Only one week until we can listen to this sweet math rock album!

Irish math fusion act Alarmist are dropping their full-length debut, Popular Demain, on November 2, and at only one week away, my excitement is palpable. Of the two tracks currently available for streaming, we’re treated to some sweeping, cinematic jazz progressions supported by an arithmetical rhythmic core. At times it’s uplifting, yes, but in harmonically rich and complex ways characteristic of fusion. Think Jaga Jazzist meets Battles and you have a fairly good idea of what to expect. The album will be available on Bandcamp, where you can also check out their existing EPs.… Read more

The Fifth Alliance – Death Poems

Netherlands’ The Fifth Alliance is a doom/sludge band active since 2013, from what I can tell, because it’s the year of the release of their debut album, “Unrevealed Secrets of Ruin”. But today I’ll be reviewing their upcoming album, Death Poems, which will come out October 31st through Grains of Sand Records. The album also has touches of post and black metal to it.

It’s rather uncommon to hear a band in that genre that is led by a female singer. Here, Silvia delivers monotonous yet emotional screams that wouldn’t be out of place on a post-hardcore album. And … Read more

OSR: 22nd October 2015

Welcome to One-Sentence Reviews, where I’m too lazy to actually write decent length reviews!

Let’s kick today with Drummond‘s EP Getting Comfortable. Globally, it’s a more jazzy Sithu Aye. Now that’s something I can can get behind! Secondly, we’ve got India’s Kouros, with their first atmospheric doom rock album Causa. It does a pretty good job at establishing an atmosphere, but other than that nothing extraordinary. Hybrid Nightmares just released the fourth part of their Age cycle with The Fourth Age, the culmination of destruction. It’s a really good progressive black metal EP, and… Read more

Kvøid – Nihility

Experimental black metal has lately been a thing I opened about, and I’m glad I did. The amount of incredibly good music that this genre hosts is mind-boggling, and I won’t ever forgive myself to not have opened up to the marvellous world of black metal before that. That being said, the latest band I became acquainted with is Kvøid, a duo from Portland whose first album, Nihility, came out September 23rd of this year.

First off, the amount of field recordings and minor seconds on this album is rather impressive. It reminds me somewhat of Ulcerate and … Read more

OSR: October 18th 2015

Here’s the second instalment of One-Sentence Reviews!

Let’s begin with The Pneumatic Transit, a progressive jazz band that released Concerto for Double Moon earlier this month: a great and substantial album for lovers of classical- and jazz-inspired progressive rock music. Then comes Mesarthim‘s space-themed Isolate album, an atmospheric black metal wonder that really knows how to take you by the hand and walk you through their songs. Breed the Killers is a sludgey death metal band that released their self-titled debut album earlier this month: it’s pretty good but rather one-facetted and can get boring at times.… Read more