Palinopsia - Murmurs From The Well Nothing More (CD Review)

01.Three Sisters
02.Silt
03.The Unturned Snare
04.Morning Hid The Hills
05.Celestial Rift

Macaulay Lerman (Guitar/Vocals)
William Morse (Drums)
Johnny Reiter (Bass)
Haydn Smith (Vocals)

Blackend doom project from Vermont started in september 2014.

'Three Sisters' starts with distortion and feedback and kicks into some classic stoner/doom sounds before decending into much darker metal, even in this 2 minute song they manage to create a multi structured song kinda like Queens Of The Stone Age morphing into Cradle Of Filth!

Sticking to more traditional ground the dark edged 'Silt' keeps it on the same doom laden level throughout with that black metal style vocal.

'The Unturned Snare' carries this theme on with a touch of chaos thrown in as if its that off the hip/dont give a fuck stoner attitude.

Slow and melodic almost gothic in its opening the 'Morning Hid The Hills' keeps it stripped down to a few well chosen notes, yes the songs builds but never stays away from the ambience, that said there is a little blast beat towards the end.

Finally 'Celestial Rift', starts as full on grindcore! now that really takes you by surprise and leaves you to wonder where this is going, but it calms down to some suitable paced doom.

This is a great EP a few nice surprises and one that is well thought out, mixed and produced, makes a change to hear something with a gruff vocal style but one that both is listenable and actually fits the music.

Rating 9/10
For fans of:Atrum Tempestas, Triptykon, Algoma, Boris, Sunn o)))

HaatE - Breed The Forlorn Majesty (CD Review)

01.Pour The Wisdom Into The Chalice of Life
02.Ritual Of The Crystal Flame
03.The Forlorn Majesty



Wreath (All Instruments/Vocals)




Solo Dark\Black Ambient project from Italy created in 2014.
Wreath says of this album "I firmly believe that we have to defend our human roots and our cultural heritage. We have to cherish our hills, lakes and plains andmost of all we have to protect our traditions. Because it’s the only thing that could tell us apart from being simply…an irrelevant part of the mass.
So, this is the main concept behind this album and its lyrics.
A brief parenthesis has been made with the central track, Ritual of The Crystal Flame, that is mainly about solitude, and it’s role in the life of a human being.

'Pour The Wisdom Into The Chalice of Life' certainly hits the mark with its ambient black metal tag, this is slow, melodic, moody and dark.
Sweeping guitar over superb layered keyboards and a light drum pattern.What i really like about this is the synth pulses that appear throughout like little electronic darts zipping around with a pure analog sound.Towards the end there are a few darkend growls not so much vocals but more as an additional instrument.

This may have a darker start but 'Ritual Of The Crystal Flame' with its speech samples and slow almost ambient/trance/dance rhythms is 21 minutes of pure joy.So many fifferent keyboard sounds each mixed and produced to perfection, even towards the end when it gets louder it still retains this calmness.

This last piece 'The Forlorn Majesty', just has keyboard legend Claudio Simonetti written all over it, its a superb mix of two basic synth sounds, simple almost stripped back, but utterly compelling.


Rating: 10/10
For Fans Of: Ulver, Wolves In The Throne Room, Goblin, Tangerine Dream

Sathoênay - Gaziosmanpasa EP (CD Review)

01.Reach Out
02.Gaziosmanpasa
03.Hey Ma, I'm Your Dad
04.Adventure 3

Nico Poisson (Various Instruments)
François Virot (Drums)
Leo Grollemund (Cello)
Agathe Max (Violin)

Sathönay is a project of Nico Poisson, also a member of NED, started in 2013. Mostly solo, this project is based on oriental music through the use of an electric Saz (Saz is a type of turkish lute, to be short), old drum machines and a lot of voice. From oriental music there is only the flavour, the songs can be more easily filed under vaguely pop psychedelia.

