Short and to the point 7

By Aaron Sullivan. As people who know me know, Death Metal is one of the genres I just can never really get into with the exception of a few bands and albums here and there. But, add some DOOM and you’ll get my attention. Hands of Thieves album Feasting on Dark Intentions does just that and it got my attention.

By Aaron Sullivan.

Artwork by Jason Graham

As people who know me know, Death Metal is one of the genres I just can never really get into with the exception of a few bands and albums here and there. But, add some DOOM and you’ll get my attention. Hands of Thieves' album Feasting on Dark Intentions does just that and it got my attention.

Chunky riffage and a grittiness are big part of their sound. Vocals are mix of gurgling screeches and deep growls. The atmosphere is dark and primitive sounding, and there is a huge low end to their riffage. At times elements of Black Metal creep in as well. With only four songs they do so much and show a ton of promise.

Originally released by Transylvanian Tapes on cassette Feasting on Dark Intentions is now being released by Baneful Genesis on limited vinyl, so make sure and get you one!

The great thing about year end lists is finding the stuff you missed especially in genres you're not that familiar with. Deathrock is for sure of those genres. Thanks to Cvlt Nation's top ten list I found out about one such band right in my backyard. Los Angeles's own The Wraith and there EP Shadow Flag.

With the opening of "Comatic Romance" I was hooked. The driving bass line. The hoarse pucky vocals and gothy guitar sound. Reminded me of "The Hunt" from New Model Army (a song made famous to most metal fans by Sepultura). The rest of the EP follows along those same lines. Fans of Killing Joke and Samhain would dig this. While Shadow Flag may borrow heavily from that 80’s deathrock sound it still feels very fresh. Hope to catch these guys live soon.

Artwork by View from the Coffin

From Sacramento California comes Vrtra and their album My Bones Hold a Stillness. An album that is based in Black Metal with hints of DOOM, Death, and Post-Black Metal to spice things up. All done with such fluidity the transitions are seamless.

The sound is huge! Guitars and Drums right in your face with vocals mixed in the middle. There is an epicness to the three tracks. The songs have weight. Vocals feel as though they are devouring everything in their way. They can shift from these beautiful middle sections to pummeling blast beats of destruction to drive the song home.

You ever hear an album and while you’re not sure what the hell is going on, you also know you can’t stop listening to it? That’s was the case with 夢遊病者’s album 5772. According to google translate 夢遊病者 is Japanese for Sleepwalker. Aptly titled as their music can feel like a mix of beautiful fantasies and a fever dream.

What is their genre you say? Might be easier to tell you what genre they don’t play. Experimental would be the easiest and bit of an understatement. There are elements of Black Metal, Krautrock, Shoegaze, and Ambient all mixed perfectly. Done in a way that captivates the listener because you're never quite sure where they may go next. Vocals are ghost like. Breathy and low in the mix almost whispered. This is an album done by people that have thrown out the rules and forged their own path. Just a great listen. Even it you don’t find it to be something you want to hear again, I doubt you'll be mad if you hear 5772 at least once. And I’m certain you won’t hear much else like it.

There are those labels that when they announce the release of an album, just based on their track record you know you are going to check it out - and most likely give them your money. Fallen Empire has been a label like that for me for some time, and when they announced the release of Tardigrada’s latest album of Atmospheric Black Metal, Emotionale Ödnis, I was interested.

The album setup is 5 songs with a short instrumental intro before each of them. It’s a formula that works. The intros are soft and light, before the songs kick in with their epic feel and melancholic atmospheres. Vocals are high pitched wails like those found in DSBM. But despite the sadness of the music there is a still a bit of light in each song. Like moonlight shining through dark clouds. Things never get too flashy or technical and Tardigrada are not doing anything unheard of before. But Emotionale Ödnis is a solid album from start to finish, as I have come to expect from Fallen Empire releases.

