The Color Of Rain is a new group made up of members of the Zwotte Kring collective of bands (Asgrauw, Meslamtaea, Teitan, Sagenland and Schavot). The band features Gerhans Meulenbeld on guitars, songwriting and lyrics, Devi Hisgen on vocals and Floris Velthuis. Oceans Above is the bands debut album. The style on offer on Oceans Above is a mix of black metal, post black metal and softer, sections of clean post rock.
The album begins with the track Cult Of The Cosmic Flood, a mix of quite nasty dissonant black metal with fervent harsh vocals and viscous tremolo picked riffs. There is a soft and clean post rock section in the middle of the song, but Cult Of The Cosmic Flood is mainly about dissonant blasting.
Next we get Corrosion Of The Flesh, still dissonant black metal, but with a slower, mid-paced tempo. The song also has a post rock segment, but it doesn’t really fit with the material around it, and the clean vocals on this section don’t work due to being out of tune. The second half of the song has some nice chaotic black metal that is quite busy, and a really good fast, blasting ending.
Title track Oceans Above is a mix of slow and dissonant black metal that is dramatic, fast, blasting, savage and aggressive, and rather bland post rock with similar clean vocal issues as the song that preceded it. Guiding Lights To Eden mixes post black metal that feels quite riffy, with clean Post Rock sections. The post rock parts have spoken word style vocals rather than sung, and it works so much better as tuning isn’t an issue. The post black metal sections work very well with the post rock segments, the transitions feel less abrupt and jarring than on the tracks with more extreme black metal sections.
Translucence has a first half that is full of blasting black metal and clean post rock, but the second half takes an unexpected turn towards depressive black metal, where the melodies are full of sadness and melancholy. Despite the sadness this section is full of melody and tunefulness.
Pillars Of Creation is all about slow and heavy post black metal with faster, blasting dissonant black metal. there is a softer and slower section with lots of melody, but this is one of the more aggressive tracks. Urban Misanthropy has a fairly simple and direct style of blasting black metal, with slower tremolo picked riffs that, again, are simple but filled with melody. There is a post rock section with vocal issues, but what you take away from this track is great, fast, direct black metal.
Final track Darkness Cloaks The Cradle begins with soft post rock with clean guitars and keyboards, this then drops into mid-paced post black metal riffs, this then segues into fast blasting black metal with very nasty vocals. the song mixes those three feels for the rest of the song, the post rock sections feature whispering which works far better than out of tune clean vocals.
Oceans Above is an enjoyable piece of (mainly) black metal. The fast and aggressive sections of dissonant black metal and post black metal work very well, and are full of savagery in places and full of melody and tunefulness in others. I’m not sure if the post rock sections work as well, some fit the songs, but in some instances it feels as if the softer sections are forced into songs that don’t need them.
The vocal issues don’t help the post rock parts, spoken word or whispering is far better solution rather than having out of tune vocals, but in some of the songs I’m not sure if the clean post rock is needed at all. However, having said that, this is a very good albums with a couple of issues, it’s a debut as well, so I’m sure the band will have them sorted out by the time they get to album number two. 7/10
Acid Throne – Kingdom’s Death (Trepanation Recordings) [Matt Bladen]
Kingdom’s Death the debut album from Norwich band carries the epitaph of quality that reads: “Recorded, mixed & mastered by Chris Fielding at Foel Studios” with those simple words you know this album is not going to be for your granny, unless she’s into all-consuming doom metal that is. Well doom metal that is misanthropic, anti-establishment and generally filled with the misery of doom metal but also the despair of black metal (War-Torn), the abrasive rage of hardcore/sludge (King Slayer) and a few stoner metal grooves. It’s definitely from the underground, venomous and vitriolic but with haunting atmospheres.
Acid Throne – Kingdom’s Death (Trepanation Recordings) [Matt Bladen]
Kingdom’s Death the debut album from Norwich band carries the epitaph of quality that reads: “Recorded, mixed & mastered by Chris Fielding at Foel Studios” with those simple words you know this album is not going to be for your granny, unless she’s into all-consuming doom metal that is. Well doom metal that is misanthropic, anti-establishment and generally filled with the misery of doom metal but also the despair of black metal (War-Torn), the abrasive rage of hardcore/sludge (King Slayer) and a few stoner metal grooves. It’s definitely from the underground, venomous and vitriolic but with haunting atmospheres.
