“Being a black metal fan entails crankiness. It seems there are more critics and black metal TSA waiting in the wings than any other metal subgenre, just lurking, waiting to hit each new album with a slap of humility – some of it deserved, some of it not. No one’s ever happy, as no release will be raw enough, noisy enough, unlistenable enough, “they have a Facebook and a Bandcamp and don’t exclusively sell cassettes, are you fucking kidding me.”” The fine line between hate and kvlt hate.
“Quebecois trio Shezmu, formed in 2016, already sports a startup of two EPs and a demo compilation, ultimately culminating in their first full-length, À Travers Les Lambeaux. I hesitate to label the project, because if there existed a Venn diagram of black, death, and doom, it would be smack dab in the middle.” Extremity buffet.
“Information on Grim Ravine is minimal, but so is their discography. One EP, one full-length that’s as long as your average doom EP, and this sophomore outing. All firmly entrench themselves in doom defined by waves of blackened froth across a sea of subaqueous riffs.” Trench waterfare.
“It never bodes well when a writer with squatter’s rights to a promo doesn’t raise a fuss when you snatch it from them. I selected Floridian death-doom band Worm‘s second album Gloomlord from our putrid promo pit without doing my due diligence to see if they had been covered on the site before. Turns out they have, and the good Dr. Wvrm wasn’t even a little sorry to see this one go to a different writer.” Worm turns.
“In Gareth Tunley’s haunting and haunted 2016 film The Ghoul, the whole of reality is bent and infected by the protagonist’s depression. He is trapped in a twisted, magically real manifestation of a Möbius strip. Here, all means of escape are soon revealed to be nothing but bottomless ladders that descend into the darkest craters of the human psyche. The beginning is the end is the beginning. There is no escape. But unlike The Ghoul’s main character who ultimately appears powerless, Portland, Oregon’s A.L.N. has the music of the project Mizmor (מזמור) on his side, both as a weapon and a vessel of catharsis.” WMDs for hope.
“In 2004, a close friend of mine lost not one but both of his parents in the Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives. While I hope I will never experience tragedy as dramatic and profound as his, the impact reverberated throughout our small group, and to a comparatively infinitesimal degree, we shared in his loss. Without wanting to cheapen such sorrow, doom metal — particularly in its more extreme iterations — has always offered me a similar catalytic capacity to know its author’s pain.” Tragic beauty.
![Mizmor – Yodh [Things You Might Have Missed 2016]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Mizmor-Yodh-768x768.jpg)
“Even before hearing a single note from Portland, Oregon’s one-man blackened doom psalmist Mizmor (מזמור), the striking cover art of Yodh—a reproduction of an artwork by Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński—tells us everything we need to know. The two faces in a desolate dystopian landscape, robbed of their distinguishing features and reduced to mute, expressionless monoliths, speak to our subconscious selves.” Woe to the world, the doom has come.
“There are many things one can do in 20 minutes. Cook a frozen pizza. Watch an episode of an over-produced and unfunny American sitcom. Slump idly while contemplating the ultimate meaninglessness and futility of life. Now Bog Oak are here to stake their claim on these precious minutes with their short but sweet début EP.” From the darkest depths of the cranberry bog comes this blackened doom act. Mmmm, cranberries.
“The latin phrase “Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius” comes from an incident in the early 13th century known as the Massacre at Béziers. The ironically named Pope Innocent II had declared a crusade against those he identified as heretics in Northern France, and the first town his assembled force attacked was the well-fortified town of Béziers. As the siege developed, it became a massacre, with more disciplined soldiers losing control of the mercenaries in the force who massacred the people, pillaged the town and ultimately burned it to the ground. The Massacre at Béziers has become emblematic of religion gone mad, persecution in its most extreme and dangerous incarnation, not just for the degree of the bloodshed, but for its indiscriminate-ness.” This is late, but also good. Nat knows her black metal!