Giveaway - A Fortnight Spent Beneath Ashen Skies t-shirt by Christian Degn

[Welcome to the second Metal Bandcamp giveaway! Recently I fell in love with a t-shirt featuring the gorgeous drawing A Fortnight Spent Beneath Ashen Skies by Christian Degn. After procuring it a thought entered my mind: more people should know about this shirt

The giveaway is over. See who won at the bottom of the post.

[Welcome to the second Metal Bandcamp giveaway! Recently I fell in love with a t-shirt featuring the gorgeous drawing A Fortnight Spent Beneath Ashen Skies by Christian Degn. After procuring it a thought entered my mind: more people should know about this shirt, so they can love it like I do. Hence this giveaway, enter it and you may win the t-shirt for yourself to wear.

Besides the giveaway we have music as well. Christian was kind enough to send me a Bandcamp playlist of albums that kept him company while creating the drawing. Enjoy, and check out his store for prints (and the t-shirt if you do not win it here).]


The title of the drawing on this shirt is "A Fortnight Spent Beneath Ashen Skies, an Eternity Under the Eyes of Our Lord” which was a phrase that kept repeating in my head as I was drawing it. This is usually how I name pieces, if they do end up getting a name. The only symbolism that I intentionally put into this image was the hour glass, and it’s meaning is actually not terribly deep, simply representing mortality. I suppose this whole illustration could be dedicated to this idea. Everything else is just there because I liked how it looked. I have plans to make more shirts with other illustrations I’ve done, but I figured I would start out with one of my older drawings. In total I probably spent around 20 or so hours on this piece, possibly more or less. It was on my desk for about a month while I worked on other drawings and school work, picking away at it slowly. Of course I had plenty of music keeping me company through this process, here are a few of the albums I recall playing regularly around the time of working on it.


This album was playing as I started this drawing. Originally I was only planning to draw the left half of the image. I had started it a couple of weeks before my birthday and was drawing it as as a sort of gift for myself, and with another year passing, an hourglass seems fitting. Xothist has a interesting songwriting style that really lets my mind wander with their meandering compositions, but it still has a rawness that keeps it very mysterious and menacing while demanding attention. I also had the Dwarfer cassette playing a lot as well around this time, though I’m not sure if the band has a stream anywhere. Either way, this stuff deserves way more praise than I see it getting. Really top notch stuff!

I’ve always been infatuated with Locrian’s music since I was first introduced to them, but this album really caught me off guard from track one. All their releases have a really long shelf life for me as well, if that’s the right way to put it? I mean I had this album in rotation regularly up until Infinite Dissolution which followed this release (and it’s kinda been the same story with that album!) My routine during this summer was to go for an evening run and come home and sit by the fan and blast this record while playing an hour or so of Metroid 2 on gameboy before working on art stuff. It makes for the perfect soundtrack to a lonely space exploration game! Locrian’s musical sensibility and aesthetic always has the feeling of intrigue and haziness, like seeing a mysterious door in a dream that you know you want to approach, but are apprehensive about. But the band shows you inside the door and it’s usually nothing to be afraid of, but something to find wonder in. I also always love seeing Terence Hannum’s collage pieces using cassette tape and design elements from labels. As a generally line-oriented artist, I’ve always taken a lot away from seeing his work. I hope I can see some in person eventually, I’m sure the light interacting with the tape provides a whole new level to the viewing experience. I’ll quit fawning now ha!

I always have to listen to a Krallice album at some point during a drawing. There’s something about hearing the way these dudes account for every detail in their songs that really lends itself to falling into that sort of zen state, where inking monotonous lines becomes more meditative than tedious. The word I always see people throw around to describe Krallice is dizzying, which really is probably the best way to describe any Krallice riff. The other thing I love about how detail-oriented this band’s discography tends to be, is that I can almost always find something new on every listen. Not a lot of bands do that for me! This was another album I was playing on cassette a lot, and hearing that extra layer of fuzz really makes you aware of how much influence these guys drew from that raw black metal sound. If you can find a copy I recommend you snagging it! (if only for the alternate cover art on the j-card, which has grade-A layout!)

