Death is June - Hissing : " Hypervirulence Architecture"

Seattle based Hissing churns out a violent brand of dissonant death metal but manage to throw in a few head banging riffs amid the chaos. They are so heavy when the first song hits you that you are unsure how their skills as actual songwriters are. The first song ends with noisy rough edges of feedback squealing out to add to the sonic abrasion. The second song starts with a murky barrage of blasting. If you told me these guys all also played in punk bands, I would not be surprised. The vocals are a low growl and mixed behind the guitars which is one aspect of their sound that works. Some of the faster sections feel rushed. The guitars are more of a static distortion than hearing any note with clarity in the grit. When I was younger, I would have dug this more, but really did not know better. 

"Operant Extinction" is more of the same. Fast drumming and growls that seem more obligatory than providing any kind of narrative. Even the riffs seem more sidetracked by being a force of intensity than a song. At over ten minutes it is hard to hear at the four-minute mark where they plan on taking this spastic outburst for another six minutes. normally these guys keep thing compact around the four-minute mark, some of this due to the speed they attack things with. They shift gears into a more sonic pounding but return to variation of what they have already done up to this point. The is a more of a sonic heaviness in place than just the slamming of guitar into your ears. this is also a little more angular and less of a straightforward assault. They kind of drone on this until going into more of a mathy chaos. The last minute is also more sonic which helps.

After the ten-minute sparling epic there is an industrial tinged interlude before getting back into the actual songs. "Intrusion" is at least as brutal in the beating it gives you as previous songs. They way the song breaks down in the final two minutes might be the most interesting part of the song as things have more room to breathe. From the onset of it's explosion "Identical to Hunger" has a plan of attack similar to the other songs on this album. In some ways it sounds like it could be even more feral if not for the very deliberate punches it drops into. This does sound less rushed and more intentional which is a step in the right direction. When the y step onto the speed it feels like a step backwards. "Meltdown" is more of the same. A very similar expand and contract as the previous song. Three minutes into the song and things break down to the crusty sludged out bass line. They way the song fades out into noise sums up where it stand in being more about sounds or a song. I will give this one a 7.5, it is comings out on Profound Lore/.  

 

Serpentent : "Ancient Tomes, Volume I: Mother of Light"

While Anne K O' Neill's dark folk project, might follow a long trend over the past decade of goth sirens, but there is an honest conviction that gives the feeling of earnestness to what she is doing rather than trying to be the next Marissa Nadler or Chelsea Wolfe. It is surprising to see she is from Seattle as there is depth that carries and Old-World European feeling.   The percussion of "Winding " makes the strummed guitar drone more, thus giving this song an almost Death In June feel, despite the female vocals. There is a more brooding storm of atmosphere feel to the "Sonette  an Orpheus". I appreciate how dark it is. There is a hypnotic state it lulls you into, very moody but simple.   

"Oy Ty" is more like a folk choral piece. It sounds like witches joining their voices together. There is a more traditional folk feel to "Death" . Vocally her alto here sound more modern in it's approach than singing this around a camp fire . She continues to build sonic layers which justifies this and keeps it from being to minimal . Overall I would say this album is a much more interesting sonic exploration than I would have expected going into this. There is a very experimental vibes in terms of arrangements, which can be heard on the drone of "Mother of Light"  The use of strings on this song is effective in making it darker. The vocal melody in more solemn. 

She continues to uses a gloomy brush to pain the songs with on "the Fountainhead of Fire' . It is a sprawling song with many layers of sound emerging as it progresses it feels like a more folk version of Concrete Blonde. At the 7 minute mark I am wondering where they can go for the next four minutes and the answers is to break things down into a more introspective ambiance.  The more booming grandeur that bands like Death in June dip into can be heard on the last song. Overall this is an impressive piece of work, if you are into neo folk this is a must as it is one of the best releases of that kind I have heard so far this year, I will give it a 9.5, The album is being released by Svart Records on May 20th.          

