With eleven full-length records under their belts, Swedish melancholic metal masters Katatonia don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Yet, it comes as no surprise that the band is about to impressively solidify their unique stance in the world of metal and beyond once more with their 12th album, the hauntingly beautiful Sky Void of Stars.
Today, Katatonia unveil the second single and Sky Void of Stars’ album opener ‘Austerity’, along with a visually palpable video. The heartfelt offering crashes through the dark with memorable, mind-bending rhythms as it shifts with elaborate guitar riffs that perfectly showcase the musical expertise and experience of the band. Topped off by the dark, conjuring voice of Jonas Renkse and mesmerizing lyricism, the gloomy mood for the album is set. The song is now available via all digital service providers worldwide.
Katatonia on ‘Austerity’: “We hereby present you our new single and the opening track of Sky Void of Stars – ‘Austerity’. Energetic and dark, stern and disenchanted. Enjoy.”
It’s time for another deep dive into the horrors of mortality and the foul side of the supernatural – It’s time for "Survival Of The Sickest"! The sixth full-length album from BLOODBATH, Sweden’s undisputed masters of old school death metal, will be unleashed on September 9, 2022 via Napalm Records. This is death metal at its ugly best: vicious, unrelenting and irrevocably sworn to the black.
The world is in flames, and Survival Of The Sickest, produced by Bloodbath and co-produced and mixed by Lawrence Mackrory at Rorysound Studios, offers no respite from the horrors of reality. Instead, with the addition of new guitarist Tomas ‘Plytet’ Åkvik (Lik) onboard, BLOODBATH’s latest and greatest album gleefully confronts the slavering ghoul lurking in the shadows, and treats him to ten songs of ripping death metal frenzy. Alongside Bloodbath’s official alumni, Survival Of The Sickest boasts a smattering of irresistible cameos from the great, good and ghoulish of the metal underground, including Barney Greenway (Napalm Death), Luc Lemay (Gorguts) and Marc Grewe (Morgoth).
Alongside its pre-order kickoff, Bloodbath have released the crushing new single and album opener, “Zombie Inferno”, a thrashing death metal assault set to draw the listener into a lunatic outburst of ferocity. The song breaks in with anxiety-inducing riffs and the insanely killer vocals of Nick Holmes, and is visually highlighted via a fast-paced, gory music video, acting as a tribute to the glory days of 80s splatter flicks.
The promo write-up is right in observing that it’s ‘hard to imagine something called Krautgaze could be nurtured anywhere other than in Berlin’, describing the city as ‘the perfect breeding ground for a band like Suns Of Thyme: the five-piece lets space rock, shoegaze and psych with a nostalgic twist masterfully collide with death rock and the likes of Velvet Underground on its sophomore album Cascades.’
But to my old ears, as much as Cascades is shoegazey and psychedelic, what’s most striking is that the album’s nostalgia harks back to the goth sound of the mid 80s. It’s not the bleak post-punk sounds of Siouxsie and the Banshees or The Sisters of Mercy which filter into the sound of Cascades, nor the art rock of Bauhaus – the bands that defined goth without actually being goth, because goth didn’t even exist at that point – but the more accessible alternative bands that merged in their wake.
Loping drums drive fractal guitars that bend and shimmer on opener ‘Do Or Die’, a track which combines the gothy indie rock of Rose of Avalanche with the psychedelic grooves of The Black Angels, all under a vaguely Madchster haze.
There’s a undeniable indie rock / pop sensibility in evidence here, and ‘Intuition Unbound’ points straight back to 1986, amalgamating the celtic guitar motifs favoured by bands ranging from Ghost Dance to Balaam and the Angel via later Salvation. In some ways, it evokes a strange nostalgia for a strain of music that’s strangely detached from its origins and somewhat diluted in context of its roots, but it’s clear Suns of Thyme have both sense of thyme and plaice, as well as an aptitude for a certain sense of (melo)drama: ‘Ich Traum Von Dir’, while still evoking the spirit of 80s goth proffers forth credible moping and a disconsolation that’s actually quite affecting. It’s also a decent tune, and above all, tunes are what matter. There’s no shortage of them on Cascades. ‘Schweben’ builds a mellow shoegaze vibe over a lazy, motoric rhythm, with hints of Chapterhouse, but equally shoegaze revivalists like The Early Years.
And so it is that Cascades is an album that crosses a range of styles and periods, and in some ways, it’s difficult to disentangle nostalgia and anti-nostalgic kneejerk (of course, much of this is very much about a personal reaction on the part of one man who just so happens to be the reviewer), It isn’t always east to extrapolate sincere homage from the minefield of dubious dredging of the past. But Suns of Thyme manage to draw together a sufficiently broad range of ‘retro’ elements and combine them with some songwriting that’s savvy enough to give Cascades a life of its own.
Suns of Thyme blends space rock, shoegaze, and psychedelia reminiscent of Velvet Underground on sophomore album Cascades, to be released on May 27th via Napalm Records. Ahead of the release, they’ve put out video for ‘Intuition Unbound’.
Synopsis director Easton West comments:
“The storyline is about a wise forest stewart who leads his apprentice through the land teaching her ancient ways until one morning he finds a supernatural blue seed in the wetlands. The discovery initiates a mystical ritual that transfers his ancient knowledge to his apprentice, inaugurating her as the new keeper of the land.”
The video stars Swiss actor David Bennent (The Tin Drum, A Dangerous Fortune) and actress Sarah Johnson, and was directed by Easton West of Klein and West, a Berlin based production company and ensemble of film creatives whose work crosses over between narrative, documentary and commercial realms.
Aural Aggravation 