Minimalism and the band Low have gone together since the band started in 1993, when the band accidently created a genre called 'slowcore,' with its minimal arrangements and slow brooding tempos. However, after their last album 'The Great Destroyer,' where Alan Sparhawk decided to play rock star and finally wrote some great indie swaggering rocking songs, it was hard to gauge the future direction of the band. Well, they still sound like Low, but they aren't rocking out as much and have now moved onto being experimental with subtle sounds and beats. This time the band has been experimenting with sonic textures like unsettling scrapings, underwhelming chirps, slow burning distortion loops, chiming bells, drum loops, odd percussive sounds, and repeating layers of vocal tones. A number of these songs, like 'Dragonfly,' 'Belarus,' and 'Take Your Time,' could even be considered pop ambient. Also, there are a couple of quirky songs like 'Always Fade' with its Beck-ish organic beats and 'Breaker' with its basic beat being a hand clap and a single droning organ note, which initially are off, putting but grow quickly into their own memorable songs. Even with all the experimentation this is still Low and the one constant element of the band is Mimi Parker and Alan’s striking ethereal vocal harmonies which is truly the 'Low' sound and can be heard on the amazing 'Sandista' and 'In Silence.' The band lyrically poke with poetic humor about war, violence and their usual crisis of faith and doubt in oneself. Originally this album was pretty high on my top 15 list but got lost in the shuffle as the year crept along, which doesn’t take anything away from the experimental greatness of Low and this album. It should be really interesting to see the direction Low approaches with their next album. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this band, who I saw totally mesmerize a packed raucous audience at 1st Ave in 1995 with their music that suspended time that night.

... recursive variation of subtle tonal minimalism delicately engineered for maximal transcendence. Nearly a single moment in time stretched out and repeated into eternity, or at least the album length of 50 minutes, which ever comes first. William Basinski presents more rediscovered tapes of his orchestral loops from the 1980’s that he manipulates into an evocative, lushly warm, forlorn, and beautiful one song recital. The song seems to be created out of a single orchestral loop that has subtle melodious tonal drones and harmonies buried under a glacial slow drifting inertia. Unlike Basinski’s prior genius, 'Disintegration Loops,' where the music is actually heard in the process of dying, or disintegrating, as you are listening to the songs. On 'El Camino Real,' the song seems to be placidly stagnate, however instead of the disintegration of the loop, Basinski allows the loop to rebirth itself and repeat ad nauseam. This sheer amount of repetition pushes the minimal, minute, intricate details of the song forward and eventually after enough recursions an inevitable sense of the evolution in the loop will happen on the next cycle. The next cycle arrives with the familiar subtle flow and the song continues on again. William Basinski has once again created some hauntingly, painfully beautiful music that is challenging and warmly familiar.

When a non metal band has the reputation as being the loudest band in New York City, my ears perk up and some investigation is necessary. Granted, being the loudest at anything is a pretty subjective and no reason to like a band or album, but that didn’t stop me from tracking down this album. Well, I can honestly state on that disc they are loud, damn loud. The production makes it feel like you are catching the band perform at some tiny hole in the wall club and they have cranked their amps and the sound system to 11 and the force of the music is pinning you to the back wall of the club. To my ears, A Place To Bury Strangers is a sonic amalgamate of the abrasive stomp of Big Black, the vocal detachment and moodiness of Joy Division, the shoegazer fuzz of My Bloody Valentine, and a few dollops of the Cure and Jesus & Mary Chain. Oh and don't forget lots of ferocious, overdriven, full on gain, guitar slashing chunks and reverb shards. The person behind this metallic overdriven beast is Oliver Ackermann, the guitarist and singer, who also builds his own effects pedals under his company name, Death By Audio. All the talk about guitars and effects shouldn’t short change the album because there are some really good pop songs with big hooks and catchy choruses. Again, all the songs are smeared over with some of the most glorious blistering buzzsaw guitars ever recorded. The first track on the album, 'Missing You,' flattens the listener with its revved out guitar distortion and a Jesus & Mary Chain bass line and with detached nearly unfocused vocals. On the next song, 'Don’t Think Lover,' again the listener is assaulted with overdriven guitar gnashing which eventually mellows into a gentle romantic song before Oliver stomps on that guitar fuzz box and obliterates the listener with waves of phased guitar distortion, and clattering goodness. Just these two tracks alone hook me and I can repeat them over and over again, so it took me awhile to find the many gems buried deep within this album, because for the longest time I only listened to only those first two songs. I missed out on the industrial Ministry/Big Black drum machine sound of 'To Fix A Gash In Your Head,' with its catchy song writing and its tumultuous wall of fuzzy shrapnel. Along with the more serious mellower songs I missed others, like the My Bloody Valentine tribute, 'The Falling Sun,' and even the Cure-ish sounding 'Ocean.' There is definitely a beautiful tonal and exhilarating aspect to the gloriously fuzzed out din that A Place To Bury Strangers are capable of creating and I can’t wait to see and hear them perform this album in a live setting.

