Not much is known about entity called Leanan Sidhe except that it is from North East, Pennsylvania and it is fascinating how USBM takes more and more quality in the scene with great releases and superb bands/projects. This seems to be debut opus with five songs just under 50 minutes meaning they are longer but in no way boring. The cover easily describes the music, it is desolate, melodic and atmospheric black metal with lots of dark ambient influences in some song parts. This music is meant for walking along lonely road through the desolate woods cleaning your black heart from all that need not be. There is a vibe of melancholy and sadness, especially in awesome instrumental The Black Crow of Morrigan, being almost gentle night song. But, there is also black metal aggression on this album with screaming vocals, whose anguish shows all bleakness and pain. Guitar work is absolutely stunning, melodies are something that stays in your heart for a long time. Also synth and ambient parts are cleverly incorporated into the album as a whole. Great album, provides great feelings. Try the title song if you don’t believe me, you will be in awe.
From Upper Austria comes Todesschrei, with their first full length opus. This one contains eight songs with titles and lyrics in German language and the music of Todesschrei is basically a mixture of raw anguished black metal and slower more depressive black with songs such as Im Herbst meines Lebens, Der Tod ruft mich, Mein letzter Weg giving good picture what this opus is about. Production is old school, raw yet atmospheric with aggression giving enough place to melancholy and guitar melody possible only in black metal. Vocals are screaming and tortured but fit perfectly. My personal favorite of all eight songs is Dem Wahn verfallen which starts with wolf’s howl and wind and is the most atmospheric song and melancholic yet aggressive song on this record. This is a strong debut.
Niederwelt are an entity hailing from Saxony, Germany and this is their second full length opus. This one contains kind of intro plus six songs. The music is raw black metal but with lots of atmospheric parts, slower doomy rolling parts and tortured screams mixing with angry screaming, whispering, even coughing in awesome and desperate Cult Of The Rising Moon. This may be called depressive black metal, but it is in fact atmospheric black with doom elements. Lyrics are in English and deal with apocalypse, surviving after the destruction, personal fighting with inner demons through prism of entity who questions its own humanity. Songs are rather long but they do not get boring in any case. One of my personal favorite is aggressive and blasting From The Ashes, which reminded me a lot of old school nineties Norse black metal influences, especially old Mayhem, circa Deathcrush era. But, for me the most epic on this opus is Reincarnation, long epic song with ritualistic guitar melody, thundering drums, chanting monk like clean vocals and that old school production and vibe that many black metal bands lack these days. Repetition Of Sins slows down things a bit into more doomy regions but it is such a powerful guitar riff coupled with vocal growls. Great stuff. Not to discover just all, check this one out!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 