Posts Tagged ‘dark’

Lunar Twin – Disappear into the earth

Posted: 10 May 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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6th May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s been fully three years since we last heard from Lunar Twin, and 2023 seems like a long time in terms of the scheme of things. Aurora was a showcase of shimmering blissed-out melancholia. Yes, a contradiction in terms, but one that made sense, with rippling synths, as well as sweeping waves which hinted at Disintegration era Cure paired with elements of sparse electropop and the softer end of the dance spectrum. It was the sound of the beach, but also of the sun setting, and bringing with it a low ebb, a ponderous emptiness, Bryce Boudreau’s vocals evoking the spirit of Mark Lanegan over a shuffling desert electro backing. Before that, Ghost Moon Ritual explored recent bereavements, and plundered particularly bleak terrain.

‘Disappear into the earth’ doesn’t deviate a million miles from this template, and that’s all to the good. It’s a shade more uptempo than much of both Ghost Moon Ritual and Aurora, an undulating bass groove paired with a vintage electro beat reminiscent of The Human League.

But beneath the seeming optimism of the lyrics and the buoyant retro drum rolls – we’re talking circa ’83 pow pow pow pseudo toms here – there’s a certain sense of pessimism, a low-level gloom. As such, this is a song which presents a duality. It’s not quite the quintessential sex and death equation, but most definitely delves into the territory whereby optimism and pessimism, fatalism and euphoria collide at a crossroads that’s both literal and philosophical.

‘gonna lay right down it the dirt disappear in the earth we are forever when it rains when it’s dark the spirits in your heart, we can be anything that we can dream’, Boudreau sort of rasps, sort of rumbles, sort of croons: again, the delivery hangs in some sort of intersectional space.

‘Disappear into the earth’ is a deft slice of dark electropop which captures the vintage vibe to a rare extent, but goes far beyond that. The form and delivery is low-key, understated, but it lands, coming in below the radar and resonating in subtle ways. It’s a welcome return.

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Kreng – Wormhole

Posted: 5 May 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Miasmah – 7th May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

“What does a trip towards another world sound like? We’re about to find out. The master of tension, melancholy, and the deranged is back after a long period working in the worlds of theatre and cinema. Last seen on Miasmah with the grief stricken The Summoner, Kreng now returns with Wormhole, following closer in the footsteps of the cult classics L’Autopsie Phénoménale de Dieu and Grimoire.”

This is how we’re introduced to the first new album from Kreng in a decade, and Wormhole is appropriately titled. Immediately, the listener is drawn into a hinterland of suspense and ominous tension, a path beset by ever thickening trees and a creeping mist. You feel an urge to retreat, but as early as the second composition, the dark, jittery ‘Nachtzweet’, with dank creaking sounds and dissonant piano notes which are the pure quintessence of ‘eerie’, you find you’re incapable of turning back. The only way is forward, further into the forest – it doesn’t seem to be enchanted, but something isn’t right either: something is lurking, and it feels menacing, sinister, dangerous. Your heart’s in your mouth, and you’re no longer in control of your decisions and all you can do is creep onwards, down the wormhole, riven with trepidation.

It’s like the soundtrack to a film, but it’s hard to imagine that the visuals could be anywhere near as unsettling as this accompaniment. In the same way that films are rarely as scary as books, because films render and thus create boundaries when it comes to expressing The Terrible Thing, the monster, the ghost, the object of fear, the mind’s capacity to experience fear goes far beyond the visual. As such, a strong soundtrack has the capacity to heighten the fear factor of a movie. But the soundtrack alone, when the only visuals are those conjured in the mind’s eye… the scope is without boundaries. And these compositions distil the very essence of fear, of dread.

Many of the titles offer little by way of clues as to their meaning, or the scenes they would accompany if this were a film. ‘Cepheid’ is an American molecular diagnostics company, and what’s so scary about that? You may well ask. It also happens to be a pulsating star, which changes not only in brightness, but also diameter and temperature, too, which is in keeping with the space journey theme of the album’s title and other tracks, such as ‘Vacuum’.

