Moonspell - "Under The Moonspell" [1994]

Artist: Moonspell

Title: Under The Moonspell

Genre: Folk/Gothic Metal

Country: Portugal
Year: 1994

Track List:

1. Allah Akbar! La Allah Ella Allah! (Praeludium / Incantatum Solstitium)
2. Tenebrarum Oratorium (Andamento I / Erudit Compendyum) (Interludium / Incantatum Oequinoctium)
3. Tenebrarum Oratorium (Andamento II / Erotic Compendyum)
4. Opus Diabolicum (Andamento III / Instrumental Compendyum)
5. Chorai Lusitânia! (Epilogus / Incantatam Maresia)

Moonspell is another well-known metal band from southern Europe which also was one of the first bands I started listening to metal too. In my early teens, when I didn't have internet access yet, one of the local newspapers has published the translation of the lyrics for their song "Opuim". They seemed too edgy for me at the time, yet when I got the access to internet, I found that song in mp3 and managed to download it (which was quite a challenge since the speed was extremely low).

Much later, their famous work "Wolfheart" became one of my favourites in gothic metal. This EP, however, sounds quite different from it, even it was released right before it. It also doesn't sound like their early demos which were old school black metal: this EP isn't black metal (although certainly influenced by it). Most critics call it blackened folk/gothic metal strongly influenced by Morrocan music, which sounds about right to me. Metal-Archives.com have a pretty good track-by-track description of it:

"This EP starts in a rather strange way for a metal album. Track #1 consists of arabic sounds accompanied by the Muezzin calls that are heard on mosques, to serve as a mystic intro to this EP.
Track #2 is my personal favourite of this cd, it combines a mystic oriental feeling with melodic symphonic black metal, the guitar melodies are eastern-tinged and even a gong is there!
The vocals aren't exactly black metal, but they're slightly harsh, and alternate with rather clean vocals and a few female words here and there.
The arabic influence is all over this track, with the keyboard and the guitar giving a sniff of Middle East. Finally, the last one and a half minute of this track is entirely based on a Portuguese acoustic guitar.
Track #3, with harsher vocals than the first, is at first slightly different, the lyrics being more satanist than on the first track, and the female voice gives a sort of horror-feeling to it. The final moments are again influenced by Mediterranean sounds.
As for track #4, this is slightly different than the previous ones, the sound is less heavy and the vocals are clean. The lyrics consist of two pieces, the first is a short poem written by the vocalist, the second is an extract of Marquis de Sade, followed by female orgasmic moans and a violin background.
Finally, track #5 is an instrumental track intirely on a Portuguese acoustic guitar and with sea waves in the background.
Overall, this cd is indeed interesting, and somehow hard to categorize, it's similar to black metal, but I guess it can't be considered as pure black metal, and it's different than the actual albums released by Moonspell. Feel free to give your own category!"

 I completely agree that this EP defies a single genre classification, and it might be one of the earliest examples of symphonic metal (along with the works by Therion from the same time) and oriental metal (along with early Orphaned Land). It's obviously not as good as "Wolfheart", yet it's still an interesting release that doesn't deserve to be forgotten:

Nightfall - "Diva Futura" [1999]

Artist: Nightfall

Title: Diva Futura

Genre: Gothic Metal, Melodic Death Metal

Country: Greece
Year: 1999

Track List:

1. Master, Faster, Sweet Desaster
2. Sin
3. The Sheer Misfit
4. Diva
5. Licked One's Iced Lips
6. Picture Me
7. Some Deaths Take for Ever
8. Lowve
9. Ceaseless
10. My Traitor's Kiss
11. Pleasure 

This album has a lot in common with "Revolution DNA" by Septic Flesh - both albums were released in Greece in 1999, they have somewhat similar cover art and lyrics in somewhat clumsy English (but probably not much clumsier than my own English :3), and both stand out as experimental works in the discographies of their respective bands. That said, they're significantly different in terms of sound (strangely enough, "Diva Futura" sounds much like the works of Finnish gothic metal bands like Sentenced from the same time). I've heard the track "Diva" (which instantly became one of my favourite songs) for the first time when I was in my teens, definitely before I've bought the "Revolution DNA" cassette, but I had the chance to hear the whole album only much later.

It still remains my favourite album by Nightfall along with the previous one, "Lesbian Show" (and yes, they were ridiculed by critics for releasing an album with such a name - but after all, they're from Greece, and it's just their culture, going back to the Sappho's times...) - even if they're considered the weakest ones in the Nightfall discography by some fans. Most tracks on the first half of the album are almost as good as "Diva", while the second part is a bit weaker. The vocals can be annoying at times, but otherwise it's a great album with many catchy songs which I'd recommend to anyone who loves Greek metal scene (which has a lot of undoubtedly unique bands) and aren't a diehard fan of "true metal":

Septic Flesh - "Revolution DNA" [1999]

Artist: Septic Flesh

Title: Revolution DNA

Genre: Death / Gothic / Industrial Metal

Country: Greece
Year: 1999

Track List:

1. Science
2. Chaostar
3. Radioactive
4. Little Music Box
5. Revolution
6. Nephilim Sons
7. DNA 
8. Telescope
9. Last Stop to Nowhere
10. Dictatorship of the Mediocre
11. Android
12. Arctic Circle
13. Age of New Messiahs

Actually, this is the first unquestionably "metal" I've bought during my teenage years (if Rammstein and similar stuff doesn't count), and it left a great impression on me at the time. Septic Flesh are primarily known for their unique atmospheric/symphonic death metal sound and the lyrics inspired by Ancient Greek mythology, but this album is way more experimental (but also much more accessible to a listener that's accustomed to nu-metal and bands like Rammstein - like me when I was in my teens). This direction was already noticeable on their previous work "A Fallen Temple" (tracks like "The Eldest Cosmonaut"), but this album is completely different from their early works, featuring a futuristic, electronic-infused sound which is closer to industrial/gothic metal (or, at times, even rock - i.e., "Arctic Circle" definitely isn't a metal song) of the late 90s than to death metal. This time there are no female vocals (which is unfortunate, because Natalie Rassoulis did a great work on the aforementioned "The Eldest Cosmonaut"), and the male vocals are far from your typical death metal growls.

