Void (US) - "Decoding the Messages of the Drones of Halogen Lights" [2012]

Artist: Void

Title: Decoding the Messages of the Drones of Halogen Lights

Genre: Industrial/Experimental Black Metal

Country: USA

Release date: 2012

Track List: 

1. A Warning
2. Deletion of Earthly Dimensions
3. Premonition Declared by the Moving of Gears
4. Decoding the Messages of the Drones of Halogen Lights
5. Rust: The Wisdom of Machinery

"Just as the damp, rusty air permeating through an abandoned structure inexplicably causes one to yearn for a time/place slightly out of reach from the physical world, Void churns to life the sleeping machines of our introspection, once again reattaching the chains of humanity to the spiritual. Void is the autumn chill that scatters the dried leaves across the pavement of our mentality..."

A quite obscure release from a one-man project, that shares name with another industrial back metal band based in the UK. However, this Void comes from New Jersey, and it's run by a guy that has no apparent history of interest in industrial/cyberpunk stuff, but a history of playing in several folk metal bands. Now he has a "retro" psychedelic rock band, and he's unlikely to release anything in the vein of this album anytime soon (this one was recorded 10 years ago, in the fall of 2010). However, i must admit that he got the essense of industrial black metal quite well on this release. The quality of recording is quite raw, but it shouldn't scare you off, because this sort of noisy sound fits the atmosphere of this album quite well. There's a lot of rather unusual guitar parts on this album, and a lengthy ambient piece at the end:

Dead World - "The Machine" [1993]

Artist: Dead World

Title: The Machine

Genre: Industrial Metal, "Monolithic Industrial"

Country: USA

Release date: 1993

Track List: 

1. Cold Hate
2. Lies
3. 180
4. Kill
5. Blood Everywhere
6. The Machine
7. Orgy Of Self Mutilation
8. El Shaddi

"Cathode ray messiah, window to the soul..."

Dead World are one of the seminal bands in the whole industrial metal genre, and with their founding member Jonathan Canady being the art director of Relapse Records, they had a chance of becoming as big as, say, Fear Factory. Instead, they've split up un 1999 after releasing three full-length albums, and Canady has focused on his power electronics solo projects Deathpile and Angel of Decay instead. Nevertheless, they've made a name for themselves in the history of industrial metal, particularly due to this album.

Compared to their debut "Collusion", "The Machine" is better produced but significantly more minimalistic and repetitive (but not annoying). It's typical early 90s "monolithic industrial" in the vein of Godflesh, but I personally find Dead World much more interesting than Godflesh. My only complaint about the sound on "The Machine" is that the drums are too loud in the mix, which does become annoying at times. Other than that, its sound is quite interesting despite all the minimalism, and even the instrumental dark ambient tracks like "Blood Everywhere" and "Orgy Of Self Mutilation" aren't boring. The lyrics deserve attention too: they're also quite simplistic (some would argue that the lyrics for tracks like "Kill" are something you'd expect from the likes of Marylin Manson) yet effective as a kind of angry social commentary, much more convincingly misanthropic than most black metal lyrics. I even knew a man who took the nickname "CogWheel" inspired by the title track of this album:

"I see it in their faces, below the veil of peace.
The twisted mask of slavery, all free will deceased.
Their words they tell me nothing, smoke screen conceals the lies.
Carbon copied acquiescence, faceless suit and tie.
Crawl back in your holes, when the work day's through...
One cog in the machine, the machine runs you...

The soul it burns for fuel.
Mass exploitation and riches for the few.
Christ of modern culture, work away the sin,
sleep away the anger, work day soon begins.
Crawl back in your holes, when the work day's through...
One cog in the machine, the machine runs you..."

