Wendess - Nuée Noire

     Wendess are a French Canadian atmospheric black metal band and I am very impressed by their sophomore  release; Nuée Noire (Black Cloud.)  When the band submitted this to me they mentioned that they were heavily influenced by bands such as "Wolves in the Throne Room" and "Drudkh."  Although these influences are present I was surprised to see a very large depressive black metal influence at play within these songs.

     Within the first few minutes you will understand what this album is about.  The closest comparison I can come up with is "Weakling."  It wont take you long to figure out whether or not you enjoy this style, it is very distinct and very common in the modern black metal scene.  The song structures are very airy and seem to ebb and flow seamlessly between different ideas with little to no effort, good music to day dream to.  The only drawback to this "stream of consciousness" style of song writing is that it meanders to and fro without any coherent direction.  None of these songs seem to have a true climax or a well defined ending, they just seem to fade in and fade out like a string of meaningless events.  I am sure this is deliberate, yet I can't help but view it as the largest draw back, especially with the obtuse song lengths. 

     The guitar tone is excellent for this style, drenched in reverb and distortion with overlaid shoegaze influenced acoustic guitars.  The riffs are very well thought out and well composed, they do not rely on tone or texture to deliver their musical ideas but speak for themselves.  There are many areas where guitar lines play notes in conflicting scale/chord patters to create a very dissonant, uncomfortable and melancholic atmosphere much like Krallice.  Although I am not a particular fan of this style of riffing I understand and appreciate it for what it is.

     The production is excellent, all instruments come through clearly, including the bass.  I have to make a special not regarding the bass.  Every bass line is well thought out and does not consistently rely on the guitars for input.  A very pleasant surprise was the "flesh and blood" drummer.  It seem like every submission I receive for reviewing incorporates programmed drums (especially black metal.)  It is really nice to have organic tones in music (although I don't have any particular problem with programmed drums.)

     Emerging from the reverb soaked forest of discordant sorrow are some very harsh agonizing screams that sound like desperate cries for help in the vein of Silencer.  These vocals are very convincing and conjure up the image of some dude getting sexually tortured by ghosts in a foggy forest (which is ultimately a good thing.) The vocals are pretty much impossible to understand which is fine by me but I am sure there are some people that will be put off by this factor.  Any fan of Weakling, Krallice or Xasthur (to a lesser extent) will definitely appreciate this and should probably give these guys support.  You can order a copy of "Nuée Noire" from the label "Self Mutilation Services."

Curt's review: 79%

Agga - Agga

     Agga, are a gimmick metal band from Florida.  Being a Gimmick metal band isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it takes away from the possible artistic integrity of the artist.  Agga's gimmick is incorporating middle eastern folk music with black/thrash metal and lyrics exclusively about Babylonian mythology.  It is a unique take on an old trend (mixing black metal with folk.)

     Whilst this band isn't as painful to listen as Orphaned Land, there are a few problems with the music that need to be addressed.  The most prominent problem would have to be the thin guitar tone, it sounds a lot like Forest's guitar tone, which would be a good thing if they were playing ambient black metal... unfortunately they are not.  I think that if this dude wants to take his project seriously he really needs to increase production value.  A self produced album can sometimes make the album sound more personal in a positive way (Transilvanian Hunger/As a Song in the Harvest of Grief.)  At other times it can strongly distract from what would otherwise be a good album (Spheres/Reek of Putrefaction.)  As much as I hate modern production values; this release is in dire need of them.  If this was kvlt-as-fvck black metal the production would be perfect, the production is really the only thing that makes this sound like black metal.  The riffs seem more along the generic palm muting  variety that has been in metal since Black Sabbath.  There are a few droning tremolo sections that fit the black metal bill but they are not prominent enough to truly call this black metal. The guitars are mixed on different levels on each song which takes away from any atmosphere that may have otherwise been created.  The harsh vocals are pretty week although I don't blame this on the vocalist as much as I blame it on the microphone.  The last problem I am going to bring up is the fact that every song on this album has a fade-out ending... any atmosphere that wasn't killed off by the production was destroyed by the fade-outs.

     The previous paragraph makes me sound like a hater, I'm not a hater.  I actually dig this release, even though it isn't thrash metal or black metal.  The clean chanting vocals are really cool, even though they are cheesy as nachos and only semi on-key.  They sound very hypnotic and succeed in the creation of a dark and mystical atmosphere, which is the ultimate goal this album strives for.  The fake drums sound good, even though they are at a different volume level on each song.  Although Agga have a painfully cheesy gimmick in a conceptual sense, the project portrays the ancient civilization of Babylon in a very convincing way.

     Now that I have gone through my list of "likes" and "dislikes" of the outward aesthetic, I will proceed to through my arbitrary opinion at the music itself.  The song writing is very good.  This dude knows how to write convincing, unique and memorable melodies.  I get parts of these songs stuck in my head days after hearing them.  The only problem with the actual song writing is that the choruses are repeated far too frequently (especially on the song "The Lord of Babylon.")  Despite what I said about the production and the lack of song endings destroying atmosphere, there is plenty of atmosphere left on the album due to the brilliant song writing.  I have to say that every song on this release is very good (in my opinion.)  My only significant complaint is the production.  I would like to hear these songs the way they are intended to be heard!

Listen to Agga for free!

Curtis Review" 78%

Do The World a Favour and Start a Doom Metal Band.

Why is it that Doom Metal seems to be pushed to the wayside so often? Oh yes, I always see people discuss it in at least one token thread on every online metal forum and there are some bands with relative popularity. (Candlemass - duh, St. Vitus, Cathedral, and especially if you want to count Black Sabbath) However, in real life (my boring reclusive life at least) it rarely seems to come up when I'm talking with my metalhead buds or when I meet someone new (which is seldom anyway).

Even in the digital realm Doom Metal doesn't get the representation other genres do. There are the hardcore die-hard fans of course (http://doom-metal.com/) but there doesn't seem to be a lot of casual doom listeners floating around.

Metal blogs and forums are always choked with and endless barrage of black or death metal discussion:
 "<3 Burzum" "Check out this shitty black metal band, so fvcking vndergrovnd!!!!" "Obscure brutal death metal from (shithole country)". etc. etc. etc.
Metal Archives lists 19,886 black metal bands and a whopping 28,035 death metal bands in existence! Doom metal has a lowly 6,120 entries.

Now I love black metal and death metal... but how many more drum machine bedroom fuzzfests do we really need? I've been told really bad bedroom funeral doom is a growing trend now too, but I think it's far from being an epidemic like shitty black and death metal has become.

I don't know why so few are motivated to play Doom. There's the apparent lack of listeners, but there'll always be the few dedicated fans in the underground, and more good bands can only lead to more people hearing of and giving Doom a shot. The "slowness" and the lack of showing off one's ubershredzskillz may be offputting to some, but anyone who makes or listen to music as art and not a theatrical side show should be able to see the merits of Doom metal. It may be incredibly inaccessable, even for fans of the already inaccessble(ish) genre of metal as a whole, but it's not too hard to acclimatize one's self to this awesome music.

Start with this:

Then this:

Then this:

Then just keep going! See? You too can enjoy Doom metal. You don't have to be a fat neckbeard stoner piece of shit, you just have to like metal and appreciate good art! Now, round up your buddies, start a Doom band and get it out there! I don't want Doom to be the next big thing, but a bit more recognition in the underground would be awesome. The day I get a message saying "Review my Epic/Trad Doom band from (shithole country)" is the day my faith in humanity is restored. (a little...)     

Posted by Tex.                           

Auspicium – Hope Is All you Have (Tex's Review)

Actually there is no hope for this demo, so you’re left with essentially nothing. This is some really painfully “bedroom” black metal: Poorly written, performed and recorded. All the songs follow the same structure of long clean intro with many overlapping guitar parts played out of time (and often out of key) – abrupt shitty black metal part – outro that’s the same as the intro.

I’m not sure what the first song, “The Flame of Man Dies in Twilight” (lol) is supposed to be. It doesn’t work as an intro, as it doesn’t flow into the next track or do anything but set up the boring formula for the rest of the songs. The second song “I will never Forget Your Face” (lol) showcases the worst of the off time playing. Once the black metal kicks in, it’s truly awful. This guy couldn’t even play to a drum machine / click, so he mixed it super low hoping you wouldn’t notice. It doesn’t help. The mixing and production itself is just awful in general. Horrible tone, fluctuating levels. It’s what you’d expect from bedroom black metal.

This song also contains some horrible blatant mistakes. The lead at the end has a bunch of wrong notes. He’s constantly hitting incorrect notes and sliding to the right note in the riffs. This demo sounds like it’s supposed to be super atmospheric and dreamy, pretty sounding stuff, so there’s no way this can be passed off as being dissonant on purpose. It’s just shitty playing. I like the style he’s going for, but this demo just simply does not achieve that sound, or anything for that matter.

