Looking Back 10 Years: 2006

In 2006 I was too busy gorging myself on Iron Maiden and Metallica to appreciate the material coming out at present.  I was that kid acting like the disgruntled old man, saying shit like, “all the good shit came out twenty years ago.”  While there’s not a thing wrong with loving some Iron Maiden and Metallica, it’s a shame I didn’t realize at the time that 2006 was one of the best years for music ever, and now that the decade has passed and we’re halfway through the next, I can say with conviction it was the best year for music post-turn of the century. 

 

I got to thinking about this because Metal Injection posted a list of albums celebrating their 10 year anniversary in 2016, which can be seen here.

Needless to say, the author left out a lot of albums that should’ve been on there, including: 

Giant Squid’s Metridium Fields
Wolves in the Throne Room’s Diadem of 12 Stars
Ahab’s Call of the Wretched Sea
OM’s Conference of the Birds

…Just to name some of my favorites from that year.  But he did mention the best two of 2006: Agalloch’s Ashes Against the Grain and Celtic Frost’s Monotheist, not just the two best albums of that year but two of the best albums – metal or non-metal – of all time.

 

 

While Celtic Frost went out in dramatic fashion by throwing down the gauntlet on just about every other extreme metal album ever written (which I touched on in my last blog), Agalloch carried on and has since grown from a place of well-regarded semi-obscurity to become one of the most beloved and influential metal acts of the new millennium. And they themselves picked up some influences along the way (Godspeed You! Black Emperor on Marrow of the Spirit), and have done what any metal band needs to do to be great: they have evolved.

Agalloch's guitarist and pianist, Don Anderson, touched on some of Agalloch's influences when asked in an interview about Agalloch attempting to expose listeners to a variety of types of music: 

"We really do want to expose our fans to different kinds of music, because we ourselves are very eclectic listeners. We’ve always been eclectic with our listening. In fact, when we wrote The Mantle, we weren’t listening to metal at all. We were very disenchanted with it. At that time, it was a very difficult time for metal. The only metal record I remember John and I listening to was Bathory‘s Hammerheart — that was a big influence. Otherwise, we were getting into singer/songwriters like Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and other things like that. Of course, then there’s the neofolk scene: Death in June, Current 93, Sol Invictus, etc. That’s when we really started trying to adapt neofolk into our music. One of the other weird records was by a band called Sand — a record called The Dynamic Curve. John was getting into a lot of electronica like Autechre, Aphex Twin, and Boards of Canada. We were trying to bring all of those different influences in, because we were trying to expose our fans to all of those sorts of different music. It’s rewarding, but of course, we like to provoke!"

- Don Anderson, PhD
Heathen Harvest interview, July 19, 2015
 

Yes, Anderson has PhD in English and teaches at the University of Washington. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn he assists the typically credited lyricist, John Haughm, in the lyric writing process. The band's lyrics have always been very mystical and enchanting, often describing natural landscapes and old world emblems, without sacrificing devotion to even heavier subjects, like divinity.

I never heard any Autechre, Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada in Agalloch's music, but the folk influences are obviously there. The band used folk to establish its signature sound, and they did it right, in my opinion, without going completely over the top as some Finnish bands I'll refrain from naming have.  And we heard more Bathory influence later on, notably in Faustian Echoes, than perhaps anywhere else in Agalloch's catalog.    

Celtic Frost never wrote two albums that sounded the same, and neither has Agalloch.   But while Celtic Frost's change-ups tended to be more sporadic and unpredictable, Agalloch has taken a more linear evolution that feels more natural, kind of like Metallica did between Kill 'Em All and And Justice....  Each album is distinct in its sound but the artist is never in question.  And, importantly, (up to The Serpent & the Sphere) the evolution felt right. 

When Marrow of the Spirit came out in 2010 I felt a twinge of disappointment because it was so dramatically different than what's still Agalloch's best, Ashes Against the Grain, and this is even despite the fact that Marrow of the Spirit had the obvious influence of my favorite band throughout, especially on the album's standout track, "Black Lake Nidstång," and was thus stylistically at an advantage. But something about the heavy, polished emotion on Ashes Against the Grain, at a time when black metal and doom metal coincided less frequently, gives it standing above all Agalloch's other albums. I really think it might be the greatest metal album ever written. 
 
So what years were as good as 2006? It's a hard question. 

1970 - Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, Deep Purple’s Deep Purple In Rock
 
1971 - Led Zeppelin’s IV, Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality, Funkadelic's Maggot Brain, The Who's Who's Next
 
1973 - Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, King Crimson’s Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy
 
It goes without saying that Black Sabbath released one great album after another between 1970 and 1975. 

1975 - Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, Black Sabbath’s Sabotage, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run
 
Then there was 1986, which raked in a ton of classic albums.

1999 was a great year too, with Immortal's At The Heart of Winter, Sigur Rós' Ágætis byrjun, Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada, Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, etc.   

But I don't know if any of those years were as strong as 2006 was.  

Okay... maybe 1973 and 1975 were. 

 

Triptykon's Melana Chasmata

I’m a year late posting a review of this album, but it’s something I need to do.  I realized while perusing through this blog that I never wrote anything about Triptykon’s first album, either, which was one of the best albums released in 2010 (maybe the best – I still have a lot of trouble deciding which album was #1 that year), so I’ll try to make up for it here. 

