We finally found Steel Druhm’s secret hiding place located deep below the Earth’s crust and served him with a CEASE-AND-DESIST order banning all power metal reviews for a period to be determined. This made him sad, so now we get this review of the mega-gloomy, doom rock stylings of Aoria. Composed of members of Katatonia and October Tide, don’t expect a lot of sunshine here, but Steel seems to like it quite a bit.
Explaining a group that calls themselves “Finnish psychedelic forest folk” is about as easy as completing the final course on Ninja Warrior whilst drunk on moonshine, but Steel Druhm gives it a go anyway. Assemble the trauma team!!
Not your dad’s Swedish death! This has enough odd ideas and influences to make you sit up and spit out your beer (or a nice white zinfandel if you prefer).
Kontinuum’s eclectic style threw me slightly off balance when the first track started up and truthfully my first thought was – is this an indie band, lost in a metal club improvising to not get the crap kicked out of them by a bunch of angry metal heads. Rest assured this is not the case, Earth Blood Magic is a crazy, kick-ass mix of what feels like a range of different influences that just somehow melts together as if by… dare I say it… magic?
We’re now into July! Impressive as it is, this year has been one hell of a year: like the year 2011 was supposed to have been but really, really wasn’t. On a personal note, I can say that I wasn’t expecting 2012 to be good at all. However, there haven’t even really been any major […]
Ever get a hankering for an easy listening version of Agalloch with gothic tinged Enya-style vocals? Well, here it is.
Here’s an obscure but intriguing new release that’s been getting a great deal of playtime on the Steel Druhm turntables of late. Landforge is the musical project of one Stephan Carter. As the sole member and performer, he’s created a strange experimental journey, which he refers to as “post-rock/post-metal, with doom influences.” While I don’t quite know what “post-metal” means, Servitude to Earth is an interesting merger of black metal, doom and minimalist post-rock, borrowing elements from bands like Black Sun Aeon, Agalloch and Altar of Plagues.
I’ve never been an Abigail Williams fan. Their debut was lackluster and derailed by metalcore underpinnings. In the Absence of Light had some actual potential but was far too generic. Needless to say, I had modest expectations as I sat down to examine their new album. Well, Steel Druhm was nearly knocked from his stately Chair of Metal Judgment [Metal Chair of Judgement? – AMG] by what he heard on Becoming. Gone are the tepid attempts to recycle left-over Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth riffs and horror movie symphonics. In their place is raw, shoegazey, post-rocky, contemplative blackness, loaded with doomy atmosphere, close in spirit to Wolves in the Throne Room and Agalloch, with elements of Aurvandil and Emperor mixed in. It’s a startlingly major change to be sure (even more so than their previous shift from black-core to Dimmu-worship), and proves there’s no wagon they won’t gleefully hop onto. Surprisingly though, their newest disingenuous switch works well and they may have found the style they can excel at. That is, if they can stop pursuing every new fad and trend (the technical term is “chasing their own fail”).
So I’ve been digging through un-opened promos from this year that simply got missed due to scheduling or whatever and man, I’ve really hit the fucking jackpot with this one. I feel terrible that I missed it because it’s awesome. Lately, I’ve had a lot of issues with black metal as a whole. I am not alone in this. Even the ultimately reliable and excellent Taake kind of disappointed me this year. I’m not a post-black metal kind of guy and yet, for the life of me, I can’t find any black metal bands that really fucking rule these days. It’s like the scene just up and left the area I was inhabiting
Steel Druhm doesn’t ask for much. Beyond undying devotion to the Angry Metal Guy website and Steel Druhm personally, I expect so little. In a rare moment of selfishness however, I deigned to demand more innovation in the field of black metal music. Predictably, much brouhaha ensued and I was labeled a rabble-rouser, blasphemer and enemy of the scene. Happily, I can now report my heartfelt demand has been masterfully answered by a crew of Aussie upstarts by the name of Vyrion. Never heard of them? Don’t feel bad, I didn’t either until I stumbled upon them quite by chance. It was a fortuitous stumble indeed, for their self titled debut is a mammoth slab of progressive blackness with scads of death, doom, traditional metal and post rock blended in seamlessly. After only a few minutes of listening, I knew this was something special. Across the length of this interesting creature are myriad surprises, twists and turns and the end result is an exceptionally well done and very heavy slice of innovation. For those who regard black metal as a static art form, immune to the fickle influences of time and trend, this will be like a loathsome disease. If however, you agree with me that the genre is badly in need of a newness injection, don’t let this one fall through the cracks.