Flaskavsae campaign to lead the unwashed back to god by overwhelming the listener with ambient murk and shimmer, fuzzed out primitive lo-fi amplifiers shaking themselves into obliteration, obscenely fuzzed out melodies and vocals buried so deep in the mix that only repeated listening sessions shows their existence. All this sonic contagion is used to benefit the collective gain of unblack metal in the carnal world. Unblack metal, you question? What the hell is that? And stop snickering when you ask that question. Unblack metal is the christian response to black metal scourge and all the trappings of traditional black metal aesthetics but with the lyrics and philosophy being christ based. Some of the early unblack metal bands like Horde and Antestor were definitely just raping the black metal style and sound, but sometime around the 1998 a guy, named Flaskavsae or Glaciial, from Illinois formed a record label E.E.E. Recordings. He started releasing unhinged and whacked out severely underground releases from Agathothodion, Drommer, Glaciial, and Light Shall Prevail. Most of the E.E.E. bands play a twisted form of ambient black metal with odd lo-fi production values and techniques. Some of the early records are pretty cool and some are cringeworthy and laughable, however all the discs have this tremendous passion and vitality around them. Usually most christian music is totally devoid of any passion or substance, which is hilarious when you think about the reason why the band is singing and praising god. Now on the other horned hand, most unblack metal bands are truly perverse and the passion and desire drips from these home made cd-rs. The irony of the new unblack metal genre is a lot of these bands are sonically out-eviling the most outrageous black metal albums released nowadays. Flaskavsae on 'Philosophies' pushes the extremities of the black metal boundary with sonic landscapes that slightly resemble Tim Heckler's or William Basinski's audio decaying song technique. Funny thing, if somebody gave me a copy of 'Philosophies' my initial thought and opinion would be it is the new unmastered Lurker of Chalice disc, especially because of the first song 'Twilight Reminiscent Of Slumber' with its swirling blackness and downtrodden chilling guitar lines. A rolling dense ball of static and distortion layers propel 'Parallels To Nothing,' while the vocals gurgle and ebb underneath the guitar and keyboard melodies. All songs are composed within layers upon layers of fragmented, distorted, buzzing guitar and keyboard swatches that hide and only reveal the real, and listener perceived artificial melodies upon repeated exposure. The songs that even attempt to resemble conventional black metal are 'Eating Light' and 'Wotansvoid-False Deity' with their driving drum patterns and riffing that have definitely been influenced by the Norwegian masters. Flaskavsae's vocals on the 'Philosophies' are mostly screams and whispers that drift in weird modulated fashion where the vocal pitch seems to be constantly varying as the songs evolve. A sheen of crumbling static bleariness obscures and redefines the songs into Flaskavsae's own unique sonic style. This album is a giant ball of distorted shimmer and drifting ambient cosmic coldness that surmounts and defies categorization as being black metal or even unblack metal, either way let the deities fight over the musical soul of the listener as they shimmer into the darkness or light.

