Veil of Stuff feat. EDENA GARDENS, EFFLUENCE, E.U.E.R.P.I. and SLEEPBOMB

Wow, that took some time again! But at last here are the latest four releases I've reviewed over at Veil of Sound:

EFFLUENCE - Anticholinergic Derangement (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Let's start with what will easily be one of the most batshit crazy Extreme Metal albums of the year - the over seventy minutes long magnum opus of Matt Stevens' "Free Death" project Effluence.

Prepare yourself for a gloriously annoying snare drum sound being hammered into your brain forever - alongside an incomprenhesible overflow of completely over the top, but also just downright fantastically creative Dissonant and Technical Death Metal with ultra guttural growls!

At least on par with the brilliant chaos of bands like Qrixkuor or Esoctrilihum "Anticholigergenic Derangements" pairs its relentless highspeed Brutal Death assault with Free Jazz attitude, swirling pianos, shredding lead guitars, flutes, Folk choir chants and more in an outright unhinged attack on the listener's sanity.

[Don't remind me of the costs - I'd like to forget that part with US imports like this -, but I couldn't be content with only owning this ground- and mindbreaking release in digital form. I don't know if the CD has been shipped yet or whenever it will arrive, but when it does, I'll update this post with one or two pictures.]

SLEEPBOMB - Songs In The Key Of Conan (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

An American band with a comparably ambitious attitude, yet in a significantly less sick in the head - and musically completely different - way are Sleepbomb, who have specialized in creating alternative soundtracks to movie classics - in this case John Milius' famous fantasy flick "Conan The Barbarian" featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his legendary minimal-acting breakthrough role.

As bold as even the suggestion that you might need a replacement for Basil Poledouris' bombastic original score feels: Sleepbomb deliver an epic, totally independent take on the subject in the language of sludgy (Tulsa) Doom Metal and Post Rock with Classical and Arabic influences, seasoned with ethereal female vocalizations, atmospheric Ambient keyboards, Tribal percussions and jazzy parts featuring clarinet and saxophone.

It's an almost seventy-seven minutes long album, but its sixteen chapters don't even offer a single weak moment. Crom!  

EDENA GARDENS - Quintessence (2LP) (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

After delivering four studio recordings and one live album since 2022 the Danish Stoner Psych Fusion Jam super group of Nicklas Sørensen, Martin Rude and Jakob Skøtt strikes again with their first double album and probably most ambituous work to date.

In six masterfully morphing longtracks the trio once again demonstrates musicianship, taste and the common cosmic wavelength of its members coming together in perfect alchemy. Edena Gardens' improvisations are captured so intimately that it feels as if you were right there in a room with the band.

It's an amazing album presented accordingly. The gatefold cover with Rude's drawings colourized by Skøtt is an eyecatcher even by the high standards of El Paraiso Records. And if you order your copy directly from the label, you even get a couple of stickers of the figure on the front cover. Very nice!

E.U.E.R.P.I. - Microworlds (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

The four albums in this bunch are all examples of very different concepts and their respective execution. This work of Bulgarian composer and Experimental musician Mirian Kolev might actually be the most unorthodox one, because it is based on contact microphone field recordings shrinking us down to the size of ants or (on the last of the three tracks) crickets, so we can experience their mystical world beyond our usual perception as a fascinating, strangely satisfying ASMR experience.

The combination with the sounds of obscure touch-based synthesizers ultimately turns these recordings into - still very minimal and Ambient - music. So don't expect catchy melodies and choruses, but enjoy this as the highly Experimental, but in its own special way very capticating project it is! Headphones strictly recommended.

Veil of Stuff feat. BONG-RA, IVAN THE TOLERABLE, PONTE DEL DIAVOLO and THE SHITS

1, 2, 3 aaand it's time for another roundup of my last for reviews on Veil of Sound, as always - if I own it - with some pictures of the physical media.

IVAN THE TORABLE - Chromophobia (Crystal Clear vinyl 2LP) (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Not only am I pretty satisfied with my review, if I daresay so, but unbelievably when it was published this double album actually was Oli Heffernan's most recent release. Of course now, as a couple of months have passed, I'm behind again, because the prolific Psychedelic / Ambient / Jazz / Electronic artist has already put out new stuff.

