Isn’t that art just lovely? You can always count on Windows96 to bring the vibes. Coming on like a cross between a video game soundtrack, an infomercial and a walk through a mall after a few edibles, Enchanted Instrumentals and Whispers showcases just about everything that is wonderful about the vaporwave movement. I’d love to know what drum samples this guy is using, they are really fantastic. Probably not good listening for first thing in the morning, but otherwise, this is the ultimate chill.
Ugh! Someone is blowing chunks of gore through my speakers! Crusm come at you with a different kind of gore. It’s always cool to see variations on the theme of goregrind and Stench Of Decompose delivers in that regard.
Invoking otherworldly trance-like dreamstates that fans of prison-era Burzum will be chomping at the bit for, Hädanfärden does not disappoint when it comes to taking you away to another place. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Lustre, a more well known project by the same artist, but Eitr is perfect dreamy dungeon synth.
This was sold to me by Bandcamp as grindcore, and – impressively – the album which brought Hydra Head back from the dead. Endon’s music here is far from grindcore, in my opinion. Yes, there are intense passages of absolute carnage, which I suppose could come close to something like Cloud Rat, but Through The Mirror dreams far, far bigger than such a restricting genre tag. Endon is more or less post- everything and everywhere. The opening tracks reminds me of Godspeed and Swans, which enormous sheets of cascading sounds; equally terrifying and enlightening. Throughout the ensuing carnage one can detect hints of everything from Converge to Merzbow. All in all this is a hectic experience, but there are moments of calm too. An overwhelming record in every sense of the word.
Underwhelming listen of the day goes to… Cold Steel! First off, that album name is terrible. Secondly, so is the record sleeve. Unfortunately, the contents aren’t up to much either, with the entire album lost in a sea of overcompressed wasp-like fuzz. I get it, you wanna sound kvlt as fuck, but this isn’t the way to do it. I even broke out the IEMs to try and squeeze some clarity out of this, but it is a lost cause. The songs don’t seem too bad underneath all of that, but the production kills this thing dead.
So there’s a little story to this. At the end of “Gravedancer” on Pig Destroyer’s epic Terrifyer record, there is a minute or so of bizarre, troubling dialogue between what seems to be several people. The main core of the audio is of a man and a woman arguing. The argument seems to get quite heated, and the woman screams out several times, as if being attacked or thrown about. They also seem to both be drunk, and talking as if they are part of a Shakespearean play, with the way they use language. Today I found out, after decades of wondering, that this is actually a sample lifted directly from Luc Ferrari’s “Music Promenande” piece. Immediately I hunted it down online and pressed play. And then opened the world of Luc Ferrari. So this is a view from a complete outsider. The argument I mention above is but a small fraction what is going on in this thing. There’s all sorts of sounds and collages mashed together, I guess this is musique concrete or whatever it’s called – its basically just field recordings assembled into a strange sequence of aural experiences. At times it sounds grandiose, with horns and drums, and other times it loses all form and structure, like in the argument mentioned above. Side A, which hosts “Und So Weiter”, is a bit more musical, if I could be so bold as to use the term, and reminds me of a John Zorn-grade piano breakdown. The poor piano here is taking a battering. This is firmly in the art / avant garde realms and I do not claim to understand anything that I have heard here, but I’m glad I finally found out the source of that really strange sample.
An interesting selection of tunes and vibes, copy and pasted together with samples and other assorted aural bric-a-brac. Falling comfortably into the vaporwave genre, Yes! We’re Open also owes a lot to the found sound and plunderphonics movements.
When you wake up in a empty house and the weather outside stops you from going anywhere, and you’re trapped staring at the dull light of your work-issued laptop… its time for a listen of something as heavy and as involving as William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops. Or in this case, part 1 of the 4 part series. Getting stuck into this is a massive undertaking, but not as massive as say, The Caretaker and his ambient expose on dementia. The Disintegration Loops were created when William discovered that old analogue tapes he had recorded on in the 90s had deteriorated. Instead of stopping them from playing, he instead recorded the ever-disintegrating tapes as they played back. The result, is a haunting and somewhat repetitive piece of ambient music that invokes deep thought as much as it allows your mind to wander. The album was finished on the morning of 11th September, 2001. The album sleeve is a photo taken from the roof of Basinski’s apartment, where he spent the whole day with friends watching the spectacle unfold. The project is dedicated to the victims of the Sept 11th terror attacks. I look forward to hearing the following three parts.
I listened to this album countless times back in the day when I would stay up all hours playing World Of Warcraft (yeah I’m one of those kids). Beer-swilling mega-hit “Trollhameren”(sp) aside, Nattfödd should be noted for its crisp production and superb instrumentation. More often than not, folk instruments are used as a gimmick to prop up bad metal, but not here. This is a really well made record.
Torchlight is one of those projects that falls loosely under the dungeon synth banner, but is not trying to emulate a sound from a point in time or aesthetically clone the goodness of the early 90s. No, Torchlight is so much more, instead delivering full-blown compositions with excellent clarity and depth of musical scale and talent. This is more in line with the soundtrack to an RPG computer game, using traditional instruments (or virtual copies of), than it is with some shaky cassette filled with dirging synthesizer atmospherics.
For black metal as ridiculously good as the album title, please look no further. A swirling maelstrom of intense noise awaits, carried along on the blessed black wings of decent production, thankfully! Tidy darts.
