The second first full length album by British Fen, “Epoch” was launched at the Bull & Gate venue in London with support from the old Corpse Road on the 11th of February 2011 and already gaining positive reviews in most of the magazines. “Epoch” was released in a standard jewel CD case and as a strictly limited – 999 copies – artbook edition with 40, and two exclusive & unreleased bonus tracks, “The Wind Whispers of Loss” and “…From the Mists”.
Following the acclaimed debut, “The Malediction Fields” from 2009, “Epoch” merging black metal, post-rock and shoegaze to express loss, sorrow, exaltation and a sense of ancient pride through music.
The band is named after a region of Eastern England called The Fens. The Fens have very flat and mysterious landscapes, with many marshes and wetlands. The band members grew up in this area, and find much of the inspiration for their music and themes from the atmosphere of this area. Read more Fen – Epoch (2011)
black metal
Dead To A Dying World – Self Titled (2011)
Mike Yeager – vocals, Leigh Ann Jensen – upright bass, Sam Pruitt – cello and vocals, Sean Mehl – guitar, James Magruder – bass guitar and Stefan Gonzalez – drums, from Dallas, Texas, open the gates of (inner) Hell. Sit back and die – slowly. DTADY will takes you down into a gloomy world build upon black metal foundation and colored with post-rock and neo-classic/experimental elements. Doom and crust metal grindings, dark-depressive themes, abstract and contorted moments, scattered cellos and cutting guitars are merged into one dark, but breathing new universe.
This self-titled, debut double-LP from Dead To A Dying World is for those who truly appreciate the aesthetic value of deluxe packaging and heavyweight color vinyl. The album is pressed on 200-gram, translucent green wax and features heavyweight jackets, metallic-silver printed innersleeves and gatefold graphic, and is neatly enclosed in a heavy-duty slipcase. Mastered at 45rpm for superior sound quality, this is an album that was truly meant for vinyl. Read more Dead To A Dying World – Self Titled (2011)
Ana Kefr – The Burial Tree II (2011)
When the mainstream becomes extremely boring – just like eating margarine each and every day -, everybody try too hard to fit into all the generally accepted patterns, boxes, labels and genres and even the so-called “alternative” scene is nothing, but a cliche, still, the underground may bring salvation. Quite sadly, even the avant-garde scene and improvised music sometimes becomes predictable and boring…
I’m not a Black Metal consumer, but from time to time I find myself enjoying some Black Metal products. And well, not exclusively the traditional Scandinavian scene delivering quite exciting surprises.
Kyle Coughran – rhythm guitar/vocals, Shane Dawson – percussion, Alphonso Jimenez: bass guitar, Rhiis D. Lopez – lead vocals/keys and Brendan Moore – lead guitar/vocals/saxophone bring to the surface an extremely colourful, intense and exciting album. Black Metal roots are merged with Folk and Progressive Rock/Metal elements, complex structures, grinding Metal constructions are filled with style and inspiration with condiments from Folk to Jazz, from classy epic construction to spacy cinematic soundscapes. Read more Ana Kefr – The Burial Tree II (2011)
Rorcal – Heliogabalus (2010)
74 minutes and 13 seconds, “Heliogabalus” it’s the single track of Geneva’s (Switzerland) experimental black/doom/drone metal band Rocal formed in 2006.
The band’s members Junior, Bruno, Diogo, JP and Ron exploring the darkest side of the post/experimental-metal, a quite painful journey through some deep dark moments, sometimes quite mysterious ones, soundtrack-like shady, minimalist construnctions, contra-balanced by raw black metal explosions, noisy metal grindings.
Be prepared for suffering and torture… Read more Rorcal – Heliogabalus (2010)
Dewey – Self Titled (2011)
The complete name of the genius American jazz trumpeter, Miles Davis, actually was Miles Dewey Davis III. Dewey is a name chosen by several artists for their bands, some in its simple form, others as Dewey Band, and many more, just like Miles, born with this name. The French band made of Edouard – guitar, Seb – bass, Tony – guitar, Ben – vocals and Guillaume – drums recorded their debut effort between May and June 2010 by them self and released it on their Bandcamp page on 20 May 2011.
