Album Review: Botanist – VI : Flora

 

Label: The Flenser
Release Date: 6/5/14

I 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.”

Split Review: Botanist / Palace of Worms – EP1: The Hanging Gardens of Hell / Ode to Joy

(Source: Bandcamp)

US one-man acts Botanist and Palace Of Worms have both been making waves for a few years now with their distinctive takes on black metal, and EP1: The Hanging Gardens of Hell / Ode to Joy demonstrates exactly why that is. This is not black metal for those yearning for past glories and to whom anything not sounding like it came from Scandinavia in the mid-90s is “untrue.” Rather, it is for those who see black metal existing just as much in spirit as it does in sound, and aren’t afraid to embrace something more adventurous and experimental, as well as challenging.