The piano-led ‘Entropy’ is a soaring choral work, albeit one that elicits thoughts of death and afterlife. And if ‘To Yield’ is soothing, and allows the listener time and space to recover their breath and the heart to return to a more normal rate, the aforementioned ‘Vacuum’ is five and a half minutes of suffocating fear, and ‘Donker’ is an extended exercise in orientation-twisting, brain-bending torture.

In places conventionally ‘filmic’, with strings and piano taking the lead, there are extended passages of creeping dark ambience, the sonic origins of which are unclear, adding to the unease of the pieces – because so much fear stems from the unknown, the unseen, the inexplicable. Sounds of unknown and inexplicable origin are inherently disturbing: if you know that wail is from an owl, you can compartmentalise it, accept that it’s an owl, and move on. When you don’t know what that haunting sound it… it gives you the willies.

Wormhole is creepy, unsettling. It chills more than it thrills, and instils a deep discomfort. Close your eyes and breathe slowly. Feel the fear. Embrace it.

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Hellripper – Coronach

Posted: 3 May 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Century Media – 27th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Pentagram-shaped goat heads adorn Hellripper’s website and Bandcamp. “All hail the goat” is a band slogan of sorts, and is emblazoned on the body of the compact disc, which depicts a goat in an approximation of a lion rampant stance, thus combining James McBain’s strongly Scottish identity (the album comes in ‘Wild Thistle’ pink, ‘Saltaire’ blue, ;’Highland Mist’ grey and ‘Black Cuillin’ vinyl editions’ and Baphomet, adopted as something of a mascot within the black metal community since the dawn of the genre with Venom’s Black Metal in 1982, and Bathory’s genre-defining eponymous debut in ’84. there’s a giant goat forged from mist and cloud on the moody, mountainous cover art, too.

The ‘one-man black/speed metal band formed by Scottish musician James McBain in 2014’ has been crowned ‘Scotland’s King of the arcane mosh’ by Metal Hammer magazine, with a style which is very much rooted in 80s black metal, and, as the Hellripper website states, ‘heavily inspired by witchcraft and the supernatural, Hellripper is also deeply rooted in its Scottish origins, using the landscape and historical events as a backdrop for its lyrics and imagery’.

Coronach is Hellripper’s fourth full-length album, and features eight riff-ripping songs with a total run time of forty-four solo-centric minutes. The instant ‘Hunderprest’ powers in at a hundred miles an hour, McBain is straight in with the flamboyant fretwork, and some of it is just wildly excessive. ‘Less is more’ is not a motto Hellripper abide by. But the riffs themselves are killer, and she snarling, rasping vocals may be of the genre, but add to the gnarliness of the dark whirlwinds which blast through each and every song. The pace is relentlessly fast and furious and the style cohesive throughout.

That said, as much as I say that this is ‘of the genre’, Coronach does show ambition and awareness when it comes to composition and arrangement: ‘The Art of Resurrection’ starts with a delicate, atmospheric piano passage, while the title track includes Sir Walter Scott’s poem of the same title (Scott was Scottish) and bagpipes (of course).

‘Baobhan Sith (Waltz of the Damned)’, the first of the album’s two bona fide epics, with a span of six and a half minutes, rounds of the first half, and with the fancy fretwork reined in (a bit, at least) in favour of driving riffery, it’s a powerful, pounding beast of a tune, while the title track, which draws the curtain on the album, is a towering, monumental nine-minute monster which goes all-out anthemic and which flies the flag of tartan black metal with pride.

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Trowser Carrier + Fern – Helping Old Ladies Cross The Road

Posted: 1 May 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Dret Skivor – 1st May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Trowser Carrier – formerly of Leeds and now of Värmland, Sweden – is a genre unto himself, being, to my knowledge the sole exponent of polite harsh noise on the planet. And if that seems like an oxymoron, that’s entirely the point: 2013’s A Flower for My Hoonoo (reissued in expanded form in 2023) offered up musings on cups of tea and tablecloths and all manner of English manners against backdrops of raw, skull-shattering abrasive noise.

