“The Abbey of Thelema was a commune in Sicily run by Aleister Crowley. Home to the wild hedonism and magick of his cult, the Abbey met its unceremonious end in 1923, when Crowley’s shenanigans convinced Mussolini to boot him out of Italy. Finnish psychedelic doom outfit The Abbey aims to carry on the Abbey’s legacy. ,b>The Abbey’s debut Word of Sin draws inspiration from occult organizations and their mystical practices.” Nuns DO have fun.
“On initial listen, I can tell you that Den Tapte Krigen is no Vi Overlevde. Let that sink in as you consider the consequences of that statement. Is that good or bad? For one, Den Tapte Krigen is a tighter album (only eight tracks) with a formalized theme. There’s fluidity from the beginning to the end of this journey. What about those surprise transitions and standout songs, you ask?” Rejoin the Kult.
“The average age of all the cells in an adult human is somewhere between seven and ten years old. We constantly replace parts of ourselves, so that you are mostly a different person every decade or so. That means if you really, like, think about it, no band that lasts longer than ten years has any of its original lineup left. This is how I explain In the Woods… to myself. The outfit is in its fourth decade of shuffling through lineups and genres, with drummer Anders Kobro and the ellipsis in their name the only constants.” Lost among the trees.
“Is 97 minutes too much music? Is it unfair to judge albums simply for being long? Yes… and yes. Regardless, Banefyre presents us with 92 minutes of new Crippled Black Phoenix sounds plus one bonus track. Our own Huck N’ Roll has a mixed history with leading man Justin Greaves (Se Delan, ex-Iron Monkey) and his rotating cast of sound partners, but it can be tiring digesting the hours of music that this project puts out, so I’ve stepped in to give olde Huck a rest.” Free birds.
“One of the cruelest fates to befall any given record that comes across my desk at Angry Metal Guy Judgment Emporium is to be totally forgotten. It happens, more often than I’d like. Gone Cosmic’s last record, Sideways in Time, succumbed to such a fate. It was a good record, with tons of groove and fronted by a passionate, powerful vocalist. But it was only because I caught the Canadian quartet’s upcoming sophomore full-length, Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling, in the promo bin three years later that I remembered that Gone Cosmic existed.” Sleeping on the cosmos.
“Like my colleague Dear Hollow, I cut my metal teeth (and nails) on heavy Christian music, and Becoming the Archetype is, without a doubt, the greatest extreme metal band of the faithful persuasion. We don’t normally receive promos from Solid State Records, but when BtA shocked their fans in June by announcing a surprise album after a ten-year hiatus, I knew I’d do terrible things to get my hands on the promo. Fortunately, all I had to do was email the band, who got me in touch with the label and its PR firm, and here we are. Phew! I quickly enlisted Hollow’s help, thinking that such a momentous occasion demanded a two-pronged attack.” Acts of faith.
“Dawnwalker have been around since 2011, but my first exposure to them didn’t happen until a mere couple of years ago, courtesy of this very blog. I was able to review Ages, the band’s fourth full-length release and compliment it on its well-done blend of progressive, death, and folk-like metal into one monolithic beast of an album. If words like those excite you, though, you should know that Dawnwalker do not stay in the same place for long—House of Sand is nothing like that, but don’t let that get you down. For their fifth full-length, the English band explore some new sounds, revisit old ones, and build out their album in a frankly beautiful way.” Downtuned Abbey.
“Back in the primordial days of this here blog, we attempted something called “AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö.” The basic idea was to select a bunch of unsigned bands and give them the collective review treatment to find the most worthy buried gems. It was our humble effort to remind folks that the metal underground is still an important part of the world of metal.” Unsigned in the East.
“As I listened to Born by Birth, it became clear I was witnessing another throwback progressive rock band being, well…born; one which harkens back to a bygone era of English prog majesty; less identified by the harder-edged, complex compositions of early Rush and more by the extended jams and intricate, less metallic instrumentation of King Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Genesis. These were the bands I’d fallen in love with during my earlier sojourns, and it’s clear the Birth boys feel similarly.” Born too late.
“The Tunnel, The Well, Holy Bedlam: one of the coolest album titles so far this year. It comes to us courtesy the psychedelic spaced-out minds of JIRM, known as Jeremy Irons and the Ratgang Malibus until 2018’s Surge Ex Monumentis album. Now here they are four years older and wiser but presumably just as high, with their fifth album, and with a title like that (and some cool song titles as well) I’m intrigued despite my tepid thoughts on their last one.” Holy Batman.
