Krieg’s latest The Isolationist is not only one of the better USBM albums I’ve heard recently, but also probably one of the more interesting black metal albums to have come out this year. At first listen the album came across as rather bland, but after a while the various tracks start to separate themselves and The Isolationist’s excellence becomes apparent. The album’s decayed, morbid atmosphere and sinister harmonies already help to differentiate it somewhat, but Krieg manages to back it up with songs that are actually pretty varied and unpredictable.
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This unique compilation from Prophecy Productions deserves your attention for many reasons, not least of which is the unique theme it represents. Similar to the excellent Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer compilation released earlier this year, Whom The Moon A Nightsong Sings unites many underground artists, some familiar and some quite obscure, in composing music towards a specific, intangible ideal. In the case of this compilation, the thread uniting the many songs and artists is the celebration of nature’s majesty, purity and spirit. As you might expect with a theme like that, the compilation includes several well-known neofolk and folk metal artists such as Empyrium, Tenhi, Nest and October Falls. But even the more obscure and unexpected artists contribute some quite excellent tracks, and the end result is a fantastic compilation of dark, contemplative and ethereal musical compositions.
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After the unfortunate direction Ephel Duath’s music took on their last album, it’s nice to see that Davide Tiso is back on track. The songs on The Breathing House, the debut EP from Tiso’s solo project Manuscripts Don’t Burn, share a great deal with Ephel Duath’s style on earlier albums like The Painter’s Palette and Pain Necessary To Know. In fact, considering that Tiso pretty much handled everything on this release from songwriting and performance to production, this EP almost feels like the album he was always meant meant to make.
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San Francisco’s Necrite have crafted a sound on their first full-length that sometimes sounds as though they took your typical atmospheric black metal intro track and extended it into 10+ minute blackened sonic landscapes. If you’re sitting there thinking “that sounds awesome!”, you’re right. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi features five tracks with lengths ranging from 7 to 27 minutes, mixing creepy ambient guitar passages reminiscent of SF neighbors Lurker of Chalice with bursts of dissonant, cacophonous riffing that almost veers into the territory of bands like Nightbringer or Deathspell Omega.
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Mexico-based black metal act Yaotl Mictlan seem to be positioning themselves as kind of the black metal equivalent of Nile with an aggressive approach that incorporates both lyrical and musical elements drawn from ancient Mayan culture. The multicultural influences don’t show up as much in the music as I was hoping, but aside from that issue, Yaotl Mictlan’s latest Dentro del Manto Gris de Chaac really surprised me with its quality and excellent musicianship.
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The debut offering from The Wretched End, a collaboration between Samoth (Emperor, Zyklon) and Cosmo (Mindgrinder), should be a no-brainer for fans of either musician’s latest projects. Ominous’s sound is a mixture of old-school death metal riffing and modern, down-tuned brutality with an infusion of thrash influences for good measure. Samoth’s compositions are crushing as usual, and ex-Dark Funeral drummer Nils Fjellstrom is a monster behind the kit, providing a varied mix of blasts and technical beats to supplement the assault. In other words, the collaboration between these three talented musicians kicks about as much ass as you’d expect.
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Norwegian black metal veterans Limbonic Art crank out a monster dose of their trademark punishing symphonic black metal sound on their latest full-length Phantasmagoria, which runs a tad over 70 minutes. The songs rarely stray far from the band’s aggressive formula of tight double-bass backed riffing with tastefully-used symphonic elements on top. Unlike many other bands playing this style, Limbonic Art manages to work in keyboards without compromising the brutality of their music, finding a tasteful balance of melody and aggression.
Unfortunately, Phantasmagoria suffers from the lack of variation between songs, which is made worse by the album’s excessive length. After awhile each song just starts to sound like all the others, and even though the songs themselves aren’t awful, it just becomes a chore to try to make it through the entire album. Limbonic Art also has a tendency to scream the title of the songs a lot in the chorus of each song (”PHANTASMAGORIAAAA!!” “PROPHETIC DREEEAAAMS!!”), which really gets on my nerves after awhile. It’s a solid release, but I expected more from these guys than what this album delivered.
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Mrtvá Komora, the fifth full-length from Czech Republic’s Stíny Plamenù is a passable black metal album, but much more interesting is the band’s unique and bizarre subject matter. Founding member Lord Morbivod’s fascination with sewer systems led him to craft lyrics revolving around an elaborate mythology focusing on the underground world of the sewers beneath the city. He even went so far as to craft fictional sewer-dwelling characters such as Pan Cistirensky (”The Sewage Disposal Lord”) and Mistr Jimac (”The Cesspool Master”) whose exploits are worked into the lyrics of songs. Unfortunately for those of us in the US the lyrics are all in the Czech language, but if you run a few songs through Google translate you can get some idea of the sewer-themed subject matter that runs through Stíny Plamenù’s albums.
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Finland’s Satanic Warmaster is one of the seemingly dwindling number of bands these days that knows how to play traditional, fairly simplistic black metal and have it actually be GOOD. The riffs on Nachzehrer are nothing spectacular, blending basic, tremolo-picking with some misanthropic melodies, but somehow they meld themselves into well-written, memorable songs. With so many bands attempting to put a new spin on the genre, it’s sometimes refreshing when a band just cranks out straight-up black metal and does it well.
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Todtgelichter has always been a bit unusual, but their newest album Angst finds the band completely abandoning any attempts to fit in with the black metal genre. While 2007’s Schemen was an interesting listen, it also seemed like the band couldn’t decide whether to construct typical black metal riffs or experiment with progressive touches, and the result just felt a bit inconsistent. On Angst, Todtgelichter have decided to embrace their more avant-garde tendencies, and the result is an album that’s not only excellent but also much more cohesive.
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