Hallows : "Subtle"

Haven't done much goth centric stuff, since mmm Fotocrime? The new Night Sins almost doesn't count. This is a duo out of Seattle. This is more of an EP than an album as There are really only four tracks as the first one is just an intro. When they kick in I find a blend of modern dance and old school 80's new wave. Yes it is a shade darker. This is highlighted when the male vocals join in. The girls voice is lighter. Things swirl around them in a murky fashion due to the lo fi production that adds it's own charm to the proceedings. The drum programming is their only weak point though it could just be it needs a more bass focused mix. There was however plenty of stuff that came out back in the day that had that sound though I remember it being more reverb based. It sounds like there might be guitar , then when I listen harder I can hear it's just a synth sound.


The dead pan melody of "the Call-Ravenous" could use more hook, and the female vocals on this song so give you a little more to hook you into the song. By the time we get to " In a Sleeping World"  the songs are beginning to become a blur by sounding the same. There are some variations in the synth riffs, the monotone vocals have the same narrative and they might be better off make the female vocals more of a focal point. Midway into the song, things do modulate enough to stay interesting and she does a call and response with him. This is when they first break away from being more of a sound and cross over into songwriting. It is more clear that guitar is coming in here as well. I can here some very early Cocteau Twins influence. The droning nature also recalls Joy Division.

There is more of a hypnotic shoe gaze thing going with the last song. The pace is slower allowing this to stand out from the other songs. I had a girl friend who used to refer to the music I listened to as heroin music, as she claimed it was all so dark and droning it's no wonder I was into drugs. This could fall into that, but that should be worn as a badge of honor. When the modulations into other movements is more dramatic is where their songwriting works the best. The melody the female vocals conjure towards the second half of this song however is the least compelling of what I have heard from her thus far.  The get points for the mood and nailing the sound , I think this project has potential I will give it an 8. If you are really hungry for dark music this might tide you over for a time.

Isenordal : " Spectral Embrace"

This Seattle band's "Shores of Mourning" album earned a 9, so the bar is high. They start off with their more neo-folk side taking the lead. The vocals are soft and the strings holds most of the melancholy. The female vocals join in to add harmonies.It's hazy but not dark. There is a droning quality to it that does have a mesmerizing appeal. It's not until the second song that harsh growled vocals come in over the gentle plucking of the folk that unfolds. The 3rd song transpires in a very similar manner to the first two. The first two songs worked for what they were, but now I am waiting for some kind of dynamic shift, otherwise this is going to feel like the background music at a New Age bookstore. The vocals work well and I get that the hypnosis of drone is what they are going for. If they want to go straight neo-folk they are succeeding. Four minutes in the folk does get more aggressive. The harsh vocals return again and things do get marginally darker.

"An Entrancing Dream" begins with a more ballad like tone. The vocals are very subdued. Now we are back to being new age hippies. So it's safe to say I could stand for this album to be darker. In the last minute and a half the harsher vocals return from behind a wall of distant reverb. Too little too late. "Dissolution Into the Earth" might be slow, but it is not doom, so do not let anyone try to fool you into thinking different. Not that I need them to be doom, I'll settle with darker folk. The vocals stay hushed on this song as well which begins to create a more uniform sound. The harsh vocal come in sooner to counter balance the female vocals, though the over feel of the music remains the same shade of gray. The song breaks into a more energetic strum and percussion enters. This is enough of a dynamic shift to make it work for me. The melody to the last song was song pleasing to the ears and one of the more interesting bits of vocal interplay on the album, but the accompaniment did not stand out and made the song fade into something that was ok, not great or breathtaking.

Overall, this album crosses over into full submersing themselves into neo-folk. Not as dark or heavy ass the previous album, I'll give this a 7.5. If you were always more of a fan of this band's folk side and don't need them to be heavy, then this change won't phase you.



