Desertfest’s 2017 London edition kicks off this Friday, April 28th and is set to shake music fans to their very souls. Headlined by the almighty SLEEP, Desertfest London also features Candlemass, Turbonegro, Slo Burn, Wolves In The Throne Room, Saint Vitus, John Garcia Band, Bongzilla and more. Tickets are running out for all venues fast and are expected to sell out. Get rolled up, dipped, and ready to blaze with Ghost Cult’s festival preview. Continue reading
Since its vibrant days and creative apex in the early 2000’s, post-Metal has proven to be an arena of very few limits and of towering imagination and inventiveness, with the likes of Isis and Pelican offering multi-faceted works encapsulating atmosphere, serenity and at times, sheer heaviness. Colchester’s own Telepathy showcased on 2014’s 12 Areas (Devouter) that they were a very promising component capable of dizzying technicality whilst remaining compelling. On latest album Tempest (Golden Antenna), they prove such potential has been more than realised.Continue reading
It’s not a bad time for the American Black Metal scene. Seems like every year we’re getting superb releases from upstarts and institutions like Leviathan, Krallice, Nachtmystium (RIP), Wolves In The Throne Room, Vattnet Viskar, and dare I say, Deafheaven. Woe, and their latest album, Hope Attrition (Vendetta) are no exception to this budding tradition.Continue reading
Desertfest 2017 has added twenty new bands to the already impressive lineup. Wolves In The Throne Room, Saint Vitus, Stoned Jesus and many more. Continue reading
Los Angeles is the site of The Power Of The Riff Festival this weekend, including a sold-out pre-party tonight celebrating all things uber heavy and underground. Continue reading
Roadburn Festival 2017 tickets are already on sale and moving fast. The massive lineup will be curated by John Dyer Bailey of Baroness. Roadburn Festival will take place 20-23 April, 2017 at on of Ghost Cult’s home venues 013, in Tilburg, The Netherlands. The fest has announced full details for camping option for the fest, including all weekend options. Continue reading
A cavalcade of top talent from across every corner of heavy music has been added to Roadburn Festival 2017. Twenty-six new bands have been added to an already massive lineup currated by John Dyer Bailey of Baroness. . Roadburn Festival will take place 20-23 April, 2017 at on of Ghost Cult’s home venues 013, in Tilburg, The Netherlands.Continue reading
On a brisk fall evening we arrive at SPACE Gallery in down town Portland and await the avant-garde Black Metal explosion that was set to begin. Emma Parsons and my self make a home stage left where we can sit comfortably and still see the bands. All around the room are the banners that have been closed while all the other bands play as not to ruin the experience that Wolves In The Throne Room delivers.Continue reading
The Power Of The Riff, the purveyors of the heavy, the hardcore and the underground have announced their headliners for their annual December fest. Continue reading
To be honest, I hold a fairly high level of scepticism when someone passes me an album by a new band and declares, loftily, that “you will like it”. Like some kind of rabid Pavlovian dog, my defences go up, my cynicism kicks in and my brain invariably utters the phrase, with arch knowing: “Oh! I will, will I?!” I then usually spend the subsequent listening of aforementioned album looking for ways to give it a bit of a kicking. I know this is neither big nor clever but, well, it just IS.
I mention this because I come to this review not to bury Cambridge black metal outfit Terra, but to praise them. Reader, I need to eat my proverbial hat, cover myself in sackcloth and ashes and admit that the person who gave me the Terra debut album to review was bang on: I do like them. I like them a lot [see… Assoc Ed]
This debut album of dark, hypnotic black metal is three tracks long but three continents wide in terms of its vast creative canvas. For a debut album it sounds remarkably accomplished, almost timeless in its effect and it should, if there is anything approaching justice in the musical world, see them rightly applauded.
If you’re desperate for that critical pitstop of a pigeon-hole then I guess that this trio inhabit that strange hinterland called “atmospheric” black metal. Before any of you pedants cry out that this pre-supposes that there is black metal that ISN’T atmospheric, I use the phrase to shorthand that if you’re familiar with Winterfylleth, Wolves in the Throne Room or Skagos then you’re likely to have an immediate affinity with what these boys are all about.
The three tracks on this untitled début (Hibernacula) – ‘I’, ‘II’, and, yes, you’ve guessed, ‘III’ – are all, in their own ways, pretty damn brilliant. There is a raw determination in the vocals of singer Ryan Saunders; whatever trials and tribulations this man has been through, he has found an outlet for his pain and redemption that seems validating and almost valedictory. This personal journey of facing personal mortality is ably supported by some brilliant musicianship: dark, brooding basslines from Oliver Walton and some terrific, elemental drumming from Luke Braddick create an experience that ebbs, flows, leaps and soars through a panoply of emotions, textures and moods.
This is black metal without artifice or pretence but black metal with resilience and personal fortitude. Terra might only just be starting to set out their stall but what a stall this is.
8.0/10
MAT DAVIES