Check Out Progenie Terrestre Pura

Progenie Terrestre Pura is a spacey black metal band from Italy the reminds us all that you can mix electronic elements into black metal without sacrificing the heart of both genres. On April 15, 2013 the band release their first full-length U.M.A., which uses the electronic influences as a musical set design for the metal riffs. This is beyond a mere background effect because it creates a rich and immersive environment that is worthy of equal attention with the band's heavier side. Post-metal elements are also visible, mostly through the long song structures that have slower melodic changes and liberal repetition. Consequently, there is an overwhelming sense of atmosphere that is never suffocating. Rather, the sound is almost antiseptic and this works because the space theme suits the band's decisions to be clean, beautiful, and expansive. A comparison to Samael's Passage is warranted, but Progenie Terrestre Pura is absolutely its own entity. Although U.M.A. contains the two songs from the band's 2011 demo, it still makes for a complete and exciting album.

Also, the band's taste extends over to the remarkable cover art, which couldn't be any more appropriate for their music:

You can listen to Progenie Terrestre Pura here: http://progenieterrestrepura.bandcamp.com/album/u-m-a

Links:
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Progenie_Terrestre_Pura/3540331201
https://www.facebook.com/ProgenieTerrestrePura?v=app_178091127385

Fleurety - Department Of Apocolaptic Affairs

                                                Fleurety - Department of Apocalyptic Affairs
                                                             Incoherent Irritation

Fleurety’s “Department of Apocalyptic Affairs” is unusual. Despite how unbelievably incoherent it is, nearly every turn in the music manages to be irritating. For the sake of context, this Norwegian duo is perhaps best known for either their first full length and highly regarded black metal album “Min Tid Skal Komme” or from the fact that Alexander Nordgaren stopped singing after damaging his voice due to impossibly high pitched whistle-register vocals on the band’s earlier releases. Here, Fleurety diverged from their past and took a hard left into experimental territory while simultaneously plummeting in quality. Experimentation can be refreshing, no one likes stale music that merely reiterates what has been done in the past. “Department of Apocalyptic Affairs,” however, shows how novelty alone is painfully insufficient to create an album. Indeed, novelty is the only real driving force here, and little attention was given to more important considerations like vision, structure, or melody. Curve after random curve yields new musical ideas, directions, and disappointments. This failure is haphazard and thoughtless eclecticism.

Opening up with “Exterminators” is helpful for understanding the problems. Within the first two minutes you can get a strong sense of most of the album’s major deficiencies. We are introduced with a silly circus melody joined with wacky flanger guitar and a walking bass that ambles its way into a third unrelated direction. This third direction later turns out to be a genre change. Jazzy, intimate, and silly female scatting vocals abruptly make the bass more comprehensible, but without remedying the impression that we have started a new song. Naturally, some dissonant guitar chords then chime in, only to be interrupted by a nonsense piano diddle. This is in turn followed by a boring guitar riff that comes across as something between an echo and interminable repetition. The entire album often keeps going on like these first two minutes do, failing to sustain any kind of atmosphere or even establish a mood other than disorganization and silliness. Even the component parts that make up the songs are grating because of how they fail to mesh together. Sure, it isn’t completely awful. The bass lines are often interesting and more vivacious than what is normally expected in metal. Still, everything feels entirely out of place and even individual components that may have some merit become grating when carelessly thrown together.

The primary style and source of novelty is the amalgamation of loungey elevator jazz and black metal somewhat in the vein of experimental releases from the same era such as Mayhem’s “Grand Declaration of War” and Dødheimsgard’s “666 International.” When listening to it though, one would think there were also half a dozen other genres involved at all times because of how indelicately these two major themes are blended. Abrupt and pointless changes in music sections sound like the band made two separate albums in different genres, cut them into chunks, and then shuffled together like a deck of cards. The Mayhem comparison provides a nice contrast even for those unfamiliar with “Grand Declaration of War.” “Shotgun Blast” features Maniac on vocals and presenting the lyrics in a harangue-the-listener style as he also used on that album, but as the rest of the music meanders around with dance pad sounds it just feels like random nonsense. Next consider how Dødheimsgard’s more industrial approach also used similar dance percussion elements with driving bass lines to create an interesting mood, which we never hear with this despite the similar parts. Fleurety fails to match their contemporaries in quality because their quest for a more experimental and eclectic approach sacrificed too much of their central metal roots. This does not mean that the album is flawed because it sounds too much like dance music or jazz. Instead, the problem rests with how it tries to be a metal album without the metal, and this leaves the band with no organizing principle or direction. A particularly glaring example of this lack of direction is how with only 8 tracks the duo felt it necessary to include two very similar versions of the song “Face In A Fever” with each member having their own edition. Fleurety’s unwillingness to even settle on one version of the song means you end up listening to it twice, and this is just another instance how the failure to synthesize ideas leads to ruin.

