Iran may be not the best place to play metal in, yet Iranian metal scene not only exists but can boast some world-class acts.I stumbled upon this one-man project from Tehran just a few days ago, and was pleasntly surprised by this self-titled album, which is on pair with the best Western nature-inspired atmospheric black metal releases. The lyrics on "Erancnoir" are in Farsi (but it's rather an exception, as the other releases feature lyrics in German).
"Erancnoir is the fallen entity of autumn and the frozen entity of
winter. His whispers shall not be heard and his emotions shall not be
felt; unless ears and souls are welcome to the coldness of snow, and the
falling of leaves"
Talba għat-tmiem tal-Ħajja (Mistoqsija ta' Dejjem)
This album is an interesting find (the first Maltese metal release I came across), but for some reason, my review wasn't posted properly, and I can't find it in the drafts either. So let's just say I always thought that Arabic language is very suitable for black metal, and it turns out that Maltese language (which evolved from one of the medieval Arabic dialects) suits it even better. The best track on the whole album is the last one, which features dual male/female vocals, and I'd like to hear a full-length album in such style from them.
This undeservedly forgotten band is mostly known due to their ties to Samael, whose member Xytras produced their debut album "Still Dreams In Violent Areas". During the 2000s, both "Still D.I.V.A" and "Solar Child" were distributed here along with the Samael albums, so My Insanity were well known to almost every Samael fan. "Solar Child" still remains one of my favourite gothic metal albums of all times, and certainly deserves a place on my blog.
While the influence of late 90's Samael is definitely audible on "Solar Child", for the most part it's still melancholic gothic metal in the vein of Crematory, with a "futuristic" tinge (the usage of electronics is extensive but not over the top, though). The guitar riffs are fairly interesting and innovative for gothic metal of its time (sometimes even bordering the progressive metal territory). Somehow it also reminds me of "Revolution DNA" by Septic Flesh - maybe because it has a similar futuristic concept and lyrics that are interesting albeit written in rather "naive" English. While the lyrics can be outright corny at times ("Dead Season", or, for even better example, "The Girl In A White Dress" - the best track on their debut album "Still D.I.V.A"), My Insanity certainly don't belong to the so-called "love metal" scene. Overall, "Solar Child" is a quite original album (which, however, still has all the hallmarks of a good "conventional" gothic metal release), with good vocals and a lot of very catchy songs. And, well... did I mention that there's an accordion part in the title track?
Intro: Der Weltenbrand / Das Kreuz und der Metzenapfel
After the Fruits of Ephemeral Pulchritude
Lachrydeus Mittelgard (Slâhan fôntagr inn awêþi)
Entlebt in tristem Morgenblut
Intro: Im Teich erlischt ein Bächlein
Awakening from Perpetual Contemplation (Yellow Mahogany Tomb I)
Latin Dreams in Turpentine
Nordsciltim - In the Filth Where All Cull Perambulates Pain
Sálømeh, des Teufels Braut
A Kiss in the Charnel Fields
My first thought as a Russian speaker about this band was: "Wait, what sort of a name for a black metal band is Korova?" Then I realized that the name was taken from "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess, but a name that literally means "cow" is still ridiculous for a black metal band (even if it's a very avant-garde one). Later they changed their name to Korovakill (which is even more ridiculous), and then to Chryst (after the band's founder Christof Niederwieser, which was the only remaining original member at that point).
Just as expected from the unusual band name and the fact that all three members of Korova were also involved in Angizia, the music on this album is quite complex and avant-garde, especially by the measures of early 90s black metal scene. Some people compare it to their Norwegian contemporaries Arcturus and Covenant, some - to the later Scandinavian avant-garde metal acts such as Theory in Practice and Ram-Zet, but the easiest description of this album would be just "the black metal version of Angizia". Anyway, the metal scene in Austria wasn't ready for this kind of stuff at the time, and Korova's subsequent album "Echowelt" was rejected by all labels and never released.
While Lacrimosa was the most influental gothic band during the 90s and the 1st half of 2000s at least, I started listening to this kind of music a bit later (in the late 2000s), and it were L'Âme Immortelle who have introduced me to that scene. Actually, we had a lot of very pleasant people in the LAI fan community back then (something that can't be said about the fans of many other metal and gothic rock bands, unfortunately) - but I've lost contact with almost all of them by now ;_;
"Gezeiten" is LAI's first album released on a relatively major label (Supersonic/BMG Germany), and its sound is much heavier compared to their early darkwave releases, being strongly influenced by NDH/industrial metal. Arguably it's their best release along with their first two darkwave/electro-industrial full-lengths.On the other hand, I found their later albums quite boring (same for the solo projects of both Thomas Rainer and Sonja Kraushofer).