For this release (I won’t suggest, as music journos so often do, that it’s long-awaited, as I doubt more than five people have noticed the time between Trowser Carrier releases), TC has paired up with fellow Värmland resident Fern (whose error was released by Dret Skivor a couple of years ago).

The compositions are considerably longer than on the previous releases by either artist, with Helping Old Ladies Cross The Road containing four new compositions, each four to nine minutes in length, plus a thirteen-minute remix courtesy of horse funeral.

It’s the title track which lifts the curtain on this characteristically quirky set, and it seems that Fern’s input has tempered the harsh noise of Trowser Carrier, replacing blanket distortion and abrasion with muffled, exploratory, experimental electronica, which swims casually between space-age weirdness, semi-ambient Krautrock, and sci-fi drones reminiscent of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. TC’s vocals are low in the mix and masked and mangled by distortion and a host of other effects, barely discernible and wholly indecipherable amidst layers of reverb and tremolo. It all sound quite polite and considerate in the delivery, though.

‘Lovely show pillows’ is a work of dank, dark ambience which is unnerving, unsettling. The lyrics are completely beyond unravelling, the voice serving more as another instrument in the slow swirl of sound, but the title speaks for itself, as is also the case on ‘Nearly clean? No really clean!’ a slow drift of cloudlike ambience with submerged vocals which likely references a TV advert from the 80s or perhaps early 90s, the specifics of which elude me. It sounds like a disjointed message beaming in via satellite from a space mission circa 1970, crackling through space and time against a backdrop of whale song. Maybe I need to clean my ears: perhaps they’re only nearly clean. But then a barrage of noise like a thunder storm breaking hits with the arrival of ‘The smell of a lawn at dawn’. This is, of course, peak absurdism, and precisely what one would expect from the label, and in particular Trowser Carrier, whose objective is essentially to take the piss out of harsh noise and power electronics and industrial ambient and all the rest, while exploiting the form with a commendable aptitude.

Horse funeral’s remix of ‘TC + Fern’ appears to meld down the album in its entirety to a single seething morass of undifferentiated slow-moving sonic gloop. Here, any vocals are boiled down and simmered to mere bubbles in a broiling broth, and the track eventually evaporates to nothing.

What to make of this? Well, it’s not designed to meet conventional musical standards. Quite the opposite, in fact. But Helping Old Ladies Cross The Road sees Trowser Carrier + Fern belongs to a territory all of its own, dismantling the tropes and forms of the genres to which the album belongs. It would be commercial suicide if commercial potential was an issue. As it is, it’s simply a magnificent example of obstinate perversity – and good noise.

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Listen: ‘Hegemony’ by Flesh Field feat. Assemblage 23

Posted: 26 April 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Prior to the release of FLESH FIELD’s stunning new album’s physical edition, the US-industrial act drops the bonus track ‘Hegemony’ featuring ASSEMBLAGE 23 frontman Tom Shear.
’Hegemony’ is available as part of the album premium download and on the bonus CD of the lavish ltd. 2CD artbook deluxe edition, which will hit stores on May 22, 2026.

FLESH FIELD comment: “I wanted to have some cool remixes but also exclusive tracks for the deluxe edition of On Enmity”, mastermind Ian Ross explains. “As I had already received the fun remixes by Mildreda, Omen Code, Lost Signal, Schneider, and 16 Volt, I contacted my old friend Tom Shear from Assemblage 23 about adding his voice to a track that had not made it onto the album as I was kind of lost for fitting words. Tom did not ‘only’ come up with excellent lyrics but he also contributed his awesome voice to our track – which makes it a really special bonus for the collectors’ edition.”

The album On Enmity was digitally released on February 20, 2026. Hear ‘Hegemony’ here:

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The 113 – The Hedonist

Posted: 17 April 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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17th April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

The singles leading up to the release of The Hedonist, the second EP by The 113 have very much been cause for excitement and built a buzz about the band. Each of the four songs is tense, taut, edgy, quickfire vocals spitting lyrical depictions of the grim present in which we find ourselves with a splenetic urgency against a noisy backdrop where the combination of bass, drums, and guitar – in themselves, completely conventional – meld to forge a dense, unified aural assault.

