(written by Islander)
When you live with another person during “cold and flu season” there’s always the risk that one of you will get sick and then sicken the other a few days later. However, my wife and I gradually began getting sick at the same time last week and yesterday we both simultaneously had full-blown colds.
We’ve tried to figure out who we were both around outside the house when we got infected earlier this week (we’d hate to murder the wrong person). It was probably when we went to our local sports bar for drinks and dinner, but we know lots of regulars there plus the waitstaff, and we don’t remember anyone sounding sick so it’s tough to pin down the culprit. I suppose we could resort to the maxim attributed to Arnaud Amaury during the Battle of Béziers in 1209, but we’re both atheists so the faith-based solution doesn’t seem right. Oh well, guilty people often escape retribution.
I’m taking over-the-counter capsules. My wife is snorting something she found on the internet. It’s kind of like a controlled trial. I’m not putting her device up my nose but if she gets better before I do I might just have her squirt the mist all over my face.
I don’t have any scientific reason to believe that listening to music will empty my clogged sinuses or stop the hacking no matter how ruthlessly invasive it might be, but in compiling the following collection I did re-learn that listening to especially intense music can take one’s mind off one’s ailments at least temporarily, even when it inflicts its own ailments.
(The operative word is “temporarily”, which is why today’s collection is shorter than usual.)
PRISON OF MIRRORS (Italy)
In listening to the following song by Prison of Mirrors I began wondering whether my mind would survive 17 1/2 minutes of what happens in the first five minutes, but I decided to throw caution to the winds and find out.
The music is very dense, and it’s very devouring. It’s really not possible to think of anything else when you listen. You either have to surrender to it or run away, there’s not really a third option.
The riffing generates a high, whining, and writhing swarm of sound that’s so vicious and debilitating it’s disturbing. The savagely screaming and maniacally roaring vocals and thunderous rhythmic assaults are equally catastrophic. The music also dissonantly chimes and warps, creating perniciously hallucinatory sensations that are dismal as well as otherworldly.
But although the music is very dense, abrasive, and flat-out assaulting, it’s still possible to detect and become intrigued by the strange musing permutations of the bass in those chime-like phases when the drumming settles down a bit. Even when the music is scorching, the intricate layering of the piercing guitars is also detectable.
I mentioned the song’s first five minutes, but that was an arbitrary demarcation, because what I’ve described above doesn’t stop after five minutes. More dramatic changes than I’ve previously described do occur, but not until just after the six-minute mark. At that point the bass burbles by itself and thus sets up a phalanx of abrasively burbling guitars, skipping drums, and further outbursts of vocal mania.
There’s something strangely exuberant about that phase of the song. Later, the music slows again and seems to clang like gongs and wail like ghosts being lashed, the fashioning of yet another unnerving hallucination that grows more intense and shattering as time passes. (It sounds like a saxophone is wailing in the midst of that chilling dream, too.)
Speaking of ghosts, the next time the decibels diminish, when the bass woozily stumbles about, a chorus of apparitions seems to come forth from their hadean realm. The bass begins to revel in tandem with tumbling beats, and then Prison of Mirrors turn up the heat to a pernicious boil again, and the crazed vocals break out of wherever they were temporarily imprisoned. (As always, the bass provides another cool counterpoint to the searing madness.)
The song below is “Chants Beneath the Stunned Shrines“. It’s from an EP or album named De Sepulchris Occultis et Igne Profanationis that includes one other song, “The Devouring Fire of Demonic Doctrine“. I haven’t been able to listen to that second one, but I assume it’s also longer than average (all the songs on Prison of Mirrors’ 2020 debut album De Ritualibus et Sacrificiis ad Serviendum Abysso, discussed here in part, were long). I’ll find out as soon as I’m given the opportunity, because this first song is so damned fascinating.
The new record will be released on February 24th by ATMF.
https://atmfsssdtp.bandcamp.com/album/de-sepulchris-occultis-et-igne-profanationis
https://www.facebook.com/prison.of.mirrors.it
ERZ (Germany)
I installed this next two-song EP here for reasons I think will become obvious when you hear it: In some ways it’s a kindred spirit to the more harrowing and haunting assaults of Prison of Mirrors. But other aspects of the songs’ “personality” are also strikingly different.
The first of those, “Abtrünnigkeit“, burns hot and drives fast. The harmonized riffing creates swarming and swirling cascades of distressing sound around blasting and galloping beats, accompanied by rabid howls capable of scarring helpless minds. That’s exhilarating, which is all well and good, but at about the 0:45 mark the two guitars become more separated (high and low), and they turn that trilling melody into a real ear-worm, despite how distraught it sounds.
The sweep of the music seems to expand, and the lead guitar undergoes an electrifying seizure, though the underlying core melody persists. The band also introduce a feverishly skittering riff that seizes attention as long as it lasts, before throwing listeners back into the maelstrom. In one of the song’s concluding phases they adapt the melody again, making it sound more miserable.
The second song, “Abkehr“, is further proof of Erz’s ability to concoct unnerving ear-worm melodies, and to thread them through their compositions above and around viscerally compelling drumwork and in the midst of harrowing vocal hostility.
