Jute Gryte at the time. The fascinating thing about Jute Gyte is that the music made by Adam Kalbach, the sole member, is highly experimental. He makes listeners  aware of a whole distinct musical movement that apparently exists. A movement exploring music’s unknown.

The result of that is often that the music of Jute Gyte is very much an acquired taste. It listens as an oddity for the listener thanks to complexity, wealth of uncommon sounds and droning core. ‘The Sparrow’ is the latest release by the, dare I say, avant-garde musician with a knack for the extreme. With just two songs, this is one hell of a ride.

The start of ‘The Sparrow’ should have been called ‘The Bees’, since that is the feeling of the song. A buzzing, droning festival of intensity hits the listener. Dissonant and almost on a pitch that simply annoys the hell out of you, the track soon reaches the point where roaring vocals disturb the droning. After a few minutes we vind a break, where just eerie sounds fill the sonic void left behind. After minutes of slithering sounds, a more tumultuous, cascading sound develops. Just under twenty minutes, the track hardly gets dull or unsurprising in its intensity.

As soon as you start putting Jute Gyte in the noise category, you realise that there is always a structure. Structure that is hard to determine because it is so different to what you know. ‘Monadanom’ is the second track with an almost equal length. Lacking the ferocious passages of the former, this track is a continuing drone fest of atonal, disjunctured passages launched into the distance. At some parts it sounds soothing and melancholic, in others it’s simply uncomfortable. But that is what the music of Jute Gyte does, it will force its presence upon you as a listener. That is what makes it so brilliant.

Underground Sounds: Power Trip – Nightmare Logic

Label: Southern Lord Records
Origin: United States
Band: Power Trip

I’m perfectly aware that Power Trip does not need one of my Stranger Aeons reviews to get them some attention, but ever since hearing this band, I had to pen a bit about them. Why? Have you heard  ‘Nightmare Logic’? A master piece of crossover thrash that seems to come to us now as a relic of the eighties, right when its needed.

This album is the second full length from this band, which has been around since 2008 and hails from Dallas, Texas. There’s definitely a flavor of hardcore to their sound, hence the notion of crossover, but they are also battle ready and heavy enough to carry a tune at a death metal show. In fact, I have to think of Bolt Thrower now and then, listening to these upstarts play. They do nothing really new, but like Skeletonwitch and maybe Iron Reagan they bring back some simple, primitive thrashing to the forefront in an era when we need these sounds.

This record moves about and groves in all directions. Live the band actually is even more entertaining, with a high energy performance befitting of a bunch of rabid dogs playing thrash metal. The casual vibe of the guitar play, the fun that just displays in the tunes, it makes this band so incredibly catchy and entertaining to hear. At the right moments, they add elements like gang shouts to make it even more awesome. But just listen to that ballzy intro of ‘Soul Sacrifice’, which is a tune for raised fists and feet stomping.

The pace is frantic, the energy high and boundless on a track like ‘Firing Squad’. I really thought that thrash was dead, but this band has awoken the genre from its slumbers. This makes me want to jump around and beat stuff. Not in a violent way though, this music is just so brimming with vitality, with contained and directed fury, that you need to move your feet to it. The rabid screams and shouts of Riley Gale, the riffs like razorblades and the awesome artwork, it all makes sense.

This is one of the coolest records out there, I’m sure.

Underground Sounds: Cyaxares – House of the Cosmic Waters

Label: Independent
Origin: Iraq
Band: Cyaxares

Mir Shamal Hama-faraj is a musical prodigy, working in one of the most unlikely places of the world on some eclectic and brilliant death metal. Cyaxares, his main solo project, is a band from Sulaymaniyah in the north of Iraq (Kurdistan). Just recently he came out with ‘House of the Cosmic Waters’.

It’s the second album by Mir Shamal, who also sings in Iraqi metal band Dark Phantom. In 2014 he debuted with the album ‘Whores of Babylon’. I had the pleasure to do an interview with this highly motivated musician, who manages to really set himself apart in this current day metal scene with home produced, tight death metal with oriental flavors.

This album sounds even more harmonic, bringing the two worlds together in beautiful unity. The oriental patterns are tangible to the ear. The folkish parts, that give the music it’s inexplicable mystery work in absolute harmony with the razorsharp riffing and the brusk grunted vocals. For opener ‘Luna’ we have a vocalista joining on clean vocals next to those of Mir Shamal. Nawa Mikhaeils’ singing is a bit of an acquired taste, but these passionate vocals are part of the tradition. The songs leave some space for slow, meandering passages. This lets the music breathe a little.

