“When bands list their influences publicly, I’m apt to cross at least a few of those names off a list of potential name-drops. Whether or not those tributaries contributed to the intellectual process of music-making is irrelevant. Many bands resemble their idols only with a squint and a head-tilt. Yet The Crawling’s list of Bolt Thrower, Entombed, My Dying Bride, and Novembre reads like a playbill., each entry more accurate than next.” A night at the chopra.
“My friends ask me what happened, but my ability to verbally communicate has been reduced to moaning and a weeping noise that sounds something like a baby panda crying for milk. I wonder how I’m going to make it through the final day of this floating festival. I wonder when the aching will subside. I wonder where my life went so wrong. How did I end up here, on the 7th annual 70000 Tons of Metal cruise, weak with exhaustion and feeling like my body has been bludgeoned with a sledgehammer? My mind drifts back…” Tales from a 70000 ton heavy thing.
“We’ve reached another December and that means another nostalgic summation of 365 days of anger. Looking back, 2015 was a good little year and I’m glad for all it provided.”
“My Dying Bride and Anathema invented what we now think of as the goth-tinged doom/death genre back in the early 90s with their respectively earth-shaking debuts. Though many bands have subsequently tried their hand at the style, few have nailed the original sound and mood as well as Draconian.” Sadness, thy name is Draconian.
“Doom:VS is a one man act with a pretty spotty record of productivity, but man, when they drop an album, it really drops hard! The brainchild of Johan Ericson (Draconian), Doom:VS released back to back gobstoppers of morose doom/death with 2006s Aeternum Vale and 2008s Dead Words Speak and both stand among the genre’s very best. Then, the band vanished from the mortal coil and seemed to be consigned to history. Without much warning, they’ve made a huge return with Earthless and now Johan is joined by Thomas Akim Gronbeak Jensen (Saturnus), who handles all the death roars.” Looking for something to really bring you down? Steel Druhm has just the pill for that.
Saturnus is back after a six year hiatus to pummel us once again with their painstakingly sad and tragic variety of doom death. If having a dying bride is sad, these guys are more like My Dying Wedding Party and Flower Girl. Yeah, that sad! Steel Druhm got us this review before volunteering for 48 hour suicide watch. Don’t fear, they took his bullet belt.
Ah, what could be better than nasty, heavy-as-hell Finnish doom-death to ease the transition from summer to fall. In case you haven’t heard, winter is coming…
We made it through another year here in Angry Metal World. We overcame Terminal Reviewer Burnout Syndrome, careers and personal lives, just to bring you more of our self-righteous, ego-driven babbling and blathering. Why did we do it? Because we care so damn much! Now, as the year grinds us all towards inevitable doom, it falls to me to get the metal wheel a rollin and name my picks for the best albums of 2011. This was a pretty solid year, so it was tough to figure out which albums belonged where, but you demanded it, so I’m delivering the goods, Yeah!
Tuomas Saukkonen is clearly a man concerned with the dangers of idle hands. To stave them off, he’s forever toiling in various musical projects (Before the Dawn, Dawn of Solace, RoutaSielu) and his highly underrated Black Sun Aeon project. While primarily known for his work in the excellent Before the Dawn, Tuomas has always used this project to explore more morose, gothic-tinged doomscapes while taking cues from fellow countrymen Insomnium and especially Rapture. As with the previous two Black Sun Aeon releases, Blacklight Deliverance is a compelling mix of death, doom and goth, with hauntingly beautiful melodies, ample heaviness and razor-sharp songwriting. It doesn’t break any new ground and at times veers very close to the aforementioned influences, but its a highly enjoyable journey nonetheless and has a few moments of absolute brilliance. It’s also a much more tightly focused work than 2010’s double album Routa and as a result, feels more immediate and accessible.
It’s Angry Metal Confession time kiddies. Steel Druhm has many things he should confess but for now, lets focus on aspects of the metal scene I’ve grown weary of. First up has to be symphonic black metal. Its been done, overdone, redone and ultimately, undone. Another very overused gimmick is beauty and the beast vocals (death metal vox paired with soaring, usually operatic, female vocals). Since Theatre of Tragedy came out with Velvet Darkness They Fear, every gothic metal band under the moon tried their hand at the style and while it can be amazing, it’s been overblown in a major way. Because of the staleness in this approach, only the very best practitioners leave any impression on me. Draconian is one such expert unit and while I liked their early material, I LOVED their 2008 release Turning Seasons Within. That opus managed to balance heavy doom with ethereal gothic sensibilties and they made the beauty and beast approach work magnificently. Now with A Rose for the Apocalypse, these Swedish glumsters have done it yet again and offer a top quality gothic-doom/death album brimming with emotion, intensity and dark atmosphere. Its good enough to make me rethink my position on the entire paradigm and its a real slobberknocker of a metal album.
