Latest Reviews
There are way too many records released every week - which one should you listen to? We want to help you by reviewing lots of records every week and you can also check out a little teaser before reading the whole thing. And if you want to, you can also browse through our archive and have a look at the amazing records you might have missed out on.
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Marc Urselli's - SteppenDoom
08 Nov 2022 - Stephan
Doom Metal, throat singing ("Indigenous Doom")Many years in the making and stuffed with an almost ridiculous all-star array of global doom metal royalty and renowned throat singing masters, Marc Urselli’s passion project SteppenDoom - aptly dubbed “indigenous doom” - exceeds all expectations arising from this premise and achieves nothing short of unearthing the very primal essence of doom itself in an unexpected place.
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ColdWorld - Isolation
07 Nov 2022 - Thorsten
DSBM, Atmospheric Black MetalWhenever people talk about elegance in metal they mostly refer to Gothic or Doom Metal, but tend to forget Black Metal. Okay, DSBM or Atmospheric Black Metal to be precise. A genre that combines some of the qualities of the former three genres. If you want to experience what I mean with that, then listen to Isolation, the third full-length by Leipzig, Germany-based project ColdWorld.
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The Bobby Lees - Bellevue
06 Nov 2022 - Thorsten
Noise-Rock, Soul, Hardcore PunkRaising kids can be a challenge, right? Especially difficult for us music nerds is that moment when our music is not automatically the stuff they want to listen to. At the moment one of the fave acts of my daughter is called Little Mix and this week’s fave track is called ”No” - don’t ask about my opinion about it. But today was a wonderful day because I set a melody into her head and she can’t get it out again - ”Monkey Mind” by The Bobby Lees. Wonderful!
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Carved into the Sun - The Earth Fell Away
05 Nov 2022 - Thorsten
Post-RockGrief. One of the strongest feelings together with love and anger it can take control over your whole body and mind by simply fading out everything else. People get lost in their grief and some even go a few steps further amid this feeling of being an empty shell without any glimmer of hope. Others seek help and healing through whichever form is most adequate for them, some of them turning to art. Eric Reifinger did the latter and the result is an uplifting catharsis.
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Codespeaker - s/t
04 Nov 2022 - Thorsten
Post-MetalSo, let‘s break one of the simplest rules for writing reviews: Do not write a review because of one listening session. But hey, sometimes rules are only there to be broken, right? Which album forced me to? Codespeaker’s self-titled debut, which was released on Friday, reached me yesterday and convinced me so much today that I have to pen this down. Why so? ISIS.
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Envy - Seimei
03 Nov 2022 - Knut
Atmospheric Sludge Metal/Post Hardcore/Post Metal1992 in Tokyo: Young musicians form a Hardcore Punk band they call Blind Justice. In 1995 they change the band´s name to Envy. In 2022 they release an EP which merges the intense majestic crescendos and the passionate urgency they have become known for. An eleven minutes masterpiece of intense and soul-crushing atmospheric metal. They combine the release with an European tour where the performances are as vital and vivid as any young band out there. This review is written in the glimmering afterglow of such a performance.
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indignu - adeus
02 Nov 2022 - Knut
Post RockIs this a goodbye from the band as the title indicates? Surely, it cannot be! Not from a band who four years after their last album shows that they yet again are on top of their visionary creativity. This new release takes the listener from gently ethereal sonics to thunderous passionate crescendos. It feels more like a musical contemplation of the separations we all have had to endure these past two years and the farewells we have had to say, and how all this has affected us.
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Archers of Loaf - Reason in Decline
31 Oct 2022 - Thorsten
Indie-CoreThere are so many great bands making a comeback in 2022 and one must-listen is: Archers of Loaf. “Archers of…. Who?” some European folks might ask irritate. “Archers of Loaf!” many Americans might scream out in response! Reason in Decline, the new Archers-album, is a picture perfect example of how a band can come back after 15 years and still remain relevant! How that came to happen – well, let’s find out!</i>
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Forlesen - Black Terrain
30 Oct 2022 - Stephan
Ambient, Doom, Black MetalApplying the usual résumé math isn’t the worst choice to guess the sound of a band consisting of two Lotus Thief members as well as musicians with past stints in dulcimer “green” metal entity Botanist and Toby Driver’s avant-garde chameleon Kayo Dot. However in case of Forlesen forming the pure cross total of brought along influences can only be an efficient technique if you add and stress at least one variant in particular: doom.
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The Lord + Petra Haden - Devotional
28 Oct 2022 - Thorsten
Ritual Drone MetalWhoever complains about SunnO))) not having released new music this year has not understood what its two performers have in mind – explorations of sound and tonality, concept and discourse, technique and technology! And sometimes it’s even better to have Stephen and Greg go separate ways because then we get more awesome music from the two of them. Devotional Greg’s latest record with Petra Haden is another example of how far that can be taken. And it’s his second release this year, so come on you complaining cry-babies!
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Sun Voyager - s/t
27 Oct 2022 - Thorsten
Fuzz-Rock, Stoner RockGod is Dead. Again. At least according to Sun Voyager whose second track on their latest, self-titled record is called “God is Dead II“. The very refreshing thing about that is, that this is not yet another Black Metal band declaring the same thing over and over again, but a psyched-up, warm Fuzz-Rock band from New York City!
