“When Bosse-de-Nage’s All Fours released in 2015, my familiarity with post-metal started and ended with the clusterfuck that was Deafheaven’s Sunbather. All Fours, needless to say, caught me completely off guard. It was raw and intense, evocative without overacting, and certainly more committed to metal than the internet’s collective bitching led me to expect. Further Still has some big expectations to live up to.” Bosse or Bath.
“Pulling off a long song — be it a ten-minute black metal piece or an hour-plus funeral doom opus — takes very deliberate pacing. Great drone and doom bands know this and know how to pull the listener rather than push them. If the song moves too fast, it can seem to lose structure, but if it moves too slowly, it can stagnate and sour the listener to its next idea. One has to have the pacing and space to keep themselves involved.” The long lurch into oblivion.
![Amenra – Mass VI [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cover_1506107995932995-768x768.jpg)
“Sometimes life gets dark. I’m not referring to the bullshit in the news, the whore we know as world politics, or the hopeless struggle to remediate the things we’ve done to this planet. No, I mean things get dark. For how selfish it sounds, sometimes things happen to you that make all the worldly issues scatter across the floor, like mercury from a broken thermometer. No matter how you try, you don’t give a shit about anything as you fall deeper and deeper into yourself. That’s the power of depression.” Given to the falling.
“Every year, something special takes place in my hometown of Tilburg, The Netherlands: the festival of Roadburn. Roadburn isn’t like your average festival. There’s no marquees, no fields of green devolving into mud, and no crowds the size of small towns worshiping the biggest bands. Instead, thousands of people dressed in black gather from every corner of the continent, and some from other continents, to see over 100 doom, stoner and other kinds of acts whose success lies almost entirely in the underground.” Welcome to the dope show.
“Wiegedood’s debut may not be as pretentious as a band like Deafheaven (hallelujah!), but it’s thick with atmosphere and post-black attitude. The sequel hints at this heavy atmosphere, but De Doden Hebben Het Goed II never lets it meander for long. II, instead, unleashes a brutality fitting to a second-wave Norwegian outfit like Gorgoroth. The amount of hate and emotion set forth from II is enough to burn a hole right through your black heart.” That wasn’t part of the deal, Black Heart! That…wasn’t…part!
![Cara Neir/Wildspeaker – Guilt and His Reflection [Split] Review](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Cara-NeirWildspeaker-Guilt-and-His-Reflection-768x1166.jpg)
“Crack a beer and grab a seat. Today’s entertainment is a double feature from two Texas-based bands with a proclivity for taking black metal and turning it on its ugly, corpse-painted head. First up is Cara Neir, an idiosyncratic, punky duo whose hardcore-tinged blackness often lends itself to wild stylistic forays, as heard on 2013’s Portals to a Better, Dead World. On the flip side is Wildspeaker, a crustier, sludgier outfit who formed in 2013 and released debut Survey the Wreckage last year. They’re here to deliver Guilt and His Reflection, 13 tracks depicting ‘humanity crumbling into itself’ through ‘the story of post-civilization sins committed when desperation overwhelms.'” That certainly sounds cheery.
“It is incredible how a couple spawn can transform a lackadaisical lifestyle into one of routine and worry. Everyday apprehension is fueled by medical bills, daycare, diapers, clothing, public school, and Thomas-the-fucking-Tank-Engine. Just ask Al Kikuras; he’ll tell ya.” Maybe we shouldn’t have given Dr. A.N. Grier such a child-unfriendly album.
“Do you ever wonder what Dissection would have sounded like after Storm of the Light’s Bane if Jon Nodveidt made much better life choices and became obsessed with death metal and the original Star Wars trilogy? Yeah, neither did I, but Washington’s Hoth decided to answer that question in the form of their sophomore album Oathbreaker.” Some ideas just don’t look good on paper. This is one of those.
