As a result of years of persistence and hard work in exploring the immense depths of their own resonances, Jakarta-based post/sludge/power metal collective Amerta embarks on a new profound milestone through the release of their first full-length entitled Nodus Tollens (Self-Released). Through this release, this Indonesian multi-genre unit invites their listeners to venture on an enigmatic journey fueled by existential dread, contemplations, and the inner conflicts that mankind collectively faces against the banality of everyday chaos and mayhem in the form of an in-depth listening experience. Continue reading
Tag Archives: post-metal album reviews
ALBUM REVIEW: A Swarm Of The Sun – An Empire
It doesn’t take long at all to realize that A Swarm Of The Sun have a knack (and an ear) for the sprawling cinematic nature that absolutely thrives especially in the post-Metal landscape.Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Glassing – From the Other Side of the Mirror
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Glassing is an intriguing band who have released some quality music across the albums Light and Death (2017), Spotted Horse (2019), and Twin Dream (2021). They’ve always shown that they are not one to be musically pigeonholed, as they convey a wide range of sounds from Post Metal to Hardcore, Sludge to Black Metal while often breaking up the chaos with moments of drone atmospherics. Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Mairu – Sol Cultus
There’s gotta be a start to every trajectory of a soul-crushing sonic chronicle. The Liverpool-based post-sludge metal overlords Mairu had just started embarking on their subliminal journey through their debut LP entitled Sol Cultus (Trepanation Recordings).
ALBUM REVIEW: Allochiria – Commotion
The trajectory of the Greek sludge/post-metal unit Allochiria’s career started pretty long ago in 2008. To this day, they have released a self-titled EP and three full-length LPs to note. While being strong on post-metal coded slow-paced progressions, they also incorporate a touch of hardcore nuance manifested by how vocalist Irene presents inclement blackened growls on their songs. And, so, they are back on releasing a full-length, which is also their third one, titled Commotion via Venerate Industries.
ALBUM REVIEW: The Ocean – Holocene
Hailing from the artistic and musically cultural hub of Berlin, The Ocean are certainly no ‘ordinary’ band. Founded in 2000 by guitarist and principal songwriter Robin Staps, the collective have released a staggering amount of fine music, with around forty different musicians lending their talents to the cause over the years. Always an outlet for extreme experimentalism, The Ocean explores both the light and dark sides of music as eloquently as anyone else in the business, and to catagorise their sound into any one genre is impossible. Continue reading
ALBUM REVIEW: Constellatia – Magisterial Romance
A core facet of the human experience is that of compelling, powerful emotions. About how within our busy lives, halting for a moment can bring with it overwhelming feelings; positive or negative, and perhaps even ultimately unexpected. How such moments can highlight your headspace more than you even realised until you have that reprieve? It is this mindset that South Africa’s Constellatia are perfectly suited to with the latest release Magisterial Romance (Season of Mist) serving a worthy soundtrack to a reflective pause.
EP REVIEW: Irist – Gloria
Nuclear Blast Records have been on somewhat of a roll recently, releasing big new albums from the likes of Machine Head, Soulfly, and Behemoth in recent weeks. But one of their lesser-known bands Irist certainly deserve some attention, and their new EP Gloria (Nuclear Blast) is the first new music they’ve released since their debut album Order Of The Mind arrived in 2020.
ALBUM REVIEW: Amenra – De Doorn
Long established as one of the greatest live acts on Earth, Amenra has also always had great, purposeful albums with heady concepts. Following their Mass titled albums I through VI, released over fourteen years, the band has rebirthed itself into a new final form. De Doorn begins their association with the mighty Relapse Records, continuously the arbiter of good taste for extreme music. From epic post-Metal, pastoral Folk motifs, moody post-Rock moments, to wicked eruptions of pain and grief stricken movements; Amenra’s music simultaneously feeds the brain and soul.
The Tie That Binds: Stavros Giannopoulos of The Atlas Moth
As we expected, The Atlas Moth’s new album The Old Believer (Profound Lore) is as much a study in rough hewn crushing heaviness, as it is in delicate somber patience. One of the best releases this year so far, fans should expect it to top many year-end, best-of lists. When Chief Editor Keith (Keefy) Chachkes caught up with Chicago’s Svengali of riffs and screams, Stavros Giannoplous was on tour opening for The Ocean and Scale The Summit, we conducted our interview in the crowded, smoke-filled little green room, while The Ocean jammed about 20 feet away on stage. Our conversation ebbed and flowed freely, like the water pipe that was passed around, as we discussed the new album, the pressure that comes with critical acclaim, and how one of the most prolific guys in the metal scene creates art on his own terms.
