I admit that the ‘Western Worlds’ do have a lot to offer when it comes to (Dark) Ambient and Drone material. But the ‘real’ followers of the scene cannot but recognize the superiority of the East-European / Russian scene too. It would be too stupid to sum up all those great projects at the one hand, or influential labels at the other, but to my opinion the scene ‘out there’ deserves much more support, promotion and attention.
Danthor ‘Wildcrow’ Bjårmyr aka W. is a guy from Norway; more specifically Svalbard, a group of islands far North in the Arctic Sea, also known as Spitsbergen. He started playing the guitar at a very young age, and he did win several conquests. W. is also active in several other bands and projects (see further), mainly as guitar player, often as singer too. But he’s most productive under the moniker Uten Håp, which is Norwegian for ‘hopeless’.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…
When the Greek Death Metal outfits Deceptive Incarnation and, following, The Deepest, were put to rest, Georg Davelas (Ntavelas) started a new outfit, Demonic Obedience (which can be considered the successor of The Deepest). In the meantime, FYI, Georg moved over to Scotland, and that’s where he recorded this newest album.
What will the stars tell us?…
Introduction, part one …
Stijn Van Cauter is a very sympathetic guy, but he’s also a talented musician. I adore about all acts he’s involved with – some more than others, yet I think he’s a notoriety within the worldwide (Funeral-oriented) Doom scene. Some names: Until Death Overtakes Me, Inframonolithium, Beyond Black Void, The Sad Sun – enfin, I can sum up two hands full of projects (often solo) that I like, seen from aural point of view.
I do recognize the name Owe Inborr from two things. Firstly, he is the guy involved with two splendid notorious bands, Ondfødt (excellent grim Nordic-styled Black Metal) and Gangrened (ultimately heavy Doom-laden Sludge).
When the band Vex was put on hold, some members continued in a new band, called A Thousand Sufferings. This Flemish horde debuted at the very end of 2015 with the four-tracker Burden, their debut for Satanath Records from Russia. I was honestly impressed by this first effort (see: http://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/thousand-sufferings). For some additional information about the earliest years, I’d like to refer to the review of that album (see link).
Well, what a surprise. I didn’t see this coming… You know, I know Patrick Mytron as the (sympathetic) guy behind joyful projects like Avitas and Kabexnuv (for both of them, I did write some reviews in the past, so in case of interest, for really great yet raw and rough Black Metal, I invite you to check them out; just enter those monikers in the ‘Search’ tab to read my thoughts on those recordings).
Purely coincidentally, I crossed paths with a project I did not know yet, being Amissa Anima. Investigation (no, I am not some federal agent) taught me that Amissa Anima is a solo-outfit by one Tereza 'Terka' Voglová, a (young) lady from Prague, the capital of the Czech republic. Tereza is the sole human being behind this project, taking care of both lyrics and song writing, as well as the production, the mix and the mastering.
The band Plague Years (the one from Detroit, Michigan; there seems to be a Deathcore-act with the very same name from Utah too) debuted in 2017 with a self-called EP, independently released via their Bandcamp-page (and different streaming formats). In Autumn 2018 they released their second recording via the very same sources, called Unholy Infestation. Seen the quality of this stuff, Seeing Red Records took the decision to promote this material more intensively, and they decided to put this material on compact disc.
