Fires In The Distance do not do anything halfway.
Since 2021’s debut Billboard-charting opus Echoes From Deep November, the melodic doomsters set out on a course to carve out their colossal identity. As a response, Air Not Meant For Us transcends music. With larger-than-life compositions and stunning atmospherics, the Prosthetic Records release averages nine minutes a song and impressively builds on FITD’s earlier success.
Formed in 2013, life has been anything but normal for US/Canadian act Smoulder. With one full-length album under their belts, singer Sarah Ann Kitteringham and guitarist Shon Vincent moved to Finland in 2022, leaving guitarist Collin Wolf, bassist Adam Blake and drummer Kevin Hester behind, but having already written new album Violent Creed of Vengeance (Cruz Del Sur Music).
No matter how rotten the State of Denmark ever was, the fecundity of fetidity seems ever more prevalent in the Belgian ward of Ghent; more specifically within the parish boundaries of the Church of Ra, is something far more foul. Missionary for ruinous, dark, and heavy music, six-string dire wolf Lennart Bossu presents a new vehicle to spread the word of power of exacting, challenging, but ultimately rewarding, dark metallic music captured and presented under the guise of Predatory Void, a quintet of local luminaries to Bossu who have helped mould and shape a new, slightly more straight-forward, yet no less demanding than Amenra, force.
As someone who also tours, it is always a treat when a familiar band is playing in the city you are in when you happen to be on your day off. This time it was Cult of Luna, in Stuttgart, Germany. And to say that I was lucky on this, would be an understatement, as Cult of Luna delivered and learning of the existence of Svalbard UK was an extra treat.
It’s been a tic since I’ve heard a doomy sludgy style album that I enjoyed. After a while it becomes rote. It all sounds the same. Thankfully, Rot (Church Road Records) by the oh-so-brilliant Ohmms brings back that delicious, doomy, sludgy, bombastic sound. Can a doom album make one happy? Oh yes, Ohmms’ Rot can.
The anonymous one-man progressive metal act Sermon has been around creating transgressive sounds since 2014. Sermon’s music mainly revolves around progressive metal, and it might be a perfect fit for enthusiasts of bands like Tool, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, and Katatonia. The music that Sermon plays appears to have dark and heavy nuances while keeping it aggressive and immaculate at the same time.
It never ceases to amaze me how far and wide heavy music can be found, and good music at that. Japan’s own Kruelty is a good example of this as they drop their second full-length album, Untopia (Profound Lore).
Check out our list of New Rock and Metal albums coming out this week. What are you looking forward to spinning?Continue reading
Bergen, which is located in the heart of southwestern Norway, is widely known for producing an army of all-around great bands in the extreme metal scene – Borknagar, Enslaved, and Immortal, to name a few. Being the home of the renowned Norse sonic warriors Wardruna as well, there are almost always exciting things to look forward to in the Bergen scene. One of them is definitely the newest self-titled release by the up-and-coming psychonauts Søstre!
When an EP is presented, it’s easy to cast it off as a minor installment added to a band’s overall body of work. But Dirge composed four independent, uniquely structured tracks that makes their self-released, self-titled opus bigger and more complex than what the runtime would suggest.