I can't understate the influence Thomas Gabriel Fisher has had on me. And I know I'm hardly alone. Few bands have crafted a legacy as enduring as the mighty Celtic Frost, and few bands have ever evolved to the degree that Celtic Frost did between Morbid Tales and Monotheist. Morbid Tales embraced a radical style of experimentation in speed and groove that is widely credited as preeminently pioneering extreme metal (black metal in particular). To Mega Therion threw down the gauntlet not only on all the bands intent on gimmicking Sabbath style doom, but on all bands that dared to call themselves "heavy." How many albums have we heard that are thrash/doom? Into The Pandemonium, which, though great in its own right, demonstrated experimentation greater in extent than that of even To Mega Therion (yes, even hip-hop seeped its way in), but had neither the direction or energy of Morbid Tales or To Mega Therion. I think this album sent Celtic Frost in a direction that ultimately wrecked the band and propelled them into the dreaded 20 years that followed the release of Into The Pandemonium that I'd rather not talk about, because, you know, one has been over the Cold Lake fiasco time and time again and honestly it's just not worth going into anymore.

With that said, the linear evolution of the band left long and lasting lines of influence and ideas, and nested nearly all forms of crude, violent, crushing, aggressive (it’s hard to characterize Celtic Frost with just a few adjectives) music under one banner. With Monotheist, Celtic Frost discarded all the failed experiments, trimmed the fat, extrapolated the elements that originally made them so unique, and crafted an album that throned them once again on a precipice of excellence that few bands ever approach, and they did it by reinventing themselves with a style of music that to my knowledge didn't exist before 2006.  Doom metal had existed in various forms since 1970, but Monotheist birthed a different animal altogether.  It was as immense an album as I’ve ever heard, devastating in impact and awe inspiring in magnitude. I'm not sure there's any other instance in metal, or in music for that matter, of a band reemerging with such a vengeance after 20 years of mediocrity to nullify all doubt and lay claim to, in one word, greatness.

Celtic Frost's legacy was cemented when they broke up after the release of Monotheist. Few bands throw in the towel, or ride off into the sunset depending on the way you look at it, after dropping the best album of their career. The Beatles managed to do it with Abby Road, and Simon and Garfunkel did it with Bridge Over Troubled Water, and Bolt Thrower might’ve done it with Those Once Loyal.  Not taking into account single album artists, like Thergothon, Winter, Black Math Horseman, etc., because the real claim to abnormality, and thus distinction, is the production of something spectacular after the passage of so much time.  This is what few bands seem to be able to do.  It's far more common for bands to reach levels of excellence early on in their careers, that they find impossible to replicate after the passage of so much time, and in turn we see bands dilute their discographies with mediocre releases or worse.

In 2008 Thomas Gabriel Fisher and V. Santura formed Triptykon after the disbandment of Celtic Frost due to, and I'll quote Fisher, "the irresolvable, severe erosion of the personal basis so urgently required to collaborate within a band so unique, volatile, and ambitious." And in 2010 Triptykon released album #1: Eparistera Daimones, and to everyone's delight, and perhaps astonishment (considering the company in question had never released two albums in a row that sounded the same), it picked up more or less right where Monotheist left off. It continued in the direction of latter day Celtic Frost, being an aggressive, crushingly heavy slab of doom/death/extreme whatever it is. And Monotheist set a pretty high standard for heaviness, so the fact that Triptykon's debut was even comparable came as a joy to fans that yearned for more Monotheist style extreme metal. And it was apparent pretty quick. Eparistera Daimones' opener, "Goetia," was as devastating as any album opener I've ever heard. I think Fisher realized after Monotheist that he held the recipe for something truly special, and was determined to see it manifest again in a new form.  And with the creation of Triptykon he had unlimited creative license to do just that.

Eparistera Daimones was special. And Melana Chasmata is special. Melana Chasmata is also a continuation in the same direction, and the third album cooked with the Monotheist recipe, only tweeked a little. We have Santura's vocals to compliment Fisher's, which is an amazing addition considering the two go so well together. Fisher has the tyrannical, dark, twisted, barking voice and Santura has the raspy voice. They go hand in hand and add depth to the music. We also have more focus on guitar tone and less focus on riffs. The purpose of Triptykon's guitars are to establish tone and crush, whereas Monotheist was, while equally crushing, more riff filled. The riffs that are present on Melana Chasmata are catchy and heavy as hell. What I like most about this album is that, like its predecessor, it cannot be described by one, two, or maybe even three genres. It's not just pulverizing doom (although there's plenty of doom for doom lovers), because there are occasional bursts of traumatically brutal speed. It's not just death metal or black metal although there are stamps of both throughout.  Fisher is adept at taking all the vile tones of the different metal genres and throwing them together to create a unique package.

This album seems a little more personal than the last, too. There are very sorrowful harmonies, very mournful melodies, and it's even more emotionally depressing than either Monotheist or Eparistera Daimones, lyrically as well as musically, and maybe that's because the subject matter is a little less about Satan and dying gods coming into human flesh and more about how Fisher will never see his children smile and "Emily" - whoever she is. Fisher might've reached somewhere even deeper within himself to extract the content for this album. I don't know who Emily is, if she's a friend of Fisher's or someone he used to know or someone he never knew, but he chants her name over and over in "In The Sleep of Death" and the song is written as though he's crying out to her.

