I would say that the London band Green Lung, are part Sabbath, part Ghost, though the band have been compared to Black Sabbath meets Brian May. Green Lung are rapidly becoming the go to band for fans of occult horror metal, if you are a kindred spirit with the forest, or if you just enjoy retro feeling heavy rock. If Jethro Tull and Deep Purple played songs about ancient evils, murderous spectres and The Devil himself then you'd get Green Lung's sound.
Their previous album Woodland Rites was enough to get them on multiple festival bills and for their record label to re-release their demos. Since then they have ascended to lofty heights becoming a must see, so it is the only fair to call this follow up album anticipated. Black Harvest was recorded in rural mid-Wales by Wayne Adama, the band have stretched their NWOBHM-meets-classic rock template further than before adding a cinematic quality to their songs, the dense keys and organs of John Wright adding to the grooving riffs of Scott Black (guitar) and Joseph Ghast (bass). Within the songs are samples sourced from the local environment around the studio as well as instruments they found in the studio.
The entire album was written with an experimental and even mischievous nature. The Harrowing, which opens the album, was actually recorded in a church that the band broke into so it's no wonder that it sounds like a calling from above before the swirling organs swell and the riffs cascade in ready to be fully unleashed on Old Gods, this is the first place we hear Matt Wiseman's thunderous percussion and the bewitching vocal cry of Tom Templar. A direct forceful beginning as the band take us into the more melodic realms of Leaders Of The Blind which has that Ghost vibe I referred to at the beginning of my review, the organ heavy assault continues on the pumping hard rocker Reaper's Scythe (which has a touch of Big Elf to it). The pace is kept high across these three songs welcoming you into their world of retro heavy rocking. The occult themes are at their highest on Graveyard Sun, a powerful ballad based around the Highgate Vampire, stopped down to acoustic guitars on the verses before the full band come in on choruses.
As we are taken into the second half of the album, Black Harvest, which is mostly instrumental, followed by the spiritual sounding Upon The Altar which has some doom licks (though not as many as Doomslayer), as While You Bear The Mark ramps up those NWOBHM themes as the guitars and organs duel at its climax. When you listen to Black Harvest, you are immediately brought into Green Lung's magical world of riffs and wonder, they have capitalised on the reception of their previous record by composing not only a follow up but a superior album, forward looking while also lovingly evocative of a bygone age. This is a fantastic album to listen to, and as it closes with the stirring, world beating Born To A Dying World which has a feel of latter album Sabbath and if it points towards where they will be going as a band, I for one can't wait. It's one of, if not the album of the year for sure. 9/10
Love them or hate them there is no denying the influence and impact that Cradle Of Filth have had on extreme metal. They may attract the wrath of the ‘true’ black metal warrior but an impact they have certainly made and their popularity does not seem to be at all waning. In fact the band have been in a purple patch of late with a string of very strong albums which is continued with their thirteenth full length album Existence Is Futile. At this stage in their career Cradle Of Filth are sticking with what they know and doing it to an extremely strong level so you get the bands usual mix of melodic black metal, gothic theatrics and cinematic orchestrations.
Apart from the inclusion of new keyboard player Anabelle Iratni, this is the third album in a row with the same line up which has to be some kind of record for Cradle Of Filth but this is the line up that has produced some of the most consistent material for the band so they obviously have a good thing going on. And that good thing has produced another batch of strong material including the melodic but devilish Necromantic Fantasies, the melodramatic and gothic Discourse Between A Man And His Soul, the vicious yet melodic Suffer Our Dominion and the epic yet aggressive bonus song Sisters Of The Mist. The performances throughout impress with fantastic guitar work from Rich Shaw and Ashok both in the riffs department and with the lead parts and melodies whilst newcomer Anabelle Iratni impresses with such lucious orchestrations and ethereal backing vocals.
