The ritual complete, the circle sealed, Richard Benton steps back from his grand working, the fifty most repellent shades conjured within the last year now bound harmlessly to ink and paper. But wait! A shifting of movement in the periphery catches his eye, as fresh horrors pull themselves from the shadows and chitter seductively.
ONI – Loathing Light (Ironshore Records)
The development and progression from Jake Oni’s 2016 debut, the tech metal minded Ironshore to second offering Loathing Light is something quite notable. Always technically proficient, Oni has made the most of his exposure to a host of successful musical others (for one, he worked with Mark Morton on the latter’s solo record), and their class has rubbed off. That isn’t to say that ONI is reliant on the guest interventions and mentorship and guidance of others, more to say that the eponymous mastermind has become the proverbial sponge, moving on his ability to write engaging, memorable metal tunes, with the emphasis on energy, and setting a series of barbed aural traps to ensnare both the willing victims and the unwitting.
I Am The Night – While The Gods Are Sleeping (Svart)
While The Gods Are Sleeping is the debut album from Finnish black metal artists, I Am The Night. The band is made up of veterans of the scene that includes members of Insomnium, Paradise Lost and Omnium Gatherum. Here is an album dripping with nineties Norwegian black metal goodness clearly inspired by the works of Mayhem and Emperor. The traditional style and sounds are performed flawlessly by I Am The Night. The band not only plays a great tribute to the classic second wave of black metal but still manages to stamp their own signature on it. Continue reading