/r/RABM/

Monday, November 7, 2011

Prison Of Mirrors - s/t (2011)


PRISON OF MIRRORS "Prison Of Mirrors"

Year: 2011
Genre: Cascadian Black Metal
Country: USA

Track List:
  1. The Scent Of The Severed Hand
  2. A Destiny Unforseen
  3. The Fallen Leaves Have Turned
  4. Procession Of Ghosts
  5. Snow Stained Red
  6. As Rivers Crest
DOWNLOAD


I noticed this band about a half an year ago, after they released their first single "Snow Stained Red". I liked "SSR" a lot, so I was very excited when I received a message from one of the members of P.O.M. It appeared that he's a frequent reader of my blog, and he'd like to see their first full-length album to be featured here. So, why not? 

The best track on the whole album is definitely "Snow Stained Red", but the rest of the album is also quite good for a first release. Like in case with Nidra, the music contain some melodic death metal and post-rock elements, and the vocals aren't quite in the black metal way (but I personally have no problems with it). A very good release overall, Im looking forward to any new stuff from them. (BTW, there's one more BM band called Prison Of Mirrors - an one-man project from Sochi, south of Russia)

bandcamp

ciikada - "mono chrome horrific {emulation obscene}" (2010)


ciikada "mono chrone horrific"

Year: 2010
Genre: Industrial Blackened Crust / Grindcore
Country: USA

Track List:
  1. Vitamysterium
  2. The Hand, The Morning Star.
  3. You Get nothing
  4. And Emptyness
  5. (Any Order) The Withered Tree
  6. honi soit qui mal y pense
  7. Palace
  8. EARtH IS THE SUN
  9. Inhaling the Fumes of the Pit and in Tongues We Speak
  10. Blazing Eye
  11. Glorious
  12. Corridors... Choking Stench
  13. Swank Shithouse
  14. Treblinka
  15. Hooked on the Obscene
  16. Like Tears in the Rain
  17. The Navajo Know
DOWNLOAD

My dreams continue to come true: I wished there's a RABM friendly band playing industrial BM / blackened crust / grindcore (or at least something in the vein of Anaal Nathrakh), and ciikada are playing almost exactly such kind of music. The sound of "mono chrome horrific" was one described as "Fukpig meets Aborym", and it's quite accurate IMO. The whole album is very good and strongly recommended to the fans of blackened crust, as well as the fans of digital hardcore/grind. Lyrical themes are: anti-NWO, anarchism, personal freedoms, nonsense poetry, social commentary, etc.


All the music and most of the vocals on "mono chrome horrific" were made by Justin, the man behind ciikada - but according to him, ciikada isn't quite an one-man project. If I'm not mistaken, he lives in Austin, TX, and is currently working on two new projects: a blackened d-beat band (its current working name is Krig Blåst), and an anarchist BM band. He's also a host of radio show "Feel The Darkness", and if I understood him right, he used a lot of music from my blog in it.

source (BTW, the whole blog is great and definitely worth checking out)

Panopticon & Wheels Within Wheels - 2nd split (2011)


PANOPTICON / WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS "split II"

Year: 2011
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal / Ambient
Country: USA

Track List:


Wheels Within Wheels
  1. A Burial of the Mother of Orion (instrumental)
  2. A Splinter of Hope in the Blackest of Hearts
Panopticon

  1. The Road to Bergen
  2. From Bergen to Jotunheim Forest
  3. The White Mountain View
(download link taken down due to request)

Following my recent posts, some of my readers encouraged me to post more post-metal bands. Well, I'll try to search for more of such bands that would fit in my blog, but not right now. However, the recently released Panopticon / Wheels Within Wheels split sounds very post-rockish, so I think it's about time to post it.
WWW's side of the split sounds much more like drone ambient than black metal, which isn't too unexpected. But I was really surprised at Panopticon's side - it sounds very different from all the earlier releases. The music is very beautiful and atmospheric, but it's not 2009-2010 Panopticon - even the drumming style is different...

