Category: Avant Garde

The Round Up Tapes // Submission Edition Volume VI

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Burden – Burden

Burden

There is something quite charming about Burden and their atmospheric and doomed black metal. It could be the intriguing use of accordion which gives the music that rustic, old world aura that many medieval style bands lean towards. It could be the spooky synthesisers that add dimension and soaring notes to songs that are otherwise dark and doomy and it could also be the rough production that shows that this is a band still finding their way and trying to make their music heard is more important that it sounding shiny and clean. It all adds up to a record that is a captivating debut and one that shows enough promise to keep you engaged. 

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The Ruins of Beverast – The Thule Grimoires

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The Ruins of Beverast – The Thule Grimoires

The land of Thule is one that has long lain forgotten; a faraway place that lies in the dense and abstract regions of the world, a place that is unreachable by modern humanity and one that is used in literary texts and music to describe the unattainable. For The Ruins of Beverast, Thule could be seen to be a mystical and ice-covered land and these songs (Grimoires, or magical texts) are the keys to unlock the horrifying secrets that lie beneath the surface of its crumbling temples. A world in which a civilisation rises up to defeat those who would stand to destroy the Earth for their own gain with the help of hibernating Gods that have been buried in the deepest oceans and under mountains of ice. The spiritual aspect of Alexander von Meilenwald’s creation is wrought through ritual drum patterns and vocals that echo with gothic textures, chants that are dredged from the underworld and an atmosphere that is as cloying as it is fantastical.

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The Round Up Tapes // Submission Edition Volume V

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Dawnwalker – Ages

The rich, grandiose opening of “Melekh” sets Ages on a journey of discovery as the initial steps of the record move in rising waves of sound that ushers in visons of dark clouds stretching across the horizon to bring forth a storm. Of course, there is a calm that precedes the tumult and “The Wheel” does much to settle the nerves for what the future may bring with its gentle progressive melodies and beautiful clean vocal lines. However, as the song progresses through its eleven-minute runtime, the vocals become darker and jagged and the music turns into a foreboding weight. This is a theme which runs throughout the record and enables Dawnwalker to structure their songs as singular narratives that speak of change and memories lost to time, while the record contains an overarching story that pays homage to long forgotten rites and the descent of the world into darkness.

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The Round Up Tapes // Volume XXIII

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Annihilus – Ghanima

Annihilus are, for all intents and purposes, a black metal band, however this project from Luca Cimarusti takes in much more than the usual traits of the genre to create an interesting debut with Ghanima. With influences ranging from Frank Herbert’s Dune to grunge and noise rock, Annihilus is much more than the sum of its parts. Opening on “Epilogue,” Ghanima sets out its manifesto and overloaded, fuzzy vocals that Cimarusti screeches out from behind guitars that hold melody but only if you’re actively searching for it in amongst the debris of the noise.

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Roadburn Festival 2020 // In Isolation // Vol. III

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Roadburn Festival is somewhat of a new experience, for me, having attended in 2017-2019. However, it is full of extremely fond memories and experiences and many that I still think about today. I am a worse photographer than I am writer, but I like these photographs a lot. I created some playlists for listening to in lieu of going this year – Vol. I is here and Vol. II here, and last year I also wrote quite a big two part review of the Festival – Vol. I is here and Vol. II here.

Roadburn 2017

Amenra Roadburn 2017
Mysticum Roadburn 2017
Pallbearer Roadburn 2017
Schammasch Roadburn 2017
Warning Roadburn 2017
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Roadburn Festival 2020 // In Isolation // Vol. II

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By now, it’s clear that many spring and summer events are cancelled or postponed due to the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting our planet. One such event is Roadburn Festival which takes place every April in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

The festival is best known for bringing excellent music to a dedicated audience and this year they really pushed themselves and their curators to convoke an interesting line-up. Artists would collaborate, albums would be debuted and newly commissioned works would be premiered. It is a shame that the 2020 edition is now postponed, in as much of its entirety as possible, until 2021 but there is still much that can be done to support the artists who will be losing income over these coming months from missing shows and being unable to ship merchandise to some parts of the world. The health of the world hangs in the balance and this is the only sensible and reasonable action that can be taken.