Emily, why don't you speak to me?
Can't you see, I'm not sleeping
Emily, why don't you reveal yourself?
Can't you feel my yearning
Emily, the rays of the golden sun
Touch your tender skin, your frozen skin
Emily, this gentle morning chill
Silenced a voice within, your voice within
Emily, you were the blood in my veins
Emily, why did you abandon me?
Emily, how long may this dismal moment last?
Here in this world was your life
Emily, how can I find serenity?
This is the very ground you walked upon

Then there’s the strange gothic poem he wrote that is “Waiting,” which is soft and creepy rather than brutal, and which some complain is filler music that serves as a weak closer.  But damn if I don’t like it.  I can listen to Simone Vollenweider’s chorus “dying” and “we are the same” for hours.  She has a haunting voice and her vocals add even further depth and levels of melancholy to the music (I’m glad Fisher has always been attracted to female vocals, yet heedful enough not to overuse them).  I wouldn’t want this album to end any other way.  The listener turns off the stereo looking inward, wondering what’s coming.  It has an effect similar to “Winter (Requiem)” on Monotheist, where there’s an ambiance that’s calming but brooding at the same time.   

These tracks are far cries from the prayer to Lord Satan that was "Goetia," or the call to worship that was "Synagoga Satanae," but the music doesn’t miss a beat. This album is as beautiful as it is ugly. It's very melancholic, dark, nihilistic. Writing music is Fisher's outlet the way writing books is Stephen King's. He'll keep doing it because it's his lifeline. If he stops there will be nothing left to keep him going. And as long as he's writing, I'll be listening. 

Terra Tenebrosa's V.I.T.R.I.O.L. - Purging the Tunnels (EP)

I have been listening to Blut Aus Nord's The Work Which Transforms God, which is one of the most unsettling and disturbing albums in my collection.  It's a little problematic because it's so draining to listen to it.  A lot of music can inspire us and build us up but this album works at crushing your soul.  It not only works at it - it does it.  Not many recordings can put such a dampening on the human spirit.
      
The Work Which Transforms God had me yearning for more, so I started searching for bands similar to Blut Aus Nord, of the avant-garde, industrial black metal variety.  I came across Terra Tenebrosa.  I saw they had released an EP this year - V.I.T.R.I.O.L. - Purging the Tunnels, which is the third and final instillation, and will serve as the closing chapter, of the conceptual approach of the two albums that came before it: The Tunnels and The Purging.  The next phase of the band is going to be, according to one of the members, more violent, and... wait for it... more ugly.   

Rest assured, the music is already pretty damn ugly.  There's nothing beautiful or life affirming about it.  It's very similar in style to industrial/ambient Blut Aus Nord, and the music has the same dreadful effect.  It's uninspiring and unsettling.  The band already has an unsettling image with all the pictures of its members dressed in creepy costumes and masks.  They're obviously trying to evoke a sense of horror.  Their music does nothing but reinforce that sense.  It's a little terrifying in its own right.  It ranges from dark and ambient to dark, loud and violent.   

 
 
Both the tracks on this EP were actually recorded during the recording sessions of The Tunnels and The Purging, so they're "leftovers," I guess you could say, but still certainly worth listening to, for the atmosphere alone if nothing else.  I'll put this music on this coming Halloween instead of Lustmord and Aghast.

Thantifaxath's Sacred White Noise

In the court of Thantifaxath.

And a dark, chilling, ominous court it is.  Fringed with candles and animal skeletons, a stone floor, deep recesses cut into the stone and blood stains abound, there have been many incantations spoken in this court.  A wooden door clad in metal hinges leading to a staircase winding down into a chamber is the only exit.  No shafts of sunlight grace this court.

Every so often three figures in black hoods, whose faces we cannot see and whose identities remain anonymous, enter the court through the great wooden door clad in iron, light the candles on the fringe, and play beautiful, foul, dissonant, claustrophobic black metal.  But not before they take a light hit of psychedelic drugs.  

Sweeping anthems and mesmerizing chords engulf the court and resonate throughout the halls as the three men in hoods play purposeful, calculated, piercingly ornate music that summons dark spirits and then entrances them.

The music is thematic and blistering, atmospheric, shrill, harmonically disconcerting.  It's black metal with the weight of doom.  There's a great weight to this music.  The three mysterious musicians surely feel the weight of the music they play, and they must feel anguish.  Tremelo picked harmonies drone on and on.  Sometimes the light is bright in the darkness.  Sometimes darkness and light blend together. 

    



When the anthems end and the chords echoing off the walls die down, and fade away, the spirits sober and retreat back into the crevices in stone from whence they came.  For a while there is a gasping in the darkness.  And then even the sound of the gasping disappears. 

And once again the court is silent and still.  

Saor's Aura

It seems like there are more and more one-man bands cropping up all the time, especially in the extremities of the underground.  Panopticon, Borgne, Woods of Desolation, The Fall of Every Season, Saor.  It's amazing how these artists are producing such impressive, well-rounded compositions.

