“Oxx is a trio from Aarhus, Denmark, having released three full-lengths and an EP since 2012. In spite of easy recollections to mathy insanity, pigeonholing The Primordial Blues is unfair even to the act’s own discography, as the ominous sprawling of 2015 debut Bury the Ones We Love and Burn the Rest differs fundamentally to the frantic Dillinger-core of 2019’s The Skeleton Is Just A Coat Hanger.” Big, not so dumb OXX.
“Well, 1476’s In Exile is certainly more than I bargained for. Having dropped my previous promo for this week because I had suspicions about the political leanings of its members (that it was bollocks made this a happy development), I picked up 1476 on a whim. And it’s a lot. Of many things. A lot of music, clocking in at over an hour. A lot of styles and influences—the accompanying blurb describes In Exile as “wonderfully all over the place”; the latter part of that statement isn’t wrong but the adverb, we’ll see.” Leatherface and open space.
“Dawn of Ouroboros is a project started by Botanist and Cailleach Calling guitarist Tony Thomas and Cailleach Calling vocalist Chelsea Murphy. They play a wild, proggy mix of blackgaze, death and atmo-metal with sprinkles of new age and post-hardcore along the way.” Soup for you.
“Gentleness is a trait rarely exhibited in extreme music – perhaps for obvious reasons. The petals of flame that flutter to the earth are too often wrenched by relentless gravity, dream worlds meet their end with violent sound, and meditation that offers healing is ripped open like a scab. Therefore, gentleness is a scar for Milanku, a weariness with the wounds suffered and a soundtrack of healing – of a busted bone never set quite right.” Beauty in the darkest places.
Our promo sump feels piled these days, a good thing! And, it may be my attention to these distinctions that has grown over the year that I’ve now been with AMG, or it might just be the world we live in, but the independent release sub-pool seems to be growing drop by drop every day too. This fledgling, self-guided troupe, who funneled from afar to Australia, hasn’t even yet landed on the Encyclopedia Metallum (though they qualify), but they’ve graciously given us 2.4 gigabytes of WAV files to review for their debut outing The Spiritual Beast.” Forest packages available.
“It has taken some time for me to warm up to Big|Brave’s brand of noise/drone/doom. I didn’t love 2017’s Ardor, but it did pique my interest. Minimalist formalism in music doesn’t offend me the same way it does others, but their single-chord experiments didn’t resonate at the time. Still, the pairing of Robin Wattie’s waif-ish vocals with heavy drone was something new, so I kept an eye out for them. I warmed up to the stark elegance on follow-up A Gaze Among Them, but it wasn’t until Leaving None But Small Birds, their collaboration with The Body, that the appeal became revelatory.” Bigly braveness.
“Bosco Sacro is an Italian quartet whose style is unclear, ranging from doom to trip-hop to psychedelic, with drone, post-rock, and of course, ambient tied in there. For their debut, expect lush atmosphere, dark distorted bass, and Giulia Parin Zecchin’s formidable vocal performance, ranging from post-punk slurs to soprano siren croons, recalling the duality of This Is Oblivion’s Lulu Black.” Sacro blue.
“Five-piece NATT comprises a core duo of songwriters, René Misje (Kraków) and Roy Ole Førland (Malignant Eternal), who are then joined in the studio by others, including Enslaved’s Iver Sandøy behind the kit. Would the launch gig for their self-titled debut justify a visit to Norway?” Tour core.
“I am already a chronic daydreamer, but I can’t recall an album so powerfully inducing waking unconsciousness as Whiteout. This isn’t because it causes the listener to tune out. Rather, its immersiveness is so intense that they’ll find themselves dead to the world midway through the first track. This is the fifth full-length from the Viennese four-piece, with a slew of other musicians in tow, and it largely follows in their signature trajectory of post-metal meets dark ambient. However, perhaps more so than before, Phal: Angst emphasize the cinematic with long, subtly evolving pieces of deceptive simplicity.” Haze runner.
![Old Solar – Quiet Prayers (Redux) [Things You Might Have Missed 2022]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/oldsolarquiet.jpg.webp)
“It’s a rare post-rock release that truly stands out. Those that do excel have to go further than waves of shoegazing guitars and must exercise song-writing discipline. Enter 2017 and enter North Carolina’s Old Solar. An EP entitled Quiet Prayers offered one of the year’s more poignant musical achievements, but it sadly flew too far under the radar. Almost 6 years and 1 full-length later sees Old Solar still resolutely toiling in the underground, but their sound and songwriting has matured.” Old and quiet can work sometimes.
