Post-Black Metal

The fourth album from Austrian band Anomalie spins a preternatural web of post-black metal: Tranceformation.

Aomalie is Christian “Marrok” Brauch, joined by Lukas Schlintl on drums and percussion. Operating under this name for just over a decade, Anomalie has released three previous long-players and the EP Integra (2018).

The new album is an induced trance in six movements. The opening track is absolutely mesmerizing. It is not too much to call it hypnotic. The black metal elements are clear but they are not as prominent as the comely vocals and the melodic guitar entreaties. The percussion is held at a subdued level in the mix but the playing wicked indeed. This is “Trance I: The Tree” and if it was the only song on the album I would be satisfied, but it is only the beginning.

“Relics” is next and it lays down a pulsing groove. The track is nine minutes long and by the end you are sorry to see it go because the composition somehow keeps you transfixed the entire time. The movement from melodic to coarser vocals is seamless and occurs in synch with unseen powers that, while unexplained, make perfect sense. “Alive” is quieter overall but has some of the most urgent guitar work in its midst. By this point I was completely absorbed in the music and I had only heard side one.

The back half of the trance-set continues the work of the first part. I don’t know what I expected from this album, but what I heard was fantastic. Calling the music post-black metal isn’t wrong, but it doesn’t cover it, either. Cross-over and fusion music is sometimes disappointing because it ends up with too much of one thing or not enough of the other. But Anomalie has created something that is completely different from its constituent parts where the balance is unassailable.

Set aside some time to be taken away because when this album is on your attention cannot go anywhere else. Highly recommended.

Tranceformation is out now through AOP Records. In the US, Bandcamp is the one-stop shop.

Links,

Bandcamp, https://anomalie-official.bandcamp.com/album/tranceformation

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/The.Anomalie.Experience

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

Seventh Genocide returns with a sweeping new album that wraps a shroud around the twitching world and draws out both instance and meaning from the complex non-ness of our contemporaneous existence.

SVNTH, the shorthand for Seventh Genocide, is an Italian band that blends many musical styles into their compositions. Most often referred to as Atmospheric Metal or Post-Black Metal, you must expect to have a variegated listening experience when you drop the needle.

Spring In Blue is the third full-length album from Seventh Genocide, and the current line-up includes founder Rodolfo Ciuffo (bass, vocals, acoustic guitar), Valerio Primo (drums), Stefano Allegretti (guitar), and Jacopo Gianmaria Pepe (guitar). There have been many musicians who have played in the band over the years, but the arc of the musical evolution has been consistence since its formation in 2006 due to the constant presence and direction of Rodolfo Ciuffo. If you want to know more about where the band is coming from spiritually and thematically, check out their Facebook page.

“Who Is The Dreamer” is the overture, and as such it is theatrical, segue to mystical then dramatic. Over the course of the next four long pieces, the purpose of the music is made clear, and the center of the conflict is transparently demonstrated. Apparitions, hallucinations, and frightening visions manifest in the building and bursting aural landscapes. The show closes with “Sons of Melancholia,” a song that has four minutes of light, pop-oriented instrumental to calm your nerves before the bolt gun is placed firmly against your forehead for a sudden blast of deathness. Eight minutes in there is a 70s-style guitar jam – very BÖC. And then there is a doom trudge to the captive end where you hear the siren call for the last time. This song encompasses, encapsulates, really, my experience with the entire album as a witness to events that mean more in truth than they seem to mean on the surface. You will not come away from even a single listening of this music without having seen or understood something differently than you did before. Recommended.

Spring In Blue is out now and ready for the taking at Bandcamp, Transcending Records, and all the other places you are used to for your musical needs.

Band photo by Void Revelations.

Links.

http://seventhgenocide.bandcamp.com

http://www.facebook.com/pg/seventhgenocide

http://www.youtube.com/user/SeventhGenocide

http://transcendingrecords.com

http://www.facebook.com/transcendingrecords