News and reviews on all macabre melodies: Metal in its many manifestations, dark and synthwave, audio dramas, soundtracks, ambient, and dungeon synth.
“Brevity is the soul of wit” as the saying goes, and Gdanian’s inaugural journey with Cryo Chamber exemplifies this statement. The album description reads: ‘Submersion is a deep underwater album where retro bass lines are swallowed by thick textures and lingering strings’. And there you have it - simple, straightforward; to the point.
Read MoreThe artwork is the listener’s first impressions for what they are being offered musically… This album delivers. Timbre is of the utmost importance in presenting new music, and Fifth Nature conveys exactly the mood presented in the artwork.
Read MoreEveryone’s favorite Norwegian politician/postal service employee, Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, and his ever-silent, ever-watchful supplier of friendship and dark money, Ted “Nocturno Culto” Skjellum, have managed to find time out of their busy schedules of campaigning, letter sorting and fundraising to grace our ears with another album from their little-known side project, DarkThrone.
Read MoreThe story alone commands your attention, and this is certainly the type of high-concept dark ambient that I crave and Dead Melodies has certainly delivered!
Read More“…somewhere between a David Lynch and James Wan film, this album rests upon its textured nuances, ready to enthrall its listeners.”
Read MoreIt is an exercise in improvisational brilliance, as well as a keen ear for texture and timbre - building a model of unfolding, cosmic development…
Read More…God Body Disconnect chooses a placid, seemingly insouciant approach to the intricacies of that incalculable time between the final breath and the step into the next phase of existence.
Read MoreThe premise of this album is simply stated: a man, alone in a big city, yearning to see the ocean, and then a bank of fog rolls in… the use of that singular little plot hook predicating the ambience gives a powerful premonitory entrance to the soundscapes.
Read MoreRuptured World’s previous three albums have been of the “-planetary” series, a narrative of deep space exploration and horror, and has now decided to take a more terrestrial approach to an album theme - a collection of esoteric exploration into ritualistic sea worship, of offerings to unknowable creatures and Mysteries fantastic and macabre.
Read MoreIt is with a slow, methodical march to which this album propels - a purposeful dolorum of chilling winds and ambience carried on the back of the gargantuan doom metal beast…
Read MoreThis is an immersive sound escape, a soft, introspective mental caress of spatial sound design… this is simply an exploration into an environment abandoned by any human purpose, and consigned to the inexorable crawl and consummation of nature
Read MoreThe music is somber, introspective, still evocative of a “Great Beyond” from previous Mare Cognitum albums, yet there is an urgency to these compositions, a moribund tether that continues to guide the listener forward.
Read MoreDivision Cycle is a tapestry of methodical sound design and minimal movements.
Read MoreIt is remarkable how certain artistic flourishes are an aural fingerprint to an artist, how certain moods, with the mere use of one particular sound, are the calling card for a particular music project. In this instance, I am referring to the new Beyond the Ghost album, The Last Resort, the latest soundscape journey from Cryo Chamber.
Read MoreThe soundscapes that unfold before us are a delicate mixture of synths, drones, and field recording, as is Heath’s penchant for his dark ambient tales…
Read MoreThe conferral of this collaborative work contains elements of myriad styles, each conjoined and entwined by its contributor; breathy, organic horns, tapestries of synths and sound design, even rhythmic drums, the cadenced marching of martial industrial but of a forbidden, forgotten age.
Read MoreFrom the first strike of the decaying pad, you will know that this is an album of inspired, dread narrative. The sliding of the strings, the lilting choirs, and thin veneer of dissonance give Infernal Beyond an ever-present impression of imposing doom.
Read More“…a high concept of darkened science fiction and dread apocalyptic resonance - a confection containing the imprinting influences of Lovecraft, Bloch, and Derleth… this is a soundtrack of alien divinity and oblation.”
Read MoreI would like to open this review with a candid missive, if you would indulge me: this album is brilliant. The timbre of such a tale, one exploring such a time period as Victorian London, as well as the potential for steampunk and dark fantasy inflection within my mind was immediately compelling.
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