Falls of Rauros - Vigilance Perennial

By Justin C. I feel like I just reviewed Falls of Rauros' Believe in No Coming Shore a year ago, but I was surprised to see it was way back in October of 2014. I think that speaks to how closely that album has stayed with me, and I have no doubt that their newest, Vigilance Perennial, will hold a similar place in my heart.

By Justin C.

Artwork by Sólfjall Design.

I feel like I just reviewed Falls of Raruos' Believe in No Coming Shore a year ago, but I was surprised to see it was way back in October of 2014. I think that speaks to how closely that album has stayed with me, and I have no doubt that their newest, Vigilance Perennial, will hold a similar place in my heart.

I'm going to write what might sound like a negative: Vigilance Perennial isn't a quantum leap forward from Believe in No Coming Shore. I considered doing a close, almost-academic listen to both albums over and over, looking to catalog the smallest of changes , but that's a good way to kill the joy of music--and probably bore the hell out of you. That said, I'm not disappointed in Vigilance because Falls of Rauros do on this album what they do so damn well. If they make seven more albums just like this one, I'll eat up every one of them.

Once again, Falls of Rauros prove that they're the best classic rock/folk/black metal project that never happened in the 70s. For reasons I'd find hard to articulate, I feel like I hear a bit more Allman Brothers in this album than I have in the past, but sounding like Duane Allman and Dicky Betts is far from a bad thing. Of course, they've taken that influence and put Southern rock through their own New England-based lens, blended with all of the other influences they bring to bear.

The band starts the album with some truly lovely guitar work, including sweet guitar harmonies, for nearly a minute and a half in the opener "White Granite" before some of my favorite black metal shrieks kick in. I almost wrote "makes you wait through nearly a minute and a half" there, but the guitar work, even at its prettiest and least black metal-like, is no chore to slog through. Even the standard black metal tropes, like a guitar tremolo, become uniquely their own. Go to about the seven-minute mark for a sweet, harmonized tremolo. It's hair-raisingly awesome.

At this point, I find myself at a similar point as I did with the review of Believe. I want to make a PowerPoint slide of every heart-rending moment I found in these songs. You know how you never get to hear the bass in most black metal? Check out the drum-and-bass-only break in "Labyrinth Unfolding Echoes." Revel in the perfection of the instrumental "Warm Quiet Centuries of Rains." Even the song names help envelop you in this atmosphere. And if you're worried there's not enough fire, then stick around for the fever pitch that builds in the album closer, "Impermanence Streakt Through Marble."

As with the last release, I can't say enough good things about this album. Sure, there are other bands who attempt to do what Falls of Rauros does, but for my money, they're a sparkling anomaly in the black metal scene, and I want to stay on this ride with them for as long as they're making music.

Short and to the point 8

By Aaron Sullivan. From the great Rising Beast label comes the latest from Dargar, The Shores of Space. They originally started as a Blackened Noise band. Very in your face aggressive and gritty. I loved it. Then came a split (that unfortunately did not see a physical release but can be downloaded on the label Bandcamp) and they changed up their sound quite a bit.

By Aaron Sullivan.


From the great Rising Beast label comes the latest from Dargar, The Shores of Space. They originally started as a Blackened Noise band. Very in your face aggressive and gritty. I loved it. Then came a split (that unfortunately did not see a physical release but can be downloaded on the label Bandcamp) and they changed up their sound quite a bit. They became more atmospheric and elements of Shoegaze and DSBM were sprinkled within. Then I heard they were going to go further with that on the next album. The results are amazing.