When an album simply fails to come together, it is unfortunate and can result in a failure. This goes much further, its exhausting and obnoxious. More prominent than the obnoxious elements I mentioned earlier are the vacuous vocal decisions that rapidly drop the quality from incoherent to awful. After singling out Maniac’s beatnik poetry reading on “Shotgun Blast” it is hard to pick from the numerous examples what might be next most irritating item on the list, but the cartoon super-villain vocals at the end of “Facets 2.0” are nearly as awful. Again, the surprising part of this is how with so many vocals styles why none of them manage to be anything but aggravating. Even the relatively inoffensive female vocals on “Facets 2.0” sound strained, thin, and wholly inferior to the band’s “Last-Minute Lies” EP version of the same song. The album’s incoherence also makes it naturally exhausting but this is compounded by bad pacing decisions such as having the sixth and seventh tracks so mild and one dimensional (yet still incoherent) that they create the sensation that the album is coming to a close. Not so. Instead, after about 14 minutes of creating that feeling, the album actually ends with a song whose gauche saxophone intrusions had worn out their welcome when the song was the second track.

“Department of Apocalyptic Affairs” does some new and unusual things for a metal album but fails to ever be interesting or organize these various ideas together. Combine this with how irritating so much of the album is and you get something that is far worse than a run-of-the-mill failure.

Jute Gyte - Discontinuities

Jute Gyte - Discontinuities

Sui generis

The wildly outlandish Jute Gyte is an unquestionably unique musical project. With the occasional tremolo picked riffs and glass shards in the throat vocals, it is obvious that Jute Gyte has taken some cues from black metal. However, outside of these superficial aspects of “Discontinuities” there is no sense in trying to think of the album in terms of existing metal sub-genres. It is best to think of the project as extremely experimental. Jute Gyte takes melodies that are so unusual that they almost sound like accidents and layers them with seamless and oddly natural asymmetry. Think of how a flounder twists and flattens as it ages. The end result of Jute Gyte’s twisting asymmetry is alienating yet spectacular, while “Discontinuities” has its flaws, the album clearly illustrates how Jute Gyte is absolutely unforgettable.

Experimentation permeates every moment of “Discontinuities” in ways that are readily apparent yet deep seated. Dissonant waves of jangling jump out one after another, starkly assuring the listener that the full yet unfamiliar sounds will persist, instead of being used to contrast or highlight soothing melodies. Even the calmer and relatively sedate sections of music are still unsettling and weird. This may not sound like anything new on paper, but the use of a 24-tone guitar means that the album uses notes that typically are not used in Western music. To oversimplify, normally on a guitar you can play 12 different notes but this album uses a guitar that allows for 24.

Ultimately, this is just another tool that Jute Gyte uses to create uncomfortable soundscapes. Instead of making everything sound out of tune, the dizzying flurries of notes are jarring, but deliberate. This approach keeps the experimentation from sounding either haphazard or manufactured, and with such an important change to the guitar this success is vital. As past albums have shown, Jute Gyte does not need a 24-tone guitar to make off-kilter music. At its heart, “Discontinuities” is unusual because the overall approach to composition and melody immerse the listener into an alien world. So while Jute Gyte utilizes many tools like a 24-tone guitar or polyrhythms, which do influence the composition, the central focus is still on the music rather than how it was put together.

