Tag Archives: Russia

(review) Next Door To Heaven – Inside

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I am always glad to discover new bands in this vast and beautiful underground scene that I have been a part of for almost three decades now. Next Door To Heaven are hailing from Russia and this is their new e.p. The theme of the e.p. is battle between two sides of one medal, between artificial and natural within one person. There are five songs on this little record. Music of Next Door To Heaven can be described as mixture of metalcore, modern metal and being melodic above all. Catchy and nice guitar hooks are successfully mixing aggression of metalcore with calm of atmospheric metal creating one really fine soundscape for the listener. Vocals are superb with singer Daria Mazunova being able to reach emotion, melancholy and happiness varying of the song. Her voice reminds me a lot of Anneke from The Gathering. My personal favorite is Unleash The Beast being on of the hardest yet melodic song on this e.p. There is an interesting guest performance by none other than Lord Nelson (ex Stuck Mojo) on Flare Up being more of a rapcore song proving variety and creativity of this band. Really enjoyed this one.

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(review) Lautreamont – The Cult Of Grinning Martyrs

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Lautreamont from Russia are in no way strangers to the pages of this zine. I already listened and wrote a review for the band´s debut album back in 2018.

Now, this Russian duo consisting of Wrath and Dread deliver their second full length album. This new record could be called a concept, but it is also not a concept record. This one is inspired by Thomas Ligotti´s work Conspiracy against human race, also poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Isidore Ducasse. This 7 song album has a dark, almost touchable atmosphere of thick black/death metal, apocalyptic in its tale of human puppet existence and nothingness.

From the sheer ferociousness of blast beats and destruction of Broken Claws to more melodic and almost cold and space like dissonances of Thanatophobia, one of my highlights on this record, Lautreamont deliver their story with conviction, coldness and relentless march. I am amazed how clean vocals in some song parts can also sound cold and atmospheric and delive coup de grace to the listener as in amazing Brotherhood Of Suffering. Unpersons is a lesson in brutality and quality blackened death metal with blasting brutality and darkness just oozing from your speakers. One more song that I must mention is the title song, being epic soundtrack to your demise, with changing tempo, sharp and brutal riffs, but also total lack of humanity being cold and void.

This second effort is a step further from the debut. Great record.

(review) Handjar-Live in Svora

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Handjar are from Saint Petersburg, Russia. There are 5 songs on this release, recorded live in Svora Space. This is a short one. 5 songs each in about minute time, delivering hellburst of raw hardcore punk, yet with some melody underneath it all, delivering crushing apocalyptic d beat with some almost grindy stuff here and there. The lyrics are in Russian language, so I don`t really understand them, but Instinkt is my favorite among these five songs, being somehow the most energetic and epic. This is a good one. It is on Bandcamp, it is for pay as much you want, so go get it and support the scene.

https://handjar.bandcamp.com/releases