Mutant Reavers from Germany are in no way strangers to the pages of this webzine. Their horrorpunk releases were already reviewed and featured in this zine. This is their new e.p. The music of these 6 songs is concept driven and a bit different from their previous opuses. The music is melodic gothic industrial synthwave horrorpunk which remains in lyrics. I don’t know if it is only me but this e.p. reminds me a lot of Deathstars. I love the synth melodies, anthemic choruses and overall dystopian vibe and atmosphere of this opus. My personal favorites are Buffet of Brutality and My Dreams(Are Not Electrical). As the band says, next one will be back to more punk rock oriented music. But this one is different and awesome.
James Herbert (1943-2013) is in no way stranger to the pages of this webzine. His works have already been featured and reviewed here and I am a great fan of his chiller horror novels as you can say if you read my previous features on his books. This time, Herbert brings us a mixture of horror and catastrophe novel about the end of the world and new start. Something is happening all over the world, tsunamis destroy coasts and thousands die, Loch Ness boils and hot water turns into wave which kills, storms kill thousands with hail size of a tennis ball on highways. Mother Nature decided to strike back for all of our sins against her. In midst of trying to save what is left to save are two special Romanian siblings, their adoptive mother, one meteorologist and evil cult from New Orleans who try to stop saving and end the world into infinite darkness. What to say? I read almost all of Herbert’s books. He was also known that he DIY arranged all of his front covers in a way he thought they should represent the novels he wrote. He died suddenly at the age of 69, not being ill or anything, so he could have written to us fans so much more.
Considering this novel, I must admit that it is not his top five. It is just too much confused in some places, too long and too light compared to let’s say Rats trilogy, Ash trilogy or Others and similar of my favorites. Also, ending seems to be a little to abrupt and all of those horrible things that happened throughout the story are just solved too easily. You could say that there is a happy end, but there is also no happy end to this story. If you are a fan like I am, you will like this one. If you are a first time Herbert reader I recommend some of the works I mentioned above in this paragraph.
A bit older release but it just arrived to my eye and ear and legends deserve a review in this webzine. Kampfar from Norway have been in the scene for almost 30 years now, from 1994 mastermind Dolk and his gang deliver their mixture of Norwegian black metal, pagan metal and folk in long epics and this is their brand new opus containing 6 songs coming just under 45 minutes long. For those who don’t know yet, Kampfar is ancient Norse war cry meaning Odin or Wotan. Lyrics are again in Norwegian titles but sung in English as I could hear at times about heritage, nature, battles, pride and staying true at least it is how I understood them from translating titles. It is fascinating how Kampfar builds up from aggressive blasts of raw heritage of Norse black metal to more gentle acoustic atmospheric melodies and then mid tempo pagan almost ritualistic song parts. Although there are longer songs on almost every Kampfar release, there is not one second they get boring, at the contrary, they are exciting if you open your mind and let the music take you to mountains, north wind on your face and standing proud never letting them grind you down, warrior’s heart is hard to stop. My personal favorites: Urkraft, Flammen Fra Nord, Rekviem.
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