Submission Edition Volume II

February 20, 2015December 11, 2019 CherylLeave a comment

That whole thing where I promised to be more active with this kinda failed but here’s a couple of cool releases that you might find interesting.

Circaic – False Prophetic Roads

If you like huge, technical death metal with a side of melody then Circaic might be the band for you. Melding the darkness with the light isn’t a new tactic, but Circaic’s stab at melodic death metal is solid and will see them on their way to something bigger. False Prophetic Roads still has a hint of immaturity about it – some sections in the opening track “The Spewing of Venom” don’t quite hit the mark or flow as well as they could with the kind of cohesion you’d want to hear – but the young band have something here to be worked on and occasionally there’s a little hint of what that could be.

You can hear some tracks from False Prophetic Roads on their bandcamp page.

The Round Up Tapes // The Finality of 2014 Edition

January 11, 2015January 11, 2015 Cheryl4 Comments

2015 is upon us and I’m still trying to lock down things from last year. I have been terribly lax but my main resolution for this year is to keep up with the blog and with things people have kindly sent my way. These five releases are ones which have crossed my e-desk in the latter stages of 2014 and ones which deserve a little shouting about.

Atrum Tempestas – Néant

Atrum Tempestas tow a melancholy line on their first full length and Néant whispers with the pain of loss and the cold, harsh landscapes of winter are felt quite strongly throughout the desolate gaze of this record. “Quitter ceux qui étaient déjà partis” begins the album on a majestic and grand scale with the track floating on soft moments of sadness, bitter inflections of guitar and frost-filled vocals before “S’éclipser” moves into view with shimmering iciness and rasping, hoarse voices. The duo behind this Finnish project have created a record that, at times, is really wonderful yet it suffers a tad in terms of cohesion. Strong DSBM sections are matched by gorgeous guitar progressions that speak of hopelessness and sorrow which gives an emotional aspect and an aura of misery that Atrum Tempestas will do well to incorporate into future releases. Néant struggles a little in its closing moments and while the piano section is certainly beautiful, the way it has been worked through the music is jarring at best. Still, Néant is an excellent start for the band, and with time and work they could become something much more than that what we hear here – indulge in any case, for Atrum Tempestas are worth watching.

End Of Journey – A List

December 21, 2014December 21, 2014 Cheryl3 Comments

Ahhh, the good ol’d end of year list. It’s time, once again, to write down a whole heap of records that I thought were super good. But not before I reflect on 2014 as a whole. Let’s see. I lost my job – boo-urns. I found a really cool new job – hooray! I turned thirty – yikes! I heard some excellent music, I met some incredible people, I saw great live performances and I got to visit America with the money I gained from being made redundant.

Gilead Fest was honestly one of the greatest experiences of my life. I spent the weekend with my best friend and his lovely lady, and some of the most passionate, dedicated and downright amazing people I have ever had the privilege to meet. There are too many to mention, but for everyone who made that weekend so damn memorable, I thank you. I can’t wait to come back.

Usually I get super introspective at this time of year and this list is preambled with a whole load of shit that happened but I’m trying this new thing where I look forward and not back. So 2015, I am ready for you. I move house on January 2nd, my job is really interesting and there’s a career in there if I want it. Writing is going well and I’m already planning some really exciting things for the first few months of the year – visiting new places, putting on bands and seeing the release of a new Caïna record. It’s busy, but I’m enjoying life quite a lot right now, something I would not have believed if you said this to me at this point last year.

As is customary, here’s a picture of something really metal lest you all think I’ve gone soft in my old age.

The Round Up Tapes // Submission Edition Volume I

December 14, 2014January 10, 2021 Cheryl1 Comment

Often I have bands send me a nice email asking if I’d like to hear some music. I like that, I like hearing new things that I may not have found otherwise. Sometimes I have bands who I have been in touch with previously send me something they think I might like. And I like that too. What I don’t like is when I take forever to write something about those bands. Life is busy and I don’t do enough on here. The Round Up Tapes this time is five bands who have submitted themselves, or have been submitted by someone I have dealt with before. Enjoy!

Barbelith – Mirror Unveiled

Baltimore’s Barbelith attack black metal with a sly atmospheric tone that creeps beneath their otherwise harsh sounds and lifts their music into the more intriguing category of USBM. The band are raw where it counts and beautiful where it matters with Mirror Unveiled flowing from fast, staggering black metal to gorgeous arrangements of softer movements that layer the epic “Astral Plane” from beginning to end in light and shade. Harrowing screams from Barbelith’s frontman stand against the darkness and encompass the anguish that is held within their walls of sound. Highly recommended.

The Round Up Tapes // 2014 Was Bleak Edition

November 14, 2014November 14, 2014 Cheryl1 Comment

This third edition of The Round Up Tapes features a couple of records I really enjoyed this year that are particularly bleak in sound and/or aesthetic. Because that’s the MO of this blog and who doesn’t like to feel bleak now and then?

Black Autumn – Losing The Sun

Black Autumn have been featured on Bleak Metal once before, when the wonderful The Advent October was released at the beginning of 2013. That EP was very much a favourite of last year and so when a full length arrived, excitement abounded. Losing The Sun follows its predecessor in that the melancholy rhythms and soft touches of light filter through the darkness of the sound, yet the record also steps up and forward in terms of the emotional response that is elicited from the listener.

