Interpol

Altari – Kröflueldar Review

Altari – Kröflueldar Review

“Icelandic black metal, embodied in acts like Svartidauði, Misþyrming, and Wormlust, has taken on a life of its own, metonymy of the caustic lava and devastated landforms through unforgiving obsidian guitar tones and warped dissonance. It’s largely become a cultural icon, a treasure, and a representation of their unique and otherworldly land. While most Icelanders of the blackened persuasion greet the ears with blazing vistas of the barrenness, Altari settles into it with patient tempos and contemplative riffs, sinking fingernails deep into the scorched soil.” Fire and Iceland.

Cold in Berlin – And Yet Review

Cold in Berlin – And Yet Review

It looks as if they were all wrong. For years, critics of all sorts have assumed that punk could not, and would not mix up with the likes of those who thought that the light at the end of the tunnel is a truck coming in their direction. I mean, the nihilist stance of bands such as The Sex Pistols and Discharge, their “new luddism,” aimed at destroying and denying progress for the lack of an acceptable alternative, undeniably struck a chord in the goth camp. But, if destruction would act as a unifier, the means to achieve it were indeed on the opposite ends of the spectrum. The passive, almost fatalistic melancholy of goth clashed (sometimes in more that one way) with the actively destructive attitude of punk. Could we ever imagine that a synthesis would have been possible? Not until 45 Grave and deathrock came about in the early 1980s. Fast-forward to 2012 and what we find is a band that combines Joy Division, Christian Death and Refused. The good news is that it does it terribly well. The bad news? Well, this time there isn’t any. Simply because a band that tries to add something to the menu can’t fail. And if it does it with such angst and power, then it means that there’s still hope for angry music in this world.