Archive for the ‘Albums’ Category

Oscillator – OSC

Posted: 12 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Dret Skivor – 7th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Dave Procter is / has been involved in more musical projects than your mum’s had hot dinners. Having left Leeds for Sweden, not least of all on account of Brexit, he’s currently paying the UK a visit with a tour which features performances by no fewer than five of them – last night’s set in York was one of two halves, featuring the polite extreme electronica of Trowser Carrier and the whacked-out post-punk infused racket that is Loaf of Beard. So about these ‘Brexit benefits’… and the fear of taxing the rich for fear they’ll leave the country. Since they’re not paying much tax anyway, where’s the loss there? Meanwhile, we’re losing migrant workers who keep the NHS operating, who harvest crops, and flip burgers, AND we’re killing creative industries by making it harder for artists to tour here. A few years ago, there was considerable coverage given in the media about the country’s so-called ‘brain-drain’; there’s been rather less coverage given to the slow murder of the arts. The Guardian and The Independent have raised their hands in quite anguish over the killing off of arts degrees, degrees which are being targeted as not providing a route to a well-paying career, but in the main, this is happening quietly. What’s painful is that there’s so much raving about ‘small boats’, hardly anyone is noticing, and even fewer care because they’re too busy buzzing over the Oasis reunion or Taylor Swift. I’ve got no specific beef with Taylor Swift and her sonic wallpaper, but the point is that there is so much life and art and creativity beyond the mainstream. There is an extremely diverse array of subcultures, an underground that’s as big as the overground, only more diverse, eclectic, fragmented, and this is what’s suffering.

To return to topic, somehow, amidst all this activity and while in transit, Procter’s managed to launch both a new release and a new project via his Dret Skivor label, in the form of OSC, the debut – and likely one-off – album by the imaginatively titled oscillator.

The accompanying notes are unusually explanatory for a Dret release, forewarning of ‘Glitch, ambient and toy keyboard experiments. Play through decent speakers and headphones, the lows are LOW!!!’ The tracks were created during some free studio time in Copenhagen in October 2024, and, as ever, the CD run is minuscule, with just 6 copies. This, of course, is typical of the DIY cottage industry labels, particularly around noise circles. It’s not only a sign of an awareness of just how niche the work is – and it very much is that: no point doing 50 CDs or tapes when it’ll probably take a year to sell four – but also indicative of a certain pride in wilful obscurity. Just think, if the bigtime ever did beckon, those spare copies sitting under the bed may actually acquire some value. Just look at how much early Whitehouse albums go for, for example.

OSC is very much an overtly experimental work, featuring six numbered pieces – the significance of said numbers remains unclear, if there even any significance, although notably, they’re all zeros and ones, or binary – which range from a minute and twenty seconds to just over eight and a half minutes.

‘01’ is a trilling electronic organ sound skittering over long drone notes, and abruptly stops before the bouncing primitive disco of ‘10’ brings six and a half minutes of minimal techno delivered in the style of Chris and Cosey. It’s monotonous as hell, but it’s intended to be, hypnotic and trance-inducing. Zoning out isn’t only acceptable, but a desirable response. ‘100’ is seven and a half minutes of dense, wavering low-end drone, the kind which slows the heart rate and the brain waves. As the piece progresses, the rumbling oscillations become lower and slower and begin to tickle the lower intestines, while at the same time some fizzy treble troubles the eardrums. Nice? Not especially, but it’s not supposed to be. Sonically, it’s simple, but effective.

‘101’ is so low as to be barely audible: not Sunn O))) territory, so much as the point at which the sun has sunk below the horizon and the blackness takes on new dimensions of near-subliminal torture. The final track, the eight and a half minute ‘110’ is a classic example of primitive early industrial in the vein of Throbbing Gristle, with surging oscillations which crackle and fizz, a thrumming low-end pulsation. It ain’t easy, but it’s magnificent.

Procter loves his frequencies, just as he loves to be eternally droney, and at times Kraut-rocky. OSC reaches straight back to the late 70s and early 80s. OSC is unpredictable, and tends not to do the same thing twice. It’s in this context that OSC works. Embrace the experimental.

