Melodic Black Metal

Outlaw, Reaching Beyond Assiah (AOP 2023)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

Brazil’s Outlaw adds new essential black metal to their canon with their third album, Reaching Beyond Assiah.

Outlaw started in São Paulo, Brazil in 2015, and they have already made an indelible impression on heavy music with their two previous albums and the 2021 EP Death Miasma. Mixing and merging traditional black metal formulations with more melodic passages and temperate stances, they have over the years, created music that is immediately recognizable. The band has seen a number of lineup shakeups, and now, according to The Metal Archives, is founder Daniel Souza (vocals, guitar), with Amilcar Rizk (bass) and Tommi Tuhkala (drums).

The first of seven songs on the new album is “Bliss of Soul.” The music rises from a deep pit, bursting to the surface with edges and spikes. After the initial flurry, the rhythm settles down into a steady crunch, punctuated by sudden eruptions. “To Burn This World And Dissolve The Flesh” is a charging attack from the beginning, and as the battle engages, the ferocity intensifies. In between the surges, the steady romp keeps the momentum headed in a determinable direction before and after the melancholic cooldown in the middle. “Beyond The Realms of God” holds a different mirror up at first. Quiet, pondering, lyrical. We know that can’t last, though, don’t we, and true to our expectations, the black metal standard takes the reigns. Excellent.

“The Unending Night” and “Everything That Becomes Nothing” sound very much like traditional formulations along genre lines while “The Serpent’s Chant” diverges notably in vocalizations and with a short, calm interlude. The final plank in the coffin is the album’s namesake, “Reaching Beyond Assiah.” This song encapsulates what the band stands for musically and can be taken as a wrap-up to the set and, more generally, a mission statement of the band. The melodic elements enhance the black metal underpinning here and throughout the record, elevating the compositions. Recommended.

Reaching Beyond Assiah is out on Friday, March 31st through AOP Records. In the US, Bandcamp is a good place to pick up the physicals.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://outlaw218.bandcamp.com/album/reaching-beyond-assiah

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/OutlawBlackMetal

AOP Records, http://www.aoprecords.de/

© Wayne Edwards

Outlaw, Reaching Beyond Assiah (AOP 2023)

Funeral Mass, Shadow Of The Raventhrone (2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , ,

Shadow Of The Raventhrone is the third studio album from black metal band Funeral Mass.

Funeral Mass started in Poland in 2018. I thought from the name we might be dealing with a doom band here, but their music is black metal through and through, with melodic touches for depth and highlight. The have released two previous full-length albums and an EP in the few years of their existence, each one a step further down the path. The band is Kamil Żerański (guitar, vocals), Dmytro Kvashnin (guitar), Jerzy Wieliński (bass), and Ignacy Macikowski (drums).

“With Sinister Spell” is the first of seven songs on the album. The black metal framework is in place, firm and unquestioned. The vocals maintain the genre’s style and tone, modulated in a way that makes them more approachable to alternate practitioners. The hammering rhythm is there, alongside a melodic thread that gives the music a dramatic, almost theatrical, cast in fact. The title track follows, and it has a bounty of energy upfront, steady and unrepentant. The initial movement is repeated, instilling the impression of a quest that will demand sacrifice. “Nocturnal Eclipse” opens with obliterating black metal, taking no prisoners and offering no mercy. It is the most rugged song on the record.

Throughout the story told on the album, the many looks given are all draped in deep shadow. “Riders Of Nebulous Lands” stands out in this regard, while other tracks like “Epitaphium” have a lighter opening, nevertheless drawing fully on black smoke. “Everlasting Pagan Flame,” the band’s first single and a song that originally appeared on their album Cold Winds Of Desolation (2018), is redone here at the end of the album. It is a treat for the band’s fans and a fine way to sign off. Recommended.

Shadow Of The Raventhrone is out on Friday, December 2nd. Bandcamp is the way to go in the US for digital and other formats. Links below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://funeralmass.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/FuneralMassMetal

© Wayne Edwards

Funeral Mass, Shadow Of The Raventhrone (2022)

Rotting Christ, Der Perfekte Traum (VinylStore.Gr 2021)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

The Perfect Dream of Rotting Christ gets a polish and a rejuvenation with the new limited edition of Der Perfekte Traum.

The Greek metal band Rotting Christ is Sakis and Themis Tolis who, along with Jim Mutilator, saw the origins of the band in the 1980s. I think most people, including me, think of the band’s music as Black Metal, but it has varied considerably over the years. With a discography that includes more than a dozen full-length albums and a plethora of EPs, compilations, splits, and live albums, They have covered a lot of ground.

Der Perfekte Traum, “The Perfect Dream,” was originally released in 1999. The new edition is remastered and includes the two studio tracks and five live cuts. The studio tracks are “Der Perfekte Traum” and “Moonlight.”

