Spectral Lore

Crow Black Sky – Sidereal Light Volume 2 [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]

By Doom_et_Al on January 14, 2024 in Things You Might Have Missed 2023, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, 35 comments

“Crow Black Sky’s second album, Sidereal Light Volume 1, caught my eye in 2018 for several reasons. Firstly, it received a well-deserved 4.0 on this here blog. Secondly, it came from a band located in my home (and favorite city in the whole world), Cape Town, South Africa. For those unaware, extreme metal is a tough sell in Africa. No established scene, no radio support, few venues, and conservative crowds. Any metal band from Africa faces an uphill battle from the get-go, which makes it all the more astonishing how many cool bands South Africa produces. Crow Black Sky are no exception” Early birds arrive late.

Midnight Odyssey – Biolume Part 3: A Fullmoon Madness Review

By Carcharodon on November 21, 2023 in Reviews, Ambient, Ambient Metal, Black Metal, Doom Metal, Symphonic Metal, Synthwave, 83 comments

“The Biolume trilogy is massive, not only in runtime but also in the scope of its storytelling. The records move from darkened subterranean halls on In Tartarean Chains, through a blinding desert of celestial light on The Golden Orb to stare at the haunting night sky, dimly lit by that same light reflecting off a dead satellite on A Fullmoon Madness. Perhaps it was always inevitable that, as we moved up through these levels, each would be vaster in scope and scale than the last.” Size matters.

Wyrgher – Panspermic Warlords Review

By Thus Spoke on July 31, 2023 in Reviews, Black Metal, 21 comments

“Panspermia refers to the hypothesis that life exists all throughout the universe, distributed by comets, space dust, or, most controversially, spacecraft. It is this final idea that grounds the concept for Wyrgher’s sophomore album, Panspermic Warlords. An intentional, maliciously-motivated seeding of life by the titular rulers. In weaving their drama, Wyrgher’s brand of cosmic black metal harbors a marked disso-death streak and an uneasy warped atmosphere that wraps everything with an unsettling otherness.” Sowing the seeds of weird.

Auriferous Flame – The Great Mist Within Review

By Maddog on August 28, 2022 in Reviews, Black Metal, Post-Metal, 13 comments

“Before listening to The Great Mist Within, I thought I knew a thing or two about Ayloss, the prolific mastermind of Spectral Lore and Mystras. Ever since Spectral Lore’s III swept me off my feet in 2014, I’ve been an avid follower of his work. Ayloss has described his new project Auriferous Flame as a 90s black metal act, a “continuation of many of the ideas and music styles in Mystras” minus the folk influences. This description made me suspect that The Great Mist Within would be digestible but unimaginative,” Mist predictions.

Koldovstvo – Ни царя, ни бога [Things You Might Have Missed 2021]

By Carcharodon on January 9, 2022 in Things You Might Have Missed 2021, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, Folk Metal, 49 comments

“Sometimes a thing defies proper indexing or categorization. Tags may be applied to that thing and they may not be incorrect but nor do they properly encapsulate what that thing is. The nominally atmospheric black metal, probably Russian, project Koldovstvo, is just such a thing.” Words fail us.

Fyrnask – VII-Kenoma Review

By Akerblogger on May 3, 2021 in Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, 21 comments

“When I think of the sprawling extreme metal bands that I admire the most – The Ruins of Beverast, Urfaust, Spectral Lore, Blut Aus Nord and Darkspace a handful – I picture their music as labyrinthine cathedrals: their domes, spires and towers encrusted in shadowy depth; their facades etched in malicious secrets, crafted meticulously over hundreds of years; a visitor’s footsteps echoing minutely against the leering iconography of the interior walls. Using rough raw material, the best bands craft cathedrals of splendor that loom over the scene with menacing authority. Many bands, too many bands, attempt to recreate the fine detail of the best. They try, but the foundation of their place of worship is fractured and cheap to begin with. The finished product stands tall for a brief moment in time, but as the wind changes the structure falls – they lack the intricacy, the balance, the transitions. Another band on the rubble heap. On a plot of land somewhere in the East of Germany another architect lays the first stones of a new creation. Fyrnask has experience.” Building toward destruction.

Spectral Lore – Ετερόφωτος Review

By Doom_et_Al on April 21, 2021 in Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, Black Metal, Drone, 44 comments

“It’s no secret that I was a huge admirer of the 2020 Spectral Lore / Mare Cognitum split, Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine. Like an elaborate dance, the ethereal material from Spectral Lore waltzed perfectly with the more grounded, riff-driven focus of Mare Cognitum. I was fascinated to see how each band would follow this with their respective solo albums. Mare Cognitum clearly incorporated the introspective, mournful influence of Spectral Lore to great effect on Solar Paroxysm. The question was how Spectral Lore mastermind, the Greek Ayloss, would approach his latest collection, Ετερόφωτος.” Tales from the basement (sub-floor lore).

Mare Cognitum – Solar Paroxysm Review

By Kenstrosity on March 15, 2021 in Reviews, Atmospheric Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, 72 comments

“There’s atmospheric black metal, and then there’s Mare Cognitum. Two sides of the same planet. On the former, the sphere is completely devoid of life, eroded by endless recycling of ideas to the point of being uninhabitable. Then you have Mare Cognitum, a one-man force of nature who consistently releases quality material. Mastermind and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Buczarski’s side of the atmoblack world thrives against the eroding tides of time.” Renewable energies.

Myopic & At The Graves – A Cold Sweat of Quiet Dread Review

By Akerblogger on March 15, 2021 in Reviews, Black Metal, Doom Metal, Post-Metal, Sludge Metal, 7 comments

“Collaborations between artists are usually a tantalizing prospect. In recent years we’ve had a handful of high-quality collaborations: Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas, Thou and Emma Ruth Rundle, and Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum the cream of the recent crop. Collaborations can be tricky, especially in the age of the supervirus and restricted travel. Communication of ideas is vital. A collaboration can either sound like a blissful mesh of an artist’s best traits or a haphazard collision of distant sound. Ben Price, the sole member of doom/sludge project At The Graves, has buried himself in a casket with the sludge/black/death/you-name-it three piece Myopic. A Cold Sweat of Quiet Dread is their first collaborative full-length.” Blood, sweat, graves, and bad eyesight.