After blowing us away with their excellent debut release “Trails Out of Gloom”, Fen (the Progressive Rock/Metal one) returns with “Of Losing Interest”, a release that while heavier in nature it failed to captivate us as much as their previous release. With nine tracks of well-crafted Progressive Rock/Metal, this release is by no means bad, it just feels too straightforward and lacking the magic that “Trails out of Gloom” had in every track.

The opener “Riddled” is a quintessential Prog piece that sounds a bit too predictable and linear in our opinion. There are a few cool guitar sections and the bass guitar line is pretty solid, but the song as a hole seems lacking some creativity. Things pick up a couple of times during the tracks “Of Losing Interest”, “Nice for Three Days”, and “A Long Line”, with a few brilliant guitar sections and tight percussions, but nothing extremely impressive. We are kind of turned off that we are almost half-way through the release and haven’t found anything that really sticks in our head.

Arriving through Malevolence Records, today we have T.C.F a Dutch band playing some very well crafted Thrashcore. If you didn’t know the band is from the Netherlands, you would easily mistake them for any band from the late 80’s, early 90’s from the USA. Delivering thirteen tracks of balls to the wall Thrashcore, “Where Madness Reigns” is a pretty solid release for any fan of the genres.

With a very authentic vibe, the band opens with hateful riffs and powerful drums on “Face the Truth”. Keeping the initial vibe rolling, tracks like “Slave to the Suit”, “Mass Hysteria” and “Where Madness Reigns” feature very typical song structures that will have you jumping up and down immediately. It is quite funny to think that this is a fairly young band since they nail 100% the atmosphere needed to pull off this kind of music.

Formed by Mat "Kvohst" McNerney (ex-DHG, Code, etc, etc), this relatively new Psychedelic Folk band has made quite an impact with their debut album “Dawnbearer” and with “No Holier Temple” they show that their epic first release was no fluke. Featuring eleven haunting tracks that bring back the sultriness of the 70’s psychedelic music with a Folk/Doom edge that nobody else in the scene seems to be able to pull off, this album is well on its way to our top 10 of 2012 list.

With a considerably more ‘sophisticated’ sound that any of Kvohst’s older bands, his enchanting vocals reach new heights in this very well crafted and highly diverse release. After the mysterious intro “Heaven and Earth Magic”, Hexvessel sets sails with the eerie epic “Woods to Conjure”. In this track the band immediately establishes a very dense occult feeling with a very cool backdrop of choir-like vocals. Our favorite moment in this song comes around the 2:20 minute mark when a sexy saxophone comes into the scene making this song completely intoxicating.

With a ton of releases in 2011, Shroud of Despondency is falling behind in 2012 since this is ‘only’ their second one of the year. In this split release we have four track of Shroud of Despondency and three songs of Cholernik, a one-man band from the bass player of SoD. After reviewing SoD’s last release “Pine”, we are quite shocked to hear that the songs presented in this release are way more brutal and more straight-forward in nature.

Opening with some funky guitar structures, “Defeat” has a very direct approach with heavy Doom-ish riffs and very deep growls. The song suddenly shifts into 4th gear and delivers pummeling drums and hellish screams. This style indeed is very different to the band’s previous release, but still captures the sick guitar sounds that characterize SoD. Both “Pain Without Life” and “The Echo of Depletion” are very brutal in nature and border between the lines of Black and Death Metal at times, making them quite appealing for the more ‘brutal’ Metal music fan. “Shapes” goes back a bit into the more elaborate guitar structures with funky rhythms, leaving the listener totally puzzled by the weird but good tracks presented by SoD in this release.

With a very interesting musical proposal today we have Wisconsin’s Arbor and their debut release “The Plutonian Shore”. In the ten tracks presented in this first effort, the band mixes folk elements with Doom and Post-Metal sections in a very unusual and sometimes weird sounding fashion, but it all comes together in a very exciting way giving them a very fresh and unique sound.

Setting a very ethereal and folk-ish mood with opener track, the band quickly comes back with very aggressive vocals and a Doom-vibe on “Trees”. The music is very well crafted to not give things away too quickly and build momentum, allowing the atmosphere and expectation to grow with every note. The band’s clean vocals are definitely an ‘acquired’ taste and for sure need some work, but they are used to perfection to contrast the harsh screams and the rest of the more ‘growly’ vocals.

The always riveting A Forest of Stars returns with yet another brilliant album that defies the limits of conventional music and mixes a very diverse spectrum of sounds and genres. In “A Shadowplay for Yesterdays”, the band features ten excellent tracks that will surely expand your horizons with a truly rich musical experience unlike anything you’ve ever heard before.

Described as a concept album, this new release features the typical mixture of genres by the band, but it also sounds very cohesive and dark. The atmospheric elements are one of the biggest staples of the band and they delivers excellent sections that set the mood just right, like on the opener “Directionless Resurrectionist”. The spoken passages give that deranged vibe that we love about the band’s music. Not breaking character, the tempo of “Prey Tell of the Church Fate” is quite slow and nicely builds up to the faster Black Metal-ish sections. The drums are very good, but the atmospheric elements are the ones that shine the most.

Formed back in 2009, today we have Resurgency’s debut full-length release titled “False Enlightenment”. Targeted directly to fans of chugging Death Metal, this Greek band delivers 40+ minutes of excellent neck-breaking music that will have you moshing since the first song. Hellthrasher Productions again amazes us with a great ear for bands that play devastating Death Metal but do not fall in the repetitiveness and dullness that plagues other ‘bands’ these days.

The band quickly gets down to business with the hectic “Craniums of Slain Disciples”. “Ending the Beginning” quickly moves into faster territory with crushing drum patterns, tight riffs, and subhuman growls (just what the doctor ordered). With the perfect tempo, we particularly enjoy “Black Holes of Antiverse”, a very crushing track that feels like a slow punch in the face. For the fans of blast-beats and brutal songs, “Dark Revival” has that aggressive feeling of bands like Broken Hope and Suffocation, thanks to the pulsating bass guitar line and intricate riffing.

Our favorite two-man unit from Slovakia has returned with their first full-length release titled “New World Disorder”. With a richer and far more complicated sound since their demo EP “Beta Version”, the band delivers eleven tracks filled with crazy vocals, programmed ‘drums’ and a few interesting riffs here and there. This album does show the considerable amount of maturity that the band has achieved over the years, but it also lacks the cohesiveness of their demo EP.

After the instrumental “Europa In Flames” intro, the band immediately sets the mood with some heavy and catchy riffs surrounded by fake drums and a very monotonous approach to things. The fake drums our one of our main pet peeves with short-staffed bands, and Khadaver falls in this category with very dull and linear patterns presented through the release. The track itself presents some cool guitar sections and even nicer electronic parts, but it is very repetitive.