“Self-described as a happy medium between My Dying Bride and Alcest, Ascian bring on the gloom by way of gargantuan riffs summoned at a glacial pace by guitarists P. and T. There be no fluff whatsoever across the remarkably tight thirty-eight minutes that span this album. The mission statement of Elysion is plain as day: to crush all who venture in this overcast wasteland until nothing remains but a faint wisp of soul dust.” Unhappy mediums.
“Band names are important. They can often tell you a lot about a band or artist. Of course, the music matters most but I will frequently, while plumbing the murkier depths of Bandcamp, stick on a track purely on the strength of a band’s name. That is how I came to find Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, for example. Conversely, a poor name can be a big negative, although, as Gazpacho demonstrate, a stellar band can rise above a terrible moniker. Every now and again though, I stumble across something I want to like simply because of the name. And that is how I feel about Eyeless in Gaza.” What’s in a name?
“2019 was a very good year for doom metal in general. However, I never got to review the real quality stuff, unless you count Hollow Leg which I would call sludge first, doom second. So I set upon Meridians with high hopes to see this changed for the better and claim my slice of the awesome doom pie.” Bone pie.
238 unique releases. 27 overlong lists. 10 collective favorites. And 1 frustrated compiler at the center of it all. That’s right, the meta-list has arrived and #Listurnalia2019 has finally drawn to a close.
The lists continue as GardensTale and Ferrous Beuller regale us with their Top Ten(ish) picks for the year. Pay attention.
Master of Muppets and TheKenWord with their very own Top Ten(ish) of 2019 lists? There goes the neighborhood!
Once they were n00bs, but now they get their own Top Ten(ish) of 2019 lists. They grow up so fast!.
“I have never had such a candid and comfortable conversation about this most miserable of subject matter with anyone before my discussion with Déhà, the mastermind behind Déhà and Slow, among others. It is my sincere hope that someone out there will read these words and feel the same level of support and understanding that I felt as they transpired, and it is all but certain that this will forever be the post that I am most proud and humbled to have contributed to this great Hall ov ours.”
“Cold winds, ice, snow, overstuffed birds and crowded shopping malls. None of these played a role in making November’s Record(s) o’ the Month so fookin’ late.” Baby, it’s late outside.
“An indifferent moon silently presides over an ocean bejeweled with the shimmering ghosts of stars, witness to all and concerned with none. The air is alive with salt and sea breeze, the water as clear and cold as the uncompromising truth that is mortality. You, of course, are aware of precisely none of these things, nor of anything else aside from your own clear, cold reality: You’re fucking drowning, yo. Waxen, hypoxic skin and waterlogged lungs are all that you are here, a stifled testimony of abject self defeat and an inconsequential offering to no one; defeated, drowning… dead. This is what the darkest shades of depression feel like, a perpetually cold and helpless state of being on the wrong side of a near death moment as the world around you spins on, unaffected and insouciant. VI – Dantalion is the soundtrack to such a self-sustained drowning.” Deep waters.
