Primordial – Exile Amongst The Ruins

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Chris Tippell

Over the course of an approximate thirty-year existence, Ireland’s Primordial have continually proven themselves to be a truly special entity in the world of metal. Very few artists evoke such powerful imagery; whether it being of mythology or the world closer to home, nor capture such vivid emotional range from desolation to the more uplifting whilst all the while feeling truly genuine. Their sound ranges from Black, Doom and more traditional Metal in a way that is truly their own and has seen them at the peak of their powers on the recent album run of Redemption At The Puritans Hand and Where Greater Men Have Fallen. Continue reading →

Cryo Chamber: Miles To Midnight & Ur Djupan Da

Posted on February 2, 2018 by Richard Benton

It’s starting to feel like I’m repeating myself here, but “Cinematic Dark Ambient” specialists Cryo Chamber remain one of the most consistently engaging and accomplished in any genre, and one of their more interesting qualities is their themed collaborations between artists. For a Metal label these would likely be little more than indulgent acts of vanity, but Cryo Chamber’s collaborations are always among the most distinctive and evocative of their releases, the artists combining their disparate approaches to create a shared atmosphere, often based around a narrative or themed.Continue reading →

Myrkur – Mareridt

Posted on September 14, 2017 by Steve Tovey

In three short years, Danish singer-songwriter Amelie Bruun has already achieved what many fail to do across a lengthy career, and that is to create art that is interesting and distinctive. With Mareridt (Relapse Records), under the banner of her Myrkur project, she is releasing an album where there is genuine curiosity as to both how it will sound, but also whether she will be able to stride further into a more “mainstream” conscience (the use of the term mainstream being applied quite liberally here… this is unusual and uncompromising music, lest we forget). Continue reading →

Alestorm – No Grave But The Sea

Posted on May 31, 2017 by Victoria Anderson

For you uninitiated, Alestorm is what us pirate loving, rum swilling, sing-a-long hullabalooers listen to. Their newest disk is No Grave But The Sea (Napalm). To be sure, there is some nifty metal and folk music happening here. Alestorm is fun and competent, and that’s a dangerous combination! No Grave But The Sea is Alestorm’s sixth full length album and, in fact, another winner in the pirate metal album genre.Continue reading →

Byrdi – Ansur: Urkraft

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Steve Tovey

Metal has always truly embraced the adventurous into its ranks; from its captivating and well versed origins where it proved like nothing else of its time to the hundreds of varying offshoots it presents to this very day, it is abundantly clear that metal is as much a way of life and thinking as it is simply a style of music.Continue reading →

Serpentyne – Myths and Muses

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Steve Tovey

The quickened yet subtle rhythms of Myths and Muses (Serpentyne Music), the second album from London Neo-Folk outfit Serpentyne, are the only aspect that would ordinarily stir the discerning Rock or Metal fan. It’s an attractive sound nonetheless, heavily rooted in traditional Folk whilst bleeding melodies of both Celtic and, more prominently, Eastern origin: the enchanting, mystical instrumentation and chants of ‘Alexandria’ and ‘Valkyries’ in particular.

The template is set from the start – samples and sequencing underpinned by both authentic and programmed rhythms, while melodies skip along the surface like a giddy yet graceful child. The voice of Maggie Beth-Sand is at once beautiful, delicate and haunting; occasionally adopting a narrative style yet soaring and lilting with fragile ease. Constant bursts of Electronica have more in common with Dub Trance: the pulsing lynns, manufactured beats and samples erasing some of the core sound’s natural charm. It shows adventure however, and affirms the varying influences the band blend together with no little skill. ‘Freya’s Firedance’ and the classic ‘Gaudete’ carry much of the traditional Folk feel yet ally this with subtle but pacy beats, French harmonies and Asian chanting which add a quirky life to the body.