As they put it, The Hedonist ‘revolves thematically around an anti-technology sentiment, raising questions about data, online worlds and how these can be weaponised against you.’ This – and various surveys and reports – is indicative of an increasingly anti-technology (and certainly an anti-AI) sentiment among younger generations. They have reason for concern, and it’s hard to decide what’s scarier, the prospect how personal data will be used, or how entire swathes of jobs will cease to exist in the imminent future. Anyone who blithely pisses about making caricatures and action figures in the name of fun is not only missing the point: they’ve already sold their soul and more. They’re part of the machine.

We’re living in every single dystopian fiction ever created all at once, right now. This isn’t hyperbole. And it feels as if we’re all trapped and helpless. It’s small wonder we’re experiencing a mental health crisis as we see an entire generation coming through paranoid and scared as we witness an existential threat in many ways worse than the cold war, inasmuch as it’s a war on all fronts.

The 113 recognise this, and The Hedonist is an articulation of this infinitely-faceted terror. Every single track is a standout, and in sustaining the high level of intensity across the whole EP, the potency of the material is amplified. Where The Hedonist succeeds is in the way it doesn’t depart from the blueprint of the debut, To Combat Regret, but instead builds on it.

It’s by no means music to chill out to: quite the opposite, in fact. It’ll likely raise your blood pressure and make you clench your jaw and fists. But if there’s a band that encapsulates the zeitgeist, it’s The 113.

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Watch: ‘The Party’ by KEE.

Posted: 10 April 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Nottingham band KEE. are back with new single ‘The Party’. After the release of their debut single ‘Sound’ in late 2025 which garnered acclaim from the likes of The Noise Magazine, this new single released on the 3rd of April has already been scheduled for airplay by BBC Introducing East Midlands. The band recently played at Rough Trade Nottingham and The Water Rats, King’s Cross and have upcoming gigs booked at The Dublin Castle, Camden and festivals in Spring and Summer.

Watch the video, by Tommy Keeling, here:

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Abel Autopsy – uunder

Posted: 6 April 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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20th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

With his debut release, Abel Autopsy makes his ambition clear, announcing that uunder is envisioned as a journey within a three-part series, with the next two releases in the series being overr and outt, and promising ‘dark, melancholic, shapeshifting worlds that slide between light and shadow’. Although the inconsistency of the double letters on this first release from those projected to follow disturbs my sense of necessary balance, I can close my mind to it while opening my ears and concentrating on the music.

The nine tracks take the form of layered, atmospheric synth-dominated compositions, and Abel Autopsy sets out the context for these thereal works, which evoke haunting (super)natural landscapes by electronic means.

“This started in my youth – pulling apart various musical instruments (battery powered) while in the woods of Appalachia. There was an eerie, ethereal vibe almost like something ‘other’ in the wilderness with me. That permeates through all of the songs and is woven in the mental tapestry throughout. This album is an exercise in capturing that – the balance between light and shadow, feeling another ‘presence’ with you that is not entirely from here.”

The vocals on ‘ghostride’ are muffled, indistinct, the words – if there actually are any – indecipherable, serving more as another instrument than anything else. The pieces are bold, sweeping, cinematic, the ambient tendencies given form by solid mechanised beats which are up in the mix. ‘unfound’ and ‘gates’ land in the space between later Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, the latter also spinning in dance tropes and the haunting monasterial sounds of Enigma music.

He is very partial to the big thunderclap blast when making a change in key or tempo, or simply stepping up the drama – perhaps excessively so, as there are moments when things do feel a bit formulaic – something compounded by the comparative uniformity of the track durations, which are all within the range of 3:01 and 3:37 (three of the nine have a run time of 3:37).

‘mycenae’ tweaks the template to accentuate the contrasts between light and dark and thanks to a super-full, extra-low bass, goes darker than anywhere else on the album, and the crackling static which fizzes through the introduction of the heavier, more distorted ‘nihill’, which concludes the set, brings a sense of decay and a doomy finality.

