The tenth release from Washington DC’s Darkest Hour, their first with MNRK Heavy sees the quintet consider, in their own words “survival while embracing rebirth”. This could be applied to weathering the storm of changing musical styles, band members leaving or your view on life evolving as you get older. First time listener and what is apparent is that age has not dulled their sense of fury or the ability to play like demons.
Perpetual Terminal, the title track kicks off with a melody line that just flies, ably backed up by the vocals of John Henry as he spits each line with total conviction. Its an impressive opener to be sure, bringing in the fast and direct riffing, emotionally built solo break ahead of a subtle reset that allows them to restart with the chorus arrangement and close out to a satisfying end. Societal Bile is a brutal riff-fest, and there is a storming section where they have this slight change in the guitar part that makes it sound excellent.
The breakdowns are dense and again John’s vocals are stamping on everything in front of it. Short and incredibly sharp and A Prayer To The Holy Death continues with the excellent work, especially with the solo break which is absolutely spot on. The Nihilist Undone comes in with more sterling work, staying within that dark, discordant attack that gives it a more sinister feel which works very well. This is kicked out so well, its tight AF.
One With The Void changes its overall attack, giving the song scope to change from almost spoken lyric lines to full on roar. The build reflects this and gives it that scope for when it is performed live to grow with the audience. Amor Fati is a short instrumental which is carried along with a phrasing like a theme from a cop show. Given my growing distaste for instrumental breaks of any kind I have to say I don’t feel it warranted its inclusion here.
One With The Void changes its overall attack, giving the song scope to change from almost spoken lyric lines to full on roar. The build reflects this and gives it that scope for when it is performed live to grow with the audience. Amor Fati is a short instrumental which is carried along with a phrasing like a theme from a cop show. Given my growing distaste for instrumental breaks of any kind I have to say I don’t feel it warranted its inclusion here.
Love Is Fear gets us back on track and is a speedy blast where they concentrate more on delivering a focused gut punch that harks back to Thrash’s golden era and is an absolute belter. It lands, crushes and leaves, fabulous stuff. It also gives some extra room for New Utopian Dream to usher in some storming down-picked violence. It’s not one note as this enables the lighter side to come across with the chorus section. It might be a little hackneyed, but they do it so well and drop a great solo in there too.
Mausoleum is an acoustic led start that drops into that sort of lolling time signature and to me is the weakest track here. It felt artificial when compared against the other tracks here which are just BOOM, are so organic and hit like they were the best they could give. This one just is off target.
My Only Regret writes that wrong, going for that shorty punky delivery that removes Mausoleum from memory and sets us up for the frankly epic album closer, Goddess Of War, Give Me Something To Die For. This starts with an acoustic, gently picked in an ascending pattern and straight away you know this is it, it’s the big one. Boys, don’t fuck this one up because the work they are putting in getting this one moving is taking that Gothenburg sound, adding Iron Maiden and going for the throat. This is how you end an album. Its glorious, furious and just moves at a rate of knots. It’s the sum of their efforts and its storming.
What they have is an abundance of melodic ideas that they are able to meld so that they are memorable after they finish. They don’t sound like a band who are ten albums deep into their career. It sounds fresh and energetic despite it being centred around that melodic / Gothenburg sound. They bring something else to it that just gives it enough of a difference, at least to these ears. They know how to put songs together and know what works the best. There is one misstep, but I’ll forgive them for that final song which just builds and builds and is a stormer. If you know nothing of them but love the melody in your aggressive music, you should give these a try. It does what you want it to, and you can bet that they will burn the stage up playing this live. 8/10
Disastroid - Garden Creatures (Heavy Psych Sounds) [Rich Piva]
San Francisco, California’s Disastroid (I spell it wrong every single time) bring the dark and heavy, blending stoner and grunge along with some bleak atmosphere to create some excellent heavy rock. On their latest record, Garden Creatures, their sixth album, the band continues with this skill set, bringing grunge covered riffs and a dark rock vibe, blending the 90s Seattle sound with California stoner almost to perfection.