Agalloch - "Ashes Against The Grain" [2006]

Artist: Agalloch

Title: Ashes Against The Grain

Genre: Post-Black/Doom Metal

Country: USA
Year: 2006

Track List:

1. Limbs
2. Falling Snow
3. This White Mountain on Which You Will Die
4. Fire Above, Ice Below
5. Not Unlike the Waves
6. Our Fortress Is Burning... I
7. Our Fortress Is Burning... II
8. Our Fortress Is Burning... III
   

"For twenty years the Pacific Northwest group Agalloch has defined what it means to combine influences from a variety of musical genres into one brooding, colossal, and cinematic sound that provides the soundtrack to existential themes concerning man, nature, loss, and death"

Agalloch is a band that need no introduction to anyone who's well familiar with that part of the 2000s American heavy music that isn't "core"-based. They have developed an unique style of fusion between atmospheric black metal, gothic/doom metal and neofolk (all 3 genres I love), which is sometimes jokingly referred to as "elk-influenced black metal" (a pun on the cover art of their album "The Mantle"), and it was one of the major sources from which the "Cascadian" black metal sound later developed. 

While this kind of sound was already present on their rather poorly produced debut "Pale Folklore" (1999), the core of their creative output consists of "The Mantle" (2002), "Ashes Against The Grain" (2006), and "Marrow Of The Spirit" (2010). Of those albums, "Ashes Against The Grain" is arguably the best, albeit it's definitely heavier and less folk-influenced than its predecessors. However, it contains that depressive wintry atmosphere that's also characteristic of the 90s death/doom scene, while the music is much more rich and fully deserves the label of "progressive metal" in addition to everything I mentioned above. There's not much vocals on "Ashes Against The Grain", which is lso a good thing, because the music is interesting enough on its own. Overall, this album is a classic and a definite must-listen to every fan of nature-inspired atmopheric black metal (although the actual genre definition would be much more complicated). If I had to compared it to any European metal release of the same era, "Omnio" by In The Woods would be the fist thing that comes to mind (and it's a masterpiece as well).

V/A - "Vulgar Display of Purring Presents: New York" [2018]

Title: Vulgar Display of Purring Presents: New York

Genre: Metal, Hardcore/Grindcore

Country: USA
Year: 2018

Track List:

1. Imperial Triumphant - Breath of Innocence
2. Pyrolatrous - Obeisance and Unrequited Adulation
3. Artificial Brain - Spacid (Demo)
4. Tombs - Mother of Mercy (Samhain Cover)
5. Car Bomb - Bra_C_Ket
6. Unearthly Trance - Lion Strength
7. Woe - Drown Us With Greatness
8. Anicon - Tarnish On The Emblems Of Ardor
9. Mutilation Rites - Pierced Larynx
10. Belus - Avarice
11. Containor - Asshole 2
12. Godmaker - Over (Portishead Cover)
13. Dead Empires - Ergot
14. Wreath of Tongues - Reprobate
15. Moon Tooth - Belt Squeezer
16. Blackout - Crusher Malone
17. Meek Is Murder - A Prison, A Life Raft
18. Husbandry - Hierba Mala Nunca Muere
19. Beast Modulus - Everything's Shocking
20. Skullshitter - Struggle To Die
21. Syndromes - ...And Structures Crumble
22. Bangladeafy - Termites

"Heavy Metal & Cats: The only two things that really matter in this cold, bleak world. We offer compilations of the heaviest, cat-loving bands in every State to benefit a local animal organization in each region. 100% of proceeds go to charity"

Well, I love cats too, so it's a great idea for a compilation. Too bad the project didn't go beyond this one NY compilation so far, but maybe in the future we'll see more. The majority of bands of this compilation are unknown to me, except for Unearthly Trance (very powerful sludge/doom metal), Artificial Brain, Woe and Imperial Triumphant.

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:

Crown of Asteria - "Demo MMXIII" [2013]

Artist: Crown of Asteria

Title: Demo MMXIII

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal

Country: USA
Year: 2013

Track List:

1. Hymn of the Northern Bowers
2. Beneath the Boreal Twilight
3. Ascendancy of the Stars
4. Through the Birch and Beyond the Lakes

Here's the first demo recording by Crown of Asteria, an one-woman black metal project that has appeared on my blog before, which I decided to check out because of this review:

One-woman black metal from the vast frozen northlands of...Michigan, but with a really nice foresty photo on the cover, nature-themed song titles that go beyond the genre standards to sound really enticing and track lengths that scream long-winded but powerfully epic.

