As a part of the early djent movement of bedroom projects that also birthed the likes of TesseracT, the multinational Skyharbor, despite gaining a decent critical reception, almost feel like the forgotten sons in comparison to many of their peers. Two excellent albums in Blinding White Noise and Guiding Lights (both Basick) saw a particularly innovative approach within that sphere, with increasing progressive influences throughout, yet didn’t see them quite reach the heights of the likes of the aforementioned TesseracT or Monuments. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Ambient
The Pineapple Thief – Dissolution
Recent years have seen UK progressive art rockers The Pineapple Thief hit a sweet spot of a niche between explorative and catchy songwriting. With the likes of All The Wars and Magnolia leaning either side respectively, 2016’s Your Wilderness straddled both thresholds and resulted in their most successful album and, arguably at that point, their creative peak. Poised for their biggest European tour, both in terms of dates and venue capacities, their latest album, Dissolution (all Kscope), once again continues this trend.Continue reading
Thou – Magus
For those in the know, Baton Rouge’s Thou are a special act. Truly an underground cult, Thou have captured hearts with their intense and emotive brand of sludgy post-metal that isn’t afraid to usher in new dynamics, forms or influence throughout. After pivotal highs of Heathen (Gilead Media) and collaborative efforts with The Body, it would be several years before they emerged again as a recording band, only to offer an unprecedented four new releases this year. First of all were three EP releases that represented a different thread to their sound, leading to the full-length effort Magus (Sacred Bones), an album which could well be their pinnacle.Continue reading
Abstracter – Cinereous Incarnate
Neil Gaiman once wrote in Sandman: Season of Mists that “hell is something you carry around with you, not somewhere you go” and with Cinereous Incarnate (I, Voidhanger et al), Abstracter aim to ensure that the feeling of your own personal hell is something that stays with you throughout the remainder of the year.Continue reading
Lunatic Soul – Under The Fragmented Sky
It is often found that from tremendous despair comes profound and reflective art. It is such a tragedy that seems to hang over the current works of one Mariusz Duda; that being the unexpected death of Riverside guitarist and close friend Piotr Grudziński in 2016. Outside of Riverside, Duda took his own personal grief to creating last years phenomenal Lunatic Soul release, Fractured (Kscope), a release that saw the ambient outfit to new experimental heights across an emotional spectrum from pure desolation to showing signs of hopefulness.Continue reading
Gazpacho – Soyuz
Over the course of, up until now, nine studio albums Norwegian band Gazpacho have resided in a musical plane entirely of their own, and have consistently shown to be one of most captivating and spellbinding bands of today as a result. Trying to define their sound or vision aside from describing them as an art/avant-garde rock outfit is near impossible with each passing release giving different movements and colours; what is usually a definite however is that the music will be densely packed, complex and often shows an embrace for the dark and melancholic; either vividly or perhaps beneath the surface. Continue reading
Bodies on Everest – A National Day of Mourning
In 2015, Liverpool-Manchester hybrid Bodies on Everest produced The Burning (self-release), a ferocious slab of ultra-heavy, underproduced despair which its creators christened ‘Dungeon Wave’ and which tragically glided under the radar. Three years later that Blackened Doom crash has been reinvented on follow-up A National Day of Mourning (Cruel Nature Records / Third I Rex): the minimalist production accompanied by a more pensive, Drone-led violence, offering up a suffocating dystopian nightmare.Continue reading
TesseracT- Sonder
Over the course of three full-length albums plus numerous EP releases and reworked pieces, UK progressive metallers TesseracT have shown a propensity for continued change in their music. Making a firm impact on their first full release One, spearheading the then emerging Djent scene, even then they seemed on a different plain of thinking to their brethren and quickly began to branch out. The follow-up Altered State (both Century Media) saw more expansive structures and reduced before Polaris (Kscope) brought refinement, melodic and immediate songs; all throughout retaining enough core to still be recognisable.Continue reading
A Light Within- Epilogue
Seeming to be a relatively unknown entity, Kansas based post-Metallers A Light Within has developed a small cult following over the course of two previous, strong releases. The closing piece of their linked trilogy, latest EP Epilogue (all self-released) takes all the foundations they built before and closes it with significant levels of improvement, and a new found production level (mixing courtesy of Acle Kahney of TesseracT fame) which shows a heightened ambition.Continue reading
Ehnahre – The Marrow
Let’s be honest – for all its talk of “extremes”, Metal is largely a pretty conservative genre. Few bands experiment beyond the controlled combination of rigorously defined subgenres, and even those who do truly push the boundaries are normally content to do so only once. Ehnahre – formed with the stated intention of creating the most horrible and perverse music imaginable – have been a dedicated exception to this rule from the beginning, to the extent that they frequently don’t sound like a Metal band at all.Continue reading