The music has plenty of melody and atmosphere to it, for example on the title track. Lyrically Cyaxares has always been a bit ambigious, due to the attempt at relating elder days to the current day world. Exquisite chanting and traditional passages make the music even more rich and grand. These are woven into their texture to create such great story telling music. I love this album and I can’t imagine for the life of me why no label has snatched this up yet. For one, it’s very melodic and captivating, secondly it has this great mysterious air to it. Overall the lyrics are wonderfully poetic and beautiful. Clearly these are the work of many hours and a lot of patience. Even the riffing on the brutal parts finds its own distinct heavyness, elegant and finely sculpted.

Mir Shamal is a ‘wünderkind’ in the metal scene, having found metal music all the way in Iraq. He created this by himself and that is no small feat. A great record for sure.

Underground Sounds: Grima – Tales of the Enchanted Woods

Label: Naturmacht Productions
Band: Grima
Origin: Russia

With their debut album ‘Devotion To Lord’ the band Grima definitely left an impression. Lord was not anything Christian though, it was nature in its full glory that this atmospheric black metal band worships. Now they return with their second full length ‘Tales of the Enchanted Woods’. I’d like to point out that I recommended their record as the best of the year this far for 2016 in the Weirdo Canyon Dispatch, the daily Roadburn zine.

The studio project by Morbius and Vilhelm hails from Krasnoyarsk, which is in the heart of Siberia. Krasnoyarsk is not a hovel in the snow, but a city with almost a million inhabitants. The city was a  center for the gulags and even in Tsarist times was a place where dissenters were sent to. It says a lot about the sort of place this must be, though there’s little to go on regarding Grima.

To start with this album, maybe start with the cover that immediately offers  a particularly fairy tale like design and folkloristic vibe. The album kicks of with the grand ‘The Sentry Peak’, which really works as a brief intro to the album, lining up the second song ‘The Moon and its Shadows’, which is a pleasure to behold. Atmospheric and powerful, this record fits right into the Norse nature-loving movement of the black metal genre.

The sound is tempered, let go only in minimal waves when most effective. The build-up reminds me a bit of Downfall of Nur, one of my favorite bands. It sounds like there’s even an accordeon present, but it’s probably the synths. Those help with the fairy-tale/eastern vibe of the record, giving a moment of respite and evoking images of strange towns with hospitable folk playing music around the fire.

The band really knows how to be theatrical, without sounding cheesy. The synths are everywhere to add to the overal experience, to paint the sound in many colors. The vocals are varied two, which gives you the feeling that this band is much bigger than just the two members. Noteworthy is the track ‘Never Get Off The Trail’, where we hear a deep shoegaze influence and even some postrocky soundscaping on the following ‘The Grief’. As a listener, it is as if the song bares its essence to you. It shows it’s inner magical stream of music. Excellent black metal enriched with a sense of the magical and unknown of the forest.

Grima succeeds in probably making one of the most amazing black metal albums of the year, but also a journey into nature where the true beauty of an untamed land shines through. The balanced production and the rich sonic textures offer a much bigger production than you’d imagine. I sincerely hope this album gets the recognition it deserves. It shouldn’t be lumped into the ‘archaic folk’ metal  category, much like other great music from Russia. This seems to receive little interest from the western press. This album embodies the magic that black metal music always has had for me. It embraces nature in the way only a specific branch of the genre does. A joy to listen to, while true to the genre.

 

Looking For An Answer – Dios Carne

Label: Willowtip Records
Band: Looking For An Answer
Origin: Spain

Looking For An Answer still gives you headaches

Many people will look at you with a baffled expression if you say you like grindcore. Well, it’s something special I suppose and not everyone will understand or like it. That goes for most of the stuff I write about on this blog, it’s weird music. So now I’m going to write about one of my favorite grindcore bands.f

The first time I experience a grindcore show I just didn’t know what to do with it, untill a Mike Alexander van Putrescence explained it to me. One of the first bands I enjoyed then was Looking For an Answer. This Spanish band produces some highly political grindcore with a sharp edge and has been doing so since 1999. ‘Dios Carne’ is their latest effort.

‘Dios Carne’ is a rolling, thundering keg of fury, unleashed in 14 typical short bursts of hatred. Opener ‘Deflagración’ is the longest track of the album, clocking right at 4 minutes and 17 seconds. The doom and gloom intro sets the tone for the world view the band wishes to convey on their fourth full length. The songs actually have a bit of a sludge element worked into them. Slow and steady, sticky and heavy, those are terms that aptly describe the music of Looking For An Answer.

That heavy swampy sound is a particular element on this album, the muddled sound represent the drag of society, its futile, complexities and horrors. Looking For An Answer makes that tangible in the chasm of despair that their record sounds like. Ofcourse, there’s also the blistering, all destroying grindcore tracks. Setting fire to the world on ‘Apoteosis’ or the creeping ‘Demiurgo’, the sound of war is here.

Grindcore is still very relevant when we adress the atrocities of our world. Looking For An Answer offers the answer to what that should sound like.