Ides Of Gemini - Constantinople

Another album finding its way in the 'Repeat' section for me is the Ides Of Gemini debut full length 'Constantinople'. Another album that has caught me by surprise like so many others this year. An almost ritualistic like journey through lands so bleak and tragic and smothered in icy mist.

The big key for me that makes this album so good is the riffs first and foremost. It isn't anything complicated, I'm sure that is not what they are trying to do. They are simple but gosh, they couldn't be anymore effective. That guitar's distorted tone is so bleak as well and the way they slowly creep along. Oddly enough, it can feel calming but the tone presents an eerie unpleasantness. It even feels heavier than it is trying to be. Melodies in songs like 'Resurrectionists', 'One To Oneness' and 'Reaping Golden' are like quick stints of repetition that adds a hypnotic side. If those walls of bleak distortion on songs like 'The Vessel & The Stake' and 'Starless Midnight' are not mesmerizing enough. Even the cleaner moments (Eg: 'Austrian Windows') show the eerie side.

Sera Timms vocals do the same. Where as they take that calm side I am familiar with on Black Math Horseman, she has some moments where she has complete power and force. Here, it is not about hitting a note, but the passion and the emotion when she lifts her voice. Like the riffs, the effectiveness in her deep tone. A soothing voice that lifts to the highest peak and can simply leap and carry over and through the icy mist smothering the bleak lands. Just listen to the chorus in 'Starless Midnight'. Her voice soars and commands. There is even this chilling effect to them and when she is backed up, it only drives the feeling more.

Even the drumming doesn't do anything out of the ordinary but again is effectively done. The way they plod along in 'The Vessel & The Stake' for example. It feels ritualistic to me. A march to remember a tragic event. Perhaps the icy mist smothering the land is slowly fading away to reveal the torn remains of a war that should never of happened. The entrancing snaps of the snare in 'Slain In Spirit' or the crashing in 'One To Oneness' may describe the vision more.

With all the simple effectiveness going on, the thing that is difficult to depict in all this is where do you put this in terms of style? Well, thanks to everything I have described in the above, I really couldn't place this anywhere. It is not that I really care cause it is if I like the music or not. But interested ones do care. I guess it is suited more to the doom or stoner ear, but that is only taking the easy way out. It is a rock album more than anything else but too bleak to be truly grasped by a mainstream audience. An awesome one at that.

It is easy to realize the talent in some ridiculously complicated music. But sometimes the feel and the atmosphere is lacking to truly absorb it and go back to it. The same can be said for a lot of the simpler music too. It is a big thing I look for at least in the music I like. With Ides Of Gemini, they have backed it up with the atmosphere, with the passion and with the soul. The way I have taken this album in.. One of the finest albums I have heard this year.

Ikil

Horn Of The Rhino - Grengus

Impact! Sometimes you when you hear an album for the first time, the way it opens can give you an immediate indication of what you are in for. The moment Horn Of The Rhino's new album 'Grengus' blasts through your speakers, you are in for one hard hitting effort.. with a few different moments along the way..

This has that sound where the music is literally in your face. The moment 'Under The Hoof' opens, you are hitting a brick wall out of no where. The quick pace of songs like 'Under The Hoof' and 'Pile of Severed Heads' is intense and whilst it may remind me of High On Fire, the harsh droning tone of the riffs and Javier's vocals bring more of a death metal flavour to the table. A perfect balance between crushing and brutal.

And with this sheer pace, the drumming is stampeding the way it is done. Just stand on a hill and watch the bulls run through the paddock and wonder what would happen to you if you were in the middle of their rampage. Anything in their way would be done pretty quick. Bruises, broken bones, cracked skulls.. and much more.

But this isn't all one long stampede. Songs like 'Grengus' and 'Brought Back' show a more interesting side where things are even more crushing and drawn out and the riffs are catchier. The drumming is like big thuds and Javier's vocals take a clean edge that comes across quite grunge like thanks to that raw tinge to them. He can really hit the notes too. It certainly adds an emotional side to the album. Heck, these slower moments really shows how heavy this band can get. How fucking good are those riffs!?

I don't like to play the compare game, but I would have expected to be revisiting High On Fire's new one more this year. Instead 'Grengus' is the album I am going back to more. This is far more intense, more catchy, heavier and memorable. Another one of those low expectations at the start that snaps you in half. This beast has horns and they are more than ready to strike.

Ikil

Father Befouled - Revulsion Of Seraphic Grace

Listening to Father Befouled's latest album 'Revulsion Of Seraphic Grace' might not be the best thing to try and fix a headache, but no doubt it will put my mind into overdrive as I describe how their latest effort is quite possibly the best thing they have done so far. Sheer brutality just the way I like it.

