My Music Path

  On March 3rd, 2021, Koldovstvo’s debut album 'Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga' emerged out of nowhere. There is no information on who’s in the band and where they’re from, but the record is making ripples in the dark watery black metal underground. And for good reason. Koldovstvo means 'witchcraft' in Russian, and Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga means No Tsars, No God. Keep those in mind. Take a look at the artwork. It’s a crop of a painting called Princess Tarakanova by Konstantin Flavitsky from 1864. Now before we dive into the history of this woman, I can say that this release is cinematic, compelling, and quite extraordinary. It sounds as if it’s recorded in an old church, with old gear. The vocals vary from anguished howls to choir-like singing that gives the album a spark of hope in this whirlwind of sadness. But is this a concept album about Princess Tarakanova? I don't know, but let's say it is, what do we need to know about this w...

Last year, I wrote a review on Changeling's third record. A genius black metal album with an original almost warm sound that they can only make in America. On March 15, 2021, they released a split cassette with Everlasting Light, a black metal band from Illinois via Quarter Records.                                                                                                                                                                                  ...

Swedish black metalband Ov Shadows have made their second album 'I Djävulens Avbild' (In The Devil’s Image) and it's released on the 14th of August on Canadian label Hypnotic Dirge.  Tracklist: 1. Den Eld Som Tär och Förvrider 2. Blasfemiskt Crescendo 3. Under Dödens Vingar 4. Anaoretens Gap 5. I Djävulens Avbild 6. Spotsk 7. Av Kunskap Krönt Till Gud Black metal is as diverse as regional accents. Some accents sound like an angel pouring honey into your ear, others sound like a dead zombie slug crawling out of it. Ov Shadows fall in the first category since they make really solid black metal. No keyboards or time-consuming interludes, just guitars, bass, drums and vocals and that's it.  The band recorded, mastered and mixed 'I Djävulens Avbild' themselves, and they did an amazing job. You can hear every instrument, the vocals sound immensely dreadful and they all create this cohesive black metal spear once used by the gods but now in the hands of a pagan witc...

Social media always helps me to find great music. On the Facebook group, There’s No Good Metal Anymore they actually share some great metal albums. And I came across this one: French deathgrind/crust/hardcore band Pilori from France. Their debut album 'À Nos Morts'  (To Our Dead) came out on the 26th of June and it is definitely something to mosh to. Tracklist: 1. Que la Bête Meure (with Dylan Walker from Full Of Hell) 2. Apnée 3. La Grande Terreur 4. Poursuite du Vent (with Matthias Jungbluth from Fange) 5. Roi des Rats 6. À Nos Morts 7. Lorsque Viendra la Nuit 8. Divine Comédie 9. Sous Mes Mains 10. À la Recherche de Temps Perdu 11. Danse Macabre The force is strong with this one, and that force is only strengthened by the fact that Dylan Walker from Full Of Hell is doing vocals on the opening track. Why? Because Pilori and Full of Hell are brothers so to speak. Their music has some similarities, they but it is their aesthetic that binds them. They both take much time to cre...

On the 21st of August, Polish black metalman K.M. releases his second album as Ars Magna Umbrae titled 'Apotheosis' on the might, mighty I, Voidhanger Records. If you like your black metal original and cosmic, watch this label.  Tracklist: 1. Through Fields Of Asphodel 2. She Who Splits The Earth 3. On The Wings Of Divine Fires 4. Apotheosis 5. Mare Tenebrarum 6. Oracle Of Luminous Dark 7. Of Divine Divergence 8. Ignis In Tenebris The band name means something like Way Of The Great Shadow, which sounds great as hell. And that’s also exactly where we’re going. Because Ars Magna Umbrae takes no prisoners when it comes to black metal. The way of incorporating dissonant guitarwork with cinematic soundscapes is exquisitely well done. Dissonance alternated with tremolo-picking and the bending strings trick, which makes the outro of the song 'Of Divine Divergence' one of the best I’ve ever heard. It’s like My Bloody Valentine black metal-style. It's one melting pot of ori...

Back in the 2000s, I read an article about Finnish black metal band …And Oceans that combined black metal and electronics. I started to look for any songs that I could download on the web (I didn’t know anything about Napster or Limewire). I found one and that was Odious and Devious. I really liked the cold they put in the music. This EP by Derhead called 'Irrational I' has got the same cold gloom on it.  Tracklist: 1. The End For Now 2. Corpses Of Desires This one-man project from Giorgio Barrucco makes black metal in the …And Oceans kind of way, cold, icy and with a hint of industrial. That’s what makes this record stand out, the feeling of being surrounded by ice and icicles that can pierce right through you. Started in the 2000s, Giorgio has made several demo's and an EP as Derhead and he also plays bass in gothic metal band The Void. He's a busy man and luckily he made time to create this gem. With snarling vocals, crazy black cold metal riffs and menacing drum wo...

Somewhere in the Sonoran desert, a man is walking wearing an old filthy cloak of old sheep wool, his face hidden in a cowl. That’s what came to mind when I saw this artwork. It’s made by Kieran Wakeman from Divine Art Chaos. It is unsettling, mysterious, raw and it fits perfectly with the music on the second album of the one-man project Light Dweller ‘Hominal’ . Tracklist: 1. 13:12 2. Thrall Beguiled 3. Isolation Devalorize 4. Sequester 5. Chasm Of Limbs 6. Sciolist 7. Dogma Harlot 8. Herd Animal Have you ever bought a record purely based on the artwork? I have and sometimes it was a success just like this record. Cameron Boesch is the main man and only man behind this black/death metal beast of an album. With his talent and creativity, he makes ‘Hominal’ a highpoint of technical black/death metal. Everything sounds so devastatingly heavy like you’re in a sandstorm that suffocates you. The double bass drum, the gut-punching palm-muted guitars, the deep growls make for a trip down a ‘C...

