Posts Tagged ‘ambitious’

Dymna Lotva – Vyraj

Posted: 5 August 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Prophecy Productions – 7th August 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Earlier this year, we received news that Belarus metal band Dymna Lotva were in some bother when some of their music videos were declared by a court in their home country to constitute ‘extremist materials’. As vocalist Katsiaryna “Nokt Aeon” Mankevich explained at the time, “This means that fans from our home country, who liked, reposted or commented on these videos in the past are now facing a real risk to disappear into a prison. The rule of law does not apply in Belarus. Just one like under a video that has only now been designated as ‘extremist material’ might mean time in jail”.

Having fled the country, they’ve continued to work, and work hard, and are now unveiling their fourth full-length album to the world, following a succession of killer singles, including ‘The Boat of Despair’ , featuring Aaron Stainthorpe, formerly of My Dying Bride.

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And now, on the eve of the new album’s release, Mankevich has been charged with ‘extremist activity’, ‘financing terrorism’, and three more criminal charges in her home country. The Investigative Committee of the Sovietsky District of Minsk officially opened a case against Mankevich, who lives in exile in Poland, in June. She has now been summoned to appear in the Minsk City Court for a hearing on August 14th.

Mankevich explains how this has come about, and remains defiant, writing ‘It is clearly connected to my participation in protests against the regime and to my support for Ukraine. To me, it feels even somewhat flattering that this regime is still keeping an eye on us six years after the protests and five years after I was forced to leave Belarus. This confirms that I am on the right path and also provides me with a strong motivation to keep going. Please do not worry about me. Poland has granted me international protection status because of such political persecution. As a result of this trial, Belarus could seize all my properties still remaining in the country. Well, spending my money on creating music turned out to be a great idea after all. And to the Investigative Committee of the Sovietsky District of Minsk I say: Kiss my extremist ass!’

Some say that politics has no place in music or the arts. Those people are ignoramuses. Even as far back as Shakespeare, art has been the vehicle by which political commentary – and dissent – has been disseminated, often via coded or allegorical means. And this context is essential in understanding the band, what they stand for, and why. And, within this context, the arrival of Vyraj is an achievement which is nothing short of phenomenal.

Dymna Lotva are staunch in their rebellious, dissident stance: as their bio states, ‘their name means “Swamp in Smoke”, which relates to the atrocities surrounding the burned villages of Paliessie, which has endured bloody massacres and brutal conflict in the past. Their lyrics are often based on Belarusian tales filled with accounts of sorrow gleaned from historical archives, folklore, and new horrors that are committed in their home country at the present’.

Black metal is clearly an appropriate medium for all of this, but they describe Vyraj as ‘a musical kaleidoscope’, a work which pushes far in myriad stylistic directions, and it’s not an album built around protest and anger, but an exploration of what they call ‘Belarusian ethno-astronomy,’ explaining that ‘in Slavonic legends, the starry sky is associated both with the afterlife and with journeys, which becomes closely intertwined with the musicians’ personal experience of forced emigration’.

The album itself delivers on everything it promises, and more. The first track, ‘Zory’ begins gently before sliding into an almost Swans-like hypnotic groove, before finally the black metal blast powers in. But there’s a twist: the demonic howls and thunderous drums are paired with a sense of expanse that offers hints of prog bombast and symphonic glory. incredibly, it not only works, but is a complete rush.

‘Veha’, which clocks in at over seven minutes, is a multi-faceted epic in every sense, with some dainty chiming notes offering a melodic delicacy which contrasts significantly with the blistering guitars and throat-ripping vocals, finally yielding to a softer closing passage which borders on the ambient.

The aforementioned ‘The Boat of Despair’, which bears one of only two titles in English, is a definite standout, not least of all because it represents such a stylistic shift, introducing hunts of post-metal alongside hints of Amenra, and offers so much emotional depth.

It’s the range and dynamics of Vyraj which make it such a gripping listen, as you find yourself wondering what the next twist or turn will be, and amidst the flaming fury, there are moments or transcendental beauty which are truly elevating. There are still plenty of rabid, raving black metal blastout passages on offer here, and when they go all out, Dymna Lotva really do go all out with face-melting ferocity. But ‘Niamah Darohi’, with its sweeping operatic vocal contrasting with a hellish howl, a rolling piano paired with shuddering rapidfire kick drum is exemplary of the album’s immense range and the remarkable vision when it comes not only to the songwriting, but its execution.

