Final Entry

Today's my next birthday, and also the last day I update this blog. This surely will be disappointing news for my few loyal readers, but a great relief for me, since running this blog takes too much time and effort without giving much in return. The era of music blogs is clearly over, since you can find almost everything on Youtube and/or Bandcamp nowadays. Moreover, the subcultures from the time I started this blog (2009) are mostly dead by now (and the modern "doomers", whom I can somewhat relate to, still aren't a worthy replacement), so there's not much audience for the stuff I post. Not to mention I'm listening to much less music nowadays than I did a decade ago...

That said, I've found a few great people (including musicians) due to my blog, and I hope my posts will be useful to at least someone in the future, while I move on to new things in life. I had rather serious issues with depression (F32.1) and social anxiety through nearly all my life, which shouldn't surprise my readers, considering what kind of music I mostly post on here. When it got especially bad in late 2016, I finally made a lot of effort to get rid of it, and while I still have a lot of stuff to fix, I feel significantly better about my life by now, and still hoping for doing something really great in my lifetime. These days I'm mostly active on Instagram where I post travel-related stuff, and I'm thinking about starting a popular science blog in the future (not sure in which language and on which platform, though). Anyway, if you don't want to lose contact with me, you can always write me using the contact form. Birthday greetings are welcome, as well as wishes for luck with my homework on the AI/neural networks design, which I'm doing right now.

P.S. For those who are celebrating Christmas, here's a "heavy" cover of a classic Elvis Presley song by the beautiful and talented Daria Zaritskaya (in collaboration with Halocene). While I'm not a big fan of such "bluesy" stuff, Daria surely can sing well, and she knows that today is my birthday too :) Isn't it a great feeling when you open your social media feed on your birthday, and see everyone celebrating and greeting each other? And as far as my tastes go, a music video with Daria wearing a short red dress and high heels is an excellent birthday gift for me:

Senmuth - "Neocortex" [2009]

Artist: Senmuth

Title: Neocortex

Genre: Industrial/Oriental Metal

Country: Russia

Release date: 2009

Track List: 

1. New Zodiacal Circle
2. Мой катарсис
3. Сколы и узоры
4. Полёты в себя
5. Камни Аравии
6. Авторитарность
7. Догматы и знания
8. Горящий ворон
9. Сын камня
10. Разрушение иллюзий
11. Work like an Egyptian (Bangles cover)
12. Come to the Sabbath (Mercyful Fate cover)
13. Via Combusta [Сожжённый путь]

Regular readers of my blog already are familiar with Senmuth, the "Indiana Jones from the world of music". He can boast one of the biggest discographies among metal artists (almost 270 full-length albums up to this day), mostly inspired by the history and culture of Ancient Egypt and Middle East in general. He went on a 1.5 years long hiatus in 2019 due to poor health, but now he's back with 6 new full-lengths released through 2020. However, today I'll post not his newest ethno/tribal ambient stuff, but one of his classic industrial metal albums.

While "Neocortex" indeed well represents the sound of his albums released in late 2000s, it's very different from his other classics like "Kemet High Tech". Most Senmuth's albums are instrumental, while this one (except for the instrumental intro and outro tracks) features a lot of rather weird sounding vocals (and a lot of unconventional vocal effects. The lyrics, as expected, deal with the topics of ancient history, space, introspection, and at times, anti-dogmatic and anti-authoritarian themes. The music is industrial metal with less gothic/doom metal influences than on other Senmuth's albums from that time, and of course, there's a lot of oriental motives. How about a lezginka in the 9th track (the best one on the whole album)? An industrial metal track based on the Northwest Caucasian (most likely Ossetian) folklore... well, now I truly have heard everything.

Download

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:

:Wumpscut: - "Bunkertor 7" [1995]

Artist: :Wumpscut:

Title: Bunkertor 7

Genre: Harsh EBM, Electro-Industrial

Country: Germany

Release date: 1995

Track List: 

1. Open Gate
2. Torn Skin
3. Capital Punishment
4. Die In Winter
5. Bunkertor 7
   
6. Thorns
7. Mortal Highway
8. Bunkertor 7 (Reprise)
9. Dying Culture
10. Corroded Breed
11. Tell Me Why
12. Close Gate

An absolutely classic album that was recommended to me roughly 10 years ago, along with "Burn Process" by Tactical Sekt: "From what I know about your musical tastes, these two albums will blow your mind!". Indeed, this one has instantly became one of my all-time favourites (I wasn't very impressed by Tactical Sekt, though). I love all Rudy Ratzinger's works from the second half of 1990s, but this one is certainly best of the best, with such killer tracks as "Die in Winter", "Mortal Highway", and of course, the title track, "Bunkertor 7". These tracks exactly represent my idea of harsh electro-industrial sound, and it's probably the heaviest album by :W: (maybe even one of the most aggressive electro-industrial albums of all times), with many tracks sounding almost like metal despite being electro.

