TOLMINATOR REPORT: DAY 3

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Aug 142024
 

(Today we share with you Didrik Mešiček‘s report on the third day of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country of Slovenia, which ran this year in late July. It’s again accompanied by excellent photos, including another large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography. For the reports on Day One and Day Two, go here and here.)

They say all things come with their consequences. And that must be why I woke up with a fever on day three. Not exactly how you want to start the second half of the festival, but ah well. Time waits for no man and after consuming an obscene amount of cocaine (for legal reasons, I want to make clear that this is a joke) I felt normal enough to continue and start the day early for once as Patroness was opening at 11:50AM.

Tolminator does try and sort of make the days thematic by subgenres and so Friday had a bit of a stoner/doom vibe and the Belgians fit somewhat into that larger bracket. The band has only one released album, Fatum, from 2022, and therefore limited material but the vocalist is utterly deranged. For some reason his pants had one of the pantlegs cut off, he poured a bottle of ice tea on his head, and showcased a generally nihilistic approach to the entire show. At least you can’t say we weren’t entertained. Continue reading »

OBSCURITIES – VOLUME VIII: SUMMER BLUES & BLACK METAL

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Aug 132024
 

(Below you’ll find Daniel Barkasi‘s reviews of 8 albums released in July that he enthusiastically recommends to you.)

As summer continues its dreadful humidity-laden romp, I’m reminded of a bit from Robin Williams’ (RIP legend) Live on Broadway standup special where he talked about climate change. More specifically, “It’s beyond Global Warming at this point – it is cooking!” Just over 22 years ago, and he got it like only Robin could. Seriously, watch that entire special if you want to writhe in pain from laughter. Some of the references may be dated to some younger than dirt, but man it’s a good time from one of the funniest people to ever live.

Going from my “If I go outside, I’ll be peeling sweat-ridden clothes off like a layer of Saran Wrap” Florida life, a subject that’s been bugging the crap out of me is generative AI. More specifically, it’s application of generating album artwork – and we use the term artwork in this case very loosely. It’s not artwork at all, but a prompt-drive monstrosity that almost always looks like cheap junk. Continue reading »

TOLMINATOR REPORT: DAY 2

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Aug 132024
 

(Today we share with you Didrik Mešiček‘s report on the second day of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country of Slovenia, which ran this year in late July. It’s again accompanied by excellent photos, including a large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography. For the report on Day One, go here.)

Hi, hello, we’re back, it’s day two of Tolminator and I’m here again to waffle about some bands I’ve seen. Thursday didn’t start at the stage, however, because we decided to go for a swim instead, as Soča was absolutely begging people to go in with its beautiful greenness and its cold… coldness.

The little storms and showers have by now finally completely fucked off and it was well above 30 degrees Celsius for the rest of the festival (the water stays at about 15 degrees) which means you really need to have a dip here and there if you like living. The river’s level fluctuates a bit and this year it was rather low which also meant the current was very slow and people would constantly lazily float by on all sorts of floaties ranging from pink unicorns, tanks, massive ducks, and so forth.  Continue reading »

ZNOUS: “ZNOUSLAND 4”

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Aug 122024
 

(Our Vietnam-based writer Vizzah Harri prepared the following highly entertaining review of the latest album by the Tunisian band Znous, released in early June of this year.)

And now for something completely different. No, I’m not referring to the Flying Circus, the music and the band is anything but unserious. Znous hail from Al Rudayyif, Gafsa in Tunisia and were covered by Andy Synn back in 2021 as “socio-political Punk-Metal firebrands” not to miss.

Continue reading »

DUHKHA – A PLACE YOU CAN’T COME BACK FROM

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Aug 122024
 

(Andy Synn says that listening to the new Duhkha album is an experience you can’t come back from)

While a lot has been written about the various Death Metal bands incorporating more and more stripped-back, straight-to-the-throat Hardcore dynamics over recent years (some more successfully than others, I might add) much less has been written about bands going the other way.

Which is a shame, because the last few years alone have seen the likes of END, Incendiary, Bridge Burner, End Reign, Underneath and Umbra Vitae (whose latest I still haven’t gotten around to reviewing) all stepping up to demonstrate that the lines between the likes of Earth Crisis and Entombed, Overcast and Obituary, Cro-Mags and Cannibal Corpse, have always been blurrier than the “scene police” pretend.

And now we’ve got Duhkha, whose absolutely devastating debut album, A Place You Can’t Come Back From is here to put one more humongously heavy nail in that particular coffin.

Continue reading »

TOLMINATOR REPORT: DAY 1

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Aug 122024
 

(In mid-June we published a preview by our Slovenian comrade Didrik Mešiček of the star-studded Tolminator festival in his home country that was then set to kick off in late July. When it did kick off, Didrik was there, and below you will find his report on the first day. It’s accompanied by excellent photos, including a large Flickr gallery at the end, made by Katja Torkar/Bloodbat Photography.)