 

Black Queen : "the Directress"

When the list of guest vocals on your album includes Wrest, and members of Assuck, Witch Mountain , Eye of Nix and Samara you are doing something right. While they are very dense and dark the first song doesn't really convince me they are black metal and I'm not even sure if that is the case this Seattle band wants to make here. This is without a doubt metal, perhaps the variety that will drive you insane if you try to fit it neatly into a sub genre. The use both clean vocals as well as a mean rasp, sometimes dropping down into a more deathly tone. Within the span of the opening song's not quite eight minutes I change my mind several times in regard to how I feel about the production. Some of the vocals come across as being drier than other. The guitars distortion also sound to be coming from rack mountain effects rather than gain and volume.

There is an almost Deicide like attack to "Silentium" . This brisk trashing piece of death metal is pretty concise and these guys don't rely on losing you with eight minute monsters in fact only one song reaches past that point.  They slow down going into the final minutes of "Silentium" and  make something very dark and creepy, before punching back into the death metal. There drummer is almost as insane as Steve from Deicide. Weird samples start off " the Names of Snakes" another blistering blur of death metal that has just enough old school groove and attention to detail.  The ra primal way they attack these songs with is one of the factors that keeps bringing Deicide to mind, though Black Queen never locks into the almost machine like chug Deicide can bulldoze you with. The clean vocals return this time keeping at a low croak. Sometimes when they get too fast from their britches these guys are not as impressive as when they are soaking the songs in darkness. I really like when they lock into  more of a hook in the final minutes of this one.

"the 3rd Key" plays around with some haunted house ambiance before the drums come in an stir up a fiendish  pounding against the sounds of tortured souls. The riff to this one is pretty catchy and tries to challenge our rule here that 'cool riffs alone do not make a good song". "After some horror sample they lurch into the weird horror punk of "Forever Dagger" which does get some Acid Bath like explosions of harsher metal sent through it. Now that they opened the flood gates for singing , the low baritone croon returns on "Beneath the Barrow" though they are not as dominant as they were on the previous, forming more of a call and response between the two vocal styles.Three minutes in finds the music dying down so allow the clean vocals to call out into the darkness. Dynamically they really give themselves more room to breathe on this one as the song winds around melodic passages at every turn, before bringing it all crashing down with blast beats.

The title track that closes the album out is the longest song here. The song writing lends itself to free form feral rowdiness and doesn't allow the song to have as focused of a path as the rest of the album. It's more straight forward death in some sense.  The sung melody that comes in mid way into the song is the highlight  of this one.The slowed riff in this song's third is crushingly effective. The piano based outro is a weird way for this one to go until the bust back into with a ripping thrash like riff. Even though they are not as cohesive when it comes to the last song , over all this album takes chances and offers a new take on death metal. I'll give this one a 8.5

Serial Hawk : "Searching For Light"

With the heavy legacy of grunge haunting their homestead, this Seattle takes an approach more akin to the Melvins and Tad than any of their flannel clad forefathers. The vocals are forced out in a throaty shout, with the guitars being the focus of more melody. The bass and drums work together as a punishing unit with machine like precision. They are oppressive like sludge rather than invoking the morbid sense of loss of doom. The pace lumbers with the liberate stomp of a juggernaut. They are heavy, but not weighed down with the typical trappings of metal. The chords are driven home rather than chugged. The vocals drop down into a hushed baritone that is almost at a whisper for "Lying in Wait" before locking in with the guitar for a Helmet like bark.While their sound has a similar blood line to many of the more forward thinking bands in the later half of the 90s who were thinking man's metal like Helmet, Neurosis, Unsane and Fudge Tunnel, they very much have their own thing going on that fits in with the current musical climate.

"Of Decay" starts off as a more pounding bull-dozer of post-hardcore angst hammered at you for the first couple of minutes before they relax and let the song breathe. The vocals bellow out a little while longer before the aggression yields to the shift in guitar tone. It is moments like these where the band shines, I noticed this on the first song when they uses cleaner and more effected guitar tones that still held and organic warmth to the atmosphere. The album closes with a sprawling 17 minute title track. I have kind of had it with the whole over ten minute thing, so these guys are going to have to bring their a- game to win me over. Hesitant clean guitar tones ebb through the first three minutes before the drums come in. The vocals come in first at a low whisper before building into the more shouted delivery. He allows his voice to crack into a coarse tone , but I would not call it growling or screaming. They coast on a throbbing groove with the vocals offering somewhat of a call and response as the guitar melody builds off slow picked distorted solo. Its almost nine minutes in until I click over to see how far along we are into this. So they distracted me for more than half way through this winding epic. The guitar is still pretty interesting at this point as every thing breaks down for this clean toned almost jazz like guitar interlude. There is a slight jammy quality here and I bet these guys can have some fun with these kind of moments on stage. The song is barely held together by the bass and then they bust back in with syncopated punches.

