More introverted, angry white guys
This should do it for the Eurogrimness right now. I'm off to see Gamma Ray, get smashed and deal with the SwordLord again. Who knows, maybe we'll end up as buddies when it's all over. Or maybe, one of us will be dead.
Isengard - Vinterskugge: Back when Nightfall Records was dealing death on Lawrence Avenue, I asked the proprietor to put on some Isengard, the Tolkien-loving solo project of Darkthrone's Fenriz. He warned me that it wasn't so good, but played some of the Høstmørke LP for me anyway. I should have taken his advice. I wasn't impressed with its wandering Wiking ways, and Fenriz's sub-Quorthon Norwegian warbling was a big turn-off. But now I'm old and my tastes are different, and Isengard does have an awesome logo, so I decided to give the demo collection Vinterskugge a whirl. It leads off with 1993's Vanderen demo, a real mixed bag. Sometimes you get the aforementioned Scandinavian saunter. At other points, it's Celtic Frost-inspired black metal like Darkthrone, and there's even some ambient keyboard doodling that's a tiny bit more eventful than Fenriz's other long-abandoned solo project, Neptune Towers. (If you're into spacy electro-drones in the manner of Tangerine Dream's glacial Zeit album, there are free .m4a downloads of both NT discs here and here.) The Viking stuff is what's unique to Isengard, and it's not really that great, but has its moments. The final track, "Naglfar," is pretty cool musically, with a dark seafaring riff and keyboard horns that are effective in their low-fi murkiness, but again Fenriz is displaying his horrid pseudo-pompous "epic" vocal style. He's certainly enthusiastic, but off key and amateur, and it's pretty embarassing for the most part. The earliest demo material, 1989's Spectres Over Gorgoroth, comes in the middle and to my ears is very similar to Darkthrone's Thulcandra demo from the same year, ugly and simplistic Frostish death metal. The final section, 1991's Horizons, is more varied like Vanderen, but not as "cultural." The disc's longest track, the bizarre "Storm of Evil," should be mentioned here. Over a midpaced bed of monotone rocking and keyboards that sound like synthetic bagpipes, Fen-Fen trots out some dramatic darkwave vocals in English, furrowed brow unable to mask the fact that he should stick to rasping. The disc is inconsistent, to say the least, but its generally unpleasant material might make it a handy tool for ending a disagreeable party. I already have enough records like that.
NEGATIVITY: -2.5 (aggravating, may trigger split personality disorder)
Himinbjorg - In the Raven's Shadow: French Viking metal? Oh, yeah, the Normans were descendants of the Vikings. Until this disc, I'd only heard later Himinbjorg, which is a lot like middle-period Enslaved in its confluence of artsy black metal and psychedelic textures. I believe 2003's Golden Age marked the point where the band decisively got back to more aggressive material, but Shadow is from the comparatively early days of 1999, when they were still pretty much a raw melodic black metal band with a lot of folkloric influence. The ominous keyboard/acoustic guitar intro track is three minutes long, actually feeling like a legitimate song rather than some space-filling nonsense. "Thiazi's Oyne" is the first of three songs nearing nine minutes, at first clipping along at an upbeat but not fast pace. The fuzzy black metal guitar is frequently concealed behind loud acoustic plucking (like Agalloch and early Ulver), both playing the same folk melody while well-placed keyboard horns announce the coming slaughter. The transition into normal black metal speed comes quite suddenly, shortly after Zahaah's vocals shift from his solemn clean Viking tone to blackened rasp. But when the band starts playing fast, he goes back to the clean style, and there's also this weird electronic sci-fi noise that happens about halfway through the song. This is a pretty good idea of what Himinbjorg is doing throughout the disc, creating contrasts between natural and synthetic sounds, moods and tempos. "In the Forest of the Demons from Within" is probably the most straightforward pagan black metal piece here - until it ends with cricket sounds. "Rising" follows a similar pattern immediately afterward, coming to its own fruition by transitioning into a pure folk song complete with chirping birds and a tranquil, wordless vocal refrain. And at thirteen minutes, "The Voice of Blood" has time for an extended section of gentle jamming and guitar soloing that sounds straight out of a classic rock tune. The best part is that it all flows surprisingly well for a young band - although they're no Bergtatt-era Ulver, they're admirably skilled at combining those parts into ever-evolving but coherent songs, and offer a more varied and engaging nature than other comparable acts such as Kampfar. Other than the harsher guitar tone and more charmingly naïve "underground metal" aesthetic of the thing, Shadow is not too far removed from the more recent Himinbjorg albums I've heard. This is my favorite of them, I think, as the entrancing folk melodies stand out strongest. Track number three, "The Inverted Dimension", is a compact version of Himinbjorg's style, so click that link and give it a listen (where it says "Himinbjorg MP3 Download") if the above description sounds interesting.