The demo starts exactly as you'd hope, with some calm acoustic strumming that brings to mind things like Ulver's Kveldssanger. And just as it gets going, BOOM. The shittiest, most heinously inappropriately programmed blastbeating drum machine charges its way in, crushing that acoustic guitar riff before it even knew what was happening. It literally cuts the riff off and shits all over everything. It's like a conclave of elves in a pine forest clearing slowly starting their homage to the stars above with soft strumming of their lutes before the angelic voices and cascading strings and harps comes in to take everything to a higher plane of existence, then a hippopotamus strolls in and takes a massive shit on all the elves. Ever seen a hippopotamus take a shit? Look it up on YouTube.

That's definitely one of the funniest metal album reviews I've ever read, and while being quite unflattering, it's surprisingly accurate. That said, this demo isn't nearly as bad as you might have though after reading the passage above, and while I wouldn't recommend it to those unfamiliar with Meghan Wood's music (her discography is quite large with a lot of releases to choose from), it still was a quite enjoyable listen for me.

Krummholz - "Rooted in Despair" [2018]

Artist: Krummholz

Title: Rooted in Despair

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal

Country: Uganda / USA / Ghana

Release date: 2018

Track List:

1. A Morning in the Autumn Forest
2. To Father Worlds in the Bones of Ancient Solitude

This one would be a fairly typical nature-inspired black metal EP, if not for the fact that it was recorded by an international projects whose members come from the US, Ghana (or according to other sources, Kenya) and Uganda of all places. The EP consists of an ambient/new age intro with nature sounds, and one long atmospheric/post-black metal track  While I didn't notice anything particularly "African" about its sound, it's quite good for a debut release and makes me insterested in what Krummholz may put out in the future.

Author & Punisher - "Beastland" [2018]

Artist: Author & Punisher

Title: Beastland

Genre: Industrial Doom Metal

Country: USA
Year: 2018

Track List:

1. Pharmacide
2. Nihil Strength
3. Ode to Bedlam
4. The Speaker is Systematically Blown
5. Nazarene
6. Apparition
7. Night Terror
8. Beastland

Author & Punisher is an one-man industrial doom metal band from San Diego, that has been creating music since early 2004 but came to my attention only not long ago. The description of this album surely sounded quite interesting:

"Author & Punisher is an industrial doom and drone metal, one man band utilizing primarily custom fabricated machines/controllers and speakers called Drone/Dub Machines. The devices draw heavily on aspects of industrial automation, robotics and mechanical tools and devices, focusing on the eroticism of the interaction with machine...

Drawing inspiration from his career as a mechanical engineer, Tristan Shone (the creator and sole artist behind AUTHOR & PUNISHER) forged a relationship with design, sound, and fabrication that ultimately yielded his hand-built “Drone Machines” which mapped the journey away from traditional instrumentation towards custom made "precision machinery." A robotic experimentation in industrial metal, noise, doom and drone, AUTHOR & PUNISHER recalls Nine Inch Nails channeling Godflesh, traversing through dark, uncompromising, and often disturbing soundscapes with occasional detours into rich melodies and splinters of light. Armed with newly built “Drone Machines” and a new label, Beastland is AUTHOR & PUNISHER’s career-defining statement and a powerful listening experience that further blurs the line between man and machine"

Well, good industrial doom metal is definitely a rare beast, and Author & Punisher manages to do it good. While it doesn't sound quite like anything else, A&P reminds me of Zaraza (another obscure industrial doom act that deserves more attention) and La Torture des Ténèbres (not doom metal, but no less "inhuman" music). Like in case with "Memoirs of a Machine Girl" by LTDT, I'm not sure if I'm going to listen to "Beastland" once again any time soon, yet this album is surely worth checking out.

