“Ashenspire hail from Glasgow (Scotland) and like their British / Norwegian counterparts (A Forest of Stars / Vulture Industries), Ashenspire deliver a brand of avant-garde black metal that has you sit up and take notice. Clad in a single-breasted frock coat, Speak Not of the Laudanum Quandary tells of the harrowing odyssey of British imperialist tragedy using 7 lengthy tracks.” Big topic, big music.
“I first listened to Cosmoprism: The Theurgy – Act 1 just after midnight. As I snuggled into my unicorn shaped pillow, I allowed the ambient nightmare that Tome of the Unreplenished had created into my mind. I let it capture my imagination and I was rewarded with a listening experience that, honestly, seemed to transport me into another world.” Into the uni-verse.
“Recall, if you can, your first exposure to black metal. If you’re a grizzled follower of the genre, its sinister novelties have become an aspect of your daily listenings that ceased to faze you long ago. I imagine, however, that you reacted to your first encounter with the style much in the same way your parents would; a knee-jerk response of “what the fuck am I listening to?” that shocked you in a way music never had before. My initial listen of Italian duo Lorn’s Arrayed Claws instantly recalled my reaction to the loss of my black metal virginity.” You never forget your first.
“Back in December of 2015, Der Blutharsch and the Infinite Church of the Leading Hand released a three-track offering called The Wolvennest Sessions. A year later, a reconstruction occurred and two of those three tracks were Botoxed and sent scurrying away to a new home. At this new home, these two ditties partnered with three new friends to produce a five-track debut of ambient music clocking in at fifty-five minutes. Within this handful of tracks lies a hint of black, a little doom, and a touch of rock that sends the listener tumbling headlong down Wolvennest’s drug-induced rabbit hole.” Holes, nests – this has it all.
“Expectations can be an odd thing when dealing with hybrid genres. The more genres descriptors added to the band’s tag, the harder it gets to form a view of what you’re going to listen to, and it doesn’t just apply to blackened melodic industrigothic deathfolk. Take Infernal Angels, now releasing their 4th album in 15 years. Various sources I checked listed the band as melodic black metal, melodic black/death metal, or plain black/death metal.” Get in your pigeonhole!
“If there was a saying that Papa Grymm would instill on us kids (besides to clean our rooms), it would be to make ourselves as uncomfortable as humanly possible. I don’t mean wearing sweater vests in the summer, folks, but rather stepping outside those little boxes we build for ourselves. Discomfort begets growth, after all. And what can be more uncomfortable than atonal, ambient black metal?” More edgy than a wedgie.
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“From Vader to Behemoth, Polish death metal has always rocked my socks off and left me standing in line for all the blastbeats and pierogies I can stomach. From the same foul breeding grounds come the perpetrators behind today’s split.” Nasty and nastier.
“Relentlessly picking on black metal bands whose members opt for anonymity is a favorite pastime of ours here at Angry Metal Guy, but it kinda sorta makes sense when you look at the practice from the band’s perspective. When trying to break into the scene, withholding one’s identity means that critics have only the music to go on, and if the musicians happen to suck, it eliminates any possibility of cred shredding in the eyes of the masses.” Secret identities are metal.
“Black Anvil is one of those bands you always expect to break through on their next record. Formed in 2007 by members of New York hardcore act Kill Your Idols, the black metal quartet’s 2009 debut Time Insults the Mind and 2010 follow-up Triumvirate initially seemed poised to break the group out of the underground with their infusion of Watain-style riffing into a sweaty hardcore aesthetic.” Is this when the Anvil cracks through?
“Here’s something to think about… If Darkthrone’s Transilvanian Hunger released today, would it make the same impression it made back in 1994? More importantly, would it get the same reception nowadays that it got in the past?” No chance.
