Posts Tagged ‘epic’

Watch: ‘Ragemaker & The Shattering Queen’ by iVardensphere

Posted: 19 December 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Unique in the modern industrial-electro scene, iVardensphere began as the ambition of Canadian musician Scott Fox to fuse heavy electronics with his love of percussion from all over the world. Since releasing his debut album in 2009, his group has at times been a solo endeavour and at others a fully fledged collaborative effort, but it has always been about his desire to combine sound design with crushing rhythms while utilising his ever-evolving production skills.

Over the course of four further records, Fox and his cohorts have built a diverse and fluid catalogue on which monolithic sounding analogue synths and industrial groove-based instrumental experiments have shared space with exotic tribal drum rhythms and deep, textured ambience.

Fox now presents ‘Ragemaker’, the first single and title track of a brand new album that will be released in early February 2022. A stunning extended video for the track also incorporates his next single, ‘The Shattering Queen’ (out in mid-January), which brings the total duration of the clip to almost ten minutes.

Complex and layered, the ‘Ragemaker’ album weaves electronics with haunting vocals, orchestral crescendos and often complex rhythms, creating hymns to totemic gods of war and rebirth and to ancient goddesses of harvest and hunt, including the tragic mythos of the aforementioned Shattering Queen.
Traditional percussion from all corners of the globe, including Taiko, Surdo, djembe, timpani and more are deftly interwoven with all manner of sourced sounds. Hammers, anvils, slamming doors and even the sound of a waste bin being kicked are sampled and folded into the overall sonic mélange. The result is an immersive and cinematic masterpiece that is the latest evolutionary step for iVardensphere, although it is equally suited to be the score to a post-apocalyptic movie.

‘Ragemaker’ may invite comparison to soundtracks such as ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ by Junkie XL, ‘Midsommar’ by Bobby Krlic (The Haxan Cloak), or even the dramatic escalations of Hans Zimmer, but it can also be seen as a more driven and rhythmic slant on the wave of Nordic artists currently exploring ancient ancestral music, including Einar Selvik of Wardruna, ambient-folk musician Danheim and experimental folk outfit Heilung.

Watch the epic video here:

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Crimson Brûlée – Tragica

Posted: 11 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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7th December 2021

Crimson Brûlée emerged in 2019 as an offshoot of guitar-driven goths The Witch-Kings, after a difference of opinion over the incorporation of synths. No diss to The Witch-Kings, but Tragica presents a magnificent sound.

It’s a pretty awkward band name and so-so title for a great album, but there is context, at least for the latter, in that the EP is delivered in homage to the band’s original bassist, Johan, who passed away in early 2021.

He would likely have been proud. With Tragica Crimson Brûlée really nail their position as a top-notch goth act. It’s billed as an EP, but comes with a stack of remixes which bulks it uo to nine tracks, which is effectively an album or two EPs.

‘I Came Back to You’ is a strong opener, combining trad goth with the sound and feel of early Psychedelic Furs, packing minor chords and an insistent beat in the verses, that burst into something wonderful in the choruses. Light explodes and it feels redemptive. It could easily be a Talk Talk Talk outtake. The intro to ‘Nothing Dies Forever’ invites comparisons to She Wants Revenge: it’s dramatic, bold, bombastic, synth-led but driven by some meaty guitars, and absolutely fucking epic, and never lets up for its five-minute duration.

It’s the strolling bass that dominates ‘Restrained’, which is anything but in terms of its epicness. All bar one of the songs are over the five-minute mark, but ‘Where the Tarantulaa Roam’, extending beyond the six-minute mark, is an absolute beast, and one that calls to mind Susperia, only with swirling backing vocals reminiscent of All About Eve’s Julianne Reagan. With the synths backed off but sweeping all around, the mix is immense.

‘Why I Wear Black’ is more guitars, more SWR-like. Yet for all the references, this feels fresh and innovative: this is not an album that deals in tropes and the lyrics are personal and genuine rather than contrived.

It’s a really, really strong suite of songs, The remixes are pretty good, to be fair, but non-essential.

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Lindy-Fay Hella & Dei Farne – Hildring

Posted: 1 December 2021 in Albums
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By Norse – 26th November 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Hildring is the second album by Wardruna vocalist Lindy-Fay Hella with musicians Dei Farne. It’s been a long time in the making, with ‘Taag’ dropping as a single back in the summer of 2020. But what is time when the world is off its keel and the world is spinning at a different pace, one so rapid we’ve lost touch with our innermost selves? Lindy-Fay Hella and Dei Farne connect with a past world, a time before technology: not necessarily a more primitive time, but a time in which there was a closer connection to earth and nature, and also to the inner self, the core spirit.

