Merdarahta - As the Dark Clouds Swept Away We Could See the Sunset

By Matt Hinch. If I ever needed affirmation that the rock I live under is nice and cozy I can just think about how As the Dark Clouds Swept Away We Could See the Sunset is the first time I've heard Merdarahta despite the group being based a couple hours away and featuring members of Fuck The Facts

By Matt Hinch.

Artwork by Mélanie Mongeon

If I ever needed affirmation that the rock I live under is nice and cozy I can just think about how As The Clouds Swept Away We Could See The Sunset is the first time I've heard Merdarahta despite the group being based a couple hours away and featuring members of Fuck the Facts, most notably Mel Mongeon and Topon Das. Mel handles vocals obviously while Das is responsible for bass and samples. Rounding out the contributors are Seb Choquette on guitars and additional percussion and Leigh Newton listed as drums, vocals and budda machine.

The album strikes a hard contrast between sonically bludgeoning doom and a noisy, ambient drone and does so in a cyclical manner. The tracks alternate between oppressive, sludge infested doom and its polar opposite in beautiful yet unsettling noise/drone. One moment the listener floats in a vacuum, detached from earthly tethers and the next is slammed, full force into the ground, repeatedly and without mercy. It's a roller coaster of conflict that has the capacity to incapacitate the listener given the right environment.

The ambient tracks are quite a bit quieter and as stated not really grounded in much. They make the listener feel detached. Almost lost in a sombre sort of way. But they are the sunset that is revealed. Introspective too, allowing the mind to wander and ponder between the dark clouds of doom that act as more of a lashing out.

The doom passages are smashing though. It's like the plod of some infernal entity flattening all in its path with slavering bellows cutting through the din. Slow, sometimes atonal chugs of resolute heaviness beating out the frustration while the screams send it forth into the unknown. Waves crashing upon dark shores, wearing them away and inspiring awe, fear and peace all at once.

It's a contemplative album on both sides. Its creators no doubt using it to work through things, as well as the listener using it to transcend the drudgery of everyday life. No matter which side of the coin is presented there is catharsis through any means possible, the hard way or the peaceful way, especially in the albums's closer "Poverty Will Spread".

As the Dark Clouds doesn't follow expectations of solid structures but it's not so much jammed as it is free-form or stream of musical consciousness blood-letting. It's doom of a difficult sort as well. Not industrial but cold, not organic yet human with subtle tribal or ritual connotations. It's a tough album to describe and only slightly less so to experience. You have to let it be what it is and assimilate it as such. It's about letting go and moving on to something better (at least that's how it feels to me) not about forcing something to be a certain way. Sweep away the dark clouds, the doubt, the regret and just enjoy the sunset.

Akhlys - The Dreaming I

By Majbritt Levinsen. "Breath and Levitatation" - just breathe, levitate and let go... Like the title of the first track you are lured into a greater calm with its droning industrial ambiance which starts out this brilliant album.

By Majbritt Levinsen.

Artwork by David Herrerias

"Breath and Levitatation" - just breathe, levitate and let go...

Like the title of the first track you are lured into a greater calm with its droning industrial ambiance which starts out this brilliant album. You will be lifted upwards on a rusty post-apocalyptic roller coaster that, when reaching its peak, will lose all bearings and fall uncontrollable down into a hall of mirrors reflecting kaleidoscopic nightmares, which are both pitch dark, nauseating, claustrophobic and sinister, but also holds a serene beauty, hypnotic aural landscapes and bleak atmospheres that only can be derived from the depths of the unknown.

The Dreaming I became one of the most anticipated releases of the year after I heard "Consummation" on Soundcloud and could only hope for an album which would not stray too far away from the teaser-track. Luckily it did not!

The tracks are all brutally powerful on so many levels, the drumming is insane and goes on in hyper-speed laying a stable foundation to the bleak atmosphere Naas Alcameth paints with big brushes filled with tar, tears, blood, worms, venomous flowers and rotting cadavers. The guitars feels like a fine layers of delicate razorsharp spiderwebs rising and falling in a heavy murky breeze from the depths, and somewhere underneath lies the bass like a low hum from a sleeping beast. The vocal is sinister and dares you to come closer to listen to its terrible tales of nightmares. When Naas Alcameth incantates “Awaken! Awaken!” in the later part of "The Dreaming Eye", it feels like he is at the same time pulling out my guts, and I’m willingly letting him do it because it feels so good.

"Tides of Oneiric Darkness" stands out for me, but just a tiny bit, as all of the tracks on this album are solid compositions all on their own. It is both brutally fast, but has some really breathtaking rises and falls of the grinding guitar and then there are the moments when the track slows down just enough for you to look all the way down into the ethereal depths of the track only to takes off again, I have no words to describe it. The atmosphere can’t get any more dense, dark and absolutely marvelous.

All together it’s just a perfect glimpse into the unknown world of a dreaming mind. We all know how confusing and sometimes scary dreams can be, how our brain catalogues and orders and tidies up in our brain when we sleep, processing our daily inputs. Mostly we have no clue what we dreamt about, sometimes we remember the dreams and then there is the dreams that we cannot remember but still haunts us when we wake up. That nauseating, uneasy feeling we took with us from a dream, that will linger in you for the rest of the day. The Dreaming I is such a feeling transformed into bleak atmospheric black metal.

I am amazed by Naas Alcameth's pitch black atmosphere and brutal execution of the tracks and I’m sure it will find a spot on many best-of list this year.

Label Spotlight: Transcending Obscurity Records

By Kevin Page. Transcending Obscurity Records from India, initially started as a webzine in 2005, then began releasing music in 2010. Let's talk about their three most recent offerings. Hailing from British Columbia, Canada, these Canuckleheads work in the sludgy doom ridden drone sewers of the metal world.

By Kevin Page.

Transcending Obscurity Records from India, initially started as a webzine in 2005, then began releasing music in 2010. Let's talk about their three most recent offerings.

Artwork by Scott Stearns

Hailing from British Columbia, Canada, these Canuckleheads work in the sludgy doom ridden drone sewers of the metal world. Raw, evil, unpolished is the name of the game here. And with a bandname of The Whorehouse Massacre, I don't think I have to tell you what the lyrical content is about. This is a combination of the band's last two EP's that were released in 2013, Altar of the Goat Skull and VI, rolled into one nice little ditty for your listening (un)pleasure.

Artwork by Michael Yee

The first of two Australian bands we are featuring here. This Brisbane trio has unleashed their third full length album, Deathsteps to Oblivion, and a more appropriate title it could not be. While also heavily in the sludge domain, there's plenty of doomy death metal to go around. What the band is able to accomplish though is this interesting and unconventional amalgamation of sounds. Normally when you see these styles mentioned, you are fairly certain what you are gonna hear. But shatter that thought right now as they push the boundaries of what you would expect from each of the respective genres. I've yet to fully grasp all the nuances myself.




Norse, from the Southern Highlands of Australia, self released this EP, Pest, last year. Transcending Obscurity picked this up for a proper worldwide release this year, which was a smart move, as this simply needs to be heard. Classified as a blackened death metal, but it's so much more than that.

You'll notice the atonal riffs, but it doesn't really sound like Blut Aus Nord or Deathspell Omega (two of the more prominent bands you think of in that style). The music is as cold as black metal but with a dissonant thickness of frozen Vegemite. The vocals shriek and spew fire like a rabid dropbear. It's horrifying and sorta experimental at the same time. Kinda the same way all of Australia's wildlife is.