'Reach Out' is a strange piece of electronic beats and jazz guitar riffs over a simple vocal, song picks up a bit as it goes on with some sitar sounds and then finishes.

Moving more into the weird is 'Gaziosmanpasa' a psychedelic meets world music mantra complete with sampled grasshopper sounds, layered vocal effects and mellow backing create a hypnotic laid back song.


'Hey Ma, I'm Your Dad' is the first of two 8 minute songs, this has more nature samples and samples i assume come from the news or a movie soundtrack, this is overlaid with that lute and harmonic vocals, underneath is a dark synth pattern.

Finally 'Adventure 3' is a more upbeat ambient dance type song, again lots of samples and vocal samples, but the rhythmic quality and the synth work is very reminiscent of 'Black Elk' era Hawkwind.

Rating 7/10
For Fans Of: Insect Ark, Hawkwind, Selim Lemouchi, Tangerine Dream

Zygnema - What Makes Us Human Is Obsolete (CD Review)

01.Embryo
02.What Makes Us Human Is Obsolete
03.Shell Broken Hell Loose
04.Endangered
05.Conflict
06.Invidious I
07.In-Kog
08.Misguided
09.Reform Rebirth
10.The Phoenix Effect
11.A Design To Choose


Jimmy Bhore (Vocals)
Sidharth Kadadi (Guitars)
Leon Quadros (Bass)
Mayank Sharma (Drums)

Guest:
Sunneith Revankar (Vocals track 11)

Zygnema is a Mumbai based 4 piece heavy/thrash/groove metal band that mainly focuses on the social/political “fuck-ups” and loves to dig deep down on riffs that are heavy and groove oriented.

The band, over the last 6 years, has won numerous national and international accolades that only do so much to correspond to the powerhouse that the band is. One such accolade is the award for Rolling Stone Metal awards 2011 Best Metal band and Best Metal Song in the popular choice category. Zygnema was formed in December 2006, and since then, have been grooving steadily to the tunes of success and uncompromising determination.

After 3 years of hard work and a year in hibernation, (which the band has artistically paid tribute to in their song, 'Machine state hibernation') the band finally released their debut album. The debut effort, rightfully-titled 'Born of Unity' was released in June 2010.

I shall ignore the intro, which as usual leads straight into the first proper song; 'What Makes Us Human Is Obsolete' which is a kind of technical death metal, whilst the music is good the vocals are way too harsh for me.

The vocal style suites the next one 'Shell Broken' better, this is a punchy thrash/groove song as are the next couple.

'Conflict' is another intro with electronic sounds and distorted speech, this then leads right into 'Invidious' a rather brutal death/thrash workout, followed by 'In-Kog' a much more structured and melodic song with some great sounding guitar riffs and an ambient ending.

Well that ending leads into another intro 'Misguided' with sirens and a childs voice which were it not for a few seconds silence would have slipped right into 'Reform Rebirth' and yep this is more tech death stuff with harsh vocals.


Last song 'A Design To Choose' is almost ten minutes long and features guest vocals from Sunneith Revankar of Bhayanak Maut.
So the first 4 minutes is brutal stuff with some epic and clever dual vocals, then it all goes quiet and out come the acoustic guitars and the rest of the song is a quite brilliant and perfectly sung ballad, a weird way to end but a very impressive song.

Rating 8/10
For fans of:: Bhayanak Maut, Decapitated, Meshuggah

Reanimator - Horns Up (CD Review)

01.Electric Circle Pit
02.Rush For The Mosh
03.Tempted By Deviance
04.Thieves Of Society
05.The Abominautor
06.The Mosh Master
07.Still Sick
08.Off With Their Heads
09.Mock A Mockingbird



Patrick Martin (Vocals)
Joel Racine (Guitars)
Ludovic Bastien (Guitars)
Fred Bizier (Bass)
Francis Labelle (Drums)

Not to be confused with the legendary british thrash band Re-Animator, or for that matter the american, russian or slovakian thrash bands of the same name.
Since the creation of the band in 2005 by Patrick Martin and Maxime Cormier, Reanimator dug an important place in the Quebec Metal scene. Offering an incendiary Thrash Metal dotted with old-school and new school element, With their first album "Thrashin' The Neighborhood" in 2007 the group established venomous stage appearances, which left no fan indifferent.
Touring Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, they finally came up with their next album called "Ignorance Is No Excuse" in 2009, however after nearly an hundred shows, the band split in 2011.
In 2013 they reformed with a new line-up and a new EP entitled "Great Balls".