‘Hildring’ is the Norwegian word for mirage, and it’s fitting, for despite the solid, tribal percussion that dominates the sound, paired with solid, chunky basslines, the remaining musical elements are fleeting, flitting, mellifluous, transient, impossible to grasp a firm hold of.

That isn’t to say the album is all airy atmosphere and no substance: quite the opposite, in fact, there’s a sturdiness and density to the richly layered compositions, and it’s a very fine balance of the seemingly separate elements, namely the solid, and the ethereal and airy. The drumming is immense, ribcage-rattling, rousing. There is a wonderfully rich, earthy quality to Hildring. In keeping with Wardruna’s quest to explore Norse cultural and esoteric traditions by delving into ancient history and mythology, so in this collaborative project Lindy-Fay Hella continues that focus. The sound is modern, but the album is deeply evocative as echoes of the ancient resonate forward through every note, and you feel the aura of generations past around your being as you listen. It resonates in ways beyond expression, beyond lived experience. It’s deep, and it’s powerful, and strikes a resonant chord from the off with the percussion-led title track, where soaring vocals and a driving bass melt together amidst spacious waves of sound, and it sets the bar and the form.

In something of a shift from the overarching style, ‘Insect’ feels rather more overtly electronic, with skittering glow-worm flickers flitting hither and thither, but it’s still packing a rare emotional intensity.

‘Compositionally, ‘Briising’ is minimal; drums, bass, sweeping, droning synth, and incidental cymbals accompany a balanced, inwardly-focused vocal performance. There’s a menacing, growling vocal that is again otherworldly, and if not scary, then unsettling. ‘I return to fire’, he repeats in a dark, gravelled monotone.

‘Taag’ goes big on the expansive sound, and it’s sweeping, immense, immersive. It’s bordering on the grandiosity of post-rock, and propelled by urgent drumming. Elsewhere, the sparse, looping synth of the appropriately-titled ‘Otherworld’ is relentless and resonant.

Throughout, Lindy-Fay’s vocals are outstanding, and the album showcases her remarkable vocal dexterity. Often light and airy and floating and soaring above all layers of human perception, Hildring is magical, mystical, beautiful, majestic, and powerful. There, I managed to not to use ‘epic’!

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Watch: ‘The Return’ by Ghosts of Torrez

Posted: 26 August 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Enigmatic animal-mask-clad folk-horror band Ghosts of Torrez have resurfaced with new single, ‘The Return’, out now on Prank Monkey Records.

Watch the video here:

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Enigmatic animal-mask-clad experimental-folk-horror band Ghosts of Torrez first appeared on the scene in 2017, under the name of Bong Torrez, receiving some interest due to featuring on the horror animation short "The Place", described by Horror News Net as "Simply Gorgeous".

Since then, they’ve been beavering away on a number of tunes, taking their time until resurfacing this year with a new name and a slightly more electronic, psych sound from their indie, folk roots.

‘The Return’ is the first release from these secluded sessions and has already won the Audition show poll on Amazing Radio as well as featuring on Fresh On The Net’s Eclectic Picks playlist. The track is an intriguing cinematic instrumental piece, swathed in a mysterious darkness that’s underpinned by intricate acoustic arpeggios and a solemn drum machine.

Third Lung – What Is A Life?

Posted: 1 August 2021 in Singles and EPs
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30th July 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Third Lung are on fire in 2021, and it’s nothing to do with an inflammation caused by a respiratory disease. Too soon? Bad taste? Perhaps both, but usually, in dark times, humour has served as a vital means of staying sane and maintaining morale. So what’s happened? It isn’t that there’s no humour to be found in anything right now. The UK government should be a source of infinite amusement, but then again, satire seemingly died with irony, and moreover, people are scared – not just of the virus, but of other people. The governments has stoked a culture of division, of us and them, a culture whereby the government has given the green light to booing footballers in their own national team for taking the knee. Five minutes on Facebook reveals that we’re living through a war, not against an invisible enemy, as we’ve been repeatedly told, but a war against one another.