I believe I may have actually stumbled across this album through this very site! I probably played it at least once during every drawing I did between 2014 and 2015. I really love how spacey this album feels, despite a pretty grind-y backbone. For me it feels a lot like Vektor meets Gridlink but a little bit more blackened? I think the thing that really kept me coming back to this release the most was actually the vocal mix. It has those sort of DSBM howls and it fits with the song writing excellently. I usually pay attention to guitars and drums more than anything so it’s rare for me to find vocals done in a way that actually make them the highlight. These make me feel like a little kid hearing heavy metal for the first time and being kind of scared but still transfixed. Also just like.. the riffs, man!

This might be my favorite album ever. It’s almost always in rotation, but I was listening to this more than usual right as I was finishing up on this drawing because, if I remember correctly, The Unnatural World had just come out earlier in the year. I thought about including that album instead, since it was as significant around that time for me, but I couldn’t bring myself to put it above this record which always really messes me up in the best way on every listen. I don’t know what I could say about Deathconsciousness that hasn’t already been said and said more eloquently than I’m capable of, but there’s no way I couldn’t give it a mention. Also I believe the Flenser just announced another pressing recently so I suggest jumping on that if you get the chance! The sleeve and zine included are absolutely stunning! A detail I love is that the Flenser pressing uses the Jaques-Louis David cover, and then uses the original LP cover for the zine. This album definitely demands your attention the first handful of listens. I suggest turning it up very loud and turning off all the lights! Repeat until you’ve gained enough immunity that you can actually draw to this album without sobbing all over your paper!

[The giveaway is over. Thanks to all who entered, and for all the nice comments. The randomly selected winners are:

Brad Sanders29 - bradscottsand AT gmail DOT com
AM30 - merschat AT gmail DOT com

The t-shirts have now been sent to Brad from New York and Artie from Texas. Congratulations to both of you!]

Atriarch - An Unending Pathway

Written by Aaron Sullivan.

Artwork by Hal Rotter.

Portland's Atriarch return with their third album entitled An Unending Pathway. One of my favorite new bands of the last few years, I love all three of their albums and have had the opportunity to see them live a few times. In fact I was privileged to hear An Unending Pathway performed in it’s entirety when they did a small west coast tour before hitting the studio to record it.

Atriarch's first album, Forever the End, were pretty straight forward Funeral/Drone DOOM with hints of blackendness (if that's a word). It was their next album where they really stretched out. On Ritual of Passing they added a Gothy Deathrock sound to their Blackened/Funeral/Drone/DOOM. While many other bands may find it hard to incorporate all these different sounds into an album, for Atriarch it flows very naturally not just from song to song but within songs themselves. Another thing that sets them apart are Lenny’s vocals. He can go from these snotty punkish vocals to droning chants to death growls to blackened screams all with in the same song.

2014’s An Unending Pathway is a more streamlined and confident approach to what was established on Ritual of Passing. The famed production of Billy Anderson may also have a little something to do with it. As is the case with all three albums, there are no gaps in between songs. They just flow into the next one. Telling the listener that this is meant to be heard as one piece, not in pieces. An Unending Pathway, like Rituals of Passing, also features guest vocals from Jessica Way of Worm Ouroboros. With each album has come a change whether in sound (or label, each album being released by a different label). But the one constant has been their willingness to move forward and never stay in one place musically and vocally. A solid band with three great releases under their belt and hopefully many more to come.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

The Flenser Part Two: Have a Nice Life, White Suns & Planning for Burial

By Craig Hayes. In the first part of this Flenser Records feature, I looked at recent releases from avant-garde black metal band Mamaleek, and harbingers of electronic doom, Wreck and Reference. Both of those bands are based in California, and both are duos, but those aren't the only commonalities between the two bands. Mamaleek and Wreck and Reference also blend a lot of influences from

By Craig Hayes.