 I'll round this one up to a 9, the longer song did manage to hold my attention, the drill Sargent cadence to the vocals is not always my favorite approach , but over all I think these guys captured what they do best in the studio and look forward to hearing where they go from here. These guys are just as good as anything else along these lines I have heard from bands backed by records labels so someone is really losing out on a ton of potential until these guys are picked up, I guess for what ever a record label is worth these days if anything.

Same Sex Dictator : " Open the Coffin"

This drum & bass duo features Eye of Nix drummer Justin Straw, whose prowess is undeniable in this venture. They are like Eye of Nix in the sense they do not fit neatly into a single sub-genre of metal. Sludge and grind core are two of the more prominent components in the opener. They relish in the ugliness and abrasive tendencies they snarl out of sometimes angular passages with. Even after the bass lead in to " Obviously Dead" the fact this is just bass,drums  and synth is often obscured by the heaviness. The more metallic rumble this song finds flirts with death metal, though they never strike me as being blatantly influenced by anyone band. They even find themselves caught up for a second in blast beats before going into something more hard core.

There is a little more atmosphere to "God is Not Here". It is shattered by the mammoth lumber of the fuzzed out bass. The vocals harshly screamed and bellowed with varied amount of mucous raked from their throats. They go into an angry call and response at one point on this song.  They grow into a more hammering aggression with  " Becoming Aurelius". More elements of noise become apparent with the rough around the edges riffage. They do not pick the predictable way to deliver dynamics as the heavy chaos of "Run Into Knives" is bookended by two different approaches to droning ambiance.

There is a slight nod to post- punk with the beat to "Sarcoidosis". It proceeds to hit the winding math rock groove with a more punk aggression than their explosive tendencies have previously hinted at on this album. They ease back into more sonic punches on "A Murder of Crow(d)s " . The vocals return to call and response with a crusty shout answering to the more death metal vocal. They burst out of the dark brooding first minute of "A Crippled House" with a spasm of hard core punk. The drumming beats this into a more metal form.

Closing out the album with "Betrayal Was A Mutual Term" that gets a little darker in almost a Neurosis fashion before the bass bounces the song into motion. The stomp is abandoned for a more double bass propelled bridge into punk rock and back again. This album is solid yet unpredictable. The fact the mood is pretty sardonic throughout keeps me more engaged in some of their punk rock moments than I would other be if they had taken the bratty straight ahead approach to the sharp turns into punk. If you don't like you metal cut and dry with crusty doses of hard punk then this album is for you.I'll give it an 8.5 for now and see how it grows on me.

God Module : "Prophecy"

Dark ebm with distorted vocal that typify the post-90s industrial. There is plenty of Skinny Puppy influence , but their moments most suited for the dance floor. Its aggressive without being heavy as metal. Production wise everything is on point. The vocals sit where they need to and the beats are dirtied up enough to not sound poppy. Dancing does seem to be their purgatory on 'Second Coming" that follows.  The vocals begin to come across more like a coarse whisper on this song. Much like death metal they are just a static layer adding rhythmic emphasis rather than melody. Despite the disco hi-hat the beat has a harder punch to it on "Secrets". It might just be the way they interact with the music but the vocals have a little more of a slither to them.  A dark anthem for goth clubs in the wee hours before last call.

"Endless" feels a few degrees darker . The vocals come more to the fore front and the effects change up a little to make the lyrics less garbled. Their is a little more glitch to the otherwise straight forward pulse of "Abduction" which finds the probing to be a rather up beat affair, with a lighter synth melody ringing out  to the children  singing we don't exist. There is a little more elegance and dramatics to the beginning of "We Are Legend" that reminds me a little of a slower version of  "Just Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode. The vocals don't come in til a minute and a half in. There is a slight hook to the synths.

