Black Metal History Month - Pure Wrath : "Hymn to the Woeful Hearts"

 I have already spoken on how the origin of a music's demographics effects the vibrational feeling of it. With black metal capturing darkness is key. This Indonesian project prove me right as it hits all the right notes and tries to fake you out by leaning at first more toward the melodic folk side of the genre. Perhaps that would have been a better path for it. It is not until the fourth song that I hear anything that sounds like pure wrath from an emotional standpoint. The fact this album has a really polished professional sound is good on one hand, but if this had a rawer darker mix it might have made it sound more like black metal and less like buzzing fast orchestral metal. The drumming is great because the drummer from White Ward played on this session.   

There is nothing that chills you or really makes you feel any of the ways that black metal should make you feel. Is it all played well? Yes. The midrange raspy screamed vocals are performed as they should be, but it is the feeling that should be conveyed which is where I begin to have a hard time believing what he is trying to sell me.  The dynamic range of "Footprints of a Lost Child" is more convincing. It is well arranged, and the execution is excellent, not sure the first three songs measure up as well in these regards.  "Those Who Stand Still" has enough variation that it does not just blend together and sound like the previous song, which the front end of the album is more guilty of. The blasting does get a little old a little fast.  

Things get a great deal more melodic for the title track that opens the album.  It is really more like an outro piece as this instrumental track is a wild departure from the metal that dominates the bulk of this album. It is very well done on every level expect a glaring variation from what this album normally sounds like. Overall this is well done it just does not hve the darkness or danger of black metal, I will give this album an 8.5. 

Black Metal History Month - Pure Wrath : "the Forlorn Soldier"

Giving a project not from Europe or America a chance. This one is from Indonesia. Speed is their thing. It is not the darkest thing I have heard and the symphonic elements do keep it from just being a blast fest. The vocals sound like the most blackened part of this. It kind of goes to show how black metal is more of a feeling the sound brings that just a sound the guitar buzz with tremolo so the notes are being played in a way a black metal band would execute them. The piano parts are cool and the chanted vocals work for me as well, despite feeling this just doesn't sit where I would put black metal. Lyrically this is about a genocide that occured in the 60s. So political matters take away from the darkness when it comes to the energy being places as it plants their consciousness in the physical world.

Symphonic blackened death metal might be a fair assessment. The sounds do cascade with the sweeping swathes of orchestrated synths. The drummer from White Ward , who are an actual black metal band, plays on this though the drums are fairly low in the mix. The vocals are a dry throaty rasp  higher pitched the majority of the time. Six minutes into the second song there is a melodic break of clean guitar before it explodes back into it's metallic venom. Here is one train of though about the album. I find ever your write about something you are not a personal part of there is a detachment. The fantasy lyrics of a great deal of power metal creates this detachment . None of these guys were alive in the 60s. They are just reflecting from a history book, which might as well be fantasy as history is written by the victors. Thus this detachment can be felt. How angry can you be about something that happened 60 years ago?

The songs begin to sound the same by the time we get to the last song. The chanted vocals return and there are no new elements introduced. It felt like a continuation of the previous song. Things are well played and sounds great from a production stand point, though the drums are a little lost in the mix and it could use more thunder to make it heavier.  I think they succeeded in what they set out to do here even if what they are doing is not making the greatest case for black metal not from europe. If they had committed more to the death metal side this could have been the strongest death metal album so far this year , but instead we are trying to occupy the sonic space of black metal. I will give it an 8 for all of those reasons.   This is being  released March 6th on Debemur Morti.