Through sin comes death … and Marduk's death has been arriving in sinfully slow mediocre increments. The days of blasphemous brilliance seem to be a distant memory with the black metal classics like 'Opus Nocturne', 'Dark Endless,' and 'Heaven Shall Burn,' just a twinkle in the eyes of all the gathered sulphuric warmongering orcs. Lately the band has turned into the AC/DC of black metal with dull blast driven propelled albums that lack passionate substance or grimness. Well, the sick blackened vitality returns and its gruesome impetus is the arrival of the new vocalist Mortuus who delivers one utterly vile seething performance that nearly reaches the level of hallowed vocal gods, Landfermann from Bethlehem, or Attila from Mayhem, in its intensity and emotive venomous weirdness. However, Morgan the guitarist and sole remaining band member must have also rediscovered his secret black metal decoder ring, because his riffing and song writing skills are back to the halcyon days when the Marduk name had a kvltness reverence. The album opens with “The Leveling Dust” that sears the listener with its blackened militant thrash while Mortuus is gleefully gargling fresh grave dirt to show his true evilness. A nice surprise for the listener is the gem of a song 'Imago Mortis,' with its mid paced rocking tempo and its underlying autumnal melodies. Another new novelty for Marduk is the song '1651' with its downtrodden church organs drenching a funeral march while Mortuus preaches an a cappella sermon belched out in a squishy sangrail flecked throaty inflections. Such creepy atmosphere and vile goodness. Thank goodness the blast drive madness has been kept to a minimum on 'Rom 5:12' and in its place a thrashing heavy metal overtone returns. Marduk still uses the frenzied blast beats on 'Through the Bell of Damnation' and 'Limbs of Worship' but the never ending frenzied blitzkrieg tempoed war metal days of 'Panzer Division' are restricted and toned down. Now the melodies flow out of these occasional overdriven speed moments with epic sounding vistas of aural splendor that is not unlike Primordial in its grandeur. Speaking of Primordial, here is the ultimate shocker of the album. Alan Nemtheanga from Primordial sings a duet with Mortuus on the epic 'Accuser, Opposer' that is the crown jewel of the album. The song is a simple slow builder with a doom undertone. It builds from a Latin chant to a slow burning march with Mortuss playing the gurgling antagonist with his 'Jabba the Hutt' vocalizations and zombie chortling that perfectly counterpoints Alan’s protagonist earthen soaring soulful wailings. The lack of complexity of the song doesn't foul the soul stirring passion of both vocal performances and its monumental goose pimple inducing atmosphere. Marduk thankfully resurrects its ancient blackened soul and ever so slightly grasps the elite kvlt status again.

Primordial drips passion, pure class and they wear their pagan values with pride. There is nothing drastically different in the Primoridal sound from their prior release, 'The Gathering Wilderness,' just a more mature, focused band that follows their own sound and creative metal muse. A triumphant and defiant feeling permeates the album with Primordial's unique take on folk music that bleeds a passion and furor for the history of Ireland and all pagan nations of the world. Primordial songs are the reflection of the outcome of suppressed ancient pagan cultures by external forces like christianity, empire building, and exploitation. The band uses Irish themes and historical allegories to color the songs, but the underlying universal defiant spirit and passion when faced with death could represent any subjugated culture or individual. After all these years no band sounds quite like Primordial and they have a unique take on black metal by incorporating folk-like hollow chorded melodies, unconscious Celtic melodies, somber atmospheres and a primal pagan attitude. Also, no band has the amazing talents of A.A. Nemtheanga, who's emotional stirring vocals on this album are a little bit harsher and raspy sounding compared to the previous albums. Primordial definitely, or unconsciously, realize Nemtheanga's extraordinary vocal talent for each song gradually builds through long, instrumental textures before finding a dynamic section for his glorious vocals to soar. My favorite song has to be 'Heathen Tribes,' which is the perfect tribute to all the heathen blooded people in the world to stand as one. It is the most obviously Celtic influenced with a folk acoustic guitar jig and primal tribal drumming that propel the song along before the rousing hollow chimed electric guitars sear away with its fabulous melodies. When Nemtheanga stoutly commands 'We are born, From the same womb, Hewn from the same stone,' before the electric guitars crash down and the jig starts back up, this section of the song sends shivers down my spine each time. Primordial have yet again crafted an amazing valorous musical declaration of defiance and pride that implores the apathetic blind masses to awaken from their slumber. I will be one of those heathens searching for his soul and standing as one.