Despite the overwhelmingly dissonant nature of the music, the mood isn’t nearly as abrasive as one would expect. Outside of the shrieking violence in the vocals, there is a peculiar and even paradoxical calmness in the tone that supersedes the frenzied parts that make up the album. Most of the time this feels like a stalwart sense of direction that guides the notes along the way through all of the chaos and is perfected at the end of “The Haunting Sense...” This is also a key part of how enveloping waves of clashing notes can be. Infrequently however, this quasi-calmness sounds like the cold emotionless side effect of contrived musical ideas. Fortunately, “Discontinuities” mostly maintains a strong direction through the very same technique that helps create some of this paradox of calm chaos. This technique is the careful layering of melodies on top of one another to bury you deep in dissonance.

The typical path in music is to have many parts acting mostly together, as a flock of birds to create a whole, Jute Gyte instead favors more independent parts that coalesce to create a coherent whole. As a key part of this, melodies do not clearly stop and start together. Picture how the molecules of air inside of a jar are always moving around, yet that air never separates into chunks of its component elements. This speaks to the calmness in Jute Gyte’s chaos, as one melody drifts off into bizarre territory another melody is still pulsing or repeating. Each part is moving but the mix as a whole remains consistent. Look to how the persistent drums, plodding rhythm, and bass smooth out the angular melodies in “Supreme Fictions....” and “Acedia.” This is how there is such a sense of both change and stability and it makes the alienation fantastically alluring by forging its own sense of logic and structure.

Fleshed out and detailed with synths and a warm sinuous bass, “Discontinuities” also relies on them to round out the abrasive vocals and angular approach to the guitar and drums. The synthesizer in particular immediately drapes other instruments in its emotional color as when the eerie and light chords of “The Failure of Transmutation” sneak into the mix. Flourishes like this serve to keep the rough and jangling parts within the realm of the unsettling rather than creating more of a harsh atmosphere. Contrary to this, the drums feel bare and mathematical, yet follow the overall emotional intensity of the music enough to make their dryness fade away as an issue. 

While the large majority of the focus is on the composition rather than underlying technique, there are times where the album fails on this point. Sometimes the album is overbearingly alienating when the sense of calmness stops being unsettling and starts getting tiresome. Undue repetition is the culprit here, but it is a repetition of patterns rather than particular riffs or notes. The more structural example of this is in “Romanticism Is Ultimately Fatal” where the intro’s predictably declining melody repeats and then later gives way to a chugging riff that similarly rises without going anywhere. Sounding like the musical equivalent of a staircase drawn by M. C. Escher, these parts and the title track “Discontinuities” unfortunately come across more like sketches practicing with a new tool (a 24-tone guitar) than complete pictures. Still, both songs are strong. “Romanticism....” has perhaps the most eerie melody of the album, which is beautifully reinforced by electronic flittering. The minimal instrumentation on “Discontinuities” serves as useful break from the chaotic music, even if it is far too long and repetitive. There, the quiet screaming noises that bookend the song are also an excellent and subtle detail.

With this radical level of experimentation, the degree to which the album feels natural rather than manufactured is impressive. Perhaps it is unsurprising then that Jute Gyte is a one man band, the work of Adam Kalmbach whose experimental tendencies have gone untempered by the compromises that often happen with collaborations. “Discontinuities” is daunting because of its strangeness, its hour long length, and a certain kind of majesty that isn’t immediately obvious or instantly rewarding. Still, the album has lasting power far beyond whatever novelty it provides. Although supremely strange, it is more importantly a great album because of how the immersive layering makes such an alienating experience one that is absolutely worth repeating.

Jute Gyte's expansive discography is available to download (and as far as I know every release is free) or purchase a physical copy of here: http://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/

Metal Archives Page: http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Jute_Gyte/3540308568

Check out Horse Drawn Death Machine

 
Horse Drawn Death Machine is a band hailing from Ohio that skillfully fuses sludge metal with stoner rock on their EP "No Light." The band's Rich rhythm tone serves well for serving up crushingly heavy riffs over which they let some stoner rock leads soar. Rather than a slow sauntering pace, Horse Drawn Death Machine mixes these elements with the high energy and climactic sense of early Neurosis. So instead of sounding like sludge mixed with some self indulgent solos the band alternates speed with force and stays aggressive and powerful because of it. The vocal work mirrors this, with higher pitched almost hardcore punk ethos for faster delivery and a deeper shouting for a heavier feel. The bass player's deft decision making undoubtedly plays a part of that killer rhythm tone.