Cop Shoot Cop - "Ask Questions Later" [1993]

Artist: Cop Shoot Cop

Title: Ask Questions Later

Genre: Post-Punk / Noise Rock / Industrial Rock

Country: USA
Year: 1993

Track List:

1. Surprise, Surprise
2. Room 429
3. Nowhere
4. Migration
5. Cut to the Chase
6. $10 Bill
7. Seattle
8. Furnace
9. Israeli Dig
10. Cause and Effect
11. Got No Soul
12. Everybody Loves You
13. All the Clocks Are Broken
14. Untitled

bonus:

1. Nowhere
2. Days Will Pass
3. We Shall Be Changed
4. Suck City
5. Fragment
6. Shine On Elizabeth

"When living is for learning, and dying is forgetting..."

 Cop Shoot Cop were a relatively well known band from New York that existed from 1987 to 1996. Their song "Room 429" was covered by Devin Townsend on the album "City" by Strapping Young Lad, and that's how most younger fans of experimental music (me including) found out about CSC:

In fact, it's my favourite track by SYL. The original song is far less heavy, but the atmosphere is still there:

And a spot-on comment from YouTube:

Moreover, it's a love song, and while my usual attitude towards love songs can be best described by the very first line in "I Hate Love Songs" by GWAR, this one is quite original and touching when it comes to lyrics:

"They were frequently classified as industrial rock, but were often quite different from many bands so dubbed. Tod A.'s lyrics were clever, snide and evocative (Art Black and David Sprague suggest that "Black humor beats black metal any day") and their "weirdly catchy" music which drew "on hot jazz and swing as much as clanging rock, emphasizing the group's stand-apart attitude."" (last.fm)

While the early, noise rock-ish albums by Cop Shoot Cop are not too easy to get into, this one (being the first album by CSC released on a big label) is probably the best in their discography along with "Release" (1994), and I certainly would recommend it anyone who's into Swans-influenced bands. You can get "Ask Questions Later", along with bonus tracks from "Suck City" and "Room 429" EPs here (by the way, that post is from 2007, yet the download links are still working).

The Electric Hellfire Club - "Electronomicon" [2002]

Artist: The Electric Hellfire Club

Title: Electronomicon

Genre: Industrial Metal

Country: USA
Year: 2002

Track List:

1. Into Thee Abyss
2. Wired in Blood
3. Sons of the Serpent
4. Hypochristian
5. Stockholm Syndrome
6. Whores of Babylon
7. Broken Goetia
8. I Dream of Demons
9. Nordland
10. Tannhäuser Gate
11. This is the Zodiac…
12. Hymn to the Fallen
13. Keys to the Kingdom

I found out about EHC long time ago after reading the infamous "Lords of Chaos" book, and they quickly became one of my all-time favourites on the industrial rock scene. While their early albums (including their best one "Calling Dr. Luv") aren't metal, this album definitely is, and it's much better than the previous one ("Witness the Millenium"). Just like all EHC albums, it's full of cultural references (Blade Runner, the Zodiac Killer etc.) and occult imagery that's too over the top to be taken seriously. According to the release notes, it was recorded at the Abyss Studios in Sweden (the first American band ever to do so) with producer/engineer Tommy Tägtgren and guest appearances by the members of well-known Scandinavian metal bands such as Hypocrisy, Dark Funeral and In Aeternum. Too bad it was the last album they've recorded, although the band still seems to be active.

There's a very good review of "Electronomicon" on metal-archives.com which deserves to be quoted extensively on here:

"Industrial metal is essentially divided into two categories: stupid bands that inadequately use samples for the sake of doing so, and intelligent groups that know what they’re doing with programming systems. The number of acts that mindlessly poop out electronic noises is measureless in number, yet only a few factions could be considered good at what they do...