The rustic charm of ‘Hymn to Cynthia’ has that up-tempo feel akin to modern Dance music and, while the inclusion of other genres is refreshing and inventive, it begins to grate after a while if it ain’t your bag. The horribly cheesy 80’s Synth-Pop of ‘Pastyme With Good Company’ comes across like late Genesis meets Bucks Fizz and is the prime example of that creative freedom going a little too far. The French reel-laments ‘Je Vivroie Liement’ and ‘Douce Dame Jolie’ and the beautiful ‘A Rosebud in June’ are pure fiddle-and-pipes Folk: jaunty yet eerie; the harmonies mild yet perfect and as soul-piercing as they are throughout the album; and it’s where the real joy can be found.

If it’s steel you’re after you’ll find little here. There’s enough about Myths and Muses, however, to delight the closet folkies among us, and it’s a toasty chillout after a hard day’s worth of crushing noise.

6.5/10

PAUL QUINN

The Mystical And Emotional – Steve Von Till

Posted on May 25, 2015 by News Team

If you were to think of a single word to sum up the attitude of Steve Von Till, that word would be dedicated. The sun has yet to rise in his hometown of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and at 5am he is already on the telephone to Ghost Cult, for this interview before he has to wake his children up, take them to school and drive the eleven miles to the Elementary school where he works.

It is this dedication, which has seen him forge an uncompromising trail in music via the bombastic and awe-inspiring Neurosis, the rural psychedelia of Harvestman and his solo work, steeped in the rich traditions of Celtic music and American folk. Considering Von Till’s hectic schedule, it is unsurprising that there has been little time to record the follow-up to 2008’s A Grave Is A Grim Horse platter.

“Making music with Neurosis is not a cerebral event. It is us surrendering ourselves to this beast that drives us. The solo material is my strange way of trying to honour those artists that inspired me. It has to have a depth of expression I require from music otherwise it is pointless. It is a challenge to craft something quiet and concise.” Indeed in the last seven years, Steve has been all but idle with Neurosis touring more frequently than they have for some time, running the band’s label Neurot and of course having time for family life it’s easy to see why new offering A Life Unto Itself (Neurot) took such a time to appear. “I am so bad with time. It doesn’t feel linear to me!” Von Till chuckles. “I wanted to continue to use the traditional Americana aspects like fiddle and pedal steel that informs my work, but also to use some of the textures I have crafted with Harvestman. Some of the techniques where the guitar sounds like a synthesizer. Other than ‘Chasing Ghosts’ which was written on piano and ‘Night Of The Moon’ which I wrote on electric guitar, the focus remained acoustic guitar and vocals. It’s the sound of me picking up a guitar when everyone has gone to bed and just seeing what comes out!”

It’s not hard to imagine Steve sat alone, guitar in hand coaxing out riffs before taking these skeletal structures to be fleshed out in the recording studio. Clearly a labour of love, created with absolute autonomy, Steve talked about what it was like to seek outside help in the shape of dedicated engineer Randall Dunn. “We’d met each other a few times. I have a studio at home so I could do it myself, but I don’t enjoy engineering. I don’t want to be responsible for capturing a good vocal take. Randall has a much wider variety of acts he has worked with. Of course he has worked with Earth and Sunn0))) but does a lot of stuff outside of our scene. We had some great conversations and his studio is excellent. It has a lot of vibe with a big vintage console. It was great having someone to bounce ideas off and get feedback from. We did recorded everything in just two days then we got the additional musicians in and did the overdubs. He brought in Eyvind Kang, who is an amazing viola player and composer. He asked me for some key words and ideas of what I heard. I gave him a few comments of what I heard, like references to the environments places and energies, very abstract stuff, but he took that and added so much. Sometimes the Viola parts sound like animals or take a Celtic feel. He had such a great intuitive nature. This album is a collage that occupies several different stories and emotional territory. J. Kardong our pedal steel brought a lot too. Not just a typical Americana feel. They read my mind, when I drove the six-hour drive home back to Idaho they really hit me. I realised this record was a brooding retrospective on my entire life. It’s traversing the mystical, emotion and mundane all mixed together.”

