Desolate Shrine - The Heart of the Netherworld

| LABEL |

Dark Descent Records

| AVDIO |

Bandcamp

| Death Metal | An ancient darkness and a mysterious aura surrounds the entire album, creating a sound as if it were from another world, netherworld!!!

First and foremost, this is a solid album. The structure is as stable and mysterious as an ancient stone monument. Everything is covered in a veil of darkness and mystery, it is cloudy and majestically at the same time. Dark as a forgotten chamber and glistening like a copper shield.

There are several nuances and layers in the album. In the background is constantly a roaring darkness and in the forefront, we find ancient divine melodies that speaks to the body and blood of the inner self. It is an epic soundscape that is created by small means and suggestive undertones. The album oscillates constantly between DM and BM, with the intemperate weight of DM with darkness and mystery of the BM.

It feels like this obscure creation comes from a bygone era. It really manage to conjure up an entire landscape of sounds that you get drawn into, whether you are conscious of it or not. A disc that can be played over and over again. There are so infinitely much to discover. It even activates other senses than just hearing. I think I can feel the odors, tastes and ancient deities in my vicinity. A divine experience!!!

| EXECVTION	| 92	| COMPOSITION	| 89 |
| INNOVATION	| 88	| PRODVCTION	| 94 |

| GRADE | 91 |

Woods of Desolation - As The Stars

LABEL
Northern Silence Productions
AVDIO
Bandcamp
BVY
Northern Silence
SCORE
9/11

This is an album that really has grown a lot on me. My first impression where that this was just another one of all those mediocre one-man projects out there, but its anything but mediocre, its quite unique and delicate in its way.

Its an album thats heavy on the atmosphere, I feel both isolation and serenity within when I'm listening to it. Its like an ice cold windswept feeling on the outside, but with a cozy warmth within. Its impressive how a band from Australia can create this feeling of a frost coated pine forest in a blizzard storm, that just feel so fucking northern!!!

The production together with the solid performance on the album are the brightest stars. It like a thick impenetrable forest of grinding guitars together with an tortuous voice from the lightless depths of the woods. Add that together with a keyboard that are used in a excellent way. Its almost always in the music, without becoming predominant, its just there to enhance the atmosphere yet another notch. I highly recommend this album for those that are looking for something slow, melancholic and atmospheric!!!

My Useless Life - Negative Memories

After a short break in the shadows are we back again, this time with the second release from the depressive american band My Useless Life. My first two questions are, do the scene really need another bloody depressive BM band? And what the fuck is up with the name? It sounds like some depressed emocore bullshit. And at the same time I know the answers, yeah if its any fucking good and brings some of those beautiful painful emotions.And the name?!? Fuck the name!!!

The songs are played in an extremely slow pace (there are of course some parts of the more faster kind too, but the overall feeling is slow and painful, like standing in the line of your local pharmacy), with the guitars and the piano?!? (yeah there are some piano parts, fucking beautiful stuff and great for the mood) slowly building up a nice melancholic atmosphere, that reminds you of the meaninglessness of life itself. I get the feeling of an ghetto concrete complex that are decayed from ages ago, everything is withering down to white dust that flows in the wind. It may not bring that much new to the table except the vocals, which are dark as an oil well, and you can here the obvious influences from bands like Shining (to name the best known in the subgenre, good job). There are some intricate parts here and there however (thanks to the guitars) and the piano adds a really nice touch of pitch black isolation in our modern society.

7/11

Listen to them here:

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Wintercult - The Last Winter

REVIEW Voidhanger - Working Class Misanthropy

As you probably know by now, we here at DV have a predilection for BM of the more rockin' kind, and thats what this polish band delivers unto us like a punch in the fucking spleen. From the first tone are we invited to an excellent lesson in how you do high quality BM with a good fucking intensity and still keeping the essence from the roots of it all. But there aren't just rock'n'roll influences here, the album are teeming with a lot of punk influences too! This brings some fucking nice attitude to the recording and makes it kind of old school in a way. But on the other hand can you find a lot of crystal clear inspirations from polish death metal (of course!), which totally contradicts the last claim of them being old school!?! But thats the thing, the duality, the fucking have both!!! They have taken the best of the old and mixed it with the newer technical stuff with a great interesting result. If you want both, new and old, with some punk rock pumping through the veins, check this shit out!!!

8,5/11

Best track: Working Class Misanthropy

Check them out here:

http://www.lastfm.se/music/Voidhanger

REVIEW Mord'A'Stigmata - Ansia

This I must say is one of the more interesting releases in a long time, delivered to us from one of my favorite BM countries, Poland!!! It absolutely brings something new to the genre without wander to far off into some artistic bullshit, that are just being weird for the weirdness sake. They mix different genres in a almost perfect way, you can even smell some jazz tones here and there, without fucking it all up in a bloody mess. This is indeed an interesting and rewarding listening experience throughout the whole record, crammed with madness, misanthropy, enthralling thoughts and idés that you don't want to fuckin miss. 

9/11

Best track: Praefatio Pro Defunctis

Check them out here:

http://mordastigmata.bandcamp.com/