2012 - Reissuses

I don't really like covering reissued albums just because they really aren't "new" albums and I just feel like it isn't really worth promoting stuff that is technically old. I'm kind of making a one time exception for these albums because they're albums that I haven't seem a whole lot of exposure for. (all of these are reviewed from 1-10)

Venowl - Patterns of Failure (2012)

Band: Venowl
Country: Illinois
Style: Blackened Noise/Funeral Doom
Label: Independent

Who can really say what Venowl really is? Throughout their relatively short history they've released numerous small albums that range from extremely raw black metal to funeral doom to straight-up power electronics, saying what any new release will sound like can be kind of like shooting yourself in the foot. So when I got this copy of the group's first "full-length" I kind of had to let any preconceived ideas fall to the wayside.
For those who haven't been following the sonic trajectory of the band known as Venowl, I think it's time to get acquainted with it. Their start in the realm of power-electronics meets black metal harshness is easily some of the most powerful music to emerge from the blackened noise sub-genre, though to say it isn't headache inducing in large amounts would be lying. Their evolution into Senthil-esque blackened funeral doom has been a turn for the better, in my book, and while I don't particularly care too much for the music Senthil have released, I find that Venowl take a much more visceral approach to their performances. For those who aren't aware, this is improvisational stuff, so if you're not into that, you've been warned. The three tracks that comprise this debut full-length are long, ill-disciplined, and unruly pieces of blackened funeral doom, and I mean that in the best possible way.
Ok, I know that saying a song or album is long probably isn't going to bother a whole lot of people, it's more than likely going to be the ill-disciplined and unruly part, so let me explain. I say it's ill-disciplined and unruly because it's freeform music, to say there's anything on here that is meant to be ear-catching, memorable, or melodic would be a far cry from the truth if I ever heard it, and while I, and I'm sure some others as well, find elements of that to be a rather endearing quality, I doubt that it's something that's going to grab a bunch of people. Oh, and before I move on, I guess I should clarify that when I say it isn't memorable, I mean that unless you find droning guitar riffs, vocals that sound like a person being murdered, and slow-paced drumming catchy, you aren't going to remember a single part of this album, if you're anything like me, you'll remember, and come back to this album for, the experience of it. A lot of what's played is really slow, and when it speeds up it does have the tendency to turn a bit chaotic (which may have been the point). I don't dislike it for the fact that it comes off as messy, I just think that it could have come out so much more cohesive (once again, maybe not what they were aiming for) and cleaner which could have benefitted those sections.
In saying that, I find it almost odd how the shortest track on here is also the most diverse. Hung Alive By The Ribs to A Gallows is slow, just like the other tracks but shows a bit more of that black metal side that Venowl have been toying around with in some other recordings. Closer The Bounded Are Loathed is an epic, reaching almost thirty minutes, that really shows not only that Senthil influence but I'd also say a bit of Khanate as well, especially in its second half. The long droning section with screams coming at you from seemingly everywhere really reminded me of the horror that Khanate fills me with at times. It's not the section where a bunch of stuff is happening that is the most exciting but the parts where very little is that just send that shiver up your spine because you're not exactly sure what's going to happen next or when it's going to happen.
It's an interesting album because for all its flaws I still have to give it to the band that they always kept me interested and wanting to listen. Call me crazy for saying that this actually can be an enjoyable experience. It's definitely worth checking out if you happen to enjoy extreme forms of doom and black metal. Not for the faint of heart.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: The Bounded Are Loathed

Hall of Mirrors - Altered Nights (2012)

Band: Hall of Mirrors
Country: L'Aquila, Italy
Style: Dark Ambient/Industrial
Label: Malignant