The closer, the eight-minute ‘Return My Coffin Home’ is the very definition of ‘epic’, and reminds us that this may be the only way they will ever return home, at least as long as the current regime is in place. That they have produced such a remarkably detailed, intricate, and impactful work against all the odds is testament to the artistic spirit. Long may it continue to represent the instinct for survival. Whatever happens next, with Vyraj, Dymna Lotva have determined their legacy as innovators within the sphere of black metal.

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Gravity Machine – Ally The Truth

Posted: 21 June 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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18th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

The other day, my daughter came home from school complaining – not for the first time – about her English class, in which she’d been given ten minutes to come up with an idea for a story, and to plan the opening two paragraphs, and then perhaps another twenty to write the aforementioned paragraphs. She makes the same complaint about art and music lessons. “They expect us to write a song, with chords and a melody in fifteen minutes,” she moans. “Doing creative stuff just doesn’t work like that, Dad. How do they not know this?” She’s absolutely right. This is essentially where the distinction lies between making content and creating art, and artists all have different methods and work at different rates, often even between different projects. Sometimes, the thing just flows and – boom! It’s there. Other times, however, something just doesn’t quite click, and all the fiddling in the world doesn’t do it.

Ally The Truth, the new single from Devon-based alternative rock band Gravity Machine is, as they put it, ‘a track with a long gestation’. In fact, it began life in 2020, the same year they released their debut album, Red. There have been a few single releases since then, but it’s only now that they finally unveil this ‘epic tale of a relationship moving from curiosity to joining to fighting to resolution before finally hitting the universal truth of love and connection.’ That’s clearly the description of a work of art rather than mere content, and so it is that ‘Ally the Truth’ is epic in every sense, and not only in terms of its seven-minute duration.

It builds from an elongated drone with clattering drums reverberating in the distance, with a value lick of New Age vibes creeping around the edges before, suddenly, the song itself bursts in from nowhere, and we find ourselves in the midst of a sweeping amalgamation of alt-rock, psychedelia, and folk – a bit All About Eve, but also (yes, this is a bit of an obscure one, even for fans of 90s alt rock) a bit Eight Story Window (which is one way of saying, you should probably explore their album, too). It’s airy, atmospheric… and there are layers, and layers, and stages and stages – and with each segment, they step things up, until just a couple of minutes in, we’re being spun through a sandstorm of kaleidoscopic rock, before, later – much later – we find ourselves being escorted, gently, back down from the summit of the crescendo on a rippling piano and a chorus of voices. Such is the drama and dynamic of the song that it’s easy to lose the thread of the narrative – which means that you just have to go back and explore it all again. What a chore!

It’s not hard to grasp why this song took so long to reach its final version: ambitious would be an understatement. It’s compelling, immersive, atmospheric, exciting, and there is just so much happening. And all of it’s good.

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LandscapePhoto_Credit_Adriana Banari

Photo: Adriana Banari

Dawnwalker – The Between

Posted: 26 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Room312 – 24th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

You know you’re in ‘epic’ territory when an album contains just two tracks (or one, depending on the edition). With a running time of thirty-two minutes, The Between is inching into the bracket of monster works that includes Earth 2, Sleep’s Dopesmoker, or much of Sunn O)))’s output – or Swans for that matter – but still. What they promise is ‘a long-form suite of experimental metal that runs the gamut of their whole discography’, described by the band as “a guided meditation through death and dying”, which ‘takes liberal doses of ancient Eastern philosophies on life and death and pairs them with a modern existential despair.’

And so it is that the vinyl release features the half-hour long ‘The Between’ split across two sides, while the digital version features the track unbroken, and paired with a ‘bonus’ track in the form of ‘Remember Death’, which has a running time of over twenty minutes. In short, this is an absolute fucking behemoth.

And it doesn’t stop there: this material was recorded with a twelve-piece lineup. Yes, you read that right. Said lineup features contributions from Oli Genn-Bash (Codex Serafini) on saxophone, virtuosic guitar solos from Alexander Brown (Infected Dead), sound design by new recruit Jack D’Arcy and notably, the return of Dane Cross (Sacred Son) on vocals. No wonder they pitch it as ‘Dawnwalker’s most ambitious work yet.’

I feel a degree of preparation is required for this experience. Candles are lit, whisky is poured. And I’ve brought the bottle up to my office because I suspect that I’ll be needing a refill before the album’s over, and I don’t feel like breaking the spell by pausing it and heading downstairs.