With an ever flowing depression and a deep bone withering mournful melancholy 'From These Wounds,' showcases Funeral's stark, woeful, despondent, and beautiful sound. Funeral has been contemporaries of modern doom founders Anathema, My Dying Bride, and Paradise Lost since the early 1990s, however the band has never strayed from the core depressive doom sound. Initially, the band was one of early purveyors of the crawling funeral doom metal style with grunting death metal vocalizations. Now the band perform a sophisticated type of gothic doom metal. This isn’t fluffy doom metal, but doom metal that dredges the sorrow ridden feelings about misplaced humanity and its despondent irrelevance. “From These Wounds,” is mostly an album of slow mid-paced guitar riffs and baritone, monotone, priestlike vocals with keyboards or cellos adding flourishes to the foundation of the song. All the songs are stark and use a similar pattern in the song structure, but the raw emotions touched by Frode Forsmo's vocals, along with the highly memorable Katatonia-ish sad melodies and crushing riffs make up for the inherent simplicity of the songs. The production is massive sounding with every instrument fitting perfectly into the sound picture, yet it is obvious upon listening that the massive guitars are the core of the songs. Song themes are about the tyranny of religion and science, depression, loss, fear of death, and tardive dyskinesia. Loss and adversity have definitely shaped the band with their bassist/songwriter Einar committing suicide in 2003, and then in 2006 just after “From These Wounds” was recorded guitarist Christian Loos died. Hopefully, after all the adversity and the badly fated choice in band names, Funeral will continue to release incredible albums like “From These Wounds.” Either way this is a masterpiece of modern doom metal which should be celebrated and viewed as a testament to the core band members struggle with the world to evolve their art.

( Overlord of Doom voiced by James Earl Jones )
I, Overlord of Doom, demand a blood oath sworn upon the holy mournful carcass of Black Sabbath's back catalog that all you up an coming doom bands will extinguish yourselves and disband after releasing a great album. Together now, swear with gusto and ponderous inevitability.

( Servant minions of Doom spoken together, voiced in reverent obedience )
We: Mindrot, Buried At Sea, Reverend Bizarre, Morgion, Place of Skulls, YOB, God's Tower, Funeral, and Keen of the Crow swear to end our being and slip into the void after releasing a great album.

And so another great doom band sacrifices itself on the Overlord of Doom’s throne, again it seems to be that members, or ex-members of Morgion, are the ones throwing their bodies on the monolithic slab for the sacrifice. Keen of the Crow happened to be the rhythm section of the mighty deceased Morgion. There is a natural sonic continuation from 'Cloaked By Ages, Crowned In Earth,' the last Morgion album to Keen’s 'Hyborea' disc, yet Keen veer into a more aggressive melodic doom and nearly Celtic sounding territory. Keen’s 'Hyborea' is a themed album based on the fictional land created by Robert E. Howard, as the setting for his epic stories of Conan the Barbarian, which is the perfect background theme for this vastly epic and dynamic album. The album opener, 'Where Dead Kings Lie,' starts as an aggressive riffing beast with full on death metal yelling vocals, but the song soon changes its tone with some chimey folk melodies, then ends in the previous forceful manner with melodic dour vocals. Most of the songs on 'Hyborea' are typical of this song structure evolution where each song is almost a complete story where the band guides the listener through different song movements incorporating various tempos, textures and mood changes . There are quite a few times when auditory references to Novembers Doom, Morgion, old Anathema, Primordial and Candlemass are relevant, because of the heavy driving tempo usage and melodic tonal qualities. In the songs 'Seeking Fury, Becoming Wrath' and 'To Reach Emptiness,' the classic thick doom riffs established by Candlemass are updated and interwoven with more rollicking aggressive riffs. Keen found the perfect vocalist in Dan Ochoa, who performs with amazing vocal dexterity and feeling. One minute he can be rendering throat shredding rasps of bile with a wrathful vengeance and the next sounding like Aaron Stainthorp, from My Dying Bride, doing earnest dreary vocal stylings. It is very sad to see Keen of the Crow succumb to the fate and whims of the Overlord of Doom because their version of melodic death influenced doom was truly fresh and exhilarating. Maybe out of the sacrifice of Keen, Morgion will be reborn with Dan Ochoa on vocals and they record an album based on the Odyssey or Hercules, now that would have to please the Overlord of Doom.