The Shores of Space as an album encapsulates everything I love about music. Dark, atmospheric, experimental, layered, and with just enough rawness to not sound over produced. The foggyness of the opening track. The chanting vocals closing out "Seething Gold". The gothy hypnotic feel of "Vast". The Jesu-esque feel that starts off "No More Skies". With "Hammers of Minutiae" they return to their Noise roots with an Industrial opener that slowly dissolves as the song progresses. What Pete did vocally is also awesome. From DSBM style, to clean, to distorted Industrial, to gut wrenching Death Metal. Every track is better than the last. Cohesive and yet each song presents it’s own feel. The layers only compel the listener to multiple listens. The more I heard this album I kept asking myself what it reminded me of. Only one album kept coming to mind, Lurker of Chalice, an album I happen to revere very much. Not that Dargar ripped off the album. What they did was something I’ve never heard a band do, capture Lurker's essence, it’s experimentalism. The Shores of Space is a huge step for these guys and it pays off, especially for the listener.

Up next Germany’s Downfall of Gaia and their album Atrophy. I was first introduced to them seeing them live a few years back and was blown away. I had their self titled compilation on rotation for some time after. Their brand of Atmospheric Sludge was right up my alley. But for some reason I lost track of them. I caught back up with them with this album, and I’m so glad I did.

This is a huge step from what I heard originally and liked. It’s more focused and hints of Black Metal are added with great effect. The production is in your face. You feel as though you are surrounded by the musicians as they pummel you with their sonic assault. There is a definite whiff of White Tomb era Altar of Plagues that flows through this album. This was an album that would no doubt be on my 2016 album of the year list. But I stupidly waited too long to include it. Don’t make that same mistake. Wait no longer. Click the link and enjoy.

There are bands that just scratch a certain itch that no other band can. Worm Ouroboros is that band for me. My first encounter with them was their opening for Agalloch. I was hooked, or rather transfixed. The interplay of Lorraine and Jessica’s vocals coupled with Aesop’s delicate and deliberate drumming was like nothing I had ever heard. I couldn’t get enough.

Last year they released their third album What Graceless Dawn. All that you love about their mix of DOOM and Folk is found within. It get this feeling when listening to them like I’m on a small boat going along a calm dark river at night. Aesop drumming is the steady rowing of that boat and the Jessica and Lorraine’s vocals are the cloaked sirens on shore warning me of what’s to come. Sometimes calm as the water and other times, as the danger grows so does the tempo. But I know as long as I follow their voices I will find my way to the light. They can be heavy without ever having to go to 11. They do it through dynamics and emotion. Another of the great albums 2016 had to offer.

Cover art by Valnoir

Admittedly Blackened Death Metal is a genre I stay away from. But knowing nothing of Nidingr accept for the interesting album cover I gave their new album The High Heat Licks Against Heaven a shot. Proving judging a book (or album in this case) by it’s cover can work.

Within the first seconds of the opener I was hooked. Immediate and pummeling are what come to mind. Vocals, a throaty hardcore shout, and at times the music reminiscent of Wolverine Blues era Entombed. But only 4 songs in and they begin to shift gears with the song "Gleipnir" with it’s doomy psychedelic feel. Then back to the pummeling with "Sol Taker". Then comes the dirgey "Ash Yggdrasil" featuring Garm of Ulver fame. A song that really does feel like a collaboration not just a ‘come do vocals’ thing. Followed by two more barnburners and then the final song featuring the ever divisive Myrkur. Another slow doomy dirge. While it may feel somewhat formulaic it really works to help the album feel diverse. The heavier songs sound heavier and the faster songs sound that much faster.

From the island of Tasmania comes the prolific Striborg and his newest album A Procession of Lost Souls. Prolific fits him better than most in the Black Metal scene having released over 20 albums since 1997 sometimes releasing new albums twice in one year. The thing I’ve always loved about him is his willingness to experiment. Not just from album to album but sometimes within an album or even with in songs. He can go two songs that are raw and sound as if they were recorded in a cave and the next six songs sounding professionally recorded (or as professional as one man Black Metal can be). This sort of experimentalism may not sit well with some. I in fact don’t enjoy all that he does. But admire it nonetheless. He’s truly one of a kind.

With A Procession of Lost Souls he returns to familiar ground after his last two albums that consisted of mainly Dark Ambient and Power Electronic songs. The title track opener is raw as most of catalogue. Guitars are buzzy, cymbals hiss, and vocals are gurgled shrieks soaked in reverb. Dark atmosphere is a staple of his music and this album is no different. If you're a fan you’ll love it. If you're new this may be an album that makes you a fan or at least peaks some interest. There’s even a Siouxsie & The Banshees cover to finish off the album.

Root - Hell Symphony

By Andy Curtis-Brignell. Root are one of those bands that never quite seem to get their due. As part of the preternaturally influential but still obscure crop of early Eastern European black/death bands with Master’s Hammer and KAT, the Czech act have their die-hard fans, but in my experience they primarily focus on the band’s debut album Zjeveni and Hell Symphony’s follow-up The Temple in the Underworld

By Andy Curtis-Brignell.


Root are one of those bands that never quite seem to get their due. As part of the preternaturally influential but still obscure crop of early Eastern European black/death bands with Master’s Hammer and KAT, the Czech act have their die-hard fans, but in my experience they primarily focus on the band’s debut album Zjeveni and Hell Symphony’s follow-up The Temple in the Underworld, being the two albums closest to the Venom/Hellhammer/Bathory template. However Root, despite 30+ years of existence, have never made a true misstep and, bucking the trend that saw most 80s survivors churn out either tedious epic metal or AOR crud (hi Metallica) their more recent work was amongst their most creatively fertile - toe to toe, Black Seal and The Book wipe the floor with their late 90s/early 2000s competition.

But this isn’t a career retrospective - I’m here to write about my favourite Root album, Hell Symphony. I could start by talking about how comparatively polished the production is, or how excellently the central concept (a form of sonic grimoire, each song dealing with a particular demon) is executed. Instead, I want to look briefly at how astonishingly varied this album is. Ranging from technically stunning thrash to creeping, chugging death metal via the sonic abjection of early black metal, Hell Symphony is rounded off with a touch of classical clean guitar and the inimitable operatic ‘Attila Csihar sings Verdi’ vocals of band leader Big Boss, Hell Symphony covers more ground in its spare 41 minutes than most bands do in their entire careers, without ever feeling contrived. Indeed, the album as a whole gives the impression of being streamlined and produced with a supernatural level of restraint and economy - dynamically this is one of the most interesting metal records of all time, with nothing ever feeling too saturated or overblown whilst maintaining a consistently high level of engagement and excitement. This relationship between the albums brevity and its dynamic content also keeps the album feeling curiously unresolved, as if it could loop endlessly around some ancient darkened grotto until the demons conjured within are ready to rise. Hell Symphony is exactly that - an orchestrated piece designed to show the listener around the band’s demonic weltanschauung.

However the concept never overtakes the execution, and whilst the songs benefit from context they also shine individually, "Belial" and "Loki" being particular highlights. There’s an unexpected accessibility to Hell Symphony that belies the overtly dark and satanic imagery and concept, not to mention the band’s relative obscurity. The thundering drums and grooves remind me more of Beneath the Remains era Sepultura than anything being put out by black metal acts at the time, whilst the intertwining guitar melodies and ripping thrash sections resemble nothing less than some kind of Mercyful Fate/RTL-era Metallica collaboration, albeit with vocals from a drunken, phantasm-beset Pavarotti as opposed to some generic leather-clad showman.

There’s a fundamental sincerity to Hell Symphony that I think may be one of the reasons why it has failed to see mainstream success. There are no pyrotechnics to their diabolism, and there’s no sensationalism in their performance. Putting aside the impressive guitar licks and how easy it is to bang your head to it, there’s an almost indefinable humility to the record that makes you feel as though the band aren't simply paying lip service to any aspect of their performance. They believe, so we believe. I think that might be the highest compliment I’m able to pay to such an interesting, varied, dynamic but ultimately restrained piece of metal art.