Dodecahedron - Dodecahedron (2012)

Band: Dodecahedron
Country: Tilburg, Netherlands
Style: Progressive/Atmospheric Black Metal
Label: Season of Mist

I have been meaning/wanting to cover this album for months now and even though it's kind of old now, I'm still gonna do it. I remembering seeing the cover of this album back in, like, January, and just thinking that no matter what genre this album was (because there was no description of it at the time, just the artwork) I would listen to it and review it. Now that I finally have it, cover still rules (in my opinion), I was going to cover it (even if it had been in September, I still would have covered this album).
I had read a couple of things before listening to this album about how it was basically a band trying to do what Deathspell Omega had done with their most recent album, they do black metal but make it sound really chaotic and off-the-wall. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, people accused The Axis of Perdition and even Blut Aus Nord of doing the same thing last year as well, and I liked those records a lot. I honestly don't have a big problem with a band recalling elements of other bands if it's a sound that I like or enjoy hearing, so I don't have a huge problem with this the fact that this album and band is treading lightly in their French brethren's footsteps. In addition to that, there are more than a few sections on here where the band are doing something all their own with that sort of sound. The dissonance isn't an original concept, but I like how even when they mellowed out, they could retain that same sort of high tension and claustrophobic atmosphere. It's that sort of tension that adds a sort of electricity to these songs and keeps them moving forward. There's also a more prevalent sense of melody in here than I remember hearing in Deathspell Omega's most recent albums. I mean, it's still pretty dissonant and electric, but on a track like I, Chronocrator, there's something that's driving the track more than sheer brute force and chaotic riffs.
I would like to take the time to talk about the atmosphere on here more though. Because of the more claustrophobic nature of the ambiance that surrounds the album, it can kind of make this a bit of a difficult record to listen to in a single sitting. Though the band do a good job at mixing things up and keeping things interesting, there really isn't any point where all that pressure and tension is ever released and it feels like it's just being contained, and like each and every track is just about ready to explode from keeping it restrained. While I think that it may have been a bad choice to have a five minute long ambient-ish interlude as the centerpiece on here, it keeps things rather tense before returning to more of the black metal and I do understand that it does break up the monotony that some might accuse the album of having if it hadn't had been there. At that point a lot of the more hostile nature exhibited on the first three tracks gives way to more melody and more industrial sounds are integrated into the background.
Those last three tracks, all part of the overarching View From Hverfell title, are probably the best place to start if you're not sure what the band sounds like. It's on these three tracks that the band really show their hand and demonstrate skill in melody, atmosphere, and tension and are at their best. The riffs are, in my opinion, a lot more memorable and stick out more so than the ones exhibited on the first half of the album. The band makes more of an effort to bring more range to these songs as there are ambient interludes, moments of clean guitar, near industrial-esque guitar sections, which branch off from the extremities that one might perceive the band to embrace to a fault. I think that if more people took the time to listen to the songs on this half of the album, or at the very least make an effort to seek them out, they might actually see what I see in here, a band with a lot of talent who are experimenting with different ideas. Now they just need to find a way to make them work more cohesively.
Personally, despite how much I anxiously awaited hearing this record, it took me longer to actually get into it and grasp what the band was trying to do more than I had expected. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the record and despite the criticism I've seen leveled at it, I enjoyed it. I think there are some really interesting ideas used throughout both halves and I am looking forward to the next release from these guys. Let the chaos and hostility reign supreme!
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: Vanitas, View From Hverfell II: Inside Omnipotent Chaos

Vattnet Viskar - Vattnet Viskar EP (2012)

Band: Vattnet Viskar
Country: Plaistow, New Hampshire
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Label: Broken Limbs