A Life Unto Itself may be a slight departure sonically from his earlier solo work, the lyrical content once again references nature as a metaphor with words like ‘Blood’ ‘Earth’ and ‘Moon’ all reoccurring. Greatly inspired by his rural surroundings, Von Till recalls what made him pack up his family and wave his home of San Francisco, California goodbye. “It’s like living in a beehive! Everyone is so busy and working on their next project. After my first daughter was born I could only see the filth around me. Needles in the street and condoms in the gutter. I knew I needed out when I was stepping past homeless people every day carrying a baby and four bags of groceries! If I didn’t give myself some space I was just going to hate everything. It has always been part of my personality that needs to be connected to nature. Humanity has lost that connection. If you live in a city you have to make a huge effort to connect with it. Now I live out here I have to make the effort to get to a city to go to a museum or buy some records but how often do you do those things? Pretty rarely. My drive to work is eleven miles down a country road and when I get home I am surrounded by twelve acres of forest. We have weather too here whereas San Fran is always so hot. Here you have to get your firewood and plan for the winter. I feel more connected to nature out here when I am a part of it.”

Listening to ‘A Life Unto Itself’ you find yourself transported to rural landscapes via the influences ranging from Celtic music to Steve’s take on traditional Americana. Neurosis love of a diverse cross-section of artists from Joy Division to Amebix to Pink Floyd is well documented, but as Steve tells us, these genres held his attention from an early age also. “My dad listened to John Denver and some of the more pop orientated folk music. It hit me who one guy with a guitar could be so powerful. I loved putting speakers by my head and listening to it. Growing up a metalhead and getting into punk you’d have thought that folk music would be the last thing for me when I was 15 years old and pissed off but I went back to it later via psychedelic. I love Tibetan monks and throat singing. Anything from another culture. I am obsessed with European folk traditions, they are where bluegrass and country come from! I loved going on that voyage of discovery. It all comes in circles the way people find these sounds and make them their own. I love the way people like Townes Van Zant and Gillian Welch have distilled these old traditions into new forms.”

ROSS BAKER

Wino And Conny Ochs – Freedom Conspiracy

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Steve Tovey

Robert Scott “Wino” Weinrich is the front man for the Doom Metal bands The Obsessed and Saint Vitus, Conny Ochs is a Dark Folk musician, and together they make minimalist bluesy folk. In 2012 they released Heavy Kingdom, and now they came together once again to produce Freedom Conspiracy (both Exile On Mainstream).

While Heavy Kingdom was really raw and unpolished, which had its charms but also lacked in places, Freedom Conspiracy is much more polished. This does not mean they have lost their feeling though. The songs are still simple and effective despite being more complex musically. Many songs on this album combine electric guitar with an acoustic, and the electric sound is sometimes really sludgy. In the title track ‘Freedom Conspiracy’ the electric guitar plays almost the same lines as the acoustic, which creates a very deep sound. Interestingly, the guitar in the verse sounds a lot like ‘The Mirror Song’ by Live.

The vocals also have a layer of distortion over them at times, which lends some power to the melancholic lyrics and melodies. I really enjoy the bluesy aspects of this album, such as the slide guitar in ‘Shards’. A real highlight is ‘Foundation Chaos’, which is a blues in 7/8ths in the verses and 4/4ths in the chorus, and as such it has such an unusual groove. ‘Invisible Bullets’ is also a very interesting song, the chords and melodies go in places that you don’t expect, and the chords and solo on electric coupled with primarily high vocals really sets this song apart from the rest from the album. It sounds a little bit messy in places, like they had not played it through a lot before recording it, but it is definitely one of my favourites. The album ends with another melancholic yet sweet song, ‘The Great Destroyer’. It is a great closer for this album about love, loss, and dealing with being human, and leaves you with a kind of quiet happiness, as if you grew just a little as a person by listening.

7.5/10

“Wino” on Facebook

Conny Ochs on Facebook

LORRAINE LYSEN

Solefald – World Metal; Kosmopolis Sud

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Steve Tovey

If you have had any interest in the metal underground over the last 20 years or so then there’s a fair chance that you will have encountered the dark, bewildering and occasionally baffling art of Solefald.