NEGATIVITY: -1.5 (kind of pleasant, actually)
Esoteric - Subconscious Dissolution Into the Continuum: Doom from the genre's source, Great Britain, is usually in the flowery Anathema/My Dying Bride vein, or at least the Sabbath/Cathedral bellbottoms-and-bongwater brand of bluesy brawn. While sometimes trippy in nature, long-ignored UK doom veterans Esoteric mostly traffic in the type of torturous dirge pioneered by countrymates Godflesh, minus the industrial sheen and armed with the lethal scrape of American sludge. This most recent album - my first contact with the veteran act - borders on "funeral doom" territory, the ultra-slow style perfected by Finns like Skepticism and Shape of Despair. I'll admit this is not my favorite type of doom, as it essentially favors feeling over listenable musical content, but Subconscious has a sense of motion to go with the emotion. Granted, not much happens in "Morphia," the fifteen-minute leadoff track, except an establishment of Esoteric's sound as less subtle than their name implies, but more nuanced than most American acts attempting to play this slowly and heavily. I wouldn't say it's crushingly heavy, as the hulking riffs are choppy and repetitive, the much-hyped atmosphere largely coming from effects rather than the actual music. Yet the tune is effective as doom goes, since you can't possibly be in a bubbly mood after hearing its anguished trudge. "Blood of the Eyes," with its mournful and melodic guitar lead in the Shape of Despair tradition, is where Subconscious first really grabs my attention. The last five of these twelve minutes are a return to Plod City like the first track, leading me to believe that Esoteric used to sound more like Disembowelment and are only just beginning to explore the expansive possibilities of their snail-paced laments. The lyrics for this one are gorgeous: "I have not seen myself for ages/This empty shell cares no longer for life/Slowly replacing the flesh with steel/So that I may carry on/Unfettered by this mortality." As if they were working up to it, the disc climaxes with seventeen minutes of "Grey Day," the third and final *real* track (the fourth is an atmospheric outro, clocking in at a Liliputian five minutes). "Grey Day" is where the nightmare all comes together: the spare and dismal melody, the squalling lysergic noises in the background, the filtered convergence of low growls and tortured screams, a convincingly downtrodden rhythm that makes you feel like the track is actually heading somewhere - but you won't be alive to see the destination. This truly is great doom, which can get inside your negative emotions like no other music I've ever heard, and really sounds best when you are feeling utterly miserable and hopeless... when the idea of a deep, dark, endless coma is seriously inviting.
NEGATIVITY: -4.5 (hide razors before listening)
Isengard - Vinterskugge: Back when Nightfall Records was dealing death on Lawrence Avenue, I asked the proprietor to put on some Isengard, the Tolkien-loving solo project of Darkthrone's Fenriz. He warned me that it wasn't so good, but played some of the Høstmørke LP for me anyway. I should have taken his advice. I wasn't impressed with its wandering Wiking ways, and Fenriz's sub-Quorthon Norwegian warbling was a big turn-off. But now I'm old and my tastes are different, and Isengard does have an awesome logo, so I decided to give the demo collection Vinterskugge a whirl. It leads off with 1993's Vanderen demo, a real mixed bag. Sometimes you get the aforementioned Scandinavian saunter. At other points, it's Celtic Frost-inspired black metal like Darkthrone, and there's even some ambient keyboard doodling that's a tiny bit more eventful than Fenriz's other long-abandoned solo project, Neptune Towers. (If you're into spacy electro-drones in the manner of Tangerine Dream's glacial Zeit album, there are free .m4a downloads of both NT discs here and here.) The Viking stuff is what's unique to Isengard, and it's not really that great, but has its moments. The final track, "Naglfar," is pretty cool musically, with a dark seafaring riff and keyboard horns that are effective in their low-fi murkiness, but again Fenriz is displaying his horrid pseudo-pompous "epic" vocal style. He's certainly enthusiastic, but off key and amateur, and it's pretty embarassing for the most part. The earliest demo material, 1989's Spectres Over Gorgoroth, comes in the middle and to my ears is very similar to Darkthrone's Thulcandra demo from the same year, ugly and simplistic Frostish death metal. The final section, 1991's Horizons, is more varied like Vanderen, but not as "cultural." The disc's longest track, the bizarre "Storm of Evil," should be mentioned here. Over a midpaced bed of monotone rocking and keyboards that sound like synthetic bagpipes, Fen-Fen trots out some dramatic darkwave vocals in English, furrowed brow unable to mask the fact that he should stick to rasping. The disc is inconsistent, to say the least, but its generally unpleasant material might make it a handy tool for ending a disagreeable party. I already have enough records like that.NEGATIVITY: -2.5 (aggravating, may trigger split personality disorder)