There are some neat ideas spread across uunder, and the execution is similarly neat, with a clear attention to detail. More variety, particularly in terms of tempo and dynamics would likely create greater impact, but it’s a promising start, and it will be interesting to see how Abel Autopsy evolves over the next instalments of the trilogy.

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Watch: ‘GOAT’ by No Terror in The Bang

Posted: 6 April 2026 in Singles and EPs, Recommended Streams and Videos
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French cinematic progressive metal collective No Terror In The Bang return with a brand new video for ‘GOAT,’ taken from their new EP Existence, released April 3rd via Klonosphere Records.
Directed by Les Maan, who previously worked on the band’s earlier videos, ‘GOAT’ was filmed at La Fabrique des Savoirs in Elbeuf, a unique museum space filled with animal figures and striking scenography that perfectly complements the project’s aesthetic. The video also incorporates elements of contemporary dance, shadow play, and experimental visual techniques, enhancing its immersive and organic atmosphere.

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Forging a sound defined by tension and contrast, No Terror in The Bang move between fragility and fury with striking precision. Expansive atmospheres collide with sudden eruptions, creating music that feels both intimate and catastrophic. At the core stands Sofia Bortoluzzi, whose shape-shifting vocal performance anchors the band’s identity, seamlessly weaving ethereal clean melodies with visceral, gut-level screams.

Conceptually, Existence explores humanity’s downfall across multiple dimensions: cosmic, physical, social, environmental, and mortal. Each track exposes a different layer of collapse, questioning destiny, purpose, and our deeply rooted self-destructive instincts. A dark, immersive release that pushes the band into heavier, more oppressive territory, without sacrificing emotional impact.

Following the acclaimed albums Eclosion (2021) and HEAL (2024), Existence marks a decisive step forward for No Terror in The Bang, a release that confronts discomfort head-on and transforms it into something cinematic, intense, and deeply human.

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Watch: ‘Folding the Mind’ by Trelldom

Posted: 2 April 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Iconic Norwegians TRELLDOM, founded by legendary vocalist Gaahl, unveil the visualiser single ‘Folding the Mind’ as the next advance track selected from their forthcoming new full-length: …by the word…

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With …by the word…, TRELLDOM are pushing forward hard into their new musical era that was ushered in by the previous full-length …by the shadows… (2024), which ended a 17-year hiatus of the Norwegian band.

Mastermind Kristian Eivind Espedal aka Gaahl and his diligently selected collaborators have gone even beyond the complex yet sinister sound that they established with  …by the shadows… The exponentially grown confidence and hard-gained experience of joining together seemingly quite different musicians is reflected clearly in each track of …by the word…

TRELLDOM have concluded the process of escaping the narrowest definition of black metal without compromising their artistic mission. Their music does not only stay loyal to the spirit of their black metal roots, but the Norwegians are making a solid point that their new sound is even more dark and fierce than ever before – just in more twisted and unhinged ways.

…by the word… is the result of Espedal expanding the immense range of his vocals even further into unexplored territories. And it should be noted that this was partly achieved by his return to the famous Grieghallen Studios in Bergen to work again with legendary producer Eirik Hundvin aka Pytten, who was instrumental in the creation of the ‘Norwegian black metal’sound.

Although Espedal remains firmly at the helm of TRELLDOM, the current line-up plays a massive part in the fresh exploration of musical extremes. Guitarist Stian “Sir” Kårstad (formerly also in DJERV) guarantees a form of continuity as he already contributed to the second and third album of the band. Furthermore, the new constellation features renowned percussionist Kenneth Kapstad, formerly of MOTORPSYCHO and hammering the drums in SPIDERGAWD, MØSTER!, and THORNS. Kapstad brought the internationally acclaimed jazz musician and saxophone player Kjetil Møster (MØSTER!, RÖYKSOPP, THE END) along. Bass player Eirik Øien is the latest addition to the cast of characters.

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