In the first part of this Flenser Records feature, I looked at recent releases from avant-garde black metal band Mamaleek, and harbingers of electronic doom, Wreck and Reference. Both of those bands are based in California, and both are duos, but those aren't the only commonalities between the two bands. Mamaleek and Wreck and Reference also blend a lot of influences from well outside metal’s usual sphere of interests into their sound, and while the two bands are sonically dissimilar, they both take a similarly experimental approach in their songwriting.

In doing that, Mamaleek and Wreck and Reference both make innovative music, but they both also feature plenty of core metal references in their sound as well. Flenser also releases works by bands that don’t reference metal as directly, yet those bands are still making music that contains a lot of elements that would appeal to fans of dark rock and metal. There’s been three albums added to Flenser’s Bandcamp page of late that fall into that category, so let’s take a look at that trio of releases, and their creators.


Every band wants to make a good impression on debut, but when Have A Nice Life released their first full-length, Deathconsciousness, back in 2008, they delivered an outright underground classic. The band’s founding members, Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga, crafted a sprawling double album, where shoegaze, industrial rock, indie pop, and traces of metal were all twisted around the heavy presence of post-punk. Deathconsciousness’ reputation has only increased since its release, so six years later, Have A Nice Life’s second full-length album, The Unnatural World, has a lot to live up to.

Thankfully, Have A Nice Life have come up with an album that is just as rewarding as Deathconsciousness. The Unnatural World takes the band’s post-punk core, and adds in a heavier dose of death-and-gothic-rock, while the presence of murky shoegaze and industrial noise is still keenly felt. For any metalhead seeking music that is meditative and mysterious, the counterpointing of gorgeousness and grimness found on The Unnatural World is bound to be attractive. Certainly, The Unnatural World is as emotionally heavy as any release from the realms of doom or sludge metal, and with waves of fuzz, reverb, feedback, and distortion spilling from walls of guitar, there’s abundant crossover appeal lurking in the album’s depths.

Dark dirges off The Unnatural World, such as “Guggenheim Wax Museum”, “Burial Society” and the bass-heavy blast of “Defenestration Song”, see ice-cold vocals thread through despairing atmospheres – bringing all that wintery '80s post-punk chill. However, along with that, much of The Unnatural World finds that aforementioned shoegaze arising from shadowy drone too. There’s static and thunder on the album as well – particularly on “Cropsey”, where industrial beats erupt into blown-out percussion – and throughout The Unnatural World, as songs tumble through the aether, the ceaseless presence of distortion and echo means everything rides on a crest of dissolving into chaotic noise.

That brings tension to tracks like “Unholy” and “Emptiness Will Eat The Witch”, undercutting their grace with the presence of something unnerving and malevolent at work. That’s exactly what makes The Unnatural World such an enthralling album overall. It’s an undeniably haunting and hypnotic release, with plenty of passages to sink into, but there’s an ever-present sense of something waiting just out of view. Something biding its time, until its decided it’s the perfect moment to crush our hopes, and shatter our dreams.




You'd be hard pressed to come up with any clear set of descriptors to capture the mayhem found on White Sun’s latest album, Totem. You'll find large doses of some kind of post-hardcore, avant-jazz, and noise rock hybridisation lurking on tracks like “Priest In The Laboratory”, “Clairvoyant” and “Disjecta Membra”. However, forget any semblance of actual structure. I mean, there’s ear-piercing guitar and concussive percussion aplenty – and tracks like “Cathexis” and “World Lock” are pretty much heaven for fans of demented guitar abuse – but everything is ground up and spat out via some glorious no-wave head-fuckery.

