09 Apr 2023 - Gene
ProgressiveExtreme MetalPost-Metal

Pulling from any modern style, not just of music, but of art at large, Hypno5e absolutely shine on the new record. This one is a kill!

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08 Apr 2023 - Martin
Dungeon Punk

Confronting reality through fantasy escapism. You say what? I say Poison Ruïn!

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07 Apr 2023 - Knut
Black MetalBlackgazeDoom MetalPost-MetalProgressive MetalSludge MetalThrash MetalPost-RockHardcoreGrindcoreScreamo

Back in December 2021 Ripcord Records released the first You Matter compilation. Here is the amazing 11-hour-long sequel.

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07 Apr 2023 - Thorsten
Post-Metal

When you listen to the debut by newcomers The Infinity Ring, you might come to the same point as yours truly: I got lost in thoughts and images. Many of them of scenes long gone and vanished in time, some of them decades ahead in an unknown future. Both directions shared one thing – the same soundtrack: Nemesis & Nativity by the New England-based band which is able to connect both “periods” by means of music from the present!

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06 Apr 2023 - Knut
Alternative RockPost-Rock

The transnational trio healthyliving releases an album with music rooted in the alternative underground scene of metal and Post-Rock related music, with a title as evocative as any Leonard Cohen album. Add the strong clear vocals, which we know from Maud the Moth, and there is also a timbre of Indie Singer-Songwriter style to the music. The melodic themes from the diverse vocals and the heavy guitar mixed with deep bass and drums balance the music perfectly between mellow and discordant textures. This debut from the relatively young group of seasoned and visionary musicians is a feat.

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05 Apr 2023
FolkDrone

Obsessions over genre are, frankly, boring. Rarely do they contribute to enjoyment of the music; often they just create noise, yet another excuse to commodify and compartmentalize your attention. Do you really need another algorithm in your life, a plug-and-play list of “relatable” content, another automaton spitting out pre-programmed FFO comparisons? I’d wager no. There is hardly any experience left, very little value in that robot’s game. The music of Alison Cotton is about giving yourself over to the experience. So, listen, with your whole body. Dump all the data—you are not a computer, nor should you think or feel like one—and get reacquainted.

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02 Apr 2023 - Thorsten
ScreamoAvantgardePunk

Beware when reading this review. You might encounter dizziness, mindblown-ness, fearfulness, and some serious confusion-ness. Why? First of all, because of the sheer amount of guests that The HIRS Collective has gathered for their latest full length We’re Still Here and secondly because of the overpowering beauty and force of their music. Let’s kick the former off with: The Body, Garbage, Converge.

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01 Apr 2023 - Thorsten
FuneralDoom

Our brilliant new writer Martin has been saying it for years now – but one cannot underline the truthfulness of his words too strongly: 20 Buck Spin might be the best label for EVERYTHING heavy at the moment! They have hellishly awesome Death, Doom, Black and all-genres-metal bands and they have one who can make you forget that you hated Nightwish, Lacuna Coil and all the other Symphonic shit bands who use good female vocals to make people forget how useless their music really is. Enter: Tribunal from Vancouver and their record The Weight of Remembrance!

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30 Mar 2023 - Martin
MelodicBlack Metal

A small creek, when it swells with rain and snow and rushes down from the heights, it becomes a stream - a raging mountain stream. As we know, even though nature is beautiful and nurtures your soul and body, it is also wild and merciless. A duality of opposites in its essence. No equilibrium or friction, no change or evolution. There would be nothing without this duality. - Therefor the beautiful and relentless scenery in front of you just is. Here the majestic mountain with his wall of sound and there the anguished river rushing down and carrying you away to somewhere else. We have no choice, but to surrender to these elements. And how could it be any other way.

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29 Mar 2023 - Stephan
Psychedelic Rock

Roger Waters is lost. Whatever he’s doing or saying right now – we’re better off not granting him any attention. But just as a backwards-sillywalking John Cleese cannot diminish my enjoyment of Monty Python, one will never be able to deny Water’s legacy with Pink Floyd. But if you’re having a hard time ignoring that stain and even the persistence of Gilmour and Mason cannot wash it away, why not take a break from the original for a change and listen to the debut of a band from Frankfurt which boldly claims to be based on the idea of continuing right were Animals left off?

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25 Mar 2023
JazzAvantgardeElectronic

High autumn winds gust golden, coppered caches of coin. Cold, driven nails of rain plumb the fleece of ageless pine, jostling limbs in silvered erratic dance. Raked midflight, tattered leaves and mast fall to ground sodden and purchaseless. Dubious campaigns officials wage as everywhere wars rage, hosts unhoused by flood and famine scatter, and disease stalks the horizon, while in the provinces signs of a chill harvest augur stores unreplenished for the dark months ahead. A cry too far to be heard above these earthly bellows, my friend, still I think of you, your toil and tarry, and long to return your echoing call… Sometimes faith is all there is to ensure we might sound each other to the depths of this experience. Like writing letters, each as if the last, to the dearest friend in the thick of circumstance, J.A. Deane and Jason Kao Hwang imbue their remarkable final collaboration, Uncharted Faith, with hope beyond bounds that we might better know ourselves in perpetuity.

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24 Mar 2023 - Stephan
Black Metal

Tilintetgjort’s debut is yet another allegedly unique Black Metal album wearing the Avantgarde-tag. That kind of already makes you know what it sounds like, right? Sorry not sorry, but these Norwegians might radically subvert your expectations with a much more traditional-not-traditional take on the genre than expected.

