Season of Mist’s announcement of Drudkh’s new full-length took me completely by surprise, mostly because I didn’t think the band would be cranking out another album so soon after 2009’s Microcosmos. Handful of Stars, which will be coming out Sept. 20th (Oct. 12th for us Americans) immediately becomes one of the albums I’m most looking forward to for the remainder of this year.

What I don’t look forward to is holding the album in my hand and having to stare at the newest grotesque visual creation courtesy of Drudkh’s union with Season of Mist. The new album art, supposedly rendered by Fursy Teyssier (Alcest, Amesoeurs) would easily be the band’s worst if it weren’t for the awful artwork on this year’s reissue of The Swan Road.

On the plus side, Handful of Stars appears to continue Drudkh’s recent move away form their typical autumnal visual style towards a more celestial aesthetic, which means that Handful of Stars will likely also continue the clearer production values and songwriting conciseness found on its predecessor. Drudkh’s first few albums still stand as some of the most masterful expressions of the atmospheric black metal sound ever created, and since it’s unlikely the band will ever top those, I think it makes sense for them to explore this slightly different approach. The new album may not be much to look at, but I’m betting that musically these guys will not disappoint.

With so many bands (and kids in their parents’ basements) jumping into the DSBM scene nowadays, you can’t just create run-of-the-mill depressive black metal with slow, mournful melodies and fuzzy production and expect people to think it’s amazing anymore. Whether it’s with things like ridiculously over-the-top vocals or the inclusion of classical or post rock elements, the bands getting the most attention in the current scene are the ones that not only write great music, but manage to find ways to differentiate themselves from the masses.

France’s Mind Asylum joins the brigade with their debut L’Asile de l’Esprit, and right away it’s obvious that these guys are attempting to put their own spin on the genre. Aside from the usual low moaning guitars and the tortured vocals, Mind Asylum have added the mournful tones of a very well-utilized violin, much like My Dying Bride did on albums like Turn Loose The Swans and The Angel and the Dark River. Being a longtime MDB fan I’m a sucker for the uniquely melancholic atmosphere the violin creates, and Mind Asylum throws it into songs at just the right moments to inject some extra sadness into their music.

Unfortnately, the violin isn’t enough to save this album from getting lost among the depressive metal masses. The contrast between buzzing black metal intensity and the softer portions does make L’Asile de l’Esprit a little more interesting, but the songs all follow the same general formula and the riffs themselves aren’t particularly memorable, save for a few places such as on ‘Prostration’ or closer ‘Seul le Silence…’. So while Mind Asylum’s debut isn’t necessarily going to blow anyone’s mind, it’s certainly not a bad album. If you’re a fan of depressive metal, L’Asile de l’Esprit is probably worth a listen.

» Buy L’Asile de l’Esprit from Amazon.com

The UK’s Self-Inflicted Violence had managed to fly under my radar until recently, despite having put out an excellent album in last year’s A Perception Of Matter And Energy on Eerie Art Records. They sound kind of like a better version of Svarti Loghin, without all the weird alt-country elements. If you haven’t heard them, check out the songs on their MySpace page and prepare to be blown away.

The band has also decided to make a few unreleased tracks available for free download. The sound quality isn’t the greatest, but at least it’s something. See this blog post from the band’s MySpace page, or just click the download link below.

» Download unreleased Self-Inflicted Violence tracks from Mediafire

The band is currently in the studio working on their next full-length, which will be titled The Blue Sphere Floating In Black Seas. The new album should come out later this year.

“Sorry for the sparse updates about ‘Saivo’. We hoped to get the album out this summer and didn’t want to disappoint you before all hope was gone. Despite the hopefully final delays, the album is well underway and the final parts are being recorded within couple of weeks, namely choirs and cello parts. We plan to finish our works on the album by the end of August eventually. ‘Saivo’ has taken its time and we didn’t want to rush it. Almost every of the song has gone through a huge variety of alternative arrangements until we felt that we had achieved best result.

Perhaps just as exciting for me is the announcement that all of the band’s previous albums (Kauan, Väre, Airut:aamujen, and Maaäet) will be re-released by Prophecy, and the new editions will come with significantly enhanced booklets and artwork. Tenhi has a knack for crafting artwork that perfectly matches the sparse, wintry atmosphere of their songs, so I’m very eager to see how the new editions turn out.

A band’s cover songs can often be quite revealing. Certainly, much of what makes Sweden’s Sorgeldom interesting can be summed up in their cover of Slowdive’s ‘Summer Day’. First of all, it’s a Slowdive song, and how often do you see those on black metal albums? Secondly, it’s easily one of the album’s strongest tracks, with it’s uniquely ethereal atmosphere, dreamlike vocals and driving percussion. Finally, it doesn’t sound at all out of place - Sorgeldom’s highly experimental brand of black metal takes so many twists and turns and does it so effectively that little on the band’s sophomore album Inner Receivings comes as a surprise.

Summing up what Sorgeldom are doing on Inner Receivings is difficult, but in a nutshell it’s wildly progressive, slightly thrashy black metal with lots of clean guitar and occasional mournful half-sung, half-spoken vocals thrown in. Imagine Semen Datura’s recent schizophrenic style with some Bergraven-style creepy melodies thrown in, and you’ll be somewhat close.

The guitar riffing is wildly unpredictable, rarely settling on a single style for long. Sometimes Sorgeldom will throw in weird, angular riffs, while other songs are full of progressive guitar wankery or clean-tone melodic meanderings. It’s all deliciously bizarre. Rather than sound disjoint, the constant flux has a cumulative effect, creating a singularly deranged, melancholic atmosphere that really helps to set this album apart from much of what’s been released lately.