The pace picks up with "Deceit" racing along with a less slinking groove. This feels much more like dark wave , just without the pretension. It is not the most original song on the album. What you see is what you get when it comes to their songwriting they ride the one beat out for the majority of the song adding and taking layers to build the chorus when it comes. Their is a more militant feeling to "Red Ribbons" which over all is one of the albums darker songs. Its the synth melody that changes to form the chorus as the beat drones on. The close out the album with "Transform".  This song gets off to a more pulsing start with some harsher layers of distortion coating some of the synths. They sound like guitars , but I am pretty sure that is just the effect they are going for. I'll give this album an 8 its pretty solid dark dance music with an aggressive undertone, but the wheel for this kind of thing has not been reinvented here.

Black Breath : Slaves From Beyond Death"

Didn't get to catch these guys when they came through town with Goatwhore. From Seattle the blur the genre lines falling closest to death metal, though healthy doses of thrash stain some of the riffs. It tool me until the second song which is also the title track to figure out the band they are most influenced by is Entombed. They begin tripping over themselves when they try racing through the song and lose the sense of groove that makes them stand out from everyone else. They do possess a keen sense of riffing and come up with some nasty and tasty ones , but cool riffs alone don't make a good song is the rule around here. By "Reaping Flesh" what they do is very clear to the point that the songs begin to sound the same to me. So the melodic intro to "Seed of Cain " is much needed. Though it speeds up into a rather formless thrashing that reminds me a little of Unleashed's less viking moments. This is reigned into a pretty skull crushing riff that commands head banging as they chant the song's title.

Clearly when it comes to the focus of the songs the guitar players are running the show around here. "Arc of Violence" things slow down and allow them to hit a vicious groove. They stay on this course for  " A Place of Insane Cruelty" , perhaps even more so as the syncopation becomes more prominent.  It starts with a marching snare beat that guitar  harmonies begin to slither around before the big 80s like riff kicks in that recalls S.O.D in a mosh pit with Celtic Frost. After some impressive build up "Burning Hate" in contrast feels rather rushed and that attention to detail was thrown out the window. The very straight punk attack on the snare dumbs the song down. They close out the album on a much needed more melodic note with a guitar intro to " Chains of the Afterlife" that sounds like it could have come right off "Master of Puppets". That is a Metallic influence worth having. By the three minute mark I am beginning to think that this is an instrumental. It keeps building up to the big chords of what could be a verse if the guitar solos were replaced by vocals that never come.

Overall these guys are good at what they with riffs that have plenty of teeth. Not only to they have bit but they know how to use it. I think the more thrashing grooves are where they really hit their sweet spot and hopefully they move more in that direction in the future, but this album is enjoyable, if you like Goatwhore more thrash moments or just simply miss big nasty rifs from bands like Meliah Rage, then you won't want to miss these guys , I'll give it an 8.5 , when I was in middle school I would have given it closer to a 10. This album comes out Sept. 25th on Southern Lord.

He Whose Ox is Gored : "The Camel, The Lion, the Child"

This Seattle band has been called progressive doom gaze, and it starts off more prog than not. Its instrumental at least in the first song , sounds like there might be some screaming off in the distance , but I also only got four hours of sleep last night. Nope it was screaming because it sounded like the dry Isis-like bellow that occurs in the following song "Omega". I can hear the prog , but not shoe gaze and it's way too up tempo to be doom up to this point.The slow down to a post- hardcore like sludge on "Crusade" real singing comes in. Its the monotone chant that indie minded metal bands like Jesu use , but these are harmonized making them thicker. "Zelatype" does bring a groove out of ambiance but it would really be pushing it to call it shoe-gaze, it reminds me more of a darker version of Minus the Bear. They have a great guitar tone and the album is really well produced. The build up they go into on "Zelatype" works well despite the yelled vocals coming across as just very typical for sludge. The drummer really knows how to get the groove and play around it.