Although the band claims to have black metal influence I am not really hearing it on the "No Light" EP unless I actively think about a riff and consider how it could possibly be influenced by black metal. Still, it is a killer EP and the closing song "Dark Days" is excellent and alternates at times between wild guitar work and just crushing rhythm sections. The self titled EP on the other hand has some punkier sounding riffs and Cradle of Filth high pitched double tracked with lower vocals stuff on "Pulling Teeth" that I really wasn't feeling. The only thing that I would say is up to the quality of "No Light" is the bass work. The difference is really striking because both EPs are 2012 releases and I am not sure I would be able to recognize that they were both from the same band without knowing beforehand. The band's self titled EP is also on their bandcamp and is available to download for free, but obviously I recommend listening to "No Light."

You can listen to and download Horse Drawn Death Machine here: http://hddm.bandcamp.com/

Links:
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Horse_Drawn_Death_Machine/3540361582
https://www.facebook.com/horsedrawnmetal

Check out Votnut!

Votnut manages to show quite a bit of promise in their self titled EP. This is impressive because it clocks in at under 9 minutes and despite reminding me of Anaal Nathrakh there is unquestionably a unique style at play here. Great riffs, enviable guitar tone, and ample aggression. While I like songs that are longer than the six on this EP, it sounds like Votnut has plenty of ideas and can string them together well enough to make this a really exciting release.

You can listen to Votnut here: http://votnut.bandcamp.com/

Links: 
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Votnut/3540360575
https://www.facebook.com/votnut

Hellige - Demo

Hellige - Demo

Cavernous and murky, Hellige’s 2012 Demo is a fantastic march right down the line between black and doom metal, combining the best aspects of both genres. The first thing you may notice is how the deep rhythm guitar acts out the music tectonically, slowly shifting but with massive movements that parallel the bass line. This makes the core of the music incredibly heavy. On the production side, this demo is full of low end frequencies so the deeper parts come out fully and with rich timbre. All of the music’s subparts are drenched in reverb, which helps give the demo its cavernous sound. However, the key to the atmosphere is how the band melds all of the composition’s parts together.

The often slow and plodding rhythm shows a clear influence from the more radical fringes of doom. While some of the black metal influences include the usual tremolo picking, the overall lineage to that genre often comes through with crafty subtly. Tremolo picking is used either sparingly such as on “A Philosopher’s Crown” or in a way where it is not immediately obvious such as on “Obnubilum.” This lets the band put black metal’s wall of sound atmosphere to better use than most black metal bands do. Rather than an assault of repeated notes, the tremolo picking colors the overall music and is almost hidden by the reverb and massive bass end. Another subtle black metal influence on the guitars can be heard in the dark (tritone) oriented lead riffs throughout the album. As the doomier riffs march along in low notes, the odd almost dissonant black metalish melodies tactfully ring out to add more memorable character to the riffs.

All of this makes the music almost overbearing, and it can leave you fatigued. Long songs work to amplify this effect, yet the band avoids creating a repetitive atmosphere like we see all too often in both doom and DSBM. “Degraded to Mortals” is an excellent example of Hellige doing this, and the obvious interlude in the middle clearly shows how the song develops from point A to B. This great songwriting ability keeps the long songs interesting yet still entirely coherent. In fact, the demo provides several moments for the weary to rest, some of the songs include both intro and outro sections which offer momentary relief from the crushingly heavy atmosphere. However, no particular part of the album jumps out from the murky atmosphere as marvelously perfect.

 

Vocally, Hellige uses a variety of styles but the predominant ones alternate between resembling Nocturno Culto’s work on “Soulside Journey” and “A Blaze in the Northern Sky” but with deeper and doomier death metal vocals. Other vocal styles include the profoundly ominous and quiet choir-type vocals in the later part of “Obnubilum” and the howling rasps toward the end of “A Philosopher’s Crown.” Overall, the vocals serve much in the way as the lead guitar, adding color and texture to the song rather than carrying the all of the melody as is seen in other bands. What is refreshing is how restrained the band is in this respect. Hellige lets you mull over each part of the music without feeling the need to fill every last second of their songs with vocals.