The last two songs are exactly the same as the first two, so they won’t get much comment. However “The Opportunist” has about a minute of nifty clean vocals, much better than the vocals on the rest of the demo which are sparsely utilized and seem misplaced when they are used.  Really the vocals don’t serve much of a purpose. They can’t save the songs. The title track is pretty much worthless.

It sounds like this guy had about an hour before his parents got home to write and record this entire thing, no time to account for the myriad blatant mistakes in his playing, and most certainly no time to learn how to write songs or play black metal. I appreciate the style and sound I think this demo is supposed to get across, but it just does not deliver.

Tex’s rating: 23%

            Oh, did I mention this guy is pretentious as all fuck? Check out these quotes from his myspace page. Read ‘em and LOL:

“Songs for midnight walks along the ocean shore, shadowed by the mountains and forests, under the stars, drunk as can be. ....If you do not know me or do not enjoy my music, do not add me. If you aren't interested in my work, I am definitely not interested in your pathetic attempts at rap music, your "emo" bands, how you look with some stupid name written on your underage tits, or how many friends you can get by clicking here. Seriously. Save me the time of having to delete you. .. .. ..”

He doesn’t like underage tits… I don’t even…

His influences include:

“Waves as they hurl themselves at the stones. Oceans of stone. A little stream with a waterfall that no one else has ever seen. The endless sky. A tree in winter, fighting back the wind.”

And apparently his music sounds like:

            “Triumph and failing in one breath.”

Remove a couple words and this would be a fairly accurate statement. Hope you kids enjoyed!

Here’s the download link for those of you brave enough to venture: http://blackmetalownsyou.blogspot.com/2011/07/auspicium-hope-is-all-you-have-demos.html

Auspicium – Hope is all you Have (Curt's review)

     I usually don’t like to shit on other people’s creativity, especially when they are trying to express themselves through unique music in a genre I love.  I also like to generally give demos the benefit of the doubt and provide artists with constructive criticism; rather than unnecessary ridicule. 

     The first time I listened to this demo, it immediately reminded me of depressive black metal acts like Trist and Hypothermia (especially Trist.)  I thought that the swirling reverb, atrocious guitar tone and off time melodies were meant to conjure a spirit of nihilistic bleakness... they don’t.  After listening to “Hope is all you Have” a second time I realized that it was actually just another “post rock/black metal” band attempting to make a name for itself in a flooded genre. 

     The first song is an instrumental and doesn’t really feel like a proper intro; it feels more like a stand alone track.  It has some dumb noise in the background and some atonal guitar riffs going on as well.  There is a “melody?” over top that is out of key with the background noise (if that’s possible.)  The timing is so horrendous in this track, I question whether or not this dude could even be bothered to use a metronome.  This intro made me think of a half assed attempt at Xasthur and is one of the reasons I mistook the band as depressive black metal.  

     The rest of this album has lots of layers of guitar that all bleed together into a homogonous mass of nonsense.  Many of these layers have misplaced notes which render them out of key with the rest of the music.  The guitar tone doesn’t help much ether; it is drenched in reverb and the distortion sounds incredibly weak and muffled.  I think that the overuse of reverb was an attempt at covering up all the mistakes, if that is the case it didn’t work.  There is a LOT of places where the timing is totally off, the tremolo picking is inconsistent and the guitarist hits wrong notes.  The most common mistake is when his finger hits the wrong part of the fret and makes a buzzing noise, it is obvious he recorded this demo in one take (or at least I hope so.) 

     There are a few positive aspects of this demo as well, there are a few melodies here and there where every layer comes together and is on time!  These moments really shine and provide hope for this band.  The clean vocals are also surprisingly well done (although misplaced) they are like a cross between early Ulver and Alcest.  The harsh vocals on the other hand are really dumb… they don’t display any emotion and are there just so they can “look like a black metal band.”  It sounds like the vocalist was trying to do his vocals really quietly so that he wouldn’t wake up his parents in the next room.

     This demo is really bad… plain and simple; this doesn’t mean that Auspicium suck.  I think that there is some potential with this band.  Auspicium have 2 full-length albums making a release like this inexcusable.  Apparently this demo is going to be re-recorded with real drums, hopefully when this is done everything else will be also reworked.  Until then, hope is all I have for this band. 

Curt’s rating: 37%

Just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean you won’t like it!  Check these guys out and support the underground!

http://blackmetalownsyou.blogspot.com/2011/07/auspicium-hope-is-all-you-have-demos.html