Bavarian black metal one man entity Skognatt released new opus, this time in form of an e.p. There are three songs on this one, each representing ‘Mountains’, ‘The River’ and ‘Moon’ at night. The music is fast, raw yet atmospheric and melodic black metal, creating and holding a melancholic sad guitar melody in ‘Mountains’ with screaming anguished vocals, sometimes turning into atmospheric clean singing and fast drums, courtesy of Gerileme who was involved in making this opus with main man DZ. ‘The River’ is maybe a bit mid tempo and less blasting than the previous song, creating an atmosphere of eternal life and river which flows no matter who we are, how we fought or how we died, river will not remember us. I used to walk and watch the river at night and it is something special, the force and power of nature, almost healing and respectful power. This one is a pure instrumental, but it really doesn’t matter, strong music creates picture. ‘Moon’ is longest song on this record and haunting guitar main melody keeps coming back to your along with fast drums and screaming vocals, this is a perfect mixture of raw black metal with melody and atmosphere. Great e.p.
Finland’s …And Oceans have a new full length opus out with Season of Mist. I was so glad when they released their new come back opus called ‘Cosmic World Mother’ back in 2020. Although there were some line-up changes through the years, this didn’t stop …And Oceans. They were very interesting band to me back in the day because they mixed industrial with symphonic black metal and it worked excellently. Then they changed name, line-up but they returned and new vocalist Mathias Lillmåns, known also as singer for Finntroll delivered new power with his strong voice capable of black metal screaming, angry growling to some spoken word and clean singing. This new batch of songs are concentrated more on melodic and symphonic black metal, not unlike Old Man’s Child in some segments of the songwriting or maybe even Dimmu back in their early and best days. Lyrics deal with more deep introspective and philosophical side of darkness in man and universe. This also means strong synth melodies and symphonic arrangements, guitar work which connects old school aggressive black metal riffing with melodies and melancholic hooks only Finnish bands are capable of making. Add to this phenomenal drumming from blasts to changes of tempo to emphasize the strength of material. This is sympho black melodic par excellence. My personal favorites on this record are: ‘As in Gardens, So in Tombs’, ‘Within Fire and Crystal’ and epic ‘Ambivalent God’.
Bizarrekult from Oslo, Norway released their new opus with Season of Mist. This opus contains 8 beautiful songs of melodic, visionary progressive black metal with many nods to old school Norwegian black metal like in perfect mix of aggression of raw melodic black metal and clean sung atmospheric melodies, almost out of body ethereal in ‘Du Lovet Meg’. I can’t resist the impression of doom and sludge influences I hear in slow but effective ‘Kongen’. The title song is kind of post black metal, almost cold in space atmospheric masterpiece of work. What sometimes bothers me with bands of this genre that they have too few songs and too long songs on one opus, but fortunately this is not the case here. This one is just the right length and so various to make this a listening pleasure. Eerie and gothic like melancholy turns into blasting almost bombastic black metal hymn in ‘Hvis Jeg Bare Kunne…’, this one being my personal favorite of this opus. Vocals are screamed, but more like anguished sad screams than extreme torture. I recommend for you to listen to this opus in whole total, not partly, because only then you will get the picture of this masterpiece.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 