Oddly enough, it is the drumming that usually forces the band’s energy forward. One can imagine what this demo would sound like with constant run of the mill blast beats or constantly slow and boring doom type drumming and either situation would be detrimental. Instead the drumming is fantastically dynamic and creative. The way that rhythm and apparent speed are connected is nothing less than artful. What makes it odd is that the drums are the best ingredient on this excellent demo because most metal is really guitar oriented. Keep in mind that the drums are not carrying dead weight but merely forcing fantastic music forward. While Hellige is far from drum music, if you listen to “The Rotten Waste” the fantastic drum work should become readily apparent, particularly at around four minutes in. Killer beats and monstrous fills.

Given that this is a demo, it may seem petty to point out minor flaws. But there is nothing major for which the band could be faulted aside from a lack of any truly awe inspiring riffs. Therefore the demo is great, but could be better. A minor reason this demo is not closer to perfection is how the tone of the bass and rhythm guitars comes off as a bit weak. While the sound is rich, it still lacks a little bit of that kind of distorted tone that makes music like this all the more overbearing and powerful. While it can be hard to strike the right balance between a cavernous reverb saturated sound and an aggressive guitar tone, Hellige only barely missed the mark. I would prefer something closer to Mournful Congregation’s distortion along with all of Hellige’s reverb. In other words, everything on the low rhythm and on the bass just comes off as slightly too soupy. Aside from that, the band might be able to get a slightly better sound with spiffier production but this demo is so good that we are really talking about marginal improvements.

The fact that the band was able to provide over forty minutes of such high quality music on this demo shows that Hellige’s excellence is not merely fleeting.  As this is their third demo in as many years that point should be clear. It stands to reason that as they keep making music that the minor imperfections will be ironed out and the band will release stuff that is damn near perfection. With Hellige, everything just works.

You can check out and download some of Hellige’s music here: http://helligearg.bandcamp.com/

New Release: Auspicium - For the World that Was and that is to Come (Maine)

Auspicium - For the World that Was and that is to Come

Atmospheric black metal band Auspcium, hailing from Maine, just released a new album on March 13, 2012. "For the World that Was and that is to Come" is the band's fourth full length album, and as of the time of this post Auspicium is providing it for free to download. The download link can be found at: http://blackmetalownsyou.blogspot.com/ (AKA Attila the Hun), which is a good website to check out and is run by Auspicium's sole member Patrick Hasson. Hasson is also the man behind the band Avulse and releases these works through his label First Church of the Left-Hand Path.

I am listening to it now and the majestic music aptly fits the album cover, so download it before spring rolls around.

Cold Blank Stare - The Human Condition: Insights Into Madness

Cold Blank Stare - The Human Condition: Insights Into Madness

With this album the one-man band Cold Blank Stare manages to rise above the innumerable hoards of profoundly awful solo black metal projects out there. While by no means a pinnacle of the genre, “The Human Condition” is enjoyable, coherent, and oddly addictive.

The key to the album’s success is how frontman D.A. Siano expertly hooks together simple riffs on the lead guitar with equally straightforward bass and rhythm work. Unfortunately this strength is also inexorably intertwined with the album’s major weaknesses: a tinny, thin, and unusually clean lead guitar tone. The lead guitar tone here sounds like something you might hear coming out of a practice amp, really bad. Prime examples of this tone sticking out are at the very start of the album and during the first riff used in “Covered In Blood.”

Although the lead guitar sounds really poor on its own, its jangling tinny tone does not really jump out too much other than in the above examples. When listening to the album holistically, the jangling comes off as somewhat natural. The same is also true of the programmed-sounding drums. While anyone paying attention to them would say their timbre is flat, the drums never seriously hamper the album’s enjoyability. Cold Blank Stare gets away with this only because of how well put together the songs are. Drums in particular are tactfully composed and manage to be a bother at only one point during the album.

“The Human Condition” is well composed despite its simplicity. Songs on average probably have around four riffs but manage to stay dynamic and generate some atmosphere. As the heavier elements in the mix drown out the weaker elements, each song almost forces the listener to remain attentive. Melodies jangle out rather subtlety due to the quieter lead guitar and with the shifting rhythm and bass notes this serves as a mesmerizing backdrop for the strong vocal work. This draws the listener deeper into the song. The use of simple and sparse riffs and short melodic ideas is compositionally similar to Burzum but the overall approach results in a more traditionally aggressive black metal sound. Jangling as the lead guitar may be, its acerbic sound also serves to highlight a tortured, aggressive, and dissonant feel in the music. Dissonance is not something you would normally expect in such high quantities with stripped down black metal.