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23 Mar 2023 - Thorsten
Black Metal

Believe it or not, but even someone who writes so many things here for VoS has a slight writer’s block. Just for a few days, but one notices and then needs a record to short-fuse that spark. For me, that record is the new Lamp of Murmuur at the moment, and yes, I know – everybody is talking about it, but believe me – there’s a reason for it: it’s another proof why that mysterious M is a true artist. Saturnian Bloodstorm is simply great Black Metal!

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22 Mar 2023 - Gene
Stoner RockNoise RockSludge MetalPost-Metal

Upcdownc have worn many hats in their long career. But I did not expect an album like this – a nearly pure Stoner Rock throwback to a time three decades past now (wow!). A time when the genre was flourishing. A time when albums like Welcome to Sky Valley were blowing minds and destabilizing Alt- and Pop-Rock’s stranglehold on the airwaves, poised on the imminent pyre of Grunge and the dubious artistry of what was to come.

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21 Mar 2023 - Knut
Post-Metal

The visionary musicians behind the Post Metal band Cultro are out with a new album. It lasts around 32 minutes and could be called an EP. But because of the elaborate structures and textures, the vast soundscapes and the mere plethora of musical ideas behind the release it feels like being immersed in the music for an hour or more, even with repeated listens. Let´s call it an album!

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20 Mar 2023 - Knut
Black MetalDark Ambient

25954. Anger, frustration, incensed contempt, rage. That is not an unfamiliar concept in the realm of Black Metal related music. But it is not often aimed at a specific cause. Spectral Lore, or the person behind, Ayloss, releases an incredible, emotive, and furious album to raise more awareness of what happens in the Mediterranean Sea where boat refugees are risking a trip across the most dangerous sea route to reach Europe, and thousands have perished or are missing.

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19 Mar 2023 - Thorsten
DoomShoegazeHeavy Psych

“Solace” means “help and comfort when you are feeling sad or worried” (Cambridge Dictionary). Does Rezn’s latest record provide Solace? Maybe. Is it a warm album? Surely. Welcoming? Definitely. Is it something to listen to? For sure.

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18 Mar 2023 - Gene
Post-MetalDoom MetalSludge MetalProgressive

Thumos triumphantly return with chisel-precision to carve out a stake in the Post-Rock Pantheon of Symphonic Doom!

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17 Mar 2023 - Knut
Post-Rock

The past and present time rumbling, the past and present time crumbling, the past and present time in chaos. The ruin and resilience of the people who are victims of decisions made far from their reach. This is the backdrop for this new expansive album by the German Post-Rockers of Fargo. It might be as close as we come to music reflecting the turmoil of our times and at the same time reflecting a ravaged Europe nearly eight decades ago.

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16 Mar 2023 - Martin
Black Metal

Suddenly we´re confronted with something heavy. A matter of life and death. Something we all share, but cannot fathom entirely. Eternal loss and a elemental value rediscovered. Remember! But what? - It starts with stormy seas and freezing wind and at the end we may find peace. A stirring Black Metal sound will lead us the way.

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11 Mar 2023 - Knut
Black Metal

Just to state the unsurprising fact: This is a band that is incapable of making an uninteresting or dull album. Their previous releases show that and when they, as on this record, simultaneously take a step back to be inspired by their beginnings and incorporate the visionary musical ideas from all their earlier releases, the result is astounding. They seem to have made an album that will result in the emergence of a genre that might be called Post-Crust-Punk-Metal or something like that.

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09 Mar 2023 - Thorsten
UCBMAtmosphericBlack Metal

Shit, it is 1.27 am and I should be going to bed, but here I am typing away a review for a record which I discovered only an hour ago, while browsing through our mailbox looking for a record to review tomorrow. New England but with ties to Quebec? Okay. Black Metal? Even better; still spin Givre‘s record from last year very often! Final part of a trilogy? Sounds promising! ‘kay, let‘s hit play… Ten seconds in, I am already in love. Record: Immaculate Hearts Will Triumph. Band: Great Cold Emptiness. Must listen? You bet!

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08 Mar 2023 - Thorsten
Atmospherical Dissonant Doom Metal

Sometimes it takes only one song to understand a record – and sometimes that song is not the opener. In the case of Mithridatum‘s record Harrowing is surely wasn‘t. However, that one track that made me get the whole record has all the ingredients that this record stands for – intricate riffs somewhere on the grid between Death and Doom Metal, good, powerful growls and shattering shrieks but most of all … want to know what? Well, read on!

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07 Mar 2023 - Thorsten
Post-Hardcore

“4 LPs, 400 shows across Europe and UK, shared the stage with Converge, Full Of Hell, La Dispute.“ That‘s the short self-description given by Stormo (formerly known as Storm{O} ) on their own Bandcamp page. Usually these short tidbits do not help too much to find out what to expect, but in this case it is quite accurate. Italy’s Stormo deliver a record that is as much Hardcore, Noisecore and The Wave. Even more important – all elements are very well-executed!

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06 Mar 2023 - Thorsten
Black Metal

Iceland once again! Before we dive into a lament or an appraisal of the seemingly never-ending fountain of amazing artists from that tiny island in the North Atlantic, let‘s just say the following: Úlfúð do not disappoint – and not only in connection to being from Iceland but also within the confines of their music. Blackened Death Metal or Death-infused Black Metal. Whichever you prefer, you will probably like Úlfúð and their full-length debut Of Existential Distortion.

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