The step by step how-to guide for releasing a cheesy cliched ‘80s metal cd:

1. Name the band after some bad ass sounding animal and make it sound even tougher by appending 'metal', 'dark' or 'steel' before the name.
2. Name band members after semi-evil sounding inanimate objects like, say Krypt, Rema3000, Juicyifier, and Garfield Steel.
3. Band logo scrawled with many pointy letters and a veiled resemblance to the old Van Halen logo.
4. Have a hand drawn cover with an iconic metal studded anthromorphic ghoul mascot playing an axe guitar and raising his fist with a tailsman towards the sky.
5. Pictures of chuffed evil band members sporting studs and leather in cd booklet sleeve.
6. Coining your own heavy metal slogan on the back cover sleeve like, say 'NWOFHM.'
7. Guys singing in high falsetto questioning their own manhood.
8. Repetitive rocking metal anthems.
9. Comically overly mispronounced words.
10. Write over the top lyrics about doomsday fantasy topics like, say metal blade warriors tormenting steel, nuclear barbarians, headless mutants, and battletoads exploding in stereo.

The Steel Mammoth boys have succeeded or even exceeded every one of these steps in creating the perfect cliched metal cd. Besides these infamous traits of heavy metal, or maybe because of them, they have produced one of the most infectious, fun, memorable and totally kick ass metal albums of this year or yesteryear. Most astonishing about this labor of trite is it is masterminded as a side project by the Finnish psychedelic krautrock band, Circle. The love and admiration of the metal genre shines through in the presentation and crafting of some truly rocking songs. The song “Spirit Horse” leads off the album with a fat anthemic rocking riff and quirky vocal lines, before big echoing guitar harmonies from New Wave Of British Heavy Metal era take over the middle section with its group singing about “singing like a man. That is another thing that makes Steel Mammoth so special, it is their retarded spin on metal lyrics. Maybe it has to do with lack of sleep and the midnight sun and new proclivity for cheap taxless vodka. Either way the song “Spirit Horse” has some of the all time classic lyrical lines like 'been riding this dinosaur too long,' 'I need to sing like a man' (sung in high falsetto), or 'battle toads exploding in stereo,' and a even a few 'ohh yeahs' thrown in for fun. The closest Steel Mammoth come to sounding like its progenitor, Circle, is on “Steel Mammoth” where the circular Kraut groove and motorik drumming propels the song before the prerequisite galloping metal riffs which come into play and the listener is urged to 'torment steel.' One of Steel Mammoth’s whimsical quirks is the awkward but lovable way the singer pronounces words like nuclear which he pronounces “nock lee ire.” A driving repetitive boogie rocker forms the backbone of 'Nuclear Barbarians' with its desert and southern rock flavorings with a big chorus about 'nock lee ire barbarians.' My favorite song on the album has to be 'Doomsday' with its slight funk feel and darker rocking grooves that somehow incorporates a jamming flute solo. In the end, if Steel Mammoth are taking a piss out of the metal genre or celebrating it, it doesn’t matter much because they have created an infectious groove laden metal album that prevails over all the cliches the band are building upon.

'Music must be able to accomodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting,' this famous quote from Brian Eno perfectly describes Ulver's latest album 'Shadows of the Sun.' Ulver has crafted an album that functions on multiple levels depending on the consciousness of the listener. When the listener is engaged the album is a deeply enthralling intimate tragic listening experience that can be highly moving and timeless, yet the album can also be consumed as just background music, that needs little attention, but it will still seep into your thoughts. All songs have a somber, ephemeral, calm quality that languidly permeates into the consciousness, making a serene, reflective, melancholy, an nostalgic emotional state. Most of the melodies and harmonies vary little from song to song. Also Garm's soothing, slow, laconic baritone makes it seem like there is little repetition between songs. Nevertheless, it is the song composition of these melodies and harmonies with ambient textures, rhythmic flourishes, and lush minimalism, that creates exquisite memorable songs and moods. Songs are crafted, meaning sound is manipulated and polished, from many various sources: viola, violin, piano, trumpet, theremin, cello, acoustic and electric guitar. Even with the sound crafted and programmed the album acts like a showcase of Garm’s vocals because they are the solid focal point in every song. On 'Eos' a lush ephemeral spacey song, his passionate vocals set the tone before the theremin's noodley melody takes it over and counters his vocal arrangement. Also, on the song 'All the Love,' Garm's passionate vocals seem to be the bedrock of the song and all the flourishes added by the trumpets, pianos, and glitchy buzzing pop sounds work off his inflections and modulations. Christian Fennesz, famed ambient glitch artist, manipulates the song 'Virgil' so that little rolling mechanical bleeps and beeps are the foundation of the song and then Ulver paints over the top with a lush palette of stretched out vocals, viola, and violins. A surprising song to find on this album is 'Solitude,' a Black Sabbath cover, which is rendered very faithfully to the original and fits the album's minimalist and spacious sound with its muted trumpet flailing. The theme of 'Shadows of the Sun,' seems to be about the natural cycles of our world and the inherent mundane living with loss. The closing track on the album 'What Happened?' has Garm providing a somber, almost spoken word vocal performance over an ominous drifting soundscape that lulls and soothes the listen back to the commonplace. Ulver creates a flawless and timeless work of art that transcends and blends into the mundane.