D.A. Siano has a damn powerful voice with an unusually strong and fast attack. By this I mean that whenever vocal part starts, the raspy bleating is instantly loud and powerful. This is similar to how N. Imperial’s vocals work sound-wise, although the actual vocals here sound much more in the traditional black metal style. With each syllable in the lyrics effortlessly and powerfully articulated it serves to emphasis the aggressive aspects of the album. Moreover, this allows the vocals to help push the songs forward despite the liberal use of structural repetition. What is disappointing is how vocally everything stays somewhat middle of the road and flat. With such a powerful voice it leaves me wanting to hear faster singing and longer drawn out screams.

Overall the songs fit well very together stylistically with the absolutely glaring exception of “Apostatize” which uses thrashy traditional metal riffs with doubled up vocal shouts. The song has good riffs and is  put together in the same manner as everything else in the album, but it really comes far out of left field. It almost sounds like the band was trying to do a cover.

Following this is another outlier song, “That Which Cannot Be Unseen” where the vocal style initially switches to a low, nasal, Attila-type rumble. Much more bass laden than everything else, this song serves as the highlight of the album rather than sticking out of place. This time Cold Blank Stare bends the jangling guitar from one note to another in the main riff as the rhythm keeps pulsing along. Consequently, we get to hear some kind of amorphous blob of sound that is simultaneously heavy and hypnotic. Everything about Cold Blank Stare’s writing style goes exactly right on this track. It flows so well you can listen to it over and over again. The only weak point is that the hi-hat sounds overbearingly fake/bad when it sounds off in 16th note bursts, which is odd because the drumming works so well elsewhere on the album.

Ultimately, “The Human Condition” does not pop out as anything astonishingly novel or fantastic, but Cold Blank Stare has provided a serviceable black metal album with enough charm to deserve repeated listens. In the same way a good stone mason can build a quality wall while using imperfect bricks the rough and unpolished aspects in this music do not ruin the work as a whole but are certainly noticeable.
 
Note - As of the time of this post the entire album can be downloaded for free at D.A. Siano's blog: http://www.dasiano.blogspot.com/

Sigh - Scenario IV: Dread Dreams

Sigh - Scenario IV: Dread Dreams

This album is largely an experimental facade masking a musical core composed primarily of mediocre heavy metal guitar riffs with monotone black metal vocals. While Sigh could have brought together all of the ornamental aspects of the music to make a quality album, what we have here is just far too incoherent. Certain elements seem to have been added as an afterthought. Take for example the piano outro on “Diabolic Suicide” or the intro of the following song “Infernal Cries.”

Primarily the problem lies with the guitar work. With one notable exception, the guitar riffs are very forgettable. Unfortunately, these riffs also act as the heart of the album. The framework is mostly tired, old, and all too familiar power chord progressions. No amount of clever instrumentation, random interludes, or suicidal chants can construct an excellent album with such a weak core. Additionally, the guitar solos mirror the main guitar work. Far too many times the listener is subjected to really trashy pentatonic noodling.

The one notable guitar exception to the boring guitars you ask? Have a listen to the riff at about 5:20 into “Iconoclasm in the 4th Desert.” Over that galloping triplet filled riff, vocalist Mr. Mirai Kawashima finally sings with some rhythmic and dynamic flair. He belts out a triumphant and hateful “You deserve the soul desert.” Circus elements act only as a reinforcing background and acoustic guitar strumming provides an additional glue. Interestingly, Mr. Kawashima does everything on the album except for the guitars and drums. Seeing how the drums are as lackluster as the guitars it takes little effort to see the source of Sigh’s creative elements.

Mr. Kawashima’s flat monotonous black metal styled vocals act as a glue to help hold the otherwise schizophrenic album together. However, the raw rasp is really unsuitable for the circus. Times of random revelry require something a little less abrasive and a little more dynamic. The harsh vocals sound honed in, as if coming from a  rhetoritician’s rehearsed harangue impersonating a metal vocalist. The female vocals and clean male vocals on the other hand are solidly performed and more much appropriate for the music.