“Losing The Sun” begins the album with huge, sweeping guitar movements that give way to M. Krall’s rasping voice and echoing passages that create a tangible sense of deep, mournful regret. The softer edges of this first track are soon ravaged by the harsh tones of “St Elm’s Fire” that signal its approach. Those hard moments are countered by sorrowful guitar lines that cascade into the song and lift it past just being a wallowing, sadness-filled pit of despair and instead into music that provokes and intrigues.

This one man project brings much to the black metal table in the music that is created as Black Autumn. Gorgeous instrumentation moves across the work as a whole with the piano sections in particular giving a stately grace to “From Whence We Came” and in turn the song breathes with a measured acceptance that the journey is full of pain and heartache. The electronic pulses of “The Distance” shows that much beauty can be found in utter desolation and Black Autumn is a project for which this adage rings wholly true.

Losing The Sun, along with the Black Autumn catalogue, can be found on bandcamp.

Idre – Idre

September 15, 2014September 15, 2014 CherylLeave a comment

Forming in Oklahoma City, Idre are a melancholic, earthy and hypnotic entity. The former trio (now duo for the time being due to bassist Andon Whitehorn recently taking his leave of the band) are a delicious entry into the atmospheric sphere and their sound is quite difficult to pin down. Taking in elements of doom, sludge, drone and noise, even a martial beat (Nicholas Wojcik) during second track “Witch Trial”, Idre travel the path towards oblivion in many different ways yet their gloomy aura is coherent and each passage moves deftly into the next without losing track of the core of the band.

Vocals are sparse but delightfully gothic in tone with guitarist Ryan Davis adding a new sphere of darkness to proceedings with the recordings on this two track full length taking on a somewhat doomed country feeling at times – think True Widow or Earth’s latest for comparisons – and the sprawling, sculpted landscapes of sound the record conjures are truly mesmerising.

Yob + Pallbearer and Bast // The Underworld, London 08/09/14

September 14, 2014March 17, 2019 CherylLeave a comment

Occasionally a live show comes along which proves to be utterly compulsory to attend. For those that miss out on said event, the jealously is all-consuming, for those who were lucky enough to grab a ticket early on, the glow of happiness is hard to ignore. One such show was Yob’s appearance in London along with the phenomenal Pallbearer (for many, the main draw) and local doomsters Bast at The Underworld in Camden.

Sunwølf – Beholden To Nothing and No One

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 Cheryl1 Comment

The duo behind Sunwølf haven’t been creating music as this project for all too long, with their first record Beyond The Sun coming out less than two years ago, yet these two gents are far from strangers and their musical lineage goes back much further than 2012s initial offering.

Beholden To Nothing and No One is an incredibly dense record and the double disc format serves to separate the harsher, heavier tones of the band from the more ambient structures that they are capable. Each side has its own feel, language and sound and it’s truly astonishing that so much work has fallen from the minds of only two people. The record begins with the gorgeous “In The Darkened River I Found The Silence Loom” with Sunwølf incorporating vocals on their music for the first time.

Grey Widow – I

April 21, 2014April 21, 2014 CherylLeave a comment

Grey Widow have been around for barely a year (members have been/are in Dopefight, Parole and Evisorax) and their debut, I, is a record that belies that freshness – although the record itself is far from clean and pure. This monolithic beast of an album is slow, sludgy and disgustingly dark. It’s huge in tone and the UK quartet have created an album of complete misanthropic intensity and an experience that is harrowing, dirty and agonising.

2013. So black metal. Many doom. Such death metal. Wow.

December 30, 2013January 21, 2014 Cheryl3 Comments

2013 huh? It’s been……it’s not been great to tell the truth. It’s been tough. It’s been wonderful at times, that’s for sure but I’m pretty glad that it’s over and I’m hoping that 2014 brings something more than “fuck, what do I do now?” to the table.

I’ve done some really cool stuff this year. I covered my first big outdoor metal festival for Metal Hammer which was such fun and really great to experience. I’ve done a few smaller events and seen a lot of my favourite bands and made new connections with new faces and if you’d have told me even two years ago that this is what I’d be doing now, I would have punched you square in the jaw. I’ve come out of myself a lot these last few years and gained a lot of confidence in dealing with new and unfamiliar situations. It sounds silly, but I can walk into a pub alone and not be frightened that I don’t know anyone or I can’t find anyone and it’s because of dealing with so many new things that my brain can handle that.

Bleak Metal has gone on to new ventures and that’s incredible. I put on a rock show here and there and although it’s something I’ve always been interested in doing, I never thought that it’s something I could pull off. Huge thanks goes to Zac of Oblivionized for answering all my questions and letting me see how these things work and helping in more ways than I can put into words. The first show of 2014 is booked and I have plans for a lot of cool things in the coming twelve months, fingers crossed they can be organised.

I started to manage a band. What? We’re still not sure how it really works but Caïna is doing really well right now and for that reason I couldn’t include the incredible Litanies of Abjection.

Bleak Metal

None more bleak.

Tag: Doom