The last couple of years the USA brought forth some of the best black metal I ever heard. Bands like False and Obsequiae are making nature-inspired black metal that's aggressive and melodic. Swarming falls in another category, their music has some emotional touches but they mainly manufacture a very harsh, unnerving feeling that makes you see shadows everywhere. Their debut album ‘Primeval Arteries Of the Sacred Dead’ comes out on the 30th of June by Nihilistic Propaganda Records. Tracklist: 1. Veins 2. Womb 3. Vessel With only three songs that each last ten minutes, the album pulls you into an enormous maelstrom filled with dissonant guitar work, unnerving noise effects and thunderous bass. What stands out is the full drum sound on this album, you can hear every detail. Especially on Womb , an instrumental song that builds up beautifully, starting with this weird feedback-laden noise palette with howling guitars that weave an awfully spine-tingling dark dream.  Swarming makes you...

On the 1st of May Prosthetic Records brought out the 8th album by Dutch black metal band An Autumn For Crippled Children called 'All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet'. If the band name surprised you, you’re not the only one. I couldn't think of a genre that would fit it, maybe some obscure grindcore band or something like that.  Tracklist 1. I Became You 2. Water's Edge 3. Everlasting 4. Paths 5. Silver 6. None More Pale 7. All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet 8. The Failing Senses 9. Craving Silence 10. Distance Formed in 2009 in Friesland, a province in the Netherlands, AAFCC has been putting out records almost every year. And  ' All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet' is an album that  makes me feel like I'm flying above the ocean, looking at the raging monsters and demons below the surface. That's what black metal and shoegaze always do, they make you feel. It's music that's positive and not in a happy-go-lucky kind of way. It reminds yo...

Artwork by Eli Mack At the end of 2019, there were two bands from Minneapolis that took the number one spot on my album of the year list: 'Portent' from False and 'The Palms Of Sorrowed Kings' by Obsequiae. Some entity keeps creating these beautiful black metal diamonds. And on the 8th of May, another one was shaped, Changeling brought out their third record called III.  Tracklist: 1. Ominous Disclosure 2. No Gods Left To Kill 3. Fascism Unveiled 4. So It Has Always Been Contemporary black metal is more about escapism and dealing with inner and outer turmoil than worshipping the devil and destroying Christianity. Of course, there are still some ‘true’ black metal bands, but nowadays they’re not so shocking anymore. Black metal has evolved and I’m glad it did. If it didn’t, Changeling never put out such an incredible album. With only four songs that call upon the imagination to see a dystopian future ruled by fascism, the band is one of the many bands that form a new st...

Sadness, the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Damián Antón Ojeda released his fifteenth (!) full-length album 'I Want To Be There' on April 7th. The album will be released on vinyl on September 21st. Tracklist 1. In The Distant Travels 2. I Want To Be With You 3. Moments 4. I Want To Be There 5. You Dance Like The June Sky 6. Somewhere The Mexican-born American founded Sadness in 2014 and calls himself Elisa in this project. Given his many other music projects, including an improv jazz piano project, an ambient project and a post-metal / hardcore project, we can say that this guy breathes music. And he is only 22. With Sadness he tries to bridge the gap between shoegaze, ambient and black metal and he has succeeded greatly. 'I Want To Be There' lasts 40 minutes and in that time he immerses you in a sea of ​​guitar walls, tremolo picking, colourful, sad ambient sounds, and black metal vocals from afar. The album is more comfo...

Artwork: Kuba Sokolski The prog-sludge band Scientist from Chicago released 'Barbelith' an album that every metal lover should hear. It has all the ingredients you need: heavy riffing, freaky solos, grungy vocals, a great variety of screams and a drummer with a fetish for drum fills. Tracklist: 1. Chokhmah Binah 2. Magic Mirror 3. Barbelith 4. Fiction Suit 5. Retrogade 6. Shed This Meat 7. (Home) at Last Scientist is, despite being a tearjerkingoff song from an unspecified English band, also a metal band and 'Barbelith' (named after the satellite with a consciousness from the comic The Invisibles) is their third album and it is simply genius. Their sludge metal sounds progressive, cinematic and I cannot understand why this band is not more popular among metal fans. The music is a combination of old Mastodon, with vocals that sound like Maynard from Tool and Layne and Jerry from Alice In Chains are having a gettogether: in the title track, ...

Artwork: Josh Tieler De Amerikaanse black metalband Slaves BC klinkt op hun tweede full length album zoals een black metalband hoort te klinken: rauw, intens en demonisch. Zanger/drummer Josh dook in de notities die hij schreef tijdens zijn duistere periodes, herschreef ze en krijste ze daarna als een soort zelftherapie de microfoon in met (plottwist!) Jezus aan zijn zijde. Geplaagd door persoonlijke drama’s (het overlijden van zijn grootmoeder), twijfels over zijn geloof, zelfmoordgedachtes (‘Glory’) en mentale problemen, brengt hij alles bijeen in negen nummers die onder het kopje black metal vallen. Uitstapjes zijn er in kleine mate naar death metal en doom maar het is de ruwe mix, blastbeats, de snerpende krijs en de gitaren die er met tremolo picking voor zorgen dat het black metal hart sneller gaat kloppen:  De plaat doet denken aan een oud ondergronds tunnelnetwerk waar verloren vuurgeesten ronddwalen op zoek naar vergeving zodat ze naar het hiernamaals kunnen vertrekke...