This isn’t all digression: Third Lung’s third single of the year already, which follows ‘I A Fire’ and ‘Hold the Line’ is a song that questions the impact of isolation, and while it reaches beyond the immediate pandemic situation, in asking ‘What is a life on your own?’, and, indeed, who are we when not guided and supported by the people around us we cherish and love, its relevance requires no qualification or explanation here.

Imploring the listener to ‘raise a fist to the sky’, ‘What is a Life?’ is a life-affirming anthem – and when I say anthem, I mean the sound and production is absolutely epiiiiiic. Sometimes, music goes beyond personal taste and simply the enormity of its appeal is just fact. There’s undoubtedly a strong 80s U2 parallel here (and even as someone who’s grown to loathe U2, it’s undeniable that The Joshua Tree was a defining moment in arena rock, which saw a band explode from ‘biggish’ to absolute global dominance.

There are dashes of Kings of Leon in the mix, too – again, another band who hit the stratosphere off the back of an album after plugging away for some time – and these guys are easily of the standard (and with way better lyrics than the crass scribblings of bloody ‘Sex on Fire’, which mostly wanted to be ‘Dancing in the Dark’ but with ‘sex’ in the title to give it a bit more sizzle appeal.

So what’s the verdict? Third Lung are better than Kings of Leon, and every bit as good as the best U2, and ‘What Is A Life?’ is an outstanding single.

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Listen: ‘Something Stirred From Beneath The Rubble’ by Mountain Caller

Posted: 19 June 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Hot on the heels of their debut full length album, Mountain Caller return with a new EP, Chronicle: Prologue, the follow up and conceptual prequel to their debut Chronicle I: The Truthseeker. That album was released to wide acclaim, as well as a passionate response from an already devoted fanbase.

Chronicle: Prologue gives further depth and insight into the conceptual story that embodies their output, as well as their own musical journey. On latest single, ‘Something Stirred From Beneath The Rubble’, guitarist Claire Simson comments,

“Something Stirred From Beneath The Rubble” represents the beginning of everything Mountain Caller. Not only was it the first track written by the instrumental progressive post-metal power trio, it represents the beginning of the Chronicle saga in which we find The Protagonist slowly regaining consciousness under a giant pile of rubble. She struggles to free herself of the jagged rock and twisted metal and as the thick black smoke begins to clear she realises she is in the middle of a levelled and deserted city. Beaten and bloodied she surveys the devastation. Then from the quiet darkness, an intruding lone thought.. “Who am I?”.

Listen now:

Recorded alongside the debut album, ‘Prologue’s tracks consist of the very earliest material written by the band. Opener ‘Something Stirred From Underneath The Rubble’ was the true genesis of the band’s dynamic mix of heavy, expansive and progressive metal. It’s the culmination of three distinct musical voices collaborating and letting the music lead them, without aiming for any specific genre. ‘Beyond This Black Horizon’ follows, a live fan-favourite and the band’s love letter to the riff. ‘Stripped Of All But Purpose’ closes, with the band exploring the widest ranges of their soundscapes and heaviness, while providing some of the most fist-pumpingly metal moments of their career. These tracks highlight the band’s fundamental make up of ambition, passion, and sheer love for creation.

Chronicle: Prologue is released on July 9th on very limited vinyl and digital formats.

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Listen: ‘Alètheia’ by Year Of No Light

Posted: 25 May 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Year Of No Light have revealed their latest single, ‘Alètheia’, described by the band as ‘a double movement of light and darkness before burning our memories on the altar of the void’. The track is taken from their new album Consolamentum set for release via Pelagic Records on 2nd July.

Listen to ‘Alètheia’ here:

Pelagic Records are releasing not only their new album Consolamentum but also a wooden box set, to celebrate the band’s 20th anniversary, containing their entire discography of 5 studio albums, several split EPs, and the collaboration with Belgian composer Dirk Serries from the ‘Live At Roadburn’ recordings, on 12 vinyl records.

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Domkraft – Audiodome

Posted: 23 April 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Magnetic Eye Records

Christopher Nosnibor

This is my first encounter with Swedish psychedelic doom-riffers Domkraft, and it must be something to do with the power of three, given that this is the third single from the forthcoming third single by the trio.

And when a band puts out a nine-minute track as a single, you get a sense of where they’re coming from. This clearly isn’t a band going for radio play here, the no-compromise approach of a lack of an edit demonstrating a solid anti-commercial aesthetic. But then, how would you do justice to an absolute epic like this by cutting it down to three, four, or even five minutes?