I had never heard of this project before being sent this album and it was one of those times where I knew I had to hear it because of its cover. It's bleak and dark and that just bodes well for this style of music. The concept also struck me as working really well, especially in the state of mind I was in when I first listened to it.
With an album like this one, I wasn't really sure how to approach it. It's dark ambient music, so it obviously requires the listener's patience and attention, or no attention, in order to just soak it in, but seeing as I don't have a lot of time, I have to kind of listen to it here and there. What resulted from that is me gaining an experience from this that I have not gotten from other albums of a similar style. For the dark ambient and industrial noise based genres, from the handful of groups that I've listened to from it, I haven't found too many that ultimately connected with me on a higher level than just enjoying it. Now, despite what you may be thinking, I'm not going to say that this connected with me on some pseudo-intellectual or spiritual level, but what I will say is that it's probably one of the most entertaining and deep records I've ever heard produced by the genre. Now, I'm gonna guess at what you're probably thinking now, "Dark ambient music, entertaining, don't make me laugh (or some variation on that)," but believe it or not, this is an entertaining record that is quite interesting to listen to.
Each track on here contains a rich and complex musical soundscape that is deeply engrossing. It's a cacophony of various ideas coming together into tracks that explore themes of madness, paranoia, and terror, among others, and is one of the few dark ambient albums I've heard that manages to actually convey any sense of that within me. Usually it's just, it's dark, and I'm totally fine with that, but it's nice when music can give you a feeling of dread. It also helps that there's always something happening in these songs, with the exception of Night 3: Magmatic Resonance, which I found to be a bit too cold and sparse to really keep my attention, I never found myself getting bored and was instead actually drawn into the soundscape. Probably the most surprising thing to me while listening to this was that it never felt long. This is two discs worth of music, and not the sort of music that is all that active either, but it seemed to feel like I had actually been listening to this for around an hour and forty minutes.
Ultimately, it's the longest track on here that makes this worthwhile though. For all the reasons that I enjoy the first disc, the second disc, which contains the forty-five minute Last Night: Late Summer Ceremony, is pretty much everything that I liked, but in a single track. You have extremely unsettling electronics, bouts of noise abuse, disturbing ambient sections, and it's just so pitch perfect in that regard that it kind of makes the first disc feel rather uninspired by comparison. Hell there's a small bit near the end that almost makes me think of really raw black metal, it isn't by the way, but it makes me think of it. Sort of Sutekh Hexen-ish in a way, but more atmospheric, either way, it's a great track that really personifies everything that I like about this album.
This thing gets a big thumbs-up from me, it's easily one of the most exciting ambient/noise/etc. albums I've heard in a long while. Once again, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I still think that at the very least the second disc is worth hearing this year. Definitely check it out if you're a fan of this sort of stuff, you will not be disappointed.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: Night 2: Invocation, Last Night: Late Summer Ceremony

2012 - Black/Doom

This year has produced a number of interesting releases but here were a bunch of releases that fell somewhere in between the black and doom metal genre enough to make me want to just group them all together. Maybe it's a bit of a cop out but it's likely that someone will find a new band if you lump them together with a bunch a band they might already know about.

Elysian Blaze - Blood Geometry (2012)

Band: Elysian Blaze
Country: Adelaide, Australia
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal/Funeral Doom
Label: Osmose Productions

Back in 2008 or 2009 I went through a phase where I listened and looked into a lot of depressive black metal and funeral doom. Looking back, I couldn't tell you why, but I have since been a bit more picky about what I listen to from those genres. When I was really invested in the genre though, Elysian Blaze was a project that definitely stood out on both sides of the genres.
When I first got into the project I think this album was either just being announced or something like that. I couldn't tell you how many times I checked the Myspace page of Elysian Blaze hoping for some sort of update as to when this was going to be released. The album cover was released at that time, and I'm pretty sure the song titles were as well, but there were very sparse updates until I just sort of gave up and thought that the project had either been put on ice or had dissolved all together. Now, here it is, something like two or three years after I had thought that Mutatiis might have just ended the project and I see this album pop up. Was I shocked? Most definitely and no matter the quality of it, I knew it was an album I had to hear.
I guess the first and most definable feature many will notice about this album is the fact that it is a double-album that contains three tracks that top twenty minutes each. I was certainly shocked when I saw those track lengths, and probably just as surprised, if not more so, when I actually listened to them and found out that they were actually good. Don't misunderstand my intention, I did not come into this thinking it was going to be bad, not by a long shot, but in genres like funeral doom, like depressive black metal, like ambient black metal, tracks like that are often overrated, sometimes overhyped, but don't really ever accomplish too much. While songs this long often have a very narrow range of appeal, even in this style of music for that matter, these songs are quite interesting and have some really interesting ideas. I'll admit that I haven't listened to this project a quite a while, but what I remember hearing was a lot slower and more in line with funeral doom, this album is much more of a black metal album. Very ambient black metal mind you, but black metal nonetheless. Having gone back and listened to some of the project's earlier releases, I don't know what I was remembering because those albums certainly had quite a big black metal sound as well, but this album is far more bleak, I guess would be the most fitting word.
The range of ideas present on here is quite shocking if you've come to expect little from any of the genres I mentioned above. I really have to give Mutatiis a lot of credit for pooling these influences together in a way that is surprisingly original; and while mixing funeral doom, depressive and atmospheric black metal, ambient (or dark ambient), noise, and I guess classical music together has been done here and there, I can't say I've heard another album where they've been blended to a similar degree with as high results as this album. I really have to say that the closers for both albums are really well done. The title-track is a lengthy piano piece that works rather well for closing the first disc while Void Alchemy closes the entire album with an eleven minute ambient/noise piece. Unlike Fear Factory's recent use of this technique on their most recent album, this works far better. After the blistering assault the rest of the album has put you through, closing the entire thing with an ambient piece doesn't sound so bad. But I have to say that the metal tracks are the standouts on here, as if that should really come as a surprise to anyone. The first disc's metal tracks are a bit more visceral, despite their lengths, while the two on the second disc are a lot more imaginative. There are more detours and variety within these two tracks. While Pyramid of The Cold Son is quite an interesting track with a lot of cool atmospheric and ambient stuff popping up throughout, I think that the clear highlight of this entire album is, once again I'm sure it's no surprise, the thirty-six minute Blood of Ancients, Blood of Hatred. It's an absolutely haunting piece of music that, personally, I could just get lost inside.
I know that the length and style(s) of this album might put some people off, but it is truly a great record and it far surpassed any of my expectations. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be an overlooked album this year, because this is the sort of release that could easily fall into the forgotten realms (do not let that happen!). It's a great album and one that I recommend not missing out on this year. (On a sidenote, if you decide to buy a copy, definitely go for the vinyl. I got mine a couple of days ago and it looks just fantastic).
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Sigils That Beckon Death, Pyramid of The Cold Son, Blood of Ancients, Blood of Hatred

