Avantgarde Music

Dzö-nga – The Sachem’s Tales Review

By Mark Z. on July 19, 2017 in 2017, American Metal, Avantgarde Music, Black Metal, Folk Metal, Reviews, Black Metal, Folk Metal, 40 comments

“Sophomore full-length The Sachem’s Tales sees Cryvas crafting a concept album about Native American folklore, aiming to combine Cascadian black metal with classical music. Joined by female vocalist Grushenka Ødegård and session drummer Aaron Maloney (formerly of Pennsylvania metalcore act This or the Apocalypse, oddly enough), has Dzö-nga given us the next Bergtatt or delivered another Bandcamp black metal record whose hype will fizzle faster than you can say “Ghost Bath”? The Great Tree and the Dzö-nga House.

Wode – Servants of the Countercosmos Review

By El Cuervo on June 3, 2017 in 2017, Avantgarde Music, Black Metal, English Metal, Reviews, Black Metal, 38 comments

“2016 saw the release of the debut, self-titled, full-length album by Manchester’s Wode. While I never got round to a Thing You Might Have Missed, I was impressed by their vitriol and riffcraft. The arrival of the sequel scarcely a year later afforded me the opportunity to make amends for my prior laziness, so I booted up, strapped in and prepared myself for an auditory annihilation.” Wode to spheres.

Mountains Crave – As We Were When We Were Not

By El Cuervo on May 15, 2017 in 2017, Avantgarde Music, Black Metal, English Metal, Reviews, Black Metal, 20 comments

““Clear Light of the Void” is the third track from As We Were When We Were Not (henceforth AWWWWWN) by Leeds’ Mountains Crave and its opening explicitly grabbed my attention. Underpinned by a gently plucked simple progression, an old broadcast of Gerald Heard is sampled. Gerald Heard was a noted historian and writer but was also considered an expert on LSD; he espoused the mind-opening nature of psychedelic drugs. This sample led me to read around the young band and discover this psychedelic streak is important to them, citing Aldous Huxley as a particular influence.” Turn on, tune in, read on.

Manetheren – The End Review

By Eldritch Elitist on February 26, 2017 in 2017, American Metal, Avantgarde Music, Black Metal, Reviews, Black Metal, 21 comments

“One of my favorite subjects in any form of media is the end of the world. There is an indescribable (and perhaps sadistic) pleasure I gain from witnessing people grapple with the prospect of the complete obliteration of their species and its history; the more micro the focus, the better. Zooming in on a select few and examining how they choose to spend their final, consequence-free hours feels like the purest hypothetical exploration of the human psyche.” I’d rebroadcast NFL games without express written consent.

Angela Martyr – November Harvest Review

By Huck N Roll on December 23, 2016 in 2016, Avantgarde Music, Doom Metal, Industrial Metal, Italian Metal, Reviews, Doom Metal, Industrial Metal, 1 comment

“These days, PR companies feel the need to come up with unique classifications and genres for the bands they are repping. I’ve lost count of the number of “new” genres we’ve had to add to our tag system this year. Great example: this new release from Angela Martyr, with a label prominently affixed to the cover declaring the music as ‘grungy, mechanical, pessimistic metalgaze.’ Okay. Why don’t they just say, ‘Sounds like Nine Inch Nails?'” They’re paid by the word, Huckster.

Plateau Sigma – Rituals [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]

By El Cuervo on December 17, 2016 in 2016, Avantgarde Music, Doom Metal, Italian Metal, Reviews, Things You Might Have Missed 2016, Doom Metal, 11 comments

“Italy’s Plateau Sigma have been on my radar for a couple of years: they always edged something quite interesting with their emotive doom metal but they lacked consistency and the song-writing was choppy at best. Yet it was with eagerness that I encountered their second full length, given the chinks of excellence evident previously. Rather than continuing the trend of slow but steady improvement, Rituals enveloped me entirely in its sheets of atmospheric doom and calming beauty, upheld by a strong, mid-paced core.” Doom in your stocking.