In the wake of groups like Ash Borer becoming more "popular" as they've become in the last year through high profiled releases that really brought new light onto the American black metal community, there needs to be a new group to take their place in the underground. Vattnet Viskar first caught my attention when they released a track from this EP (maybe a month ago) and I certainly enjoyed it. Obviously, that has lead me to finally being able to cover this new EP from the band.
The three tracks that make up this EP showcase a group who are obviously not only talented at their instruments, but also have a solid grasp on dynamics. I have to say, I'm a guy who happens to enjoy longer songs, but there are groups out there who write long songs that go absolutely nowhere (not that I really cover any of those bands, but you can rest assured that they're out there). I like it when a band can keep a song going for an extended period of time and kind of just ride it out for as long as the section kind of motivates them to go. I found that especially true on the closer, Barren Earth, which, essentially, and I probably am oversimplifying it here, made use of a single riff, and then a variation on that riff for the last six minutes of the track, and it totally worked. It was hypnotic, propulsive, and engaging throughout and has yet to sound boring in any way after several listens through it. It kind of reminds me of what Opeth did with the title-track off their Deliverance record and how they closed out that song with a simply amazing progression that lasted for around the same amount of time. But I don't want to simply disregard the first two tracks on here because while they are solid, I found that it all sort of built up to the last track, though the first two are certainly strong in their own regard, aggression and melody, in my opinion. The production is also a bit cleaner than what one might expect from a band that's this underground, but it suits them well and brings a warmth to these songs as they charge forward.
I highly recommend this and really hope that these guys continue to put out material as strong (or hopefully stronger) than this EP in the future. After hearing this I really want to hear more from these guys (I also think that these guys would put on a killer live show as well judging by these songs alone). Definitely check this out if you're at all interested in atmospheric black metal done in the vein of groups like Ash Borer or Fell Voices.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Barren Earth

Shroud of Despondency - Pine (2012)

Band: Shroud of Despondency
Country: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Style: Progressive Black Metal
Label: Independent

Throughout this past year, Shroud of Despondency has really done a lot. Last year they happened to release two full-lengths, one to pretty high acclaim, and a demo, which I thought was really solid, as well as a single and a split. That was the band's most productive year since 2002 when their first full-length was released. This new album has really been getting them some a lot of attention and I was hopeful that they would continue their trek of getting better with each release.
When I was listening back to last year's Dark Meditations In Monastic Seclusion album, it really struck me how much the band has progressed in about a year's time. While I wouldn't say that the band have done a total one eighty and completely switched around their style, that album was very focused sonically, while this one is a lot more varied. While that may not sound like a step forward to some, it is a logical progression. If you can concentrate your energies on writing an album with a singular sound, than the next step is to mix up that flow, add in new flavors while still making it cohesive. It's an album that owes just as much to the band's more melodic black metal roots as it does to doom metal, death metal, grindcore, and neo-folk (or just folk) music. It's a nice mixture of tracks that, while as diverse as they may be, are held together through the use of murky production (in a good way) and progressive ideas that help certain tracks unify easier. Personally, I've always preferred groups that can switch up their sound, hopefully throughout an album, and I'm glad that this band has seen the pros to at least attempting it. I think I should also point out that while I did like their last album, I was not a fan of the vocalist on that album, not that he was bad in any way, his style just didn't sound right with the band's sound in my opinion, but that has since been corrected. The vocals on here are much more suitable in my opinion and they mesh a lot more with the band as a result.
The folk interludes are really something to take note of on here. The four tracks titled Wanderlust all help to unify the album while expanding the band's boundaries even further than before. The sound of folk music isn't new to the band as they've worked it into their last few releases and have crafted full-on folk songs in the past, but on here you can tell that it's come full-circle. The violin and keyboards that accompany most of the interludes breathe new life into them and do allow them to stand out more from the acoustic bits that were used in the band's previous material. While they are used as interludes, for better or worse that is what they are, they are strong enough to stand on their own, so if you took them out of the context of the album, they'd still sound good, maybe a little spotty, but they'd work. If you took out the interludes, and just left the rest of the album alone, I'm afraid to say that it just wouldn't hold up as well. Without the conjoining acoustic pieces, what you'd be left with are a bunch of songs that, while they are certainly good, wouldn't sound like they'd really fit together all that well. The acoustic closer, The Unchaining of An Animal, also really benefitted from having all the brutality and aggression come before it. It acts as a sort of release, when you have all this aggression demonstrated on the metal tracks interspersed with the calmer interludes, it can feel like the album is building towards something big. The ending is perhaps going to be a bit anticlimactic to some who would have wished the band to end the album on a more epic level, but instead you get a release. As the chorus states, "I filled my chest with fresh air," and that's what this closer is, a breath of fresh air into a worn down and harsh world (see the cover).
I really enjoyed the album, considering I wasn't exactly sure how it would sound with such a varied sound, they pulled it off with applause. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by this and I am anticipating the band's next release where they hopefully build even further off of the ideas demonstrated on here. Definitely check these guys out if you're interested in a varied album that really explores different genres and manages to pull them off.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: New Trees, Half Open Gates, The Unchaining of An Animal