"Modern metal" is, frankly speaking, quite meaningless term that's mostly applied to bands like Amaranthe nowadays. Rage of Light also fall in the same category but, unlike Amaranthe, their music is unquestionably metal and can be described as a mix of MDM and trance with dual male/female vocals (mostly female). Their vocalist Melissa Bonny (ex-Evenmore) is quite charismatic, and her acting in music videos definitely should be seen. She's also in a symphonic metal band called Ad Infinitum, and the Bandcamp preview of their debut album sounds very good as well. As for "Imploder" by Rage of Light, it's exactly for you if you want futuristic metal that sounds melodic and catchy but not as "poppy" is Xe-None or the aforementioned Amaranthe.
Without a doubt, Lacrimosa is the best known gothic act of the 90s which played a major part in shaping the goth scene as we know it nowadays. That said, I have mixed feelings about them. They do have some great tracks (including the best known one, "Alleine zu zweit"), but a lot of mediocre material as well (in particular, "Copycat" is also considered to be one of their best tracks, and one of the heaviest as well, but I never could get into it). In general, their discography is quite diverse, including darkwave, gothic rock/metal, and even alternative rock albums, but out of all their releases, I'll post a single that's rather unknown outside Russia.
"I Lost My Star" was written by Tilo Wolff under the impression of visiting Krasnodar, where Lacrimosa have played for the first time in June 2008. Two years later, it was performed on stage in Krasnodar with the local folk/classical music collective Krinitsa (whose members initially were reluctant to work with such "heavy" band, but later realized that Lacrimosa's music is more influenced by classical composers than they initially thought). It was released in 2009 as an exclusive Russian single by Irond Records, featuring two versions of the title song (actually, the "Russian" version differs from the album version only with the refrain sung in Russian close to the end of the song) plus two bonus tracks and one short multimedia track, and the artwork by Alla Bobyleva made in standard Lacrimosa style. I have some hopes of visiting Krasnodar in the end of this month, so now is a good time to post this single on here:
FotN always were my most favourite band out of all classic British goth rock acts. Known for their love for cowboy-like stage outfits, FotN have recorded many great songs like "Laura", "Moonchild", "Slow Kill", "Reanimator" etc during the late 80s and early 90s. "Mourning Sun" (nice wordplay, btw) is their last full-length album, released in 2005 when Carl McCoy was the only original member left in the band. Compared to their early albums, it's definitely much more heavy sounding (bordering on gothic metal, but still not enough to consider it unambigiously metal), but most critics consider it a direct continuation of their traditional style. The best track on "Mourning Sun" in my opinion is "Xiberia" with its electronic sound, fairly qualifying as industrial metal:
We all know Meshuggah. They now have the dubious honor of being the seminal band for the whole djent (or "math metal") genre, but before they've gone full 000, they recorded one more or less conventional thrash metal albums and a couple of very avant-garde albums that were described as "industrial/groove thrash fusion-influenced metal" or something like that. In particular, "Chaosphere" is frequently cited as one of the heaviest albums ever recorded (which is arguable) with some of the most "mechanical" riffs ever played (which is definitely accurate).
Are they a technical band? Yes, undoubtedly. Do they play good music? Various people have different opinions, and Meshuggah's stuff (especially their late 90's recordings) definitely isn't for everyone. I personally don't listen to them too often but can acknowledge their talent (same with Voivod and some other "technical" metal bands). Actually, my best friend during my university years was a huge fan of Meshuggah, but he generally liked everything that's "technical" and "avant-garde", be it metal or prog-rock/zeuhl.
