“It’s rare that I find music I can appreciate on a superficial, musical and a cerebral level. Too much of the former and it likely won’t stick with me in the long term; too much of the latter and the smell of shit wards me off as groups examine how far they can reach up their rectum. It’s great to hear that ideal fusion of the two, particularly when it comes out of left field – in this case, Russia.” From Russia, with folk.
![Grey Heaven Fall – Black Wisdom [Things You Might Have Missed 2015]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Grey-Heaven-Fall-Black-Wisdom.jpg)
“Regret. We all experience it in one way or another. Some feel it after a heavy night of drinking before a working day. Others after indulging amorous emotions with an ex’s mother. Me? The regret I feel is for missing great music the first time around. It was in the process of skimming year end lists to uncover my omissions that I was directed towards Black Wisdom by Grey Heaven Fall.” We also regret that whole White Wizzard thing.
“”New year. New me.” Those four words were uttered by practically everyone on my social media feed at approximately 12:01 am on January 1st of this year. All great and everything, but why must you be entirely new? I, for example, am quite happy being a cantankerous dude whose alter ego is one-half adorable internet meme, and one-half winner of last month’s Record o’ the Month honors. Another thing that won’t ever change is my luck when it comes to reviewing one-person black metal bands.” Grymm is rolling the dice at Casino Vardan.
![The Grand Astoria – The Mighty Few [Things You Might Have Missed 2015]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-Grand-Astoria_The-Mighty-Few-768x768.jpg)
“Imagine, if you will indulge me, Hail Spirit Noir. Subtract the black metal, all songs but two, then add stoner rock and multiply the length of the remaining songs by four. This is as close an approximation as can be construed for a review catering to metalheads as to the sound of The Mighty Few by The Grand Astoria.” Math is hard.
“Russian tech-death machine Defect Designer had an interesting couple of years since their 2009 debut, Wax. Bassist, guitarist & vocalist Dmitry Soukhinin decided to relocate from the Russian city of Novosibirsk to the much-easier-to-pronounce Olso, Norway, taking everything but his band with him. To help round out his recording line-up, Dmitry enlisted members of SepticFlesh, Trollfest, and Cryptopsy to aid in recording what would become the oddly spelled Ageing Accelerator. Now, you would think that having people from the aforementioned bands perform for your record would have the masses salivating for progressive tech-deathy goodness, and in words on a screen, it does look inviting, doesn’t it?” So where’s all the drool?
“Bands enshrouded in mystery have almost become a gimmick, but it’s a gimmick that really works. What we don’t know makes us wonder and look on with morbid curiosity, and as such, I landed myself this obscure number, Envoy.” Noctus loves obscure stuff, so we gave him this gem from the wilds of Russia, where wolves hunt vodka and men drink rocks.
“Just about every day, Angry Metal Guy pushes out a review of an upcoming or recently released album, producing press for the album whether we love it or hate it. It exposes readers to a lot of material, but disadvantages artists who aren’t putting out music at any given time. Given a small temporal window, this creates a very biased sample of the music scene. I love reviewing albums, but a lot of great and criminally overlooked bands are in between releases right now, and it kills me to see their hard work go unseen. So in order to rectify their invisibility, they’re being talked about here, where you can be held captive by the unbreakable bonds of html and subjugated to my terrible opinions.” Next stop, Europe!
“Hailing all the way from sunny Russia, Estate are the proud bearers of good ol’ fashioned Europower. Fantasia, their début effort, is brimming with cheesy keys, up-tempo riffing and questionable English accents – the hallmarks of power greats such as Sonata Arctica and Helloween. Nonetheless, the musical term ‘fantasia’ implies a nonconformity to a specific style, and there are certainly a few curve balls here.” Starting with that Pan-tastic album cover!
“I know embarrassingly little about the Russian metal scene, so the opportunity to review Tantal’s latest album was particularly… tantalizing. Formed in Pushkino in 2004, Tantal released their debut The Beginning of the End (is that really the best name for a first album?) in 2009. This flew completely under my radar, so I had no idea what to expect from Expectancy – a post-Soviet critique of the motivational theories of Victor Vroom in the style of In Flames, perhaps?” Can a Russian version of Arch Enemy properly motivate you?
Arkona (Russian: Ðркона) are a Russian folk metal band that has been a real revelation in the scene, as one commenter over at the Angry Metal Guy facebook page put it. Their music deftly blends Russian folk themes with black metally influence and ends up being a bit of a Finntroll plus Russia result. As far as this Angry Metal Guy is concerned, this cannot be more welcome. So while we aren’t being graced with a follow up to 2009’s excellent Goi, Rode, Goi! you can at least get a taste of an acoustic version of it on this EP.