Vaura - Selenelion (2012)

Band: Vaura
Country: Brooklyn, New York
Style: Progressive Black Metal/Post-Rock
Label: Wierd

Since Alcest blew up and the whole blackgaze and post-black metal bands started rising to prominence the whole genre has really devolved into a joke. With each passing month is grows harder and harder for the sub-genre to maintain any sense of creditability as bands lose more and more creativity and individualism. So it was probably just as much a surprise to me as others when this band came along featuring the likes of Toby Driver (Kayo Dot among others) and Kevin Hufnagel (Dysrhythmia among others) in its ranks.
In order to call this a purely blackgaze record however, one would have to overlook many, many points of this album that separate it from the bands in that genre. Personally, I like the term "post-black metal" because like the term "progressive black metal" they overlap, and while many people like to make the argument that the "post" implies post-rock, in the past it had more to do with boundary pushing and influences that helped it expand out from black metal, another way of being progressive. One could just as easily label Enslaved or Sólstafir with those terms and it'd still work just as well when put on groups like Altar of Plagues or, in this case, Vaura. Blackgaze is a sub-sub-genre, maybe even more subs, but I wouldn't categorize Vaura as a blackgaze band when influences are far less obvious.
Is there post-rock in here? Yes. Is there Black Metal in here? Yes. But there is also progressive rock, ambient music, post-punk, among others that stand out within these eleven tracks as well. Probably the reason why the "post" tag is being thrown at this album is because of the big atmospheric qualities that are expressed on these songs. It's not overbearing, but it's one of the most obvious elements that a person will notice while listening to the album, or a single track even. I'm probably not going to help my cause by saying that when I first heard this album, it made me think of what might happen if Neige decided to form a band inspired by the likes of Krallice or Liturgy. It's beautiful and melodic, but features a harsh edge from the black metal side of things, which may scare of some potential listeners who might assume it to be closer to post-rock with vocals based on only a track or two. While I hesitate to say that most of this is calmer and more dreamy, it must be said that when it treads more into the blackened territory, the darkness emerges through the bass playing and really adds a new color to the sound, hear tracks like En/Soph or Obsidian Damascene Sun. It's the brightness of the melodies that allows those heavier, darker, moments to stand out much more than their peers. Plus, when was the last time you heard a "metal" band utilize the light more than the dark on an album, been a long time for myself (not even Alcest did that on their new album by the way).
In addition to what I've said above, there are a few qualities that stood out to me within the atmosphere that struck me. It might just be me, but there's a certain sort of heat that emanates from these songs when I listen to them. The atmosphere is very warm and bright and is quite malleable since it does creep into even the darkest parts of this album. The other quality that struck me is a someone romantic one, which wasn't as prominent but hit me on a couple of tracks where some of the melodies just felt a little longing, a little mournful, might be the bit of post-punk I hear that contributed to that, but I stand by my opinion. As my good friend Jon said in his review, it's elegant, and I'm more than inclined to agree with him. It was qualities like these that made me return to the album over and over again even though I had no idea at the time as to why.
Overall, I rather enjoyed it, a lot to love and a lot to enjoy about this album and I am most definitely impressed. It's not perfect, a couple tracks are less than stellar and don't stick out as much as others, but those are few and far between and the good outweighs the bad by a sizable margin. Definitely check out this album when you get the chance, it is a fantastic piece of work and will hopefully generate a good spark of energy within this blackgaze scene and show all these Alcest wannabes how to really do something interesting and emotional.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: Obsidian Damascene Sun, Vanth, The Zahir

Verwüstung - I First Saw You On That Snowy Night and Couldn't Shake An Overwhelming Feeling of Sadness (2012)

Band: Verwüstung
Country: San Francisco, California
Style: Blackgaze/Drone
Label: Independent

