Depressive black metal

Great underappreciated albums – Anti, Adramelech, DIRTYCREED, The Moth Gatherer

Short reviews of a few albums I’ve listened in the past year that I think deserve a lot more recognizion. Including The Moth Gatherer – A Bright Celestial Light (post-metal), Anti – The Insignificance of Life (depressive black metal), Adramelech – Pure Doom Blood (oldschool Finnish death metal) and DIRTYCREED – Bleeding Isle (neofolk).

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Anti – The Insignificance of Life (2006)

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Thick hypnotic depressive black metal. Landscape in Minor may be one of the pinnacles of the whole genre. Unlike bands like Xasthur who have jewels but a huge amount of crap, Anti only released one album that is throughoutly solid.

Full album in youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E36jyxh4cdw

8+/10

Adramelech – Pure Doom Blood (1999)

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Adramelech, A-grade Finnish oldschool death metal band was always good but lived in the shade of its more known counterparts like Demigod, Convulse and Demilich. Probably because it took them until 1996 to release their first length album.

Demilich was technical and a bit silly, Convulse and Demigod dark oldschool death metal. Adramelech is a cross between pitch black oldschool Finnish death and a fair amount of technicality without the silliness. The backbone is the groove of drummer Jarkko Rantanen and lead guitar work. The drums have something similar to Ken Owen of Carcass who also was quite a strange death metal drummer. Abomination 459 and Centuries of Murder are usually my choices when picking up individual tracks.

Neither Psychostasia (1996) or Pure Doom Blood (1999) are flawless but I personally find them more varied, groovy and melodic than what Convulse and Demigod ever did.

P.S. Pure Doom was finally re-released in 2018 and is available as a physical and digital copy.

8/10

Listen or buy a digital album from bandcamp: https://narex.bandcamp.com/album/pure-blood-doom

DIRTYCREED – Bleeding Isle (2017)

dirtycreed

Chinese one man neofolk band finds a sweet atmospheric spot. Vocals are very limited dark whispering with broken English but it does not break the spell. If in doubt just listen to magical melodies on The Architect or Riverside. It’s hard to find something more beautiful than the main theme of The Architect. DIRTYCREED is just bursting with talent, a lot of stylish piano and violin arrangements with lush soundscapes.

The entirety is a bit overlong and starts to repeat itself but Bleeding Isle has scattered brilliant themes throughout. The near perfect acoustic guitar sound helps a ton too. The album is a grower, there’s a ton of layered melodies. Bleeding Isle is not a simple man and a guitar album that one would come to expect. It will for sure last time very well and might easily grow to be even better with time.

Listen or buy a digital album from bandcamp: https://pestproductions.bandcamp.com/album/bleeding-isle

8/10

The Moth Gatherer – A Bright Celestial Light (2013)

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First impression of Swedish outfit The Moth Gatherer will forever be Cult of Luna. Even though The Moth Gatherer are an undeniably similar band, they skipped the early undynamic hardcore-sludge phase and went straight into the good bits. It’s refreshing to see apprentices taking notes and fine-tuning the craft of their idols. Dynamic, varied most of the best post-metal characteristics, including slow atmospheric sections that naturally lead to heavy riffs and memorable melodies are present.

There’s variation and pure groove in the riffs. Just listen to The Road of Gravel and Skulls or the crushing end of The Womb, The Woe, The Woman. Both tracks introduce a great riff in the beginning, and then do a whole lot in the middle section. Like wander in cinematic noir landscapes bringing in mind Callisto, there’s also a bit of gentle chord picking, small electronic parts and ominous riffing to end with a juiced up beginning riff.

The tracks usually lead to an end pinnacle, but The Moth Gatherer is still not as much as a build up band as some of its counterparts like Isis. There’s an ever present wave motion in the compositions that I’ve very much come to like in post-metal. Who needs choruses anyway?

P.S. Don’t try to search them from The Metal Archives, somehow they are not listed as metal. Probably because their 2015 album The Earth is the Sky and 2017 EP The Comfortable Low are post rockish. Great releases nevertheless. The Moth Gatherer has an extremely solid discography including a 2019 release Esoteric Oppression.

