Svart Records holds especially Finnish acts on its roster, yet there are a couple of exceptions. This goes, for example, for High Priest Of Saturn. This band hails from Trondheim, Norway, and consists of three permanent members: Merethe Heggset, Martin Sivertsen and Andreas Hagen.
The number of Metal bands that I do know from Liechtenstein, a country sweetly floating in between Switzerland and Austria, is very limited, especially when it comes to ‘my kind’ of Metal. There are a couple of acts I do like within the Dark Goth / Ambient / Classical genre (WeltenBrand and the likes), and we do / did have bands / projects like Elis / Erben Der Schöpfung, but when it comes to Death / Black / Funeral Doom / … material, this country remains quasi-virginal. Liechtenstein isn’t but a very small country, of course.
I did have the goated honour to review Milking The Goatmachine’s former releases Back From The Goats, Seven… A Dinner For One, and Clockwork Udder (see this wonderful site’s archive section in case you do goatly care), and now our pretty website’s boss grants me with this crazy combo’s newest play, Stallzeit. Time to go to bed, dear goats, but not without those sweet lullabies during bedtime-porridge!
I have to admit: I’ve never been a ‘fan’ of this Dutch band. Holland is known for its huge so-called ‘female fronted’ scene, i.e. Gothic, Symphonic or Epic oriented (Heavy) Metal with a female singer, and more than once this country exceeds the international colleagues / competitors easily. In many cases, the Netherlands indeed are spectacular country (I won’t start enlist a selection of bands, because whatever…), but La-Ventura did never please my ear drums or grey cells at all (cf. a full length and an EP during the first decennium of this century).
The Italian quartet Heretic’s Dream did record this full length at Apex House Studio (production, engineering and mix) with assistance of e.g. Steve Russell, whom I do know from his studio assistance with Metalcore-oriented acts specifically.
His contribution led to a clean, rather polished and modern sound for sure, which fits to the musical approach of Heretic’s Dream. Translated: modern, poppy material…
Only recently received, even though originating from the end of last year (so are many releases, so WTF…).
Objective info: Alms And Avarice was recorded at Black Coffee Sound by Clay Neely (Elder, Black Pyramid, Killslug) during last year’s summer.
Half-and-half, subjective versus objective info: Doom stuff with a chilly atmosphere and powerful sound, balancing in between tradition and experimentalism.
This split-album isn’t just some cheap re-release. It was originally released on 10” vinyl edition in 500 copies, and now it gets re-released with a bonus track done by each band involved with the split. Again in 500 copies only, by the way…
Actually, this material was (re-) released to celebrate SardoniS’ Japanese tour and so on, but who cares, besides a handful of Japanese Sludgers?...
One of the most innovative and mind-blowing Doom-acts from Sweden is, without any doubt, this band: Kongh. Their new piece, Sole Creation, was recorded at the Teknikkompaniet studio with Peter Lundin; mix and mastering have courtesy of Cult Of Luna’s Magnus Lindberg (check out the review on this band’s newest release as well, updated on Concreteweb on 10/02/2013).
Female grunters aren’t that unusual anymore, but one of the most impressing and most beautiful ones (there are many, and since I do profoundly adore 1. beautiful woman and 2. beautiful Metal, I am but a lucky human entity) is Mona Beck. She first impressed me on Illnath’s former album, Third Act In The Theatre Of Madness, which gave me a double-bind felling.
It might be hard to accept, and one won’t believe it, but Ulcer aren’t a band from Sweden. In fact, they hail from Poland.
The band was formed in 2006 and there was a self-released debut full length in 2007, called Serpent Trinity. There was supposed to be a split-EP earlier this year with Graveyard, but I’m not sure this piece of vinyl had actually been released in mean time.
