I've been consistently impressed by the French metal scene since 2008, with some amazing things coming from the country (Gojira and Eryn Non Dae come first to my mind), with only Alcest being a minor disappointment. Their style is described on Encyclopedia Metallum as sludge/drone doom. I would have called it post-doom, but either formula adds up to the same thing: heavy, sludgy, slow, organically-developing songs. Four of them to be precise, with a total runtime over 47 minutes. The album is entirely instrumental, as many post-metal and drone doom bands tend toward vocal minimalism. But
An internet aquaintance once described drone doom as "ambient played with metal instrumentation" and while that's something I'd often disagree with, it certainly applies here, and in the best ways possible. Indeed, Vampyr is one of the best drone doom albums I've heard in a long time- darker and deeper than the Mariana Trench, lush, beautiful, stuffed full of fascinating tones- it's a great album. Picture Tim Hecker remixing Angelic Process (that's some very high praise coming from me), or, well, perhaps Year of No Light heard Ondo's Mahavishnu and decided to do a tribute album to it.
There is little arguing the fact that black metal is one of the most puzzling genres in music today, part of this stems from the fact that the standard of writing music for a lot of bands differs and those standards get lumped together in the form of unnecessary,nay at times ridiculous gimmicks. The other part of course is the more refreshing breadth of diversity that the bands within this genre deploy or at least certain bands do. Now why BM is so puzzling is because that said diversity itself has become a bit commonplace and so breaking above that experimentation sea has become a challenge
The third release from Irish pack Altar Of Plagues sees the band carrying on with the experimentation they dabbled in on Mammal and to move further from the Wolves in the Throne Room inspired style of their debut in favor of the more decaying urban post metal vibe that they’ve always had albeit in smaller amounts. As time has gone on Altar Of Plagues has become less straightforward black metal, not that they were ever in the first place but it appears that they’ve got less interest in being a conventional black metal band. Not that I have a problem with that mind you, it’s always interesting
Tracklist: 01. The Emptiness Tortures Me... Over... And Over... And Over... And Over...... 05:37 02. ...And Hurting Colors 13:46 03. Untitled III 08:56 04. Untitled II 06:20
Florentine band Fangs Of The Molossus are a four-piece describing themselves as '† Psychedelic Doom Hellhounds †'. Expect plenty of Stoner-vibed riffing, layered with plenty of effects, and space-rock interludes. Influences include Hawkwind, Loop, Swans, Danzig, and more, resulting in a sound similar to Ufomammut and Electric Wizard. I have to admit to being completely unaware of what a ‘molossus’ was, but a quick search online suggests that it was the name of a now extinct breed of dog used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for fighting and hunting. Indeed, the cover art of Fangs of the
Formed by ex-members of The Doomsday Cult and Terrorama, Wardenclyffe are named after Nikola Tesla's experimental facility. They play Death/Doom, influenced by experience in the Death/Thrash field, with largely clean vocals and plenty of aggressive guitar-work. As a small curio, Wardenclyffe's demo from 2012 deserves a bit of a mention first of all. Released as a 'Soundtrack' to guitarist and vocalist Jacob Nordangård's doctoral thesis on "The Political History of Biofuels in the European Union", it can be safely assumed, as is claimed in their current release statement, 'it was probably the
Our guest of honour on the review platform today is Abysmal Growls of Despair (AGOD) - a solo-driven French Funeral Doom Metal outfit that is commandeered by an individual named Hangsvart. Considering that the band is still relatively in its early years of operation (formed in 2013), they have nevertheless managed to put out a fairly impressive number of releases. 'Dark Days' marks the band’s second full-length release and after having spent the last couple of weeks qualitatively with this album, I enthusiastically look forward to checking out the remaining spread of their doom-laden
Now, this is nice: very much so, in fact. Not 'nice', in the sense of Tennyson's jolly romps, like "And then my heart with pleasure fills/ And dances with the daffodils": think more along the lines of Byron's gloomy lament "And thou art dead, as young and fair/As aught of mortal birth", and take 'nice' to mean 'exquisitely dismal'. That's if any such qualification is needed after a glance at the graveyard angel statue of the cover - a monument, watching over ranks of crumbling headstones, with timeless and forlorn serenity. Nothing new in that, obviously: it's pretty much a certainty that
![Marche Funèbre > Death Wish Woman [ep] (2018)](/img/aHR0cHM6Ly9jLnJhZGlrYWwucnUvYzE3LzE4MTEvNDAvYzlkNTY3NGU1NzFhLmpwZw%3D%3D "Marche Funèbre > Death Wish Woman [ep] (2018)")
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