 More slinky atmospheric math-rock slithers out on "Alpha".This album has more metal tendencies than it is an actual metal album.The higher androgynous vocal that comes in is very Circa Survive and at times this band comes across as a more mature and thoughtful version of the prog-minded emo bands that came out in the last days of Myspace. It does get heavier and the gruff yelled vocals return while the effected guitar swirls around it , but it doesn't have a sonic drone to it."Magazina" starts with them yelling like a any one of the Neurosis influenced bands who grew out of the straight up roar. This song is not as finely constructed as the previous ones. It's very dynamic and if you are easilly dazzled by doses of math in your big riffs then this will drop your jaw. "Cairo" is very smooth almost jazz like until the hammer drops and they stomp into the distortion. The synths off set this and keep an air of atmosphere to things . There is a slight minor shift in the guitar that gives a hint of doom to the guitar , but in a manner more like something Mastodon would do rather than someone with an altar to Black Sabbath.

 They close out the album with a brooding piece of ambiance that is darker than the bulk of what this album has had to offer up until this point. The higher more emotive vocals come in for a passage that swells and then they crash out with a roar.Calling this atmospheric sludge prog , might be a better moniker for their genre, though it's more math rock than prog, less Rush tendencies . I will give this a 8.5, it's well done, though I don't see myself getting much mileage out of it.

Nostalgist : "Of Loves and Days Ago"

It's hard to argue against this Seattle band. The baritone vocals like if the singer from Bellicose Minds sang for a shoegaze band. They have an incredible guitar tone and have combined an interesting array of elements, I can hear touches of every thing from Hum and Failure to the more shoe gazing side of black metal. Not that they go any where near a blast beat but they have a similar atmosphere. Being a product of the 90s I enjoy any band that can use samples as a narrative in the songs and they really contribute here. Vocals retain a similar tone on "Dreaming in Celluloid" , but chose different intervals that have more of an Agalloch feel in some ways. The guitars are masterfully layered to create sonic bliss in the bridges. The vocals harmonies are not over done and well placed when used.

 There is more tension placed on "the Derelict" and it bursts into heavier punches like some of the shoe gazey metal from the 90s, though in some ways it also brings to mind the they keyboardist from Type O Negative's other project Pist-on.  There is an almost Smashing Pumpkins like cadence to the guitar in the bridge going into the chorus. the vocals smoothly arranged in the verses and the more grunged out sections are still well blended into the bands overall sound. They actually have guitar solos."Still Frame" gives a grunge chord progression the more casual slacker swagger  and sets it to the soft to loud dynamic of  against harder indie rock. They dip closer into what bands like Nothing are doing on the more ballad like" Unbroken Take". That is not to say the ghosts of Failure are not still haunting this album as they are, but they are far from a Failure tribute band and infused their own shades of grey into this. The vocals are not an afterthought , but find melodies as centerpieces."Blast of Silence" is much more upbeat than what they have shown up on this album thus far. It retains their smoothness while taking a step toward more conventional rock. Their lyrics seems to be about the dark side of romantic entanglements. The bass player really shines through out the album, but displays his chops on the break.

As for the last song , the tom work leading into " the Void at My Feet" reminds me of "The Hanging Garden" by the Cure. It takes another turn, with the bass relaxing and wandering melodiously around the astral guitar riff that converges into the fuzzed power chords. Luckily with a little clicking I found the band's "name your price" as life currently has me too broke to pay the 8 bucks, though it would have been worth every penny and one of the few albums I would have put on my forced to buy list. It only took a couple of listens for me to give this one a 10. Good Job kids.

 

Addaura: "and the lamps expired"

The rain and heroin that once flourished grunge in Seattle can also be used as a back drop for anguished black metal. This band is connected to the grunge history as Tad Doyle produced this album. This sets the band apart from most underground black metal as their is a lush ambiance to the atmosphere of their atmospheric black metal, because the sounds are thoughtfully produced rather than a couple of mics slapped in the rehearsal space. This doesn't polish the rawness from their sound as their is still a harsh scraping  fuzzed to the guitar mixed to the left. They are like vampire bats latching on to dynamics with a feral thirst . The riffs swarm onto one epic point in the song than hang there before flying back into the night. This is done to create a sound similar to earlier Wolves in the Throne Room, before their atmospheric elements began to take folk leanings.