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GHOLD – Bludgeoning Simulations

Posted: 10 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Human Worth – 14th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Human Worth seems like a comfortable place for the latest album by sludge behemoths GHOLD. The band has forged a remarkable career to date, with each album showing development and progression, building on previous works – and as they’ve been going for some thirteen years now, that’s some significant expansion. PYR (2016) saw the duo expand to a trio, and Stoic explored the potentials of the three-way interplay in much greater depth. INPUT>CHAOS took the band in a rather different direction, fully embracing the avenues of straight-up noise while bringing, at times, almost accessible shades to the monstrous riffery that defines the GHOLD sound. So many bands spend their entire career recreating their first and second albums because they’re so desperate to appease their fanbase, and while that might be alright for acts who’ve sold their soul and their lives to major labels and likely have no say in the matter, any act who has artistic freedom who peruses such a creatively limiting course is likely doing it for the wrong reasons.

GHOLD’s unpredictability, then, is a strong positive. And Bludgeoning Simulations is bursting with surprises, and none greater than the tremulous piano opening on the first track, ‘Cauterise’. It’s tense and dissonant, but at the same time, soft, reflective… and then the monstrous, churning riff crashes in and lays waste to everything which stands before it. The guitar and bass are welded together tight to forge a solid wall of sound, and it’s delivered with attack., a raw, barrelling intensity. You don’t just hear the volume from the speakers: you feel it.

Without a moment’s pause, a thick, lumbering bass riff crashes in hard, and leads ‘Lowest’ into spectacularly Sabbath territory – it’s hard and heavy, but also captures both raw contemporary feel and that vintage 70s sound. Sabbath as played through a filter of Melvins goes some way to explaining where they’re at. It sound like abrasive hardcore played slow.

The ridiculously long and sludgy single cut, ‘Place to Bless a Shadow’ s a beautiful slow-burner, expanding everything they’ve ever done to a new and remarkable breadth. There’s detail here, and deep, dark, whispering atmosphere, before ultimately, after some sparse, slow-building tribal beats and simmering tension, not to mention vocals that start gently but gradually come to resemble the rage of Trent Reznor on The Downward Spiral, they finally go full Melvins sludge mania just after seven and a half minutes. It’s heavy, and it’s wild. And – alright, sit down and take it – it’s solid GHOLD.

‘Fallen Debris’ is a fast-paced, buzz driven blast, and a contrast in every way – hard, driving, it’s a tabid blast of a punk / gunge / metal hybrid that hits like a kick in the stomach. Whipping up a stomach-churning maelstrom in the last couple of minutes, we find GHOLD hitting peak energy, before the slow-churning Sunn O))) ‘inspired ‘Leaves’ drifts in and drives hard. It’d s heavy as fuck. And it hurts.

There are no simulations here: this real bludgeoning, from beginning to end. Bludgeoning Simulations is heavy, and make no mistake, there are no simulations here: this is fucking REAL. The album’s second monumental beast of a track is the groaning, droning, nine-minute monster that is ‘Leaves’, and it’s nine minutes of sepulchral doom fully worthy of Sunn O))). It’s heavy shit, alright, but the reason it hits so hard is because of the context: Bludgeoning Simulations is remarkably nuanced, inventive, a questing work that seeks new pathways, new avenues, and shows no interest in genre boundaries of conformity. ‘Rude, Awaken’ brings the dingy riffs that will satisfy thirsty ears, but again, there’s a stylistic twist that’s truly unique, in a way that’s not even easy to pinpoint. It’s simply something different.

Bludgeoning Simulations is inspired, and inspiring, and finds GHOLD conjuring sonic alchemy with a visionary take on all things doomy, sludgy, low, slow, and heavy.

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Recur – A Strange Loop

Posted: 7 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Aumeta Records – 7th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The ever-accelerating pace of life, and the endless noise of not just the Internet, but absolutely everything, seems to have given rise to an increasing popularity in the sphere of ambient works. It can’t simply be my perception: post-pandemic, everything has got louder, busier, there’s more traffic, the driving is worse and more aggressive, there are people everywhere at all times of day, and even country paths and lanes are chocca with cyclists, runners, and dog walkers even at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon. Never mind the fact that the entire world is at war, is flooded, is burning, rioting… fuck! Just make it all stop!

