Tag Archives: black metal

Reviews

(review) Omega Infinity – ‘The Anticcurent’ (Season of Mist)

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New Omega Infinity opus is upon us! This is their second one, out through Season of Mist. What to expect? I must admit I haven’t listened to this international two men band/project before, so I did not know how they sound like. This is basically black metal with lots of blackened death metal influences, but also sounding very raw and aggressive. Vocals are mixture of death metal growling, black metal screaming, eerie chanting voices, some whispering and almost spoken words. Music ranges from blast beat fast oriented aggression pure to more slower and atmospheric stuff like excellent ‘Iron Age’ featuring guest performance by Adrienne Cowan(Seven Spires) who provides clean vocals and screams on this one sounding just awesome. Omega Infinity cleverly mixes industrial and electronica into their song structures thus creating something cold and sinister, but also there are subtle melodies underneath all of brutality. There are also guest performances, like Lindsay Schoolcraft(ex Cradle of Filth, Antiqva) delivering her speech and screams of fantastic ‘Death Rays’ and Andras Nagy of Hungarian Sear Bliss singing on ‘Voices From The End Of Time’ and ‘Night Journey’ and Marta J. Braun (TODTGELICHTER, VYRE) delivering clean vocals of Emperor cover ‘Ye Entranceempirium’. Yes, there are two covers on this one as bonus, one being aforementioned Emperor song, on whom this band reminds me in their progressive black metal elements and variety of songwriting. Other is a Sear Bliss cover. Songs are long but they do not get boring for one second because this is various and aggressive, but also smart and progressive black metal opus.

9/10

Reviews

(review) Lumen Ad Mortem – ‘Upon the Edge of Darkness’

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Lumen Ad Mortem are hailing from Adelaide, Australia, far away scene for us Europeans from Central Europe and I am so glad when I discover hidden gem and beauty from that scene and believe me, there are superb underground bands and projects there. This is relatively new band in the scene, this being their debut opus, but members of the band are veterans of the scene playing of having played in Destroyer 666, King Parrot, Deluge, to name only a few. This opus offers six epic songs of mainly slowed down atmospheric and melodic black metal with some doom influences like for example in ‘Infinite Resonance’, but do not be worried there are also blast beats like in ‘Within the Smoke’ whose aggression turns back again into slower epic songwriting of ‘Ethereal’, with that beautiful epic melodic blast beat ending. Vocals are black metal screams, sometimes, going into death metal grunts and gothic chant reminding me of late great Peter Steele of Type O Negative at times. Keys and orchestrations are grandiose and fit perfectly sometimes at front sometimes backing guitar melodies, aggression and melancholy. This album yet again reminds me why I love black metal so much as a music to express your feelings and innermost battle with your demons. My personal favorites: ‘Ethereal’, ‘Thought and Memory’, ‘Narrow Paths and Stoney Ground’.

8/10

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Reviews

(rerview) Høstsol – ‘Länge Leve Döden’

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This is a debut opus of international supergroup known as Høstsol. This band was formed in 2020 and after two singles and one split opus, here is the debut full length. Members of this band are well known in black metal scene and extreme music scene being Kalmos (bass – Ajattara, ex Barathrum, Woland), Rainer Tuomikanto (drums – ex Shining, Ajattara, Woland), Cernunnus (guitar – Manes) and none other than Niklas Kvarforth(vocals – Shining, Skitliv). I was eager to hear what this will sound like. There are five longer epics on this opus. The music is black metal, old school black metal of the nineties mixed with depressive black metal and add to that a bit of punky edge. What I love the most about this album is that old school black metal atmosphere and vibe that many bands nowadays lack a lot. Lyrics are in Swedish except for one song, so I don’t understand what is being sung about, but judging by the album title, they are about depression, inner self, demons, battle with life, hopelessness, darkness and similar themes. There are also many atmospheric dark ambient parts to start and end a song, making this opus more heavier with almost touchable darkness. One of my personal favorites is ‘Det som en gång var (det kommer aldrig igen)’ with almost punk conviction and rawness turning later in the song into epic keyboard orchestration backed pure black metal anthem. Kvarforth’s singing is tortured screaming but at the same time pronounced, so it is another plus for this international supergroup. There is also a bit of chanting and clean singing at the begin of awesome ‘Din skördetid är nu kommen’. So, if you are a fan of old school atmospheric black metal with touch of black irony and depression go get this one.

9/10