Now let's get to the point. My favourite Meshuggah release is this often overlooked 1994 EP, which is generally considered "transitional" between their early thrash style and their "true" dissonant and polymetric math metal style. Compared to the subsequent full-length "Destroy Erase Improve", it's more accessible to the average listener, and contains a very atypical song for Meshuggah: "Ritual". Honestly it's their favourite song of mine, exactly because it's quite different from the rest: it has a trippy/psychedelic feel to it, it's melodic and has some acousic parts, and Jens Kidman is actually singing instead of his usual shouting:
A very obscure and strange release that defies a simple genre classification and can be best described as electronic metal with black metal-style vocals and folk elements. There's not much information about the band, except it's a duo from Minsk led by a member of a late 90s black metal band called Bachus. I found out about Zhraja many years ago when I was only starting getting into underground metal (interestingly, the site where I've found some of their tracks back then is still alive and well).
No Return are widely regarded one of the biggest French trash metal acts, started as early as in 1984 under the name Evil Power before changing it in 1989. Honestly I'm not familiar with their early works at all (and the whole 80s French metal scene is still mostly a terra incognita for me), but this album was a pretty interesting find. Its sound has been described as a mix of Kreator, (old) Fear Factory, and melodic death metal of the Swedish school, with a lot of electronic music influences. While I can't call "Machinery" a masterpiece, as it's definitely not as innovative as the early works of Fear Factory, Nocturnus, or Oxiplegatz (whom No Return also were compared to), yet it's still very decent and rather overlooked industrial death/thrash metal release with a pronounced futuristic theme.
My blog definitely wouldn't be complete without a mention of this release, and while I've briefly mentioned it a few years ago, it deserves a post on its own. Many noise and experimental music artists have used the shortwave radio recordings in their works, but The Conet Poject deals with probably the most fascinating and enigmatic (pun intended) radio-related phenomenon: the number stations. For those who don't know what it is:
"Number stations are shortwave transmissions from foreign intelligence agencies to spies in the field of foreign countries. They carry encrypted messages in form of groups of numbers or letters, using either automated voice, Morse code, or a digital mode. While the encryption methods used by most number stations are unknown, some have used and others are widely believed to use one-time pad: mathematical addition of a set of random numbers (the key) to the cleartext, which can be used only once, and must be destroyed after usage...
Number stations offer a powerful advantage in our modern world: practically complete anonymity. The recipient of the message can be almost anywhere in the world, and receive instructions without fear of being traced through a phone call or internet connection. All the recipient needs is a shortwave radio and to be in the right place at the right time. The first account of a number station, as reported in the ENIGMA newsletter #12, was from an issue of the Austrian magazine Kurzwelle Panorama dating from World War I"
The Conet Project is a collection of recordings of some of the most famous number stations and noise stations broadcasts, compiled by Akin Fernandez and released on 5 (originally 4) CDs by Irdial Discs in 1997. Now they're officially available for free, in keeping with the "free music philosophy" of Irdial. While there's objectively not much to listen to if you're not a noise fan, The Conet Project has become a major souce of samples for many various films and albums, and has reached a cult status even among such people as Mike Patton and Aphex Twin. For me, it's also a reminder of the days when I was a radiophysics student and a bit of a ham radio enthusiast (although not to the point of getting a callsign). The fact that those transmissions are most likely related to espionage definitely helps this record to deliver an atmosphere of mystery too (even if those messages, for the most part, are actually much more benign and less sinister or "alien" than many shortwave radio listeners think).
One look at the track titles and artwork of this album is enough to figure out that it can't be taken seriously. Indeed, it's one of several fake "metalsploitation" albums released in 1990 by Ingo Nowotny on his infamous label Metal Enterprises. If you're not familiar with Nowotny's shenanigans (one of the funniest stories that ever happened on the metal scene), here's a pretty good article about the "music" he was releasing on his label:
"Metal Enterprises saw the light of day somewhere around 1985/86.
It's very hard to tell exactly, since very few of their albums stated
release- or recording dates. The 3 first platters were licensed
(?) editions of foreign releases. Nothing strange there, since this
was a cost-effective way to get a company rolling (Noise Records
started out in the same manner). What's is strange is the
undisputed fact that 2 of these acts, KILLER FOX and THRASH QUEEN,
are generally regarded some of the worst Metal bands ever put to
vinyl. Why he chose to release these particular LPs remain one of
the greatest ME-mysteries...
Starting out at the absolute peak of the 80's Heavy
Metal wave, Ingo & co. must have discovered that you could easily
unload a 1000 or so copies of anything with the Metal-stamp
on it, and if you keep production and design costs to an absolute
minimum you could even get your money back and then some...