Chris M. Broyles is a very prolific young man (even though he's actually older than me), whether it be through his main medium of Airs or this project where he'll release something every once in a while, as well as some other projects which have come and gone along the way as well. Most of you probably know that Airs originally started out as a semi-black metal-ish sort of band before recently going into full-blown shoegaze, dream pop, and post-punk. This project is supposed to be Broyles black metal side, the more aggressive side, that was cast off from Airs on their "debut" recordings.
Last year's Gloomlights showed Airs at the height of the songwriting abilities at that point on the first disc; but the second disc was filled semi-droning black metal songs. Since the once Airs debut full-length was abandoned and later called the debut for this project, Airs had not really done much with black metal at all. I remember listening to that album and I felt that it was full of inconsistent material and ideas rather than songs. The first full-length When The Light Broke The Stars, Humanity Rejected Us was released a little while later and featured a much fuller and well developed sound with two epic pieces of droning blackgaze. While I can't say that I enjoyed that album all that much, there were certainly some decent ideas on it that have been used throughout the other releases that have lead the project up to this point. The second disc of Gloomlights came as a surprise because Airs had all but left black metal behind and the sound of those tracks was very unlike what the band had become and can now be seen as a precursor to the sound that this album would further develop upon.
When listening to this, don't come in expecting it to follow in the realms of anything Neige or his followers have been trying to do. In my opinion, this is much closer to what the duo in Njiqahdda have been doing in their side-project Oaks of Bethel. It's a sound that is very raw, but filled with a lot of ambiance and droning soundscapes that at times engulf everything else going on. In a sense, I'm not even sure I could call this release all that dreamy, as most projects within the whole blackgaze scene attempt to do; but that's not to say that it certainly doesn't have its fair share of beauty. A lot of the softer, post-rock sections of the album have a nice minimal quality to them that is sort of endearing. I know a lot of blackgaze projects tend to feature a raw and noisy production sound to them that can tend to ruin a good portion of them and defeat the purpose of the more beautiful clean guitar phrases, but this album actually benefits from the added noise. The entire production makes the album sound incredibly distant and enhances that droning aspect even further if only because of extended choices in notes. In addition to that, the entire album flows together and acts as a single piece (whether or not that's intentional or not I'm not sure). The more droning tracks, For The First Time, I Can Feel makes a nice transition into the more aggressive Spiral Paradox through the track Comasleep. It also works that none of the tracks on here are too long, even the epic twelve minute closer isn't all that long in comparison to the length of the tracks that project has put out in the past.
I think it's a solid piece of work that is definitely one of the better things I've heard come out of the blackgaze movement in a long time. It isn't super unique but it's definitely got heart and the ideas are certainly there and at the rate releases are coming out from this project, I expect that Broyles will craft his masterpiece with the project someday soon. I'm not sure if this will please every person who feels that the blackgaze scene "touches their emotions/souls" but I'm more inclined to listen to this over that drivel almost any day. Check it out if you want to hear something beautiful, aggressive, and droning.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Those Evenings We Spent Alone Staring Out The Window, When Our Hands Met

Dorthal - Cell Regeneration EP (2012)

Band: Dorthal
Country: Bordeaux, France
Style: Math Metal/Ambidjent
Label: Independent

Apparently this is not Dorthal's debut release as I had first thought when I found the EP. When I looked into the project before writing this I was surprised that main man Clément Reviriego had released two EPs prior to this one. Both of those have actually been mastered by TesseracT's own Acle Kahney, giving it a bit of a mar key name.
Since the rise of djent in the last couple of years as well as the rise in popularity of instrumental groups, whether they happen to be Animals As Leaders or even a group like Explosions In The Sky, it's not hard to see why a lot of kids in their bedrooms would want to throw their hat into the circle and give a whirl at writing some songs. Like I said above, I hadn't heard any of Dorthal's previous EPs before listening to this one, so I came into this and was pleasantly surprised. I've heard more than my fair share of instrumental djent bands, and a lot of them are quite boring. In all honesty, listening to a band lay on a semi-odd timed groove for a couple minutes at a time just doesn't sound intriguing to me, especially when I know that they're basically just ripping off Periphery or TesseracT. Now, while I will say that when it comes to originality, Dorthal isn't an exception because if I didn't know better, I could almost call these six songs rough demos for future, or old, TesseracT songs. I don't mean that in a bad way, but there is a definite similarity in style between what is trying to be accomplished with this and what was found in Acle's band's debut full-length, but not as layered atmospherically. I've gone back and listened to the EP that was released before this one, eta-Earth, and it was definitely more along the lines of what I'd find much less intriguing, but the reason I even looked back was because I thought this release was actually really solid. I also think it's worth pointing out that the bass is very clear in the mix and is performed very well (as it should since Clément is a bassist), but it's just a nice touch that helps to make this stand apart even more so.
Like I've said numerous times throughout this review, I did enjoy this EP and I was very impressed with what it had to offer up. It isn't really breaking any new ground for the sub-genre of djent, but the songs are pretty short and concise while still getting an idea across in a way that makes an impression but doesn't overstay it's welcome. Definitely check out this release if you're into more ambient and atmosphere based instrumental djent.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Supra-Membrane, Membrane