Roadburn Festival Poster by Douwe Dijkstra Illustration
Roadburn Festival Poster by Douwe Dijkstra Illustration

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The Round Up Tapes // Volume XXI

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AARA – En Ergô Einai

Switzerland’s black metal scene may be small but it has outgrown the spectres of its past to produce quality black metal that looks to the future. With AARA, the country has a project that takes the core elements of black metal and pushes the composition and emotional clarity to its peak. En Ergô Einai is a masterful display of musical knowledge – classical elements, ecclesiastical tones, synthesised projections, harsh shrieks – that all come together to create a work that belies the relative newness of the band. It speaks of a band who are completely in sync and after only two years as a project it is impressive that such fully realised works are already being made. Although, with just how small the local scene is, it wouldn’t be surprising if the people behind the band were already established in other known acts (those in the band prefer to use pseudonyms and cover their faces with extravagant, Venetian masks).

“Arkanum” is a deliciously rich opening with Vindsval of Blut Aus Nord contributing guitars in the initial moments and creating a base that feeds into the bands textures beautifully – these first steps are the calm before the storm and when “Arkanum” reveals its full self it is in a whirlwind of sound.  The melodic channels of the album are divine and each song is laden with clear harmonics that give the listener something tangible to hold onto, something to guide them on the pathway towards revelation.

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Looking Towards The End // 2019

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It’s the end of the year and the end of a decade that was driven by change. A lot changed for me, personally, over the last ten years and I can only hope that it led to my becoming a better person. But that is subjective, as is choosing a list of records that I super enjoyed over the last ten months. There was a lot of music released in 2019 and a lot of music I just didn’t hear. There was a lot of music I did hear and never wanted to listen to again. There was music I couldn’t get enough of and listened to constantly. I listened to a handful of non-metal records that I really loved – these records can be seen on a list that will soon be published on Scene Point Blank. I also wrote a list for Metal Hammer but due to deadlines this was required to be finalised at the beginning of October and so my “final” list of albums I really liked has changed a little since then.

For those two lists I had to rank my choices and here I will rank only my top three – these are the records that really made a huge impact on me this year. The remaining records are all excellent, too, of course. If there’s a review of the album then you can find it by clicking on the band name and if you navigate to the record label then you’ll find the bandcamp page for the album (where available) in order to show your own support to these artists.

If you read anything that I wrote this year, then thank you. I hope to continue in 2020.

Mizmor – Cairn (Gilead Media)

Alcest – Spiritual Instinct (Nuclear Blast Records)

Schammasch – Hearts Of No Light (Prosthetic Records)

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The Round Up Tapes // Volume XX

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Imber Luminis – Same Old Silences

Imber Luminis is one of many projects from Belgian artist Déhà and while his output is incredibly prolific, the work doesn’t seem to suffer so much as become elevated through his preternatural drive to create. Of course, such efforts will sap the energy of the person behind them and so it seems that Imber Luminis, while dwelling somewhere between depressive black metal, atmospheric black metal and doom, deals with feelings of being overwhelmed and of suffering on a more human level. Same Old Silences moves through its horror via two songs that are split into sections, each giving weight and desolation to the next and it’s through these movements that Imber Luminis creates waves of sadness and depression that are so tangible it almost becomes your own.

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The Round Up Tapes // Volume XVIII

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Dead To A Dying World – Elegy

Dead To A Dying World do not do anything by halves and the six members of the Texan band are joined by several more players on their third full length, giving their already bombastic sound an energy that drives it further forward into thoughtful realms. Elegy is a beautiful work that truly seeps under your skin – from the opening simplicity of “Syzygy” and Mike Yeager’s deep voice to the closing moments of the monolithic “Of Moss and Stone,” – and the record takes you on an emotional journey with a deft handle on the quiet/loud dynamic and a roster of guest appearances that serve to add dimension and clarity.

 The relative serenity of the opening ode is entirely at odds with the aggressive pitch of the next track and “The Seer’s Embrace” plays Yeager’s voice against the screams of Heidi Moore and the gorgeous depth of Eva Vonne’s viola (an instrument really brought to the fore on this album) to create layers of sound that caress tenderly before snatching back any promise of safety. Each aspect of Dead To A Dying World’s sound is given space to flourish and while there are several members of the band, there are no overpowering moments to be heard – everything works in harmony, including the vocalists that have been asked to participate in the album. Emil Rapstine (The Angelus) adds a light, ethereal voice in the quieter passages that form the mid-section of the song and this voice works so well, blends so seamlessly into the band’s sound that it becomes an element that was seemingly always there.

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