The finest/worst examples of this very special "ME-sound"
are to be found on their infamous Fake Follow-ups. They contain
what is probably the most retarded music ever released under the
banner of Heavy Metal (which doesn't necessarily mean that the music
itself is Metal.) They never bare any resemblance to the
original bands or projects, but are pretty similar in-between themselves,
especially the "2nd" KILLER FOX, GODZILLA, THRASH QUEEN,
KALASCHNIKOV and FUCKER albums, and could very well have been recorded
on the same occasion. It's really hard to describe the sound on
these abominations. If you've ever experienced how comedy-shows
on TV or radio sometimes can parody Metal music it will give you
a faint idea idea of what we're talking about here. It's the music
of someone who might have heard a few minutes of Metal at one point
in their life and years later trying to recreate it with gleeful
intent. Drum-machines, ultra-generic riffing, strange vocal effects
and/or improvised singing. Any dumber than dumb idea you can think
of and more, it's in there. Like the sudden burst into whistling in the intro of KALASCHNIKOV's "Czarewitch"..."
All in all, it reminds me of the Blatnyak market in the 90's Russia, when the producers have realized that they can sell several thousand copies of literally anything that has prison bars (or anything else "gangsta"-related) on its cover. To make the Nowotny's case even worse - he later went on "White Power"-sploitation by releasing numerous RAC albums on his label in early 90s. And if you wonder how bad his "metalsploitation" albums were, check out this gem:
However, it's rather "so bad it's good" with that pseudo-operatic female vocalist yelling something like "Trash! Trash! People look like trash!" with thick accent, while the original Thrash Queen (the very first all-female thrash... or, rather, TRASH metal band in history that released one and only album "Manslayer" in 1984) was just plain bad and uninteresting.
I don't know much about Killer Foxx, another band whose name Nowotny has used in his "metalsploitation" attempts, except for one ridiculously looking photo of them wearing Kiss-inspired makeup (but maybe such looks weren't that ridiculous in the 80s). Anyway, they released one album before two of their founding members were killed in a car crash in 1987. Even this didn't stop Nowotny from releasing a fake album under their name (misspelled as "Killer Fox"). Like the original band, the fake Killer Fox was supposed to have a sci-fi theme, which manifested mostly in crappy "robotic" vocals:
To quote the YouTube comments: "If Beavis And Butthead started a band, this is exactly what it would sound like!". UPD: it turned out that the original band was founded by Matt Brooks aka Mick Stryker, who has lost both legs in a car accident (well, those guys had a really bad luck with cars...) He was paid welfare, which he invested in a small metal label called Landslyde Records, and he's also the person that produced the only album of the original Thrash Queen (and the only album by Killer Foxx turned out to be just as poorly recorded and uninteresting).
As for Kalaschnikov, the original band was actually quite interesting, being a duo with a black vocalist (which is quite rare on the metal scene even nowadays). Leaving aside the ridiculous lyrics, their music wasn't that bad too, and even quite catchy at times:
"Desert Storm" by the fake Kalaschnikov is also nowhere near as bad as the other fake release by Nowotny, especially if we throw away two filler ambient-like tracks. The rest of the album is repetitive yet somewhat catchy heavy metal, and when it comes to the obscure 80s metal bands, I definitely have heard worse. The album apparently has that pseudo-Russian kitsch theme that was quite popular at the time of Perestroika. NB: the tracklist almost certainly doesn't match the actual order of tracks on the album (i.e. "Homage to the Holocaust" is clearly #4)... but who cares?
...No, it's not the famous 1986 "Red Wave" compliation you probably have thought about. It's a new EP from N-616 consisting of 4 cover versions of classic Russian rock songs, performed in much heavier style than both the original versions and the early releases of N-616. Their sound seems to be considerably changed over the last 20 years, as they now are playing industrial metal with lead female vocals by Daria Mazunova. While this EP was intended mostly for those who are well familiar with the original versions of these songs, it's worth to give it a listen anyway.
A compilation of mostly very minimalistic dark ambient projects, released by the legendary NBK Records (Noisebunker) in 2007, during the heyday of undergound music in modern Russia (and also the time when I just started getting into such kind of music). Apart from Liholesie, the projects featured on "Scaenicae Exploratio" are quite obscure, although I personally had contacts with the people behind Paracore (aka aintno and Constantine Knerik; seems like he's still producing music under the moniker Lightning) and Spectral Blight at the time it was released. It's free (Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 license), so feel free to check it out:
