“Coming from the Latin ‘splendidus’, ‘splendid’ is defined—by one (free) online dictionary that this n00b found, anyway—as an adjective meaning ‘magnificent; very impressive.’ Of what relevance is this to Post Mortem, the second album from Splendidula? Quite possibly none but having made the splendid-Splendidula link in my head, I got my hopes up.” Album autopsy.
“Long time readers of Angry Metal Guy Blogworks and Important Opinion Emporium, Ltd., know I have a soft spot for sadboy melancholic doom. This led me to heap praise on Swallow the Sun’s mammothly meandering, overblown triple album suite, Songs of the North back in 2013. In the fullness of time, I downgraded the original score on my Contrite Metal Guy confessional, and hard lessons were learned: Some albums are simply too long-winded to work as well as they should. Now comes Australian act, The Eternal and their sixth album, Waiting for the Endless Dawn.” Why the long album?
“Ever get that queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach when you commit to something that’s absolutely foreign to your comfort zone? You know what I mean… you say “yes” to something before you get a good, hard look at what you’re about to do, and all of a sudden, Internal You is “nope!”-ing at record speed? Folks, that was me upon accepting Kult der Krähe, the sixth album by German one-man symphonic machine Schwarzer Engel, upon looking at the cover without hearing a single note prior.” Kult ov One.
“Ah, the mysteries of the promo bin. Usually when selecting promo I like to have a bit of context to consolidate my choices. Whether it be firm knowledge of a particular band or genre, general curiosity based on word-of-mouth or information gathered, or a fanboy-like connection. But every now and then the urge strikes to pick something at random, with the hope of landing a surprise gem. That was how I happened upon There Was Death by long running UK act, My Silent Wake.” The promo bin gives, the promo bin takes.
“Let’s turn our attention to the other great mystery of our time – the identity of the members of Deathwhite. With two slobberknocker EPs of excellent goth-doom under their invisible belts, we still have nary a clue who they are or what they’re trying to hide. All we know is that the band features members from better known acts and likely hails from the Massachusetts/Pennsylvania region. Given this light evidentiary trail and their carefully cultivated enigma status, I wasn’t even surprised when their first full-length appeared out of nowhere, only to be pulled back a week later and held from release for almost a year. Now that For a Black Tomorrow has finally re-appeared, it raises more questions than answers.” Spook-core is suspiciously good.
“Remember that first time you listened to Moonspell’s Wolfheart or Irreligious? If you’re like me—or half of the other writers here at AMG—that was a hella long time ago. And, after over twenty years, those fucking albums still beckon me. Sure, tag me as a seeker of nostalgia, mark me as a purveyor of the past, label me as a connoisseur of memories. But, like it is with many classic records that have taken hold of me, it’s not just the quality of the music that planted the seed. No, it’s also the when, the where, and the what-happened that occurred the first time I listened to these albums.” History, memory, Moonspell.
“I’m often a little cautious when introduced to new bands who seem to be born aloft on a draught of novelty furore. I feel the same familiar shiver when I see the “retro” tag scratching around in the promo bin, but even I can admit that, sometimes, retro does not negate relevancy. Enter Cursed Moon. This one man entity hailing from L.A, combines the 80’s melodrama of darkwave (new wave and post punk combined with gothic rock) with the feral nature of early black metal to spawn debut album Rite of Darkness.” A blaze in the L.A. sky.
“If I were tasked with handing out an award titled “Band That Most Successfully Got Its Shit Together,” England’s black/gothic/extreme metal veterans Cradle of Filth would be on my shortlist.” From Cradle to rave.
“Sadness. A quintessentially unpleasant emotion we go out of our way to avoid in this brief, meaningless slog we call life. Why then is it such an essential element in music, you ask? Because as intrinsically flawed creatures, humans love to revel in melancholy and pain. We do it when already saddled with crippling plights, and we seek it out even when times are good. We just get an undeniable and perverse pleasure from diving into the darkness for short periods of miserable introspection. Germany’s End of Green has been serving the depression tourism market since 1996, and Void Estate is their ninth platter of uber-sadboy goth metal.” Get your void on.
“Melancholy: a feeling of pensive sadness. Synonyms: desolation, woe, sorrow. The word, from its Latin and Greek origins, translates to black bile: too much of which in a person could cause depression. It’s a loaded word, that’s for certain, and it gets thrown around and attached to music cheaply and without much care. Too many words of melancholy’s ilk are over-used; too much hyperbole, drama and imaginative nonsense is bestowed upon average and uninspiring music (I’m also responsible for this sort of thing) and thus certain words, phrases, and images have lost their power completely.” Sad boys be sad.
