Weserbergland, Yawn, Vetvi, and Izthmi

Weserbergland – Sacrae symphōniae, numerō 1


Sacrae symphōniae, numerō 1 is a one-track, forty-minute, progressive, atmospheric, psychedelic, , symphonic krautrock piece. Yeah, I bet I tickled your curiosity right there eh! This is the third album from Norwegian band Weserbergland, and it’s just as advertised. When you click play, you’re submerged in an aura that’ll only end two-thirds of an hour later. During that time, you’ll come across the mesmerizing repeated riffs of krautrock, only spiced up with a lot of keyboard ambiance, woodwinds, and piano. The whole thing sounds uncanny, like it shouldn’t exist, yet it does. And it’s… Read more

Best of Atmospheric Black Metal 2021

Then comes “atmospheric black metal”. This tag alone bears a lot of weight, and I’ve decided to include all of the post-black and blackgaze releases under that umbrella term. There might also hide a few “avant-garde” or more experimental entities in there, but at the end of the day it was an arbitrary call to include them or not. When I first started this blog, I wasn’t much into black metal, but it’s one of the first new genres to which I warmed, thanks to the amazingly diverse and creative minds sowing their seeds on the fertile soil of black … Read more

Plebeian Grandstand – Rien ne suffit

Every year, there are releases that solidify the following statement: “This has been a great year for music.” Rien ne suffit is an example of this. I co-host a radio show at my local university called The Funeral Directory. It’s a metal specialty show on Monday nights. We do it for the love of aggressive music, and partially because we don’t trust anyone else to create the playlists. If you’re like me, you listen to a lot of metal, and perhaps you wrongly assume that certain bands are household names at this point. “Everyone knows Imperial Triumphant”, you might … Read more

Organ: – Everything Is Pared Down. Minimal Expectations

The Music

The Words

Everything Is Pared Down. Minimal Expectations is the Norwegian-Italian trio Organ:‘s third release, nine years after their 2009 self-titled EP. This album has taunted me for so long, sitting there as a pre-order on Duplicate Records’ Bandcamp page without any official release date… And then, without warning, it came out! Well, to be exact, the album became streamable in full, while the official release date was set to October 30. Let’s see what this beast is made of.

Save for the blast beats and clashing notes, everything reeks of retro prog: the guitar and bass’ … Read more