The experimental black metal entity known as Voidcraeft recently released Dogma, the latest EP of Germany’s one-man band. This is very much in line with their December full-length, Un futur cadavre, and ditches the sublime quarter-tone compositions of Visceral Practices, much to my dismay. However, Dogma is quite an amazing EP in its own right. It was written with five rules in mind, most of which were rapidly broken. This self-disrespect isn’t detrimental to the music, however, and what survives is an outstanding, dissonant, and aggressive black metal record that is absolutely free as well!

I haven’t been a fan of Falls of Rauros in the past, but, as I’ve received an advanced copy of their upcoming album, I gave Vigilance Perennial a shot. Scheduled for release on March thirty-first, the band’s fourth full-length consists of melodic black metal tinted with progressive and post elements. The five songs are pretty tame, as far as black metal goes, but they capture some beautiful moments and epic struggles.
Coming out on February third from New Zealander duo Into Orbit, Unearthing is an interesting post metal album. Being only two in the band greatly reduces the possibilities, as far as layering goes, but it seems that a looping pedal is into play – that or they plan on using backing tracks or supplementary musicians for live performances. Whatever they do, the minimalistic nature of the project isn’t explicit when listening to their songs. Sure, octave pedals galore, on top of the aforementioned looping ones, but that’s hardly something you could tell without previous knowledge of it, and not something that brings the experience down one bit. Unearthing is a very good post metal album, and the song ‘Gilgamesh’ that I embedded here is on the release.

E.S.T. Symphony is a special orchestral version of some of Esbjörn Svensson Trio‘s compositions. While I’m not familiar with the original jazz compositions, their orchestral renditions are a dream to listen to. As a eulogy to the trio leader, the fantastic pianist Esbjörn Svensson, this album takes a deeper new meaning, and is only more fascinating with its lush arrangements with full orchestra. It’s a thing for quieter nights, but it’s such a wonderful thing.
Emptiness‘ newest, Not for Music, is a strange but interesting experiment with black metal and electronic music. Droney in nature, the album, which drops tomorrow, has strong vibes of industrial metal. While I’m admittedly quite revulsed by industrial metal in general, this one has a peculiar flavour that I enjoy. Perhaps it is the use of old synth pads, or the slow and moody pace of the songs, but something piques my interest, in there. Be sure to listen to this!
Hinterlandt‘s Ode to Doubt is an experiment from the chambre music group to test the boundaries of what this format can offer. Therefore, you can’t listen to one song and decide whether it’s for you or not. You might stumble on the indie pop track, or a contemporary quartet composition, and that would only be a fraction (one seventh, actually) of what this album has to offer. Overall, it’s a very interesting and diverse release from the Australian sextet.
Rhumpage is an alternative metal band from Switzerland that includes elements of hardcore, djent, and mathcore into their palette. Replug Your Brain was released recently, and acts as a demo, in my eyes. The production and compositions on there aren’t thorouhgly polished, but they show great promise for the band’s future. Of course, I’d encourage them to lean more heavily on mathcore and djent, as it proved so successful for Car Bomb, but, in the end, they’re the ones choosing their own path.
Japanese mathcore band Cyclamen just released Fragments, their highly-anticipated new single. Consisting of one new track, ‘Bliszteke’, which sees the band explore some of the most aggressive territories they explored as well as making sure some atmospheric, almost post rock part remained, the fifteen-minute four-track is quite underwhelming. Other than the first track, we have an acoustic version of ‘Memories’, and two live studio songs: ‘Dilurelm’ and ‘Mewdek’. The former is actually quite disappointing, and the latter two are revisits of songs that were originally on the almost-secret album Creatuneau, but slightly off tune on the vocal department. Fragments is, I believe, set up for voluntary contribution on bandcamp – as is usual from this band -, but the free downloads might have run out, and you must now pay $7 USD for it, which is a bit steep, if you ask me. However, if you’ve been a fan for a while and haven’t had the opportunity to support them financially yet, this might be your chance.