No, you need to hear – and feel – the full thing, from end to end. Build? Yeah, you, might say it builds. After a couple of minutes or so that are a welter of guitars and a monster wall of riffage, it really takes off, before it simmers down into a lumbering, soaring expansiveness that’s even vaguely proggy. No criticism, but a sense that certain parts don’t quite deliver on the threat of the band’s bio or commentary on the single. If anything, this is very much for the better, because ‘Audiodome’ is so much more, and transitions between passages of varying tempo and weight to outstanding effect. Around the right-minute mark, they really slam in with some eight, and it thunders hard.

It feels less like a single than an album condensed into a single track. Epic is indeed the word.

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solarminds – Her Spirit Cracked the Sky

Posted: 16 January 2021 in Albums
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When an album contains just three tracks, you know before you even hear a note that it’s going to be possessed of epic qualities. Similarly, when a band’s pitch includes ‘RIYL bands like Swans, MONO, lots of layered drums and percussion, ambient soundscapes, and wall of sound guitar and big strings’, (and I think it’s pretty much public knowledge by now that I do), then the same applies, and so needless to say I was all over this in an instant.

The first track, ‘The Gift’, is a twenty-minute behemoth, a sweeping exploration that builds from tense strings of the kind that would likely be at home on a Netflix period drama into something altogether more awe-inspiring, as the drums rumble like distant thunder at a gathering pace and intensity. Over its immense span, it leads the listener on a journey through an array of soundscapes, and there’s not only considerable atmosphere being conjured here, but the music also has a very visual aspect. You feel as if you’re being transported through different scenes, and at times, are creeping cautiously and peering around corners, while at others, staring out from a high plateau overlooking immense vistas that stretch further than the eye can see.

This is very much latterday Swans providing the inspiration here, with the expansive instrumental passages and near-ambient stretches that came to define releases from The Seer to The Glowing Man via To Be Kind, each of which stretched over a full two hours apiece. However, solarminds’ compositional approach and overall sound is quite different, leaning very much toward more conventional post-rock tropes (but without the contrivances of, say, Sigur Rós) and while there are some immense percussion-driven crescendos, with the strong-centric instrumentation, they don’t hit the explosive peaks of, say, Explosions in the Sky or Her Name is Calla. None of these are bad things, and while the sheer scale of their music does definitely sit within the domain occupied by MONO.

‘The Visit’ begins with an amorphous mass of dank, dark ambience, and is thirteen minutes of elongated, undulating drones that twist, turn, scrape and screed against a tumultuous barrage of percussion.

Closer ‘The Lie’ marks a significant departure, as the sound of heavy rain and extraneous noise gives way to a near -acappela vocal, an acoustic guitar, muffled and distant, providing the sparsest of accompaniment. It’s here they’re most reminiscent of Her Name is Calla at their most minimal, stripped-back, and folky, and it’s a delicate, tender experience that grows in emotional intensity and pulls at the gut with its starkness, its rawness.

Dissolving in a rumble of thunder, it’s a fitting conclusion to an album that, beneath some smooth surfaces, presents some quite troubled currents in the depths.

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Watch: ‘Kvitravn’ by Wardruna

Posted: 16 October 2020 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Wardruna today share the title track, and pinnacle moment of their upcoming album, Kvitravn (meaning White Raven). A music video produced by Ragnarok Films reveals a powerful narrative centred around this sacred, elusive creature, and namesake of the album.

Dramatic scenery unfolds from a bird’s eye perspective, and enchanting images of this rare animal are captured, as we follow Wardruna founder Einar Selvik and vocalist Lindy Fay-Hella through the wilderness. As the video unfolds, a question arises, is this sighting only good fortune, or is it destiny?

About the song "Kvitravn", Wardruna founder Einar Selvik states, “I am very excited to finally share this song with you. “Kvitravn” is a song that explores traditions of animal-guides and the symbolism and legends of sacred white animals found in Nordic- and other cultures all over the world. These highly regarded ghostly creatures, whether a raven, snake, bear, moose, reindeer, elephant or lion – are in animist traditions seen as prophetic, divine messengers, and guardians representing renewal, purity and a bridge between worlds.”

Einar Selvik continues, “Being fully aware of how rare it is to come across white ravens, we knew from the start that this would be an ambitious and challenging task to pull off. However, fate seemed to be on our side in this and the “impossible” piece of the puzzle fell into place as if gifted from the divine.“

Watch the spectacular video here:

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