I know, as if compiling all thoses end of the year lists wasn't enough, there's still the regular business of tape reviewing going on. Spoiler: It's very likely that you'll see at least one these releases again in a ranking soon.
THE KEENING - Little Bird (2023)
Last heard together with her former
SubRosa bandmates, but already split up into
The Otolith and her solo project
The Keening on the brilliant 2020
"Women of Doom" compilation - but there only with an instrumental piano piece -,
Rebecca Vernon is now finally back in full band mode! Which still means that she performed a huge chunk of "Little Bird" herself: drums, piano, organ, hammered dulcimer guitar and obviously vocals, leaving bass the only "standard" Rock instrument not in her hands.
But then there are also harp and many strings, winds and guest vocals, all in vital roles, which helped her to create an amazing album far beyond what was appropriate to expect.
I can't believe how much I missed her voice! That is her actual singing voice as well as her whole artitistic voice as a composer, player and - not to be underestimated - lyricist. Even the most epic song "The Truth", in which she's telling such vivid stories and raising existential questions with so few words, is significatly elevated by its profound poetry.
Musically
The Keening continues where
SubRosa left off both with
their last studio release as well as with their more atmospheric
"subdued" Roadburn performance.
Vernon also doesn't shy away from possibly becoming more accessible for a wider audience beyond Metal circles without sacrificing her integrity. No, it's not as crushingly heavy as her former band, but it's still definitely categorizable as Doom, in an equally wide sense like you can call it Contemporary Gothic, Alternative, American Dark Folk or simply gorgeous and meaningful music. There's so much to love in these six tracks... but we have five more cassettes to listen to, right?
Speaking of the media, I actually also bought this album on CD, because my tape copy somehow doesn't play as clean as I would like it to - and I also just wanted a version with readable credits and lyrics. So even though I prefer the upright format for the cover artwork, I wouldn't necessarily buy this stunning work on cassette again.
Mizmor mastermind
A.L.N. wanted to make "less self-indulgent" and concept-heavy music on his new album. Well, I was completely fine with that, but
you do you. So for once we're not getting the huge hammer of atheism. And that's ok, since it ultimately doesn't have a crucial influence on the sound anyway. "Prosaic" still gives us four long and devastating tracks of bleak and sludgy Blackened Doom with pained brutal vocals, which will wring the soul out of your body.
I don't have the desire to rank
Mizmor's discography here and now, but if you think this is the best album so far I won't object. I'd still take "Wit's End"
from the same-named EP over the individual songs here though. Which naturally doesn't mean too much. All of this is peak Doom. Especially the awesome fourteen minute closer "Acceptance" is exemplary for everything great about this band.
YOB - Elaborations of Carbon (2002/2023)
From Mizmor to a band whose guitar sound and Doom heaviness is quite similar, even though Yob's style of course includes a whole array of different influences plus Mike Scheidt's unconventional, sometimes surprisingly high vocals. Even though on their 2002 debut their style wasn't fully evolved yet, a lot of trademarks like the very dry guitar chugging before opening the sound up wider and wider are already recognizable. And the song length already goes up to seventeen minutes on this album too.
Now remastered and thankfully graced by a new cover artwork "Elaborations of Carbons" still proves to be a worthwhile edition to the inspired quality Doom Metal section of any music collection.
ORDER OF DECAY - Mortification Rites (2023)
More metal, please! How about some nasty Blackened and Doom-infested Death Metal straight from a namless Scottish crypt? The first time I listened to
Order Of Decay was by accident, because
Sentient Ruin Laboratories had uninentionally put one track from them into the digital promo package for
Disimperium's
"Grand Insurgence Upon Despotic Altars". It took me a while to even notice that, because both bands for sure have some similarities, and I just thought "Blood Libation" was the odd somehow less chaotic, more melodic (in the way of
Autopsy) and abyssal track.
But luckily there's this whole album, so eventually when I saw it being available in Europe I got this nice and foul tape. These "Mortification Rites" don't re-invent the wheel, but they roll deadly and with malicious conviction. Interesting for anyone who likes their Death Metal as atmospheric as dangerous.
CH'AHOM - Camazotz Cult (2016/2018/2021/2023)
Moving at least one escalation level up from
Order Of Decay we enter the ridiculously extreme low-fi hell of the German-Aztec blood cult
Ch'ahom. I'm not even fully up to speed with their infernally grinding Blackened Death emissions, since "Camazotz Cult" isn't the newest actual release, but a compilation of their first four demos, originally released between 2016 and 2021 on one sixty minutes long tape. Most tracks - of whom a couple appear several times in different recordings - bear titles like "Tlacaxipehualiztli", "Path to Ixtab" or "The Breath of Miclantecutli", but on the "Lustfully Sinning For Death Metal" EP they also play covers of the band
Sadogoat (later
Sadomator), featuring the attempt on most offensive Metal song title "Sexual Metalcoholocaust".
Some of these recordings really sound like most people with prejudices against the medium would imagine a demo cassette to sound, but it's always powerful - and you shouldn't let yourself be fooled by the production or the band not taking themselves too serious all the time to think that this is just utter primitive garbage. Sometimes it kind of is, because it wants to be, but then there are also moments of
Slayer soloing, complex contemporary Dissonant Death Metal or
Ch'ahom sounding like
Morbid Angel on "Covenant". But it's all embedded into very South American underground aesthetics, so at first glance you can think you're listening to some extremely old school
Sepultura /
Sarcófago stuff, while in truth the band is rather paying tribute to a sound which fits their specific concept. Which also includes long atmospheric drums and flutes intros / interludes for probably ritualistic purposes.
And if you're a regular reader and think that some parts of this review sound familiar - yes, there are indeed parallels to
Grave Desecrator.
This rips good.
ASAGRAUM - Veil of Death, Ruptured (2023)
I've seen the two "satanic witches" Obscura (vocals, guitars, bass) and drummer A. Morthaemer twice with additional live members now and I liked both shows. I still didn't expect the new Asagraum studio album to blow me away as much as it acually does.
Most Black Metal releases I love have at least some special gimmick which helps me to explain my affection. "Veil of Death, Ruptured" not so much. The lyrics being partly English and partly Dutch certainly isn't it. Asagraum simply celebrate stylistically pure Black Metal with a great sense for riffs and melodies and the right amount of ferocity in both instrumental performances and vocals. The classic spirit of the genre presented with a flawless recent production, which allows every detail to be detectable, but doesn't soften up the music while doing so.
With around thirty-six minutes playing time this isn't a very long work, but it has enough to say and does it with a great dramatic curve, where each of the seven tracks (plus one interlude) somehow feels like a rise. The only thing I'm missing are maybe one or two more minutes of the closer "De Waanzin Roept Mijn Naam". It's already the longest song, but it ends a bit too abrupt for my taste. Yeah, that's my whole mighty hammer of critique. Devastating, I know.
