ALBUM REVIEW: ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT – Darling the Dawn


 

Darling the Dawn (Constellation Records) is the debut album by long-time collaborative duo Ariel Engle (La Force, Patrick Watson, Broken Social Scene) and Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion) as ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT. For forty-four minutes of vocal-driven electronic droning — combining the melodic tones of Engle with the “noise” (as the credits put it) of Menuck — there’s less of a sense of being taken from A to B, but rather being given the warm blanket of a trance to lie in.

Continue reading


ALBUM REVIEW: healthyliving – Songs Of Abundance, Psalms Of Grief


 

Songs Of Abundance, Psalms Of Grief (La Rubia Producciones) is the debut album from Edinburgh-based healthyliving, who comprise of singer Amaya Lopez-Carromero (Maud The Moth), guitarist/bassist Scott McLean (Ashenspire / Falloch) and drummer Stefan Potzsch. The project is the culmination of the three working together under various different guises over the years and follows on from their EP release Until/Below (2021).

Continue reading


ALBUM REVIEW: Big|Brave – Nature Morte


 

Big|Brave, along with recent collaborators The Body (on Leaving None But Small Birds), Sunn O))) and Earth, are one of those bands whose music while fundamentally heavy and ‘Metal’ (for all intents and purposes) nonetheless expands far beyond the sometimes self-imposed conservative restrictions of the genre. Being a somewhat inactive member of a Metal group on Facebook, I am all too familiar with the more traditional brand of Metalhead for whom the genre stopped being ‘true’ after Iron Maiden‘s Somewhere In Time or Metallica‘s …And Justice For All. If you are of that ilk therefore, I have a sneaking suspicion that this album possibly won’t be for you.

Continue reading


GUEST POST: Mathieu Ball – BIG|BRAVE: Top Albums of the Year 2020


Ghost Cult continues our “End of Year Guest Post Extravaganza” with a slew of posts from bands, industry, PR types, and more! We’ll be sharing lists, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the globe. Mathieu Ball / BIG|BRAVE shares his top 10 (and then some!) releases of 2020.

Continue reading


ALBUM REVIEW: Wailin’ Storms – Rattle


Having originally formed in Texas, Doom/Punk quartet Wailin’ Storms relocated to North Carolina and it’s possible that both areas may be contributing to the band’s thick soup of rebellion and a life in the darkness. Third album Rattle (Gilead Media) sees the band incorporate a Grungey, swamp-drenched edge to that sound, further uniting related yet disparate genres.Continue reading


GUEST POST: Tim Crisp of Better Yet Podcast – Top 10 Albums for 2019


Time for another Ghost Cult “End Of Year” Guest post! We’ll be sharing lists, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the globe. Tim Crisp of the awesome Better Yet Podcast shares his Top 10 Albums for 2019 with us. Check out his podcast here!

Continue reading


GUEST POST: Cold In Berlin – Top 10 Albums of 2019


It’s time for another Ghost Cult “End Of Year” Guest post! We’ll be sharing lists, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the globe all month long! Today we are lucky to have a list from Cold In Berlin. The band released their new album Rituals of Surrender on October 11th, via New Heavy Sounds and released a new music video for the single ‘Dark Days’ too! Check out their list right now! Continue reading


ALBUM REVIEW: Locean – Chav Anglais


You can call it Punk; you can call it Noise; you can, if you will call it Beat poetry. One thing that Manchester UK experimentalists Locean do produce is a thrilling, vibrant energy and Chav Anglais (Artificial Head Records), the band’s first full-length album, is full of such attitude: from crashing strings and rhythms to sparse, protesting, dominant sexuality.Continue reading


Ghost Cult’s Album of the Year 2019 – Part 1 (75-41)


Carcass with Surgical Steel (Nuclear Blast) in 2013, Behemoth and The Satanist (Metal Blade) in 2014, Ghost in 2015 and 2018 with Meliora and Prequelle (both Loma Vista), Magma (Roadrunner) by Gojira in 2016, and 2017’s Emperor of Sand (Mastodon Reprise) is our legacy. Those incredible, scene-enhancing, ear-destroying releases are the standard-bearers by which Ghost Cult‘s albums of the year are to be judged. These are the albums of our times; and following another sensation year of great alternative, rock, and metal, the pantheon cries out for more, for another slab of wax, another Album of the Year to join them… the very best of 2019.

With a fully democratic poll of the views and votes of the length and breadth of Team Ghost Cult (including our photographers, reviewers, newshounds, podcast and YouTube contributors) taken, with no editorial steer or amendment, we present to you Part 1 (75-41) of the Official Ghost Cult Albums of the Year for 2019, for your vulgar delectation…Continue reading


Big|Brave – A Gaze Among Them


If anyone seriously doubts the efficacy and emotion of what is essentially classed as Drone, then they have never experienced Canadian outfit Big|Brave. They have toured with bands more eagerly anticipated than themselves: but those bands oft flounder at the point of displaying true emotion. It’s here where Robin Wattie and Mathieu Ball, along with drummer Loel Campbell, find a real connection while exploiting the wondrous virtues of focus and silence.Continue reading