[sludgeogre]

New Gojira video

Eh, decent, but kinda dumbed down from their other music to me.
 
Also, such art, much french.

 

[Redcarmoose]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QcsVp0A4Vik

Let .........me........just ........put..............this.......here!

 

[Redcarmoose]

[VIDEO] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lKTBiuwOzpU [/VIDEO]



Then, just when you thought there were no more classic-Swedish bands left to make a comeback?

 

[Redcarmoose]

"pure gold"


[VIDEO] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfZ5hLyp6Z8 [/VIDEO]

 

[supplehope]

Some of my plans this week (most from Profound Lore, including some that proves that I'm a noob):

Abyssal - Antikatastaseis (this is absolutely on par with, if not the best release [besides Frozen Niagara Falls] by Profound Lore yet)
Portal - Vexovoid, Swarth
Cruciamentum - Charnel Passages
Mitochondrion - Parasignosis
Bell Witch - Four Phantoms (Longing will be for another time)
Vektor - Terminal Redux (again)
Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust (again)
Zhrine - Unortetha (maybe AOTY so far, again)

Also, Bolt Thrower's Realm of Chaos was absolutely killer. I cannot believe how far I am really behind. Death's Scream Bloody Gore, which got reissued by Relapse (okay...), is still one of the most important albums I have ever heard, regardless of its overall quality.

Have a good weekend and cheers.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Some of my plans this week (most from Profound Lore, including some that proves that I'm a noob):

Abyssal - Antikatastaseis

Have a good weekend and cheers.

Honestly that album has changed my life this year! Don't want to hype it up too much, but I listen to it almost every day.


It's always heard a different way and never gets boring. I have only liked a couple post albums before, so in the few small places they introduce that subgenre it's cool.

It's my favorite album I found this year.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Death's Scream Bloody Gore, which got reissued by Relapse (okay...), is still one of the most important albums I have ever heard, regardless of its overall quality.

Have a good weekend and cheers.

I always wonder where SBG really fits nowadays? At the time it came out it was revolutionary and jumpstarted a subgenre. But now and in relation to stuff like....Human?.........Symbolic?.........ITP? Or my current favorite .......Spiritual Healing? ..... I guess it's good for historic reasons but ends up lower on my list of Death favorites?

 

[supplehope]

Honestly that album has changed my life this year! Don't want to hype it up too much, but I listen to it almost every day.


It's always heard a different way and never gets boring. I have only liked a couple post albums before, so in the few small places they introduce that subgenre it's cool.

It's my favorite album I found this year.

In my opinion, great albums have enough qualities, if not, just don't have the luck to get enough hyped (at all). Antikatastaseis is beyond death metal and avant-garde, even beyond what some of my personal favorite bands and artists have ever done! Maybe I've said too much, but it's both dynamically almost free of loundness war yet perplexedly surprising musically that doesn't goes down to being a chore to listen to. Definitely will have another go if I have completed that indulgent list.

I always wonder where SBG really fits nowadays? At the time it came out it was revolutionary and jumpstarted a subgenre. But now and in relation to stuff like....Human?.........Symbolic?.........ITP? Or my current favorite .......Spiritual Healing? ..... I guess it's good for historic reasons but ends up lower on my list of Death favorites?

For me, it just above Leprosy, but for the first time I have heard it, the sound alone just distanced me away from thrash metal to death metal (and later branching out), which was the only kind of music that I was into.  It's definitely not even on par with the later Death albums, but I had a good refreshing call of those time when I listened to Scream Bloody Gore again. Now with a lowly but good enough setup, it sound much better than I though, especially on the bass guitar and the drums. Dunno about the reissue, but the guitar sounded thinner than I could remember. Not that the albums after Leprosy and before TSOP are not awesome anymore, Spiritual Healing is still my absolute personal favorite Death album though.

 

[Music Alchemist]

New Deftones album Gore.
 

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QcsVp0A4Vik

Let .........me........just ........put..............this.......here!

 
Is this your first time hearing The Voice Of Steel? "Valkyrie" is my favorite track. Here is a two-disc reissue/remaster.
 
I got nearly all their stuff. They have some new releases this year, but the studio album The Truth still isn't out yet.
 
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Nokturnal_Mortum/528
https://nokturnalmortum1.bandcamp.com
http://nokturnal-mortum.com/en/news

 

[Redcarmoose]

New Deftones album Gore.





Is this your first time hearing The Voice Of Steel? "Valkyrie" is my favorite track. Here is a two-disc reissue/remaster.

I got nearly all their stuff. They have some new releases this year, but the studio album The Truth still isn't out yet.

http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Nokturnal_Mortum/528
https://nokturnalmortum1.bandcamp.com
http://nokturnal-mortum.com/en/news

 

Yep........new band to me, but I have spent a while with them.