Rudy Ratzinger retired from making music in 2017, although he unexpectedly released a teaser for an upcoming new album about a month ago. Anyway, he still keeps re-releasing his old stuff, and here's the version of "Bunkertor 7" called "Concentrated Camp Edition" (nice wordplay!), with a lot of remixes as bonus tracks:

Solaris - s/t [1990]

Artist: Solaris

Title: Solaris 1990

Genre: Progressive Rock

Country: Hungary

Release date: 1990

Track List:

Disc 1

1. A Viking Visszatér
2. Ellenpont
3. Óz
4. Mickey Mouse
5. Éden
6. Hullámok (Bonus Track)
7. Egészséges Optimizmus (Bonus Track)
8. Los Angeles 2026 (Live)

Disc 2

1. Éjszakai Tárlat
2. Közjáték A
3. Szabadjáték
4. Közjáték B
5. Éjféli Valcer
6. Közjáték C
7. Józsi Mátészalkára Megy
8. Közjáték D
9. Éjszakai Tárlat V. (1990)
10. Közjáték E
11. Ünnepi Koncert: E-Moll Concerto (Allegro Con Molto)
12. Paella
13. A Kígyó Szive
14. Ez Nem Kán-Kán
15. Magyar Tánc
16. Duo
17. Solaris 1990 

I always loved Hungarian rock for its unique cosmic sound, already present in early classic rock bands like Omega, Lord, or Edda, and developed by later progressive rock collectives like Kolinda, VHK, and of course Solaris. Sadly they have released not too many albums beyond their "Martian Chronicles I & II" (the 1st part is certainly my favourite progressive rock album of all times), "Nostradamus: Book of Prophecies", and this self-titled album, re-released in 1996 as a 2xCD edition with a couple of bonus tracks and a lengthy live recording.

The first part of this album features instrumental progressive rock (with some spoken word parts in "Egészséges Optimizmus") played in the way we expect it from Solaris. A very decent follow-up to ""Martian Chronicles I" (especially the opening track, "A Viking Visszatér"). The second part is more experimental, significantly influenced by classical music (especially the best composition on the whole album, "Éjféli Valcer") and, at times, Hungarian folk music. The track "A Kígyó Szive" is apparently inspired by the short story "Cor Serpentis" by Ivan Efremov (nice to see another rock band taking influence from the works of my favourite sci-fi writer, the first one being Erg Noor). Overall, all albums by Solaris are fantastic and definitely deserve to be checked out by anyone who loves quality melodic progressive rock with sci-fi themes. And thanks to this great blog for posting this one!

Download

Анж Ёлганя - "Тон ды мон" (Erzyan pop/rock)

As you know, I'm constantly looking for any obscure music in the languages of Finno-Ugric minorities of Russia - even it's just pop, it often feels much more "underground" than many metal releases. You also know that I have a specific interest in the music of Mordovia, as I live not so far from there, and almost certainly have at least some Erzyan ancestry.

So, not long ago I found this nice pop/rock with lyrics in Erzyan language (the title means "You & Me") by a singer whose stage name I never heard before. After some research, I found out that it was performed by no one else than Ezhevika, who's one of the few musicians I still have a close contact with, yet I don't remember her ever mentioning this project. Apparently she has recorded a whole album of Erzyan songs sometime in the 2000s, but it's extremely hard to find any info about it. Some of her early songs were posted here, but they were uploaded to an audio hosting service that's dead for at least 5 years, and I coudn't find those songs anywhere else (apart from one song called "Kargon' Ki" / "Milky Way") - so that album definitely takes the cake for being one of the hardest to find releases on my wishlist.

Well, let's appreciate what we have, and this song is quite good. While it's not as original in terms of sound as Ezhevika's later folk recordings, she surely can sing well, and judging from her photo I used for the cover (it was taken around the same time this song was recorded), she always had an awesome figure. That ethnic-themed miniskirt looks nice on her, and she always was saying that she loves her long Erzyan legs :) Some people compare her to Natalia Vodianova (who's from my city and also has some Erzyan roots), and she definitely could do a model/actress career, but preferred music and culture/language activism (which, of course, is a noble choice). She's still doing quite beautiful amateur photo shoots in varied styles (including ethno style):

I'd post much more, but let's stop here. And if you're interested what she's doing now - well, this year she, like many other musicians, has lost a lot of her income from live performances due to the coronavirus lockdowns, but things got better by now. There were plans to release an acoustic album under the name "quarantine", but it isn't out yet. Earlier this year, she released a collaborative single "Adai-Adai" with some Malaysian musician, which is quite different from the rest of her works, with its sound based in oriental folk music (interestingly, it reminds me of "Hizbollah" by Ministry, and some tracks off "Erotic Terrorism" by Fun-Da-Mental).