Avhath : "Hymns"

This review is short and sweet much like this album. Though it's level of sweetness will be called into question. I like Entombed so I am ok with d-beat. The first song proves that it is an effective style of metal, the second shows when it is not as effective and comes across more like metallic hard core. Going into 'the After Math" they employ more musicality in the tribal drone of the songs static build that leads you on for six minutes with nothing happening. They take on a little more of a black metal snarl for "the Solipsist". Dead Air at the Pulpit called these guys a heavier take on Deafheaven and I don't really hear it as they are much more one dimensional. There is a little more of a sonic touch than want your average black metal band employs and a little bit of melody begins to creep into the work with the solo at the three minute mark. But I am not convinced these guys are a black metal band as they only have some of the ingredients tossed into a few songs. This argument could also be made against Deafheaven and I say they were with "Roads to Judah" and the new album has it's moments but they are not black metal in the truest sense either if you want to really split hairs.

This albums has a few choice moments mainly the first song and the last so I'll round this one down to a 6.5. It's more hype than not and has all the qualities hip metal heads who want to stir things up want, making the hip stirrers. These guys are from Indonesia. Though this could bee another Ghost Bath in that regard. They have more hard core roots than metal. The product is more raw than polished. They can play their instruments but don't allow for pretense or pageantry. The album is only 15 minutes and really on 3 actual songs. If this is on any one's end of the year list , question the rest of the entries as well. So maybe that is what they have in common with Deafheaven they make you question do you really like black metal or just the idea of black metal?

Vallendusk : "Black Clouds Gathering"

This black metal band from Indonesia formed in 2011, so this is their first full length after releasing a song e.p., when it came out I was reluctant as to how authentic indonesian black metal might, but and even after listening to this album a few times I'm not sure if I can still give an answer. It is rather cascadian, almost entering into that more ambient and droningly beautiful that it is feral .  Most of the time I float away during "Fragments of Light" so I normally don't give this a longer listen than the third track, but today that will change for this blog shall anchor me to my head phones and I'll document the journey.

I can see where the Agalloch comparison's that I have heard thrown around come from. I think they use melody well, though unlike Agalloch they don't flip the switch melodically with the vocals . Their songs are more complex in their arrangements than the more cvlt minded black metal bands , but by no means give a nod to progressive rock like Agalloch do. What is being called the folk elements in regard to this band are passages of acoustic guitar which crop up three minutes into the second song. Not really busting out lutes  and summoning the Leprechaun's to jig.

While the drumming is excellent, They do still fall prey to over blasting things and numbing out the dynamics . Before  gets to be like jack hammer sex, they ease off for a minute on " Shades of Grey" and drop into more of a waltz time signature. For the most part the songs blow by like a howling wind in the background, the picking on "Into the Mist" doesn't seem to be much different than the song before until the get to the accents a minute and a half into it. That is until a really progressive break down three and a half minutes in where the bass gets angular, that was not expected and it's these sort of nuances that don't have me running to get this off my iPod any time soon.

I do think the blasting is the easy way out for these guys as they have the talent and melodic know how to do more with their playing and the give you frequent tastes of that fact. Sure the riff to "Among the Giants" is epic enough, but the motto around here is good riffs alone don't make good songs. Still this is their first full length so maybe they just need the time to grow as songwriters, when you have a 9 minute song that is operating on variation of your epic riff melody it's like trying to hold a conversation with a coke head. There's an art to it that Deafheaven has perfected and it relies on more dynamics, to keep the sonic ebb and flow, that these guys do catch on to this art on the 13 minute "Land of the Lurking Twilight" that closes the album, so they are more than capable.

The riff's get slightly catchier on "Realms of the Elder" and drop into strummed clean guitars, which sound more post-rock to me than folk, as I don't feel any Stonehenge to it. I like the effects on the vocals here as they come up higher in the mix to wet the otherwise dry mid range rasp, typical of bands like Windir.  The accents to the galloping punches amid the flurry of blast beats , helps make this song more discernible. The big finish with their 13 minute song, is time well spent and captures a broad sense of dynamics. So overall I like the feel of this album, even when it lulls me into the hypnotic dron of its blistering sonics, so I will give it an 8.5, as their is potential here I feel like is only skimming the surface, they are off to a good start and when they learn the restraint that comes with restraint I think their next album could be flawless, but time will tell.