“The more wizened experienced writers on staff say it’s best never to go back and read your early reviews. This is the first occasion I have had to really ponder the wisdom in these words. Unreqvited’s Mosaic I: Mosaic I: L’amour et l’ardeur was just the third n00b review I penned for these venerable pages and it is the first band I am reviewing here for a second time.” Shark teeth and time.
![HarborLights – Isolation Ritual [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/HarborLights-Isolation-Ritual-01-768x768.jpg)
“Back in August, I stumbled across an absurdity of the other writers loitering near the skull pit, waiting for the cleaners to finish. To pass the time, I suggested my fellows check out the advance tracks for HarborLights’ new record, which I misdescribed as instrumental post-metal.” Skull pit gossip and marina lighting.
“I come to my last writing engagement of the year off the back of reading Grymm’s humbling first post on mental health in metal – and the absolutely incredible reaction to that – as well as wrapping up my TYMHMs and agonizing over my year-end list. It feels somehow anticlimactic to return to ‘normal’ reviewing. That’s no disrespect, however, to today’s subject, a band formed way back in the early 90s in Portugal under the name Grendel, then becoming Geryous, before assuming their current and enduring moniker, Israthoum in 1998.” What’s in a name?
![Daxma – Ruins upon Ruins [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Daxma-Ruins-upon-Ruins-01-768x768.jpg)
“I felt a certain pressure when choosing something, particularly my first thing, to write up as a TYMHM. When I write reviews, ok, I choose them from the promo pit but I’m choosing from the limited pickings left for me by the faster, more nimble AMG scribes. When picking a TYMHM, it’s all on me to pick from the shit ton of music not covered on this most veritable of blogs. So, it may perhaps strike some of you as odd that I have chosen to cover an endearingly small album with only 2 tracks and clocking in at just over 25 minutes.” Everything’s ruined.
“Only in existence since 2018, the one-man black and death metal project has, so far this year alone, dropped three EPs, two compilations and a debut album, May’s We Haunt Ourselves. And now we come to December and Witchbones’ second album, ,i>The Seas of Draugen. This is not blackened death as you picture it in your head. Unless, that is, you are familiar with the type of records that Iron Bonehead tends to put out.” Roll the bones.
“Beneath each review posted on this hallowed website, a little comment swamp forms. They vary in size and depravity but in nearly everyone, a debate of some kind ensues. The other day, in just such a swamp, I expressed the — perhaps controversial — view that I like it when black metal bands infuse their music with different influences, sometimes straying into different genres. There I gave examples of post-metal and prog. Well, step forward and take a bow Bednja, who bill themselves as black metal hardcore.” Tales from the hard (dark)side.
“I’m not sure what, if any, expectations I had for Finnish alt metallers Somehow Jo when I etched my crude shark sigil into the review boulder by their name. It’s not a moniker that really speaks to me and the artwork – although quite pretty – also doesn’t give a lot away. But you can be sure that any expectations I may have unconsciously harbored, plummeted when I read that sophomore album Tusk was written largely in a “small bunker next to a shady titty bar” and that, throughout, the band prioritized “freshness and originality in all of the ideas we’ve brought for the other members to be eaten and then later to be defecated in to a demo of some kind.”” Jo momma.
“It’s been quite a long time since I thought about ‘Portlandia,’ the I-have-to-assume wholly accurate depiction of life in Portland, Oregon. But reading the promo material for GoatHawkBuffalo’s full-length debut, I was put in mind of the particularly curious ‘We can pickle that’ sketch. Not because GoatHawkBuffalo are from Portland – the five-piece is based in Copenhagen, Denmark – but because of this statement from guitarist Asger Abel Sørensen, talking about how the band live-recorded Come to Temple but “subsequently recorded various crazy overdubs – we’ve had microphones in empty Jack Daniels’ bottles and buckets of water, we also ran a guitar signal through a pickle …”” Brine and brawn.
“Ok, be honest. If I told you today’s review was for a double album that clocked in at nearly 160 minutes and consisted of atmospheric blackened doom metal, what would you say?” Alexa, skip.
“I normally dislike interludes intensely – the recent, very good Tool album, for example, I recreated as a playlist minus the four interludes because they annoyed the crap out of me. So an album called Interlude, with three tracks actually titled “Interlude,” plus an “Introduction” and final track “The End,” put me somewhat on edge. Despite having really liked the advance tracks for Maeskyyrn’s Interlude, I was expecting to have to report that here is yet another really promising album ruined by bloat and plinky … well, interludes.” Interludes, man.