This is probably the crappiest Abruptum record that I’ve come across thusfar. When dealing with a band whose entire shtick is being crappy (albeit in a dark and evil way lol), then that can be really disappointing. Like getting an Agathocles 7″ where the recording is just so fucking bad you wanna throw the thing against a wall. Anyway, this release offers nothing to me. There’s no atmosphere, no savagery or seemingly any point to this. This is like the black metal version of some crappy MySpace noisecore band. Usually, this works well for Abruptum, but not this time. Ironically, this was their “big” release on Deathlike Silence. If anything, Euronymous’ statement about this being the best aural of blackened evilness or whatever, just shows you how much of an idiot that guy was. This sucks ass.
There is a lot of controversy around Graveland. I’ve recently been doing a bit of snooping around NSBM, so this is all fairly new to me. As a sworn lefty do-gooder, bands like Graveland have always been somewhat blacklisted, give or take. So during my dives, I decided to take a look at what this Wotan metal was all about. I can only hope for all of the fans on the internet that take Graveland so seriously that the music improves dramatically after this debut because this thing is a shaky, nonsensical clusterfuck – with all due respect. A lot of black metal in the early 90s especially, can leave a lot to be desired when it comes to production and what have you (that is kind of the point, right?), but Carpathian Wolves is so menacingly awful that it almost falls into cringe territory.
I’ve always viewed Thergothon as something as a test of patience. I don’t recall what it was that had me coming back to this album after all these years but it finally clicked for me. I’m not stranger to slow, strangled and horrible music, but there’s always been something different about Thergothon’s cosmic glacial affront. All in all, a solid album.
Heard a lot of praise for Deathspell Omega over the years so figured it was finally time to check them out. I’m not gonna lose my shit over this but I can agree it’s a very well made record with a lot going on. I don’t mean like, in a Dillenger Escape Plan way (lol), I mean that the songs are lengthy, epic and have a lot of thought and dexterity to the composition. The vocals are great, the production on the drums is nice and clear, and the riffs are fantastic. All in all, very solid black metal.
Despite having grind in the title there is absolutely nothing grind about this. Fat, crystal clear digital production leads technical death metal with hints of thrash. It doesn’t blow me away, but if this kinda music is your bag, then it’s worth checking these guys out.
Interesting modern black metal with a melodic twist. Very clean and full production, excellent riffs and vocals in particular. I love the artwork too. Ones to watch.
Well then, what a terrible album title. Also, unfortunately on this release Machine Girl fluctuates between sounding like the Ridge Racer OST on acid or just generally being super fucking irritating. Won’t be back. Sorry lol.
Bizarre electronic album from the mid nineties, with a mixed bag of vibes. It’s easy to be put off by that horrendous cover art, but this is a deep and unusual journey through the medium of electronic music.
Legion is a dense and difficult listen, especially for old school death metal. Just take a look at the release date on this thing and you can truly see that Deicide were forging ahead with new levels of brutality. These days brutal death has been done a million times, but this must have taken heads off back in the day. Another cool thing about this is the unassuming artwork, which hints in no way shape or form at the chaos within. I prefer Once Upon The Cross (and the S/T tbh) but shit, this is brutal as fuck. Dry production, unforgiving music and vocals.
Music that will put you into a waking dream state. A lot of this kinda stuff ends up in movies, of which I have definitely not seen, but isolated alone like this, makes for some beautiful and relaxing synthesizer music.
I didn’t realise until today that it was Mick Harris of Napalm Death / Scorn etc. who produced this album. It’s got a lovely sound, one that is admittedly a little bit raw but it works really well. The drumming is outstanding (that snare sound is out of this world). Barney is on point in the vocal department and there’s some really cool sections where his trademark roars are backed up by absolutely disgusting pitchshifted screams. I love it. I’ve long been a fan of Benediction, having caught the Dave Hunt fronted version of the band live multiple times, but I’m really glad I went back to the debut and checked this out. Really good stuff.
After a few listens I gotta just admit to myself that I prefer Morbid Visions. However, Schizophrenia is notable for the decent step up in production, and the incredible progress that Igor Cavalera makes as a drummer is outstanding. Couple this two things together and you’ve got a backbone for an amazing metal record (the drum fills are to die for). I just prefer the songs on other records. No shade though, this is really well made metal.
I’ve listened to this many times over the years where instead perhaps I should have branched out a bit more into other Psychic TV stuff (there’s so much of it!). This is a fantastic piece of work, though; a very thorough exercise in sinister and brooding atmospheric music. Not quite on the knife-edge of noise, Cathedral Engine definitely uses a “less is more” approach compared to some of the other projects by those involved, but it’s restraint (and creepy organs sounds – what is that!?) really allows it to pay off in the long run.
My proclamation is that more black metal bands should consider using the pitch shifter vocal style borrowed from goregrind, mincecore etc.; it really gives your record that really fucking sinister vibe that a lot of black metal bands are no doubt looking for. Couple this sewage-drenched vocal attack with pummelling drums and (good lord!) stomach churning bass, and it can be hard to think for a second that I am describing a black metal record. Proclamation have the war metal style pinned down well, like a feeble agent of Christ pinned beneath the hooves of a horned demon.
You gotta love Sepultura, especially looking back now at how far they have come and how much they have changed. From 2023, this release sees them as almost unrecognisable. The trademark thrash of the earlier days began in earnest with their second record, Schizophrenia; the looser metallic grind of Morbid Visions is more in-line with something like Bathory and Venom. There’s just something so pure and blazing about the way Sepultura perform metal however, and even in these proto, shaky days of their sound, they absolutely own this.