9/10

2017 Music Quickies – Wear Your Wounds, Wvrm, Nyss, KANASHIMI, Glanko, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Bunch of albums released in 2017 in quick and dirty reviews.

R-9993610-1489834419-4498.jpegWear Your Wounds — WYW

Side-project of Converge’s Jacob Bannon. If you’ve always digged the doomy and lengthier tracks with build up in Converge’s discography you need to check this out. The highs are really high and the lows are boring. WYW strips down almost all heavy guitars and a lot of times is quite a melancholic slowcore / post-rock / shoegaze album. Unsurprisingly the heaviest moments rank among the best. High points: Wear Your Wounds, Iron Rose, Best Cry Of Your Life, Fog.

There’s over 20 minutes of boring material in the midst of 63 minutes so I’m ranking it more for the good than for the bad. Difficult to get into and a possible grower. I am beginning to think the gigantic ups might rank it over Convege’s fine 2017 full-length The Dusk In Us.

8+

R-11119687-1510213317-5471.jpegWvrm — Can You Hear The Wind Howl – grindcore / death metal

10 minutes is just the right length for this kind of furious album. 6 tracks with a 3 minute doomy headbanger in the midst. Epic track length in their standards.

8-

 

R-10928436-1506685605-4925.jpegNyss — Princesse Terre (Three Studies of Silence and Death)

Contender for the best album of 2017. The start is a bit jarred, angelic ambient and voice clip (of Francis Bacon (artist)) suddenly turns into a raw riff. But the track soon gets better and more stellar as the atmosphere sets in place. And boy, does it get better by a ton.

Fantastic atmosphere, riffs and use of effective repetition. Climaxes, build-ups, some melodies, backing ambience. Absolute top tier atmospheric and hypnotic black metal. A good amount of airy elements without being post black metal.

The release is really cheap in Bandcamp, only 3.33 (plus taxes)! The bargain of the year.  https://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/princesse-terre-three-studies-of-silence-and-death

9

R-11250695-1512749095-8245.jpegKANASHIMI — INORI

Depressive black metal / funeral doom / japanese pop influences. Yes you read right, these elements actually fit together. Scar Of The Heart is a bullseye of a track, a nicely unique dsbm sound. Then the one man project repeats the sound nearly all album long… Classic one man band problem really. Fantastic cover art.
7+
https://pestproductions.bandcamp.com/album/inori

 

R-10521615-1499158107-7397.jpegGlanko – Osmosi

Glanko’s first EP in 2012 was a very ready progressive IDM release. After that Glanko turned surprisingly dark-toned with a bunch of releases more inviting as background music (2014 Alset, 2016 Isometrik). I simply did not find much hooks from them. In 2015 the release 2244 included a great track and a few fantastic remixes. 2017 Sakugen single blew off with a friggingly catchy edm/idm hit. It was not a hit cause no one who could have made it a hit listened it.

2017 release Osmosi goes back to dark toned themes with sci-fi elements. This time Glanko has matured and found great melody lines to accompany beats more diverse than ever. Perfect music for reading sci-fi like Dan Simmonds Hyperion quartet! I think Glanko has finally found itself. Though I wouldn’t be against making an album of the elements in Sakugen. Fantastic release, unfitting cover art. Highpoints: Processo Interiore, Nictofilia, Argyria, Nube

8½
https://glanko.bandcamp.com/track/osmosi

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard — Flying Microtonal Banana

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard — Gumboot Soup

The beginning of Flying Microtonal Banana is repetitive and jammy psychedelic rock, even reminding of kraut rock. The latter part is more a regular weird garage rock / psychedelic rock album. Rather a midtempo one when the great Nonagon Infinity from 2016 had both high and mid tempo tracks. High points: Billabong Valley.

Gumboot Soup has a lot softer base sound. Beginner’s Luck is my favourite of the softer tracks. Muddy Water is a lovelily repetitive jammer. All Is Known could well be a Nonagon Infinity outtake and The Great Chain of Being is nearly a stoner doom track! The Wheel and Greenhouse Heat Death remind of Flying Microtonal Banana. Nicely diverse effort.

I’ve only punctured the 5 listen mark on both of these so not all high points, or points altogether, are clear yet.

