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

Redshift Pilots – Moonlight Synthesis

We recently often write about bands who bridge post-hardcore and progressive metal, it seems, and some also other genres, but here’s one that almost uncompromisingly links it with black metal. Redshift Pilots released their debut full-length album, Moonlight Synthesis, in early October. It impatiently shows its black colours with fervent blast beats and tremolo picking riffs, but then sways into atmospheres of post-rock and post-hardcore ambiances seamlessly and in an honestly impressive manner. Sure, some tracks stay more on one side than the other, like “Overgrown”, which is almost entirely post-rock, but has a blackgaze twist near the end, … Read more

Palmless – The Nine Exits

Sweden’s band Palmless just released their debut album, The Nine Exits, on bandcamp. If I were to be bold, I’d say they play post-blackgaze, but this wouldn’t paint the whole picture. Indeed, they seem to pour post-rock tendencies into their blackgaze compositions, or perhaps it’s the other way around, and, on top of that, there is a bit of noise rock and dark pop all wrapped in an indie vibe that permeates throughout the album’s half-hour runtime. The guitars are barely distorted, mostly receiving the overdrive treatment, and the bass guitar is almost totally dry, too. The drums don’t … Read more