26 May 2023 - Martin
AvantgardeBlack Metal

Hyper-individualism, constant life-hacking, filter bubbles and echo chambers. Despite having a wealth of knowledge at our hands like never before, we narrow our perceived reality more and more at the same time. Humanity is living in the age of information overload, of self-induced Hive Mind Narcosis. This takes its toll. The entity called Thantifaxath provides us with the soundtrack to these psychotic and dangerous times. A black vortex opens up in front of us and a wicked sound emerges from its depths…

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23 May 2023 - Knut
Ambient

This album is the atmospheric soundtrack to a film that has not yet been made.

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22 May 2023 - Stephan
AmbientPost-Rock

The gift of music is that it expresses what can’t be verbalized. The gift of poetry is that it elevates words beyond their meaning and turns them into music.

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21 May 2023 - Gene
DoomgazeHeavy Rock

Alchemy For The Dead strikes me as a completionist’s revival of some of the most prominent music coming up at about the same time as did I, in the infancy of my musical tastes. Particularly in the better Alt-Rock spheres lie the lesser of the embarrassing musical proclivities from my middle youth. Keeping the Alt-Rock and Alt-Metal train going - in the early 2000’s experimental vein, especially owing its ethos to The Deftones here - is a tenuous choice in 2023. But the unwavering intent of the Spotlights credo remains impressive in its constance and has remained so ever since their inception. So how is it that it’s literally dawning on me only now that this was their core sound all along?

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20 May 2023 - Simon
Drone

Khanate return to haunt the dreams of anyone brave enough to listen to this experience in extremity.

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19 May 2023 - Thorsten
BlackenedPost-Rock

There is something about Milanku and their latest record Á l’aube that causes me to think, there is only one possible comparison and that might be the biggest one to draw in this little niche of ours: Envy. Yes, the one and only Envy. The masters from Japan and their unique sound. Milanku must have listened carefully and then transferred their newly gained insights perfectly into their own realms. Hard to beat in 2023.

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16 May 2023 - Knut
Heavy Metal

Here comes high octane Hard Rock´n´Roll sprinkled with Heavy Metal from the rainy musical melting pot Bergen of Western Norway to brighten up the coming summer days.

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14 May 2023 - Dan D.
FuneralDoom

I’m a fan of doom. It is after all one of the longest-lived sub-genres of metal. Depending on whether you’re in the camp that considers Black Sabbath to be heavy metal’s genesis, the whole genre as we know and love it began with it. I mean ”Black Sabbath” is the perfect example of a doomy track, right. So, it could be said that ‘on the 8th day the Metal Gods created doom’. Or something like that.

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12 May 2023 - Thorsten
Death Metal

I normally do not care whenever someone talks about this record or that release being “A sure bet for AOTY!” in my online feed, but last Friday there were literally a dozen of people who said that about a record that had dropped that very same day – Nightmarer’s second full-length called ”Deformity Adrift”. A dozen people on release day? Okay, had to check it out and have to admit that it is indeed amazing!

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08 May 2023 - Thorsten
Post-RockPost-Metal

The new Shy, Low record is an EP containing three tracks which the band sees as an elongation of their last record Snake behind the Sun - good for us because there is no decline in musical quality. Not at all, so much is obvious!

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07 May 2023 - Thorsten
AvantgardeBlack Metal

While listening to Liturgy’s new masterpiece 93696 one might encounter goosebumps of the fiercest kind, because the record is brilliant, well-crafted and pensive on the one side, and on the other side, the critics will say it’s too over-the-top. Fortunately I don’t consider myself a critic and simply enjoy the record in all its glory!

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06 May 2023 - Knut
Progressive RockFolk RockProgressive MetalFolk Metal

Textured, evocative, and captivating Progressive Folk Rock with hints of Metal in its riffs from the Norwegian septet Lumsk. They top their game sixteen years after their brilliant last release Det Vilde Kor. This new release will earn them new followers and one will hear pangs of joy from us who followed them from the start in 1999. It is a release of wonderfully layered music built around poems translated into Norwegian by the multi-talented Andrè Bjerke, thus the title Fremmede Toner, which translates to Foreign Tones.

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05 May 2023 - Thorsten
Post-Rock

To make it crystal-clear once and for all – there are only two ways in making music: Finding your formula and perfecting it or hunting for new grounds all the time. Both (!) can be exciting and even though I love bands looking for new hunting grounds a lot, I must pay my utmost respect to bands who keep on refining their formula. Where Mermaids Drown is one of the latter and man, they surely are on a road aiming for global respect on their new record Reminisce!

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04 May 2023 - Thorsten
AmbientDrone

How to talk about an album that is the result of a connection 40 years old? Rant about the time passed? Not our style. List all the illustrious projects both collaborators been in? Too space-consuming. So how to talk about Loud as Giants and their debut record Empty Homes? Easy. Let’s have a short look at the accolades and a long listen to the music!

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29 Apr 2023 - Thorsten
AvantgardeBlack Metal

When Mamaleek was announced for Roadburn 2023, I was dancing the happy dance because I had long longed to see the band and now they’d be playing in Tilburg! Unfortunately they played late on Sunday, so I again had no chance to see them, but I heard that their gig was really good. Really good is also their last album Diner Coffee and the fact that there’s no review of the record on VoS must be changed – immediately!

