Stars & Embers (Avantgarde Music) is the third album from Sweden’s ISON. The project is led by Daniel Änghede, who writes and produces the music. For this release, he is joined by new full-time vocalist Lisa Cuthbert, plus guest singers Mikael Stanne, circle&wind, and Dimming.
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).
There is nothing – nothing – clean about Allfather.
Not the production or tuning; not the various vocal methods; not the atmosphere or tone.Continue reading
Trove Of Oddities At The Devil’s Driveway (Heavy Psych Sounds) is the fourth full-length release from France’s Witchthroat Serpent. Recorded in single live takes to analog tape at Brittany’s Kerwax Studio, the record is described as being “slower…darker and more evil” that its predecessors, and “an invocation to Satan”.
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.
01/6/23, St Vitus, Brooklyn NY
If you’re unfamiliar with Sunrot, you need to change that! Holy shit! This in-your-face, power sludge\crust band filled the stage and kicked off the three-band bill right with immediate and intense energy and the best kind of noise.
There are vocalists who scream, sing, and grunt. And then there’s Daniel Droste.
The Ahab frontman and mainstay has, since 2004, imbued into doom metal a unique, untouchable style of singing which surpasses anything else heard to date. It’s matter-of-fact, informative and in a class of its own.
Grinding away in the sludge metal fringes for over thirty years, Los Angeles, California’s -16– are one of those “how have I missed them?” bands that seem to fly below the radar for many, but once detected are unlikely to be forgotten. On Into Dust (Relapse Records) the band drop their ninth album, the follow up to 2020’s Dream Squasher, sounding as amped-up, powerful and determined as ever to charge head-first through the nearest wall.
Black Veil Brides – The Mourning (Sumerian)
There’s an underlying belief that interim releases are merely disappointing cash-ins comprised mostly of filler and cast-off material. A strong title track usually followed by cover versions, demo versions, live cuts or songs simply not worthy to make it onto a full length record. A theory to which Hollywood based five piece Black Veil Brides clearly do not subscribe.