There were clear advantages for the band being out on the road in the months before their new album dropped. With no fanfare on this night, were treated to three new songs from The Old Believer, and everyone in the crowd had their mouths agape when it was over. Having already heard the rest of the new album shortly thereafter, we began by asking Stavros to contrast his new opus with their last album An Ache for the Distance (also Profound Lore):
“It’s really all over the place. I’d like to think it’s a pretty logical next step. We don’t try to write a certain type of song or anything. We just make a lot of fucked up noise, like we always do, and it just comes out like it does. The leap from the first record to Ache was really huge, this is more like a regular step as opposed to a gigantic step to me. It’s a definite progression from the last one, but you know it’s kind of hard to explain. It varies throughout the entire fucking record. No two songs sound the same on it, so that is very cool.”
An Ache for the Distance was such a critical success and certainly one of the best albums of 2011. We wondered how much pressure Stavros and the band placed on themselves to top it, and if it interfered with the creative process:
“Yeah. I feel it musically and artistically, like as far as layout goes. The layout last time just seemed like a perfect storm. Everything kind of came together and it just happened. It was great! People still ask me about it and it came out great. I still look at it and I totally feel like I accomplished everything I set out to with it. It doesn’t matter if anyone agrees with me or not. It means a lot to me. Everything about this new one was so hectic. So the people who really enjoyed An Ache for the Distance really connected to it. So it’s kind of hard to ask them to care again and become emotionally connected to a new piece of music. I know myself, I am probably my harshest critic. But at the end of the day you can’t worry about the pressure. It’s going to come out how it comes out.”
The Atlas Moth, by Meg Loyal Photography
In addition to work on The Old Believer, Stavros has been involved in now defunct black metal supergroup Twilight, Chrome Waves, several other bands and art projects on a continuous basis for several years now. We surmised that he must be a fairly prolific guy artistically, and that perhaps makes new music all the time. He weighed in on this theory:
“I don’t know about all the time, but I play a lot of guitar at home alone. Sometimes things happen, and somethings things don’t. And I’m a very big believer that if I don’t remember something I wrote, it probably wasn’t that good. I’m kind of freewheeling with things. And now I really write a lot off of what other people are playing. It’s become a real strength for me. It’s more realistic for me than…I just don’t sit around and say I’m gonna write a song today between 8 and 10, you know? That would never work for me. Sometimes it comes and that’s great, and sometimes it doesn’t and I let it go.”
As a band that has logged many moons on tours in opening slots, choosing a set list at this point in their career must be a challenge. Especially when you factor in the three new tracks tonight that made up more than half of their set on this night:
“That is a really great question. We did a week of headlining dates by ourselves before the tour, and we ended up missing half of them, because our van fucking blew up. We were in Seattle and we had a good mix of old and new songs. Then I thought we had 25 minutes for this current tour, but then we found out that we had 40 minutes! So we were trying to put more (songs) in there. I wish we’d had more time, because now with three records of material, it’s kind of tough. We barely play anything off of A Glorified Piece of Blue Sky (Candlelight) anymore, and even less since Ache came out. Even just picking between Ache and this new one has been really hard as shit. I am really looking forward to playing an hour-long set again when we headline.”
The Atlas Moth, by Meg Loyal Photography
Since Boston was the last night of the tour, Stavros was feeling reflective on the past few months on the road: “It’s been really rad! I feel like I have been gone forever. But also I feel like it’s over already and it really hit me today. I mean, we still have three more shows with The Ocean in Canada. Overall, it is kind of fucking weird. Between Silver Snakes, Scale the Summit and The Ocean’s fans, we are like the tie that binds everything together. It’s been an awesome tour! It was good to play for all these guys fans. It’s kind of like we are playing for that same Gojira crowd again, which is really the last national tour we did. So it’s nice to come back here and tour the entire country to full rooms before our album comes out, and get warmed up before our release. It’s been really cool.”
KEITH (KEEFY) CHACHKES