No wonder then they won M2TM 2022 in Norwich, despite being only 6 months old at the time, on the back of this they played Bloodstock and have supported Employed To Serve, Burner, Witchsorrow and Wallowing, bringing their uncompromising sound to stages around the country. They’ve managed to translate it well into this debut, the Chris Fielding magic making it a fuzzy, tumultuous record but the co-production of the band with Fielding, reminds you that it’s their vision of a broken down world they want to convey.
Bookending your first album with an 8 minute and 10 minute song is a decision that must be taken by a band that know their audience, especially if that 10 minute track comes after the forceful Hallowed Ground. Chris Farrar smashing the drumkit with the longest bit of pace on the album, Matt Stembrowicz’s bass grimy and low and Chris Kemp growls and stabs out warped riffs. Torrid and turbulent noise from this UK trio, the future of the underground is loud and thriving and I’m here for it. 8/10
Astronomie - Interstellar Nomad (Self Released) [Rich Piva]
How about a grungy version of Hawkwind? Does that Sound interesting? Well, this is what Astronomie is all about. These Australians bring it on their debut, Interstellar Nomad. Fuzzy space rock with psych/stoner/doom bits that absolutely rips across the seven tracks with zero filler. Catchy and well executed, the album gets better and better on each listen, and you hear something new on every spin.
The Infinite kicks off this outer space epic journey, with a nice crunchy riff that makes you think this will be more of a straight-ahead stoner rock ripper, but vocally and lyrically the fuzzy space vibes are ever present, setting up the rocket on the launchpad. The grunge vibes are strong on The Infinite as well, and I love the dual vocals on the track. We go fully into space as Hawkwind meets Alice In Chains with Galactic Jack. What a great song. An up-tempo space/grunge ripper that tells the story of our hero as his adventure begins.
Astronomie - Interstellar Nomad (Self Released) [Rich Piva]
How about a grungy version of Hawkwind? Does that Sound interesting? Well, this is what Astronomie is all about. These Australians bring it on their debut, Interstellar Nomad. Fuzzy space rock with psych/stoner/doom bits that absolutely rips across the seven tracks with zero filler. Catchy and well executed, the album gets better and better on each listen, and you hear something new on every spin.
The Infinite kicks off this outer space epic journey, with a nice crunchy riff that makes you think this will be more of a straight-ahead stoner rock ripper, but vocally and lyrically the fuzzy space vibes are ever present, setting up the rocket on the launchpad. The grunge vibes are strong on The Infinite as well, and I love the dual vocals on the track. We go fully into space as Hawkwind meets Alice In Chains with Galactic Jack. What a great song. An up-tempo space/grunge ripper that tells the story of our hero as his adventure begins.
The heavier Hawkwind comparison is real here. The title track has another killer riff, and those dual vocals keeps the oxygen flowing through the space vibe. This is a nine-minute cruncher that flies by and never feels like it is dragging. Moondozer is the doomiest track amongst the seven on Interstellar Nomad, bringing the heavy, zero gravity riffs all over the place. Space doom! This could be a song by the excellent New Orleans band Space Metal. War Eternal keeps up the excellent crunchy doom vibes while the closer, See Of Thirst, is like a space version of Slaves and Bulldozers, which of course is so great.
This is one of the debuts of the year for me, as Astronomie successfully executed a space/grunge combo masterpiece. Interstellar Nomad is the Seattle-born bastard child of Hawkwind and Alice In Chains in all the best ways. Space is the place to be to experience one of my new favorite albums of the moment. 9/10
Odd Crew - Dark Matters Pt. 2 (Drakkar Entertainment) [James Jackson]
Taking a chunk out of the band’s bio and reprinting it here feels a little bit like copying someone else’s homework but I’ve removed a few of the overly enthusiastic adjectives and summed it up as follows: alternative metal, prog influences, evolution, creativity. As this is the first time I’ve heard of Bulgaria’s Odd Crew I can’t possibly comment on the band’s evolution, currently I don’t have the time to listen to any previous releases.
I find that the “alternative” label is a rather misleading term, as almost any musical genre could be considered alternative to another, metal as an alternative to pop, thrash as an alternative to Black etc, allegedly the alternative in this instance would symbolise a distinction of some description but as I say, it’s all alternative to something.
So on these shaky grounds I can only review this upon the eight tracks presented, the first is of epic proportions weighing in at just under 9 minutes long, the last time I heard a track of that duration was on a My Dying Bride album, but doom metal this is not, despite it vaguely reminding me of something I once heard on an Anathema album, Wings On A Burning Wind has some pretty good things going on and whilst I’m not knocked down by it, it’s one of those tracks that builds up the momentum to slow it down to revisit that crescendo again; it’s a solid start.