Seamless - Clarity (2012)

Band: Seamless
Country: Arkansas, USA
Style: Progressive Deathcore/Djent
Label: Independent

I don't think it's any secret that I'm a fan of djent bands. In the two years I've run this blog, bands that have helped to establish that scene have made it considerably high on my end of the year lists and I have given other high scores, if that means anything at all to you. But if you've been following that scene at all in the last year or so, two years at most, you'll know that it's just exploded. What that means is that there are bands who are interesting and bringing some interesting ideas to the table, and then you have bands who are basically just copying the bigger bands in the sub-genre and end up sounding boring and rehashed.
When it comes to Seamless, a pretty new group (they've been around for a few years now), they appear to lie somewhere in between my two opinions. I'd like to think that the djent bands that I listen to aren't just rehashing what other groups do and are doing something a little different, other opinions are certainly available, but even I'm prone to making mistakes. I have to admit that I listened to Seamless' first EP last year and was not impressed at all, it sounded like a pretty uneventful djent group with a deathcore vocalist. What changed and made me want to cover this album was the song To Sick Or Swim. When they posted that track for streaming, I was pretty impressed, I mean, the harsher vocals were still deathcore inflected, but there were clean vocals that stood out more prominently and had an interesting style. That song really got me excited to hear what the band had to offer on this full-length.
I don't know what happened next, I started listening to it and for some reason it just didn't turn out like I expected it to. For some reason the band still has more than their fare share of boring djent songs with deathcore vocals on here that sound like no progress was made at all. I'll admit that I'm not a fan of the vocals, I'm not a fan of about ninety-nine percent of deathcore bands out there, but I thought I might be able to get over my qualms with the vocals if the music had improved and now that clean vocals were being utilized more. I like the clean vocals on here, make no mistake, I think that they really have a different style to them that help the band stand out among many others, but my God, those harsh vocals just kill so many of these tracks for me, especially the screams, which I found just terrible. Songs like LSK or Patterns would have been so much better without the vocals, or most of the vocals, since their melodies are actually really good and stand out as being more progressive. The music has evolved, with many more interesting parts, though they still rely a bit too much on low-end grooves to really show any distinction from their peers at the moment. The addition of keyboards does help several songs stand out more due to the use of more atmospheric sections that contrast all the heavier ones that dominate most of these songs. Also, the longer instrumental breaks throughout the album were definitely well used and most of the solos were very well done.
I'm not crazy about the production on here though. It just feels a bit too raw for a djent record to be, I'm not a fan of super polished and clean production but on djent records it really helps for sake of the clarity of the sound, and on here when they're laying on those low-8 string grooves, sometimes they all just sort of blend together into mud, which is sad. In addition to that, I don't understand why the band felt the need to tack on these electronic outros to a handful of songs on here, since they don't add anything to the record at all. I'm also not sure instrumentals really needed to be added to this album. Despite my prejudice towards the harsher vocals on this album, instrumentals just don't feel all that necessary on this album, thus, songs like opener Gateway or later Breathing Spell or The Pivotal Moment feel rather irrelevant and actually sound like they could've just put it into another song or try and make a longer song from it. They're well performed, don't get me wrong, but this album is too much of a mixed bag to really say that the instrumentals stood out any more than the rather standard djent songs on here. They wind up just feeling like filler to me. I will say that the last five or so songs on here are definitely some of the best on the entire album, in my opinion and defintily give me hope for what the band might do in the future.
I realize that this review came off extremely negative, but that's only because I thought that this band had grown into something much more unique and interesting. I promise you that I came into this album really wanting to like it, because last year had some huge hits (for me) from the djent community and I wanted this to be one for this year. They've definitely evolved, but they still rely too heavily on rather uninteresting djent rhythms and their harsher vocals just irritate me just as much as they did on their EP. I'd recommend looking into this if you're a djent or deathcore fan, but otherwise enter into this with caution.
Overall Score: 6.5
Highlights: Clarity, A New Day, To Sink Or Swim