[[[ I am ‘into the scene’, if you want to call it this way, as from the Eighties. Hey, don’t laugh; I know that I’m getting old, but that is not my fault, okay. Anyway, (Black) Metal is like a passion, my lover, and with exception of my wife + kids also my daily number one satisfaction.
With some delay, but this split is way too interesting not to pay attention to…
After the passing away of Moscow-based Goth-outfit Fright Night, Marianna Lukianova and Marina Scherba, both of them also involved with e.g. Mea Vita or Vechnost’ Nebytiya, decided to go on under the Vesssna moniker. That name is some word-play for the Russian word for ‘Spring’ (‘vesna’, which used to be a nickname for Marianna apparently).
I (quite) recently came in touch with Depressive Black Ambient Records, a Poland based label that focuses on daily happiness, instant joy and devoted ascetism. Indeed, nothing but my personal river to swim through… against the stream. They do not search for anything. Devourers of serpents, immersed in hypothermia. Where the breath is already imperceptible. Black, mourning, where we find no reason to inhale and exhale. Only chemicals and anesthesia [sic]. Why not? I’d like to dive into that polluted river.
Only a couple of days ago, Xerxes The Dark and the pretty young label Zāl Records (both of them are closely related) did release the newest Xerxes The Dark album Soundtrack To The Blind Owl, but now I’ll focus on its predecessor, being 2020’s Final Crisis.
For some incomprehensible reason I did miss Beckahesten’s 2020-debut Vattenhålens Dräpare, although Cyclic Law did kindly offer this material to me. I don’t know why, how, when, but I never got to download that great album. A shame, a pity, a stupid thing to occur.
I have to admit that I haven’t given enough attention to Nantes, France, based Throatruiner Records in the (recent) past. I did write some reviews for releases by e.g. Love Sex Machine, Protestant, Fange, Verdun, The Rodeo Idiot Engine or Vermin Womb, amongst others, but this label deserves more support for sure. Let this review be a next step within promotional spheres of mutual respect and awe.
Verwilderd (meaning something like ‘haggard’ or ‘gone / grown wild’) is a young Flemish band, formed in 2020 by producer / bass player Bram Janssens, vocalist / guitarist Brent Peeters (whom you might know from his involvement with e.g. Dark Palace) and drummer Siebe Hermans (think: Eye Of Solitude, Defenestration, When Plagues Collide, Mourners etc.).
A short one, yet one way too important not to pay attention to…
There are several bands called ‘baalberith’, named after a demongod, an entity also known as Ba’al Berith and closely related to El Berith (sort of spiritual ‘twins’). I am not going to write down an essay on this grand duke; I guess the internet, and the Old Testament, might satisfy your quest for knowledge.