Social Despair - demo (2007)


SOCIAL DESPAIR "demo"

Year: 2007
Genre: Thrash Metal
Country: Greece

Track List:
  1. Forever Pawn
  2. Civil War
  3. Welcome To The Slaughter
  4. Society
  5. Technology Kills
  6. Suffer Remains
  7. Social Despair
DOWNLOAD

Old school death/thrash metal band from Athens, formed in 2005 and released their first demo in 2007. They're about to release their first LP in some months by now; he vocals won't be like on this EP, but in the vein of Possessed. The vocalist of SC is among the best friends of the owner of Noisy Subculture blog, and the whole band are anarchists too.

Holy War - demo (2011)


HOLY WAR "demo"

Year: 2011
Genre: Thrash Metal
Country: Greece

Track List:
  1. Bastards Association
  2. Fucking Posers
  3. No Future (React)
  4. Zoume Sto Skotadi (Xaotiko Telos cover)
DOWNLOAD


Another anarchist thrash metal band from Greece, discovered through Noise Subculture blog.  All band members are young (around 15-17 years old). The music is actually very good for a first demo, they know how to play real thrash metal... (however, I'd prefer more brutal vocals)

Human Slaughter - "Victims Of Ignorance" (2010)


HUMAN SLAUGHTER "Victims Of Ignorance"

Year: 2010
Genre: Crossover Thrash Metal
Country: Greece

Track List:
  1. Don't Trust
  2. Derange Messiah
  3. Victims of Ignorance
  4. Questions and Answers
  5. Back Stamped (Friends)
  6. Horror Of Reality
  7. Lou Lou Lee (Ratos De Porao)
DOWNLOAD


According to the owner of Noisy Subculture blog, the Greek thrash metal scene is almost 100% full of anarchists, so why not to post some of the bands he suggested? Let's start from Human Slaughter, a crossover thrash band from Thessaloniki, Greece, formed in 2008. All the members of HS are anarchists. "Victims Of Ignorance" is a promising demo, despite somewhat low quality of production (which, however, isn't surprising for a DIY underground band).

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Nidra - s/t (2011)


NIDRA "Nidra"

Year: 2011
Genre: Black Metal (with Death/Thrash overtones)
Country: Russia

Track List:
  1. Дремлющий лес
  2. Созерцание
  3. Забвение
  4. Скитание
  5. Рассвет
DOWNLOAD

Nidra (which means "sleep" in Sanskrit) are a new 3-piece BM project from Perm, Russia. They're not explicitly political, but definitely RABM-friendly. Main lyrical themes are nature, personal feelings and misanthropy / anthropological pessimism, which is also quite typical for Cascadian BM scene. However, their music doesn't seem to be too influenced by Cascadian bands - it isn't very atmospheric, and has some death and thrash elements (for instance, the vocal style is closer to thrash metal than to BM). Nevertheless, the music is quite good, especially by the standards of Russian BM underground.

Wave of Despair (Хвиля Відчаю) - "Відчуження (Alienation)" (2009)


ХВИЛЯ ВIДЧАЮ "Відчуження"

Year: 2011
Genre: Raw Post-Black Metal / DSBM
Country: Ukraine

Track List:
  1. Спомини
  2. Борьба
  3. Взгляд
  4. Гра Суспільства
  5. Моє Життя
DOWNLOAD

Хвиля Відчаю (Wave of Despair), formerly a DSBM project based out of the south of Ukraine, are now working on their first full-length album, which is expected to be a conceptual release dealing with the topics common to the RABM and Cascadian BM scene: environmentalism, civilizational pessimism, societal oppression, etc. Unfortunately, I have no idea at which stage is the work, because they didn't reply to my last mail, and they have no official site/blog.