A Strange Loop may be Recur’s debut album, but the project’s lead, Tim Harrison, is by no means new to this, being a BIFA-winning composer, and for this excursion into analogue explorations, he’s joined by Richard Jones, the Ligeti Quartet, Jack Wyllie and the album was created using unique instruments crafted by Chase Coley. It’s not really ambient, not by a long way, and at times it’s quite dramatic, but it is immersive, in a way which leads the listener away from the turbulence of the everyday and into calmer waters, a sheltered cove where the tides are diminished, and there is respite, time and space to simply breathe slowly and regroup at distance from the noise, the constant disruption, the endless agitation and consternation. We simply don’t get anywhere hear enough time to breathe. When was the last time you properly relaxed your shoulders, filled your lungs to full inflation, and exhaled, slowly? When was the last time you truly felt ok?

The eight here pieces are slow, hazy-edged, abstract, immersive. Calming. ‘Oscillate’ delivers on its title, the volume surging and sliding unpredictably, creating a trick of the ear at times, with smooth, silken saxophone drifting in and out through delicate piano and washes of sound without any definite sound source. ‘Id Etude’ veers toward a chamber orchestra feel with picked strings and gliding notes.

It’s simultaneously focused and free: you very swiftly appreciate that this is a work where each composition is complex, detailed, the instrumentation varied, and the interplay between the instruments is both integral and remarkable. There are no fewer than thirteen players credited here, including four marimbas, two violins, two vibraphones, viola, cello, piano, and a host of more obscure instruments.

‘Nocturne’ brings the percussion to the fore to forge a hypnotic, beat-driven sway, before ‘Hieroglyph’ brings slow chimes, clumping trudging beats, and unsettling scrapes which evoke a mysterious, ominous sensation. This is Recur at their best: for all of the people playing here, they manage to create sparse, minimal, ominous, sombre works, pieces which are delicate, elegant, soft, supple, pieces which evolve, which shift gradually between places and moods, which make you feel… That’s it, really: they make you feel. From tension to emotion, from ease to unease, the scraping strings and swelling … ‘Iridescent’ is exemplary. It’s gentle. It surges and swells, there are moments of near-silence… and these moments are uplifting in a strange way, perhaps because moments of near-silence are so rare in all the babble.

Recur are unafraid of the silence, and, indeed, embrace it. We all need to embrace the silence.

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Various – The Downward Spiral (Redux) / The Best of Nine Inch Nails (Redux)

Posted: 5 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Magnetic Eye Records – 28th November 2028

Christopher Nosnibor

Magnetic Eye Records’ ‘redux’ series continues with another inspired choice in the form on Nine Inch Nails’ seminal release The Downward Spiral. The premise of the series is fairly straightforward – namely that a bunch of artists contribute versions of songs from a significant album to create a tribute rendition of said album from beginning to end. And then each release is accompanied by a ‘best of’ collection of covers of songs by the same band, where the contributors pick favourites ranging from greatest hits to obscure tracks lifted from the deeper territories of the catalogue. What’s impressive is that while many of the contributors to these releases tend to be relatively obscure, the standard of the interpretations tends to be high, which is testament to the curatorial skills of the guys at MER.

As a teen in the late 80s / early 90s, I was by no means alone in feeling like this was an exciting time for music, at a time of life when music comes to mean everything. Here in the UK, Pretty Hate Machine had created some minor ripples, and it was clear from ‘Head Like a Hole’ that Nine Inch Nails had something, even if that something did sound a bit like a harder-edged Depeche Mode. Landing just after my seventeenth birthday, The Broken EP was the most devastatingly brutal shock I had ever encountered. The thing is, it wasn’t metal – a lot of it wasn’t even guitars. And then, while the world was still recovering from that, Reznor delivered The Downward Spiral. It was – and in many ways, remains – the most fully realised, most expansive articulation of not only Nine Inch Nails, but of the human condition, in all its twisted, ugly complexity. It had everything, including vast emotional range.

The Downward Spiral landed at the perfect time for me, and as such, it’s an album I have a strong affection for now. Listening to this tribute version, it’s clear that the same is true of the artists who’ve contributed to it. That doesn’t mean that they’ve all delivered carbon-copy covers, and in many ways, it’s all the better for it. Kicking off the album, Black Tusk’s raging hardcore / thrash metal attack on ‘Mr Self Destruct’ is illustrative, in that it captures the nihilistic brutality of the original, and while it’s faithful to the structure, it’s very much about them channelling the raw emotion of the song in a way that they feel.

