“Doom fans among you will likely know about New York’s Grey Skies Fallen, a vintage doom/death act that has been steadily improving their My Dying Bride/Anathema-influenced paeans to pain since the late nineties. Grind fans among you will likely know about New York’s Buckshot Facelift, a slightly less vintage hardcore/grind band that has been vomiting up vitriolic violence since the mid naughties.” But did you know they had a shared project? You didn’t, so don’t pretend you did.
“Spectral Darkwave seems very confused. Last First Contact is a testament to the fact that it’s better to nail one style than incorporate many seemingly for the sake of it. Fusing strains of death-doom, melodeath, classical and electronic, it’s rare that it all functions as a cohesive package.” Anyone up for some genre stew?
“Apostate are one of the Ukraine’s oldest doom bands, but have only released one full-length prior to Time of Terror. Forming in 1993, they suffered a series of splits before eventually reforming this millennium to release 2010’s Trapped in a Sleep.” Old band, new lineup, no producer?
“As my home gets buried under layers of ice and snow, an album arrives to bring that same bleak midwinter experience to everyone, no matter how sunny and tropical their geo-positioning. A Swarm of the Sun is a deeply depressive post-metal, atmospheric doom duo from Sweden, and their sophomore album The Rifts brings you all the isolation, cold and melancholy of being trapped in a cabin surrounded by nothing but whiteness, death and frozen silence.” Tired of feeling positive and happy? This will fix that, maybe permanently.
“Down here at AMG, we work our asses off to bring forth “similar band” references and genre classifications, define the intentions and directions of an album, and even evaluate the recording/mixing/mastering processes of the release in order to satisfy the insatiable hunger of the AMG hordes.” And we dont always feel appreciated, so give us beer and hugs.
“Continuing the long and storied tradition of Finnish depressive music, Scapes is the brain-child of Olli Pirkkanen, and One: Unseen: One is his début under this name. His principle influences seem to be Katatonia and mid-era Anathema, sporting a moody and atmospheric ‘clean’ doom.'” Nobody does depression better than the Finns, but can it all be sad gold?
“Here at Angry Metal Guy US headquarters, subtle signs point to 2014 drawing to a blustery close. My very metal cats watch the crackling fireplace, mesmerized as the world burns at their paws. Top 10 lists hastily scrawled on the backs of store receipts and the margins of the daily paper are pulled from coat pockets and tossed carelessly about, littering every surface. And as the holiday silly season approaches, I’m winding down, bourbon in hand, returning to the contemplative atmosphere of post-metal and avant guard favourites like Agalloch, A Forest of Stars, Anathema, Horseback and New Keepers of the Watertowers. Now a year and some change after the release of Dustwalker, British progressive black metallers – Fen recapture my attention with their fourth full-length release.” Post black metal just in time for the long winter months? Now you’re screaming Madam X’s song.
“Metal has been extremely retro in the last 5 years. From rethrash to retro death metal, the whole scene has crawled into its proverbial ass in order to wallow in the digested remnants of metal music that is just plain better. Rethrash celebrates the 2.5 years when thrash was the heaviest and most exciting music on the planet. Retro death celebrates a time when bands would scrape together their last Swedish kronor to put a record together that would still sound like total shit. All the bands who wish they were Black Sabbath celebrate a time when amplifiers didn’t actually have overdrive. But all of these celebrated sounds appeal to us because they were authentic: times when newness and creativity gave the world something exciting and special. One such scene for me is the melodic death and black metal scenes of the Scandinavian 1990s. It’s an era when metal was heavy, engaging, abstract, and yet melodic—it felt exciting and new. While not all of the best ideas from this era were executed perfectly at the time, it laid the groundwork for the late ’90s and the early aughts when great metal bands produced great music.” What the hell does this have to do with anything? Click and find out!
“Ghost Brigade are tough to neatly pigeonhole into a specific genre. Their early material was definitely post-metal/post-hardcore, but as they matured their sound evolved to include doom, gothic rock, alternative music and slight touches of black metal and prog. By the time they released Until Fear No Longer Defines Us, their style was quite the interesting stew of influences, yet their music remained accessible, direct and highly emotional.” Lineup changes abound, so does the classic sound stick around? We have…the DEETS!
“Soen’s Cognitive, which was released in 2012, was the band’s debut and it bore a striking resemblance to the work of Tool and, to be fair, A Perfect Circle. Despite this undeniable likeness, the record was chock full of fat grooves, great writing, beautiful vocal performances from vocalist Eklöf and amazing performances from all the musicians—but especially metal’s best bassist (Steve Digiorgio if there’s any doubt) and one of metal’s best drummers (Martin Lopez). I’ve often felt a bit guilty for labeling Cognitive as too derivative, because despite the sound it has been a regular on my playlist since then—and I would hate to be responsible for pigeonholing a band before they had time to develop; great debuts are few and far between.” But the operative question is: can Soen step through Tool’s shadow and come out the other side?
