Norma, Nytt Land, Perú, Hyper Lightning Hydra, Antagoniste, Lost Talk, Owane, Louis de Mieulle & Matt Garstka, and Yamantaka//Sonic Titan

by Dæv Tremblay

Norma – Se voisit olla sä

Finland’s Norma is an all-female psychedelic rock group, and it’s recently released Se voisit olla sä, a stunning album. By carefully balancing progressive rock influences and pop, Norma is able to create memorable songs and catchy tunes. The frontwoman’s gorgeous voice, in the beautiful Finnish language, is often backed by stacked vocal harmonies, which further adds depth to the record. It’s a fun and easy listen!

Nytt Land – Oðal

From Russia, the Nytt Land quartet brings us dark and ritualistic folk music with metal influences. I say influences, because there is no, … Read more

Aseitas – Aseitas

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

Aseitas is a progressive death metal band from Portland that just released its debut, self-titled full-length album. Aseitas is just shy of an hour long, and it nicely portrays the dissonant and somewhat atmospheric compositions of the band. Through some sickening tones, we hear an album the main focus of which is not to be a vehicle to showcase the levels of musicianship attainable by each member of the band. Indeed, the riffs are, for the most part, not very technical or impressive. Instead, the carefully-chosen series of notes therein grip you and abduct you into … Read more

Best Music of 2018 (Not Clickbait)

by Deidre House

Well, it’s been a great year for music, and especially can’t-even-be-called-music. Seeing as the year is just about over, we’re going to wrap up with a list of the best albums of the year. We are glad to say that CTEBCM is and remains at the forefront of music journalism, and we are proud to present you the first top 5 of the year! Who really wants to wait until 2018 is actually over to decide what was best? Not us! Let’s stop pretending that releases in December matter. In fact, we can safely assume that nothing that comes out … Read more

Monthly Recommendations: March

by Dæv Tremblay

Grave Upheaval – Sciomancy

As you can hear, the whole spectrum is drenched in a mystical atmosphere and weighed down by low pitched guitar notes and slow drumbeats, only here and there picking up and blasting waves of unrelenting polka beats. This sounded quite similar to yet another Austrialian band that goes by the name of Portal. Even though their later teachings somewhat branched off from the heavy worship, their previous works were relatively alike to this. Sciomancy is, I believe, Grave Upheaval’s attempt at expanding on the methods and approach of the earlier life of Portal.

Read the full … Read more

Protoplasma – –

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

What a surprise I had, when sifting through the zeuhl tag on bandcamp, when I stumbled upon this Magyar brutal prog gem. Protoplasma keeps it mysterious: we don’t know who is in the band or how many they are, only that they’re from Budapest! Maybe I should organize a field trip, someday, to make some detective work… They hardly play zeuhl music, their sound is closer to experimental, noise rock, and avant-prog, but I certainly won’t mind the indirect reference.

– (Kötőjel, I guess?) is just over thirty minutes, but it’s filled to the … Read more