“Fossil Record” takes a more ambient or synthesized route, and Totem’s last track, “Carrion”, isn't so much music, as just some kind of poetic final punishment. Really, overall, Totem is just ill-natured and utterly unfathomable. White Sun’s clearly aren't interested in catering to any comfort zones, but just see if you don't hit repeat straight away after Totem finishes. Music this bizarre and defiant demands repeated listens – if only to try and make sense of why it’s so damn enjoyable. For those who claim to be very open minded, Totem is still bound to be a head-scratching challenge. Still, I’d take that over safe and anodyne music any day of the week.




Thom Wasluck’s solo project, Planning for Burial, has a lengthy discography of splits, EPs, and cassettes to be found on Bandcamp, and Desideratum, the band’s second full-length recording, is the band’s debut for Flenser. Planning for Burial takes doom and post-metal and runs that through a melancholic slowcore filter – resulting in the kinds of ambient and gothic drone that would appeal to fans of Jesu or Nadja. Tracks off Desideratum, like “Where you Rest your Head at Night” and “29 August 2012”, bring waves of minimalist, feedbacking gloom. Yet, like all of Planning for Burial’s work, heavenliness plays just as an important role as heaviness.

The connection between lost love and an aching for physical contact saturates Desideratum, and there’s no finer example of that being rendered into musical form than on the album’s final track, the 16-minute “Golden”. Cold washes of guitar begin the song, but halfway through, all the droning feedback, synth, and death-march percussion takes on a brighter hue. For sure, “Golden” remains utterly heartbreaking, but, like the best mournful musical experiences, there comes a point where utter bliss arises from misery. There's a lot of ecstasy to be found in the fragility of Desideratum; that solace that always comes from sharing the beauty and emotional rawness of despair.



The Flenser Part One: Mamaleek & Wreck and Reference.

Atriarch - Ritual Of Passing

Review by Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published here by Exclaim.

Artwork by Stevie Floyd.

Note: The review was written in 2012.

Portland, OR-based, doom-soaked, gothic death rock-drenched outfit Atriarch have had a dizzyingly prolific year. Their debut album, Forever the End, was released in 2011 and introduced their sound by painting a stark, spiky musical landscape. Earlier this year, their split with Alaric added breadth and depth, exploring the more emotive caverns and crevasses of the doom spectrum. Now, with sophomore effort The Ritual of Passing, Atriarch have tightened the seams between their various influences.

Photos by brandi.

The blackened quality of the guitar is no longer merely freezer-burnt in its chilliness, but genuinely hypothermic, spreading across the record organically like tendrils of hoarfrost. For all their noisy squall, Atriarch also masterfully deploy a much more controlled low end, a deep and rhythmic drone that evokes a sense of ritual and gravitas. It's the atmosphere of The Ritual of Passing that makes the record excellent, from the beckoning, creepy ominousness of "Altars" that sounds both like an invitation and a threat to the stalking, seductive horror of the outro. Atriarch have evolved from a promising band to watch to an act that have our undivided attention.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Atriarch - Forever the End

By Natalie Zina Walschots. Portland, OR-based Atriarch have produced something extraordinary with their debut. There is a profound difference between music that merely pouts and music that strives for the ambience of truly dark, depressive doom.

By Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published by Exclaim.

Portland, OR-based Atriarch have produced something extraordinary with their debut. There is a profound difference between music that merely pouts and music that strives for the ambience of truly dark, depressive doom. Atriarch have produced a brilliantly crafted example of genuine melancholy, intelligent, gothic doom combined with the smoky, mystical atmosphere of some of the best black metal. The album's thrumming bass tones are deep and somehow tremulous, possessing a crushing weight that's also profoundly vulnerable.

Atriarch have captured the sound of grieving on an album that drags itself along and tears itself open. Yet Forever the End is also reflective and critical, vacillating between the pure, towering experience of that grief and the careful dissection of it. In this, the album manages to be both overwhelming and precise. The songs are structured like chants and invocations, and the ambience Atriarch create is very much a ritual, especially the beginning of "Plague" and the end of "Downfall." This is a rite that comes, wails and rages, fills the listener completely with a seething ocean of emotion, then leaves the world a bit bleaker in its wake.