I have been Cradle Of Filth fan since Dusk And Her Embrace came out over 25 years ago and have been following Dani Filth and the gang through all great excellent albums and less great albums and this one is a treat. This new opus returns band to more known old school COF paths with faster more aggressive sound bordering somewhere between thrash and heavy metal and gothic black metal. Yet, the band retained all those sorrowful and grandiose melodies that made me love their music in the first place and Dani sounds better than ever, live and in the studio. New keyboard and orchestral/backing vocals player brought new and fresh blood to the song structures somehow returning the blood and iron times of this glorious Suffolk based band. Songs like Necromantic Fantasies, Black Smoke Curling from the Lips of War or How Many Tears to Nurture a Rose are my personal favorites, you will have to discover yours. Check this great album out!
Alpheratz are hailing from Mexico and this is their latest opus. These guys have been in the scene for a long time and they play a mixture of symphonic black metal and avantgarde black metal reminding me a lot of Arcturus with their song structures, although less bombastic than mentioned Norwegians. This opus contains intro, outro and eight songs in between. Songs are not fast, there is no blast beat on this one, Alpheratz lean more on slower, doomy atmospheric side of things, coldness, synths which emphasize almost eerie dreamlike atmosphere of horror and despair. Vocals are neither too screechy, nor too raspy, fit perfectly to the music. My personal favorites are As Burning Fire and Infinite Sad with almost gothic song structures in the latter. This is a good release.
I am impressed, I can say frankly. Many todays black metal bands tend to be boring or too generic or repetitive, especially many bands consisting of one or two members.
Fortunately this is not the case with A Pale December. This duo is hailing from mighty Italy, namely Milan. This is their debut album consisting of 7 songs. A Pale December play black metal that I would dare call symphonic melodic black metal. The structure of the songs is nothing new, but that mix of aggressive blast beat parts and atmospheric acoustic parts backed with skillfull and nice synth parts suits me just fine as I am listening and writing this warm Autumn night. The vocals are harsh but not high pitched and you can actually understand a lot of the lyrics. The song lyrics themselves deal with nature, evil and some personal demons. The drums are programmed and you can actually hear while listening that the drummer is the machine but it is nicely done and I loved every single bit of this album. I did not hear a good symphonic black metal for a long time. I am happy I heard this band and hope that their next releases will be event better.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 