World Metal; Kosmopolis Sud (Indie), the latest album from the Scandanavian provocateurs, is as wilfully perverse as it is artistically diverse and challenging. World Metal is an all too simplistic title for a record that covers and extraordinary palette of aural colours from thrash metal that would not go amiss on a Sepultura album through Al Jourgensen inspired electronica and nursery rhyme folk.

It really is all here. And more.

In some camps, this is supposedly representative of some kind of avant-garde genius. Not in this camp, I’m afraid. I bow to no man in my admiration for bands and artists who push the artistic and creative envelope but there is a significant difference between good and bad art and I’m afraid that World Metal is bad art. Lots of people are going to tell you that its density is somehow representative of a deeper intellectual exercise and that the impenetrability of the music is somehow evidence of artistic freedom- artists doing what they please etc etc. This is poppycock of the highest order.

The entire essence of art is that it connects: on an emotional, spiritual and human level. Wilful self-indulgence is not evidence of a higher artistic intelligence; it is evidence of hubris. And there is much hubris on World Metal. I think we need to call this out now: being diverse and idiosyncratic isn’t, in and of itself, good enough. There isn’t anything particularly big or clever at throwing everything including the musical kitchen sink at things. By contrast, it is self-regarding and, ultimately, very boring.

I’m reminded of the now infamous conversation between Harrison Ford who complained about the quality of the script for Star Wars, and George Lucas: “George, you can type this shit but you can’t say it” said the laconic actor to his director. This was, of course, the same Star Wars that went on to change movie history and get an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay.

My point? I might have got this one wrong. I don’t think I have though. Clearly for some, World Metal will be seen as quite the masterpiece, full of ideas and inspiration. Not for me though. I’ll defend to my dying breath Solefald’s right to make whatever record they want, just don’t expect me to listen to it.

4.0/10

Solefald on Facebook

MAT DAVIES

Wardruna – Runaljod Gap Var Ginnunga

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Steve Tovey

Since his departure from Gorgoroth, Einar “Kvitrafn” Selvik set about creating a project steeped in the heritage of Nordic spiritualism which swept away any preconceptions the scene may have had when this release reared its head back in 2009. The initial chapter in a trilogy of albums based on ancient the Elder Futhark; the oldest form of runic alphabet popularised by northern European tribes, Runaljod Gap Var Ginnunga (Indie) is a compdlling journey throughout its fifty two minute duration.

That an album which features no distorted guitar, drums or modern instrumentation of any kind could capture the imagination of so many metal fans seems curious on the surface, but the nocturnal nature of compositions such as ‘Thurs’, with its mouth harp and homemade percussion delicately embellished with gorgeous hardanger fiddle, creates an experience which transcends genre. The ethereal vocals of Linda Fay Hella are breath-taking, yet over-shadowed by the sinister shaman that is Kvitrafn’s former Gorgoroth colleague Gaahl, whose trance inducing chanting lures the lister into the primordial depths of pre-Christian Norway.

The most apparent aspect of Runaljod… is how authentic it is. Much of this can be attributed to the use of real recordings of wind and other atmospheric effects which Einar himself acquired, rather than relying on synths. Acts like Finland’s Nest may have a similar approach but this work has more in common with the dark ambient genre.

Able to shift mood from menacing to enchantingly beautiful, the album has many stand out moments but is most rewarding when experienced in a single sitting and its strength lies in retaining a uniquely Norse atmosphere throughout which allows these unique compositions to really stand out. The instrumentation here shows a remarkable sense of commitment to recreating the sounds of the early Norse tribes and throat singing, goat skull percussion instruments and all manner of curious items are employed here to great effect. Witness the foreboding ‘Thurs’, for proof.

A majestic journey into bygone times, Runaljod… is a stunning piece of work. This vinyl re-issue should only serve to whet the appetite of fans awaiting the forthcoming third chapter of this epic trilogy.

9.0/10

Wardruna on Facebook