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)
experimental
Dot Three – Antithesis (2011)
For ₤1 (or more) you can have this 12 track release via Bandcamp. Or go there and just listen it, you will not be dissapointed. For the music, imagine a collision between Annihilator and Pantera. Joe Newham seems to be a pretty good guitar player, the songs are filled with excellent riff works and some interesting themes, but honestly, this sounds more than a pretty good demo, rather than an album. But definitively there’s potential in it, if Joe will find the proper band mates, and especially a powerful, charismatic lead singer, this project might become the real thing. “Superimposed” for instance is a quite interesting experiment and it’s not the only one. Still, despite a few very good themes, the strong riffs and complex, technical constructions, the good groove and atmosphere, still, somehow this work seems not completely finished. Read more Dot Three – Antithesis (2011)
Thot – Obscured by the Wind (2011)
Thoth was considered one of the most important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. Thoth was often considered to be the heart which, according to the ancient Egyptians, is the seat of intelligence or the mind and tongue of the sun god Ra, as well as the means by which Ra’s will was translated into speech. He played many vital and prominent roles in Egyptian mythology, such as maintaining the universe, and being one of the two deities who stood on either side of Ra’s boat, the other being Ma’at, who was also his wife. In the later history of ancient Egypt, Thoth became heavily associated with the arbitration of godly disputes, the arts of magic, the system of writing, the development of science, and the judgment of the dead.
In the early 90s I’ve get interested in Tarot and by that I have been reading a lot about Egyptian mythology and several other books linked to this subjects, one of them being “The Book of Thoth : A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians”. That book describes the philosophy and the use of Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, a deck of Tarot cards designed by Crowley and co-designed and painted by Lady Frieda Harris. On the other hand, the “original” “Book of Thoth” is a book containing powerful magical spells that appears in an ancient Egyptian story from the Ptolemaic period which reflects the Egyptian belief that the gods’ knowledge is not meant for humans to know.
But for sure you must know about Thot – the band – is another nice discovery bring to my attention by Aurelien Dubois-Pham of Domino Media Agency. Gregoire Fray from Brussels, Belgium, guilty of unleashing this beast, created a quite exciting and unique mixture of electro-rock merging industrial, darkwave and indie/alternative rock elements. Read more Thot – Obscured by the Wind (2011)
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)
The Locomotive Sound Corporation – Self Titled (2011)
Aureien Dubois-Pham from the Domino Media Agency bring them to my attention and well, it was a quite nice surprise.
How many times in the last few decades it was declared: “rock is dead!” and get buried? I think indie is dead. Or at least I thought so. Then out of blue appeared Jack and Meg White and at the break of the century they had their own little revolution and gave new sense for something which faded out of sense. Since, we’ve got The White Stripes, The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, The Black Keys and a few other exciting acts. Now we’ve got to add another name to this list: The Locomotive Sound Corporation.
Instead Alison Mosshart we’ve got more like a raging PJ Harvey from ’93 (“Rid of Me”) and raw, garage rock with roots back to Sonic Youth. And the Parisian band got a fan-friendly attitude: this self titled, five track debut EP scheduled to be released on July 11, 2011 can be listen and downloaded from their Bandcamp page for $1 (“or more”). Read more The Locomotive Sound Corporation – Self Titled (2011)
Naisian – Mammalian (2011)
Far off from the Brit scene and tends, Naisian from Sheffield, brings to the surface a tumultuous, contorted metal with roots back both to the classic Black Sabbath sound and the mixture of sludge and post-hardcore riffs, in their music is a perfect balance between dark and noisy elements and sometimes psychedelic, other time warm and calm, spacy moments. James Borrowdale – guitar and vocals, Adam Zejma – guitar and vocals, Micheal Aitken – bass and vocals and Jordan Garlick – (only 🙂 ) drums, create a quite exciting and unique blending of intense metal and avantgardist surfing. “Mammalian” can be listen and downloaded (“name your price”) from the band’s Bandcamp page. It worth every minute and every penny. Read more Naisian – Mammalian (2011)
Kauan – Kuu.. (2011)
“Kuu” is the Finish word for “moon” while “Kauna” means “long”. Kauan started by Anton Belov in February 2005 at Chelyabinsk, Russia. Belov also play under the moniker Helengard with Alina “Witch_A.†Roberts (Inferno, ex-Semargl) and in the project called inea with Ilya Rikhter (from K Seven and R Is For Rockets). Kauna started as a folk black band and in 2006 Lubov Mushnikova joined the band as a violin player. The duo moved in the direction of folk doom and grown into folk rock/post rock maintaining their gloomy, epic sound. Even though the band is from Russia, they writes lyrics both in Russian and Finnish language. “Kuu…” is their forth full-length album and it’s probably their most sophomore, experimental and colorful release up to date. Read more Kauan – Kuu.. (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)
Amnesis – The Pier (2011)
Terry Gilliam’s film, “12 Monkeys” (1995) was inspired by, and takes several concepts directly from the pretty obscure French film “La jetée” made in 1962 by Chris Marker and known in English as “The Jetty” or “The Pier.” The film, by the way: black and white, runs for 28 minutes and the plot is quite simple, the main character – appears as “The Man” – is a prisoner in the aftermath of the Third World War, in a destroyed, post-apocalyptic Paris where survivors live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. Scientists research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods “to call past and future to the rescue of the present”. They have difficulty finding subjects who can mentally withstand the shock of time travel, but eventually settle upon the prisoner, whose key to the past is a vague but obsessive childhood memory of a woman (who features obviously as “The Woman”) during an incident where a man was killed on the boarding platform (the jetty) at Orly Airport. Read more Amnesis – The Pier (2011)
Planeta Imaginario – Optical Delusions (2011)
Combining elements of classic British progressive rock and jazz, not so popular genres nowadays, probably may seem commercial suicide, but this extremely exciting eight piece band from Barcelona, Spain, delivering an absolutely groovy and colorful mixture of jazz, jazz rock and progressive rock, their music overlapping the classic sounds of the 60s and 70s, but introducing modern, avant-garde textures, glows, experimental turns and subtle colors, creating unique, new musical fusions.
Founded in Barcelona in 1999, the band is named after a radically creative children’s TV show from the early 1980s – Imaginary Planet. Their music should appeal to listeners of such diverse artists as: Anekdoten, AKA moon, Area, John Coltrane, King Crimson, Avishai Cohen, Steve Coleman, Deus ex Machina, Gabriel Faure, Gilgamesh, Hatfield at the North, Pat Metheny, Nucleus, Soft Machine, Van der Graaf Generator, Frederic Mompou, National Health, Weather Report, Kenny Werner, Frank Zappa, and John Zorn. Read more Planeta Imaginario – Optical Delusions (2011)