Vermilia - "Katkyt" [2018]

Artist: Vermilia

Title: Katkyt

Genre: Melodic Black/Pagan Metal

Country: Finland

Release date: 2018

Track List:

1. Äiti Maa
2. Vedestä Vieraantunut
3. Haudoille
4. Poissa
5. Saattaja
6. Maisema
7. Sanattomat Laulut
8. Mustan Taivaan Morsian

 This album is easily one of my most interesting metal discoveries of this year (even if it was released in 2018). I saw Vermilia being recommended as "a better version of Myrkur without all the drama" and decided to give it a try, especially after seeing that the lyrics are in Finnish, and wasn't disappointed at all. There's not much info about Vermilia except it's an one-female metal project from Finland: "Her music is a mix of Epic Scandinavian Pagan Metal and sweet, raw and melancholic vocal harmonies with lyrics in her native language", and that's pretty much all. However, the music is really great atmospheric black/folk metal straight from the woods of Finland, with very hypnotic vocals (especially on more folk-influenced tracks like "Maisema"):

And as a bonus, here's an awesome cover version of a famous song "Täällä Pohjantähden Alla" ("Here under the Northstar"). Compared to the rest of Vermilia's stuff, it's more influenced by gothic metal and symphonic black metal, and if you're new to her music, I'd strongly advise to start from this song:

Flowing Tears - "Thy Kingdom Gone" [2008]

Artist: Flowing Tears

Title: Thy Kingdom Gone

Genre: Gothic Metal

Country: Germany

Release date: 2008

Track List: 

1. Orchidfire
2. Pain Has Taken Over
3. Rain of a Thousand Years
4. Grey
5. Thy Kingdom Gone
6. Words Before You Leave
7. Miss Fortune
8. Colossal Shaped Despair
9. Kismet
10. For My Enemies
11. Souls of the Neon Reign
12. The War We Left Behind

Here's one of the best albums in the whole genre of gothic metal with female vocals, which unfortunately didn't get the recognition it deserves. The band was formed in 1994 under the name Flowing Tears & Withered Flowers, and initially played typical mid-90s death/doom metal in the vein of Tiamat (I still have their cassette "Swansongs" bought long time ago). After shortening their name in 1999, they've released two albums with the sound increasingly being influenced by the 2000s gothic metal, and with Helen Vogt as their new vocalist, they released two more ones which can be considered the classics of that genre.

"Thy Kingdom Gone" is their last and the best album, released in late 2008. I'd describe it as gothic metal that doesn't follow the same formula as most female-fronted metal bands with operatic vocals (Helen's vocals are great but definitely not operatic) and "symphonic" sound (there's a lot of keyboards on this album but it's far from "symphonic"), and still being significantly influenced by 90s doom metal (I have similar feelings about my another female-fronted metal favourite, "Mandylion" by The Gathering, although it isn't particularly similar to anything released by Flowing Tears either). Nearly every track on "Thy Kingdom Gone" is great, but my personal favourites are "Orchidfire", "Rain of the Thousand Years", "Miss Fortune" (a track quite different from the rest), and "Souls of the Neon Reign". It's also worth mentioning that the title track features guest vocals by Vorph fom Samael. Too bad that they haven't released anything more, although Helen has expressed some wishes to record a new album in 2013...

The Loudest Silence - "Aesthetic Illusion" [2018]

Artist: The Loudest Silence

Title: Aesthetic Illusion

Genre: Symphonic Metal

Country: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Release date: 2018

Track List:

1. Illusion Aeternus
2. Redemption
3. Two-Faced Ghost
4. Wood Nymph
5. Acheron
6. The Loudest Silence
7. Soul Reflection
8. Theatre of the Absurd
9. Wake Up in My Dream
10. Gallery of Wonders
11. The Loudest Silence (Through the Glowing Door) 

Bosnia isn't known for having a big metal scene, but this band from Sarajevo has pleasantly surprised me. It's fairly typical female-fronted symphonic metal that'd definitely appeal to the fans of the genre. The quiality of production could be a bit better, but overall, the music is well composed and played. Here's the full album and one more music video:

By the way, their vocalist Taida Nazraić has one of the most beautiful Instagram accounts I've ever came across. She now lives in Munuch and posts a lot of excellent photography featuring the cityscapes and nature in Bavaria. Her dresses (and style in general) are awesome too, and if you love girls wearing hats, her page would be a goldmine for you:

Emerald Mind - "Almagest" [2020]

Artist: Emerald Mind

Title: Almagest

Genre: Symphonic Prog/Power Metal

Country: Russia

Release date: 2020

Emerald Mind have released only two full-length albums during 12 years of their existence (and 5 more if we count their early years under the name Diadema). The last one was released 5 years ago, and I'm not sure when the next one will come out. According to the band members themselves: "Like Blizzard Entertainment loves to say: it'll be done when it's done". Well, as we all know, Blizzard prefer quality over quantity - "we release not that many games, but all of them are masterpieces". As for Emerald Mind, they occasionally release new singles, and this one is the latest to this day. Just as expected from them, it feautes quality symphonic metal with the beautiful female vocals by Svetlana Vysotskaya (who's also an opera singer nowadays):

 

One more thing from Emerald Mind that's worth mentioning is their new music video called "Genetic Paradise". While it's quite minimalistic and doesn't show much beyond the vocalist and guitarist (the only two original members left), it's a good match for the song with lyrics of the utopian/transhumanist kind. Svetlana is apparently playing the role of a "hot scientist" from bad Hollywood movies, and she's good at it :) At least it's nice to see her wearing a short lab uniform, and we can agree that she has a perfect figure, right?