This album with the serious background of the death of an important friend and collaborator however still remains an important beacon in Ivan The Tolerable's discography. Based on minimalist ideas, but ornamented in countless creative ways plugged from the history of Psychedelic Electronic music, these fourteen tracks just emit a special radiance between profound weight and floating lightness.

The simplistic artwork and the as transparent as transparent goes vinyl are of course a match. Perfection.

PONTE DEL DIAVOLO - De Venom Natura (transparent green vinyl LP) (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

The two-basses-powered Italian Blackened Post Punk Prog Doom Metal sensation is back with their second full album for friends of Healthyliving, Kothi Tuhoa, Gggolddd, Maggot Heart, Brutus, Shaam Larain and everything between. With select guests on duet vocals, theremin, clarinet, trombone and more, each song shows new facets of Ponte Del Diavolo's sound. Charismatic front witch Erba leads the group from highlight to highlight until the album ends - way too early - with a crowning Bauhaus cover. What a banger!

The record comes in a gatefold with lyrics on delicously poisonous green vinyl. Nice.

BONG-RA - Esoterik (transparent orange with black smoke vinyl LP) (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Holy Egyptian Stargate Space Jesus! Jason Köhnen takes Bong-Ra full circle... again... and even fuller than before. After the switches from an Electronic solo project to a massive Doom Metal band, to Doomjazz influences and then to bringing back the breakbeats together with tons of oldschool Godflesh and Ministry worship on previous albums, "Esoterik" continues on the Industrial Metal path, but also sees Colin Webster return on the saxophone and layers all its organic and electronic, crushing, atmospheric and jazzy noises in an overwhelming more is more Blut Aus Nord storm.

Sick stuff and a solid presentation by Debemur Morti Productions (unnecessarily small font for the lyrics though) with a nice vinyl colour.

THE SHITS - Diet Of Worms (2026)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

And finally we got new bowel actions from Leeds with the second full-length album of The Shits!

Their "Diet Of Worms" is a brutally repetitive stomper with heavy Crust Punk / Sludge / Noxious Rock'n'Roll riffs, deafening guitar Noise and vocals which hate themselves as much as they despise the listener. It's as real and nasty as it's absolutely fucking glorious! A fourty-three minutes boot kick into the jaw - if you like that kind of thing. For fans of La Muerte, Fetish 69 and good old English anger.

Now let's just don't ask ourselves what was used to paint the cover picture - and shhh please ignore that that whole phrase in the beginning of my VoS review about me surviving a Shits show "without being hit by gobs of spit, half-empty beer cans or ball-sweat flavoured handshakes of their frontman" was completely recycled from my Roadburn 2023 live review. But hey, sometimes you just cannot hit the nail on the head any more precise than you already did, right?

Veil of Stuff feat. ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF, ELECTRIC LITANY, FLESIA and VEILBURNER

Yay! It didn't take me as long as last time to accumulate four reviews on Veil of Sound, so here's my final roundup up of my latest four "external" reviews this year - where available of course alongside pictures of the albums' physical copies:

ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF - Iconoclasts (CD) (2025)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

This VoS review for sure is a long-ass read. Deservingly so, because as expected the new double album of Anna von Hausswolff, the first one with vocals - and a lot of those! - since "Dead Magic" from 2018 is just an overwhelmingly grandiose larger than life experience.

Including the introduction of saxophone and clarinet as a new central element of her sound beside mighty church organs, Rock music instrumentation and Electronic Ambient sounds, Anna opens the box widely, releasing a confidently powerful and heartstrings-pulling masterpiece of monumental artistic proportions. From Alternative Contemporary Gothic, Chamber Pop, Drone and Jazz to Prog Rock Anna pulls from an endless  array of influences to form a work beyond comprehension.

And as if her own magical presence wasn't enough, "Iconoclasts" also includes duets not only with her sister Maria von Hausswolff, but also with Dark Alternative Americana star Ethel Cain and the man, the legend Iggy Pop.