‘The Between’ begins with a bell chime. It rings on… and on… hushed spoken word and hovering tones conjure a rich atmosphere. There’s a magical mysticism about it, as well as a slow-build as rolling cymbals swell and drones hang, thickening the air. Over time, the instrumentation shifts, and doomy folk transitions towards post-rock, then towards cinematic progressive soundscapes. Four minutes in, it goes large… and there’s no looking back from here. It twists and turns, and takes myriad unexpected paths, with a sudden lurch into sludgy guttural metal. With dark, growly noise sharing space with huge progginess, and the riffs lurching this way and that, there’s a schizophrenic feel which begins to take hold after about five minutes. Nine minutes in, a wild solo simply explodes, and POW! Moments later, there’s a sax break. It’s simply too much to process rationally.

Ambitious isn’t the word, really. We’re talking about an album – A SONG – that veers more or less between Black Sabbath and Radiohead. It’s nicely produced, but where does that sit when you’re confronted with such extreme contrasts? ‘The Between’ is a head-spinning, brain-bending experience.,

The same is true of ‘Remember Death’. It begins with haunting, post-rock picked guitar and spoken word, and introduces the idea of years and life itself being cyclical: it’s gentle, its calm, and it’s human. Lyrically, it’s deep, deep, deep… ‘I know it’s an uncomfortable subject, but it shouldn’t be’, says the speaker. And it’s true. Death in our society remains a taboo subject. But why? That as a species we are afraid of death is one thig, but our avoidance of the topic is simply wrong, and the words of ‘Remember Death’ articulate all of this magnificently.

The simple fact is that death is inevitable and we all shall die. Preparing a will or something is good, but simply an acknowledgement of the inevitable rather than fully facing it. Facing it is to live every day like it’s your last. And the fact is, it may be, because you never know.

Things start getting particularly brain-bending around four minutes in. by this point, the atmosphere is hypnotic. You’re invested. You’re open, vulnerable. “The existence that we have now is not real. It’s an illusion. What we see as existence is fundamentally mistaken. What we see and perceive and taste and touch and feel is all filtered by subjective elements… and thus, we do not see reality.” And there is some truth in this: we each experience our own reality. We see colours differently, and our reality is simply our individual experience. It’s why eye-witness accounts of an event vary so. Wildly different as they may be, they will all be true for the person recounting the event. “Through a perfect death, we regain that perception of what is real…” the narrative continues. And this is where it really starts to get difficult, and strange. It is a very, very difficult listen. It continues in this vein, expounding the principles of Gnosticism, while the guitars gradually ebb and flow. The instrumental shifts are subtle, and ‘Remember Death’ contrast dramatically with ‘The Between’.

This would have worked well as a double album, but equally ‘Remember Death’ would have worked as a standalone album. Then again, they’d probably prefer that it was situated as a satellite work, being so far removed from the main release and their other work.

However you approach it, this release documents the work of immensely imaginative band at a creative peak, and it provides much food for thought.

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Ba’al – The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here

Posted: 14 July 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Road To Masochist – 18th July 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Perhaps I’m simply more aware, but it feels as if black metal and adjacent subgenres are experiencing a significant moment. Sign of the times? Perhaps. There’s a new wave of all strains of metal, and it’s not simply loner misfit teenage boys and middle-aged blokes who still live at home, working entry-level jobs and playing Dungeons and Dragons on a weekend. In fact, it’s anything but, and the old stereotype no longer holds water here in 2025. Metal offers a number of things: catharsis through anger and abrasive noise is perhaps the most obvious. In case you hadn’t noticed, the world is a dark and dismal place. It’s also terrifying, and run by cunts. And people seem to be losing the plot. Social and moral boundaries aren’t so much collapsing and being torn apart from the top down. Metal offers an outlet that’s safe and harmless, by way of an alternative to embarking on killing sprees. Connected to this, there’s also a certain escapism offered in the domains of metal, which operates on a number of levels. Finally, there’s a sense of community within metal circles: something I’ve touched on a number of occasions is just how safe and accommodating metal gigs always feel. A room full of misfits together is some kind of utopia.

Of the current crop, Sheffield post-black metal quintet Ba’al stand out, and this, their second album, is billed as ‘their most ambitious work to date’. Of course: bands, labels, and PR always say that. But a thirteen-minute opener is nothing if not a clear statement of ambition. It begins with gentle piano, delicate, emotive, atmospheric, evoking the sound of 2004 post-rock, of Her Name Is Calla – and when the guitars crash in, it’s sweeping, cinematic, as much And So I Watch You From Afar as anything overtly metal. It’s not until over three minutes in that storm clouds gather – and blow in fast. In an instant, there is a flurry of blackness, frenzied fretwork blurring into a dense backdrop for scorched, demonic vocals. But after the tempest and turmoil die down, there’s a further segment that could almost be a song in its own right that combines elements of neofolk and shoegaze. It’s softer, more melodic, but somehow ragged… and then they deliver a monumental sustained climax that it nothing short of obliterative.

