T.O.M.B. are hailing from mighty American scene and they have been in the scene since 1998 with many releases, this being their seventh full length opus. What to expect on this one? Well, 6 songs of gritty, industrial darkened droning black death metal with lots of doom metal influences here and there. This one is raw, this one shows all bleakness and anger of dark energy this opus provides. Some songs are a bit longer but no matter, they do not get boring for one second. Vocals are screamed, growled, sometimes whispered like in some haunting horror movie with lyrics about ghosts, death, occult, paranormal, hatred and reincarnation. My personal favorites are Wraiths and Reincarnation.
Ach, Hungary. Lovely land and our neighbors not even thirty kilometers from my hometown is Croatian-Hungarian border. BlackWeald is a dark ambient/drone project from that land, with a touch of dungeon synth and epic melodies here and there in 14 songs that are featured on this new opus. What I love about this one is that it does not get boring or repetitive for one second. The slow gradation of eerie horror atmosphere creeps in with length and solitude of this music. This one is an atmosphere of careless Summer hot corn and wheat fields of Hungary turning into something sinister, death itself, but us being to closeminded and stupid to see it and acknowledge it. This reminds me why I love horror and why I love music like this one. The usage of old samples in Hungarian only adds to the overall creepiness and feeling of loneliness, dread, suicide, depression and anguish. This is not for everyone, but selected few will appreciate this one. I know I do.
Pando are entity hailing from USA and this is their new record with Aesthetic Death. What do we have here? This music and this record is definitely not for everyone. These 9 tracks are a soundtrack to apocalypse and ending of the world and I love it. Pando play experimental drone/ambient black metal and noise with some sludge influences thrown here and there in the songs like on of my favorites Total Station Theodolite. What I love is a use of samples together with dark ambient and drone noises, coupled with whispers and screams and it reminds me of some broken down tv that stayed playing after the apocalyptic ending of humanity and it keeps repeating some residual nightmares over and over again. Vocals are screamed, guttural and music is black metal in its foundation, but so much more indeed. There is aggression, there is atmosphere and there is darkness that can almost be touched if you reach out with your hand and close your eyes and open your mind to this dark and beautiful opus. Great record indeed.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 