Grin’s take on ‘Heresy’ is dense and murky, dominated by a thick bass, and it’s solid. The chorus may not explode in a wall of rampant treble noise in the way the original does, but nothing could, so the fact they don’t even attempt to replicate it was a wise move. ‘March of the Pigs’ was one of the wildest single choices for a major-label release, and Sandrider’s version captures the song’s mania, while Daevar’s crawling sludge take on ‘Closer’ may lack the sleazoid groove of the original, but with the harmonic female vocals pitched against a wall of churning guitars, it’s still enough to bring on a bit of a sweat.

Author & Punisher – one of only a few of the acts I was familiar with in advance – present a stark, snarling rendition of ‘Reptile’. It’s an anguish-laden electro-industrial grind which captures the claustrophobic intensity of the original nicely, and credit to Between the Buried and Me for bringing more dark electronics and atmosphere to their rendition of ‘Hurt’ which is otherwise a pretty straight take – but what else is there to do? You can’t mess with perfection, and nor should you. The execution of the chorus is perhaps a bit emo, but it’s one of those songs that just hits so hard as long as you don’t try anything too radical. I don’t suppose Trent loses much sleep over the fact that the majority of people don’t even know that the Johnny Cash version was actually a cover.

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The counterpart Best of set packs quality from beginning to end, too, with notable names including Thou and Evi Vine. The latter’s choice is interesting, being ‘This Isn’t The Place’, culled from the 2017 EP Add Violence, and it’s dark and atmospheric, woozy and somewhat unsettling, making for a perfect homage and well-placed reminder that as much as NIN are a ‘songs’ band, their catalogue is bursting with cinematic, atmospheric instrumental works. And this is where this ‘best of’ set comes into its own: while there are, almost by necessity, takes on ‘Head Like a Hole’ (here presented as a stark, rolling, post-metal piece by Blue Heron) and ‘Terrible Lie’ (Orbiter actually taking it poppier in a 90s alt-rock way), there’s a leaning towards post-Downward Spiral material, from ‘Every Day is Exactly the Same’ (a song I really felt in my early years of corporate drudge) by Chrome Ghost and ‘The Perfect Drug’ (a song that felt a bit flimsy to my ears at the time but one I’ve grown to appreciate) by Nonexistent Night. Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree tackle ‘Over and Out’ from Bad Witch… Then there’s Thou’s savage version of ‘Suck’… woah.

What this showcases is not just how Nine Inch Nails have broken so much ground over the course of their career, and how significant a band they are for so many, but also how they have evolved over their time in existence. Trent Reznor is an artist who has often been imitated, but rarely matched, in terms of songwriting or production, switching his angle every time other show signs of catching up. The esteem in which he is held by fans and other artists is entirely justified.

Taken together, these two releases go a long way to reflect and represent just why Nine Inch Nails ae so revered. Credit is, of course, due to every contributor on both of these albums, and to the label for its curatorial work – but ultimately, it all serves as a reminder of just how essential Nine Inch Nails have been in the evolution of music over the last thirty-five years and more. This makes for a timely and fitting tribute to a truly pivotal band.

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Orphax – Embraced Imperfections

Posted: 4 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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17th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

…and still, the COVID pandemic continues to yield new offerings, even if some are repackaged, or otherwise documents of events which took place during that strange, strange time. Real live music events were, during those dark days, simply things of memory, which we could only dream of happening again – because, for a while which felt like an eternity, there was no end in sight. Live streaming events were as close as we got. I watched a few, participated in a handful, too, but like having beers on Zoom, as much as they went some way towards filling the gaping chasm that was social life, these things were countered by a certain pang of sadness and consternation, reminding us as they did of what we were being deprived of, highlighting the fact that there is truly no substitute for the experience of live music. I write this as a fairly ardent misanthrope who will sometimes go to quite exceptional lengths to avoid other people. But sharing a room with musicians and people who seek to become one with the sound and the experience is something altogether different. Unless it’s one of those gigs where casuals turn up and yack at one another in loud voices for the duration, of course. I find that this happens less in proportion to the obscurity – and / or extremity – of the music. The more difficult, the more abrasive, the further from the mainstream the artist, the cooler the audience. In this context, Orphax’s audience must be bordering on godlike.

Embraced Imperfections features ‘two live performances recorded during a live video streaming event during the early covid-19 pandemic’, originally released as Embraced Imperfections and Live in your living room, now, remastered, they come as a two-disc release. The title reflects the nature of the recordings – both performances were improvised ‘with various synths, organs, and effects’, and as such are inevitably imperfect. But… how would we know? Artists – musicians in particular – are commonly their own harshest critics. They kick themselves for the most minor flaws that simply no-one else on the planet would notice in a million lifetimes. But still, making peace with and embracing imperfections is a significant step.