I’ve seen a few comments on social media dismissing reviews for not being objective, as if we respond to music based on its technical merits rather than on an emotional level. Those making such comments are clearly cretins, because Oasis are shite whichever way you slice it, but if you want objectivity, Ba’al deliver emotional heft with eye-popping technical prowess. Within these first thirteen minutes, they bring texture, tone, dynamics, detail. Where can they possibly go from here?

It transpires that they’re only just getting going. ‘Waxwork Gordon’ opens delicately on a drift of chiming guitar. Rolling drums join, and there’s an evocation of trees and dappled shade – for a moment, before the gates of hell open and molten lava flows forth. But again, there are passages which border on the edge of folk and prog here. Instead of diminishing the power of the black, chugging riffs, they enhance their potency. The eleven-minute ‘Well of Sorrows’ is, indeed, riven with melancholy, but also rays of hope beam through in the form of some deft playing, clean sounds and bright tones, which intersect with sustained thunderous blasts, while the album’s penultimate track, ‘The Ocean that Fills a Wound’ weighing in at thirteen and a half minutes is the very definition of epic. For the most part, it’s rolling, mellow, again more neofolk than metal. But when they slam on the distortion and go for the riffs, they go hard. Closer ‘Legasov’ arrives in a squall of feedback and forges a molten course to the album’s conclusion.

The band’s willingness – nay, urge – to embrace more than metal tropes, and to offer a remarkably broad sonic palette is integral to their appeal. These are songs which expand the parameters of metal in myriad directions. There’s a lot to assimilate here. Joe Stamps’ versatility as a vocalist is a real asset, but collectively, Ba’al’s capacity to swing seamlessly between forms is remarkable.

There will be some for whom their range is simply too much. That’s their loss. The simple fact is that The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here is an incredibly bold, and wide-ranging work, that defies narrow categorisation. It’s a hell of a lot more than metal, that’s for sure. It’s immense. It will open your eyes. And it will probably blow you away.

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Listen: ‘083 Petals’ by Orsak:Oslo

Posted: 14 June 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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The Norwegian–Swedish collective Orsak:Oslo returns with Silt and Static, their most emotionally intense and musically ambitious record to date. Set to be released on September 5, 2025 via Vinter Records, the album marks a profound new chapter for a band long celebrated for their introspective blend of psychedelic haze and dystopian post-rock.

Recorded spontaneously, Silt and Static captures the band at their most stripped-down and unfiltered, balancing atmospheric fragility with crushing depth. With tape rolling and no roadmap, the album emerged naturally, giving shape to a sound that’s both deeply personal and bleak yet beautiful.

“This is the most honest and emotionally charged record we’ve made to date,” says the band. “Silt and Static is not a concept album, but it still carries a distinct atmosphere that sticks with you. It maintains a fragile balance between friction and flow, born in this session that at times felt like it was on the verge of collapse, yet somehow kept enough momentum to find a winding way forward. None of the songs were written with a specific audience or genre in mind, they simply emerged while the tape was rolling. The entire album came about spontaneously, and we did our best not to get in the way of where it wanted to go. It’s not meant to be perfect, but it is meant to be real.”

“We hope there’s something, somewhere, in the space between the ugly, the fragile, the beautiful, and the unbreakable that stays with the listener as the needle approaches the runout groove on the final side of this double vinyl.”

Following the album’s gripping first single, ‘084 Salt Stains’, the band now unveils the second single, ‘083 Petals’, a brooding and hypnotic track that reveals the emotional tension at the heart of the new album. A track built on contrast and collapse, it begins with a sense of control before slowly disintegrating into distortion and desperation.

“For us, ‘083 Petals’ was an exercise in contrasts,” the band explains. “It began with confidence but quickly unraveled — a mask slipping, dignity hanging by a thread. It had to almost fall apart before it could come back together. Somewhere between muted cries and atonal screams lies this track.”

From the slow-burn psychedelia of their earlier work to the more introspective and improvisational textures of Silt and Static, Orsak:Oslo has never sounded more cohesive or more exposed.

Formed between Norway and Sweden, Orsak:Oslo has firmly built a loyal following over the years, with a sound that channels post-rock, krautrock, doom, and ambient psychedelia into captivating sonic landscapes. Their ability to stay unpredictable, while always sounding unmistakably like themselves has set them apart in the post-rock underground.

Silt and Static is a culmination of that journey: a double LP that breathes, fractures, mourns, and moves forward.