Here is my review.










Band:
Nokturnal Mortum

Album:
Voice Of Steal

Year released: 2009

Genre:
Slavonic Pagan Black Metal from the Ukraine




"20 years and the most well known Ukraine Black Metal Band.
If there was a Ukraine Black Metal Big Three it would be Hate Forrest, Drudkh and Nokturnal Mortum."





If you go back and listen to Nokturnal Mortum's 1st album, 1997's Goat Horns, on cassette no doubt 1st, now on CD, you can tell that Nokturnal Mortum have made slow and steady progress to where they are now. There are always going to be the fans that like the early albums for all their cute Casio-Folk Black charm. Still with the art and intricacy of those Russian Matryoshka dolls, our newer exotic imports by Nokturnal Mortum now never fail to entertain.

With 2009s "Voice Of Steal" Nokturnal Mortum have kept their penchant for the cinematic vibe, and expanded their new sound in a tasteful and classic way. More on that to follow.


Bathory and the spirit of all things Metal lives here, the pure essence along with endless Viking references bringing back that feeling when you first felt Quorthon play Hammerheart or the start of Blood Fire Death for the first time. The fact is Tomas Forsberg AKA Quorthan was so inspired with the Viking themes he carried them on for the remainder of his musical career. Still the listener gets a feeling that the sub-genre is actually moving forward here. The fact that when Blood Fire Death's first couple Viking songs get good or the remainder of Hammerheart gets memorable is when we hear real song writing. Memories where songs playback in your head when the music is turned off. The songwriting is what Nokturnal Mortum offers your soul here. They used to just call it music.

So is Voice of Steal just 69 minutes of Bathory worship? Ah? Sort of? But there is more if you care to listen. And........it's not something easy to put into words, a feeling connected to something real, something possibly at the heart of it all?

So we had Moonsorrow just release the modern epic Jumalten aika becoming a year-end favorite, no doubt. But what about your fan of raw orthodox black who has steered clear of Pagan-Folk or any Windir (Norway) style epic Viking metal all these years? What other passages lay in wait for those willing to venture into the heathen hills of yore? Most of us serious BMEs have steered clear of any panpipe carrying Renaissance Festival styles, but there comes a time to expand your horizon just a little. Just a little tiny bit.

First off there is truly never a way to fully separate Quorthon from Black Metal. He is always going to be there, somewhere. Just as the wheel is round, came the invention of Bathory and the influence on our genre. In many a history lesson Thomas Forsberg AKA Quorthan is given credit for both singlehandedly creating Viking Metal and Black Metal.

The influences went everywhere (Abbath/Immortal) as an example and if you listen Bathory is the basis for 90% of Black Metal, just somewhat hidden at times. Where did the backing chorus ideas originate for our newly defunct band Agalloch come from? Yep!

When we hit play on Voice Of Steal we are greeted with epic steal hammers forging swords, and the sounds of a battle in the background. Now, at first that may sound boring? And much of the time this style of music walks a fine line. On the wrong side it potentially carries an air of cheesy fake-tired and tried-out themes which we fear to hear again. But, the other? Well my beer drinking Viking friends, the other journey reminds us that the themes are not yet fully explored and that there is still a lot of meat on the bone. Maybe it's all about being real? Maybe it's just about being smart?

What ever the factors behind it all, there is a gem of Black Metal here. It's just about 80% perfect. But............????

Living with the album though, if I was to change stuff, I may ask for a little more authority in the guitar. Still I'm a guitar player with a history of death metal so hearing this style of guitar is different. The guitar is a little less up front and center and becomes a musical part of the whole. This issue may just be a listening problem with the listener (me) and not the mix? It really could be that this sub-genre of Black Metal needs the guitars to be more in the mix. The guitar seems even more pulled back than any Moonsorrow, still I'm OK with it as you can still hear absolutely everything.

There is a lot going on here, a ton of instruments being thrown into your listening ears.
Still it seems everything is in the right place and nothing cluttered-up. The end result is a fine Swiss watch effect, where inter-working parts seem to support other parts, pushing and holding the complex machine together with parts too small to see or hear. The magic is that it's all done in good taste. We all know how the perception of taste is still personal, but after a ton of experience, taste CAN be a learned thing. After their long and changing career we find Nokturnal Mortum to be the most recognized Black Metal band from the Ukraine. They also end up being one of the most recognized bands in this listeners playlist. For so many years I stayed away from this pagan folk style as there was just so many sub-genres (fully orthodox) to hear. But after going into the Moonsorrow catalogue this year and the Windir catalogue to boot, I guess this was the next step, and I would not have the order any other way.