Right from the very start 'Electric Circle Pit' presents itself as everything that was right about early Thrash Metal, fun, fast, great riffs, excellent drum playing and solid bass work, the only thing that slightly lets this down for me is the vocals, not much in the way of singing just fairly basic spoken/shouted style, this remains the same with each song, great music, just wanted a bit more from the singer.



Rating: 8/10
For fans of: Municipal Waste, Exodus, Anthrax, Acid Reign, Gama Bomb

Poenari - Wrath.War.Lucifer (CD Review)

01.Angels Wing
02.Lucifer
03.On Fire
04.Red
05.Sons Of Life
06.Wolf
07.Of Madness
08.Schizfa
09.Betrayed
10.Ritual


Lukasz Szulczyk (Vocals)
Krzysztof Zdanowicz (Vocal)
Daniel Babecki (Guitar)
Krogul (Bass)
Lukasz Tomczak (Drums)

Brutal, unforgiving and purely decimating. Poenari have been creating their own band of punishing black/death since 2010. Located in Warsaw, Poland; these beasts have released one demo and two full length albums without compromise.
This is a re-issue of their 2013 full-length album "Wrath, War, Lucifer" on EEE Recordings, described as "10 tracks, 41 minutes of blistering and unrelenting black/death metal made to crush the weak."

With an authentic early Black Metal sound normally produced by bands from Norway many years ago, has to be said that this is a band who understands the genres roots, raw and agressive, simple production and no compromise or deviantion from the sound, even when presented with 'On Fire' which at 7 minutes could have brought in other more modern elements, doesnt!

It simmply presents a relentless onslaught of what might be called "Pure" black metal.

Rating 7/10
For fans of: Mayhem, Marduk, Burzum, Bloodlust, Darkthrone

Deadhand - Storm Of Demiurge (CD Review)

01.Resign To Complacency
02.Ground To Ash
03.Trailed By Wolves
04.Storm Of Demiurge
05.1-13-12
06.The Last King



Matt (Guitar/Vocals)
Clifton (Guitar/Vocals)
Stephen (Bass)
Shannon (Keyboards/Vocals)
J.R. (Drums)

American doom band who formed in 2013 dont seem to have any sort of bio just some blurb that reads: "Deadhand collective is The creation of self without the acknowledgement of hidden hands. No homage needs to be paid for the labor of dead men. We are not the traveled path nor the heavy wood ahead.We are still, settled into the present. Our altars are our own two feet and the tops are scattered words and actions that make up our present form".

A good mix of psychedelic/space rock sounds over vocal samples introduce 'Resign To Complacency', progression of the song brings dark vocal growls all mixed in with keyboards and a solid doom influenced backing.

Funeral Doom is the basis for'Ground To Ash', simple and uncompromised until we get near the end for some melodic and laid back guitarwork.

Next is the epic 14 minutes of 'Trailed By Wolves', this is a surprisngly laid back and highly melodic piece full of beautiful guitar playing.

'Storm Of Demiurge' is another well executed song which then leads into a nice litle instrumental '1-13-12'
Finally 'The Last King' another great mix of psychedelia/doom and prog, lots of clever and well thought out timing chnages, solid drumwork and just generally a brilliant song!

Rating 9/10
For fans of: Saturn, Pohjoinen, Hela, Cathedral, Albez Duz, Witchcraft