Good people at Cult Never Dies never cease to amaze with quality books and zines that they release. After Cult Never Dies trilogy, this is the fourth installment which can be read separately, no matter if you read the first three or not. As the title says, this is a book length zine formatted original work, with beautiful layout and totally reminding me of nineties and a time when we did all those cut and paste zines with master copy being taken to photocopy shop and distributed via mail with tape trading and flyers coming all the way late for gig announcements hehe.
If you read any of previous works you will know that this book contains interviews with many bands and individuals, mainly from black metal side of things, but also from some other aspects of extreme music. For me personally, best interviews in this book are with artist Gareth Elliot. whose work is just fantastic. Also, I love the interview with photographer Ester Segarra who does such perfect job with photos of extreme metal personalities and bands. Jon Metalion from Head Not Found label is also an interesting read. From the bunch of bands, my highlights are Ancient and Mysticum interviews. This one is a worthy read done as love for zines and extreme music. Go check this one out, also other three books from the series.
Italian underground extreme metal scene is strong and Ulfhednar are hailing from Rome, Lazio and this is their second full length opus. What to expect here? Well, there are intro plus eight songs on this one. The music is basically melodic, epic black metal but with lots of death metal and even some thrash metal influences, sounding fresh and modern yet at the same time nodding head to the old masters of the genre. Vocals are cool, from black metal screeching to death metal growling, depending on the vibe in the song and main guitar melodies are such epic work, transgressing into thrash aggression and staccato of drums, evolving into more atmospheric visions of the songs. Lyrics are about inner demons and dealing with it. I would love to hear this band play live because I am sure this material sounds just fantastic live. My personal favorites are: Punto Omega, Famelica Brama and Ora Oscura.
Awkward Reunion are from Berlin, Germany and they recently released their brand new record with SBÄM Records who deliver more and more fantastic releases every month. This is the band´s debut full length album and it contains eleven songs of melodic punk rock kinda reminding me of bands such as Jawbreaker and Off With Their Heads, meaning prevailing mid tempo punk rock with raw yet melodic vocals, great harmonies and emotional and heartfelt lyrics that all of us can relate to. I am sure that material from this record goes superb live delivering tons of energy, pumping fists and singing along and feeling that great interrelation between band on stage and crowd practically erasing the imaginative border between those two. My favorites from this record are One And Only, Girl and Hold On Tight. This one is a keeper! Probably one of the best emotional punk rock records that came out this year, and there is still almost half a year left! Great job, strong debut record.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 