So many atmospheric black metal bands have exhausted the themes of cold winters in the northern lands, dark forests in the night, and silent lakes at the coming of dawn.  Not that there's anything at all wrong with those themes (they're very appropriate for this style of music and oftentimes very moving), but it never hurts to hear something different once in a while.  This album brings something different, but something not unfamiliar.  We've heard these sounds before, but they're a little less cold, and a little less dark.  This album brings the wind to your hair.  

Also, despite its Celtic, folky leanings, there is nothing in the sound reminiscent of war.  We don't feel like we're being led into battle.  This is a good thing.  War metal is almost as bad as weightlifting metal.  Instead, parts of this album are reminiscent of Écailles de Lune - era Alcest, which is never a bad thing.  The intro to "Aura" sounds like "Sur l'océan couleur de fer" with the chanting and soft guitar melodies.

The sounds are layered together nicely.  None of the instruments, be they keyboards, piano, acoustic guitars, replicated strings, whistles, feel out of place.  Everything flows.     

This is beautifully crafted black/folk metal.  The melodies whisk you away to the hillsides of Scotland.  It's sorrowful, yet triumphant.  Rarely are black metal albums so bright, but this one is.  And the future of this band is bright.  

Northern Silence Productions has, so far, brought us three of the best albums of the year: Woods of Desolation's As The Stars, Cross Vault's Spectres of Revocable Loss (even though it's on Eyes Like Snow, Northern Silence Productions is its parent label), and now Saor's Aura.  

Keep up the good work!

  

Sólstafir's Köld

This album came out in 2009 but I just discovered it a few months ago.  I've been listening to it a lot recently.  My mother tells me frequently, "don't you listen to loud music, you'll destroy your hearing."  I know she's right, but some albums are just styled in such a way, and are so good, they have to be blasted.  Sólstafir's Köld is one of those albums.  I don't mind listening to it at a volume that makes my ears throb.  It's just that good.  To listen to it any other way would detract from the experience too much.

Listening to Aðalbjörn Tryggvason scream "Í dögun birtist þu" at the top of his lungs is like watching Lisbeth Salander throw the leather suit in the dumpster. 

AT DAWN YOU WILL APPEAR.

Just when there's a little bit of hope, it vanishes in an instance. 

This is simply one of the best albums ever, and I would say Sólstafir's best hands down. Sólstafir draws its influences from all over the place, and the result is a very avant-garde, unusual sound.  I swear at times when  Aðalbjörn Tryggvason screams he sounds like a raspier Billy Idol. It's the soft parts of the album, and the way the melodies are carried over from soft to hard and hard to soft, that make it so damn good, in addition to its styling and unconventional fusion of genres.  See all of "Köld," especially the 4:20 - 6:45 part and the subsequent part that reverts back to metal.  The music is sometimes joyous, but always haunting.  "World Void of Souls" is extremely haunting, non unlike something Trent Reznor & company might write, with hummed vocal melodies and an eerie ambient riff playing throughout about a 10-minute span after an eerie sound sample concludes of a man muttering this:

I woke up at 9:30 thinking I had already missed the daylight
But it won’t be here for another two hours.
It doesn’t matter, I’ll probably sleep through it anyway.
I drift through my days like a zombie,
Looking for reflections of her in the grayness of it all.
The daylight only lasts for a couple of hours,
So I haven’t seen any colors for a couple of weeks.
It doesn’t matter, I’ve always been into bleakness.
Even my dreams are in black and white.
But maybe that is just because so are the photos of her,
The last evidence that she, happiness, really did exist.

The emotions stream in this album.  This is perfect music to listen to over a frozen, desolate landscape, maybe as the sun rises.  Sólsafir is from Iceland; I suppose they've always drawn influence from their unique and isolated environment.  There's a craving of old, better days - better times in life that have passed and aren't coming back. This is especially the tone in "Necrologue" and “World Void of Souls," where the listener feels as if they're sitting around a campfire in the dead of night while a stranger recalls the beauty in the midst of all the colorless, black and white days that seamlessly blend together.    

Iceland has one of the best music environments of any country out there.  Maybe it's because of its isolation.  Maybe it's because it's located just a few miles outside the Arctic Circle.  I know bands - the best bands - draw from their natural environments when writing music, and usually their finished products reflect that. Sometimes it might even be accidental.  Sometimes we are impacted in ways, and by things, we don't understand.  And sometimes we're not even aware of it.  What most Icelandic bands probably are conscious of is the fact that Iceland has a small population, and that countries with small populations, especially isolated countries with small populations, of which Iceland is a prime example, are often ideal places for cross-fertilization. Iceland has more bands per capita than any other country in the world.  All these bands and musicians know one another, or at least know of one another.  They are influenced by one another.  This results in unusual music fusions.  Icelanders also suffer from "small nation complex."  "Per capita" is probably one of the most commonly used phrases in Iceland.  This accompanied with its nasty history of being a colony to a larger, richer nation probably perpetuates a cultural sense of self-consciousness that also finds its way into the fabric of Icelandic music. 

Wherever Sólstafir's feelings are coming from, those feelings are in their music.  They echo loud and clear.  And whatever their influences are, be it black metal or death metal or Sigur Rós, they go from writing radio friendly pop songs to prolonged raw, texturized, instrumental passages that are quite deep, gripping and emotionally exhausting.  