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PIG – Sinsation (Remastered)

Posted: 24 August 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Metropolis Records – 23rd August 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Even at their commercial peak, PIG releases weren’t all that easy to come by, at least here in the UK, despite some of them being on big labels with big distribution. PIG – the project of London-born Raymond Watts – is an act which can legitimately claim to be big in Japan while largely unknown at home.

My own first encounter was seeing them support Nine Inch Nails on The Downward Spiral Tour in Wolverhampton in 1994. I was in the middle of my A-level exams, but no way was I going to miss NIN. I didn’t even know who the support were, but witnessing the heavy grind of PIG, with pigs’ heads on poles at the sides of the stage, as their lanky singer writhed his way through a gritty set was an absolute revelation. The set’s opening song stuck with me, but it was some years before I would actually source a copy of Red Raw and Sore, on this new site called eBay. The debut album, A Poke in the Eye…. With a Sharp Stick and the ‘Sick City’ 12” were fairly easy to find at record fairs around 1994, as Wax Trax! vinyl was available in abundance, and often cheaply, too, but anything else? Pretty much impossible to find. And so it was that PIG felt like a near-mythical act, and despite having played these big shows with NIN, still no-one was really aware of them.

Sinsation was released first in Japan in 1995, and a year later in the US, and on learning of its existence, I got my local record shop to order it in, but had to wait literally months for it to arrive on import. Oh, but it was worth the wait. It delivered all of the theatrical pomp that defined A Stroll in the Pork, but cranked up the dirty industrial guitars and found Raymond Watts in top form with his extravagant wordplay. In short, it reset the bar, not just for PIG, but for what ‘industrial’ music could be. This wasn’t just hard and heavy, but also playful, witty, intelligent, and still dark, seething.

The cover alone is striking. Watts’ image is a standard feature on all PIG releases, but whereas more often than not he is depicted looking buff or brooding, the sickly green hue is unsettling – and slamming in with a series of orchestral strikes and a low, grumbling bass before hitting full-on industrial anthem mode on the first track, the six-minute ‘Serial Killer Thriller’ (the chorus of which provides the album’s title), it’s immediately apparent that Sinsation is something special (and not something sad…).

Admittedly, despite this being an album I’ve played to death over the last thirty years, apart from a few tracks being a few seconds different in their duration, I can’t discern any huge differences between this remastered version and the original: there are, perhaps, more details revealed in the mix, but then, the production on the original was impressive, and again, I’ll come back to that word, ‘detail’. There’s a lot happening; samples, snippets of bits and bobs, strings, multi-layered vocals… A touring member of Foetus early in his career, with JG Thirlwell involved in the early singles and debut album, Watts clearly learned much from Thirlwell, as well as his early involvement with KMFDM. Sinsation felt like the point at which he brought these two aspects together in perfect balance while simultaneously realising his own unique sonic vision. The result was a set of hefty, driving songs, exploding with ideas and noise, and so many layers, so much going off all over the place. It was bold, audacious, and while it’s easy enough to say that it’s a bit Foetus, a bit KMFDM, it goers so far beyond these points that comparisons are a diminishment of Watt’s achievements here.

Sinsation is certainly the first PIG album to showcase the full range of styles and compositional aspects Watts has in his locker, and as such, represents something of a creative peak.

While nominal single ‘Painiac’ (an early version of which was the lead track on a Japanese-only EP, and a video for which got a few spins on MTV on the album’s release) is a throbbing industrial beast of a tune, ‘Golgotha’ is a dark, semi-ambient interlude which sits between the driving snarl of ‘Hamstring on the Highway’ and the swaggering industrial-strength glam-tinged gospel-infused dark pop of ‘The Sick’, which would provide the blueprint for the PIG renaissance which started with The Gospel in 2016. ‘Analgesia’ is a magnificently atmospheric piano-led instrumental which incorporates elements of ambient and electronica and extraneous noise ‘Volcano’ is serpentine and sleazy, with some audacious orchestral work in the mid-section which take the bombast of Foetus’ Nail to another level, while ‘Hot Hole’ drives hard and heavy with pulsating electronics colliding with hefty chugging guitars and ferocious beats.

For the many who likely missed this the first time, this re-release provides the opportunity to make acquaintance with one of the definitive PIG albums, and for those already familiar, it’s a timely reminder of the incredible journey that has been PIG’s career to date, while offering the first chance to get it on vinyl. Almost thirty years on from its first release, Sinsation still sounds phenomenal – insanely ambitious, utterly deranged, and in a league of its own, quite unlike anything else before or since, even within the PIG catalogue.

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