Enough force and brutality in this music that it will knock every thick brick off a tall wall, send it crashing into pieces before slowly twisting and moldering deep into the rocky ground. Those riffs are so dark and heavy. So deep and crushing, especially when they slow down. It compresses you. The raw tremolo riffing that comes into play is like a rusty chainsaw cutting abnormally into flesh and spraying the remains all over the underground cave that they were hanging from.

What the pounding drums are doing.. Everything caves in and so brutally, that everything will be squashed in a matter of moments. Totally neck snapping. The ground shakes incredibly and the roof collapses. Everything is destroyed, sometimes in quick succession but most of the time to a slow and grinding halt.

Then the vocals are just as brutal, dark and sick. Drawn out bellows that slowly choke souls as they try to reach out from the rubble that has crushed their bodies. Strains from a demonic beast. A voice you can hear out of the darkness from afar but you are too scared to check it out, fearing you might face death.

In 36 minutes, this album will crush you on the inside, leaving your body left laying in pitch black darkness where you will rot and decay. Everything will disintegrate around you and the last thing you will hear is a chaotic collapse. The only thing left to rise is the dust from the rubble that has entombed you.

Another killer death metal album to cap off a big year for Dark Descent Records. I nearly overlooked this but glad I didn't. Now my brain feels as though it has been twisted, pressed on by a large rock and drowned in a sink full of tar. Brutality at its finest.

Ikil

Necrovation - Necrovation

Like every year, Sweden offers up some awesome death metal. This year, albums from Paganizer, Malfeitor, Intestinal and even Unleashed to name a few have been solid or great, but the latest effort from Necrovation is one of those death metal albums that takes it beyond what you might be use to hearing from the Swedish death metal scene.

You wont find the slamming gallops here. You wont find the chunky raw drench in the guitar tone and you wont find the deep bellows one may be use to hearing from my favourite death metal scene. Instead you will find a more 'blackened' feel, a vary in the tempos, in the riffs, a more blackened edge to the vocals and an atmosphere so dark, evil and sick that it will turn the wildest of tides to black from the ash that has come floating over from an ash cloud of a roaring volcano. If I hear any of what I am use to from Sweden, it is very subtle.

This is one of those death metal albums where you don't quite know what to expect. Just as the riffs, in their raw and dark tone tread along and catch on so well, they will pick up in blistering speeds or disjointed plummeting, screaming in hooks and tear away. With subtle moments of eerie leads and raw twisted solos, it just adds extra edge to the songs. Take a song like 'Dark Lead Dead' or 'New Depths' which takes all these elements and creates a whirlwind of chaos, sending your attention all over the place. Every song will do this. You can't sail in these conditions because as the ash starts to smother you from above, a wave crashes into your boat from the right.

A dirty and rusty throat from Seb adds this sense of filth to the album. This is where the evil lurks here. An effect to his voice that gives a sense as though his voice hovers above this thick plume of ash as it is being carried across the ocean. It is not like he has any stand out moments, it is more that his vocals fit perfect to this sound.

Of course, the drumming adds that sense of chaos as it can transform from plodding into rumbling destruction in a matter of moments. Hammering toms and kicks, hard splashes from the cymbals and a pounding snare. A moment in 'III Mouth Madness (The Many)' where everything simply rolls along before the blistering twists flurry away. When the transitions take place as frequent as they do in these songs, you know who is leading the way.

If these twists and turns are not enough, then a song like 'The Transition' could be that epic moment in the album that you might be waiting for. An acoustic opening that progresses to eerie and dark lifting leads that take command. The sermon that awakens the sea serpent who rises up from the tides and, as his lungs are being filled with ash, begins to spin out in fury and attack the boat that is being thrown around, before going back under water and swimming off to calmer territories.

With a resurgence of death metal in Sweden in recent years, Necrovation is the band that has gone off on their own here and have set their own path. Reminds me of what Dissection and Marduk did in the early 90s. Because of this different approach, this has my attention more. It will be the same feeling for others too, no doubt. Clever work.

Ikil

Botanist - III: Doom In Bloom

A few months back, a friend asked me if I had heard of Botanist to which I had not. He then went on to describe it as this interesting black metal project where the main instrument in use was the hammered dulcimer. He then went on to say it was interesting, but not really anything special. Challenging at best. I would check out songs from the first album 'I: The Suicide Tree/ II: A Rose From The Dead', to which, although interesting, didn't really win me over either. Quick noisy songs with the gargling vocals I didn't really like. And I pretty much left it at that. A couple of weeks later, I came across 'III: Doom In Bloom'. Well...

