“Exuviae: shedding the skin. The leftover exoskeleton. Alexander von Meilenwald of The Ruins of Beverast has stripped the project bare, exposed it to new musical vistas, and transformed it into a frenetic shamanistic beast.” Second skins, shaman grins.
“If I’ve learned anything from the Metallicas and Carcasses of the world, it’s to leave ’em wanting more. Knowing when to put out a tunneling candle is preferable to producing an nigh unsurpassable album that embarrasses all future output. Any career based on one-upping yourself will likely end in disappointment.” Doublestone’s double tap.
“Thrash has deflowered many a metal virgin over the years, myself included. As such, regardless of the modern state of the thrash metal scene, it’s easy to fall back into cozy nostalgia, despite my belief that the majority of thrash bands are caught in a perpetual loop of attempting to rehash the genre’s past glories and ’80s heyday rather than forging their own path of destruction. Pulling strands from the much pillaged Bay Area thrash scene of the ’80s, spiked with whiffs of old school Slayer and Destruction, Distillator go about their business with minimum fuss and plenty of throwback thrash attitude and tightly executed chops.” Distillation was never this heavy.
“It seems Emmanuelle Tito, the man behind the Alchimia project, has a feel for classicism. The fusion of painted, classical artwork with overt utilization of Italian and Latin on Musa, his first release under this alias, depict a desire for a particular grandiosity which travels beyond the blue collar roots of metal.” He must be one of them fancy boys.
“Rune Eriksen is a well-traveled gentleman of metal. He was an important part of Mayhem’s second creative wave and continues to be a foundational part of Aura Noir. He’s also known for his gothic doom vehicle Ava Inferi, which released one of the most enduring albums in the genre with 2011s Onyx. Now he’s launching another project with long-time Ava Inferi collaborator Carmen Susana Simoes. Earth Electric could be called experimental goth rock, and rocking it is, taking an enormous 70s rock influence and shoehorning it into Ava Inferi’s ethereal goth style.” Rock in a soft place.