"Revolution DNA" isn't without its weak moments, one of which being "Android" - the most experimental and electro-sounding track on the whole album, which I normally would love, but this time the experiment has clearly gone wrong. On the other hand, another experimental track, "Last Stop to Nowhere", is absolutely great. The lyrics can be quite weak at times (i.e. "Dictatorship of the Mediocre"; during my university times I was enough of an edgelord to give this album to my English teacher, and she also thought that some of the lyrics were quite shallow), but it isn't a major flaw. Overall, the lyrical topics are more than appropriate for an industrial/futuristic metal album. Would absolutely recommend "Revolution DNA" to everyone who isn't against some experimentation in metal:

Once Human - "Evolution" [2017]

Artist: Once Human

Title: Evolution

Genre: Melodic Death / Groove Metal

Country: USA
Year: 2017

Track List:

1. Flock of Flesh
2. Eye of Chaos
3. Mass Murder Frenzy
4. Gravity
5. Dark Matter
6. Paragon
7. Drain
8. Killers for the Cure
9. Passenger

Once Human is already arather well known band, but for those who don't know, it's a new band of former Machine Head and Soulfly guitarist Logan Mader, with female vocals performed by Lauren Hart (who's also the guest vocalist in Kamelot). While their first album "The Life I Remember" was average at best and ridiculed by some critics for edgy lyrics and song titles like "You Cunt" (well, I know Lauren grew up in Australia, and if the stereotypes of Australians are to be believed, they use "cunt" instead of "mate" and pretty much every second other word), this one is a pretty solid record that does represent the evolution of their style: melodeath / groove metal with some "core" and djent-y moments (but fortunately, not too much of these). Lauren is a remarkable vocalist on the level of Angela Gossow and Alissa White-Gluz that can do well both growls and clean vocals:

Lock And Load - "Double Decker Slams" [2019]

Artist: Lock And Load

Title: Double Decker Slams

Genre: Death Metal / Hardcore

Country: UK
Year: 2019

Track List:

1. Dieseaslisation
2. Double Decker $lam
3. Flat Cap
4. Scruddy

That's the only death metal band (with hardcore-style vocals) I know whose main lyrical theme are trains, and the second one that's inspired by the everyday like of industrial workers (the first one being Nakka). Yes, I love trains and railways too, and I know there are people (railfans, railway buffs, or "ferroequinologists", how they sometimes call themselves) who take that love to the extreme, but I didn't know they play metal too:

"Debut solo E.P. from Daniel Amesbury, Narrow boater , railway fanatic and life long metal head.

This is my first solo release, believe it or not canals and trains go hand in hand with Brutal slamming death metal with the grimy,industrious and heavy nature of work in both areas Lock and load, a name with more meaning than the average rock covers band using the same name ( that being canal lock and dreadlock) I aim to combine all 3 elements to reflect the blue collar work and create brutal double decker slams.

Taking inspiration from 'No One Gets Out alive' -the one man redneck slamming banjo, except being on a bass clarinet and playing actual breakdown riffs on it to utilize the most of the instruments dark tomberes I thought I'd combine the elements of melody from 1960's railway public film music scores with slam. to create a some what ironic but brutal setting from the era of new trains and the decline of the canals and the ever growing competition from the private car and air travel.

While a lot of slam bands tend to go for the "caveman" sound I took my own spin on this describing it at best as a "scrapyard scruddy" sound.

Of course you'd probably be wondering what the term 'DOUBLE DECKER SLAMS ' means -quite simply- the slams are stacked on top of each other!"

Of course it's hard to take this EP seriously, and it'd be better posted on the 1st of April, yet the lyrical subject is quite appealing to me:

NMLSS_VGR - "011000110110111101110011011011010110111101110011" [2019]

Artist: NMLSS_VGR

Title: 011000110110111101110011011011010110111101110011

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal / Dark Ambient

Country: Germany
Year: 2019

Track List:

1. Death is Happiness
2. I Think Cosmos Is Not For You, Lazy Human
3. Gagarin, Sorry, We Totally Fucked Up
4. So Long 2 Minutes 56 Seconds, So Short My Life To See Russians On Moon
5. Through The Great Nothing

This should have been posted on Cosmonautics Day, but since I couldn't post it back then, I hope one extra month isn't too late. Anyway, NMLSS_VGR is an anonymous instrumental one-man "cosmic black metal" project from Germany, apparently running by someone who has immigrated from a Russian-speaking country. Given it's an instrumental demo, the music isn't bad at all and has that "alien" atmosphere I'd expect from such an album. The uniquely snide song titles are definitely a plus too:

Kolossus - "Begining" [2017]

Artist: Kolossus

Title: Begining

Genre: Black Metal

Country: Russia
Year: 2017

Track List:

1. Stalingrad
2. Kolossus
3. Echo
4. War

I'm back! Sorry for not being able to post anything on here for a month or so, I hope to sort out my problems in the near future. As for now, it's a good time to post a "war metal" band from the city that was the place of the bloodliest battle in the human history, which is Volgograd (or Stalingrad, if you wish). The music is fairly typical black metal, not much to be said about it except it's decently played. Not much info about the band either, except they're playing "music for free people" and apparently love to perform shirtless on their live shows:

All lyrics on "Begining", except for the opening track, were written by Marina "Kelpie" Fomenkova: