Album Reviews

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Tour d'Ivoire - Tour d'Ivoire (2024)

    cover

    Creating a very hypnotic and dream-like atmosphere, today we have Atmospheric Black Metal outfit Tour d'Ivoire with their eponymous debut release. With four tracks and over 33 minutes of music, the band’s sound reminds us of one of our favorite bands: Enid. With a good dose of synths, multiple vocal styles, heavy guitars, and a very mellow tempo, this release creates a very dense and immersive vibe that only a handful of more experienced outfits can deliver.

    Setting a very mystical mood with “La Tour”, we get a taste of lush atmospherics paired with a river of distorted guitars and harsh vocals. This harshness is masterfully contrasted by ethereal clean vocal choirs, creating a very dissonant and yet pleasing effect. With “Brouillard” and “Forteresse de Marbre” this outfit fully immerses the listener into their world with more waves of catchy and melancholic melodies that continue to showcase the band’s duality.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Glare of the Sun - Tal (2024)

    cover

    Unleashing a hefty dosage of Doom/Post-Metal brilliance, today we have Austrian outfit Glare of the Sun with their latest release “Tal”. Featuring a very well balanced sound that mixes elements of bands like Swallow The Sun and The Ocean, this release delivers nine tracks and nearly one hour of highly emotive and yet crushing music. Highly recommended for fans of bleakness with a dose of heaviness, the music here is both emotive and crushing.

    Opening with the Swallow the Sun-esque “Colossus”, the band unleashes powerful riffs and thunderous harsh vocals. This first track showcases a Doomier side of the band that slowly gets transitioned as other songs like “Rain”, “Äon”, and “Relikt” introduce more layers to the band’s sound like excellent clean vocals, and highly melancholic (and slower) interludes. The mixture of atmospheric elements alongside piercing riffs keeps tracks like “Stonefall” quite balanced and diverse, avoiding falling into formulaic territories.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Winterfylleth - The Imperious Horizon (2024)

    cover

    Over the years the Atmospheric Black Metal scene has exploded and many bands have crowded it, however, Winterfylleth has always been at the top thanks to their creativity and ability to greatly improve with each release. With “The Imperious Horizon”, the band takes their sound to a whole new level with over 70 minutes of bombastic music that perfectly balances aggression and melancholy.

    Setting an enigmatic and lush mood with the instrumental opener, the blasts away with the piercing “Like Brimming Fire”, a track filled with crushing drums and savage riffs, giving us a certain Der Weg einer Freiheit vibe. After the furious opener, “DishonourEnthroned” keeps the intensity but carves some masterful melodic elements into the mix, creating a very enveloping sound, with Chris Naughton harsh vocals brilliantly adding to the turmoil. With no sign of slowing down, “Upon this Shore” and the album title track perfectly deliver a delicate balance between ravaging brutality and melancholy, with some epic headbanging passages and dramatic keyboards/clean vocals.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Wolfheart - Draconian Darkness (2024)

    cover

    Tuomas Saukkonen continues to be one of the most busy persons in Metal, dropping a new Wolfheart release in 2024. With “Draconian Darkness”, the band continues its illustrious career delivering nine tracks and over 40-minutes of catchy and engaging Melodic Death Metal. Featuring the band’s signature sound plus a few tweaks, this release perfectly balances aggression with melody, creating epic headbanging moments in its wake.

    Opening with “Ancient Cold”, we get the band’s signature melodic riffing alongside subtle atmospheric arrangements, creating a very immersive atmosphere. One particular tweak is the use of more clean vocals, compared to their previous release, with both Lauri Silvonen and Vagelis Karzis contributing to this. As the band pummels through “Evenfall”, “Burning Sky”, and “Death Leads the Way”, the band further explores this more balanced approach with a nice addition of some orchestral arrangements, courtesy of Saku Moilanen, further enriching the experience.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Wintersun - Time II (2024)

    cover

    Unleashing one of the most cinematic Metal releases of 2024, today we have Finland’s Wintersun and their opus “Time II”. Filled with the band’s signature Melodic Metal approach mixed with lush symphonic elements, this release delivers six dramatic tracks that cover nearly 50-minutes of superbly engaging and elegant music. The band continues to improve and enrich their sound and this release elevates it to a whole new level.