I hear a whole lot of Skin Yard/Gruntruck vibes on the eight songs on Garden Creatures, starting with that feel on the opening title track. The two bands I mentioned plus early Soundgarden is a close comparison. I hear some Melvins and bands like Paw and even early Nirvana, especially musically on track one. A more recent band like Murcielago also comes to mind. Stucco Nowhere sounds like a combination of them during the verses and The Melvins when the heavy kicks in. That early production/sound from bands like Nirvana and Mudhoney are all over this record. Figurative Object slows down the pace and the Skin Yard vibes, especially in the vocals comes out.
Mausoleum is an acoustic led start that drops into that sort of lolling time signature and to me is the weakest track here. It felt artificial when compared against the other tracks here which are just BOOM, are so organic and hit like they were the best they could give. This one just is off target.
My Only Regret writes that wrong, going for that shorty punky delivery that removes Mausoleum from memory and sets us up for the frankly epic album closer, Goddess Of War, Give Me Something To Die For. This starts with an acoustic, gently picked in an ascending pattern and straight away you know this is it, it’s the big one. Boys, don’t fuck this one up because the work they are putting in getting this one moving is taking that Gothenburg sound, adding Iron Maiden and going for the throat. This is how you end an album. Its glorious, furious and just moves at a rate of knots. It’s the sum of their efforts and its storming.
What they have is an abundance of melodic ideas that they are able to meld so that they are memorable after they finish. They don’t sound like a band who are ten albums deep into their career. It sounds fresh and energetic despite it being centred around that melodic / Gothenburg sound. They bring something else to it that just gives it enough of a difference, at least to these ears. They know how to put songs together and know what works the best. There is one misstep, but I’ll forgive them for that final song which just builds and builds and is a stormer. If you know nothing of them but love the melody in your aggressive music, you should give these a try. It does what you want it to, and you can bet that they will burn the stage up playing this live. 8/10
Disastroid - Garden Creatures (Heavy Psych Sounds) [Rich Piva]
San Francisco, California’s Disastroid (I spell it wrong every single time) bring the dark and heavy, blending stoner and grunge along with some bleak atmosphere to create some excellent heavy rock. On their latest record, Garden Creatures, their sixth album, the band continues with this skill set, bringing grunge covered riffs and a dark rock vibe, blending the 90s Seattle sound with California stoner almost to perfection.
I hear a whole lot of Skin Yard/Gruntruck vibes on the eight songs on Garden Creatures, starting with that feel on the opening title track. The two bands I mentioned plus early Soundgarden is a close comparison. I hear some Melvins and bands like Paw and even early Nirvana, especially musically on track one. A more recent band like Murcielago also comes to mind. Stucco Nowhere sounds like a combination of them during the verses and The Melvins when the heavy kicks in. That early production/sound from bands like Nirvana and Mudhoney are all over this record. Figurative Object slows down the pace and the Skin Yard vibes, especially in the vocals comes out.
This holds very true for the next one, Backwards Sleeping, which could be a B-side from Gruntruck’s Inside Yours or Skin Yard’s Inside The Eye. It is catchy as hell too. Very early Soundgarden is your reference point for 24, which sounds like it could have been on one of those Sub Pop compilations. Hold Me Wrong is a weird and creepy track that I am not sure was needed, but Light ‘Em Up makes up for any shortcomings of the last track, reminding me of early Into Another at the beginning until the Soundgarden vibes kick in. You may think Garden Creatures dragged a bit towards the end, but the closer, Jack Londonin’ is the sound of this band just letting loose and ripping it up, like Nirvana would do on tracks like Stay Away or Territorial Pissings, except with riffs.