The vocals are screamed with a gurgled torment over the frantic drumming that blasts most of the time, but knows when to drop into the more epic half time bursts. This is more of a two ep than full album. One of the tracks is just a sounds of the haunted house type interlude. They start the second song with a piano riff that reminds me of Sigur Rios. The song titles are little haikus with "the sun shines today also.on the oaks of that bird hill"closing out the album. This song the bands shows they have an even more original sound that the more explosive opener. They do run back to the safety of the blast beats four minutes in and then come back to some creepy post-rock. This method never comes across as contrived like some bands who employ similar elements. Perhaps this is because the songs stay focused rather than wandering off into the sprawl.

The use of keyboards is one of the band's strong suits as they know what spaces need to be filled. They never over do stringed synths to make it sound like an old Dimmu Borgir demo. The keys are always very organic and sit buried in the mix until there is a melody that needs to be allowed to breathe. I would like to hear what these would do on a full length. This is just a little taste and lets hope they won't wait another three years to dish out another nineteen minutes of this tasty black metal. It is worth the dollar they are asking for on Bandcamp. Since this is basically as single I didn't rate it, but if you have to have one I'll give it an 8.5. They only draw back is after hearing the second song, it made me think how they played in safe on the first, but really the main problem is I wanted more than just a little taste, so that says something, even if they would have probaly done this by giving me two more ten minute songs, which I really hate putting on the iPod, but it might have happened if they were as good as the second song.

Haunted Horses : "the Watcher"

The new album by this Seattle based project comes to life by kicking into a dark tribal hammer of drums and guitars screaming out from the dark depths where this album must have been conceived. The pound of the band awakening here is only two minutes and bleeds right into the next song "Goetia" which sonically builds from the opener, with the low ghostly moan crooning desperately over the frantic guitar that builds through out, until the chant rises up from this dismal pit into a scream. Not unlike early industrial namely Greed era Swans. It works more on hypnotizing than creating some kinds of dance floor groove.

The somewhat Bauhaus bellow of "The Moon's March" captures the creepy Halloween feel of what most think of goth, but while keeping up the droning pound the album previously established but its to a post- apocalyptic funeral here. It even brings to mind the tribal brand of industrial craziness bands like Crash Worship once invoked, especially on the percussion heavy "Children of Light", though the vocals here remind me a little of Lard on the verses.

The intro to "the Void " is thick synth drone, followed by the low spectral vocals and percussion. I am sure some will try to write off some of the more minimalist electronic throbs as being kruat rock, or even cold wave, but it is more abrasive than either sub genre. The drumming is impressive and the fact it is so organic in it's execution is crucial to the bands sound.


The noise chaos of "Lumenance" is the first hint of the death rock tag that I feel is justifiable, though there is more Swans like pound to it than anything Christian Death did during the Rozz years at least. It is hammered into place in a manner I feel can't be done justice in the studio, but still the execution is convincing enough, am sure this is once of those bands you walk away think their albums don't do them justice.

The death rock passion of lovers comes across in "The Animist in the Gallery of Muses" , the vocals take on more emotive inflection and the dissonant bat cave guitar, jangles creepily throughout the tomb, they must have recorded this in. The goth moments are not for your pretentious Thursday night dress ups, as you aren't going to be swatting bats and throwing dead roses to this.

"White Eyes" despite its angular noise and chants in the back ground, takes on some of the more rocking dynamics, in the chorus riff , which pounds the nails in the coffin with a hook to the beating it comes with.I'll give this album a 9.5 though it might grow into a 10, as every time it pops up on shuffle mode, I remember how much I like it but it's so dense and angular, and all too often noisy that it doesn't nag at you to obsessively listen to it like most albums I rate of as a ten which I can just leave on.