The first disc – Embraced Imperfections I – offers forty-one minutes of slow-sweeping organ drone which subtly undulates and quivers, humming on, ebbing and flowing, but in the minutest of microtonal shifts. Above all, it’s a continuous sonic flow, and the shifts in its sounds and structure are made at an evolutionary pace. You don’t listen to music like this to be affected, to feel impact, but instead to be carried along, to feel it envelop you, to wash over you, to experience full immersion. It isn’t that nothing happens… so much as very little happens, and does so incredibly slowly. If listening requires patience, so does the making. It is not easy to hold a single note for long minutes at a time without feeling a certain pressure to ‘do’ something. As this performance evidences, Orphax possesses the Zen-like ability to resist any urge to increase the pace of movement – so much so that time itself seems to stall and sit in suspension here. Even the first fifteen minutes feels like a lifetime, and the secret to appreciating this is to stop listening and simply let it become the backdrop as you slow our breathing and allow yourself to relax. Remember what it is to relax?

The shorter Embraced Imperfections II, which clocks in at just over thirty-six minutes, is less overtly organ-driven and more constructed around an electronic hum, and it’s dark, claustrophobic. It also feels more low-key, and more ominous. It’s still another extended dronework, the sound of which is absolutely the immersive dronescape, the hovering hum that feels like nights drawing in and claustrophobic depression descending on the dense darkness. It’s a dense, scraping, soporific endless polytone that scratches and hums for what feels like all eternity. While far from accessible or easy listening, it does make for an immersive journey. And cat pics always win… embracing impurrfection.

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IAN – Come on Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing!

Posted: 24 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Human Worth – 17th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Ok, so Ian was never a cool name. Growing up in the 80s, I knew a few Ians. Ian sits alongside Gary, Craig, Kevin, Gavin in a list of names that have fallen out of fashion and always seemed to have connotations of lameness. Calling a kid Ian or any of these names almost certainly consigned them to a future or shelf-stacking or low-level supervisory or managerial work.

Not IAN the band, though. Come on Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing! Is a magnificent beast of an album, which, over the course of five monumental tracks – the shortest of which is seven and a quarter minutes long – combine post-rock crescendos with post-metal explorations and spectacularly heavy raging fire.

The first track, ‘Manuel’ is a far cry from Fawlty Towers. There’s nothing comedic about it. Instead it builds… and it builds. Six minutes in, it’s a raging, speaker-shredding, overloading tempest of all-pedals-on-full , heads-down distorting riffery that’s nothing short of annihilative. It’s one of those pieces that leaves you feeling dazed, and with no idea where B was in the route from A to C: all you know is that you have tinnitus and your chest is palpating and you feel like you’ve been battered.

Muttering voices – presumably samples – reverberate amidst a growing drone at the start of ‘Building Pyramids’, and there are hints of Amenra in this slow-burning build, which you just know will erupt sooner or later. And of course, as the tension builds, it becomes apparent it’s going to be later. The suspense brings an ache to the gut. You need the levee to break. But still they push on with the low, slow, crawling doom drone… 4:39: Bam!!! And holy fuck. It’s not simply the slamming of pedals, the stepping up the racket. It’s a full-blown sonic tsunami. ‘Fennel’ is an all-out slugging, sludge-metal rager. Does anyone really like fennel? Even Jamie Oliver? Really? That anniseedy flavour in a meal just feels wrong. I understand the anger… or something. During the second half of the song, the grindy low-end is contrasted with a squalling lead treble frenzy, and the impact is devastating.

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The soft, string-led ‘Selma’ marks a strong contrast. It’s supple and moving, until three minutes in when all feet hit the floor and in an instant everything is blistering wall of guitars and drums which ricochet hard and fast among the riff-driven chaos which has erupted. Shit gets heavy, alright. And then we’re faced with the thirteen-minute finale, ‘Not Erotic / Cop Film’. Initially, I’m transported to the time around 2005 when every other band I saw was post-rock and post-metal didn’t seem to have been invented. Both of these things may be true, but what is certain is that with Come on Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing!, IAN actually do a lot – the album is a genre-splicing and immensely ambitious work which explores deeply the interplay of texture and dynamics: at times graceful and delicate, others face-rippingly furious – and always nothing short of immense.