Summer brings with it many things – the heat, the impending dread of the next storm and how much damage it’ll do, but most of all it brings the joys of summer, and amongst those what’s better than metal festivals?

Slovenia’s metal scene reputation has taken a bit of a hit lately as you’ll know if you’ve ever heard or read the unfortunate word “Metaldays” but that beast has been fully slain and buried in what has brought nothing but relief to most people. Upon its grave, a new hope has grown, a young and green tree by the name of Tolminator, now in its second year after a generally impressive debut in 2023.

The festival brings a unique location as it’s based on the confluence of two Alpine rivers while presenting a fairly solid extreme metal lineup and what has become a proverbially pleasant atmosphere ever since some 20 years ago when metal festivals first arose in the area. Much like last year, I was once again allowed to pretend to be a real journalist at the festival and this is why you now get to – naturally to your extreme satisfaction – read a bit about what happened at Tolminator 2024.  Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MNAJDRA — “IN THE NAME OF THE GODDESS”

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Aug 092024
 

(Writtenby Islander)

Last year the mysterious U.S. band Mnajdra made a splash with its self-titled debut album. Granted, it was a splash in a far corner of the small tributary of metal that spikes away from the vast ocean of music on a broader scale, but it still sent ripples, especially through devotees of terrorizing yet surprising musical extremity.

We attempted to review the album here, from which this is an excerpt:

The music isn’t easy to sum up, because it draws from scattered wellsprings of black metal, death metal, sludge/doom, post-metal, and psychedelia — whatever works to create wide-ranging sensations of catastrophe…. [B]e prepared to have your head spun and your dreams disturbed.

It is a relief that the secretive people behind Mnajdra, who clearly had done other things before that album, decided not to make the record a one-and-done effort. Instead, they’ve recorded a second album, and we’re thrilled to premiere it today — on the day of its release by Fiadh Productions and Snow Wolf Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): MEKIGAH — “TO HOLD ONTO A HEARTLESS HEART”

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Aug 092024
 

(Writtenby Islander)

Metal-Archives currently brands the Australian band Mekigah “Gothic/Doom Metal” based on the band’s first four albums. Based on Mekigah‘s forthcoming fifth album they may have to put an “(early)” parenthetical next to that genre description. But what will they put in front of “(later)”? What kind of genre label does the fifth album suggest? That turns out to be a very tough question.

Mekigah itself describes the new album as “a purposely designed ugly, drawn out, raw, awkward journey,” with “no attempt or desire to either embrace the slow slow doom, to aggressively technically impress or to build upon previous motifs”:

“Everything is caught between worlds, as Mekigah itself is caught between worlds. Nothing is where it belongs as things are uncomfortably forced together through the sheer necessity of only gaining satisfaction via sonic self sabotage and harm, creating audial-mazes which then have to delicately be navigated through.”

What does this mean? We’ll find out together, through our premiere stream of this new album, To Hold Onto A Heartless Heart, now due for release on August 15th via the Aesthetic Death label. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MOON INCARNATE

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Aug 082024
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ excellent discussion with Christian Kolff and Matin Vasari, with the focus being on their band Moon Incarnate, whose debut album was released earlier this year by Iron Bonehead Productions.)

The death-doom coalition Moon Incarnate was created by experienced members of the German underground: Christian Kolff (guitar, bass, synths), the leader of the prog death-doom act Valborg and five other projects of different directions, as well as Matin Vasari (vocals, synths) from the death metal band Beyondition.

Hymns to the Moon is seven small fantasies on the theme of death-doom of the ’90s, the fruit of love for the legacy of The British Three, Tiamat, Katatonia, Samael, as well and others like them. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): ANOXIDE — “MORALS AND DOGMA”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Aug 072024
 

Twelve years have passed since the birth of Anoxide somewhere in London. In that time they have released a pair of EPs, a demo, and a couple of singles, but nothing in the last six years. And so it comes as something of a surprise that two days from now they will release an album via Ghastly Music, their full-length debut at last.

They’ve titled it Morals & Dogma, and packed it with 9 songs (one of them an instrumental) that explore such subjects as the influence of misinformation in a media-saturated world, inescapable cycles of systemic corruption within society, the exacerbation of socio-economic disparity and the devastating effects of austerity policies on the working class and marginalized communities, the resurgence of far right ideologies, and visions of dystopian futures produced by suffering and inequality.

Weighty subjects to be sure, and there’s powerful heft in the music too, but also head-spinning adventures, as you’ll discover through our full album premiere today. Continue reading »

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