So I'm posting only this 2009 demo, which is obviously pretty weak, but I hope someone will enjoy it anyway... just don't have too big expectations for it. The lyrics on this demo deal mostly with personal feelings and social alienation, and are all in Ukrainian. According to the band, such choice of language isn't a sign of nationalism, it's just because Ukrainian language seems to be sounding more "atmospheric" and less "trendy" (it was a direct translation of what they wrote to me... not sure if I understood them right). The whole project never had anything to do with NSBM or Ukrainian nationalism; moreover, they view nation as an unnatural social construct which must be overcome.

Peregrinus - demo (2011)


PEREGRINUS "demo"

Year: 2011
Genre: Post-Metal (with Cascadian-style BM overtones)
Country: Belgium

Track List:
  1. Collapsing Star
  2. Worlds That Never Were
  3. All Parts Of The Sky
  4. The Fall Of Every Sparrow
  5. Hourglass Of Time
  6. We Humans Are Capable Of Greatness
DOWNLOAD
An interesting coincidence - first I posted a release from a post-metal band (Rings of Rhea) in my blog, then it appeared like another post-metal project has sent me a demo just a couple of hours before that. To be honest, it's pretty amateur stuff, and it's average at best... but it's just a first demo, and it already shows some potential. The only member of the project claims to have anarchist/progressive views, and of course he's a reader of my blog.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Wolvhammer - "The Obsidian Plains" (2011)

WOLVHAMMER "The Obsidian Plains"

Year: 2011
Genre: Blackened Crust/Sludge
Country: USA

Track List:

  1. The Gleaming
  2. Writhe
  3. Bones Of The Pious
  4. Ghosts In The Water
  5. Shadowhorn
  6. A Defiled Aesthetic
  7. The Sentinels

DOWNLOAD

I think this band needs no introduction: I've already posted all their earlier releases here, and now it's time for their latest album, "The Obsidian Plains". Like their previous release, "Black Marketeers of WWIII", it features a very solid mix of black metal, crust and sludge - but this one is even better than "Black Marketeers..."! Not disappointing at all, and definitely recommended.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Wolves In The Throne Room - "Celestial Lineage" (2011)

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM "Celestial Lineage"

Year: 2011
Genre: Cascadian Black Metal
Country: USA

Track List:

  1. Thuja Magus Imperium
  2. Permanent Changes in Consciousness
  3. Subterranean Imitation
  4. Rainbow Illness
  5. Woodland Cathedral
  6. Astral Blood
  7. Prayer of Transformation

DOWNLOAD

Here comes the latest release from a band which greatly influenced the whole RABM movement... but now they got a lot of accusations of being too popular and "hip". Personally I don't see it as any big problem (after all, they're not Insect Warfare, who decided to split up after becoming "too popular" well, maybe it was only rumours...). However, I didn't like "Celestial Lineage" as much as their earlier works. Yes, there are really killer songs like "Subterranean Imitation", a lot of female vocals and ambient parts, but the whole album is somewhat weak, especially in comparison with their first two ones.

(But then again, it's nowhere near as disappointing as the latest LP by Amebix, "Sonic Mass"... Yes, I liked "Knights Of The Black Sun" and "Here Comes The Wolf", but the rest of the album turned out to be very uninteresting. I expected much more from such band as Amebix...)

Shapeless - "To Walk Among Beasts" (2011)


SHAPELESS "To Walk Among Beasts"

Year: 2011
Genre: Experimental Black Metal
Country: Australia

Track List:
  1. To Walk Among Beasts
DOWNLOAD


Newest single by Shapeless, quite short (only 8 minutes), but according to the guy behind the project, "I felt I accomplished what I needed to with the one track. In saying that, I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out, but it is what it is... Once again, musically it's pretty pathetic, but it's honest, and to me that's what black metal is all about. Hopefully others feel the same" 

I'm posting this right after I've posted the EP by Woccon, and it isn't a coincidence - in my opinion, both projects share the same (black & green) ideology and mentality. Maybe Shapeless can be called "primordial black metal" ;)