“Drowstorm is a project of Sudbury, Ontario’s Joe Caswell, mastermind of all things black metal. Acts like the Viking black Burden of Ymir, the post-black Olim, and second-wave worship Vintertodt populate his repertoire – Drowstorm’s vicious edge of dissonance is a new step into the chasm.” Drowstorming with menace.
“‘I’ll have to wait,’ says the little voice in my head, ‘until that winter wonderland of Things You Might Have Missed returns at the end of the year.’ Well, it’s fucking January, and I’m not waiting another gotdamn picosecond. I have an album with which you should get yourselves familiar all quick-like, because it’s my favorite release this month.” Patience is for wimps.
![Asu no Jokei – Awakening [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Asu-no-Jokei-Awakening-01-768x768.jpg)
“I’ve loved Japanese music for fifteen years, but, except for Asian Kung-Fu Generation, that affinity never really made its way south of anime heaven. Rank-and-file melodeath like Blood Stain Child and Gyze pale next to foreign counterparts thanks to lesser execution, if not always lesser vision, and the specter of Japan’s inescapable demon, Ear-Guro. But the best that the Land of the Rising Sun can bring to the table, accomplished legends like Galneryus, Boris, and Sigh, ride in a palanquin borne by the dual tenets of Japanese metal: diligent virtuosity and off-the-walls eclecticism.” Eastern extremes.