As shown above, Dread Dreams is not entirely bad. At times the whimsical randomness of the songs creates fairly enjoyable moments in the same way that all the nonsense at a carnival or a circus can be momentarily entertaining. This kind of circus-metal sound is a common problem that should be familiar to anyone who listens to experimental metal bands. With a large supply of creativity, Sigh, like others before them, end up highlighting a weak attention span that would go unnoticed in more musically conservative bands.

Another example of why the album is salvageable is the song “Severed Ways.” Opening with baroque sounding harpsichord noodling, the song quickly moves to the best use of Sigh’s guitar tone and song structuring. In a recurring riff, the synth kicks in over a somber guitar, a soft choir, and rolling bass, culminating in spectacular show of what Sigh is capable of. By pulling back the jarring insanity, Sigh temporarily asserts a bold atmosphere. In the song’s apogee, we have a solo that is executed so well that the listener can almost forget how close it strides to rehashing stock pentatonic noodling. Of course Sigh’s attention span at this point is stretched beyond repair, so the song ends with a happy fanfare followed by sad piano work.

If “Dread Dreams” is like an Alztheimer’s patient meandering out of the house at night, then “Severed Ways” is that rare occasion when the patient gallantly returns home in a lucid moment. The guitar solo is the scene when the patient walks through the door to greet loved ones he had not remembered for years. Unfortunately this moment passes and the rest of the album is more like Alztheimer’s.

In the first few listens of “Dread Dreams,”  you are rewarded with novelty. A wide array of instruments and samples litter the album, again see “Diabolic Suicide” for metal riffs punctuated with cheesy triumphant 80s sounding brass. We even get organ, piano, choir, assorted synths, sirens, and  even wind sample. After a while though, these elements become tiresome and gimmicky ornaments for music that is often boring.

In the end we have a prime example of the carnival/circus metal problem - more ideas than the artist can present in an effective way so the listener is just left with the sensation they are supposed to oooo and ahhhh at all the nonsense going on. The radical transitions from one idea to the next interrupt Sigh’s momentary glimpses of beauty, making the album a frustrating listen. 

Circle of Ouroborus - Unituli

Circle of Ouroborus - Unituli

What black metal sounds like when you are drinking

For anyone familiar with the effects of alcohol, “Unituli” should provide for a similar experience. Indeend, though Circle of Ouroborus creates music soberly, the music itself sounds like what an inebriated listener would hear when a live black metal band is playing. 

A thick haze of reverb hangs over the music as if each and every sound bouncing off of your eardrum is forced to struggle through thick, vodka saturated blood, thus preventing any hope of prompt aural perceptions reaching your brain. The reverb here constantly goes far beyond what is normal for most music and even pushes the limits of how much reverb is normally useable for a black metal band. This results in the music sounding far away, but only because the listener is down the hallway leaning over a toilet in an echoey restroom. With such an unusual amount of reverb, the album amplifies the sensation that one is listening to a live recording, yet it all retains a very listenable quality. 

For example, Antti Klemi’s vocals stand out as the most striking and memorable aspect of “Unituli.” While being drowned in reverb like everything else, the underlying style is quite unusual. The vast majority of the lyrics are presented in a melodic but almost spoken style. While a speaker of Finnish may find this as a clear way to present the lyrics, everyone else is given a foreign language that the reverb makes even more unintelligible. Again, this reenforces the sensation of drunkenness. 

Atmospheric black metal is likely the best label to apply to the music’s end result. At times, tremolo picking rings out in a way that sounds as if a synthesizer was creating all of the guitar sounds. Though contrary to usual practice for the genre, Circle of Ouroborus seems to have cut out a lot of the high end guitar frequencies. Often, this buries the melody as the drum’s snare and hi-hat ring out and overtake the hissing role normally played by black metal guitars. Even when the guitars slow down, as they frequently do, the melody sounds buried.

This same melody burying effect makes “Unituli” something worth listening to more than once. While chord progressions pour through the mix creating the overall atmosphere, quiet higher melodies flicker in and out of the background like unreachable fireflies peppering the night sky in an ever changing reticulation. These melodies feel effervescent not just because they are so quiet, but also because they never provide a strong sense of where one riff ends and the next starts. 

