Petrychor

Dzö-nga – The Sachem’s Tales Review

Dzö-nga – The Sachem’s Tales Review

“Sophomore full-length The Sachem’s Tales sees Cryvas crafting a concept album about Native American folklore, aiming to combine Cascadian black metal with classical music. Joined by female vocalist Grushenka Ødegård and session drummer Aaron Maloney (formerly of Pennsylvania metalcore act This or the Apocalypse, oddly enough), has Dzö-nga given us the next Bergtatt or delivered another Bandcamp black metal record whose hype will fizzle faster than you can say “Ghost Bath”? The Great Tree and the Dzö-nga House.

October Falls – A Collapse of Faith Review

October Falls – A Collapse of Faith Review

Depressed Finns are really no surprise in metal these days. It seems like Finns are a pretty morose bunch in general. A country famous for bands like Poisonblack, H.I.M., Sentenced, Insomnium, Black Sun Aeon and Swallow the Sun, it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that some pretty bleak and depressing stuff comes out of Finland. And let me be clear, that’s not even naming huge groups of bands that I’m sure others could probably come up with. But October Falls isn’t your standard “depressed metal” band from Finland. There are no silly ESL lyrics about being buried in a plastic bag or any of that jazz. Instead, October Falls is a “depressive” black metal band with folk sensibilities.

Petrychor – Dryad Review

Petrychor – Dryad Review

I frequently complain about black metal these days. Partially this is because I think that a lot of post-black metal is fucking boring and partially ’cause the not-post-black metal is also fucking boring. In general, black metal is in a place where nothing really that interesting is going on. Sure, there are bands out there that are putting out good material, but for the most part the signed stuff is so-so and the classic bands are disappointing with new material and the state of the scene, in my opinion, is pretty sad. So I was pleasantly surprised to get turned onto this piece of art by the Californian do-it-yourselfer just called “T”. The project is called Petrychor and displays all of the things that I would hope to hear out of this budding scene sort of embodied in a single 3 song EP entitled Dryad.