8-

2-King-Gizzard-and-The-Lizard-Wizard-CMW-Indie-Underground-Aaron-McMillan

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The rest of the 5 (!!!!!) albums they released this year I did not check properly yet.

Quick check on Polygondwanaland sounds like another real quality effort. It’s concept is worth a special mention. It was released with a statement “This album is FREE. Free as in, free. Free to download and if you wish, free to make copies. Make tapes, make CD’s, make records.” To date in discogs there’s 74 different releases! People have really taken care of the releasing process. Maybe you want to do it too? You are free to: http://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/polygondwanaland/index.html

Here’s a great & entertaining sumup video of their 5 album plan by a Youtube channel Middle 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjjCW6_fuXU.

King Gizzard is probably the most innovative rock band at the moment. I’ll continue to check the other of their efforts, maybe one of them will match Nonagon Infinity.

Depression Overload – metal playlist

Funeral doom and depressive black metal is the bread and butter of this album (a playlist really, but I consider my playlists albums). It visits only a few other despairing terrains. This is no melancholy walk in the park as my previous playlists (Monumental funeral doom melancholy and Post-rock melancholia) but pure despair and depression. The darkness on the album is not sourced from incoherent extreme sewer sounds but tightly sounding bands that combine a great melodic sense with a feeling of hopelessness and misery.

1. It would not make sense to reveal all the cards in the beginning, so the beginning of the album is a light descent with some melodic funeral doom.

Shape of Despair is a band many of the melancholic melodic funeral doom bands model after. Their second album Angels of Distress (2001) is the biggest landmark yet strangely I seem to have picked tracks from their two newer ones in my playlists. Entwined in Misery is the best piece of their 2004 album Illusion’s play. It features hauntingly beautiful background keys that have lasted the touch of time extremely well. Pasi Koskinen’s growling kept getting deeper as Shape of Despair progressed in their career, peaking here. The new vocalist Henri Koivula (Throes of Dawn) does a tremendous job on their newest release, Monotony Fields (2015) as well.
All these years in absence
…forgiveness does not reveal itself…

…and emptiness falls before me…
And silences this life,

2. One of the best releases of 2015 Leviathan’s Scar Sighted is based on black metal but at it’s darkest it is pure nihilistic funeral doom. The title track is especially gloomy. The tortured screams and bright piano create a real contrast of depression and light.
Nil light reigns
Only tattered accusations
Paling to the comparison
Now utterly drained
And all wonder is banished
Life after life
Absorbing
Nothing

3. Evoken – Mournful Refusal. Evoken could be called a successor of nihilistic old school funeral bands like Esoteric, also having more in common with Thergothon and Skepticism than Shape of Despair. 2005 release Antithesis of Light (what a title!) benefits of its modern and crushingly heavy production. Hear also the dynamics, how beautifully Evoken has crafted a chorus with clean guitar and lovely bursty double bass drumming.
Waiting only prolongs the wanting
Living only prolongs the arriving
Death knows no regret of a mournful refusal

In sporadic tone, the composition of beauty
Turned grim and cold…

4. Lifelover (what a band name!), a lot of people loathe them and for a reason. Their sounds take some time to get used to, drum machine and quite amateuristic guitar sounds. Upon listening their masterpiece, Konkurs for the first time I thought: “Is this the masterpiece? Really?” But it’s a stunning grower with a soul that is very hard to find on any other release. The pitch-black humour in the depressive lyrics is the icing on the cake.

Stängt p.g.a Semester (closed because of semester) is an interlude unlike anything else on this album. A beautifully haunting acoustic track with despairing lyrics. One of the only instances were being forced to study ~8 years of Swedish in school has paid off.

På Svenska
Vem behöver glädjas åt sig själv
När vi kan skratta åt andra?
Vem behöver ha ett syfte
När det är urvattnat och saknar mening?
Vem behöver säga att “Jag mår bra”
När ändå ytan är det viktiga?Innan jag åkte, lämnade jag bomber,
Där ni känner er som mest trygga
Jag kommer inte tillbaka		 English translation
Who needs to be happy about their selves
When we can laugh at others?
Who needs a purpose
When it’s all dried up and lacks meaning?
Who needs to say “I feel good”
When the surface is what counts?