...I’m actually a fan of The Electric Hellfire Club’s bizarre discography, and it’s quite interesting to experience the identity transformation they underwent during their decade of activity. The Electric Hellfire Club started out as an industrial gig during the early 1990’s before acquiring a metallic edge with the critically-acclaimed “Witness The Millennium” in 2000. The group’s anomalous theorem of industrial-laced heavy metal was certainly an absorbing metamorphosis, but The Electric Hellfire Club had no sign of stopping their special blend of electronic heaviness. In 2002, the futuristic faction had opened the metal aqueducts, and the unearthly liquid once again flowed into industrial streams on their final record entitled “Electronomicon.” Now this album might seem like an ordinary pseudo-Ministry plunder at first gaze, but it’s actually one of the best industrial metal albums ever made on several levels. It has everything that makes industrial metal fantastic: heavy riffs, crushing drums, strange vocals, amazing samples, trippy keyboards, and a unique atmosphere that only computerized effects could make.

Anyone looking for insight about “Electronomicon” can obtain a decent understanding of its ingredients by viewing the image on the record’s cover. The art is simply a demon with a normal half and a robotic half, but each hemisphere gives key indications about this CD’s sound. On the right side, we have the beast’s normal skin that clearly represents the metallic nature of The Electric Hellfire Club. Fantastic riffs and solos that are intact with traditional heavy metal are commonly used with a clear emphasis on crushing guitar distortion while great double bass hits and steady snare beats echo underneath the guitars...

...This disc isn’t just The Electric Hellfire Club’s finest hour, but a landmark release in industrial metal and how such diverse ideas can turn heavy music into something universally exclusive. A must have for fans of Ministry, Godflesh, or other industrial metal acts"

L'Acéphale - "Malefeasance" [2009]

Artist: L'Acéphale

Title: Malefeasance

Genre: Noise/Black Metal, Dark Ambient, Neofolk

Country: USA
Year: 2009

Track List:

1. Väinämöinen Nacht
2. Hitori Bon Odori
3. A Burned Village
4. From A Miserable Abode
5. Sleep Has His House

After a decade of waiting, the new full-length album by L'Acephale is finally out, and it's quite good (just as expected). Today, however, I'll post a much earlier release, recorded during 2001-2007 when L'Acephale was an one-man project of Set Sothis Nox La. While L'Acephale is primarily known as a black metal band (albeit a very unorthodox one), "Malefeasance" has little to do with black metal in terms of sound.

The only song that can be called black metal (with a healthy dose of noise, not unlike the tracks on "Mord & Totschlag" which was the debut demo by L'Acephale) is "A Burned Village" which is a cover of an obscure French band A.A.A./Sadastor. All the other tracks on "Malefeasance" are covers/remakes as well, and they delve much further into the industrial/noise territory. "Väinämöinen Nacht" is a dark ambient/drone piece based on Finnic folk chants by Veljo Tormis, and "Hitori Bon Odori" is a rather repetitive (yet not boring) instrumental acoustic track based on a song by a famous Japanese "acid folk" singer-songwriter Kazuki Tomokawa. (I've listened to Tomokawa's full discography, and while it's quite interesting and unusual stuff, it certainly requires a good knowledge of Japanese language and cultural context, not unlike the songs by Soviet/Russian singers-songwriters).

The second half of the album is significantly more noisy, with "From A Miserable Abode" (which is very loosely based on the song ‘Mi Peublo’ by Japanese doom metal band Corrupted) being a lengthy power electronics piece with black metal style shrieking vocals. You probably already have guessed that "Sleep Has His House" is based on an eponymous song by Current 93 which is performed in the same style as the previous track. Overall, "Malefeasance" is a highly experimental concept work which would rather appeal to industrial fans, but open-minded fans of black metal are going to find it interesting too. If you want to learn more about the concept behind this album and other works by L'Acephale, here's a lengthy interview with Set Sothis Nox La where he discusses his influences (from early 80's metal and punk to industrial and classical music) and his fascination with Georges Bataille's writing (where the name "Acephale" came from) in detail.

Ambersmoke - "Une femme est une femme" [2013]

Artist: Ambersmoke

Title: Une femme est une femme

Genre: Post-Rock/Punk/Black Metal, Noise Rock

Country: USA
Year: 2013

Track List:

1. Longing
2. Girls In Merzbow Shirts
3. Making Suicide Pacts With Britty Drake
4. Iridescent Memories
5. Cat Burial
6. Beautiful Hands
7. Rune
8. Everything, Forever.

