“Despite their frosty, dour tunes, the first comparison I draw when listening to Cesariana is Oubliette’s warm and rich The Passage. The second is Ethereal Shroud’s magnum opus Trisagion. Aesthetically falling somewhere between these two disparate references, Litosth’s style sounds epic without resorting to double-digit song lengths, feels relaxed in pacing without lacking passion, and manages to be memorable without possessing especially unique songwriting tenets.” Black haze.
“One man atmospheric black metal projects. You know ’em. You love ’em (or you love to hate ’em). They’re everywhere. Precious few manage to make it into the annals of great acts, but there are notable ones such as Mare Cognitum and Aquilus whose output have made diehard fans out of me. Newcomers have it pretty rough now that those two, among several others, have set the bar as high as they have. Russian multi-instrumentalist George “Foltath” Gabrielyan stands bravely in front of that bar with his atmoblack project Gloosh (a transliteration of the Russian word for “wilderness,” “Ãëóøü”), determined to bring the genre to the next level with debut album Timewheel.” Put on yer Glooshes.
![Firelink – The Inveterate Fire [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/firelink_theInveterateFire_albumArt-768x768.jpg)
“Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, the duo peddle the finest wares of the melodic black metal persuasion. Woven deeply into their abyssal constructs is a red-blooded passion for the Dark Souls video game series rife with metallic imagery ideal for musical adaptation.” Soulmass awaits at the Kiln of the First Flame.
“Instrumental metal has been a difficult branch for me to get into. A big part of why I got into metal is due to the wild dynamics offered by a human voice (and in one particular case, a coffee grinder). But there are always exceptions to the rule that eventually break the rule entirely. In my case, the first band to pop my “vocals or bust” bubble was Nightwish, whose instrumental-only rendition of Dark Passion Play is so compelling I ended up preferring it over the standard edition. Then I discovered Sleep Terror, a fantastic instrumental tech-death/surf/funk band you all owe it to yourselves to investigate. From there I discovered Echopraxia, a ghost/supernatural themed instrumental metal act, and now I’ve stumbled upon Essence of Datum, an instrumental melodic prog-death couplet from Minsk.” Voices don’t carry.
“When a record feels right — truly right — you just know. No ramp-up is required. Nothing is asked of you but your admiration. Satisfaction is born in full, a sensation that mirrors the wholly filling quality of a spin free from reservations. Oubliette — a Tennessee meloblack outfit headed by married duo Emily and Mike Low, the latter of Inferi; some readers should be familiar with — comes dangerously close to that feeling with their second offering.” Marriage makes the heart blacker.
