Theoria - Mantra

Blut Aus Nord-y black metal. Savage as hell riffing. Also, they're from Aleppo in Syria. kind of redefines the term "war metal".

Vaura - The Missing (Profound Lore)

Black metal gone gothy/shoegaze-pop. Yeah, I know, I know but it does actually work. it's on Profound Lore so just trust.

It's got Toby Driver from Kayo Dot and Maudlin Of The Well so there's pedigree in this band. Before we go on a quick reminder of how astonishingly incredible Maudlin Of The Well were:-



Back to Vaura it's really hard to explain their sound. It's a bit of a slow burner. Thought it was alright on the first listen and maybe listened to again a week later but became one of those albums you're strangely drawn into playing until you suddenly realise it's incredible. Layers and depth reveal themselves. For example right this second I've noticed a bit of Cynic style vocoder space vocals in one of the songs (Putting Flesh To The Bone). At other points it's like 80s King Crimson covering Amorphis or My Bloody Valentine covering Rush. Other points it's a bit like that Beastmilk polished neo-goth thing but doing California by Mr Bungle. Strangely though it does all sound normal. They're not pretentiously trying to make really weird off beat sounds to be purposely obscure. It doesn't sound jarring in the slightest. In terms of black metally underground stuff it's really pop orientated. This lot could quite easily be hounded out of the hall by Manowar for being wimps and poseurs. Tedious people with BO will talk about Pitchfork and the brooklynisation of music nowadays.

I think I'm losing the thread of what I'm trying to say.

All these different sounds float about but it's a coherent voice. It's a bit like the way Take 5 by The Dave Brubeck Quartet is a totally whistleable pop tune but it's in 5/4 and the musicians are doing all kinds of acrobatics without you realising unless you really listen.

I've got a gut feeling that this album will slowly release even more secrets as time goes on and I think i'd put money on me declaring it a bona fide classic in ten years time

Imperial Triumphant - Goliath

Bit of Deathspell Omega/Blut Aus Nord black metal action from some folk in Pyrrhon. Colin Marston makes a guest appearance with a solo so you know it's pedigree stuff.

Satanic Dystopia - Double Denim Shotgun Massacre

Another bit of heavy metal for Live Evil. One of Fenriz's bands of the week so that's a somewhat trustworthy seal of approval. Raw thrashings.

Dodecahedron - Dodecahedron

This one was recommended to me by our Ewan but I thought I'd write about it since he hasn't yet.

This album is pretty much everything I love about metal. Two content factors usually govern my love for metal: emotional and cerebral. The combination of these two things make for a record I am more than likely going to love. Emotional on it's own, for example all the well meaning but mostly generic Hardcore bands, don't do much for me as, IMHO, they all sound the same and nothing they do grabs me as really new, clever or interesting. Then, purely cerebral music gets you into Meshuggah territory where, as much as I feel bad for it, I just can't get into them as it's just too clinical and soulless without the passion and fire I need to really get me banging.

So here we have Dodecahedron. We have Meshuggah/Deathspell Omega complexity but with real fire and ferocity akin to the best Metal/Hardcore bands I love like Kiss it Goodbye and balls to the wall Black Metal. This really does get it right in my book. The third factor which makes this album stand out is this band really understands the importance of creating an album instead of a collection of songs. The progression of music through this record begins with hooked filled metalcore through to dense droning soundscapes, electronic sequences, Meshuggah style poly-rhythmic mantras, acoustic sequences and a whole shit load more. It really ebbs and flows, dragging you around like a vortex of evil, promising you beauty and then crushing you to death with some of the best riffs you've ever heard.

Oh, and the kick drum sound is utterly pulverising, I cannot get enough of that sound!

On bandcamp they've only posted two tracks which is a shame as you can't appreciate the whole epic in its full form (especially the "View From Hverfell" trilogy of tracks at the end which are a fucking masterpiece), so you'll need to demo the whole album via other methods (you know what to do), but please then go buy their album via bandcamp if you like it (you get the whole album in the download, don't worry).

Easily one of the best albums of 2012.

Botanist - III: Doom in Bloom / Allies

I bought this on the strength of listening to the first two tracks, it really is that good! Very creepy, eerie yet warm and organic Black Metal/Doom. Drums and Dulcimer is all the instrumentation you're getting and it works brilliantly! Some guy who likes botany and lives in San Fransisco, apparently. Track two sounds as beautifully sorrowful as Hvis era Burzum, but, with a Dulcimer!