All I know about Ambersmoke is this description from YouTube:

Ambersmoke is an independent, one man project that utilizes gloominess and slow pacing. The music is not very heavy at all, even with vocals. The first song, Longing, is probably the heaviest on the album. The music is meant to be more introspective than loud or abrasive and most of the lyrics are samples taken from movies or whatever else. Not sure what most of them are from but the one used in Suicide Pacts is an excerpt from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which to me seems really arbitrary but, I don’t know, maybe it struck a chord with the artist. Unfortunately, Ambersmoke has become pretty bitter of late and announced that he refuses to play live shows now because people aren’t taking his music seriously.

 "Une femme est une femme" is his debut full-length release, and it turned out to be surprisingly pleasant guitar noise rooted in post-rock and post-punk, even with some hints of atmospheric black metal. Yes, I know this kind of music is listened mostly by hipsters, but who cares?..

Unfortunately, this album (along with some other early releases by Ambersmoke) was deleted from Bandcamp, so I have to post a YouTube stream instead:

Nevermore - "Dreaming Neon Black" [1999]

Artist: Nevermore

Title: Dreaming Neon Black

Genre: Progressive Metal

Country: USA
Year: 1999

Track List:

1. Ophidian
2. Beyond Within
3. The Death Of Passion
4. I Am The Dog
5. Dreaming Neon Black
6. Deconstruction
7. The Fault Of The Flesh
8. The Lotus Eaters
9. Poison Godmachine
10. All Play Dead
11. Cenotaph
12. No More Will 
13. Forever

I can't believe I haven't posted this album on here yet (although I did mention it in my review of "Omnio" by In The Woods). "Dreaming Neon Black" is included in many lists of best metal albums of all times, and for a good reason. This album was reviewed by other people many times before, so I don't have much to add, except to say it's my favourite album in the whole discography of Nevermore (all the other albums didn't impress me much). Tracks like "Beyond Within", "Cenotaph" and "Dreaming Neon Black" are true masterpieces, and the rest of the album doesn't lack in quality either.

Some people categorize this album as technical thrash metal, some - as groove metal and even speed/power metal (no idea why), but as for me, it's quite similar in atmosphere (if not sound) to the best death/doom metal albums released during 1990s, as well as the stuff from early Agalloch or the aforementioned "Omnio" by In The Woods. What else to say? "Dreaming Neon Black" is more depressive than most DSBM albums, and more complex than quite a lot of progressive metal albums (and it requires quite a few re-listens to get into). Since I'm not really interested in dealing with DMCA complaints after posting albums released on bigger labels like Century Media, and since the download links for such well-known albums are easy to find elsewhere, it'd be enough to post a YouTube video:

P.S. RIP Warrel Dane, one of the best and original vocalists and one of the greatest songwriters in the history of metal...

Behold... the Arctopus - "Nano Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning" [2006]

Artist: Behold... the Arctopus

Title: Nano Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning

Genre: Avant-garde / Technical Death Metal

Country: USA
Year: 2006

Track List:

1. Exospacial Psionic Aura
2. Estrogen/Pathogen Exchange Program
3. Sensory Amusia
4. Alcoholocaust
5. You Will Be Reincarnated As An Imperial Attack Space Turtle + live tracks

Another band that's definitely not like most other metal bands, whose sound once was described as "Metal in Opposition" as a reference to Rock in Opposition. Their later releases like "Horrorscension" were completely trashed by critics for being unnecessarily complex and technical, and while I agree that this kind of music is more interesting to play than to listen to, I like BtA's early stuff like this EP (the 2006 edition also contains two songs from their 2003 demo and some live tracks). As it was described in the Bandcamp comments: "Like looking into the eyes of Cthulu, this album cannot be described. Even trying to will melt your brain. Insane". Now combine it with the track names like "You Will Be Reincarnated As An Imperial Attack Spaceturtle":

Assacre - "Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For" [2005]