    Opening with the instrumental “Fields of Snow”, we get a continuation of the Asian elements that the first “Time” release had, creating a very lively and engaging atmosphere. The epicness starts with the ravaging “The Way of The Fire”, featuring some insane lead guitars by none other than Teemu Mäntysaari, alongside dramatic symphonic arrangements and very well crafted tempo changes. This song gives vibes of a mixture of Children of Bodom meets Warmen meets Ensiferum, so you know it is beyond awesome.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Avmakt - Satanic Inversion of.... (2024)

    cover

    Spewing a grim style of Norwegian Black Metal today we have Avmakt and their debut release “Satanic Inversion of....”. With a sound reminiscent of Dark Throne, Sarke, and Tulus, this outfit keeps the old-school flame alive with six crushing tracks. As a no-frills approach to the genre, this release is primal and raw, unleashing 45 minutes of gut-wrenching music.

    As the release opens with “Ordinance”, we get that raw and unfiltered vibe from the music as the riffing and drumming create that old-school vibe while the harsh snarls add that extra punch to the music. The band’s style is familiar and yet engaging enough to deliver tracks like “Poison Reveal” and “Sharpening Blades of Cynicism”, with their catchiness and subtle Black’n’Roll/Punkish elements.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Amiensus - Reclamation: Part II (2024)

    cover

    Hailing from the USA, Progressive Black Metal outfit Amiensus returns with part II of their “Reclamation” saga. Released a few months back, part I showcased the band’s excellent musicianship and creativity, and with part II, the band continues to unleash superbly crafty and engaging songs with elements from bands like Enslaved, Agalloch, alongside their distinctive vocal onslaughts.

    Opening with “Sólfarið”, we get a pretty intense track that slowly builds up to a hectic cathartic closing, instantly reminding us of the proggy-ness of Enslaved alongside the band’s diverse vocal onslaught. After making an impression with the opener, “Acquiescence” has more of an Agalloch dreamy opening that quickly expands to heavy riffs, pummeling drumming, and hellish harsh vocals. The band expertly mixes slower and dreamy passages with some pretty engaging blistering sections that weave back and forth different moods and tempos.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Gravenoire - Devant la porte des étoiles (2024)

    cover

    Unleashing an extreme level of grimness and rawness, today we have France’s Gravenoire and their debut EP “Devant la porte des étoiles”. Trying to bring some of that 90’s Black Metal spirit, this relatively new outfit, featuring members (and ex-members) of bands like BA’A, Anorexia Nervosa, Seth and Diablation, delivers some of the most stripped down and yet intense BM music in the last few years. If you are a fan of uncompromising Black Metal removed from commercial gimmicks and current trendiness, this is the release for you.

    Setting a regal mood with “Pavens”, the band really lashes out at the listener with the piercing “France de l'Ombre” featuring crafty drumming, intense riffing and the signature vocals of RMS Hreidmarr, perfectly augmented by Vicomte Vampyr Arkames equal rawness and sheer aggression. Besides the dual vocal onslaught, the music has that old-school rawness thanks to a lo-fi production, said to be recorded in a live rehearsal, which delivers a very organic and natural incisive edge to the music as tracks like "Ordo Opera Cultura” and “Aux Chiens” demonstrate.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Nile - The Underworld Awaits Us All (2024)

    cover

    Everybody’s favorite Egyptian-inspired Brutal/Technical Death Metal outfit is finally back with another high-octane release titled “The Underworld Awaits Us All”. Featuring eleven tracks and nearly 55-minutes of music, the band returns with masterful incisive onslaughts of brutality, perfectly paired with crafty atmospheric elements and crushing tempo changes. If you are a fan of the band’s earlier work, you will love this album as it keeps things hectic and punishing from start to end.

    Blasting away with “Stelae of Vultures”, we get those sweet chuggy Death Metal riffs the band is known for alongside the crushing drumming of George Kollias. Pummeling through blistering fast tracks like “To Strike with Secret Fang” and “Naqada II Enter the Golden Age”, to the traditional instrumental pieces like “The Pentagrammathion of Nephren-Ka”, Nile continues to polish their style while delivering intense pieces of music, only getting better with time.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Simone Simons - Vermillion (2024)

    cover

    Finally getting around to unleashing her ‘solo’ music, Simone Simons of Epica fame delivers one of the most bombastic and explosive Symphonic/Progressive Metal releases of 2024. Featuring ten tracks and over forty six minutes of music, this album shows the versatility of Simone’s vocals and creativity. With tracks reminding us from everything between Epic and Ayreon, this release will certainly be a hit with her fans and fans of the genre.

    Opening with the mysterious “Aeterna”, we get a very bombastic and engaging first taste into this excellent release. More than just more of the same, the tracks in this release add electronic and progressive elements to clearly delineate that this is Simone’s own project and not just an extension of Epica. Tracks like, our personal favorite, “In Love We Rust”, really showcase her vocals in a different light, with more of an Ayreon-esque edge.

Pages

Recent Image Galleries