Category Archives: Check this out!

OSR: November 21st, 2015

by Dæv Tremblay

Sanzu‘s debut EP was very impressive, their new album not so much.

I remember Empirine‘s Oculi being one of the strongest releases of last year, The Vermilion King is not so different.

Cleric are an amazing experimental noisy, mathy, grindcore band, and Regressions is their last, 2010, album. It’s worth it, though.

Willows is one of the best and most interesting progressive metalcore releases in recent memory.

Coma Cluster Void have got a steaming hype train following them, but deservedly so; just listen to this single and you’ll understand.

Harsh, short, and raw, three words to describe Faceless … Read more

Honest musical autocomplete

by Dæv Tremblay

Let’s open up my iTunes and see what’s the first band that appears when I hit each letter of the alphabet! You are allowed to laugh at me, but if you do so you must also provide an honest autocomplete list! Be aware that I’ll post the last album or piece of each band.

A… .I.(d) – JashuganJ

That’s actually a pretty strong start! A.I.(d) is still one of my favourite experimental prog metal one-man projects out there!

B… E A R – Doradus

Yeah, not so sure about that one. I was pretty impressed when I first … Read more

Instrumental (adj.) – A Series of Disagreements

by Dæv Tremblay

a1446988580_16Plini, Fat Guy Wears Mystic Wolf Shirt, The Helix Nebula, SEIMS, and Violence In Action have a baby together. The name of the child with such a terrifying genealogy is Instrumental (adj.). In fact, it’s not even an actual name. But as we shouldn’t mock anyone’s name, let’s tackle this one with no preconceived ideas.

Instrumental (adj.) is an instrumental (…) band from crazed Australia. If the portfolio of its progenitors is any indicator of how the offspring will turn out, then it’s going to be quite a listen! And oh boy how it is! A Series of … Read more

Spectral Lore – Gnosis

by Dæv Tremblay

a2074334670_16Gnosis is the second EP from Greece’s Spectral Lore this year, both labeled as “experimental” from the band. The first one, Voyager, was admittedly pretty different from the band’s usual material as it wasn’t a metal release at all. This one, on the other hand, is closer to their style, but still has some aspects that make it stand out.

First of all are the Middle Eastern-sounding melodies found in there, and also a greater focus on acoustic instruments. The latter is at its extreme on Averroes’ Search. This aligns well with Spectral Lore’s approach to songwriting, in … Read more

Our Oceans – Our Oceans

by Dæv Tremblay

a2936028470_16What do you get when you put ex-members of progressive metal band Cynic with members of atmospheric black metal band Dodecahedron? Not what you would expect.

Our Oceans is a post-rock band in which Tymon (ex-Cynic) lulls us with his soothing melodic voice, which we really aren’t used to. Behind his voice and his guitar work is a silky smooth fretless bass playing jazzy lines and drums that put the emphasis on the ambient side of things: painting the background with cymbals over slow odd time signatures and polyrhythms.

Over the course of the album, there is some variety to … Read more