LP Review: "Thanatophobia" by Unendlich

Thanatophobia

It's time that the phrase is uttered and it's going to get people angry.

Black Metal, by and large, is boring.

It's a boring genre. Look, I dig Mayhem. The only album of theirs I have, and will ever have is Live In Leipzig.

When it comes to what's traditionally called Black Metal, aside from hiding some racists in there, it's kind of boring music.

Now, when you take out the Nationalism and add in some hyphenation on the already  hyphenated genre name and  you have Thrashened Black Metal or Blackened Death Metal, you start cooking with gas.

Undendlich could probably do a straight up whiskey no chaser black metal record that would make the masses jump for joy, but thankfully they did not.

Instead of making a 45 minute song about Satan doing whatever he does with the goats to whomever he does it to...they wrote a kick ass record that happens to be largely black metal. It's not just any one thing, but it's not just a pastiche of TRVE KVLT VLAVK METALZ.

It's an attempt to add in other elements of metal that makes the other genres so much more appealing than Black Metal. Standard Black Metal it a rejection of many things we hold true, but Thanotophobia is about making amends and bringing it all back together.

RELEASE 2/1/19 BANDCAMP FACEBOOK

LP Review: "Salt and Rot" by God Root

Salt and Rot

One of the best gifts that nature has ever bestowed upon humanity is friendship.

The ship of friends that takes us places. It's definitely a very special part of the human condition that Lt. Cmdr. Data is currently working on...wait...he was blown up.

Then there's the best friend. The person in your life that even if you haven't spoken in years, that you can sit down with and pick up where you left off.

Being lucky, my best friend returned to St. Louis, but we had that relationship for the eight years he was out of town.

It's hard to even conceive of life with out my friends, both real and internet...possibly imaginary. The love and comfort received has kept this little guy going all these years.

Album Review: "Still The Wretched Linger" by Beldam

There are many great metal albums which would serve as the perfect soundtrack for a horror movie. Beldam’s album “Still The Wretched Linger” is the horror movie itself. 

This is sludge metal at its finest, with plodding, ominous low end riffs lurching into your ears and dragging the listener into the murky depths of a haunted swamp.

Stanley Stepanic’s vocals can be described as an operatic spoken word growl, which remind me of the vocal style of Attila Csihar, the legendary vocalist of Mayhem fame.  The lyrics, where they can be discerned, are about torture, evil and despair.

My first listen to the album turned a sunny Sunday afternoon into a journey into the black abyss, the absolute juxtaposition of the outside world gurgling forth from my speakers like molten lava from a volcano.  "Still the Wretched Linger" is a heavy, intense journey to the dark side, and like any good horror movie, is best appreciated at night. Subsequent spins were all done after sunset.