Stone Wings - Bird Of Stone Wings

Formerly known as Elysium, these Australian death-doomsters have released an excellent debut album "Bird Of Stone Wings." The album is a mix of melodic death metal and doom, culminating in the epic 23+ minute final title track.

Perhaps I'm too much of a black metal fan to properly describe what this album sounds like, but I'll certainly do my best. The closest band to their sound, in my limited knowledge of death-doom, is Morgion, but such a comparison is hopeless. Stone Wings is extremely melodic! There are keybooards providing beautiful atmospheric background chords, and they are especially noteworthy in "By Hell or Highwater." That track is one of my favorites! It opens with nicely played guitar arpeggio underneath a gorgeous melodic guitar line. Vocals are a groweled mid-range rasp, well-suited to the music. "Breaching The Castle Wall" shows the more death metal side of the band. It sounds almost like Subterranean-era In Flames. The final track is, of course, the masterpiece *doom* track of the album. Extremely slow, epically mournful, and grandiose, I'm counting 32 beats a minute here, it is most certainly worthly of any funeral dirge! Midway through the song, there is a short faster section, but it quickly disappears, and what emerges is sad but uplifting melodic doom.

Finally, the production is crytal clear, and unlike many doom albums, the guitars are not overpowering or crushing; there can only be so many doom bands that can try the heavy and slow as fuck routine. The mix is balanced between guitar, drums, keys, and voice; while I think the bass (still very audible) can stand to be slightly more prominent.

I must thank my friend for introducing this band to me. I've enjoyed it enough to finally track down a real copy of this self-released album through the band members. And while they haven't released anything since "Bird of Stone Wings," a split 7" with Mournful Congregation is in the works. Please, please, please visit their myspace page here: www.myspace.com/birdofstonewings! You'll find more information on how to obtain this hard-to-find gem on the page and hear some excellent samples.

Monolithe - II

I find that I enjoy doom metal, especially funeral doom whenever the pensive mood strikes me, or whenever I have a long stretch of time to just relax and enjoy music. This morning I had the pleasure of working on a long assignment, and the perfect accompaniment was Monolithe!

I first heard about Monolithe from a friend, who played the first album on his radio show. It grabbed me as no other funeral doom did; the music was was epic, cohesive, and melodic. Unfortunately, I was only able to listen for a short while, but the name Monolithe stuck in my mind. I was impressed enough to track down both Monolithe albums. However alike these two releases are in length, structure, and mood, I find that I prefer the second release over the first and always crave to hear that one first.

Supposedly a side project of Sylvain and Marc from French doomsters Anthemon, and also featuring Nicolas from gothic metallers the Old Dead Tree, Monolithe have already become a well-respected band among doom metal circles. Dealing with the origin of mankind is no easy task, but this is what Monolithe attempts to accomplish in their full-length releases.

II is an epic 50 minutes and 25 seconds of languid, fluid, and mutating funeral doom. The atmosphere is amazing, we often hear long sustained keyboard lines floating behind the distorted guitars and low gutteral growls. The piece starts with some ambient noise from which a guitar line fades in, and we are treated to background strains of accordion as the piece progresses. The tempo holds constant as various lines of guitar moves to and fro often repeating, but occasionally something new. The piece ends just as mysteriously as it begins, slowly fading way into the void.

This release is metal at its other extreme: slow and long. Definitely recommended for fans of pensive funeral doom. Personally, I find it very relaxing yet stimulating at the same time; it wonderful to have on the background when doing something creative!

Nocte Obducta - Stille

This is an excellent EP from German black metallers Nocte Obducta. A different direction than their previous material, the music is dark and melodic, often switching between clean guitar tones and aggressive distortion. Most of the songs are modestly paced dreamy and soothing, something you can meditate to. Vocals range from low soft whispering growls to black metal shrieks, to choral-like chanting.

The second track "Tochter Des Mondes" opens up with a clean, lamenting Pink Floyd-esque guitar line that soon distorts into the main theme of the song. The next track, "Der Regen" is more of a straight forward metal song with low death metal growls.

I am honestly impressed with the variety of music offered on this short EP. Stand out tracks are "Die Schwane Im Moor," "Tochter Des Mondes," and "Vorbei." Overall this release is a cut above the standard black metal fare. I haven't heard Nocte Obducta's subsequent releases, but if this is any indication of their new direction, I'll be picking them up immediately!

Drudkh - Blood In Our Wells

Let me start off by saying that Drudkh is an NSBM band; therefore boycotters of such music need to read no further. I do not, in any shape or form, support such ideology, but I do believe that good music should at least be recognized. So... here we are.

Blood In Our Wells is the Ukrainian band's fourth album, and I can easily say it's my second favorite release behind Autumn Aurora. The first thing that came to mind when I heard it was its similarity to the first album Forgotten Legends and the latest one. However, unlike The Swan Road, the production here is clear enough for everything to be heard, but still retains the usual Burzum-esque black metal feel.

