If you’ve listened to last year’s Deafheaven’s Sunbather, Lantlôs‘ Melting Sun will feel very familiar in terms of premise and presentation. To be fair it’s very logical to have that first impression. You’ve got some really noticeable black metal influences fused with warm, glistening, melancholic post-rock/shoegazed interludes accompanied by pink artwork that is sure to offend more than one black metal fan.
Whoa! Human Bodies No Life is over before you say, “I can’t wait to play it again!” I didn’t realize punk meets black metal meets mindfuck can be so addictive. Praiseworthy from first second to last, No Life could be my earliest album of the year candidate.
2014 was a pretty awesome year for music, and there were a bunch of other releases that I thought were fantastic, however, these are my top ten. Some of it’s metal, a lot of it’s not, but here it is:
No longer a black-metal-meets-techno novelty act, IXXI burst onto the scene in 2014 with a rager, Skulls n Dust. Gone are the very subtle tremolo riffs and sixth-string shreds. IXXI brings a little black and roll to the table on this fist pumper.
For a country with only 87 metal bands to ever emerge from its borders in its entire history with only little over 50 actually still active (according to Metal Archvives anyway), Iceland is a quality over quantity type of place in the truest sense of the term. Between Solstafir’s meteoric rise in popularity over the past few years and bands like Wormlust, Angist, and Svartidauði bringing forth their own dissonant hymns to chaos and death, we have seen quite a few exceptional bands come out of this relatively tiny scene and country. The latest band from Iceland to emerge from its murky scene is Sinmara, formerly Chao, with debut album Aphotic Womb. Fresh off of the band’s wonderful Spiritus Sankti demo (as Chao), Sinmara has retooled the lineup which currently features members from such heavy hitters as Wormlust, Svartidauði, and Ireland’s Rebirth of Nefast. The end result is an all star group with a solid vision and a monster of a debut album that highlights the claustrophobic, often unsettling, brute approach to black metal that gives the Icelandic scene its character.
Harassor has always been a band deeply rooted in extremity and the black metal aesthetic, after all, corpse-painted singer Pete Majors douses himself in blood at the beginning of each live performance. Here on the band’s fourth full-length album, Into Unknown Depths, the trio finds itself treading new, dark ground. The band has never shied away from championing a style of black metal rooted in convention, hell; “Ildjarn is Dead” was named after one of the most barebones black metal acts to ever exist. On the new record, however, purity is pushed to the side with a blood-soaked hand and with more freedom Harassor reigns.
One man black metal bands are intriguing. From madmen like Leviathan to Xasthur, black metal has owed part of its heritage to duo and one-man acts serving as multi-instrumentalists in a sub-genre that has seen much repetition. Sure, countless clones have tried the same approach, but have failed mightily, with exception to such aforementioned acts, which fans love for their individuality and authenticity. In an era where the DIY approach has taken the reins from major labels, it is still humbling to catch the occasional glimpse at genius in manifest. Sivyj Yar is one such band.
Label: Candlelight Records
Release Date: 10/7/14
Confession: I am a big, big Winterfylleth fan. Its brand of black metal possess a strain of pride and emotion that few other bands can compete with, and the intelligent, dignified manner in which it has conducted itself over its career to date is worthy of praise. For all that, there has been the sense for this writer that the band has never quite reached the heights it was capable of, that a certain something was missing from its previous albums, as excellent as they are. As such, I had some trepidation when approaching The Divination Of Antiquity: would it be the album that lived up to my hopes for the band? As it so happens, it does more than that. This album is an absolute triumph.
Charlottesville, Virginia is college town known for Dave Matthews band and its Jazz circles, but in the heart of Virginia resides Salvaticus, one of few black metal bands dedicated to capturing the natural sound of the forests and mountains of Piedmont and Appalachia. I’m meeting with founding members Brian Weaver (guitar) and Kevin Ardrey (drums) to discuss the music, the scene, and the band’s debut album Hidden Manna.
Label: The FlenserI figure I’ll get the easy things about this record out of the way to make room for the meat. A majority of you will not like this album. That’s just a simple fact. It might not be as divisive as other black metal bands that have come around in the last few years, with the genre-bending and distinctively leftist ecology themes, but this VI : Flora is not a populist album by any stretch of the imagination. Flora is as mysterious and dense as a David Lynch film. It’s not meant to be an easy listen and it might not even be a great record, but it’s interesting and strikingly listenable. The manner in which it’s crafted seems to demand multiple spins. Like Lynch, this is the vision of a single person – and like Lynch, that can either come off as pretentious and self-aggrandizing or a work of genius. This is all depending on your mood or what you’re expecting as “entertainment.”
Summoning Spirits 