Taking a chance, we may just get into these epic Ukraine Viking tales after years of staying only with the genre edge bands like Enslaved or the originator Bathory. Nokturnal Mortum make it seem like the sub-genre is in it's infancy at this point in time. No easy thing to do.

Here is the change-up.
With the album "Voice Of Steal" we are getting a heavy influence of Pink Floyd. Yep, just when you thought panpipes and Viking music were a reach, we are bringing fracking The Pink Floyd into the equation too, go figure? And not a little, but what could be looked at as an all out tribute of the sort? Yes.
How they transition from Bathory to Floyd sounds so natural that you figure everyone should be doing it, and that my readers is the genius here. We are fully dumbfounded that all this gets put together and fully starts up and starts running at full epic force.
The use of the word epic. The adjective is going to be used in every review of a Bathory/Viking album right? It's used so much that the word is expected and does not carry the weight it maybe once had when the word was first used in metal reviews?

Let me conjure the use of italics here............

Epic



Sorry, you see there is no other way to put it. And if you think your over it all that you need another extreme that your tired and jaded and heard it all, be forewarned, the sub-genre has never been given such a quality of service. Just perfect musicianship and ease of execution, so natural that it's timeless and pure. There is a framework going on but it's complex and not easy to figure out, hence the mystery. The mystery in how they have made this pagan folk style listenable and timeless, in a world of cheese and potatoes.

So get out your nerdy Renaissance Festival tights.........or not?, your dulcimer and your feather hat. We are going to that place many an on-line game has taken many a gamer. A fantasy place while in only our underwear and armchair. So even if panpipes are what you despise, this is the time to make the jump.

There are no more BMEs.......it's over.


There is a sprinkle of Hawkwind here and there, but not as spacey as you would guess by the description. Just the fact that they have kept it all at a medium tempo and pace and are only singing in Russian helps keep it all very mature and exotic. When the powerful parts come in, they use the reserve in tempo speed to make an authoritative change of pace. The fact that there is going to be important chord changes in only the right places reminds us of the Wagner behind the Bathory and the fact this style is pure, and never going away.

We almost have a mid-nineties progressive jam-out in the Floyd places. It's this black and white contrast that is not always picked-up on. The fact that the whole album has this smooth watery flow, same as the way DSOTM had that watery flow. It all transitions and goes together so well, that we are sold on first listen. On second, third and forth listen is when the writing starts to reveal itself. The fact that it is an epic soundtrack for a movie. This disk has one unique ending. It simply stops short. That stop seems too soon even though the last song clocked in at just shy of 12 minutes? That end reminds us how far we have been away in this musical metal world.


To fully get a grip on the maturity here, you can go back and listen to the Casio style Ukraine fairy music and interspersed Black Metal of Goat Horns released in 1997. We find such a different take from the Symphonic Dimmu Borgir house sound from the same time. Still I can't forget that we will still have fans loving 1997s 1st release more just due to what it represents as a second wave masterpiece. Even a listener like myself has seemed to walk around the rain drop the magnificent album Goat Horns is?

The metal world is a big place, even to us who think we heard it all. Still you don't have to know or understand Goat Horns to grasp what "Voice Of Steal" is attempting here. If anything VOS stands on it's own two feet offering the listener an amazingly accessible walk into the exotic Neopagan Ukraine Fairy Lands.

To find fault in "Voice Of Steal" comes from listening sessions finding the Pink Floyd style to be maybe contrived, though I early on said it's natural. It's so well done it's natural but still seems contrived as you know they are channeling The Pink Floyd? In that regard going back into maybe something like 2005's LP Weltanschauung is going to give the listener a better idea of the modern Nokturnal Mortum. Our release here from 2009, shows the band a full 5 years older. They offer us a less dense, slightly more playful affair. So taking out the Pink Floyd tribute does seems to get us a different idea of what they are about. I can't help but look at "Voices Of Steal" as maybe more of an expansion and experimental idea. So if you can still call an album an individual masterpiece being clearly derivative of at least two other bands Floyd/Bathory, than just do so. I can not.

Even though they wear their musical influences on their shirt sleeve with VOS, I find the prior release, Weltanschauung to be the modern masterpiece for the band and VOS to be a playful experiment in style ideas. So my suggestion would be listen to Weltanschauung to understand what the bands about first then enjoy their departures on VOB. Times change and nothing stays the same. The only reason we find enjoyment with these modern Black releases are that they start to progress beyond the 2nd wave (if you believe a third wave does in fact exist) and offer us experimentation and diversity from what was going on in the genre in 1995. That's the joy of understanding why Weltanschauug is on the mark, while we have VOS taking a journey across another genre much like Blake Judd's Nachtmystium experimental 2008 release "Black Meddle Part 1" was an exploration of a band with no clear genre definition or value index, we have Nokturnal Mortum walk away from their before loved genre hand-holds. If you view it as revolutionary or boring maybe depends on your dedication to the bands previous work and how you view their take on the genre.