“Der Perfekte Traum” is a medium-tempo melodically executed song with extended spoken word elements and shifting moods. Sonically, it is quite beautiful, with subdued but clearly recognizable Black Metal influences and unexpected flairs. “Moonlight” has excellent hooks and a trendy construction that almost puts in a radio-ready category. It is a great song, again on the melodic side but also charged with energy and action.

The live tracks are all songs from the Triarchy of the Lost Lovers (1996) album. I really liked that album, incidentally, and the live performances have a nice doomy quality to them. I particularly appreciate the lead work in “A Dynasty from the Ice” and the dire emotion of “Diastric Alchemy” has a high linger factor. I enjoyed revisiting this album – I had forgotten how much I liked it when I first heard it. Recommended.

The new edition of Der Perfekte Traum is a limited vinyl release with a street date of Friday, September 3rd and it is available through VinylStore.Gr. Snap the link below and scroll down a bit for the three variants.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://rottingchrist.bandcamp.com/

Rotting Christ website, https://www.rotting-christ.com/en

VinylStore.Gr, https://www.vinylstore.gr/en/our-releases-w-28079.html

Rotting Christ, Der Perfekte Traum (VinylStore.Gr 2021)

Profond Barathre, Tinnitus (Hummus Records 2021)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , ,

The third album from Switzerland’s Profond Barathe is an instrumental journey through a dark wonderland without a firm concept of edges.

The band is Joachim Braekman (guitar), Morgan d’Argenteuil (drums), and Julien Floch (bass). The first album they released was Un voile de poussière in 2008, followed the very next year by Snaar. There was a split a few years later with Rorcal and Malvoisie that included the massive passage “Illunis,” but mainly the musicians were occupied in other quarters during this while until recently. Tinnitus, then, has been a long time coming and is therefore eagerly anticipated by fans.

The album was recorded a couple of years ago and seeing release only now. There are five long tracks on it, each conveying a unique aspect. “Stella” is ominous, like the story of a plague creeping in before anybody knows it is there. It carries the hallmarks of doom. “Spiritus” has no delineated boundary in a form I can recognize. I do hear black metal nuances in there, intended or not. The music is more active than in the opening song, more directly penetrating.

“Anima” is the most solemn entry of the set, a harbinger of the future of man. “Corpus” is cold and poignant, a marker for all the music herein perhaps but exemplified partiularly in this incarnation. The final track is “Terra” and the music seems sung by a choir of forlorn entities as they slowly diminish into nonexistence. Listening to it a second time prompted me to start at the beginning and when I did I came away with an even stronger sense of the ethereal. However it all came to be, the music on this record is moving in ways both quiet and thundering. Recommended.

Tinnitus is available in full on Friday, February 26th and can be preordered now. Hummus Records has a couple of vinyl versions in extremely limited supply.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://profondbarathre.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/profondbarathre

Hummus Records, https://hummus-records.com/

Profond Barathre, Tinnitus (Hummus Records 2021)

Harakiri For the Sky, Mære (AOP Records 2021)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , ,

Harakiri For The Sky set the post-metal canons to kill for their new epic melodic Black Metal album, Mære.

The band is Matthias Sollak, who plays all the instruments, and V. Wahntraum (JJ) who does the singing. Mære is the fifth full-length album for Harakiri For The Sky since 2012, an impressive production schedule by itself, the significance of which is magnified when you consider the other bands the musicians are part of. The music has a post-metal approach generally, and you can hear melodic Black Metal in there prominently alongside many other melded styles and takes. The themes tend toward the glum, with a heavy dose of hopelessness to season the brew.

The album is gigantic, with ten long songs averaging in the eight minute range. “I, Pallbearer” opens the set, and could function as a single because it is a look through the window at what the album is about. The first thing you hear is a plucking line, then a solid riff that is a melody line of its own. The music fills in over the leading sixty seconds and then the hammer comes down with the introduction of vocals, followed by an even bigger build in the percussion. The song is complex and carefully structured, giving it a Prog ambience to go along with the broader arc of melodic Black Metal. Expect this throughout.

There is a lot to admire in this album. My favorite tracks (along with the opener) are “And Oceans Between” us for the raw energy and emotion it exudes and “Time Is A Ghost” with its elegant, gentle beginning that is swallowed by a landslide of crushing metal only to survive, reëmerge, and then be overtaken again. Mære is an album you will return to over and again in different mental states and for different reasons. Recommended.

Friday February 19th is the official release date, and AOP Records has the goods, accessible through Bandcamp. Five of the songs are already available if you want to get a jump on it with a digital preorder.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://artofpropaganda.bandcamp.com/album/maere

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/HarakiriForTheSky/

AOP Records, http://www.aoprecords.de/

Harakiri For the Sky, Mære (AOP Records 2021)