This is much more interesting and so much better. I showed this to the same friend who told me about Botanist and he has been won over too. Thanks to much longer songs, slower tempos and even a change in 'style', now I have become captivated. This time, Botanist has presented songs that take the hammered dulcimer beyond black metal and into more post like territories. The soundtrack to the end of the world brought forth by a floral apocalypse. And here we are worrying about nuclear weapons..

The sorrow, the bleakness, the sense of evilness spreads across these songs like vines growing from the soil and slowly wrapping themselves around homes, along roads, even the people wandering around. Nothing here is really heavy here though. It is more 'calming' in a way. Except those nodding melodies have a weird spook to them. The way the notes from the hammered dulcimer can vary in feel, sorrowfully weaving along in 'Quoth Azalea, the Demon (Rhododendoom II)', to eerily plodding off in 'Ganoderma Lucidum', and chiming in and out with the marching pace of the drums in 'Vriesea', it all comes off quite unique and feels organic.

The vocals can be a little uneasy at times. But in a good way. Between the cold whispers and the harsh screams, but also that weird gargle like sound, but I am taking a different mindset to them this time around. It is as if the voice represents those that are forced to scream in agony or gargle their own blood as they are being strangled by the vines that are wrapping themselves around those wandering the bleak fields, slowly crushing their bones.

Endless sounds of the crashing cymbals are like spores shooting into the sky and releasing a poisonous mist with a scent so strong that when it reaches each person and is inhaled, it gets inside their bodies and slowly eats away at their internal organs. The thudding beats in 'Panax' is each body falling to the ground one by one and each warped note is the final dazing moment in each ones mind as they hit the ground. A dark and haunting finale.

I wont go into too much detail with 'Allies', the bonus disc with this album but that is also very interesting. The disc features songs by other artists (friends of Botanist) using the drum recordings of previous Botanist songs and made into their own unique works. The themes also have to be based around plants. A good mix of sludge, doom, and black metal like presentations. Really awesome stuff.

Overall, from the seeds of black metal, another interesting and unique artist has been unearthed. Botanist has taken some time to grow on me and it will continue to do so. Thanks to 'III: Doom In Bloom', this is the moment where Botanist has bloomed for me and I am sure in time, many more interesting works will be planted by him.

Ikil

Mutilation Rites - Empyrean

There have been quite a few interesting black metal albums come out this year. Sure, the main ones like Burzum and Marduk have been in amongst it, but when a fresh one like Mutilation Rites comes along, it offers you something you don't quite know what you are in for. Their first album 'Empyrean' is quite an impressive one.

This is one of those black metal albums that commands the night. Pitch black, blistering speeds that can compete in any race with the winds, enough force in those riffs to make the stars burning in the night sky believe that the old school feel of black metal sits firmly with these guys. The thing is though, for all the old school feel Mutilation Rites show, they still throw enough variation in their riffs and tempos to place them in the modern feel of black metal also. Just listen to the way the songs transcend between pace and the way the riffs do different things unexpectedly. Walls of black noise that can twist. 

The way the riffs and tempos can gallop like a dark horse through a cold and lifeless forest. The way the tremolo riffs come in and blend in with the rhythmic ones. I haven't heard tremolo riffs feel this empowering in black metal in a long time. The way they come in out of no where in a song like 'Realms Of Dementia' or the subtle way they come into a song like 'Ancient Bloodoath' makes the songs twice as good as they already are. And the way 'Fogwarning' opens, the fog would be torn down the middle, or the way it becomes all disjointed and chaotic towards the end. A storm has just wiped out the entire forest.

The vocals of George Paul are so harsh, so torturous, evil. So crazy and psychotic. He makes the storm clouds turn black and cold as they smother and freeze the night sky. The blistering drumming is the rain and hail pelting down on the fields, forming puddles and mud so thick that eventually the dark horse will become stuck and will have no where to go, only to feel the rain and hail striking him and as it gives up on trying to escape as it is now bloody and bruised. The rain slows down as the drumming begins to hold back but still making as much chaotic noise as it can with the black riffs that ring out and trudge through the night. 'Broken Axis' signals the point where there is no chance of escaping. You are left to just wither away.

For all the USBM going around these days, as much as I enjoy them, Mutilation Rites feel like the only ones that truly embody the old black metal spirit. That's a big call, maybe a ridiculous one. But, for me, I don't think of the originals when I listen to other USBM bands. That can be a good thing though as it provides something different. But with 'Empyrean', Mutilation Rites has reminded me a lot of the originals here.

The difference between the stranded dark horse here and Mutilation Rites is that they will continue to gallop, possibly to bigger and greater heights. If they keep unleashing pitch black chaotic works such as this, they will. The cold night just added another soundtrack to its already impressive playlist.