The songs are long and catchy, with a folky-pagan element to them. But do not think this is another "folk metal" band like Storm, or Otyg. Drudkh is still very much heavy metal influenced. We hear emotional guitar riffs that carry the epic feeling of paganism and nature. There are some excellent guitar solos scattered across the disk, and my favorite one falls about 40 seconds into the song "When The Flame Turns To Ashes". I don't think I've ever heard such a wankery solo from another black metal band!

I'll go out on a limb here and say that the moments of total-rock-out-metal, intertwined with calm, mellow acoustic parts are reminiscent of bands such as Opeth. The only difference here is that Drudkh's vocals are 100% deep harsh rasps. Despite having tracks of 10 minutes in length or more, "Blood in Our Wells" never gets boring. In fact, it whets my appetite for more Drudkh. I've been playing this album since it was released two weeks ago, and haven't gotten tired of it yet. This is black metal you can headbang to!

Solstafir - I Blodi Og Anda

Here is an incredible release from these true Icelandic Vikings. Before I Blodi Og Anda, I had the pleasure of hearing an earlier mCD entitled Til Valhallar. It accompanied me on a trip to Yellowstone, and the fast punk-ish melodic black metal, coupled with the atmosphere of being in some of the most gorgeous scenery in the country created quite the unforgettable experience.

On this release, the music is more melodic and on a grander scale. It invokes epic scenes of fjords, lakes, glaciers, mountains, anything but the old and tired forest imagery usually found in black metal. We hear occasional interludes of acoustic guitar, and *gasp* female vocals! The upbeat punk spirit remains, albeit a bit held back this time, but overall this creates a more polished cohesive release. The variety on the album is incredible. "Tormentor" stands out as a fast, unrelenting track of crazy frantic blast beats and contains a cool guitar solo near the end. On the other hand "Arstidir Daudans" is a melodic, epic piece that starts with a beautiful acoustic intro under which female vocals, courtesy of Hulda "Dula," emerge.

I don't think I've heard anyone quite like Solstafir in style. They put former Icelandic musician Falkenbach to shame. Despite my dislike of most fast black metal, Solstafir stands out to show us that not all fast black metal has to be cold and grim. They are certainly a band to look into if you are willing to try something different.

Unholy - The Second Ring Of Power

I ordered this album without any knowledge of the band or any preview of the music what-so-ever. In fact, it was a replacement for a Nokturnal Mortum cd that was out of stock in my rather large order to Battle Kommand. I'm glad I took the risk, because this is one of the best doom metal albums to cross my ears for some time.

Finnish band Unholy has flown mostly under the radar of metal, and their current disbandment certainly doesn't do much to help. As far as I can gather, the band formed in the late 80s, and lasted a decade putting out four albums, two demos, and an ep, before finally breaking up in 1999.

Surprisingly, this was released in 1994. You would never guess it though from the sound of it. The album is well produced and clear. The music has the usual slow doomy guitars, but one thing stands out. Unlike generic doom bands these days that merely play really, really slow chord progressions, Unholy experiment in their musical direction. You may occasionally hear some guitar leads on tracks like "Dreamside" and "Procession of Black Doom."

I would compare the atmosphere and mood of this album to be Disembowelment; it has the same drugged-up, sluggish halocinogenic feeling. Occasionally, the strains of female vocals are heard. They are not angelic nor operatic, but rather deeper and fleshier sounding rather lost, almost chant-like.

This has been one of my best musical finds this year. I would highly suggest any doom metal fan to check this out.

Xasthur / Leviathan Split

Here we have an excellent split album from two top notch USBM artists, Xasthur and Leviathan, released by Battle Kommand Records, a label run by Azentrius of Nachtmystium. An LP version was released earlier in 2005, but on this CD version, we find three additional tracks from Xasthur, including an excellent cover of Katatonia's "Palace of Frost", and one additional track from Leviathan, a cover of Judas Iscariot's "Where the Winter Beats Incessant".

As a Xasthur fan, I was not disappointed by the quality of these tracks. They are very similar to previous output, having much of the same tortured screams, and suicidal-depressive sound as the latest full-length To Violate the Obvious. The Katatonia cover is a unique anomaly, as previous Xasthur covers were of cult black metal bands; I kind of like the more blackened sound of it!

The sweetest surprise of this disk was Leviathan. Honestly, while I found Leviathan's latest album The Tentacles of Horror quite bland and uninteresting, I was immediately taken by their tracks on this split. These tracks are slow, depressive, atmospheric-minimalist black metal in the vein of Wrest's solo project Lurker of Chalice, but better! "The Remotest Cipher" is one of Leviathan best tracks. I love the echo effects on Wrest's screams, seemingly giving the music a dream-like effect; of course, one realizes that this is no dream, but rather a tortured nightmare. The latter half of the track is amazing... featuring soaring guitars over a constant barrage of double bass beats. Leviathan does a great job on the Judas Iscariot cover, exactly what you would expect after hearing the first two tracks.

This is a must-have for fans of the emerging USBM scene; it's worth it for the Leviathan tracks alone!