Epta Astera's Semper Reformanda (EP)

This is the best Christian recording since Virgin Black's Requiem: Mezzo Forte.  

I don't say that lightly. 

Nor do I particularly like using religion as an adjective for a type of music, since it in no way describes sound.  In the same way that geography doesn't describe sound, but still we see bands throwing "Chilean" or "Balkan" in front of their genres trying as best they can to be more descriptive (and failing).  Finding good "Christian" music is so rare though nowadays it almost needs to be emphasized when something good comes along.   

This music takes influences from Gregorian chant, folk, post-rock and atmospheric post-black metal.  The architecture isn't predictable and tempos vary throughout, changing suddenly and sporadically from quite slow/doomy to aggressive and uptempo (the black metal tempo isn't really a footing).  There are all kinds of instruments on this album, and I don't know what most of them are, but what is really proven here with these instruments is that folk can be worked into about any type of music without sounding gimmicky if done right.  Unfortunately, most bands don't do it right. And the result is... well… gimmicky.

Epta Astera and Falls of Rauros and Skagos and bands of the like are, unfortunately, the exceptions.     

Nevertheless, that makes this avant-garde stuff, when it comes along, all the more sweet.  Ornate and bombastic baroque that even Bach might've found tempestuous. It's a pity these Eastern themes don't show up in music more often.           

To quote Epta Astera's blog, "Black Metal and the Reformation":

Black metal is about individualism. Often times it comes dressed up in vestments of paganism or satanism or misanthropy, but at its core it’s about the freedom of the individual in the face of society (NSBM notwithstanding); a rejection of external norms and authority in pursuit of internal vision.

Black metal's philosophy couldn't be stated more clearly and explicitly. It's important to remember, too.  It's important for black metal bands and listeners not to become a drove - a drove of opposition opposing other droves; that shouldn't be the imprint left by the black metal culture. Rather, it should be a conduit for consciousness, self-examination and internal vision.         

The works of Epta Astera are available for free download here:

http://eptaastera.com/music/

Support the avant-garde and the free expression of music without the limiting effects of coercive institutions. 

 

InThyFlesh's Claustrophobia

Lechery Maledictions and Grieving Adjures to the Concerns of Flesh is a very mediocre album. This, on the other hand… this trio came a long way in three years. This kind of album is what fuels my desire to search the entirety of the underground for new music, because when I stumble upon a release like this it makes me realize I obviously haven't heard all that's out there. This release needs to be discovered, listened to, and brought to people's attention. For every hundred or so poor to mediocre underground black metal releases, a discovery like this makes all the time and patience worth it.

I will be the first to admit this record isn't for everyone. The instruments are detuned and the production isn't what everyone's looking for, but at the same time this was not recorded on a tape player in a basement somewhere. It's actually fairly clear and crisp compared to a lot of stuff you can come by on Nykta, Parasite Curse, and the like. The explanation given is that Claustrophobia comprises “50 minutes of grim melodies and harsh violence in a conceptual album about decadence and debauchery." The album cover is very grim and dark, but the music itself really isn't as dark as the artwork or explanation might lead you to believe.

"Da Nossa Carne" starts the album off with aggression and a beautiful melody before harsh, angry, passionate, screaming vocals come in and compliment the sound perfectly. They're not too suppressed in the mix. Rather, the instrumentation and the vocals compliment one another beautifully. The vocals are more hate-filled than the instruments, but they're in Portuguese, so if you're willing to go through the trouble of translation you can discover for yourself that the lyrics follow the same theme as Lechery Maledictions and Grieving Adjures to the Concerns of Flesh: sexual perversion. Translations never run through clearly, but among other things we can say for sure subject matters include bright and cheerful things such as misfortune, piss, lust, "taking the flesh of girls," inbreeding, vomit and saliva, momentum, and throbbing pain. For the first two tracks at least.

The beginning of "Alvoroço De Antecipação" is one of the slowest parts of the album, and quite melancholic compared to most of it, but it picks up and becomes frantic soon enough. The vocals are frantic throughout the album, almost desperate. The drum work is also sporadically frantic. The guitar work is very crafted and deliberate. There are a lot of hooky guitar parts and riffs, like around the 5:40 mark of the aforementioned song. Also, "Sôfrego Desencontro," one of the standout tracks on the album, has perhaps the most memorable riff (certainly the most memorable intro riff), which disappears and reappears throughout the track. Tempo meanders and ambient parts are scattered here and there (especially on the ten-minute "Hasteado Ao Infortúnio"), bringing moments of softness to relieve us momentarily of raw fury. Often it's easy to equate the torturous screams and fast-paced guitar and drum work with imagery of dystopia. Crumbling buildings, broken windows, and children walking the streets wearing gas masks.

Claustrophobia is a very impressive, well crafted, raw black metal album. I'll be looking forward to this band's future releases for sure.