Before I left, I planted bombs
Where you feel most secure
I won’t return

5. A lot of people thought it a dick move when a couple years ago Ghost Bath swindled in being a Chinese band, but turned out to be American. They said that was because they wanted to keep actual identities/location anonymous and for affection of Chinese culture.

Prejudice labelled aside Moonlover is a fine release but Happyhouse is the lethal injection Ghost Bath is at it’s best in prescribing. Happyhouse brings in mind the “Mental Central Dialog” themes of Lifelover. It’s bright melodies and incoherently painful screaming vocals clash together to create a feeling of an mental asylum. The melodies are a bit predictable but twisted a little obscure, perhaps wee bit out of tune and so fucking good, all this predictability is a strength. A downright shuddering tune.

6. Drudkh – Solitude. Yes it’s a great track and yes it’s pretty long with a lot of repetition, in the right mode Solitude becomes a very meditative track. Solitude is one of the only instances of more melancholic terrain than the rest of the tracks, it’s true potential lies in its slow and somber orchestral main melody.

Solitude’s lyrics are from a poem of an Ukrainian artist Taras Shevchenko (Thoughts of mine, О thoughts of mine, 1839). The familiar slavic dramatic melancholy is easy to discover.

Ukrainian
Журбою
Не накличу собі долі,
Коли так не маю.
Нехай злидні живуть три дні –
Я їх заховаю,
Заховаю змію люту
Коло свого серця,
Щоб вороги не бачили,
Як лихо сміється…
Нехай думка, як той ворон,
Літає та кряче,
А серденько соловейком
Щебече та плаче
Нишком – люди не побачать,
То й не засміються…
Не втирайте ж мої сльози,
Нехай собі ллються,
Чуже поле поливають
Щодня і щоночі,
Поки попи не засиплють
Чужим піском очі…		 English translation
Never knew I joy, nor will it
Come to me if I
Grieve ’thout end…. Let grief be short-lived,
Let it snake-like lie
Coiled within my breast and hidden
From the evil sight
Of my foes…. And may its laughter
Reach them not…. By night
And by day my thoughts are ravens;
Let them croak while my
Heart, a songbird, trills and warbles,
While it softly sighs,
Sighs and moans with none to hear it
Or to taunt it … Pray,
Let me weep, and do not try to
Wipe my tears away.
Let them flow and flood the alien
Field till that a priest
Comes and covers me with alien
Earth…. Ah, me! No peace
Grief will bring me….

English translation by Irina Zheleznova taken from http://taras-shevchenko.infolike.net/t-shevchenko-tr-by-irina-zheleznova-poem-thoughts-of-mine-o-thoughts-of-mine.html) I cannot speak Ukrainian so the English and Ukrainian parts may not match exactly.

7. Moonsorrow – Kuolleiden Maa. Listen, Moonsorrow is not most known for their depressive black metal vibes. But on Kuolleiden Maa they are nothing else.

Finnish
Olen siellä mistä kaikki alkaa uudelleen
Missä valo ei värejä näytä
Kaikkialle levittäytyy tasainen niitty
Vain taivas ylläni vaalenee
Käy rauhaisena vierelläni tuuli
Itse silmäni suljen ja itken
Tänne jään, kaipuuta vailla
Rikotun henkeni veden virtaan annan		 English translation
I am there where everything
starts and
Where the light shows no colours
An even meadow stretching everywhere
Only the sky above me growing lighter
A calm breeze is blowing beside me | I close my
eyes and weep | Here I
shall remain, without yearning | My broken spirit I shall give to the streaming
waters
depression overload_edit

Illustration from British Library free to use Flickr

Zuriaake – Afterimage of Autumn (葬尸湖 – 弈秋) – China

afterimage20of20autumnZuriaake’s (romanized from 葬尸湖, roughly translated Sepulture Corpse Lake) first album Afterimage of Autumn was released in 2007. It has some exceptional qualities, for this Chinese Black metal band is not mimicing Norwegian Black Metal sound but taken excepts from Chinese culture to their metal mixture. Their Black metal focuses on entwining natural atmospherics, ambience with very overdriven guitars and depressive black metal vibe.