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29 Apr 2023 - Martin
ProgressiveDeath Metal

When we really listen to music, we may cross a threshold into another dimension. From medicine songs of the Amazon to ecstatic Gospel hymns and Gregorian chant, music has always been a bridge between matter and spirit. Music serves as a powerful vehicle for enlightenment, inspiring others to the path. In other words, music can easily take the mind into a blissful space. It is definitely a way to feel an expansive awareness. In the case of Metal music, it can also be the aural representation of a spiritual need to transgress traditional boundaries, not just of music, but of general social expectation. It refuses entry to the mainstream by its very sonics, but it welcomes those who find release within those sonics. Metal is a jolt to the system. So, what if it would be possible to get this energetic jolt and to enter the aforementioned blissful space at the same time? Lunar Chamber might give you a hint or two, how this could sound like, with their astonishing debut EP Shambhallic Vibrations.

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27 Apr 2023 - Knut
Post-MetalAtmospheric Sludge Metal

Since their inception in 2008 and their releases, the Greeks from Allochiria have carved their place in the “Post” genres. Not at least with this new release that is a great follow-up to 2017´s Throes. The band has become more intense and further developed their musical scope, at the same time keeping its unique sound of fuzzy Post-Metal, intense vocals, deep bass, and diverse drums mixed in layers of Atmospheric Sludge Metal.

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22 Apr 2023 - Knut
Death Metal

Wall-to-wall intense and passionate Epic Melodic Metal with grand orchestrations that sweep you away into a tumultuous rollercoaster ride of musical impressions. I could stop writing here because this is what the grandiose and vivid music on this album really does. No more said. But I will of course elaborate as there is much to tell…

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21 Apr 2023 - Knut
Post-MetalPost-Rock

With their second full-length release the duo behind instrumental band Dimwind explores the emotions raised by grief, sorrow, and loss even further. The textured music, albeit heavy and distorted, floats and hovers in between its twists and turns. The seasoned musicians have made yet another deeply emotional album with a strong reverberance.

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17 Apr 2023 - Thorsten
AtmosphericBlack Metal

I very clearly remember seeing this act at Roadburn some years ago, because of standing in the audience and thinking that they could go far. Buying the album and a split on the spot and what shall I say – they are still spun here regularly. Now, Witte Wieven finally give us that long awaited debut many have been waiting for, and man, no disappointment here!

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15 Apr 2023 - Stephan
Black MetalSludge Metal

To be released as a 10” on Record Store Day, which always happens to fall onto the Roadburn weekend, this split EP with a twist features two Dutch bands, which are not even playing on this year’s edition of the festival. Yet still there are several very good reasons to include them in our Roadburn special.

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14 Apr 2023
Death Metal

Yo, psst! Have you heard Stabbing? I, too, laughed when I first heard the name, but I assure you this is no laughing matter. This is serious brutal death metal. Now you’re thinking this sounds like a cult. Allow me to settle that concern up front. Yes, this is a cult, and you wouldn’t believe what they want you to eat. Are you ready to be inducted?

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13 Apr 2023 - Stephan
Electronic Avant-Garde

Most fans looking forward to see Chinese-American artist Lane Shi take on the Roadburn stage probably know her as the singer of the Sludgegaze quartet Elizabeth Colour Wheel, which will play two shows during this year’s festival edition. Yet if you’re on the edge of severe WV Sorcerer Productions addiction like me, you might have been introduced to her Electronic solo work as Otay:onii first and thus be equally excited about experiencing her in this role.

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11 Apr 2023 - Gene
RockGospelIndie-FolkElectronica

That blustery fall evening in Brooklyn seemed awash in afterglow. The stage at St. Vitus was either littered with hay, or… was it all in my head? It turns out that in memory, as in music, the real and ethereal are often interchangeable. Playing as a trio, Wovenhand didn’t merely perform some of the strongest material under their belts, as well as one or two 16 Horsepower show-stoppers, they wove a spiritual that pulled us out of our own preoccupied lives and into their pulsating esoteric ritual. Theirs was a pervasive, anachronistic seance evoking an unlikely rapture in a pair of NYC skeptics. My bassist friend was reticent to approach David after the set, but your humble pundit – devoid of musical training and social tact – lacked the capacity to be daunted by the stature of talent before which we stood. Regardless, we found David and Pascal, both, humble and gracious as they expressed surprise to find a few fans so far from home who claimed to be following since the early days. I may or may not have gushed over Folklore, in particular.

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10 Apr 2023
Jazz

If the name Sana Nagano doesn’t trigger a cascade of the bleeps, the sweeps, and the creeps, then check your radar. It’s probably been jammed. While you weren’t looking, the intrepid violinist and composer has gathered under her command a motley fleet of intergalactic invaders drawn from all corners of the musical universe to steadily occupy the open space around you. Go ahead, check your screen again. Can’t you see the situation you’re in? Are you in the now, now? Then, it’s past time you engage.

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