Originally written as a review for Sputnik Music:
http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/52166/InThyFlesh-Claustrophobia/

Primordial, Vektor, While Heaven Wept, and Cormorant Concert Review

Primordial, Vektor, While Heaven Wept, and Cormorant on Thursday, September 13, 2012 at Tremont Music Hall in Charlotte, NC

It would be hard to ask for a better four band performance than what I saw last night. These were four bands with different styles, different approaches to music, different influences, and different personalities, but they all meshed together incredibly well. Despite the variance of each performance in regards to the others, and all the contrasting styles of music being played, all these bands seemed to belong with one another.

I'm going to start by saying that there's a review over on Metal Archives for Metazoa entitled "A Life Changing Release." There's one passage that reads:

"This album is what I believe all modern metal bands should strive to create. It is an album that wears its influences proudly, but still forges its seal into the material, all the while creating something truly magical. This is a life changing album, and an effort that makes you excited about a young band's future. I will be watching these guys for the rest of their careers, and if this album is any indication, they will be making some of the best metal in a long time."

This was obviously written before Dwellings came out, and Dwellings sort of stamped a seal of approval on the last sentence of this passage. I still don't know which album I like more, to be honest, or which album is better, but I'm not sure anything will top the first time I really sat down and listened to Metazoa. From the first notes on "Scavengers Feast" to the final acoustic melody on "Voices of the Mountain," it was a very special experience... my best Cormorant moment. And at that point I had virtually no hope Cormarant would ever make it this far east, so I could actually hear them live, and nor did I expect them to, but they did. And so did Vektor. And less than two hours from where I live nonetheless. There was no way I was missing this show. Even though I had to get up early the next morning to give a presentation in state & local politics about Wilkes County funding a water intake project at the dam which will eventually pipe water to the two towns in the county so the towns won't have to draw water out of rivers and spend tons of money running it through water treatment plants, there was no way I was missing this show.

I rode to Charlotte with a friend after she got off work and she got me in for free. She's grown to know the management at Tremont, and they treat her and her guests like royalty. Free drinks, free pizza, free admission... I've been to some venues where I was treated like shit, but this definitely wasn't one of them. She sat back at the bar the entire evening and watched from a distance, too tired to really enjoy the brilliance that was emanating from the stage between 8:30 and 1:00am. I however...

...Walked up to the stage just as Nemesis finished, so I'll have to exclude them from this review, because I didn't see them. Ten minutes after I walked in, or thereabout, Cormorant took the stage. Their set was:

Scavengers Feast
Unearthly Dreamings
Junta

Now, keep in mind all these sets, excepting Primordial's, were abbreviated because Vektor was added to the line-up for this one night. This is a Primordial/While Heaven Wept/Cormorant tour. Vektor intersected them for this one night, so Cormorant definitely played a shorter set than they otherwise would have. But if they had to play three songs, I couldn't be more satisfied with these three. Of anything off Metazoa to hear, Scavengers Feast would be my number one choice. It's the first Cormorant song I ever heard, and it's burned further into the back of my mind than any other Cormorant song. So that's the perfect opener. And if I had to pick one song to hear off Dwellings it would be Unearthly Dreamings (followed closely by Funambulist), so I was completely satisfied with those two. But then Junta . I wasn't expecting Junta, but GOD YES. Awesome song. If I remember right they started it off by tapping some symbols before a bass came in, and eventually it led into the actual song. It was kind of like an improvised intro. Maybe they had a little extra time to play with but couldn't play another song if they wanted to play Junta, so they improvised an intro? No sound sample at the 2:30 mark, and no sound sample during the intro of Unearthly Dreamings, but no biggie. Cormorant nailed it... very emotional music live. The guitar tone was dead on. At times Cormorant plays music you just start swaying to. It hits you down deep, which is the difference between good music and great music. A part of me wishes they could have played longer, but another part of me knows that a longer Cormorant set would've meant no Vektor. But actually...

While Heaven Wept played before Vektor. They played:

Vast Oceans Lachrymose
The Furthest Shore
The Drowning Years
Soulsadness
Vessel

I came to this show to see Cormorant and Vektor. I was unfamiliar with While Heaven Wept and Primordial coming in, but While Heaven Wept was absolutely spectacular. I had no idea... what I've been missing out on all these years. Or maybe they're just this incredible live? I got this set from a friend of theirs who obviously knew the band's material, so I'm fairly confident it's accurate. While Heaven Wept played some of the most trance-inducing stuff I've ever heard live. The Furthest Shore, all fifteen minutes of it, was incredible. That guitar solo that went on and on and on in The Furthest Shore blew my mind. If you're like me and haven't listened to this band, see them live. They won't disappoint you. Now I'm going to take the time to actually listen to their music, and hopefully I'm not let down comparing it to the awesomeness that they are live. Their vocalist embodied everything that's right about music. Heart, passion, emotion, energy, strength... he absolutely killed it. He spent as much time on his knees as his feet. And he's obviously talented too. When I wasn't watching him, my eyes were transfixed on the lead guitarist, who was also a pleasure to watch. After While Heaven Wept, next up was...

