Coming back after an intense four years of touring since their last release back in 2008, today we have Moonspell and their most ambitious release yet: Alpha Noir / Omega White. In this double CD release, the band delivers one complete CD with the aggressive side of the band, and another with… we don’t really know since we didn’t get that part of the album, but Fernando Ribeiro says is more mellow, dark, and deep.

Opening with the powerful yet enigmatic “Axis Mundi” the band shows no signs of slowing down and delivers a typical catchy Moonspell track. With a very ritualistic feeling, the vocals are very commanding and the guitar riffing is excellent. With no need for excessive guitar layering or studio trickery, the band delivers crystal-clear sounding rawness in a very Moonspell fashion.

Like a dense wall of fog moving towards your house, Aus Der Transzendenz “Breed of a Dying Sun” release will sweep you away and transport you to the era of well crafted ‘low-fi’ sounding Black Metal. This Austrian band actually does a great job in using the age old ‘let’s make it sound very kvlt’ recipe’ and producing 33 minutes of devastating dissonant Black Metal with a few excellent atmospheric passages.

Opening with the sheer brutality of “A Dream of Ghosts”, the riffing and drumming is quite intense and massive. Backed by a very raw production with enough clarity to let everything trough, this song nicely sets the tone for the release. In “A Pathway to Rebirth” the band keeps up the intensity and adds some extra atmospheric passages that are downright chilling. The bass guitar line in these passages is quite enjoyable and the Doom-ish feeling to them is awesome.

Umbah is one of those bands that sounds like a bunch of meth heads playing around with instruments and samples, but funny enough some of ‘their’ stuff is actually enjoyable. “Enter the Dagobah Core” marks the band’s 13th release and it surely is a very weird and chaotic one. We can’t really say it’s bad because it actually has plenty of sections that are quite entertaining and interesting to listen to, but we can’t really say is also something that mainstream music listeners will enjoy.

“Whispers of a Dying Sun part I” delivers a pretty clear statement of what is to come: either open your mind of fuck off. This song is quite convoluted and crazy, but underneath the madness there is some weird sense of melody that intrigued us (enough to keep listening). “Bolderok Naron” and “Tample Bar” have a hint of Marilyn Manson meets Merzbow meets video game music, quite disturbing but equally intoxicating.

Delivering a crushing 72 minute release divided in two songs, today we have Italy’s Malasangre and their thick mixture of Drone/Funeral Doom Metal with some hints of Black Metal screams. In such an ambitious release the band brings you down to a dark and cavernous world where light goes to die. This music is what I would take into a caving expedition and freak the shit out of everybody there.

Opening with the hypnotic “Sa Ta”, the album’s first half delivers a slow and painful ride down the bowels of hell. The riffs are sparse but crushing, the screams are as demonic as you can get, and the overall atmosphere is very nicely constructed to create a feeling of despair. The Doom riffing is excellent and very well developed through this song, making it not as linear as many bands do when constructing a 30+ minute song.

Highly melodic and equally melancholic are the first words that come through our mind when thinking about Heimdalls Wacht’s latest release “Nichtorte”. With a heavy emphasis on the melodic side of things, Germany’s Heimdalls Wacht delivers a good dose of Pagan Black Metal in the 12 tracks presented on this release, good enough to be one of the best we’ve heard in quite a while.

After the traditional intro, the riffing onslaught begins with “Maelstrom”, a very Black Metal oriented track with catchy sections. The drumming is very fast paced, but the ethereal atmospheric elements here and there are what makes this track standout. Things finally start to move into darker and more melancholic territories with songs like “Ignis fatuus” and “Die Einsamkeit des Gestaltenwandlers”. The melody achieve by the songs powerful riffs is amazing and completely destructive.

In an action packed sampler, today we have Malevolence Records “2012 European Tour Sampler” featuring 4 different bands and two tracks each, a new one and an older one. With a nice spread of different musical genres (Thrash Metal and Melodic Death/Black Metal) this release is quite entertaining and shows promises for the upcoming releases of bands like KAOS and Septic Christ.

Tracks one and five belong the American Thrash Metal act KAOS. Their brand of high-octane Thrash Metal was greatly received with their last release titled “Pits of Existence” from which “Let God Sort Them Out” comes from. The new track “Infernal Bleeding” continues where the band left off and delivers super guitar work and excellent drumming. The vocals are pretty standards and aggressive enough to keep fans of ‘more brutal’ genres interested. This track has a nice melodic edge to it and we can only hope their upcoming release “Validated in Blood” is as good as this song.

Hailing from France, today we have the Heavy/Power Metal outfit named Lonewolf and their surprisingly very engaging release “Army of the Damned”. While not having anything original about their sound, Lonewolf does an excellent job in crafting 11 super-catchy headbanging inducing tracks that will stick to your head for days to come.

Opening with the track titled “Lonewolf”, the band delivers commanding guitar riffs and solos, powerful keyboards in a very traditional sounding track that is super catchy in nature. The vocals are your typical late 90’s raspy Heavy Metal style, but they actually feel very well fitted for the more modern and richer sound of the band. Things continue to get even catchier with the excellent “Crawling to Hell”, a track that has a slight Manowar vibe. The chorus section is pretty solid, allowing this track to have all the makings of a true Metal anthem.

With a very interesting and bombastic sound, today we have Sweden’s own AtomA and their debut full-length “Skylight” out on Napalm Records. In this release we have a trio of musicians crafting a unique musical experience that has way too much stuff going on at certain times. While the band’s sound is lush and powerful, it also feels a bit misguided and confusing, making this release a interesting experience but ultimately not cohesive enough to be fully praised (at least by us).

Opening with the ritualistic “AtomA”, this track has a very ‘tribal’ feeling to it with a mixture of futuristic soundtrack elements and some electronic stuff thrown into the mix. As an opener it helps set the listener’s mindset to something completely different, but it also feels a bit convoluted. “Skylight” capitalizes on the initial build up with some more extreme atmospheric elements and powerful guitars. The drumming is very well crafted, but sounds a bit drowned in the mix. The clean vocal sections are pretty solid and provide a nice ethereal feeling to the band’s brand of music.

Keeping the quality Death/Doom Metal flag alive, today we have Et Moriemur and their debut full-length “Cupio Disolvi”. This Czech band delivers nine melancholic tracks that narrate nine different stories of people that took their own life. With the band’s highly melancholic and emotional sound, “Cupio Disolvi” not only transmits depressive feelings via the lyrics, but also with such beautifully crafted emotional music.

“Deliverance” opens this release with a slight folk edge that feels a bit weird for the concept of the release, but the song soon starts warming up. The growls are great and the overall pace of this song is very well crafted to provide an interesting ride. With 2 minutes remaining on the track, the band goes into a passage that reminded us a bit of Lacrimosa but with manlier clean vocals and some excellent Doom weeping guitars.

The constantly morphing Job for a Cowboy (JFAC) have taken 4 years between full-length releases and with “Demonocracy” they keep getting closer and closer to the Technical Death Metal genre with this release. Many people give shit to this band from leaving the Deathcore category, but their slow transition has been quite interesting and something to admire since they are bringing with them plenty of fans that otherwise would never dabble with Tech DM bands.

Opening with the commanding “Children of Deceit”, the band makes a huge statement with its brutal and technical approach. The drumming is furious, the riffing is very well crafted, and the bass guitar track is almost up to par to something that Jeroen Paul Thesseling (Pestilence, ex-Obscura) would come up with. The ups and downs in this song are very well crafted and don’t feel too Deathcore-ish to us.