Dewey delivering a gloomy mixture of post-metal with roots back to black, death and crust metal, slow, crushing moments are combined with grinding, fast passages, they songs are filled with dark atmosphere, expressive, sometimes quite cinematic elements, but still, very intense, disturbing metal.
It’s a dark, but interesting journey coloured with exciting twists, turns, breaks, changing of tempos and approaches while Ben delivering exclusively raw, howling vocals. Read more Dewey – Self Titled (2011)
Breaking The Day – Survived By None (2011)
Atmospheric and ravishing, “Survived By None”, the twelve tracks debut release of the British Breaking The Day will grind you to the ground. With roots back to raw black metal, but with extreme and modern, sometimes quite experimental metal in their veins, BTD find their quite unique path to explore the darkest and contorted borders of nowadays metal/post-hardcore area of music. Brutal, but expressive, gloomy, but beautiful, “Survived By None” is an astonishing panorama of apocalypse, an end not of the race or the species, but of the man and his alienated soul. Shit, at least this is what I think so. Read more Breaking The Day – Survived By None (2011)
Altar Of Plagues – Mammal (2011)
Pretty gloomy, merging elements from black metal to post-rock and creating sometimes contorted butcheries, other moments twisted, spacy, atmospheric, ambient passages, from Cork, Ireland, Altar Of Plagues strikes again with their second full-length album and four dark, epic, tumultuous tracks. Formed in 2006, they take influence from several differerent acts such as Emperor, Björk and Arvo Pärt. The bands untraditional aesthetic and approach to the music has led to a wide variety of listeners and this may be seen by the diverse range of acts Altar of Plagues have toured with, including Isis and Mayhem, as well as having appeared at festivals that focus on ‘extreme’ metal and festivals that encourage experimentation and diversity. Read more Altar Of Plagues – Mammal (2011)
Shining – VII Fodd Forlorare (2011)
It’s pity and annoying, there are a band named Shining from Norway formed at Oslo in 1999 and this band from Halmstad, Sweden formed in 1996 by Niklas Kvarforth, also involved in the bands Skitliv, Diabolicum, Den Saakaldte, Funeral Dirge and Bethlehem. I love them both, Jørgen Munkeby shake my world last year with the incredible album “Blackjazz” which forged jazz, industrial and black metal, while Niklas Kvarforth keep on surprising us with his intense blending of black metal and incorporated elements of doom metal and post/modern metal textures. Two creative Scandinavian bands sharing the same name still may be confusing for some…
“VII Fodd Forlorare” set to be released by Spinefarm Records on May 25, 2011 consist in six gloomy but beautiful and intense new songs and it’s obviously the band’s seventh album. Taking on a more experimental path, Shining remains an intense and extreme metal act, some acoustic and experimental/psychedelic passages bringing more color and excitement to this new material. Read more Shining – VII Fodd Forlorare (2011)
Enslaved – The Sleeping Gods (2011)
This is “only” a 5 track EP from this innovator Norwegian band after the release of the exciting album “Axioma Ethica Odini” last year. Enslaved slowly grow out of their black metal roots into something which is on the border between modern (post) and progressive metal, but still keep in their sound the energy and weight of their origins. “Alu Misyrki”, the second track from this new material have a strong Celtic Frost feeling for example. Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson managed to navigate intelligently between rock and metal tones and textures, experimenting with different approaches, pushing the limits of sounds and tearing down the walls of conventions. “The Sleeping Gods” is another nice piece in this artistic development. The very next song, “Synthesis”, bring to the surface some obscure psychedelic layers, cinematic sounds, it’s made of shattered sounds and enigmatic noises. Read more Enslaved – The Sleeping Gods (2011)
Anaal Nathrakh – Passion (2011)
According to Michael Everson’s transcription, Anaal Nathrakh means “serpent’s breath” and the name comes from Merlin’s Charm of Making in John Boorman’s 1981 film “Excalibur”. The British extreme metal band was formed in 1999 and they fuse black metal, grindcore, death metal and industrial music. “Passion” is their eight studio album and the new collection of ten songs are lead us through the same dark, contorted world made of forged guitars, raw vocals, crushing tempos and extreme noises, but Anaal Nathrakh managed to bring into this extreme butchery interesting harmonies and melodies, inspired colors and shady sounds. Read more Anaal Nathrakh – Passion (2011)
