Being active under 665 pseudonyms and releasing an album every single day, it makes Maurice ‘Mories’ de Jong one of Mater Terra’s most active and productive musicians. He’s active within so many different, yet somehow related, genres, from Dungeon Synth over Black Metal to Noise, you know, yet also within the cheerful regions of Doom / Doom-Death. That was the case in the past, and it is still the truth nowadays. The latter gets translated via his outfit The Sombre.
I do know that Salqiu did release a ‘new’ album in November 2022, but this review deals with the first part of the evil-twin sessions from hot, sunny, cheerful late Spring / early Summer 2022, Pariah. The second chapter of this diptych, if you want to, is called The Colossal Weight Of My Illusion…, and I might write a review on that one too, if I’m in a good mood. Who knows…
Once in a while, a Stoner act surprises me, out of the blue (cheese?). That’s why I want to spent some words of the debut album by Sons Of Arrakis, called Volume I. This band was formed in 2019, created to pay tribute to Frank Herbert, and his Dune series at the first place. And I do not know anymore where I got this from, but somewhere I wrote down that the band define their stuff as different from ‘the vast sea of Stoner Rock bands with their lightning Armor-piercing torpedo’, performing ‘Melange Rock and Cinematographic Sci-Fi Rock’.
In Quo Qui Moriens Aeternum Patiebitur Incendium is the second Vallée Des Larmes album for Depressive Black Ambient Records (there is a third one in the meantime, by the way; and a review on the former one will probably get finished and published soon too, despite the fact that it is ‘older’ material). Vallée Des Larmes hail from France and create Dark Ambient Music with a religious atmosphere.
When Osmose Productions (not a small player within the scene) offered us the album I - The Serpent at the very end of 2016, the world could make acquaintance with a new Dutch / Italian project, Liber Null. Unfortunately, this project, with members of e.g. Frostmoon Eclipse, faded away for a while, and nothing spectacular did happen anymore.
First of all: the exact release date for Turkey has not been confirmed yet. The initial worldwide one, February 10th 2023, got postponed out of respect for the devastating earthquake that took place recently in Turkey and Syria. Respect to you, guys from Sermon!
Quite recently I got in touch with a sympathetic human being from Argentinian soil, Leandro ‘Ăνδρος’ Pendino. Apparently, this guy has some projects going on, although I do not know which ones. …with one exception: Kasriel. It was this specific project that drew my (worthy, of course; haha) attention. Kasriel is the moniker of a Dungeon Synth project that released a first recording at the very end of last year’s Autumn.
Kajdum’s Tower is a very young label, formed at the end of 2021, which focuses on Dungeon Synth styled Music. It was formed by Gábor Tóth, especially known from his activities within the harsher and more explorative Metal scene. He’s the guy behind outfits like Nagaarum, In Vacuo, GuilThee or Értéktelen (amongst others), as well as the owner of NGC Prod.
I was kind of sad when I read that Depression Embrace would stop all activities. Poland’s finest Gates Of Hypnos recently released the last Depression Embrace album, being a compilation with almost three and a half hour of darkened ambience. And I am not sure whether Glog is still active, for this project recently released a compilation with all former material, all in once.
I am extremely pleased with the foundation of Centipede Abyss, a very young label from the U.K. that releases sweet lullabies and singalongs that involve Pan Inentropy and same-minded sonic mad(wo)men. Pan is the guy behind hordes like e.g. Act Of Entropy or Ar’lyxkq’wr, and in order to keep the band-name smooth and simple, he also co-founded Zvylpwkua (try to repeat this out loud five times without stuttering or hesitating).