山神 / God Of Scotch Mist starts the album with delicate and lovely instrumentation that turns into a lot of punch and sets a suitable depressingly heavy undertone but also introduces a lot of worthy melody work. Zuriaake creates a lot of shamanistic ritual feel in their tracks and God of Scotch Mist is probably the finest piece. In the mid-part of the record the songs turn slower and oftentimes you could argue it is ambient with distortion guitars. But guitar-tremolos, occasional blastbeats and vocals reminiscent of depressive black metal prove that the band is not here just to float around.

In the albums most stunning moment the chorus of 歸兮 / Return Journey Zuriaake seamlessly adds a traditional sounding Chinese tremolo melody to a slow doomy basis. Tell me this is not (un)divine. Unfortunately I could not pick the name of this guitar like string instrument as the booklet is all in Chinese (except track titles).

The album is an extremely well flowing entity but it could have more highlights. One of them is the title tracks somber pace and wind-instrument and piano melodies. It has a feel so close to nature it’s incredible especially considering that the piano and woodwind sounds aren’t perfect. On the other hand the next song 暮林 / Forest Of Twilight is very similar in nature but does not seem to go anywhere. 荒山 / Desolated Mountain then seems to consist of two songs, first near-shoegazing with bloodthirsty shrieks all the sudden turning into a solid mid-paced black metal track only to end ambiently again.

The use of delicate abnormal black metal flavours adds so much essence to this release. Even though the release is sometimes so shoegazing it’s on the verge of boring, the atmosphere and unique Asian black metal elements redeem a lot of it. It is also a grower that gets better with time and does not reveal its secrets easy.

40f56887ba3dAlso kudos to their label Pest Productions who not only sent the double LP I ordered in a beautiful packet but also included 2 cd’s as extras! Split with Yn Gizarm – 悲赋之秋 / 司命楼兰 (Autumn of Sad Ode / Siming of Loulan) and Winter Mirage Ep. Both stellar releases, at its best Yn Gizarm can be downright stunning. The vinyl version also includes Winter Mirage EP and a couple of remastered tracks from the split.

I am starting to sound like a marketing person, but I can’t stress enough that if you feel that you’ve heard it all when it comes to Black metal, China has an answer you.

8/10

Zuriaake on Metal-Archives

Afterimage of Autumn in Bandcamp

Gu-Yan (2015 album) in Bandcamp

Empty – Etica Profana Negativa – Spain

Bleak and atmospheric depressive black metal with careful attention to detail.

Etica Profana Negativa is the fourth album by Spanish black metal band Empty. They’ve developed album-by-album and Etica Profana Negativa continues that flow. It reaches out to catch gloomy atmospheres and does it well. Considerably more midtempo and thoughtful than its predessor The House Of Funerary Hymns. It creates more magic from the somber parts than vicious blastbeating. Many a time I have been impressed by a track only to be impressed by a different track on the next listen.

The record does contain quite a few uninspiring and clumsy moments but it is easy to forgive as they do not ruin the overall feel. In best tracks, Terrifying Lucidity of The Wakefulness, A Funeral Song To Be Sung and The Tree of Dying fruit the band really takes care to build the songs up and at times creates true magic, but also often lingers on the edge of their composing skills. This is a metal record that doesn’t lack danger. The only uninspired track is Born Under The Sign of a Moribund Star which isn’t bad just a very average black metal song.

For example the beginning of A Funeral Song To Be Sung, starts with rhythmic drumming, guitar sweeping and a bass lead. Even with over 10 listens I still cannot say if it is a bit clumsy or not. It launches into a brilliant blastbeat which after a second repeat turns to the magnificient albeit too short centerpiece of the track. The track ends with some surpremely tasty and atmospheric rhythmic drumming and guitar leads.

If composing skills can sometimes be put to question same cannot be said of their instrumental proficiency. The band plays tight and woves a real symbiosis. At best each instrument gets a possibility to be in the front in the same section of a track. Especially the session drummer Naemoth does a really fine job with clever fills and effortless versatility. The vocals deserve a mention too as they vary from different kinds of black metal rasp growling to extremely inhuman screeches a la Fleurety (whose EP A Darker Shade Of Evil is widely regarded as containing some of the most inhuman vocals in metal).

The sounds have also taken a step forwards to emphasize the bleak atmosphere of the tracks well with bass standing up in the mix. It is justifiable to expect great things from the next album.

8½/10