Himinbjorg - In the Raven's Shadow: French Viking metal? Oh, yeah, the Normans were descendants of the Vikings. Until this disc, I'd only heard later Himinbjorg, which is a lot like middle-period Enslaved in its confluence of artsy black metal and psychedelic textures. I believe 2003's Golden Age marked the point where the band decisively got back to more aggressive material, but Shadow is from the comparatively early days of 1999, when they were still pretty much a raw melodic black metal band with a lot of folkloric influence. The ominous keyboard/acoustic guitar intro track is three minutes long, actually feeling like a legitimate song rather than some space-filling nonsense. "Thiazi's Oyne" is the first of three songs nearing nine minutes, at first clipping along at an upbeat but not fast pace. The fuzzy black metal guitar is frequently concealed behind loud acoustic plucking (like Agalloch and early Ulver), both playing the same folk melody while well-placed keyboard horns announce the coming slaughter. The transition into normal black metal speed comes quite suddenly, shortly after Zahaah's vocals shift from his solemn clean Viking tone to blackened rasp. But when the band starts playing fast, he goes back to the clean style, and there's also this weird electronic sci-fi noise that happens about halfway through the song. This is a pretty good idea of what Himinbjorg is doing throughout the disc, creating contrasts between natural and synthetic sounds, moods and tempos. "In the Forest of the Demons from Within" is probably the most straightforward pagan black metal piece here - until it ends with cricket sounds. "Rising" follows a similar pattern immediately afterward, coming to its own fruition by transitioning into a pure folk song complete with chirping birds and a tranquil, wordless vocal refrain. And at thirteen minutes, "The Voice of Blood" has time for an extended section of gentle jamming and guitar soloing that sounds straight out of a classic rock tune. The best part is that it all flows surprisingly well for a young band - although they're no Bergtatt-era Ulver, they're admirably skilled at combining those parts into ever-evolving but coherent songs, and offer a more varied and engaging nature than other comparable acts such as Kampfar. Other than the harsher guitar tone and more charmingly naïve "underground metal" aesthetic of the thing, Shadow is not too far removed from the more recent Himinbjorg albums I've heard. This is my favorite of them, I think, as the entrancing folk melodies stand out strongest. Track number three, "The Inverted Dimension", is a compact version of Himinbjorg's style, so click that link and give it a listen (where it says "Himinbjorg MP3 Download") if the above description sounds interesting.NEGATIVITY: -1.5 (kind of pleasant, actually)
Esoteric - Subconscious Dissolution Into the Continuum: Doom from the genre's source, Great Britain, is usually in the flowery Anathema/My Dying Bride vein, or at least the Sabbath/Cathedral bellbottoms-and-bongwater brand of bluesy brawn. While sometimes trippy in nature, long-ignored UK doom veterans Esoteric mostly traffic in the type of torturous dirge pioneered by countrymates Godflesh, minus the industrial sheen and armed with the lethal scrape of American sludge. This most recent album - my first contact with the veteran act - borders on "funeral doom" territory, the ultra-slow style perfected by Finns like Skepticism and Shape of Despair. I'll admit this is not my favorite type of doom, as it essentially favors feeling over listenable musical content, but Subconscious has a sense of motion to go with the emotion. Granted, not much happens in "Morphia," the fifteen-minute leadoff track, except an establishment of Esoteric's sound as less subtle than their name implies, but more nuanced than most American acts attempting to play this slowly and heavily. I wouldn't say it's crushingly heavy, as the hulking riffs are choppy and repetitive, the much-hyped atmosphere largely coming from effects rather than the actual music. Yet the tune is effective as doom goes, since you can't possibly be in a bubbly mood after hearing its anguished trudge. "Blood of the Eyes," with its mournful and melodic guitar lead in the Shape of Despair tradition, is where Subconscious first really grabs my attention. The last five of these twelve minutes are a return to Plod City like the first track, leading me to believe that Esoteric used to sound more like Disembowelment and are only just beginning to explore the expansive possibilities of their snail-paced laments. The lyrics for this one are gorgeous: "I have not seen myself for ages/This empty shell cares no longer for life/Slowly replacing the flesh with steel/So that I may carry on/Unfettered by this mortality." As if they were working up to it, the disc climaxes with seventeen minutes of "Grey Day," the third and final *real* track (the fourth is an atmospheric outro, clocking in at a Liliputian five minutes). "Grey Day" is where the nightmare all comes together: the spare and dismal melody, the squalling lysergic noises in the background, the filtered convergence of low growls and tortured screams, a convincingly downtrodden rhythm that makes you feel like the track is actually heading somewhere - but you won't be alive to see the destination. This truly is great doom, which can get inside your negative emotions like no other music I've ever heard, and really sounds best when you are feeling utterly miserable and hopeless... when the idea of a deep, dark, endless coma is seriously inviting.NEGATIVITY: -4.5 (hide razors before listening)
posted by SoulReaper at 10:26 AM
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