Alpthraum - Eyes of a Monument

Alpthraum's Eyes of a Monument is symphonic metal. Think Dimmu Borgir symphonic not Nightwish symphonic, despite it having nothing to do with black metal. The metal itself takes backseat to the well crafted orchestration. The riffs are almost too simple to stand on their own, but work very effectively when combined with the symphonies.

The word "Alptraum" (without the H) means nightmare in German, and Eyes of a Monument does work as a epic score to your dark dreams. Like a metalized version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, not about conflict from outer space, but from the inner dreamworld. Here's the review from Don't Count on it Reviews.

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Yayla - Sathimasal

Art by Emir Toğrul

Yayla is a one man band from Turkey and Sathimasal is their sophomore release. This is ambient black metal, hypnotic and sometimes even relentless. The first track, the instrumental Fordreame Wonderlore, consists of synthesizers playing off the repetitive tremolo riffing. The dark atmospherics continue on the rest of the album, but the songs now has vocals and more dynamic songwriting. The production is warmer than usual for this type of music. This accentuates the ambient atmosphere by making it sound a little less grim and frostbitten. Here's the From the Dusk Returned review, and below is your chance to check it out.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Yayla also have some great looking hand painted tshirts available.