Vektor. And they played:

Cosmic Cortex
Black Future
Tetrastructural Minds
Dark Nebula
DNA
Asteroid

Vektor is kind of like Cormorant in that they've put out two full-lengths, both of which are fantastic albums. Both Black Future and Outer Isolation are brilliant. If I had to choose a favorite between the two, it would probably be Outer Isolation, and they played the best two songs off that album last night. Vektor's set was another winning set. It's nice to see bands play what you'd like them to. I've got to say, Vektor brought as much energy live as any band I've ever seen. The energy radiated from the stage throughout their set. I tried to give up headbanging a long time ago, but it's fucking hard when you're standing four feet from Vektor. These guys really brought it, like they always do from what I've heard. Awesome tone/sound, utter mastery of their material, great stage presence, awesome looking equipment (including the sparkling pink drum kit)... when you watch Vektor it's like you're in the early 1980's witnessing the beginning of the thrash movement (not that I would know from experience, but still...), that's what it feels like. It just feels so real. There's no new age thrash band that can do what Vektor did last night. At least not that I know of. All the solos were dead on. Not one second after that choppy guitar part kicked in at the 2:08 mark of Cosmic Cortex a pit erupted. A girl standing right in front of me with her boyfriend looked back at me with bewilderment in her eyes... with a "god, shit just got real quick" kind of look. Cormorant's guitarist was standing right in front of me during the first part of their set too, trying to avoid the madness in the center of the crowd. I can definitely understand the people saying Vektor's giving "performance of the year" type performances on this tour. Again, I wish this show had started about two hours earlier so all these bands could've played more. Around 11:30 or 11:45pm I'm guessing...

Primordial took the stage, and their set:

No Grave Deep Enough
Gods to the Godless
As Rome Burns
Lain with the Wolf
The Golden Spiral
The Mouth of Judas
Heathen Tribes
Bloodied Yet Unbowed
Gallows Hymn
The Coffin Ships
Empire Falls

And I'm not sure about this set. This is what it's been though, and I know their last song was Empire Falls. If anyone knows otherwise, let me know and I'll change it. Like I said, I don't know this band's material at all; I came into the show unfamiliar with them. But like While Heaven Wept, oh can they can perform live. Their lead singer was the best front man of the night. He did everything While Heaven Wept's vocalist did except longer. I was pretty tired by this point, so I watched at least half of Primordial's set with my friend back at the bar. Which was kind of a bummer, but I'd seen the bands I went to see. I got to watch the members of Cormorant, Vektor and While Heaven Wept come out of the backstage room in a single file line, all wearing corpse paint, storm through the crowd to the center of the stage and riot. There was a great atmosphere to this show. All the bands got along really well and supported and talked to each other. The drummer of Vektor was wearing a Cormorant shirt by the end of the evening. Of all the bands, I saw Primordial the least, but I didn't exactly hang around after the show. We left during Empire Falls to beat the crowd out.

Maryland Deathfest Concert Review

Absu, Eyehategod, Agalloch, and Autopsy concert on May 14, 2012 at the Sonar in Baltimore, Maryland


Absu Setlist:

1. Abzu
2. Feis Mor Tir Na N'og (Across the North Sea to Visnech)
3. Earth Ripper
4. Swords and Leather
5. Tara (intro)
6. Pillars of Mercy
7. Manannán
8. Never Blow Out the Eastern Candle


Eyehategod Setlist:

1. Run it Into the Ground
2. 30$ Bag
3. Sister Fucker (pt 1)
4. The Concussion Machine Process
5. Dixie Whiskey
6. White Nigger
7. Jack Ass in the Will of God
8. Serving Time in the Middle of Nowhere
9. Methamphetamine


Agalloch Setlist:

1. Dead Winter Days
2. She Painted Fire Across the Skyline, pt 1
3. Hallways of Enchanted Ebony
4. I Am the Wooden Doors
5. Of Stone, Wind and Pillor
6. You Were But a Ghost in my Arms
7. The Lodge (Dismantled)


Autopsy Setlist:

1. Hand of Darkness
2. Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay
3. In the Grip of Winter
4. Severed Survival
5. Gasping For Air
6. Slaughterday
7. Maggot Holes
8. Born Undead
9. Always About to Die
10. Seeds of the Doomed
11. Deed
12. Mauled to Death
13. Voices


This was the first time Agalloch ever played You Were But A Ghost in my Arms live.  What they played sounded great, but what a disappointing set. They got very little crowd reaction save at the end of songs / the times the crowd thought the songs were over. Neglecting to play a single song off Ashes or Morrow is a horrible idea, but if they do neglect to, they should at least play either In The Shadow of Our Pale Companion or The Hawthorne Passage.  It would've been a great show for someone who had seen Agalloch live a few times before and wanted some rarities.  For a first time goer, it was bothersome.    

Absu was killer.  Their blackened thrash sounded great live.  Never Blow Out The Eastern Candle was incredible.

Autopsy got cut off.  There were some sound issues; they actually played Voices after the Sonar cut the PA off.  The vocals sounded amazing.  I didn't stay for the whole set because I was dog tired.    

Enslaved and Alcest Concert Review

Enslaved and Alcest concert on Saturday, October 1, 2011 at Outland Live in Columbus, OH


If someone had told me at the start of the year that both Agalloch and Alcest would tour the United States in 2011, and that I'd miss both of them, I would've been in disbelief.  Right now, I'm in disbelief.
 
I missed Alcest Saturday night because I arrived at the venue too late.  I drove six and a half hours to find out, when I walked up to the girl taking tickets at the door, Alcest had just completed their set and left the stage.  I felt absolutely sick.

