Space Metal

Fractal Gates – The Light That Shines Review

Fractal Gates – The Light That Shines Review

Fractal Gates have been on my radar since a certain simian scribe o’ Steel introduced me to Enshine, one of several solid acts featuring Fractal Gates’ Sébastien Pierre. While Enshine sees Sébastien’s screams set to some sweetly soaring and seriously expressive string work, the dudes we’re discussing deal in dirtier, deathier depths of metal. Space-death, as it were, or something to that effect.” Good gates make good neighbors.

Crow Black Sky – Sidereal Light: Volume One Review

Crow Black Sky – Sidereal Light: Volume One Review

“A long time ago, on a website far, far away, I stumbled across a trve underground gem: Pantheion, the punishing debut of South Africa’s Crow Black Sky. Their take on blackened death was unique and impressive, and though the website was deemed a complete failure and ultimately collapsed into obscurity, I never lost interest in Crow Black Sky. Years passed, proper whore websites rose to power, and albums came and went, all without so much as some light clucking from the promising act. My tiny, blackened heart-thing spent many long nights petitioning a Crow-less sky, lifting its skinny metaphoric fists like antennas to Jørn and praying for the call of the bird. Eventually my hope went the way of common sense, gone and pretty much forgotten. So it goes, yo. Then on January 17, 2018, Jørn sent me a miracle.” Well, he is the Crow King.

Moon – Render of the Veils Review

Moon – Render of the Veils Review

“Many people hold many things as precious in this wonderful floating rock we call Earth. Some value money over all else. To others, power is the key to happiness. Love is also a beautiful, unifying force in this cesspool of a world. The one thing we all can agree on and wish we could hoard, is time.” And Grymm will be getting none of the time spent with this album back. Not ever!

Lotus Thief – Rervm Review

Lotus Thief – Rervm Review

“I must admit I was pretty excited when I first read about San Francisco’s Lotus Thief, a duo consisting of musicians that are also members of Botanist. The promo blurb and various press snippets mentioned buzzwords like “space metal”, touches of avant-garde, and experimentalism which was enough to tickle my interest. Knowing how great the music from their other project was, I dug into Lotus Thief’s debut Rervm with a lot of expectations.” Expectations are a lot like chocolates. Too many make you die and otherwise ruin shit.

Star One – Victims of the Modern Age Review

Star One – Victims of the Modern Age Review

Arjen Lucassen, I may have misjudged you. You see, Mr. Lucassen and his projects tend to invoke very different reactions depending on which segment of the Angry Metal demographic one asks. To some, his celebrity studded prog-rock and metal projects with Ayreon and Star One are overblown, self-indulgent, pretentious and worthy of scorn and ruthless mockery (I’ve heard “Gayreon” tossed around more than a little). Others will tell you the man is a musical genius and crafts some of the most adventurous progressive metal out there today. Yours truly was firmly rooted in the former camp (as is AMG, admit it!!) but I’ll concede that parts of Star One’s first album Space Metal ended up being a guilty pleasure despite the cheesy and lightweight “sci-fi metal” concept and sound [Whereas, I reviewed it back in the day on Unchain the Underground and thought it was self-indulgent shit. – AMG]. Well, I’m mighty shocked at the direction Mr. Lucassen has opted to take album number two, Victims of the Modern Age. This is a far FAR heavier, more metallic album, taking the basic foundation of Star One and toughening it up in every way. This is so metallic and straight forward that it sounds nothing like any of Mr. Lucassen’s other works.