If there’s one aspect of the Cradle Of Filth that puts people off it is the vocals of Dani Filth and he does little here which will change the mind of naysayers but the vocals work perfectly well with this style of music with Dani employing his trademark arsenal of shrieks, screams, growls and snarls. Existence Is Futile is another solid Cradle Of Filth album. It is not as striking and memorable as Hammer Of The Witches and Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness Of Decay were and some of the songs whilst wholly enjoyable can be a bit on the forgettable side but Existence Is Futile is a very enjoyable album and it will definitely please the fans of the band. This is Cradle Of Filth doing what they do and doing it well. 7/10
Looking to continue from the well-received EP Eternal from earlier this year, Bound In Fear released Penance courtesy of Unique Leader Records. The British Deathcore ass kickers state their intentions by bringing some fantastic friends into the mix and it doesn’t take long before we meet the first of four guest spots with the intro track (De) Scendance. Viscera frontman and Unique Leader Records CEO, Jamie Graham kicks us off by adding an additional layer of brutality to ensure this track isn’t a warmup, we’re going from 0 to 60 in less than a heartbeat! Molotov Solution’s Nick Arthur joins the fray for Penance a song that doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. Some good parts, a solid breakdown towards the end but the melodic aspect of the song comes across as unoriginal.
Scar Of Man shows of some technical guitaring prowess during the intro before suckering you in with a slight pace drop before laying on an all-assault taste of brutality. A song that heavily reminds me of Thy Art Is Murder, this is my pick of the album so far. This album has a lot of aspects for deathcore fans to get behind, whether you like blast beats to destroy you or a more sadistic slowed down melodical and methodical pace such as Beyond The Mire – there’s plenty here to satisfy deathcore fans here. When you get to I Still Dream Of The End, you get a feeling of a more twisted side to this band, making you navigate the first 3 minutes of tormenting pacing before unleashing a worldly breakdown which is impossible not to headbang to. The pace picks up again with Adrenaline before a very groovy and hardcore-like Cutthroat which I can see as a crowd pleaser with inevitable circle pits.
The final trio of songs get even more demonic with each passing minute. Starting off with Sadist’s pig-like guttural singing coupled with a hard hitting riff, through to Nu11 which features Left To Suffer’s Taylor Barber before ending with Polarity, Bound To Fear continue to offer music for fans to get behind and to get British Deathcore on the map! 8/10
Within Progress are a relatively new band from Thessaloniki, Greece. They style themselves as a modern prog metal act drawing from the anthemic alt rock scene as well as more traditional progressive metal bands. Inner is their debut album and it encapsulates what makes bands like Haken, Voyager and Vola so popular, the keeping emotion filled vocals riding on top of a technically proficient but accessible musical landscape. Reach For The Sky is a perfect example of this style I mentioned. Having already released an EP in 2018, this album has been preceded by three singles the album has been carefully promoted so as not to give too much away but to whet the appetite for the entire record.
Destructional, is this albums heaviest offering by far, dragging in the Djent riffs of Tesseract, Vangelis' guitars turned up in volume and distortion, Tasos also bringing guitar prowess as the synths set out a background swell. Destructional is the first noticeable use of a rawer vocals style too fitting in with the pulverising palm muted grooves. Hidden Wound too is heavy but with a thick electronic fuzz around it, the bottom end especially booming through your speakers like an EDM track. Absolute Circle is poppier more melodic style, a huge chorus and a bouncy groove, showing why the band are difficult to classify. These three singles have been carefully chosen to to exemplify what Within Progress do as a band but they don't stop there as the album tracks bring yet more wonder.
Of A Ruminant, is much slower and deliberate with elements of shoegaze and an angsty feel of a band such as Nothing More, the rolling drumbeats of Polydoros allowing the pulsating bass of Giorgos to carry the track along with the vocals of Efthemis who has a soaring, full vocal style. Us, The Constellation is a punchy, galactic voyage, build around repeating synths and guitars, mostly instrumental, with some spoken word passages, there's a feel of Floyd meets Hawkwind and neatly shifts into the dramatic Absence Of Judgement which can almost be a second part to Us, The Constellation, creating a mini suite. The Pink Floyd elements come back on Sunlight Whispers, a lilting acoustic number where the riffs are brought in for the last part of the track, ringing out the emotion.
The lyrical themes of the philosophy, human behaviour, trauma and what lies beyond our stars are actually present throughout the album, each song dealing with this; Sky We Want, Sky We Love starting out with far reaching, hopeful lyrics set to the electronic filled heavy prog, the lyrics speaking of the Syrian Civil War. Leaving us with last track Pathos, Within Progress clearly show their influence of band such as Porcupine Tree, Haken and Leprous, this slow burning number reaches a cathartic climax leaving you in no doubt that Within Progress have produced a mature, musically impressive debut album. Yet another must buy! 9/10
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