You actually only needed half of this release with fantastic songs like "Facing Atlas", "Iconoclast", "Stardust" or "Struggle With The Beast" to justify buying this album, but from the shorter instrumentals with interlude nature over the Pop format ballads to the towering epics, every single one of the twelve tracks delivers the right - often abundant - amount, and the right kind of emotional enormity and phenomenal songwriting to add to a whole that feels even bigger than the sum of its already giant parts.

I guess at this point it wouldn't be a spoiler to tell you where you can expect "Iconoclasts" to land in my album of the year ranking, right?

The only thing which is almost repellingly unworthy is the CD release of the album. And I'm neither talking about the cover artwork nor the fact that it's just the simplest of digipaks. I could have been prepared for that, since for example the presentation of "The Miraculous" was the same.

No, what actually offends me is the four-page lyric booklet, which not only misses a jacket in the digipak, where you can put it, but seemingly just copies the layout of the vinyl version in an ant-sized scale. And since I just finally got my first pair of reading glasses I can safely confirm that even with aid (respectively a normal eyesight) the lyrics are still very hard to decipher - which is still much better than the credits, which are so small that you could almost suspect you're agreeing to a scam robbing you of your life savings by buying this album. Yeah, nonsense like this annoys me.

FLESIA - Achterbahnekstase
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

With the rather Punk or Grindcore aesthetics of its cover artwork and consisting of three longtracks which, despite the raw production, sound way too huge to even make you entertain the idea that the instrumental part of this music could actually only have been recorded with bass and drums, Flesia's "Rollercoaster Ecstasy" certainly offers a refreshingly rebellious undergound perspective on Black Metal. And when the trio steps on the break for some minimalist Doom or Post Metal, it makes this whole frantic banger even better. Wild shit!

ELECTRIC LITANY - Desires
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Electric Litany are a Greek Synth Pop quartet based in London. On "Desires" they perfectly balance synthetic cold and electric warmth, minimalist keyboard arrangements and escapist Shoegaze influences. With a falsetto voice between Sigur Rós and Empire Of The Sun floating above a diverse landscape of both very catchy and surprisingly experimental songs this album feels like a yearning dream, in which you're slightly out of phase with the world, see all its beauty with heightened intensity, but can't quiet reach out to touch it. Achingly wonderful!

VEILBURNER - Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy (CD) (2025)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

And here's the actual first test object (before trying the impossible "Iconoclasts" booklet) for my aforementioned new reading glasses. With a metallic reflection effect, a partly very small font size and some challenging background colour choices, this digipak actually was an ideal item for that job. And apart from being readable the layout and of course the cover artwork of Veilburner's "Longing For Triumph, Reeking Of Tragedy" are actually really cool, too.

Musically this album offers exciting Dissonant Blackened Death Metal with great riffs and leads, some banging Thrash Metal influences and a unique, completely deranged vocal performance. Sick sick sick and great!

Veil of Stuff feat. ÅRABROT, KERBEROS, LAIBACH and PATRICK SHIROISHI

Oh boy, it took me a while to accumulate these four reviews! This summer has surely not my strongest phase when it comes to contributing write-ups for Veil of Sound. But hey, at least it's quality stuff - and there may come times with a higher frequency again.

My write-ups over there are way more elaborate, especially on the actual musical part. So you should best understand the following texts as teasers and info on the physical copies (in case I own one), and hopefully hop over to the main course on VoS!

LAIBACH - Alamut (2LP) (2025)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Yes, if you have wondered why there hasn't been a review of Laibach's monumental Iranian-Slovenian symphonic project "Alamut" on this blog yet, this is why!

I don't think that I could add much more to my Veil of Sound review or to my live experience of this work in Frankfurt two years ago. To my honour the band even quoted “An amazing combination of harsh Industrial, Folk and Modern Classical Music.” from my list of favorite live shows in 2023, when they announced this double album in their newsletter.