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GGU:LL - Ex Est
26 Oct 2022 - Thorsten
Post-MetalSeldom has there been an artwork for a cover whose hidden connections with the music behind it are more intricate than Manuel Tinnemanns’ only seemingly simplistic cover for the new record by the Dutch post-metal masters with maybe the most confusing name this side of LLNN: GGU:LL
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Psychonaut - Violate Consensus Reality
23 Oct 2022 - Gene
Post-Metal, Progressive, PsychedelicPsychonaut bring back more of what we loved about their first two full-lengths, a split and a burgeoning side-project, with no indication of slowing down or a waning of inspiration.
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Brutus - Unison Life
21 Oct 2022 - Stephan
Post HardcoreWe all sometimes miss checking important boxes. And now with Roadburn immediately approaching one of those boxes obviously is talking about the thing everybody has already been talking about for months. If there is one album that felt like it brought all factions together in 2022, and which appears in a wide variety of end-of-year lists not only in the Metal and Hardcore milieu, then it must be Unison Life by the Belgian Post Hardcore trio Brutus.
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The Otolith - Folium Lumina
14 Oct 2022 - Gene
Sludge, Stoner, Post-Metal, Avant-GardeIt’s been done a few times before. A time comes when a well-loved band has taken their sound to its logical conclusion and thrown in the hat. Down the line this group of musicians might catch new inspiration, decide to reassess, to explore a different aesthetic, and to recombine under a new banner. And what comes of it might just be the ticket. At The Drive In, anyone? And so that is what the City of the Saints’ very own SubRosa, after nearly two decades of solemn doomy séance, has gone and done. Or has it?
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girih - Ikigai
11 Oct 2022 - Knut
Post Rock, Post Metal, Instrumental MetalWith their sophomore album girih swirl you through massive post rock sonics while dipping into Hard Rock, fuzzy Stoner and Post Metal (to mention some). This is a release that lifts you up to the highest cinematic emotions and drags you down to thunderous dense sonics with its twists and turns. The trio from Manchester, New Hampshire, has made an album that really show what “post-music” is about: genre-defying while at the same time being recognizable within the genre. That sounds absurd, but that is how it is.
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Gaerea - Mirage
10 Oct 2022 - Ajay
Black MetalIn a year that has seen releases from such Black Metal luminaries as Behemoth, Wiegedood, Dark Funeral, Blut Aus Nord, and an album due from Darkthrone, it has been Portugal natives Gaerea’s Mirage that I have been anticipating the most, since hearing first single “Salve” back in June of this year.
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Frayle - Skin & Sorrow
09 Oct 2022 - Gene
Goth, Stoner, Doom, Heavy MetalAnti-love anthems for Desert-Rock Dreams
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Lorna Shore - Pain Remains
08 Oct 2022 - Daniel F.
DeathcoreThe last few years have seen Lorna Shore dragged through the wringer. As a band they have been a party to what could easily have been crippling change, plagued by accusation and ultimately a singer change that either threatened to suck them backwards like a riptide or provide an opportunity to be reborn and put a whole new stamp on what the band stands for. Fast forward to 2022 and they have just been out on tour with metalcore giants Parkway Drive, and are set to release their prolific new album Pain Remains.
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Mountainscape - Atoms Unfurling
06 Oct 2022 - Simon
Post-Rock, Post-MetalMountainscape come roaring out of the gate with their stunning second album which makes a mockery of the difficult ‘second album syndrome’!
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Givre - Destin Messianique
05 Oct 2022 - Thorsten
Atmospheric Black Metal, Blackgaze, DSBMGetting into this record is like a time machine for me, in a way. It reminds me of a time thirty years past, when I literally would try to get as much information about important records as possible. That is a compliment from my side for one of the most interesting Atmospheric Black Metal releases of 2022 – Givre‘s new masterpiece Destin Messianique!
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Fucked Up - Oberon
05 Oct 2022 - Thorsten
Punk, Prog RockOkay, eff me! What in the whole effin world can this band NOT do? Effin all they can do, ay! Fucked Up shows once again that there is really no limit to their talent as they give us a bazillion-th version of their skills by releasing Oberon and thence by shoving a really perfect sludge record down our non-expecting throats!
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Wowod & Somn - Split
04 Oct 2022 - Knut
Atmospheric Black Metal, Blackgaze, Post Metal, Doom MetalThe metal-related music scene in St Petersburg is a true melting pot of bands and musicians who know no genre-borders when it comes to creating visionary metal music. When you get your hand on new music from bands like Wowod and Somn you know it will be very good. You do a couple of first listens and your expectations are met. And then you do some further listening and, as always with these bands, it kicks in why it is so outstanding: You notice the hidden structures in the layers, the melodic themes and the minor shifts in tonality that, although it is a vortex of distorted sound, shows that less is also more in this kind of music.
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Counterparts - A Eulogy For Those Still Here
04 Oct 2022 - Sebastian
Hardcore2022 shapes up to be one of the best years in terms of hardcore releases. Counterparts’ newest work A Eulogy For Those Still Here could be one of their best releases to date. Counterparts were never one of those “us against the world” bands, but more a “world against us” bands. The album once again is about personal loss, the fear thereof and so much more.
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Wizzerd - Space? Issue No. 001
30 Sep 2022 - Thorsten
Stoner RockSomewhere between Fu Manchu, Howling Giant and Red Fang lies the sound of Wizzerd. Psychedelic Stoner at its beast … uhm best!
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