Double Review: Marduk & Merrimack

Yeah, I know, another double review, but this time I actually figured, you know, that these two bands actually sound similar enough to where I could pull this one off well.

Book of Sand - Mourning Star (2012)

Band: Book of Sand
Country: Minneapolis
Style: Post-Black Metal
Label: Music Ruins Lives

Book of Sand has been on quite a bit of a buzz since the project's first album, How Beautiful to Walk Free, several years ago. Since then we've had four other albums, including this one, released and apparently even more are planned to be released soon as well. It's not exactly easy coming into a new album from this project (which is why I've prolonged this review) but if you come in expecting anything, you always know it's going to be interesting.
Just to clear this up right away, for anyone who got the same idea upon seeing the track list like I did when I first saw it, opener The Face of The Water is a different track than the title-track of the project's last full-length album. That aside, for anyone who thought that last year's The Face of The Waters album was perhaps more accessible due to its cleaner production and far more jazz based sound, will more than likely be put off by this. The same could be said of those who enjoyed the metallic energy of 2010's How Beautiful to Walk Free, though in retrospect, every album released by this project has been different, but it's a very weird album and I was certainly taken aback whenever that first burst of distortion comes in. Though this is certainly more "metal" than his last album, to say that it's any more accessible would be one of the last things I would choose to describe this album. It's really bizarre and disorienting, not something I expected, even based on hearing several of the project's past releases. It's by no means an easy album to get into.
The sound really makes me think of what it might sound like if someone like Ben Monder decided to join a group like Blut Aus Nord or Deathspell Omega, it's really off sounding, dissonant and weird, but for some reason it works. Those more metal based parts are really strange and odd, but I love it all the more because it doesn't sound right or even all that great on first listen, but as your ears begin to adjust to what you're listening to and your mind loosens up, it begins to become more coherent. Interspersed with those shots of metal are more genre bending ideas, from folk to ambient and noise. I'll admit that it might have just been the pair of headphones I was using at the time, but the first time I listened to this I felt like there were long stretches of blank silence, and I didn't get it. After listening to it on another pair of headphones as well as in the car and on my computer, I have realized that that was not the case. There are some long moments of more ambient kind of material, but it's not silence. There's also no shortage of extra instrumentation on here either, with the use of what sounds like violin (which is the only one I know for a fact is actually on here), and what sounds like piano, among others.
I don't know about how others feel about this but I thought that the album kind of feel off a bit after the epic Planet SUV. While neither of the tracks that follow it are bad, I feel like because they're shorter, by comparison they just don't feel as complete or grabbing. The ideas are interesting and I like where they were going but I think that they could have helped introduce Planet SUV rather than come after it, or at least one of them could have. Closer, That Tearful Day, does its best to try and bring back some of strange metallic quality from earlier in the album but by then it's just too little too late. Besides that, I can't really say that I was disappointed by anything on here actually.
As a whole, I think it's actually a pretty strong album with a lot to like about it, but there are some flaws that keep it down in my own opinion. It's really interesting and if I could love it just for that I would, but there's so much more on here to hear and reflect on. This is definitely recommended if you happen to like really weird and left-field black metal records.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: The Face of The Water, Fits and Starts, Planet SUV,