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Westenra – Burn Me Once

Posted: 23 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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5th November 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The early days of goth threw out a host of disparate elements, and there were some quite specific regional variations, too. While Leeds was a hotbed of the emerging scene, what was happening there was stark, bleak, with a certain industrial leaning, likely in part on account of its post-industrial wastelands and the kind of depravation which was rife in the late Seventies and Eighties, but was particularly prevalent in the North. It was quite different from what the more overtly punky Siouxsie and the Banshees were doing, and different again from the art-rock of Bauhaus. And it’s really their 1979 debut single –which was only partially representative of their oeuvre – which is largely responsible for the last forty-five years of the association of goth with bats and vampires and the like. Westenra do very neatly – and legitimately – tie these aspects together, hailing from Yorkshire (Whitby, to be precise) and with a name lifted from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which famously sees the titular lead character land in Whitby, a place which will forever be synonymous with the macabre, the haunting, the gothic.

Announcing their arrival in 2019, Westenra are relatively new arrivals to a scene that’s creaking with acts who’ve been going for centuries (ok, decades), and in that time they’ve built quite a fanbase, particularly in and around their home county, with a steady flow of releases and an active touring schedule, including some high-profile shows playing alongside The Mission and Theatre of Hate. All of this is well-deserved, as they spin their own blend of – as they pitch it – ‘Goth, Alternative Rock & Metal.’

‘Burn Me Once’ does feel like a progression from their 2021 debut full-length, First Light. The production is fuller, bolder, and while the intro track (Monitus) is a densely atmospheric sample-soaked curtain-raiser, it’s only a primer. The band’s massive riff-slinging progress is nowhere more apparent than on the first song proper, ‘Ghosts in the Machine’. It’s got guts, and hints of the expansive vibes of Fields of the Nephilim’s ‘Psychonaut’, due in no small part to the sweeping synths and chunky, hypnotic bass groove, which explodes into a cyclone of bold metal-tinged riffery, against which Luciferia belts out dominant, full-lunged vocals which draw influence from Siousxie, but which are entirely her own style.

‘Sweet Poison Pill’ steps up the atmosphere and the tension, serving up a blend of vintage goth with a cutting metal edge and a dramatic theatricality, aided by layered vocal tracks. It’s bold, it’s epic. There’s a lot going on here: ‘Time’ opens with skittering electronic energy before crashing into a crunching metal Siouxsie-infused attack – and then there’s a whopping great guitar solo which erupts seemingly from nowhere. ‘For All To See’ is a big, bold, riff-led beast of a track that packs the density.

Westrenra sure know how to slide between modes and moods: Burn Me Once is epic in every sense. It’s an album which radiates immense power, and there isn’t a weak track here. Against a densely-woven musical backdrop, Luciferia delivers consistently strong vocals.

With this album, Westrenra deliver on all their promises, and then some, with a set of songs that’s brimming with energy and brooding introspection. And as much as they’re a goth band, Burn Me Once is an album that sees them pushing out in all directions far beyond genre limitations. Ultimately, Burn Me Once is a high-energy rock album with dark undercurrents which course relentlessly, and the quality of the songwriting is outstanding.

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Amnesiak – Arkfiend

Posted: 20 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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15th August 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

In recent years, the field of doom has expanded in terms of range, and has, at the same time, become rather more populous. One suspects in part that because these are pretty fucking dark times, increasingly, people are turning to dark music to articulate their own challenges, and to navigate the world around them. One welcome development is the number of female-fronted doom bands with vocalists who bring not only powerful voices, but a strong emotional force to the heft of the instrumentation.

Amnesiak pitch themselves as ‘Alternative Doom Rock’ – a subtle but necessary distinction from the proliferation of doom metal, which is something rendered clearly on this, their debut album. Containing just seven tracks, the longest of which is just under five minutes in duration, and with a couple that clock in at under three, it’s a concise document – and that’s welcome, because unlike so many other releases in the genre, which can at times be indulgent and err towards the overlong, and leaving you feeling drained, Arkfiend leaves you hankering for more.