Please don’t take all these comparisons to mean that this album is just grunge worship. While you can tell what these guy’s record collections look like, Disastroid put their spin on this classic genre, creating their own little niche in the dark stoner grunge world. Garden Creatures should be considered by all who call themselves fans of the characteristics of that niche. Good job Heavy Psych Sounds bringing us another killer Disastroid record. 8/10
Fragment Soul – Galois Paradox (Wormholedeath) [Matt Bladen]
I declared that Fragment Soul were a promising band when I reviewed their debut EP Axiom Of Choice back in 2021, making reference to the likes of Anathema, Riverside, Draconian and Porcupine Tree in the review, I also said it was grower that would release it’s real power after repeated plays. On this note I was spot on as listening to the album again before getting into their latest EP Galois Paradox, it really hit me for being much better and much more ‘me’ in terms of my taste than I gave it credit for 3 years ago.
Please don’t take all these comparisons to mean that this album is just grunge worship. While you can tell what these guy’s record collections look like, Disastroid put their spin on this classic genre, creating their own little niche in the dark stoner grunge world. Garden Creatures should be considered by all who call themselves fans of the characteristics of that niche. Good job Heavy Psych Sounds bringing us another killer Disastroid record. 8/10
Fragment Soul – Galois Paradox (Wormholedeath) [Matt Bladen]
I declared that Fragment Soul were a promising band when I reviewed their debut EP Axiom Of Choice back in 2021, making reference to the likes of Anathema, Riverside, Draconian and Porcupine Tree in the review, I also said it was grower that would release it’s real power after repeated plays. On this note I was spot on as listening to the album again before getting into their latest EP Galois Paradox, it really hit me for being much better and much more ‘me’ in terms of my taste than I gave it credit for 3 years ago.
So with that rectified I set about seeing if this new EP would be the same or would it capture my attention and my affection immediately. Fragment Soul dwell in the mysterious and the maudlin, progressive and introspective, owing as much to doom as they do to prog. Synths and keys (Achilles Adamidis) are used with clean guitars (Jimmy Louvros) to give atmosphere while the rhythm section is often provided with a lot of space to fill, percussion (Stefanos Meletiou) technical but deft, the bass (Spiros Georgiou) anchoring the tracks and locking down into the heavier grooves with the distorted guitar sounds.
That Anathema influence can be heard by the use of two vocalists, a male (Marc Durkee) and female voice (Tamara Filipovic) in union and counteracting each other on these vivid, dark soundscapes. Fragment Soul are a band on a quest for hope, using self-expression to escape the tyrannical nature of society, lyrically inspired by philosophy, psychology and the transcendental, their records are conceptual but open to interpretation, allowing the listener to connect in their own way.
This second release opens quite directly with Eternal Night In Death, drawing on the Draconian, Swallow The Sun and Katatonia influences, it’s gothic and ethereal with huge doom riffs in the background. The volume of this album has increased from the previous one, while that hung around in the ether a bit more with lighter melodies, Galois Paradox embraces doom. The piano at odds with the glacial riff of All That I Despise, the keys continuing to bring huge swathes of emotion on the cathartic outpouring that is The Pain Ceased. With A Faceless God the grizzled heaviness is increased again, the peak forming as The Empty Dream cascades down again with more emotional balladry, with a sparse, haunting end to this record.
Galois Paradox is more immediate than its predecessor but manages to be both heavier and softer, the promise has been fulfilled as Fragment Soul may just be on the brink of greatness. 8/10
Skuggor - Whispers Of Ancient Spells (Naturmacht) [Paul Scoble]
Skuggor is a one man project based in Sweden, the one man in question is known enigmatically as simply M. I don’t have any information on when this project started, but as Skuggor’s first release happened in 2022, it will be sometime before that. In the time M has been doing Skuggor the project has released a Demo in 2022, a first full length album called Skogshypnos in 2023, Whispers Of Ancient Spells is the bands second album.
The style on offer on Whispers Of Ancient Spells is lo-fi Atmospheric or Ambient Black Metal. Skuggor show clear influence and similarity too from Burzum, Lustre, early Alcest or more recently Faidra. So, a mix of tempo’s, slow and mid-paced material have the same amount of space as the Blast Beats, the Guitar has a very fuzzy treble heavy tone that has a lot of atmosphere and feels ethereal and expansive.
