GODFLESH - A World Lit Only By Dub

Happy dystopian unhappy tenth anniversary, dear "A World Lit Only By Fire"!

For the birthday of Godflesh's comeback album after their great hiatus Justin, Ben and their machines have gifted us a surprise Dub album with long new deconstructions of five tracks. 

GODFLESH - A World Lit Only By Dub (LP) (2025)

Before you ask: No, "New Dark Ages" and "Shut Me Down", which were already featured in alternate versions as bonus tracks back in the day, are not among this selection. This is all fresh new misery.

I can be quite a remix sceptic, but ever since Broadrick created one of the best things in music with the "Perfect Skin Dub" on "Slaveman" back in 1991, he's really free to do whatever he wants in my book. And these renamed extended twists on "Curse Us All", "Deadend", "Life Giver Life Taker", "Forgive Our Fathers" and "Towers Of Emptiness" prove my trust right big time. There really isn't any air of B-side quality to this release in comparison to the original album. Yes, this surely is more abstract in a way - at the end of the day this technicall is just messing around and experimenting wit already finishd material. But in truth it's also just as powerful.

If you know what Godflesh do there's really not much to explain about this release: Sometimes aggressively cracking, other times surprisingly introspective, but always with a healthy amount of rumbling and droning bass and an overall sound that often feels more like Techno Animal or The Bug, this is just Dubflesh in peak form. Nothing more, but sure as hell nothing less. 

Veil of Stuff feat. EXTERIOR PALNET, FUTUROPACO, SABA ALIZADEH and SOPHIA DJEBEL ROSE

Four reviews of mine on Veil of Sound again. Time for one of these posts again! This time it's a little trip through Europe and beyond and we're starting in Croatia...

EXTERIOR PALNET - Haragma II (2025)

[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Short but sick is this assault of Dissonant Cosmic Progressive Avantgarde Black Metal, which is heavily inspired by the Sci-fi Thrash Metal of Vektor and old Voivod, including the raw vocal performance very akin to the phase from "Rrröööaaarrr" to "Killing Technology". You'll find playful quirky Virus grooves, Blut Aus Nord sensory overkill as well as surprisingly strong melodies on this self-released killer album. Bursting with creative brutality "Haragma II" surely is among the best Extreme Metal releases of the year so far!

FUTUROPACO - Fortezza Di Vetro Vol.2 (LP) (2025)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Our next destination is Italy, well California actually. But once again Justin Pinkerton makes his signature mix of Psychedelic Surf Rock, Folk, Funk and Library Music sound so very Mediterranean that it feels as if you're having the most adventurous summer of your youth on a Vespa trip between Venice and Sicilia. Especially the Jaki Liebezeit worshipping drumming and the tasteful dynamic production make this grooving and sparkling journey a highly addictive experience, before you come down to the most relaxed Geir Sundstøl vibes of the title track.

With Jakob Skøtt's typical El Paraiso Records artwork this continuation of Futuropaco's last album from 2023 is of course also a wonderful addition to the vinyl collection!

elparaisorecords · Futuropaco: "Crollo Capitalista"

SOPHIA DJEBEL ROSE - Sécheresse (Ashen White vinyl LP) (2025)

[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Next stops: France and Morrocco with singer / songwriter Sophia Djebel Rose (who I happened to see live in an intimate show just a couple of weeks ago) and her hauntingly beautiful Chanson Noire. A guitar, organic drones and a mesmerizing charismatic vocal performance are the cornerstones of her feminist Folk between 70's Avantgarde and contemporary Gothic. "Sécheresse" is powerful poetry become sound, a richly minimalist, touching masterpiece beyond genre restrictions.

Released by WV Sorcerer Productions it's a given that the physical copy is beauty, white vinyl, OBI strip and all... a shame that posting the fantastic cover artwork is often prohibited or punished by the bots of our brave new anti-social media world!

B

SABA ALIZADEH - Temple Of Hope (2025)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

The final part of this trip brings us far through Northern Africa and the Near East to Iran, home country of composer and masterful kamancheh player Saba Alizadeh. His new electro-acoustic Ambient album, which utilizes the yearning sound of the string instrument alongside modular synths, no-input mixer sound effects, samples and appearances of guest vocalists, is inspired by the events during the "Woman Life Freedom" movement in September 2022, which was brutally shattered by the regime.

With its merging of Experimental Electronic, Modern Classical and traditional Middle Eastern music "Temple Of Hope" paints an intriguing picture of kaleidoscopic fragments, atmospheres and songs. A very serious but all the more beautiful and rewarding album.

an April appetizer with DATADYR and NITE KITE

With Roadburn, Blood Incantation, Tangerine Dream and several fantastic new albums I personally don't need my upcoming musical April to be much more exciting. But who doesn't love some luxury, right? So here's my recommendation of two great albums coming up this month anyway:

DATADYR - This We Know (release: April 25th 2025)

Weather Report, but as a trio of guitar, drums and upright bass? Something like that is the base of Datadyr's Jazz Fusion sound.

On their new album the Norwegians fully explore what they have hinted here and there on their 2022 debut "Woolgathering" or even more explicit with the song title "Onkel Amerika" on the following "Keymaster" EP:

Exploring the gap between the romanticisation / idolization of the US and the reality of America being part of a new authoritarian axis of evil "This We Know" feels like an obituary. A mostly light and happy one which intends to make the bereaved smile, but at its core still a blue look back nonetheless. Mixing their already very American Progressive Fusion sound with lots of Blues, Country, North American Folk and Bluegrass and giving their instrumental compositions titles like "Dallas Alice", "Looking For Colorado" or "Star Spangled Banjo" Datadyr wear their mission openly on their sleeves. The result often gives vibes close to the jazzier side of Danish Psych masters Causa Sui, which is of course a good thing.

And no matter if you fully indulge in listening to this album as a requiem to a dream never fulfilled or just enjoy it for its great musicianship and songwriting solely on its own - it works either way. As the icing on the already delicious cake two tracks on the album feature awesome saxophone contributions by Aksel Røed, whom you should recognize from his album "Do You Dream In Colours?", which has also been released by Is It Jazz? Records.  

NITE KITE - Erratic Erosion (release: April 11h 2025)

A warm, deeply relaxed sound is brought to us by the debut album of Belgian Electronic artist turned Acoustic/Ambient/Jazz collective Nite Kite.

Soothing, almost ASMR-like Electronic rhythms organically mix with real life Jazz drumming, while modern synths mix with neoclassical piano and smooth double bass lines. While all these elements are definitely live-tracked, there are several other sounds left, which leave you unsure whether they're improvised on the actual instrument or either emulated or sampled. However the answer doesn't really matter, because the blurry fusion of analogue and electronic parts really is responsible for a lot of this project's charme.

Mostly instrumental this beautifully mellow, melancholic album also features a couple of very convincing vocal performances on the songs "The Dancer" and "Laat Me Achter".

If you'd made me guess the label I would definitely say Denovali Records, because it would fit nicely into their roster of Ambient, Neoclassical, Experimental, Electronic and Doomjazz artists. That would be a trick question though, because "Erratic Erosion" actually is an independent release.

WREKMEISTER HARMONIES - Flowers In The Spring

No haunting ballads, not even actual songs, and no huge collaborations either. On their new album Esther Shaw and JR Robinson present us a conceptually minimalist version of Wrekmeister Harmonies that solely relies on the exploration of sound and texture.

WREKMEISTER HARMONIES - Flowers In The Spring (Pink Opaque vinyl LP) (2025)

"Flowers In The Spring". "Fuck The Pigs". "Shepherd Stares Into The Sun". The snouts on the cover and the oinking pink vinyl. A winged skull above an hourglass. That's all the information we get to construct a story. Everything else is long waves of droning guitar and oscillating loops of sounds and feedback. Final. Boris. Big|Brave. No vocals. Hardly even real beginnings and endings.

You're blindfolded and your ear is your hand exploring unknown surfaces. "Flowers In The Spring" is the Ambient soundtrack to its own experience. Trying to explain it on an intellectual level is doomed to fail. This is a you either feel it or you won't situation. And I am feeling a lot of vibrant stimulation of my senses. Wrekmeister Harmonies just unlocked their purest Drone mode, pervasive and beautiful.

Given how broad these pieces feel, how deep they seep through every pore, it's pretty impressive - and you need to be told about it to realize it - that each piece has been recorded with the self-imposed limitation of only using four input channels. Maxi-minimalist perfection. This album knows exactly what it wants and nails it flawlessly. A porcine meditation. A spiritual escape from the wallow to the blooming flower field. I cannot find anything not to love about it.

Kudos for Thrill Jockey for being among the commendable labels still attaching a download code to their records (which should be an undisputed standard), because in this case it means you're unlocking ten more minutes of "Flowers Variation" which didn't fit on the physical copy.

digital delirium with BONG-RA, RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON x TWIN SISTER, TDK / ТДК and many many other various artists

Did I freeload new promos again? Am I too poor to buy proper records/CDs/cassettes again? No and no. Or well, yes too actually, but it doesn't apply to this post here. These are actually all recent digital-only releases of... mildly varying length. The first one is a reminder that Christmas Roadburn is only one month away:

RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON x TWIN SISTER - Mirrors For Discharge (2025)

The finale of Roadburn Sunday 2022: A spontanous jam of Kanaan and RRRags led me to miss this comissioned cooperation of Dutch Heavy Psych machine Radar Men From The Moon and the trio Twin Sister, which itself includes René and Otto from Dead Neanderthals. Surely one of the toughest clashes of that extremely strong festival edition. I'm glad that at least I finally get the chance to hear what I missed now!

In total there were nine people on stage, including two bass players and three drummers. And they did pretty much what you would expect from knowing the featured bands - and probably even the best version of that. "Mirrors For Discharge" is a stomping work of hypnotic Industrial Sludge Noise with Punk vocals on top. This rumbling beast of five mighty repetitive steamrollers must have been completely obliberating to behold. Since there's no physical release planned at the time this is as must-have as a download can be!

BONG-RA - Cold World (2025)

We're not moving into too different territory with this new single from Bong-Ra, who have recently turned from a Drone Doom Metal trio with Jazz influences to an Industrial Metal trio with electronic drums. As one does. Or as Jason Köhnen's mood wants it. The title sounds very familiar and indeed this is a cover version of one of the greatest Godflesh songs of all time. Can it be as great as the original? Probably impossible. But great still this is. And surely a banger to perform during their shows. Would love to see that!

And yes, I will review the recent new album of Bong-Ra. But not today.

TDK / ТДК - ZHVK (2025)

This new three-track EP from Bulgaria continues right where "Nemesta" left off - with an absolutely bonkers clusterfuck of Post Punk, Mr. Bungle Avantgarde, Disharmonic Extreme Metal, Jazz, Noise and manic spoken words vocal performances. TDK are all over the place - and they are the landlords of this particular, delightfully paranoid place. This quintet plays in the top league of whatthefuckishappeninghere. Wish this was longer than just thirteen minutes!

VARIOUS ARTISTS - Who Is The Dreamer? - A Tribute to David Lynch (2025)

This release is unreviewable. I probably haven't even listened to half of it and sure as hell will never play the whole thing. So does it suck so bad?

No, but let's just say that 383 (three-hundred eighty-three) tracks with individual lengths between one and forty minutes are quite a task, even if the devoted listener burns the complete rest of his/her music collection. There might be record-horrible stinkers on this compilation or the best song of all times - and I haven't even noticed either while shuffling through it. However what I can say for sure is that the overall atmosphere feels very adequate for a tribute for the great late David Lynch.

It's pointless to list even a fragment of all the artists and bands involved in this mammoth collection. Naturally it includes a lot of Experimental music, but you'll also find bits of Rock, Pop, Hip Hop, Jazz, Country, Modern Classical and who knows what else in the depths of this lodge. There are variations on soundtrack pieces like the legendary Angelo Badalamenti themes from "Twin Peaks" or Ambient textures with interview snippets from Lynch over it. Some artists are only featured with one small track, others provide a whole album's worth of material.

This is the water and this is the well. Props to The Church of Noisy Goat for curating this endless surreal odyssey!

 

SEVEN IMPALE and OXOMOCO live at Logo, Hamburg (March 15th 2025)

Just two days after the four band bill at the Headcrash (including Rivers Of Nihil and Cynic) I drove to Hamburg again yesterday for a show I basically had been awaiting for ten years, since I've heard Seven Impale's debut album "City Of The Sun" for the first time. Unfortunately it took the Norwegians two albums and a hiatus longer to finally come to Northern Germany. But better late than never, right?

When you only have a short time between visiting (and afterwards reviewing) shows, there are certain things that can happen. One is that you quickly adjust your previous judgement of the last music night. I'm always trying to be positive and see the good when it comes to music, experiencing shows on a goodwill basis. But when you go to another concert shortly after and see how much better many things can be... well, I don't want to go on about this too long. But yeah - and sorry if that's a spoiler -, but after the Seven Impale show and talking to another fan who had been there last Thursday too I must admit to my huge Cynic fan self that apart from discovering Beyond Creation that other night was actually more disappointing than I let on in my review.

Another annoying thing had happened, whichb only occured to me when I wanted to take a picture of the Logo being not really up to the right date (but stuck ten days into the past) with my Digital Harinezumi toy camera, which is also responsible for most of my live photos.

On my first try I realized that I had forgotten my MicroSD card in the slot of my PC after copying the pictures for my last review. Shit.  Luckily there's a Mediamarkt just a couple of houses away from the Logo. But just when I got there they wre fucking closing the door, so it took me a little while longer to find a phone shop that could help me out. Has been a couple of years since this has happened to me the last time.

OXOMOCO

The night started with a local trio from Hamburg. Oxomoco began their instrumental performance very smooth and relaxed, slowly building up to heavier Post Rock with Stoner Metal vibes here and proggy parts there. I definitely wouldn't want to put their music into one specific box. For sure it was good mix of beauty, coolness and heaviness with some nice hypnotic usage of lead guitar loops.

During the second to last song, the singer and keyboardist of Seven Impale jumped on stage and aided their jam them with organ sounds and vocalizations. Nice!
The show was a great attunement for what was about to happen next and I made sure to grab a copy of the band's first CD afterwards.

SEVEN IMPALE

Seven Impale started their show with the opener of their second album, followed by the opener of their third album and the opener of their debut album. So I guess if they already had a discography of seven or eight albums, this review would be really convenient to write and boring to read.

But if there's one thing the Prog/Jazz Rock/Metal sextet certainly was not guilty of at all, than it was being boring! If you know only ohne of their rollercoaster rides like "God Left Us For A Black-Dressed Woman" or "Sisyphus" then you already know that between soothingly smooth Jazz licks, challenging Fusion grooves, heavy Math Rock chugging, roaring organs, incredibly majestic guitar and saxophone climaxes Seven Impale just never fail to impress and entertain.

That goes for their fantastic studio work and absolutely translates into the live performance. Prog Rock (and adjacent stuff) can barely get any cooler than what these guys are doing. And I didn't even mention trained opera singer Stian Økland's powerful voice - and that before this show I had absolutely forgotten that he also plays guitar. What can I say, the whole show, which was mostly split half-half between longtracks from the 2014 debut and the 2023 album "Summit", just was a wholesome experience.

Of course the band is too obscure to sell out this location, but there were enough people to not make it awkward. The satisfaction of finally hearing long-admired tunes live and the (not perfect but more than sufficient) very good sound helped to make this my favorite show of the year so far. I really hope that there are more touring activities to come, then maybe with a divided focos on "Contrapasso" (got the t-shirt!) and a possible new album? 

Finally, here's the full setlist:

(with my translations into the actual song titles)

And on another added note I maybe should have gotten my poster signed, now that I see it on the door. However I really didn't think I would actually find a place for it, just taking it with me anyway, because it was for free. But in hindsight you're always a smart-arse.