Once again, the music seems to expand and elevate; the whirring melodic riffs make deep impressions, channeling anguish in the midst of catastrophe; and the band also grimly stomp and stalk, and let the music chime, as well as racing and ravaging. There’s a vividly jolting interlude in this one, too.
The title of the EP is simply II, reflecting the fact that it’s this German duo’s second release overall, following the band’s self-titled debut album released in 2021. The EP was digitally released on December 8th.
https://erzblackmetal.bandcamp.com/album/ii
https://www.facebook.com/erzblackmetal
MOTLJUS (Sweden)
Motljus is the solo effort of Arvid Lundén from Gothenburg. 2024 saw the release of the project’s first recordings, a pair of albums, one self-titled and one named För evigt. Those were digitally self-released, but in the meantime the Spanish label Darkwoods reached an agreement to provide a physical release of the second one on January 9, 2026. That’s how I found out about it.
All I’ve listened to so far is “Blå ögon“, the one long song that’s up at the Darkwoods Bandcamp page for the album. It includes a couple of guest appearances — a bass outro by Filip Orrhult, and backing vocals by Jens Thoresson.
In just the song’s first 30 seconds it creates a depressive mood, thanks to raw and ruinous riffing that mixes acid, grit, and anguish, and a screaming lead guitar that seems to convulse in pain. The pain becomes more intense through vocals that shriek their torment. Like the first two bands in today’s collection, and especially Prison of Mirrors, the song also prominently features a very engaging bass performance and relentlessly variable drumming.
Of course, the music evolves as the minutes pass. Clean guitars pierce the ears against a vibrantly vibrating backdrop, and they seem to channel strident yearning and hopeless agony in equal measure., which is really what the vast, tidal riffing also does.
I suppose one might call this blackgaze, because of its dependence on the repetition of gripping immersive riffs. The union of abrasive and clear-toned guitars is quite effective in driving the melodic motifs ever deeper, with changes in the speed and intensity of the rhythms providing much of the remaining variety. But let’s be clear: there’s considerable emotional power in all the tremolo’d guitar radiations and slashing strums, and the ways in which they morph to elucidate changing shades of sorrow and despair.
If I’d had time and been less sick today, I would have listened to the rest of the album at Motljus’s own Bandcamp page and tried to offer some thoughts about the other songs — but I certainly plan to do that a soon as health and time permit.
https://withinthedarkwoods.bandcamp.com/album/for-evigt
https://motljuset.bandcamp.com/album/f-r-evigt-2
https://www.facebook.com/Darkwoods.eu
LEBENSSUCHT (Int’l)
I’ve put this next song last because it’s the last song by Lebenssucht, a band we’ve devoted a fair amount of attention to since their debut in 2016, although until last week the discography only consisted of an EP and an album.
What happened last week is that the band announced their amicable dissolution, and as part of their farewell they released one last song, “To Feed Or Be Fed On“, along with a video that includes photos and scenes from their live performances. Here’s an excerpt from Lebenssucht’s good-bye to fans on social media and Bandcamp:
…. After a long period of reflection and many conversations, we have now decided to bring this band to an end. Over time, we simply found ourselves moving in different directions – creatively, personally, and in life. Nothing sudden, nothing explosive. Just a calm and gradual realisation that this chapter has reached its natural end. We want you to know this comes from a place of respect and clarity. We still respect and care for each other. But for us, continuing Lebenssucht wouldn’t feel honest anymore – to ourselves or to you….
What we shared with you all will stay with us, those memories will never fade. And as we say goodbye, know that your support meant everything.
All of us are still active in other projects. If you want to continue supporting what we are doing, you will find a few projects below:
S Caedes: Capita Mortua
Irleskan: Angest, Détresse, EINST
Arboria: Angest, Towering
Basmu: Capita Mortua, Chris Gebauer Music
Ahephaïm: Angest, Goat Torment, Thanargonauts, Sabathan
Around here we’ll definitely miss Lebenssucht, but”To Feed Or Be Fed Upon” proves to be a very good parting gift. It’s a ravishing and immersive assault but also an anguished one, an engulfing manifestation of torment. Harrowing howls and guttural roars underscore the torment (and the rage) as they rise, fall, and spray blood.
The feverish yet multi-faceted riffing also magnificently rises and falls, like flood tides of ferocity and pain that rise, crash, and recede, pierced by vibrantly sparkling lead-guitar flurries. Meanwhile, the drumming is in constant flux, helping to push and pull the song’s intensity through phases of fiery turbulence and abysmal emotional darkness.
There’s no relent in the song’s adrenaline-fueling power, or in its overarching moods of fury and desperation — although the video includes a concluding segment of sound, a frightening ambient experience that phases into a sorrowful piano melody haunted by the exhalations of apparitions, indeed like a farewell.
This new song is available on Bandcamp, along with Lebenssucht’s previous releases. We’ll be paying attention to what the band’s members do in those other projects identified in the quote above.
https://lebenssucht.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/lebenssucht/