Artist: Assacre

Title: Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For

Genre: Avant-garde Death Metal / Noise

Country: USA
Year: 2005

Track List:

1. Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For
2. Satyriasis De Minimis
3. Gayer Than God
4. Kalos K'agathos Gorgos
5. Cyclops Genesis
6. I Have Fifteen Legs
7. Thy Crystal Obelisk Shall Ascend Into Stormclouds of Mechanical Mystery
8. The Ultimate Value of Human Life

One of the things I find the most annoying about the (English-speaking) metal fans is their constant use of the word "gay" as an insult against everything they deem not cool enough for them. "Listening to deathcore is so gay", "Cradle of Filth is gay shit for faggots", etc., etc. Not even trying to be politically correct here, just saying that Seth Putnam wasn't even exaggerating that much in his parodies. Moreover, the aesthetics of heavy metal were extremely homoerotic from the very beginning, thanks to Rob Halford who was very much into half-naked men in spiked leather. However, he didn't came out as gay until 1998, and I don't think there were any openly gay metal bands until 2003, when Ben Aqua started Assacre. Since I already have posted on here about a band that's literally named The Homosexuals, the one and only full-length album by Assacre won't seem out of place here either.

In terms of sound, "Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For" is... well, quite queer. While it definitely can be categorized as "melodic death/thrash metal" (per Metal-Archives), the riffs sound very mechanical, more resembling of industrial metal, and the extensive use of samples adds more to that feeling. Some of the tracks are quite noisy, i.e. "Kalos K'agathos Gorgos" which doesn't sound like metal at all and even borders on breakcore at times. Overall, the whole thing sounds as if God Is My Co-Pilot started playing death metal, and does manage to be really original, even leaving aside the sexual orientation of the man behind the project. By the way, he actively performed live around the time when this album was recorded, and some of his performances were quite wild:

By now, that man in a dinosaur mask doesn't release any new music, yet, he's still active on Facebook where he posts lots of weird stuff in ALL CAPS:

"NOTHING IS REAL" SAID THE COLD GENTLE CYBORG TO THE WARM WEAK HUMAN WHO CONTINUOUSLY OBSESSED OVER VILE POINTLESS PRE-CONCEIVED FOCUS GROUP-CRAFTED EMPTY FANTASTICAL NOTIONS OF "REALITY"

WHAT IS "GAYER" THAN "LIFE" ITSELF?? "GODS" ARE CREATED CONCEPTS AND CAN BE DESTROYED BY THY SAME HANDS THAT FEEEEEED

 As for "Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For", now you can chack out that atrocity on Bandcamp:

Elay Arson - "Spirit | Death" [2018]

Artist: Elay Arson

Title: Spirit | Death

Genre: Synthwave, Industrial Metal

Country: USA
Year: 2018

Track List:

1. Sunrise
2. Tawa
3. Cheveyo
4. Masauwu, Fire Keeper
5. Sussustanako
6. Masauwu, Skeleton Man
7. Mescalero Prophecy 
8. Fifth World Gate (feat. Carbon Killer)
9. Final Midnight Ride (feat. Ultraboss)
10. End Times

I didn't know anything about this project until yesterday, but after taking a brief look at the track list, I guessed that this album is inspired by Native American folklore. Turned out I was right:

"An intense album inspired by the themes of southwestern Native American stories, deities, subjugation, genocide, and the apocalypse. This work pays homage to the Apache ancestry and childhood Hopi upbringing of band member Daniel Larson."

While I must admit I don't know an awful lot about the Apache or Hopi cultures, this release is fairly good. It's entirely instrumental (apart from some spoken introduction), and features a mix of synthwave and industrial metal (however, it's still much more "synth" than "metal"):

Jag Panzer - "Ample Destruction" [1984]

Artist: Jag Panzer

Title: Ample Destruction

Genre: Heavy Metal

Country: USA

Release date: 1984

Track List:

1. Licensed to Kill
2. Warfare
3. Symphony of Terror
4. Harder than Steel
5. Generally Hostile
6. The Watching
7. Reign of the Tyrants
8. Cardiac Arrest
9. The Crucifix

An absolutely classic album for the American heavy metal scene, recorded by then-unknown young band and released on a small independent label, thus remaining only an underground hit until early 1990s, when it was re-released on Metal Blade records. The subsequent album "Dissident Alliance" (1994) turned out to be a total disappointment, but, fortunately, the band got back on the right track later on.