The instrumental intro track, ‘Deamoniacus’ is something of a trope nowadays when it comes to heavy music – and screamy post-hardcore – but here it works differently, with samples reverberating in torturous extreme stereo, the sounding of the muttering clamour of a fractured internal dialogue which crowds the mind with discomfort, paving the way for the slow, majestic ethereal grandeur of ‘Archfiend’, which blends sepulchral doom with soaring vocals which float to the skies. ‘Flamed In Solitude’ plunges into darker territory, with dingy guitars squirming queasily over loping percussion. Layered vocal harmonies contrast with the thick guitars and booming bass, and those vocals sit between doom and folk, elevating the song to unexpected heights.

The dynamics of each song is something special, and the stylistic interplay sets them apart from their peers. ‘Pillory Of Victory’ is theatrical, gothic, dramatic in a theatrical sense, but also in an intense real and immediate sense – and at two and a half minutes there’s a moment where the riff skews and things take a sinewy turn for the more discordant, before the riff returns, hard and heavy. And yeas, I’m one of those people who obsessively pinpoints the moment when a song switches, when it moves from ‘yes!’ to ‘woah, fucking yes!’ – and it all comes down to a second or so. I’ve digressed, but so have Amnesiak, until they come around to the churning riffery of ‘Bootlicker’, which is truly monumental. Everything comes together here, and this is track of the album. For all its dirty guitar grind and dark lumbering riffery, it’s majestic, epic, a song that fills you up and lifts you up with its power. The final track, ‘The Last Rattle’ is a perfect balance of light and dark, weight and melody, reflective and sad and uplifting in equal measure. The quality of the songwriting, and the attention to detail on display here is quite something.

Arkfiend places Amnesiak comfortably alongside Cold in Berlin and Cwfen – and that’s a strong recommendation.

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Mayshe-Mayshe – Mosswood

Posted: 14 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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16th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Does the constant flood of bile on social media, the relentless flow of horrible, horrible news, and the general shitness of both people and society make you want to run away, hide, live in the woods? It seems that during the lull that was lockdown – a weird period which threw so many people into a spin of confusion that we really need to accept that there have been long-lasting repercussions from what amounted to a collective trauma – something changed, as if the world shifted on its axis. Some of us were more traumatised than others, it’s true, and that’s for wide-ranging reasons.

Alice Rowan – aka Mayshe-Mayshe – has documented her own post-lockdown issues with long Covid via her social media, and how it’s impacted her ability to maintain her work-rate. But here she is, finally bringing her third studio album, Mosswood to the world, and it’s the perfect antidote to all the stress and strain of modern life.

She describes it as ‘a dreamy art-pop exploration of mossy woodland and Tove Jansson’s final two Moomin novels… Her music blends dreamy art-pop and electronica with rich storytelling and infectious melodies, with organic elements woven into all aspects of her music.’ You may ask why – why would an adult be so invested in a fantasy world which has such strong connotations of childhood? A reasonable response would be ‘why not?’ In the face of the horrors which surround us everyday, retreating to the comforts of those peaceful, simpler times is the ultimate escapism. And what’s more, there is a strong connection with all things natural here, evoking the woods so many of us yearn to escape to.

Mosswood is introspective and personal, but also a passage to perfect escapism, and Mayshe-Mayshe balances breeziness and an air of naivete with anxiety and inner turmoil. And the result is so, so magnificent, magical, a balm to all of the noise. It’s the twitter of birds, the scratching of bugs, the tinkle of streams. Incorporating field recordings for the first time, on Mosswood Mayshe-Mayshe really brings nature in. Single release ‘Mycelium’ is exemplary: the percussion is more like the footsteps of overgrown insects – I’m reminded of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach in soe ways. But songs like ‘Tiny Disasters’ push to the fore the tensions and the darker aspects of the creative psyche, and reminds us that sometimes, life is simply difficult to process. ‘I’ll be afraid again…’ she repeats, twitchily, capturing perfectly exactly what it’s like to fret, chew and churn., against a glitchy, flickering beat and buzzing sound backing.

In the main, Mosswood is the sound of dappled shade, of gentility and deep breaths – and the big reverb which surrounds Alice’s voice is less like a cloak and more like a comfort blanket as the listener is led into a soft, gentle soundspace, which evokes snuffling and scuffling, and, more importantly, pure escape. On ‘The Little Things’, she sings in breathy, introspective tones of worries – but the immersive waves wash those worries away.

