May 132023
 


Haliphron

Happy Saturday the 13th. The alternative title for today’s collection is Mental Scatter.

I think I mentioned in the recent past that I’ve been indulging sleep on the weekends to an unusual extent. This seems to work better on Friday nights than Saturday nights, possibly because I tend to drink more on Friday nights to put the work week behind me. Friday-night drinking is also a little reward to me for mostly staying away from alcohol during the work week for the last two months, trying to correct for what happened during the depths of the pandemic when booze became one of my best friends.

Something else has enhanced the bear-in-a-coma nature of the sleep-ins: I’ve started weight-training again, which used to be a best friend but got rudely shoved out the door by seclusion, alcohol, and general malaise during the pandemic. The downside is that now I hurt all over when I wake up. It’s easier to stay in bed when you know that you’ll feel crippled if you start trying to move in an upright position. Man, do I hurt this morning.

Now you know something about my state of mind in trying to decide what songs and videos to recommend this morning — fuzzy-headed, distracted by aches and pains, very tempted to crawl back under the covers even after 9 hours of hibernation. Which is one reason why I think of this collection as the product of Mental Scatter. The other reason is that it will probably scatter your own mind if you make your way through all of it. Continue reading »

May 112023
 

(We present DGR‘s extensive review of the debut album by the Dutch band Haliphron, a big album that was released at the end of March by Listenable Records.)

Prey – the first full-length release from the Netherlands-dwelling group Haliphron all the way back in March- caught eyes for a few reasons. One of the main ones being the artwork attached to said release since – if our site background hasn’t tipped you off yet – we do enjoy us some skulls round these here parts. But there were a few others that managed to align the planets just right that, so even one of us keyboard mashers managed to take notice.

One of the other reasons was that solo artist/guitar wizard/former Aborted member Mendel did some work on this release, and the other, which is just as somewhat out in the weeds that only those of us who find amusement in pattern matching and statistics will enjoy, is that the God Dethroned circle seems to continually spread ever further.

In addition to that band’s guitarist popping up in Ghost Of Mirach last year, it will interest some to know that their current drummer also happens to sit behind the kit for the aforementioned symphonic black metal shenanigans of Haliphron.

Like we said, it’s certainly a whole lot of weight to throw behind a debut album and definitely a lot of stuff that NoCleanSinging afficianados are going to take notice of. If nothing else, it is certianly a testament to the various internet music holes that we love to fall down around this corner of the net. Continue reading »