Ikil

Monarch - Omens

Monarch has always been a band that for me, pulls it off better live than on record. The experience of seeing them crush a small room is so much more enjoyable where as their albums tend to be more dark droning soundtracks that give off a dazed out mindset when going to sleep. 'Omens' however takes a slightly different approach, and I am quite liking this.

The main difference is the tempo has increased. Not much of course but remember those breaks between the crushing riffs on previous albums? Well that is not evident here as on 'Blood Seeress', which comes across more as a series of nodding implosions that form deep gigantic dark holes leading into the core of the earth. Emilie's vocals still sound as tortured as always and comes off as if the core of the earth has a voice and it is screaming in great agony.

After the interlude 'Transylvanian Incantations' which gives off an impression that the destruction has stopped, 'Black Becomes The Sun' comes in with more crushing riffs, but less imploding like 'Blood Seeress' felt. This is like the hard surface around the giant hole is beginning to slowly crack and crumble away leaving big clumps to fall into the giant hole.

This time a clean voice chimes as if a choir of black angels have arrived to watch the chaos unfold. As the song begins to swing into disjointed fills and held up crushing riffs, the voices and whispers become more torturous and painful. Strong winds are pulling into the black core and the skin on the faces of the black angels are being ripped off, revealing black rotting skulls beneath them.

As the tempo begins to pick up pace, the imploding returns and the black angels are stripped down to their rotting bones. They stand still for a brief moment as only the faint whispers remain, and then the core screams as the bones begin their everlasting fall into the gigantic black hole. The clean chimes return as the earth now lays quiet and still. Lucky this album only goes for almost 36 minutes because it feels like it goes for an hour.

Another solid effort from these guys who always manage to paint the seas, the land, the days and the night in a bleak and disturbed way. A world so dark.

Ikil

Sigh - In Somniphobia

I would have to rate Sigh as being the most bizarre band in the world. With their latest album, 'In Somniphobia', the band has yet again shown how they can mix a whole lot of musical elements and execute it perfectly. Dare I say it, their best album yet..

One thing that has always been a hit and miss with Sigh has been their production. This is the first time I have found a Sigh album to have the perfect mix. The balance between the guitar riffs and the other instruments couldn't be better. The electronics, the synth work, even the bass lines all work as one to drive this rich wave of psychedelic metal brilliance, both technically and catchy. None of this comes across as too much or jumbled up one the ears. If anything, each time I listen to this, the focus can change from the guitars to the synths, the saxophone, even the vocals. So much is going on and you want to try and catch as much of it all as you can. It's like walking through a carnival and trying to catch a glimpse at all the different bizarre acts you walk by. Only thing is they are all so interesting that you can't decide which one you want to stay at and watch.

I like the sound of the guitar riffs too. A crisp edge to them and their is a good balance between being technical with the lead work or just breaking out catchy riffs that cross between doom and traditional metal. That solo in 'Somniphobia' is jaw dropping. A bluesy moment that oozes a feel that this carnival you have gone to is one on a hot and humid summers evening.

When the electronic side dominates, particularly in the slower songs. It almost feels mesmerizing. A song like 'Amnesia' almost feels like you have been soothed out at times and each instrument has its moment in the sun as it drifts along. 'Far Beneath the In-Between' can be that moment at the carnival where you come across a group of people putting on a creepy dance. Perhaps the carnival has led you to a masquerade ball full of eerie people.

Then comes a twist in this story when the evil 'Amongst The Phantoms Of Abandoned Tumbrils' introduces the group of masked youths who raid the masquerade ball to vandalize the place. As the piano and guitar leads whisk along, the tables are flipped over, plates and glasses are smashed and the eerie people begin to run away. Oh wait! The thrashing avenger ('Fall To The Thrall') has come to save the night as he blazes the room and takes out the masked youths one by one, only you find it odd that each masked youth is being knocked down by a sharp gust of wind from the fake punches the thrashing avenger is swinging at them.

Suddenly, the crowd begins to erupt in applause and the masked youths and the thrashing avenger stand and take a bow, thus revealing that it was all just an act. The entertainment part of the evening at the ball within the carnivals perimeters. Thus you walk out of the place as the weird 'Equale' plays along like the ending credits theme. You think to yourself 'What the fuck was all this?'

Told you this was bizarre.

Yes, I broke off into a tangent there, but this is just to prove how weird Sigh is. Albums like 'Scorn Defeat', 'Hail Horror Hail' and 'Scenes From Hell' for example are like horror stories that don't come across as horrifying because of quirky elements they add to their sounds. 'In Somniphobia' comes off more as a strange mystery that psyches you out. Even after it's all over, you still can't understand the story at all, but all the twists and turns you found in the story still make it intriguing and you keep watching it over and over trying to work it all out. All I know right now is, Sigh is Japan's best metal band.

Ikil