Occasionally some of the more progressive, experimental sections go on a tad too long, but other tracks like ‘I Kloaken Lättar Vi Ankar’ or the titular track ‘Inner Receivings’ totally nail it. Sorgeldom is particularly effective when they decide to lighten things up as well, such as on ‘I Väntan På Telefonsamtalet’ or the Slowdive cover. While Inner Receivings does resemble Semen Datura’s latest album in some places, these guys are really in a league of their own musically, which is quite refreshing. Definitely recommended for fans of weird black metal.

» Buy Inner Receivings from Amazon.com

Longstanding Norwegian trio Enthral have no problems fitting into the hordes of excellent bands that the Scandinavian scene seems to crank out effortlessly. While they aren’t considered one of the leading bands in the Norwegian scene, Enthral are clearly not lacking in talent. With three full-lengths over the course of their roughly 15-year career, Enthral have been slowly sharpening their black metal assault, and their latest EP Spiteful Dirges shows a band firing on all cylinders. But while the band’s feverish, constantly shifting black metal sound is impressive from a technical standpoint, the songwriting and complex nature of Spiteful Dirges ultimately keeps it from being memorable.

The three songs on the album vary between mid-paced, creepy passages reminiscent of Watain or Ondskapt and tremolo picked masses of icy brutality that bring them closer to bands like Enthroned or Marduk. Enthral cram a whole lot into each song - expect frequent, jolting tempo changes, occasional softer parts, and some very intricate guitar interplay. While this definitely makes for an interesting listen, it unfortunately also means that none of the interesting concepts that the band write get any real time to develop. I sometimes found myself wishing that these guys had chosen to spread things across a few more songs and explore some of their riffs and ideas a bit more, rather than letting them disappear among the mass of chaotic riffage of the EP’s three tracks. That aside, Spiteful Dirges is definitely deserving of a listen, and should at least have black metal fans keeping an eye out for the next release from these guys.

It’s amazing how much I Shalt Become has evolved over the years. Their debut album Wanderings remains a masterpiece of depression and certainly a classic of US black metal. Poison, the band’s latest release, is something of an experiment for lone member S. Holliman, and musically the album is such a departure from the I Shalt Become’s core depressive sound that it doesn’t even sound like the same band. Moving away from the typical DSBM sound seems like a good direction for the band, but few fans will be prepared for what Poison actually has to offer.

The moaning guitars and fuzzed-out production of past releases has been almost completely scrapped in favor of keyboards and other orchestral elements, with only the occasional background growls linking the album to I Shalt Become’s black metal past. The keyboard melodies and arrangements still carry a strong sense of despair, and in fact a few tracks end up being pretty frightening, but the end result is nowhere near as suffocating and bleak as the band’s early albums were. In fact, the orchestral elements and minimal percussion brings I Shalt Become’s sound fairly close to that of Poland’s Hellveto, although it’s not quite as fine-tuned.

Perhaps even more interesting than the musical changes is the apparent subject matter of the album. The track ‘Black Swan Events’ presumably refers to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book on the importance of impactful, highly improbable events (a book which, incidentally, I hated), something that I certainly never expected to see on a black metal album. With ‘Leaving Watership Down’, I Shalt Become is the second band, after Fall of Efrafa, that I’ve come across recently to have taken inspiration from Richard Adams’s excellent novel. Finally, ‘Harlow’s Vertical Chamber Apparatus’ refers to an immensely disturbing and cruel set of animal experiments performed in the 70’s. ‘Pit Of Despair’, Harlow’s preferred name for the apparatus, probably would’ve provided a much better song title, but I guess maybe Holliman is trying to educate his listeners. Mission accomplished.

I’m kind of on the fence about I Shalt Become’s complete shift in approach and its effectiveness, but Poison is certainly one of the year’s most innovative and controversial releases. I’ve been hoping that the band one someday come out with something that equaled the catatonic bleakness of Wanderings’s opener ‘Fragments’, and now it’s clear that that’s probably not ever going to happen, but I Shalt Become’s new direction may prove to yield some pretty interesting stuff in the future as well, so that’s a trade-off I can live with. But in the meantime, I think I’ll go listen to ‘Fragments’ a few more times.

» Buy Poison from Amazon.com

National Sunday Law’s debut was a kaleidoscopic mix of heavy sludge metal and mellow keyboard atmospherics. The band’s latest EP, mysteriously titled The Fifth Ape, largely continues in this style, but the new material is noticeably heavier, often resembling Remission-era Mastodon or fellow Los Angeles heavyweights Intronaut. Closer ‘The Last Flight Of The Dodo Bird’ and third track ‘The Darwinian Heart of Darkness’ in particular feature a bludgeoning, unrelenting assault of metallic aggression. While National Sunday Law certainly threw some bashing, heavy riffs onto their debut, on The Fifth Ape they apparently decided to cram as much brutality as possible into the EP’s 18 minutes as possible.

More than any of the aforementioned bands though, these Californians still bear a striking similarity to German progressive sludge outfit Woburn House. Perhaps it’s the slightly dulled production, the plodding, open-string riffs, or the progressive, explorative songwriting. Whatever it is, both bands are still managing to write interesting heavy music while distinguishing themselves from the majority of other sludge bands out there. National Sunday Law’s EP is further proof that these guys are supremely talented and have a lot of good music left to share with the world.

Unfortunately, this EP may turn out to be the last few songs under the National Sunday Law banner, as the members have announced that they are calling it quits. Fans can take some comfort in the fact that these guys already have a new project with Intronaut frontman Sacha Dunable called Graviton, and should be inflicting their debut on an unsuspecting public some time this year.

» Download The Fifth Ape for free

The band will be joined on some of the dates by Lichens, Scott Kelly, and YOB. Check the Sleep MySpace page for tour dates.