"Let's throw in some Pink Floyd sounding free-form breaks at perfect places for maybe both dismay and delight of fans?"



So you have to question if bands could be more creative other than beating the dead Black Metal Cow over and over. To make a paradigm style shift (like VOS) comes as both a surprise and horror to long term fans. Still in amazement, you read nice reviews from long term fans? It's all down to how well you think they integrated the Floyd, and if if your taste warrants that there is a true place for it?

Even with all my accolades I find their earlier output more true to form, but find VOS an enjoyable experience, offering a change in style in a fun direction.

4 on a scale of 1-5




 

[Music Alchemist]

Yep........new band to me, but I have spent a while with them.

To find fault in "Voice Of Steal" comes from listening sessions finding the Pink Floyd style to be maybe contrived, though I early on said it's natural. It's so well done it's natural but still seems contrived as you know they are channeling The PInk Floyd? In that regard going back into maybe something like 2005's LP Weltanschauung is going to give the listener a better idea of the modern Nokturnal Mortum. Our release here from 2009, shows the band a full 5 years older. They offer us a less dense, slightly more playful affair. So taking out the Pink Floyd tributes does seems to get us a different idea of what they are about. I can't help but look at "Voices Of Steal" as maybe more of an expansion and experimental idea. So if you can still call an album an individual masterpiece being clearly derivative of at least two other bands Floyd/Bathory, than just do so. I don't.

Even though they wear their musical influences on their shirt sleeve with VOS, I find the prior release, Weltanschauung to be the modern masterpiece for the band and VOS to be a playful experiment in style ideas. So my suggestion would be listen to Weltanschauung to understand what the bands about first then enjoy their departures on VOB. Times change and nothing stays the same. The only reason we find enjoyment with these modern Black releases are that they start to progress beyond the 2nd wave (if you believe a third wave does in fact exist) and offer us experimentation and diversity from what was going on in the genre in 1995. That's the joy of understanding why Weltanschauug is on the mark, while we have VOS taking a journey across another genre much like Blake Judd's Nachtmystium's experimental 2008 release "Black Meddle Part 1" was an exploration of a band with no clear genre definition or value index, we have Nokturnal Mortum walk away from their before loved genre hand-holds. If you view it as revolutionary or boring maybe depends on your dedication to the bands previous work and how you view their take on the genre.

 
Jeez, what a long review! I only skimmed it.
 
I've been a Nokturnal Mortum fan for...hmm...somewhere between ten and fifteen years!
 
Be sure to hear their other material, especially Lunar Poetry and To The Gates Of Blasphemous Fire.
 
Weltanschauung is another one of my favorites. I got both versions: the main one along with Мировоззрение, which is basically a different recording of the same album.
 
Since you mentioned Drudkh and Hate Forest...you should also check out Astrofaes. The same band members are involved.
 
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Astrofaes/4731
 
If I had to pick a favorite Astrofaes album, it would be this one:
 
 

 

[Redcarmoose]

   
Jeez, what a long review! I only skimmed it.
 
I've been a Nokturnal Mortum fan for...hmm...somewhere between ten and fifteen years!
 
Be sure to hear their other material, especially Lunar Poetry and To The Gates Of Blasphemous Fire.
 
Weltanschauung is another one of my favorites. I got both versions: the main one along with Мировоззрение, which is basically a different recording of the same album.
 
Since you mentioned Drudkh and Hate Forest...you should also check out Astrofaes. The same band members are involved.
 
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Astrofaes/4731
 
If I had to pick a favorite Astrofaes album, it would be this one:
 
 

 
 
Thanks for all the links. Yes, I have not tried the folk/viking sub-genre too much, other than Bathory and Enslaved and maybe where ever it slightly slipped in? Fun now going into Windir and Nokturnal Mortum. The review was 1/3 bigger but I trimmed it. LOL

 

[maxnik]

@Redcarmoose @Music Alchemist So who's from Kharkiv around here? Слава Україні!

 

[Music Alchemist]

@Redcarmoose @Music Alchemist So who's from Kharkiv around here? Слава Україні!

 
I am from the United States, as you can see from my listed location.

 

[Navybsn]

Saturday night listening



Katatonia - The Fall of Hearts



Tau Cross - s/t



Paradise Lost - The Plague Within



Marriages - Salome