12 Apr 2024 - Martin
Dark Alternative Metal Rock

Soul Searching Sun

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10 Apr 2024 - Stephan
Psychedelic RockStoner RockProgressive Rock

Machines of incomprehensive size and age, molten into shape by the heat of the Earth’s core, now hovering in the empty sky and throwing monumental shadows over the yet uninhabitated tectonic plates. Fueled by cosmic radiation they move unstoppably through the unadorned sphere between the planets’s surface and the endless void of space. Their mission is enormous, scheduled for ages. The outcome is beautiful and one of the many crucial forces which enable the development of life: The creation of clouds.

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07 Apr 2024 - PBV
Heavy MetalPost PunkArt Rock

Henrik Palm, or Henke as lovingly referred to by his friends, has been around the block so much that the block has transformed into a crystal structure of self-reference; with the barman knowing precisely “the usual” when Palm and his collaborators end up being served.

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05 Apr 2024 - Knut
Atmospheric Sludge Metal

One year after their first full-length Vnder a Crvmbling Moon have refined their music now releasing an album with meditative, contemplative even dreamy music based on Sludge and Doom.

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03 Apr 2024 - Thorsten
Conscious RapFree Jazz

There is a lot of fire to be found on FYEAR’s eponymous debut album which oscillates between the realms of Conscious Rap poetry and fighting Free Jazz that is working with and somehow also representative of the sounds their label Constellation Records is known for. What a debut!

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02 Apr 2024 - Thorsten
Experimental Drone-MetalAvantgarde Noise

Locrian. A name that should ring like thunder in the ears of everyone who loves unconventional, “uncategorizable” music. There are elements of Shoegaze, Synthwave, Noise, Death Metal, Industrial, Post-Punk and loads more to be found on their newest record End Terrain which to many might be their opus magnum, including yours truly.

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31 Mar 2024 - Thorsten
Stoner Rock

It’s officially spring! As nature came to life again I also found myself curious to see what’s new in the music realm and so I tried to discover something new, fresh, and also a bit distant from the usual “mood” that I search in music. The Vulcan Itch just released their second full length Rise Of The Fallen this week, a groovy rock album with a pinch of Stoner and Noise-Rock influences.

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30 Mar 2024 - Gökhan
Blackened Death MetalDoom Metal

Last year was an unbelievably amazing year for Death Metal, especially for folks whose flavors lie in grimy, nasty section of the menu. We’ve been assured once again that the venom that coats the axes of veterans and stalwarts of the genre is as potent as ever. But the young blood also came up with terrific releases as well. So, after having such a spoiling year I was thinking that 2024 was going to be a relatively slow year for the genre. But oh no. No, sir.

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28 Mar 2024 - Martin
Black MetalDeath Metal

Go to hell to feel alive!

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27 Mar 2024 - Knut
Epic Pagan Black Metal

With their distinct sonic palette highly recognizable, Darkestrah releases an album 25 years after their inception that does the impossible as it seems to surpass their previous impeccable full-length albums.

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25 Mar 2024 - Stephan
Funeral Doom

“Most Of All Is Death” is a Funeral Doom album centered around the subject of Death.

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21 Mar 2024 - Lucia
HardElectronicaNoiseyHardcore

Music has its own way of bringing perspective to the different facets of life: to give them not only an outlet, but also to allow for all to come together, bringing some type of solace and relief. Doodseskader combining in one, pouring their life experiences into the music, hitting the listener hard, connecting with the audience and delivering perfection. The softness of the pastel colours meet the brutal sound of their music and the lethal delivery of their honest lyrics, transforming the rage and hurt into something unique. Get ready to be immersed in Year Two.

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18 Mar 2024 - Knut
Ambient | Shoegaze

Four tracks of melodic meditative, soothing, comforting Ambient-Shoegaze from what can be called a supergroup of the St Petersburg scene.

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15 Mar 2024 - Knut
HardcoreSludge Metal

Brutal, desperately aggressive, and deeply emotional doomy Sludge that feels like a fresh slap of cold water in your face. Mastiff is right on track to become trailblazingly genre-defining with their new album.

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13 Mar 2024 - PBV
Death MetalProgressive

There are many ways the construct of genre can seemingly work against an album. It’s usually all the peripheral elements; the artwork, the grammar choice, even things like handwritten lyrics. Many don’t care about iconoclasm in a bloodied-up slaughterhouse with meat strung up in a row. They want the burger; they tell you to hold the extras. And those folks not looking for wild spices in their meal or dwelling in conversation after ‘ are likely to get up from the table and travel their merry way to their next destination.

All this to say that perdurance is a clear labor of love with every intentional detail accounted for. From the lengths of the silences’to the naming of the tracks and album; from the cadences and codas ‘ to the literal and figurative breaths in the auditory aesthetics.

