End of the year!


Hello and welcome to the end of the world year!

I don't have anything particular to say this year other than it has been interesting, frustrating and I'm always tired. I also have a suspicion that the next one might be the same.

Have fun in the next one everyone!

Oh and here's a list of 2015 albums that I enjoyed. They're not a "best of" list, it's just albums that I liked from 2015 divided into two categories.

Metal:
A Diadem of Dead Stars - The Mist Bearer pt. II
Abhorrent - Intransigence
Acherontas - Ma-IoN (Formulas Of Reptilian Unification)
Acherontas & Horna - Atavistic Resurgence
Acid King - Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere
Ad Nauseam - Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est
Akhlys - The Dreaming I
Alda - Passage
Awe - Providentia
Barshasketh - Ophidian Henosis
Batushka - Litourgiya
Blaze of Perdition - Near Death Revelations
Blood Incantation - Interdimensional Extinction
BORIS+ENDON - Eros
Clandestine Blaze - New Golgotha Rising
Cruciamentum - Charnel Passages
Crypt Sermon - Out Of The Garden
Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Stellar
Desolate Shrine - Heart of the Netherworld
Devouring Star - Through Lung And Heart
Djevel - Saa Raa og Kald
Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega
Drudkh - A Furrow Cut Short
Egypt - Endless Flight
Elder - Lore
Gorod - A Maze of Recycled Creeds
Gruesome - Savage Land
Havukruunu - Havulinnaan
Helrunar - Niederkunfft
High on Fire - Luminiferous
Horna - Hengen Tulet
Horrendous - Anareta
Imperial Triumphant - Abyssal Gods
Irreversible Mechanism - Infinite Fields
Kampfar - Profan
Katavasia - Sacrilegious Testament
Khors - Night Falls Onto The Fronts Of Ours
Krallice - Ygg Huur
Kronos - Arisen New Era
Lord Dying - Poisoned Altars
Lunar Mantra - Genesis
Melechesh - Enki
Mgła - Exercises in futility
Misþyrming - Söngvar elds og óreiðu
Monolord - Vænir
Nécropole - Ostara
NettleCarrier - Black Coffin Rites
Nile - What Should Not Be Unearthed
Outre - Ghost Chants
Prion - Uncertain Process
Revenge - Behold.Total.Rejection
Sanguine Relic - Sanguine Relic
Satan - Atom by Atom
Scythian - Hubris In Excelsis
Serpents Lair - Circumambulating the Stillborn
Skaur - Farvel
Slugdge - Dim and Slimeridden Kingdoms
Spectral Lore - Gnosis
Steelwing - Reset, Reboot, Redeem
Sulphur Aeon - Gateway To The Antisphere
Thulcandra - Ascension Lost
Tsjuder - Antiliv
Veiled - Omniscient Veil
VI - De Praestigiis Angelorum
Zaum & Shooting Guns - Himalaya To Mesopotamia
ZQKMGDZ (10.000 km² gegen die Zeit) - Dimension Plasma

Other:
Antigama - The Insolent
Atomic - Lucidity
Avishai Cohen - From Darkness
Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba - Ba Power
Beach House - Depression Cherry / Thank You Lucky Stars
Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth - Epicenter
Chris Potter - Imaginary Cities
Colin Stetson And Sarah Neufeld - Never Were The Way She Was
Gnaw Their Tongues / Dragged into Sunlight - NV
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress'
Hop Along - Painted Shut
Jack DeJohnette - Made in Chicago
Joey Bada$$ - B4.DA.$$
John Scofield - Past Present
Kamasi Washington - The Epic
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Knxwledge - Hud Dreems
Komara - Komara
Marika Hackman - We Slept At Last
Mathias Eick - Midwest
Napalm Death - Apex Predator - Easy Meat
Otori - I Wanna Be Your Noise
Rudresh Mahanthappa - Bird Calls
Shlohmo - Dark Red
The Breathing Effect - Mars Is a Very Bad Place for Love
Tim Berne's Snakeoil - You've Been Watching Me
Vijay Iyer - Break Stuff
Yo La Tengo - Stuff Like That There

Desolate Shrine - The Sanctum of Human Darkness


In the last few years (or maybe it has been a decade already) a certain kind of sound started to take hold in death metal. It's the sound that comes out of deep caverns where cambrian fossils play guitars that sound like a swarm of flies mixed with clacking of septic tank hatch doors. Also known as Incantation worship or New York death metal in general or just new old school death metal. There are a lot of bands that do this sort of thing now and a lot of them sound the same. I find them to  be really fun to listen but they can get stale after a while. I've been loving most of these bands but in a very biased way because I like the sound of it. I don't really care if it's the same thing all over again with each new band that I stumble upon next.

Desolate Shrine is one of those new bands that incorporated this sound or style into their music. It's a relatively new band from Finland that released their debut in 2011 called Tenebrous Towers. Tenebrous Towers was a good album but it felt like they were just flexing their muscles with it and warming up. You know, just to prove they can do this sort of music. A year later they released The Sanctum of Human Darkness and everything sank into place. The music finally took its desired form and the band blossomed in full.

The album feels conceptual but that might be just my interpretation. Keeping up with the Satanic theme of the album the music is fittingly bleak, eerie and filled with malice. The riffs are not "fun" nor energetic. Each song is a slow, distorted pummeling of your senses with incredibly deep guitar tone and overall production. They do change the pace every now and then, speeding things up and those parts are especially great. The pacing is done well on most of the songs so when the fast parts kick in they feel really tight and rewarding to listen. The album does suffer at times, some songs feel like they're just a collection of unconnected riffs and such but for the most part it's really good. They did improve on that in the next album which came out this year although they both sound very similar.

Overall it's a great death metal album mixed with some doom as well so if you're into this sort of sound I'd suggest checking it out but if you're not into this cavernous stuff you'll be bored to tears.

Get.

Tacoma Radar ‎- No One Waved Goodbye



Tacoma Radar are a relatively unknown band from Scotland that was apparently around for a long time but their recorded output is not very immense. They have this album, a pair of EPs and that's it. Their album came and went in 2004 and not much else happened after.

So why are they unnoticed? Well for starters the music they do is very confined in their genre of choice. It feels like a lost relic from the lovely, lo-fi and fuzzy days of indie records. I like it at least for what it is. It's very laid back, carefree and melancholic at the same time. It's one of those albums that get played when it's autumn and you're somewhere warm and it's raining outside. A perfect little mix of cozy and sad that makes you cuddle up in bed and read stuff. The female vocals only drives the atmosphere even more. They're less about expressive singing and more about just laid back humming.

It's samey but it's a lovely little homage to days gone by.

Sink in.