Oh my desert encrusted sun, the rebirth of Kyuss has occurred while I have been whiling away the time with my black metal elitism, eager Neurosis wannabes, and the endless quest for ambient shimmering drone. Or could this actually be the lost demo of those missing tracks from Kyuss's 'Welcome To Sky Valley' recording sessions? My stoner music appreciation has been pretty jaded of late with many bands just not living up to the masters of the genre, Kyuss, or the heady days between 1999-2001 when it seemed like another great stoner rock band, like Lowrider, Beaver, Unida, Ridge, Los Natas, and Astroqueen were coming out every week or so. Well, Bomb the Sun has rejuvenated my love of the fat stoner groove riff and it just took a couple of 19 year old kids from South Wales to bring that warm fuzzy desert feeling back to my jaded heart. The band states they are influenced by Led Zeppelin, Kyuss, Fu Manchu, and Black Sabbath, but I hear mostly Kyuss, early Nebula, and a wee bit of the old stoner rock band Shallow. Either way, the band have learned their lessons well. The introductory song 'First Israeli in Space' begins with the sound of waves crashing and a wayward guitar wail and then a mini jam kicks in that leads into the next song, 'Not Waving, But Drowning.' Just like 'Sky Valley' this disc could be broken into songs or be digested as one big jamming fat groove laden album with interludes that setup and blend into the next song. 'Not Waving, But Drowning,' is an expansive song that instantly asserts itself with a tremendous hypnotic stoner groove that never relents with stoner riffs ebbing and flowing in perfect unison. The next song 'Your Blood Is On My Hands' is a 12 minute long psychedelic jam that starts slowly with the guitar countering the bass in a catch me if you can groove before they both coalesce into a giant 'Gardenia' stoner jamfest. At the midway point of the song a little noodley jam breaks out with the bass getting semi-funky sounding, before an explosive stoner repetitive riff builds and drives the song in lock step into pure stoner nirvana. The vocals are the typical Kyuss/stoner vocals with long outstretched phrasings. At times I hear hints of the Shallow or Dozer lead singers. The vocals definitely fit the genre of music perfectly, but are nothing too special and are probably the weakest element of the album. The song 'Bombay,' flows out of the previous song, 'Your Blood Is On My Hands,' so easily that they seem to be interconnected. Again, it is a 12 minute epic of psychedelic stoner jamming that has a slight resemblance to Nebula or Ridge however neither band can touch Bomb The Sun in the realm of grandiose song complexity. 'Deh Na' continues with the psychedelic proggy desert groove with some great guitar work where the riff builds on top of the same riff without ever getting old or stale. Pure stoner groovy bliss, without any chemicals needed. The outro song is 'Last Israeli in Space' and it is basically the reverse of the intro song on the album. It is the perfect way to end the album with waves crashing and rolling gently into the shore. It really isn't fair to compare Bomb the Sun with the stoner gods Kyuss or even minor stoner deities like Astroqueen, yet with this album Bomb The Sun has rekindled the vibe and energy that has been dearly lost inside the stoner metal community lately.