"Ample Destruction" is often called one of the seminal USPM albums, but I have to say it sounds significantly harsher than the works by other bands from that scene I've posted here before (Omen, Hittman, Fifth Angel, etc.) Even the song titles give an impression of a thrash metal album rather than a heavy/power one. Anyway, it's a great album, especially the side A (tracks 1-5), where literally very track is a hit:

Z'ev - "Rhythmajik" [2005]

Artist: Z'ev

Title: Rhythmajik

Genre: Ritual Ambient, Percussion Industrial

Country: USA

Release date: 2005

Track List:

1. The Stand Of Stones  
2. The Lines 
3. The 9 Chambers

S. J. Weisser a/k/a Z'ev ("Wolf" in Hebrew) has died just two months ago in December 2017. While I never have listened to his music that much (just like in case with Aube, who has died several years ago), he was one of the first people on early industrial scene, and this release should be a good starting point to get acquainted with his legacy:

"These recordings have been made exclusively for the Italian edition of the "Rhythmajik" book.
Recorded in Los Angeles during June 2003.
This is the audio demonstration of the written theories.

Tracks 1-9 are sonic meditations on the 9 Stones (the numbers 1-9), no drumming, elemental textures only.
Tracks 10-31 are sonic renditions of the 22 Lines (12 astrological houses, 7 planets, air, water and fire elements), beat patterns of each Line combined with elemental textures.
It ends with a 3m 48s piece that’s a divination meditation for the 9 Chambers, beat patterns combined with elemental textures"

Bone Awl - "Bog Bodies" [2003]

Artist: Bone Awl

Title: Bog Bodies

Genre: Black Metal

Country: USA

Release date: 2003

Track List:

1. Tollund Man
2. Grauballe Man
3. Lindow Man
4. Virvatulet (outro)

Have you heard about the phenomenon of "bog bodies", where the bodies of people drowned in peat bogs become mummified and preserved intact for millenia? The members of Bone Awl apparently know about it too (not surprising for a band whose name has to do with archaeology), and even have recorded an EP dedicated to the three best known "bog people" (one track for each, plus a long outro with the name meaning "will-o'-the-wisp" in Finnish). The music is pretty suitable for such kind of subject: primitive, ugly, and "primal" (for the lack of better word). If you liked "Hydronymy" by Kastchei, you might enjoy this one too:

Hesychast - "Ageless" [2016]

Artist: Hesychast

Title: Ageless

Genre: Unblack Metal

Country: USA

Release date: 2016

Track List:

1. Волны Смерти
2. Discordant
3. Trace of Breath
4. Eye
5. Moth and Rust
6. Ageless
7. Trisagion

Orthodox black metal (and no, I'm talking not about bands like Deathspell Omega, but about actual Orthodox Christian (un)black metal) had been a recurring joke on Russian metal scene since the mid-2000s at least. Nobody could belive such a thing can unironically exist, although a couple of Ukrainian bands (Holy Blood and Euroclydon) actually tried to play it at that time. This album is, however, a relatively new attempt at playing (un)black metal with Orthodox themes by two Americans who apparently were inspired by 2006 "The Island" movie (judging from the samples in the opening track):

What can I say? The result turned out much better than one might expect it to be. Leaving the album theme aside, it's quite decent atmospheric black metal, definitely no worse than the much more hyped "Litourgiya" by Batushka. And, to be honest, it seems like there isn't that much wrong with the topic of hesychasm in black metal either. After all, the history of Orthodoxy knows definitely no less anti-human & anti-life moments than the history of any black metal band out there. So, if you're looking for something "darker" to listen on Eastern Orthodox Xmas, this album might be exactly what you're looking for: