Gnosis are a relatively young outfit from Florida that recorded their first official material at the Shack North Studio. That stuff got engineered and mixed by Fernando Coipel, and mastered by Dan Lowndes (Resonance Sound; cf. the likes of e.g. Förgjord or Desolate Shrine), all in 2014. Then they signed to the mighty Nuclear War Now! Productions roster in order to have this recording, nicely entitled The Third-Eye Gate, released on both CD and LP.
I had never heard of this band before, South-Korean based act Madmans Esprit. The bio included, kindly provided by A Sad Sadness Song (which actually is a sub-division of Aeternitas Tenebrarum Musicae Fundamentum aka ATMF), files this band’s stuff as Schizophrenic Dark-Black Metal, so I was quite virginal in mind when I listened to the album Nacht for the first time. The devirgination (aka defloration), however, was quite painful and horrific…
In order to ‘celebrate’ the split of Russia’s premium sadness Combo Emptiness Soul, I promised myself, and the labels involved, to write down about cheer and happiness provided the aural way by these doomsters.
Russia’s Educated Scum are known for one album, 2011’s React, but before that release they did record some other material that now gets compiled on one CD, appropriately entitled The Chaos Complete: From Chaos To Disorder Re-Visited. Chaos, holy Chaos, now completed…
Bhleg are a young duo, consisting of two Ljuset-members, though this duo does not act like just a Ljuset side-project. Bhleg surely are a distinctive entity on its own. Ludvig Andersson (vocals and bass) and Simon Johansson (guitars, vocals, keyboards and additional percussion), along with session drummer Robert Johansson, recorded the material for this first album in winter 2013-2014 at Studio Asu and A.M.P.
Profundae Libidines are one of the projects that includes Rémi Depernet, who acts under the name Philoxera right here. At the end of spring 2011 he independently released a first full length, on which Rémi performed almost all instruments + he was helped out by several guest vocalists and a session violinist.
Mekigah is an effusion of sounds emanating from a dark turbulent vortex… A beautiful blackened bastard child of diverse dark genres’... Does this introduction make you happy? Horny? Anxious? Scared? Or maybe all of them? In that case, I recommend you to read on!
In the past twenty years, Saarland-based act Old Pagan did release quite some stuff, amongst three full length studio albums; this review deals with the latest one the band did. The experienced band (the members are involved with several other notorious underground bands) took a break during the second half of last decade, but since a couple of years they seem to even more productive / active than ever before.
Next year French act Maïeutiste will celebrate its tenth anniversary, but throughout all those years, these guys have not been that active at all. Now, nine years after their formation, they finally come up with the nameless debut full length album, which gets offered to the (grateful?) audience by the sublime French label Les Acteurs De L’Ombre Productions. The recording session took place as from 2009 up to 2014, with recording and mixing assistance of Ari Lausseur.
Sacred Sin were / are one of the best known bands from Portugal, initially formed in 1991. They debuted in 1992 with the EP The Shades Behind, followed one year later by their full length debut Darkside (via Portuguese label Musica Alternativa).
