Biesy – Noc lekkich obyczajów

Biesy – Polish for “Demons” – will release their debut album, Noc lekkich obyczajów – free translation: “Night of Weak Morals” –, a forty-three-minute slab of dissonant and unforgiving death metal in the vein of Ulcerate and Deathspell Omega, on September ninth. The band doesn’t hide their true intentions, as the album straight away starts with dissonant intervals – the minor second is used and abused, a recurring theme in this genre’s music –, unstoppable blast beats, slow but heavy riffing, and miasmic growls with texts all in Polish. The album is a blast, enshrouded in a toxic mist of … Read more

Der Weg einer Freiheit – Finisterre

Finisterre — or, the end of the Earth — is German atmospheric black metal band Der Weg einer Freiheit‘s sophomore album, following 2015’s widely-praised Stellar. While I personally wasn’t very fond of their prior material — I recently double-checked to make sure this was still the case —, Finisterre simply blew me away. I don’t really know what change happened that made me react differently, but I believe this has to do with tighter production and compositions. The atmospheric elements are more poignant, the heavy-hitting parts hit harder, and each song is a rewarding experience to get through, … Read more

Ehnahre – The Marrow

Ever since Douve came out, in 2016, I’ve held the Boston avant-garde doom metal quartet Ehnahre in the highest of regards. Earlier this month, they released their newest experimentation on The Marrow, a four-track, fifty-three-minute slab of slow, heavy, and unbridled contemporary music. Yes, Ehnahre swims pretty close to modern classical music with their compositional approach, a feeling reinforced by their use of contrabass and piano. The band’s long, drawn-out pieces are very atmospheric and even entrancing, often relying on slow, repeated motives and spoken word passages to build a ritualistic summoning of heartfelt and mystic music. The outstanding … Read more

The Hirsch Effekt – Eskapist


Some albums come along and pleasantly join the ranks of what you previously considered “great music”. Some albums come along and make you question everything you previously classified as “great music”. The Hirsch Effekt’s fourth full-length, Eskapist, is the latter kind of album – a towering post-hardcore monolith that reaches a mountaintop I never imagined to be climbable, from which the view makes most other modern progressive acts look like ants.

The Hirsch Effekt are one of those bands whose sound cannot be tidily summarized in a couple of adjectives. Their own bandcamp liberally describes them as “rooted … Read more

Sewing Circle – Nausea

Sometimes, we need to take a step back and take a listen to something that really makes you ask yourself “can this even be called music?” Of course, the answer is almost always a resounding “yes!”, but, to the neophyte’s ear, the answer might not be so clear-cut. Enters Sewing Circle, the project of Arturo, Noah, and Patrick – the latter of whom we already wrote about many times for his involvement in some of today’s wildest and most interesting musical projects – is, I believe, an improvisation-based experimental noise rock trio. The nearly thirty-minute EP is adventurous and, … Read more