And to quote myself a little more and give you at least a little bit of musical context in case you haven't read my comprehensive review yet: Besides the Slovenian Avant-Garde group Laibach "this genre-transcending cultural exchange included the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, the Art/Folk vocal group Gallina from Slovenia [and] the incredible Iranian Human-Voice Ensemble. [...] Written by two Iranian composers and Laibach member Luka Jamnik and conducted by Navid Gohardi, the performance melted European classical music with Persian influences, electronic Industrial sounds and bursts of cacophonous chaos."

The physical release of this incredibly ambitious cross-cultural masterpiece is a little bit patchy in quality. The pressing is... mostly... ok, the big booklet with liner notes, lyrics and many pictures is informative and beautiful, the whole artwork is great. But why pack all of this in one quite thin regular cover, which provokes massive seamsplits. My copy at least already arrived with those, which was an immediate bummer. It's a shame, since this album would have deserved a robust gatefold - if not even a whole solid slipcase or box.

I mean.. Come on, their next release is yet another reissue box of questionable necessity, dedicated to their debut - again. Some of the effort for that one really could have been used here. And while I'm already complaining: A full video of this live performance from Ljubljana exists, but Laibach or Mute Records don't have the rights - or the will - to use it for a bonus DVD? That would have such an obvious addition to the package.

Well, maybe I would have done better with the CD version this time. At least there's no doubt about the relevance and class of the musical content, which may require attention and patience at times, but definitely rewards you with a deeply meaningful experience.

ÅRABROT - Rite of Dionysus (Punk/Orange Marble vinyl LP) (2025)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Not on Pelagic Records this time, but self-released comes Årabrot's new album, which - it's confirmed in small letters at the very end of the lyrics and credits on the record inner sleeve - "is OF DARKNESS AND LIGHT part 2".

The band of married couple Kjetil Nernes and Karin Park has compiled this record from the same recording sessions and continues on the same level of quality, yet with an greater focus on synth/organ-driven and more solemn, profound and personal pieces. However that doesn't mean there's no room for a couple of Post Punk / Rock'n'Roll bangers or even the dancable closer "Of Darkness And Light" - yes, named after the previous album to make the connection even more obvious than the similar cover artist and design.

Well, I actually cannot fully compare the whole layout, since I bought a cassette copy last time, yet purchased "Rite of Dionysus" on beautiful peach-coloured vinyl in a (justified) gatefold cover with OBI strip and  a piece of cloth with a personal dedication. Save the cruel reminder that I'm really overdue getting reading glasses, this is just all around lovely and gives me nothing to complain about. A great album inside and out!

PATRICK SHIROISHI - Forgetting Is Violent (2025)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Experimental saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi releases another stunningly moving solo work around the themes of racism and Japanese-American history and trauma. This time however, he isn't alone with his horn, loops and effects and his voice, but invites an impressive cast of heavy and avant-garde musicians to complete and enhance his vision:
Aaron Turner (Sumac), Mathieu Ball (Big|Brave), Emma Thompson (Savages), Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer) and last but not least Lane Shi Otay:onii - a great cast full of artistic vision and integrity.

Hard to pinpoint between Ambient, Jazz, Post Rock and Noise, yet always emotionally or sonically (or both) crushing all eight tracks of "Forgetting Is Violent" are amazing and touching. A wonderful album!

The record design is simple yet beautifil and includes a sheet with credits and liner notes.

KERBEROS - Apostle To The Malevolent (2025)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

So many things could have gone wrong with this Swiss band's recent album: From the mix of Progressive Metal with Opera vocals, Symphonic and Baroque elements and other European Power Metal kitsch elements to the elephant in the room cover art.

Luckily though these guys know what they're doing and so the stylistic explorations of this former Death Metal band are not only competently executed, but result in an overall just fun and entertaining listening experience, actually like a less totally bonkers version of Igorrr (especially since the vocal concellation with male and female opera singers, harsh growling and choirs is quite similar), just without the Electronics and intense post production tricks.

Even though twenty-nine minutes is a very short playing time I still keep finding new details to enjoy on "Apostle To The Malevolent". Yeah.

Ordering the CD from Switzerland plus taxes comes with a hefty price tag though, which makes me content with just owning the download version.

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!

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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.