In Silence has me feeling at odds to that, whether it’s the prog influences, that experimental songwriting style that dabbles in weird time signatures and the like but the main galloping guitar riff feels at odds with the vocals and rest of the instruments, bass spikes seem out of sync, part way through there’s a Spanish sounding guitar lead that once again feels out of place, I’m moving on to You Are But One which hits differently, there’s a slow but steady groove to this one but my interest is waning.
I’ve taken to looking at the social media pages of bands that I review, it helps to gather information where little is given, to glean that insight into the who, what, where and why; Odd Crew are celebrating their 25th Anniversary with this release and they’re supporting that with a string of tour dates and a few special events but they don’t seem to have a massive online following, certainly not for a band that’s celebrating 25 years.
Closer is another of those tracks that has an odd rhythm section to it that works but doesn’t feel like it should within the verses, whilst the chorus is far more melodic and I hate to say it, “normal” though towards the end there’s a break that feels as though a few things were thrown in a blender and just played however it comes out.
By now you’ll have gathered that I’m somewhat at odds with this one and being way too tired to struggle through the rest I’m going to call it a day, some of what I heard was ok but it’s not living up to the hype that the bio gave it, those exciting adjectives that dominate the bio such as “prodigious, phenomenal, mesmerising and illustrious” just aren’t what I’m hearing at all and whilst some of it was ok, most of it really isn’t for me. 5/10
This is one of the debuts of the year for me, as Astronomie successfully executed a space/grunge combo masterpiece. Interstellar Nomad is the Seattle-born bastard child of Hawkwind and Alice In Chains in all the best ways. Space is the place to be to experience one of my new favorite albums of the moment. 9/10
Odd Crew - Dark Matters Pt. 2 (Drakkar Entertainment) [James Jackson]
Taking a chunk out of the band’s bio and reprinting it here feels a little bit like copying someone else’s homework but I’ve removed a few of the overly enthusiastic adjectives and summed it up as follows: alternative metal, prog influences, evolution, creativity. As this is the first time I’ve heard of Bulgaria’s Odd Crew I can’t possibly comment on the band’s evolution, currently I don’t have the time to listen to any previous releases.
I find that the “alternative” label is a rather misleading term, as almost any musical genre could be considered alternative to another, metal as an alternative to pop, thrash as an alternative to Black etc, allegedly the alternative in this instance would symbolise a distinction of some description but as I say, it’s all alternative to something.
So on these shaky grounds I can only review this upon the eight tracks presented, the first is of epic proportions weighing in at just under 9 minutes long, the last time I heard a track of that duration was on a My Dying Bride album, but doom metal this is not, despite it vaguely reminding me of something I once heard on an Anathema album, Wings On A Burning Wind has some pretty good things going on and whilst I’m not knocked down by it, it’s one of those tracks that builds up the momentum to slow it down to revisit that crescendo again; it’s a solid start.
In Silence has me feeling at odds to that, whether it’s the prog influences, that experimental songwriting style that dabbles in weird time signatures and the like but the main galloping guitar riff feels at odds with the vocals and rest of the instruments, bass spikes seem out of sync, part way through there’s a Spanish sounding guitar lead that once again feels out of place, I’m moving on to You Are But One which hits differently, there’s a slow but steady groove to this one but my interest is waning.
I’ve taken to looking at the social media pages of bands that I review, it helps to gather information where little is given, to glean that insight into the who, what, where and why; Odd Crew are celebrating their 25th Anniversary with this release and they’re supporting that with a string of tour dates and a few special events but they don’t seem to have a massive online following, certainly not for a band that’s celebrating 25 years.
Closer is another of those tracks that has an odd rhythm section to it that works but doesn’t feel like it should within the verses, whilst the chorus is far more melodic and I hate to say it, “normal” though towards the end there’s a break that feels as though a few things were thrown in a blender and just played however it comes out.
By now you’ll have gathered that I’m somewhat at odds with this one and being way too tired to struggle through the rest I’m going to call it a day, some of what I heard was ok but it’s not living up to the hype that the bio gave it, those exciting adjectives that dominate the bio such as “prodigious, phenomenal, mesmerising and illustrious” just aren’t what I’m hearing at all and whilst some of it was ok, most of it really isn’t for me. 5/10
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