“What’s in a name, anyway? As a n00b of considerable amateurism, babyfaced me ventured forth into the minefield of the promo bin for the first time. I was immediately overwhelmed with the potential amount of sweet tunes that awaited my greedy fingers. Knowing no better, I picked the thing that sounded the coolest: Charnel Heart.” Beginner’s pluck.
For today’s selection, we have the up and coming Swedish black metal act Rev 16:8 (formely known as both Bloodshed and Scythe). Ashlands is their second release and up until I got the promo I’d never heard a thing about them under any of their numerous names (of all of them, the new one is the pits). They play what could be called modern black metal and Ashlands is loaded with rough, ugly black metal mostly played at blasting speeds. While they don’t exactly reinvent the wheel or bring anything very new to the genre, they execute well and some of the material shines with potential and talent. In a field that has grown increasingly overloaded with copycat acts and stagnation, do they have what it takes to rise above the black masses and stand out? Well, not yet but maybe soon.
Har du nÃ¥nsin märkt att svenska band faktiskt sällan fÃ¥r spela i Sverige? Det känns som de stora banden frÃ¥n Sverige Ã¥ker pÃ¥ turné över hela världen men aldrig längre norrut i landet än Stockholm (om dom ens spelar i Sverige). De flesta som dyker upp gör sÃ¥ pÃ¥ festivaler under sommaren och helt ärligt […]