What Mosswood really tells us is that happy, skippy tunes do not instantly equate to effusions of joy, or endless happiness. That said, Mosswood is the sound of freedom, of connecting with nature, feeling the textures of grass, of bark, of moss. Utilising an array of instrumentation, Mosswood is understated and so, so uplifting. There are so many layers, there is so much detail to absorb. But ultimately, Mosswood reminds us that nature is there, all around, and it’s beautiful and our lives are richer if we engage with it. Look at the trees. Touch the bark. Breathe the air. This is life. Live it. Celebrate it.

AA

Mosswood cover art for digital v2Mayshe promo bug - credit Isobel Naylor

Nadja – cut

Posted: 11 October 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Midira Records / Cruel Nature Records – 24th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

A new Nadja release is always cause for a pique of interest. Excitement doesn’t feel like quite the right term for an act who create such dense, dark, brooding soundscapes. Centred around the duo of Leah Buckareff and Aidan Baker, each release marks a shift thanks to the contribution of a range of guest performers, and cut is no exception – and this time, following the instrumental epic that was Labyrinthine (2022) – we have vocals, from not just Baker and Buckareff, but also Tristen Bakker, Oskar Bakker-Blair and Lane Shi Otayonii, among others. They certainly bring a lot of guests to a party which features just four tracks. But that is ’just’ four tracks which each occupy an entire side of vinyl on a double LP. As with Labyrinthine, these are compositions which span ten to sixteen minutes, and utilise that timeframe to maximum effect. They don’t hurry things, with slow, tapering drones interweaving, the emphasis on the atmosphere and the detail over the impact. And yet, despite this, or even perhaps because of this, the impact is strong, albeit in more subtle ways.

Their comments on the album are illuminating, explaining that ‘Thematically, cut explores trauma and physio-/psychological stress, as well as possible tools and means of overcoming these stressors, of which the music itself (sonic sublimation) might be one… Musically, while Nadja retains their signature wall-of-noise doomgaze sound, they also explore quieter, more introspective moments as well as new/different instrumentation, with harp, French horn, and saxophone featuring for the first time on one of the band’s recordings’.

‘It’s Cold When You Cut Me’ is stark, bleak, minimal. The air feels dead, it’s suffocating. The sparse percussion rattles along, but the drones are glacial. Five minutes in, rumbling bass and heavy beats roll in, and by the mid-point there are crushing waves of lugubrious noise worthy of Swans, but overlaid with trilling brass and woodwind, jazz in slow-mo, the honk of migrating birds and trilling abstraction.

But this is just a gentle introduction ahead of the thunderous grind of ‘Dark, No Knowledge’, which begins with atmospheric whirlings and even hints of Eastern esotericism, voices rising in the distance, atop wisps and rumbles, echoes and murmurings, before the dense, sludgy, post everything doom drone cascades in like a mudslide. It’s low and it’s slow, crawling like larva. buzzes and rumbles sustain for an eternity. You can actually feel your stomach drop in response to the bass frequencies.

The sound seems to get thicker and murkier as the album progresses, and if ‘She Ate His Dreams From the Inside & Spat Out The Frozen Fucking Bones’ isn’t nearly as abrasive as the title may suggest, its slow repetitious form is truly hypnotic as it trudges its way along.it possesses a rare density which matches its delicacy, and comparisons to latter-day Swans stand in terms of positioning the piece. There are thick, distorted tones grinding like earthworks through the airier overtones, and the contrast brings something magical and soothing. Then ‘Omenformation’ crashes in like a tsunami. The volume leaps, the density leaps, and you find yourself blown away by a sonic force strong enough to knock the air out of your lungs. The dingy, booming bass alone is enough to send you to the ground. The drums are immense. In fact, everything about this is almost inarticulable, as Nadja scale up the sound to beyond that of mere mortal beings. This is music with a physical force and a power beyond words, beyond contrivance. It’s archaic, occult, primal in its power. This is a track which treads through a series of movements, the last of which is crushing in its weight.

It’s true that cut possesses all of the sounds which are recognisable as being concomitant with Nadja’s distinctive dense, doomgaze stylings, and a lot of the vocals are as much additional layers rather than clearly enunciated words, and as such, add further depth – and a certain human aspect to the overall sound. The result is a work which speaks to that level of the psyche beyond words, which conveys trauma and physio-/psychological stress, and which offers a degree of relief through an experience which is wholly immersive and immensely powerful.

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Nadja2025

Photo: Hugues de Castillo

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