Once again I'm confronted with the daunting task of writing about my all time favorite band. How can I be subjective and credible with my opinions and review? I can’t. My personal history with the band goes back to the first time I heard 'Souls At Zero,' in 1992. My all time favorite and highly life changing album is 'Through Silver In Blood,' which for years I listened to at least once or more everyday. Also, I have pilgrimaged to see them live 15 times over the years and consider the band’s live show as my church. So I would say I lean towards being a fanboy with the band. Many rumors floated around the 'Net that the band was going to return to their roots and release their heaviest album since the 1990s, and a kernel of truth does exist in those rumors. 'Given To The Rising,' has some pummeling heft and a menacing aggressive sound lingers around the edges of the music. Yet the sound that permeates the album is very traditional and orthodox. Has Neurosis' sound evolution stagnated? Maybe, but I believe the band exhausted the bleak, minimalist, existential sonic style with 'The Eye Of Every Storm,' the same way they exhausted themselves of the oppressive, apocalyptic, claustrophobic 'Through Silver In Blood' style. 'Given To The Rising,' seems to be an introspective album where the band is looking at their legacy and consolidating their sound from their many albums. Really, this album could be taken as greatest a hit album because it touches on so many palettes of sound the band has used over the years. The band blends and juggles all the sonic dynamics from minimalism, underlying tribal beats, cinematic atmosphere, thunderous crushing bombastic riffs, and soul searing vocals to craft songs that embed themselves in the psyche. Funny thing though, for being a retrospective type of album it took me a while to get into it, and that might be the best attribute of 'Given To The Rising.' The album isn't an immediate but a slow grower, that reveals itself and all it’s intricate layers as the relationship with the music is developed. Neurosis's music is sacred to me and my lack of objectivity doesn't diminish the greatness of this album in any way.

After the magnificent 'Diadem of 12 Stars,' the apprehension of disappointment and disillusion that the Wolves would fall from their radiated vault of greatness hung over my thoughts about this album. The Wolves have taken the Weakling influenced style of their stellar 'Diadem of 12 Stars' album and have actualized their own distinct variant of hypnotic inward gazing post-rock black metal on 'Two Hunters.' Wolves eco-spiritual ideology of rebirth and transformation continues on with 'Two Hunters,' which tells a mythical story about two primordial forces battling and destroying each other while trying to protect and control the world. The gorgeous sweeping, shimmering, gossamer instrumental introductory song, 'Dia Artio,' with its warm droning keyboards and woodland sounds could easily be on any album by ambient mystic Ruhr Hunter. It's a beautiful tribute and devotional to the bear goddess and a fitting opening document that shows the band is blazing their own sonic path with touches of post-rock soundscapes and amazing production values. On the song 'Vastness and Sorrow,' it opens with trilling notes, not too dissimilar from Ludicra, before pile driving into a mesmerising black metal riffage. One of the things Wolves excel at is the creation of a psychedelic wash of transformational hypnotic sound experience. They channel into the same primoridal energy and trance elements of the early purveyors of black metal where the layering of riffs over a submerged melody is fighting to be heard from through the aural chaos. The song 'Cleansing,' has a lovely cinematic, rustic, primitive tribalism, In The Woods atmosphere through the first half of the song. Guest vocals by Jessica Kinney, from Asva, provide a nice aria lament before the Wolves unleash their take on conventional black metal with grand sweeping ferocious layering of guitars and black metal shrieking that would scare any wayward troll back to his sacred grove. The magical center piece of the album is the gargantuan 'I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots,' which is an 18 minute long majestic journey that incorporates windswept ambient haze, dirge, post-rock fuzz, acoustic folksy guitars, tribal shamanistic breakdown, shrieking vocals, ferociously careening blast beat driven black metal melodies, and a dryad enchanting the night. The bands vision for their music is to expand the consciousness by linking the mythic and apocalyptic visions of black metal with a spiritual essence on the physical plane of existence. I'm almost ashamed to have doubted myself about this album because it is as spiritual, majestic, sorrowful, transcendent and magical as 'Diadem of 12 Stars.'