The riff about 80 seconds into the song “Aamusta” is an excellent example of this phenomena. There, the guitar trades off between placing chords or single notes in the forefront, thus creating a lot of energy that never really reaches a melodic resolution. However, “Lahoan” is the album’s standout track and an even better example.  “Lahoan” features plenty of long fadeout shouting, a melody so quiet it feels like you are hearing a secret, and smooth guitar lines that will slowly seep into your body.

Oddly enough, the DSBM style appears to have some minor influence on the album, as evinced by the dissonant and melancholic opening riff. Circle of Ouroborus best illustrates how DSBM can be incorporated into more atmospheric music on the song “Unohduksen Puistossa.” Riffs alternate between being rather upbeat with faster drumming and slow tortured riffs that would not be out of place being repeated ad nauseam in a Xasthur song. This mix makes the music as a whole more dynamic. Even through the constant haze of reverb, the changing tempos punctuate the music like memories in an evening of excess revelry. 

While most music sounds muddled in such a reverb laden atmosphere, “Unituli” somehow creates an enjoyable experience. The notes, and even your memory of them, may come out as a blur, but overall the album is very pleasant as you experience it. Afterwards, you may be left less satisfied and wondering where 40 odd minutes of your life went, yet many listeners may still retain a fond if not hazy memory of “Unituli.” 

Mysticum - In the Streams of Inferno

“With my Master the Devil my Friend”

Aggression is such a common feature in metal, that we often take for granted the value of musical violence. Mysticum’s “In the Streams of Inferno” is a special instance of aggression because of how well each part of the music forms into a cohesive whole, similar to how fingers form a fist. This album is a monument to industrial black metal, and fans of black metal in general will not be disappointed.

The vocals here are incredibly harsh and savage, even by black metal standards. High pitched and reverb saturated screeching permeates the album; for reference, think of Ihsahn’s vocals before “In the Nightside Eclipse.” Guitars likewise come across as inhuman, the standard tremolo picking of black metal is almost indiscernible because the high-gain ultra-treble tone makes the notes fall seamlessly, one after another. A chainsaw rips through wood by using many tiny blades acting as one.

Mysticum does more than just subject the listener to endless tremolo strumming, we are also given heavy palm muted riffs to complement the all ready pounding drums. If you can listen to this album without picturing rusty gears grinding above a raging lava flow, then you have no imagination. Speaking of drums, here we have a machine rather than a real drummer, and this in no way detracts from the music. The drums’ empty mechanical nature fit the music just as aptly as Godflesh’s “Streetcleaner” did for that album. This more industrial sounding style should be no problem for fans of Thorns, or Samael. However, unlike Samael’s dance music period, “In the Streams of Inferno” is savage black metal through and through.

The synths and vocal samples give off a slight campy sci-fi feel, which provides an excellent break for the otherwise unrelenting music. Take for example the best song off the album, “Crypt of Fear.” It opens with a long synth intro that walks on the proper side of the fine line in metal between cheesy and fantastic. After that, you are subjected to a blood curdling scream, dual vocal work, heart-pounding drumming, and that chainsaw guitar. Even the most hypnagogic of listeners will feel this album pulse through their arteries.

An additional reason for this album’s excellence is how the songs carry so much momentum. As the album progresses with each wave of notes over the pounding drum machine, you get a feeling of inevitability. Just as a song starts to get stale, other bands would throw in some filler. Mysticum however, continues to deliver the goods by adding something interesting, such as light touch of synthesizer. “In the Streams of Inferno” closes with low rumbling, creepy piano, and unsettling yet angelic vocals. This pacing is perfect and serves as a cool down from the strenuous music that it follows. It is evocative of the album’s cover art because it sounds as if you are listening to the roaring of a river in hell, or perhaps “In the Streams of Inferno.”

Also, here are some extrinsic background reasons why Mysticum is awesome:

1.) Too tough to wear shirts in band photos. See above picture for reference.

2.) Angry message to fans on website illustrating a poor grasp of the English language and an excellent grasp of aggression. "Mysticum are representing total destruction." See http://www.mysticum.com/

3.) The band offers this release for free download on their website, linked above, so you have absolutely no excuse not to listen.