Sorrows Path – The Rough Path Of Nihilism (2010)

Sorrows_Path_cov Formed in November 1993, the Greece Sorrows Path on their second album delivered powerful, complex, quality Metal merging Heavy and Progressive elements with Death flavored intensity. Think of something like Iron Maiden playing Candlemass songs. Perfect and absolute stainless steel!
Technical and brutal, the 12 songs of “The Rough Path Of Nihilism” are both flavored by symphonic and Doom elements generating a massive sound and deeply dark, gloomy and epic vibe. Their music have a dark, tragic taste – which definitively reflects their own personal tragedy filled history.
Singer Angelos Ioannidis have a theatrical approach which mainly reminds me of Bruce Dickinson and Jon Oliva (Savatage).
“The Rough Path Of Nihilism” it’s an extremely compact, complex, flawless and unfortunately not enough known, publicized release. Read more Sorrows Path – The Rough Path Of Nihilism (2010)

Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise (2010)

Nicolas Jaar released his debut album, “Space Is Only Noise” in May of 2010 to critical acclaim, receiving a score of 8.4 “Best New Music” from Pitchfork and four stars from The Guardian. It was ranked #1 album of the year by Resident Advisor, Mixmag, Crack Mag, #2 by DJ Mag and #20 by Pitchfork. His track “Don’t Break My Love” also received BNM by Pitchfork in late 2011.
Probably I would never heard of if Justin Nozuka at the remix contest of “How Low” would not mention that he is looking for a remix in a deeper, ambient vein of James Blake’s “Klavierwerke” or Nicolas Jaar’s “Space Is Only Noise”. Read more Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise (2010)

Stellardrive – ERS-4 Speak, Memory (2010)

Built upon post-rock/post-hardcore structures, Stellardrive juggling between heavy and noisy elements and quieter, smoother, but pretty gloomy moments. If life is a labyrinth and we should have a musical background for it, well, this might be one of the proper options.
Stellardrive is an instrumental quintet from from Besançon, France created in 2005. The band initiated the ERS series in 2005, with two EPs “ERS-1” in 2005 and “ERS-2” in 2007 (digital releases), grouped on their first physical release “Omega Point” (Le Sonotone Rec., Impure Muzik, Inter-Over, Believe) in 2007. The third EP “ERS-3: ECOTONE”, both physical and digital released, was out in 2008. “ERS-4 Speak, Memory” was released in September 2010 and continue the exploration of the boundaries of the music delivering another beautiful piece of their music puzzle. Read more Stellardrive – ERS-4 Speak, Memory (2010)

I, The Phoenix – Self Titled (2010)

Belgium gave to the world a few quite exciting artists. Well, my first “acquaintance” at age of 6 was René Magritte. Few years later I was crushed by Front 242, after a while, a Dutch friend of mine introduced me TC Matic (the former band of Arno Hintjens), dEUS are still on the top of my favorites list, and there are a few others as well. Kingdom of Belgium might be a small country – 11,787 square miles (30,528 km2) – , but it’s only prove that “size don’t matter” in some particular cases. Still, Belgium is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU’s headquarters, as well as those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.
In addition, I had in my mind “In Bruges”, the black comedy directed by Martin McDonagh in 2008. And somehow, in my subjective perception, the Belgian art scene delivering mainly pretty gloomy stuffs. Some like it hot, while others chosen the darker path. ITP makes no exception.
I, The Pheonix is a project born in Brussels, the brainchild of Jean-Paul Frenay and Vincent De Puydt, as they call it: “an organic platform”. ITP – far as I heard – is quite an unique something. Label it industrial seems unfair. Rather is a disturbing mixture of dark-wave, garage and gothic rock, a twist of psychedelic and progressive rock, some tasty spices of noise and industrial and lot of creativity. Read more I, The Phoenix – Self Titled (2010)

A Serbian Film (2010)

Creepy. I just saw it last night and just like Scott Weinberg said: “And I will never watch it again. Ever.” I quote him again: “”I think the film is tragic, sickening, disturbing, twisted, absurd, infuriated, and actually quite intelligent. There are those who will be unable (or unwilling) to decipher even the most basic of ‘messages’ buried within A Serbian Film, but I believe it’s one of the most legitimately fascinating films I’ve ever seen. I admire and detest it at the same time.” Well, I do not admire it and do not detest it, but it turns my stomach upside down. And really, I’m not some cry boy. But this is not scary, this is brutal. Forget about “Saw”, “Hostel” and even some of disturbing Asian films.
The state prosecution of Serbia opened an investigation to find out if the film violates the law. It is being investigated for elements of crime against sexual morals and crime related to the protection of minors. It was banned by a San Sebastián (Spain) court for “threatening sexual freedom” and thus could not be shown in the XXI Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror (21st Horror and Fantasy Film Festival). I’m one of the few – probably – who think that pornography may and should be a form of art, I can go on with some of  the “snuff movies” as well while I know it’s a movie and not the real thing, but when it comes down to child rape and necrophiliac themes it’s far over the edge. And I think this is the bottom line: we must keep in our mind – this is nothing but “just” a movie. Read more A Serbian Film (2010)

10 best albums of 2010

2010, musically speaking, it wasn’t a year of crisis, the music industry seems to be trying to cover excessive losses due to piracy by the avalanche of products brought to the market. I do not know how effective this approach is, but I know that in 2010 I wrote about over 300 albums and listened, well, many more. And this trend keeps rising this year.
In April I discovered the album “Blackjazz” by the Norwegian Shining  and till “Ipsissimus” of Zorn/Moonchild in October I was firmly convinced that it is the album of  the year. That does not mean that at the time between were not materials worth  to mention. There were plenty. The quantity  floods of products to the market fortunately didn’t buried for good the quality products. Yet.
10 titles, however, is frustratingly few to be fair. Some good titles are left out of this so-called classification, sorry guys, I love and respect all of you!  I put this 10 titles in alphabetical order because all of them deserves maximum attention. Well, I do not make my “critics choice” with one eye on Billboard and the other one on eMpTyV, but what the hell?! I still believe that music is more than an accessory of the business that grew out from it. Music is not only for legs or ears, but for soul.

Read more 10 best albums of 2010