Sólveig Matthildur, synth legend for Icelandic Darkwave pioneers Kælan Mikla, is a troubadour of the keys. Winning accolade upon award for her debut solo album Unexplained Miseries & the Acceptance of Sorrow (Self-Released), second full-length Constantly In Love (Artoffact Records) aims to build on that emotional heart with an added sense of frost-bitten drama, an ill-fated love story articulating emotion from both protagonists.Continue reading
“Satan rules!” states the bio of French Doom/Stoner trio Witchfinder. Dear, oh dear…more expected is the apparent devotion to hedonism and, on the band’s second album Hazy Rites (Black Bow Records), both are seemingly hallowed in equal measure.Continue reading
The West Country, the South East corner of England famed for its history and beauty, is also renowned for producing devastating heaviness with a soupçon of versatility. Step forward Cracked Machine who, since emerging from Wiltshire in 2015, have surfed both cosmos and deserts out of the reach of radar.Continue reading
Despite third album Paradise Gallows (Relapse Records) establishing Virginian quintet Inter Arma as one of the World’s premier exponents of Harsh Progressive Metal, it’s nevertheless arguable as to whether or not the band remains in the shadow of 2014’s staggering opus The Cavern (Relapse Records). Fourth full-length Sulphur English (also Relapse), surely their most brutal yet, will lay such doubts to rest.Continue reading
Dirk Serries has been composing interstellar, compartmentalised Drone structures for thirty-five years now, fourteen of which have been spent as the figurehead of his Fear Falls Burning project. The Belgian’s latest album, Function Collapse (Consouling Sounds), shows the scope of the electric guitar and the man’s wizardry of command.Continue reading
One-person Seattle outfit Sataray is the brainchild of Katarina E. and purports to be a dark, ritualistic experience. Ploughing a live furrow over the last few years with her Performance Art-style shows, Nocturnum (Scry Recordings) is the first long-player from this enigmatic artist.Continue reading
There’s somethin’ incestuous a-brewin’ in San Diego: a fluid drift from band to band and back again, like the returning wisps of smoke from that latest joint exhalation. This is Zach Oakley’s second journey through my cans in as many months, while more of his friends in Psych outfits JOY and Harsh Toke make yet another union in the form of the drenched riffage of Pharlee.Continue reading
A band name that works beautifully on so many levels – profound, Sci-Fi, comedic – Italian quintet John, The Void’s sound is now firmly attached in the former, having spent time dallying in the first two descriptors. Second album III: Adversa (Argonauta Records) adds a further, more grave distillation of that desolation whilst maintaining a subtle, warm influence.Continue reading
From the first recording session through to the present day, it’s taken almost eighteen months for What Is Imposed Must Be Endured (Black Bow Records), the debut album from Sheffield-based quartet Blind Monarch, to see the light of day. In that time the band has shared stages with leading lights of the UK Death-Doom scene so it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to suggest that this album is eagerly awaited.Continue reading
Despite having released a host of material since its 2012 inception, Glamorgan trio Tides Of Sulfur has issued just one album, the coruscating Extinction Curse (Self-Released) in 2016. New EP Paralysis Of Reason (Sludgelord Records / APF Records / Astral Noize) is the first thing to come from the band since that album, and in that time the ripping hostility has become even more twisted.Continue reading