A gauzy, shimmering over saturated memory of another world from the innocence of childhood is transformed into a flowing, lush, blissy beautiful shoegazing black metal treasure. All songs and internal serene bliss come from this French musical mastermind Neige, who has been associated with many kvlt French underground bands, Mortifera, Peste Noire, and his other boundary defiling black metal band, Amesoeurs. The whole album is based upon an otherworld or dimension, called Fairy Land, which Neige would visit in visions and dreams as a child, and strives to recapture in musical form. This album has an incredible atmosphere and dreamlike flowing enchanted melodies and feeling which Neige nurtures with his soft surreal languid vocals that drift atop a layer of alternating and delicate fuzzy washes of shoegazing riffs and acoustic interludes. The inevitable feeling of drifting off to this shimmering ethereal otherworld slowly submerges the soul in enchanted serenity and beauty. Neige claims to have never heard about the shoegaze musical style from the 1990’s prior to the recording of this gorgeous disc, but that is hard to imagine because the music channels the genre greats like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Swervedriver, and Chapterhouse. The fuzzy drifting distorted blissed out climaxes, underlying barely noticeable buzzing dissonance, and soothing washes of guitars makes this the perfect disc of shoegazing metal. However, the album isn’t all mop heads and fuzzed out dream pop, there are hints of black metal nuances just beneath the surface with occasional remembrance of old Fleurety and even tinges of Agalloch. Alcest, with 'Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde,' musically attempts to transpose and glimpse a more innocent time period and world, which it achieves when the listener is able to be soothingly transported into Neige's glorious forlorn enchanted visions of this other world that is based in timelessness, beauty and purity.

Transcendence of a musical genre is a rare event. Transcendence of a musical genre by an established artist, like John Coltrane, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Mayhem, James Brown, or Darkthrone, happens so few times in a lifetime. It is a jarring culture shock when an artist is able to defy the established boundaries and create music that is out of time and the cultural spectrum. Deathspell Omega is one of those special bands that has risen above themselves and their musical culture they swim within, by transcending their previous musical works. This French band started as a traditional Scandinavian inspired black metal band releasing two albums that were good, but nothing groundbreaking or special. A drastic change occurred in the band's sound when they started a trilogy of albums inquiring into the nature of evil, religious faith and humanities relationship to both. The first part of the dark trilogy 'Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice,' pushed black metal far forward from its roots. Then their mini album, 'Kenose,' took their sound into even more unreachable territories. Well, on 'Fas,' the band eclipses the genre completely by recording some of the most dizzyingly chaotic technical blackness while being embedded in sinister, evil black ambience. Deathspell Omega thematically transverse complex philosophical and religious concepts like divine will, perdition, esoteric wisdom, and the metaphysics of satanism and orthodox christianity. All songs are lengthy compositions that traverse many different extreme elements like: swirling dark ambient textures, unconventional rapidly twisting and changing rhythms; frenzied cyclones of black razor blade riffs, relentless jazz influenced blast beats, unexpected diagonal twisting song structures, discordant cacophony melodies, and eerie dissonant cinematic noir overtones that interlude with the song. The album opens and closes with the song 'Obombration' which sounds like some ominous ritualistic celebratory gathering for new arrivals into the infernal nether regions. The album properly opens with the song 'The Shrine of Mad Laughter,' which instantly engulfs the listener with whirling, tumbling, complex rhythms and song structures that are dementedly convoluted. It's like a blackened vortex of razor wire technical riffs filtered through some time distortion machine where you are able to hear two or maybe three parts of the same song at the same time. A respite in the middle and the end of the song replaces the sonic maelstrom with some black oozing ambience before it all continues again. The only conventional aspect of the song is the tortured vocals that are dry raspy death metal vocals. The next song 'Bread of Bitterness,' continues on with the blackened swirling madness that starts with amazingly groovy interplay between the drumming and riffing. The intricate seemingly unconnected riffs and blast beat mayhem then drive the song along before an eerie wash of obsidian ambience and then a odd jazz interlude that calms the overstimulated senses before the insane riffing miasma ends the song. There is a common thread that becomes discernible after the blackened undulating Voivoidian delirium liquidifies your brain. Most of the songs have a middle bridge section where the chaos mellows to reveal calm clean guitars, gloomy piano, or ominous foreboding atmosphere. The song 'A Chore for the Lost' lulls with free jazz guitar meanderings and cold muttered whispered vocals, then it all of a sudden transforms into a swarming mass of frantic incredibly technical black metal. The album isn't all overwrought chaotic blackness. There are some breathtaking melodies that arise out of the menacing convoluted darkness. A great quote from Jung goes 'Illumination is not reached by visualizing the light, but by exploring the darkness.' Well, somewhere into their career Deathspell Omega have been illuminated and reborn out of darkness. They are happy to share their disturbing transcendental vision with the listener by creating a work of art so awe-inspiring that hopefully other bands will use it as the foundation for the next wave of black metal.