Besides black metal, there is one genre of underground that I love to listen to in the last couple of years, namely dungeon synth and dark ambient. Tales Under The Oak from Berlin, Germany has a new opus out with Dark Age Productions. This is in fact eight epic songs plus four narrated short stories. The music on this opus is dungeon synth, epic and fantasy melodies go throughout the album as a whole, but there is also a healthy mixture of medieval dark ambient describing the concept of swamp kingdom and its denizens. Stories such as Brogg The Builder are interesting, like reading a great written dark heroic fantasy novel. Dreamy epic synth ambient songs like The One Who Carved It All, Bogg The Berry-Belly or The Water Lily Boat are sure to win you over and along with stories take you to other fantasy world in which you can stay for a while, because it is beautiful although a little bit scary. Great chapter in the tale of honor, life and woe.
Belgium’s Charlie Bit My Finger were already featured on the pages of this zine a while ago, when we reviewed their last release. This came out three months ago, a bit older release, but no matter. This one contains 14 songs and I must admit I love to hear how this band progressed from release to release in their melodic punk, with lots of pop punk parts and also nineties influenced faster skate punk. After the song ‘Breaking Out’ which has such fast skate punk guitar fantastic melodies and vocal harmonies came the surprise with ‘Stand Up’. This song mixes rap on verses with kind of light reggae parts and then explodes into so beautiful chorus, I think the best this band ever wrote. This one was new, but interesting combination. Since I first heard this band, there is one thing that I love about them also. Maybe it is because me being nostalgic sometimes, but these guys stand with both legs in melodic punk that I grew up with. Everything is here, melodies, harmonies, great lyrics, speed when needed, punk rock mid tempo when also needed and above all these guys remind me a lot of No Use For A Name, one of my all time favorite bands, also singer reminds of Tony Sly’s voice at times. My favorites on this one are ever changing but I will try: ‘Winning The Game’, ‘Backseat’ and ‘Dream On’.
Sometimes you discover the band and music in this our underground scene that brings joy to your black heart and Bloody Hammers from North Carolina are just that. Although this is their sixth studio opus, to me is the first and I freakin love it. There are nine songs on this opus and one better than the other. There are only two members in this band, two entities called Anders Manga and Devallia. Music is basically horror punk with lots of melody and superbly energetic songs, but there is also lots of melodic metal, almost power true metal in the songwriting, especially in And Soon The Darkness, punk rock is more on the surface in Black Sunday. Vocals by Anders Manga are one of the best vocals I have heard in this genre in last couple of years. This voice is so melodic, yet so powerful. Keyboards fit perfectly in the songs wherever they are applied creating atmosphere of melancholy and sadness, but first they create darkness but such darkness you wish for it to engulf you. Two more songs that I must mention as personal highlights are Last Rites Of Lucifer and Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark. Excellent, excellent album and my heartily recommendation.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 