One thing must be said, much respect to these Swedes for being true to themselves and keeping the bloody flag of melodic epic black metal from North alive and high. After immense void left by the demise of Dissection there was a long time no successor, who would take the fallen sword and lead the charge. When Watain started their fight, I knew there was something special about them. Now, sixth opus is upon us. Ten songs of aggressive black metal with some thrash undertones, but done in that Swedish way, with melodic epic guitar work, blast beats mixing with more slower atmospheric parts and Erik Danielsson´s trademark vocals that are snarling yet understandable, not dissimilar to late great Jon Nodtveidt. But, although Watain reminds of that legendary band, they are black metal for the new dark millenia. Besides more aggressive songs like excellent The howling, there is also some slower, but so strong songs like Serimosa, one of my personal favorites on this record. Its rolling melody sounds like thunder on the dark mountain. Black cunt is another lovely song I must mention, very technical with lots of rhythm change and bringing kind of darkened sensuality from the other worlds. The sheer ferocity of Leper´s grace reminded me of early Immortal, Battles in the north era of songwriting, no holds barred black metal attack. After an instrumental intermezzo Not sun, nor man, nor god, there is a second chapter and this brings out the heavy artillery or the best this album has to offer. Songs like Before the cataclysm or We remain with its haunting clean vocal melody, are lesson in darkness. This is for sure one of the best black metal releases this year.
Good people at Cult Never Dies never cease to amaze with quality books and zines that they release. After Cult Never Dies trilogy, this is the fourth installment which can be read separately, no matter if you read the first three or not. As the title says, this is a book length zine formatted original work, with beautiful layout and totally reminding me of nineties and a time when we did all those cut and paste zines with master copy being taken to photocopy shop and distributed via mail with tape trading and flyers coming all the way late for gig announcements hehe.
If you read any of previous works you will know that this book contains interviews with many bands and individuals, mainly from black metal side of things, but also from some other aspects of extreme music. For me personally, best interviews in this book are with artist Gareth Elliot. whose work is just fantastic. Also, I love the interview with photographer Ester Segarra who does such perfect job with photos of extreme metal personalities and bands. Jon Metalion from Head Not Found label is also an interesting read. From the bunch of bands, my highlights are Ancient and Mysticum interviews. This one is a worthy read done as love for zines and extreme music. Go check this one out, also other three books from the series.
Italian underground extreme metal scene is strong and Ulfhednar are hailing from Rome, Lazio and this is their second full length opus. What to expect here? Well, there are intro plus eight songs on this one. The music is basically melodic, epic black metal but with lots of death metal and even some thrash metal influences, sounding fresh and modern yet at the same time nodding head to the old masters of the genre. Vocals are cool, from black metal screeching to death metal growling, depending on the vibe in the song and main guitar melodies are such epic work, transgressing into thrash aggression and staccato of drums, evolving into more atmospheric visions of the songs. Lyrics are about inner demons and dealing with it. I would love to hear this band play live because I am sure this material sounds just fantastic live. My personal favorites are: Punto Omega, Famelica Brama and Ora Oscura.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 