Metal, for all its anti-establishment credentials, can often be quite conservative. Many of the same old tropes have been rolled out again and again for the past four decades or so. Whilst that’s not a major problem for many metal fans, it is arguable that the same recycled ideas just don’t have the same impact that they once did. What once seemed impossibly heavy, deafeningly loud, even shocking or transgressive, can now be played on mainstream radio without anyone raising an eyebrow.
With a name like Stellar Master Elite and an album title like Hologram Temple (Unholy Conspiracy Deathwork), one might expect a band with the sort of melodic death metal pretensions of Scar Symmetry and its ilk. The truth is, this German Blackened Doom outfit ploughs its own furrow, harsh and abrasive, spaced out and ethereal, forlorn and crushing. Hologram Temple also delves into some deeper issues – what’s real? What’s not real? Are we any different from machines? Has the band been reading a lot of Philip K Dick? Can we have sex with fax machines? And so on. Continue reading
I’m an absolute sucker for any art form which tries to tell a story and has some form of concept to it. I just love to have my nerd string pulled on I find I get way more invested in something if the artist(s) has gone that extra mile in creating something. In line with this come The Uncharted with debut EP Perspectives (self-released) where the story behind this release is that the technicality and progressiveness of the music is paired with an unknown narrator looking for the meaning of life through various ideas and philosophies he encounters. Continue reading