Skuggor - Whispers Of Ancient Spells (Naturmacht) [Paul Scoble]
Skuggor is a one man project based in Sweden, the one man in question is known enigmatically as simply M. I don’t have any information on when this project started, but as Skuggor’s first release happened in 2022, it will be sometime before that. In the time M has been doing Skuggor the project has released a Demo in 2022, a first full length album called Skogshypnos in 2023, Whispers Of Ancient Spells is the bands second album.
The style on offer on Whispers Of Ancient Spells is lo-fi Atmospheric or Ambient Black Metal. Skuggor show clear influence and similarity too from Burzum, Lustre, early Alcest or more recently Faidra. So, a mix of tempo’s, slow and mid-paced material have the same amount of space as the Blast Beats, the Guitar has a very fuzzy treble heavy tone that has a lot of atmosphere and feels ethereal and expansive.
The sound also has a lot of fairly analogue sounding keyboards as well, the keyboards have a similar level and importance to the Guitar and carry most of the melodies, which are simple but also play through most of the songs. The Vocals are Harsh throughout the album and, like most of the instruments, are bedded down in the mix so they do not stand higher than any of the individual instruments, and feel fragile and diaphanous.
The songs tend to have a similar structure as they are all mixtures of slow or mid-paced ethereal atmospheric Black Metal, juxtaposed with Blast Beat sections where the blasts drive the songs forward. So far, so awesome, however there is a problem with this album, and it is in the Drumming.
The drums on Whispers Of Ancient Spells are all processed, which is something it has in common with a lot of One Man Bands, but on this album the drum programming has been done in a way that is either very incompetent, or very badly judged. The issue is with the patterns, the drum sound and the position in the mix. The patterns don’t really fit with Black Metal, they seem to be in a 4:4 timing, and fairly obvious in how they are done, the drum tones themselves are very processed and feel more suited to either Industrial or Dance Music.
The songs tend to have a similar structure as they are all mixtures of slow or mid-paced ethereal atmospheric Black Metal, juxtaposed with Blast Beat sections where the blasts drive the songs forward. So far, so awesome, however there is a problem with this album, and it is in the Drumming.
The drums on Whispers Of Ancient Spells are all processed, which is something it has in common with a lot of One Man Bands, but on this album the drum programming has been done in a way that is either very incompetent, or very badly judged. The issue is with the patterns, the drum sound and the position in the mix. The patterns don’t really fit with Black Metal, they seem to be in a 4:4 timing, and fairly obvious in how they are done, the drum tones themselves are very processed and feel more suited to either Industrial or Dance Music.
The combination of 4:4 timings and very processed beats gives the drums a strange Techno feel, with the Blast Beats feeling oddly like Gabba. In some of the slow sections this Industrial sound gives this a sound that is similar to Second Wave pioneers Thorns, so on Silent Cry Of The Forests Embrace there is a very dramatic slow section that reminds me a little of Ærie Decent by Thorns, this is quickly blown apart by one of the Gabba Techno Blast Beats, but in some places the very Processed Beats does work, but it is only in fleeting places like that that it succeeds.
I have listened to Skuggors first album, Skogshypnos, and the drums sound fine; organic drum sounds, the correct level in the mix and appropriate to the music. The drumming on Whispers Of Ancient Spells feels about as organic as a polyester shirt.
Whispers Of Ancient Spells feels like a missed opportunity, a good piece of interesting Black Metal that has been undone by either incompetence, or badly judged decisions about drumming. It’s a shame as this could have been a beautiful piece of atmospheric Black Metal. 6/10
I have listened to Skuggors first album, Skogshypnos, and the drums sound fine; organic drum sounds, the correct level in the mix and appropriate to the music. The drumming on Whispers Of Ancient Spells feels about as organic as a polyester shirt.
Whispers Of Ancient Spells feels like a missed opportunity, a good piece of interesting Black Metal that has been undone by either incompetence, or badly judged decisions about drumming. It’s a shame as this could have been a beautiful piece of atmospheric Black Metal. 6/10
No comments:
Post a Comment