Another victory for the new bandcamp user profile pages too as I discovered this while browsing music bought by other folk who've bought some of the records I've been buying. I fucking love Bandcamp!!

The Royal Arch Blaspheme - II

This is as filthy, necro, satanic, ugly, thrashy and metal as fuck of a release as you could ever dream of hearing.

After polluting minds and corrupting souls with their self-titled debut album, THE ROYAL ARCH BLASPHEME return to wage war on the holy with the cryptic “II.” Once again the vision of PROFANATICA guitarist/songwriter John Gelso and KRIEG mastermind N. Imperial but now expanded into a full lineup, THE ROYAL ARCH BLASPHEME's highly anticipated "II" expands upon ideas from their original template: the primitivism is cruder, the sludge more volcanic, the blasphemy more vile, the production fuller and more devastating. What results is sickened (and sickening) miasma of black metal filth that only THE ROYAL ARCH BLASPHEME can create... bow down in obeisance.

Pay Homage and Worship!
 

Inquisition - Ominous Doctrines Of The Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm

Everything about this release rules! The artwork rules, the riffs rule, the titles rule, and, my favourite of all, the vocals utterly rule! This is Thrash/Black Metal supremacy right here. This was probably my favourite metal release of last year so go listen. Also check out the other great stuff Hells Headbangers have on their Bandcamp as it's dripping with leather-clad thrash-metal goodness.

INQUISITION, possessors of one of the most distinctive black metal sounds around, returns after a ominious, three-year slumber in the stygian depths with their highly anticipated fifth album, "Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrososm." Revolving, as always, around the core duo of vocalist/guitarist Dagon and drummer Incubus, INQUISITION create fog-thick, utterly mesmerizing blackness with only two instruments and voice. "Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm," amongst a discography already lined with classics, evokes blackest magick and esoteric mysticism, inducing trance-like states in even the sturdiest constitution - hail the "Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm"! Recommended for worshippers of INQUISITION, because no one else sounds like INQUISITION.

Bosse De Nage - III

This is another album I've been playing the shit out of for a couple of months with a naughty internet copy. Glad Profound Lore have put it up on bandcamp as the FLAC version sounds so much better.

Bosse De Nage often get described as something like Slint gone black metal. And that's a fair description. If that means nothing to you and you've never heard a record called Spiderland then you probably need to get your priorities sorted. You need to hear it.

If you like Slint and black metal, though, you're probably turning your nose up at the idea. Perhaps the image of Vice-reading schmucks with ironic moustaches and no socks has entered your mind. Don't worry, this isn't false. This contains a member of Slough Feg and they're very much old, grizzly proper metal.

It's possibly not 'black metal' in the strictest sense but who cares about that? Not me.

I'm honestly struggling to describe it accurately. Every phrase I come up with just makes it sound like one of those bloody awful Isis clones.

It's bloody brilliant though and that's all I can say.

Krallice - Years Past Matter

Bought this last week as soon as I heard it was available. Waited a short while to let the album sink in. Been playing it almost non-stop though.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that it's the best Krallice album so far. That's a tough call considering how great all the other Krallice albums were.

Still nowhere near getting my head round all the twists and turns of the riffs. Strange melodies suddenly appear out of atonal chaos. Everything shifts constantly. Completely incomprehensible. Utterly detailed. Pure genius.

There seems to be a slight pull towards the Orthrelm side of the band rather than the Behold The Arctopus side. I'm not sure, kind of less black metal. Not that Krallice are really a black metal band. Whatever black metal is. I think this is something that's still waiting for someone to coin a phrase for it.

Whatever you want to call it, this album is essential.

No doubt I'll be picking up the vinyl when it comes out. Bit of a collector when it comes to Mick Barr stuff:-

And that's only some of it. Still need to get the Krallice flexi that came with a copy of Decibel magazine so get in touch if you want to trade or something.

Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

This is again one you'll probably already know about, but it's an absolute fucking masterpiece and now it's available to buy via Bandcamp, so it's worth checking out again.

Blut Aus Nord are, IMHO, the best Black Metal band, possibly ever. Everything I look for in music (heaviness, darkness, experimentalism, progression, evolution) are key components in their music. Every release they put out is a progression from the one previous. "The Work Which Transforms God" was the album which really made these guys stand out from the crowd. Like nothing that had come before, the warped, twisting, slithering, bleakness which oozes from this record is almost inhuman. If you haven't already heard this, you really really need to right now!

Candlelight have also stuck quite a few of their releases on Bandcamp now, so check out their other stuff while you're over there. Absu's self titled album is great, as is Hellfire by 1349 and the Winterfylleth albums.