On top of that, I'd either purchased the wrong ticket, or Ticketmaster sent me the wrong ticket, because when I handed my ticket to the girl at the door she showed me the ticket was for the Enslaved and Alcest show in Springfield, VA.  So I had to cough up $17 to see Enslaved.

Enslaved was great, of course.  I expected nothing less.  Although I'm not gonna lie and pretend I enjoyed the show and had the time of my life.  In all honesty, it was impossible for me to really absorb it and get into it.  I was exhausted, physically and mentally, and for a large part of the set I sat on a couch in the back of the room and just listened.  I wish they'd played more off Vertebrae, which is Enslaved's best album and one of the best black metal albums ever released. They did cover "Immigrant Song" by Zeppelin as an encore, which was awesome.  The set was as follows, from what I can remember... I might've missed one or two in the middle of the set.


Setlist:

1. Axioma (intro)
2. Ethica Odini
3. Raidho
4. Fusion of Sense and Earth
5. Heimvegen
6. Ruun
7. Ground
8. Giants
9. As Fire Swept Clean the Earth
10. Allfaor Ooinn

Encore:

11. Drum Solo
12. Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin cover)
13. Isa

An Introspective Sound: Alcest

Ecailles de Lune (Part I)

We have our classic black metal bands.  These are the Celtic Frost's and Hellhammer's and Bathory's of the world.  Then we have our next wave of black metal, which has a slightly wider variance in sound.  These would be our Immortal's and Satyricon's and Emperor's (and the newest, Triptykon, which was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2010), so on and so on.  

Then there's… Alcest.  

Let me start by saying the production value is ace.  And this is what we would expect from Markus Stock (the brain behind Empyrium, The Vision Bleak, and Autumnblaze).  

With Écailles de Lune, this band has taken black metal in its own direction, and the results have been nothing short of fantastic.  It would probably be unfair to call them a black metal band, just because black metal is only one of many incorporations they throw into their sound.  It's extremely shoegazish.  You'll find few blastbeats, and absolutely no pounding "D" chords played over and over (retreat!, Whitechapel fans, retreat!).  Rather, most of the album is gentle and mellow, and creates an ethereal sense of beauty in an extremely emotional way.  This is where the post-rock influence finds its way in.  Black metal is a genre that, to a large extent, seems to quickly be becoming stale… still producing great music, just not much in the way of innovation.  Clean vocals of this sort are uncharted grounds for this genre. The vocals on the opening track engulf the song with a wave of sentimentality and serenity.  And they compliment the guitars beautifully, creating truly stirring music with a painstakingly transparent emotional core.   

There are few metal records that evoke so much emotion in the listener (or at least that's the case with me), hence why I usually turn to post-rock for feeling, whether it be depression, inspiration, tranquility, or whatever else.  But this record absolutely does.  This music brings me to a state of introversion.  I've never heard music so beautiful and dreamlike, yet so longing with lingering undertones of lonesomeness and pain.  The lingering follows the album throughout, appearing and reappearing, right to the very end with Sur L'Ocean Couleur de Fer, which is one of the most dreamlike songs I've ever heard.  This is the song I would expect to hear when voyaging to a different realm.  I can almost see the valor behind the clouds…

The slow gentle echoing guitars and the harmonious vocal pattern draw a beautiful romantic ambiance; it's the perfect album closer.  But it still has that strange sense of depression and anguish, like it's trying to seek out the beauty, but just can't get past the heartache… a theme I thought lasted throughout. 

The blackest part of the album was Écailles de Lune (Part II) and Percées de Lumiére, where we heard a lot of that 90's shoegaze meet Agalloch-type intensity and black metal vocals. Percées de Lumiére, especially, ads a lot of diversity to this record.  Neige displays his fantastic shrill screams, which are extremely impressive because I've never actually been convinced he's a black metal vocalist, so I'm not quite sure how he pulls it off.  The drums aren't too technical, but they're interesting, and they mesh well with the bass. There are some great uptempo rifts.  This song invoked a nice feeling of nostalgia, in a way that's not quite so "down" in mood, but still incredibly heartfelt.  

Abysses is definitely the weakest track on the record, but it serves as a nice interlude between the first three tracks and Solar Song and Sur L'Ocean de Fer.  

Sur L'Ocean Couleur de Fer

There have been a lot of comparisons made between Alcest and Agalloch, maybe because they're both on Profound Lore, or maybe because most see them as similar artists, but whatever the reason(s), these are two of the greatest current artists producing music.  Écailles de Lune got #2 on my top albums of 2010 list behind Agalloch's.  Both are blackened post-metal.  Both can be folksy.  Alcest delves more into the shoegaze area than Agalloch.  Agalloch delves more into doom.  But they are similar, and I think comparing them is justifiable.  While I feel Agalloch creates better song structure, greater depth, and slightly more instrumental efficiency, Alcest creates in an area where Agalloch lacks (slightly): atmosphere and emotion.  I definitely get emotional responses from Agalloch's music, but not quite in the sense, or to the extent, I do from Alcest's.  And I think that rolls back around to atmospherics.

Écailles de Lune: 9.4/10 

A special thanks to the Metal Archives and the Mayhem Boards.