The trajectory of this album, which comes approximately six years after Brendan Sloan’s last work Grievous, transcends the notions of the Death Metal genre as we’ve come to know its seasoning and reasoning. It’s an album of risk, and plentiful reward for anyone wishing to digest, sit, and pour into the liner notes and lyrics. A bonafide emotional ride, which for the initiated and uninitiated alike, may recall the anguish of mister Steevo Hurdle on Gorguts’ Obscura; the ingenuity of Swan’ on Edge of Sanity’s Moontower; coupled with the expressiveness of the Mongrain’s and Holdsworth’s of that connected world. The sequencing alone, along with the secret bonus, recalls a time when full album listens were received without interruption, with full submersion into the material, in awe, with headphones on or sitting on the bed, following along to the lyrics.

This is a ferocious one. If classical composition can feel ferocious. It is curious; if one feels that the gleam and luster of that death metal blade have dulled over the last decade, this blacksmithing is the leap into that magic. If these dark corridors entice your propensity to discover and uncover’this album is very much for you. A return to a certain form, that is simultaneously completely obliterated by the notion of what the future may hold in this genre. There are delicate sauces here; they’re tactile and they are complex; they are ‘baroque’ as a friend put it. With that said’every song is a ‘hit’ with and without the quotations. If the world listens intently ‘ this can be a watershed moment for the Heavy Metal cultural continuum as the namesake of the album suggests. In my recipe book, it very much is.

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12 Mar 2024 - Simon
Psych RockStoner Metal

Monkey3 return with a stunning slice of next level rock music to transport the most weary of listeners away into their musical cosmos.

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11 Mar 2024 - Lucia
Black Metal

All great stories are accompanied by a great soundtrack, and such is the case of Beenkerver’s De Rode Weduwe in telling the story of Sophia, the red widow. In this story, she deals with abuse, witchcraft, revenge and remorse. From the 90s Black Metal sound to the fast-paced riffs that are characteristic of Beenkerver’s music, this is him at his finest, creating a story that gives a female character a leading and heroic role. Thus, if you enjoy great storytelling with well-crafted Black Metal, let’s join Sophia and Beenkerver into this journey.

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04 Mar 2024 - Thorsten
AvantgardeFree Everything

One of the most innovative bands on all of the planets of our milky way is back after 17 years and they show how a proper comeback should be done. Do not in any way compromise your art but look for the elements that defined your sound, try to keep the most important ones and add new elements that are challenging to your audience but never pushing them away. Welcome back Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and thanks for bringing us of the Last Human Being!

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01 Mar 2024 - Gene
Dark FolkElectronic

Exactly everything I could have hoped for!

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27 Feb 2024 - Knut
Atmospheric Stoner Sludge

A year after their amazing eighth full-length release the New York-based lords of heavy psych-fuzzy Sludge Doom Metal are back with their ninth massive instrumental opus.

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26 Feb 2024 - Thorsten
FolkAtmospheric Black Metal

Hephaestian Black Metal. There I did it. Came up with another unnecessary name for a genre that many by now have closed the lid on as it has become stale for them. But isn’t inventing new genre names also fun? Of course we need a basis on which to formulate our idea upon: They Came from Visions is an anonymous Atmospheric Black Metal trio from Kyiv, Ukraine. In the middle of the war-torn times they release their second full-length The Twilight Robes now via Eisenwald and it is a pure pleasure to listen to.

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26 Feb 2024 - Stephan
Modern ClassicalExperimentalDrone

Dear VoS Ultras, is an artist with a recent feature in the New York Times even still underground enough for this platform? In case of Kali Malone I would say yes, since despite almost unanimous critical praise the composer/organist still operates at the minimalistic fringes of every musical realm she touches.

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23 Feb 2024 - Knut
Post-Rock

A flow of unhurried contemplative music through subtle misty, sometimes elusive, sonics. The cascades of distorted, yet translucent crescendos. The omnipresent timbre of glimmering melodic Post-Rock. All of that and more is fused into the ten tracks on the astounding second full-length from this musical collective.

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22 Feb 2024 - Thorsten
Funeral Doom

There is certainly a red thread going on here: 20 Buck Spin‘s last record of 2021 was Dream Unending‘s wonderful Tides Turn Eternal. 20 Buck Spin‘s last record of 2022 was WORM‘s amazing Blue Nothing EP. 20 Buck Spin‘s last record of 2023 was Dream Unending teaming up with WORM for a powerful split record named Starpath and my god, if they do a real collaboration for the end of 2024 – I think that record might be one of the very highlights of the year. Listen to this record here to get what I mean!

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14 Feb 2024 - Gökhan
Funeral DoomDeath Metal

Rituals have been with us since the Paleolithic era, stretching back to tens of hundreds of thousands of years ago. It is highly likely that the act of repetitive rituals was one of the earliest documented forms of collective behavior in the history of humankind. Sometimes a sacrifice to the gods, sometimes to send a loved one to another plane of existence. Music in its various forms, whether being performed by a throat singing shaman, a chanting of a “church” choir accompanied by an organ, or a simple rhythm that comes out of a crudely made percussion, has always been an integral part of these endeavors.

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