This review actually deals with a quadriptych (or tetraptych, if you want to), (recorded and) released over several individual moments in less than one month. Yet since all four chapters must be seen as one whole (dixit the author / composer), the four of them will be reviewed as being one total experience.
The King and the Emperor are back (and I admit that there is a third crusade in the meantime, and that this project is working on their fourth album too – but let’s now focus on their second one). Robert Koning (all instruments and clean vocals) and Yorick Keijzer (lead vocals) released the follow-up for their debut called I (or just Walg, if you want to), which is smartly called II (and indeed, the third part, released in early 2023, is titled III; ah, I adore certainty and perspicuity).
This time, I won’t spend my time in introducing this UK-based act; several of Sir (bleak)’s releases have been reviewed for this webzine before, so in case of interest, I would kindly ask you, dear reader, to check them out. When it comes to this specific project spawn from Peter B.’s disturbed mind, and for your convenience (or the lazy ones amongst us), I did add some links beneath…
The spiritual night-entity Kasriel continues his quest into / through the magical world of the mystic castle (and the spheres beyond). He gets summoned by the Melosina-spirits to escape the walls of the cold, dark stronghold he’s been held for so long, too long. Searching for answers, his adventure will be harsh and daring, yet Kasriel will be guided by the Snawfuss; hidden inner powers will be convoked; a guidance of alchemical strength will accompany the protagonist though a next chapter of both despair and hope…
Even-though I will keep it short this time, I firstly would like to explain why I will review the recording called Asceticism by His Haunted Humming. It actually is the fourth (I think) release by this Polish project in an extremely short period.
The sympathetic Belarussian (or is it Antarctic) damsel (not-in-distress) Olga Kann finally released a new (full-length) album, which was inspired by Horror master H.P. Lovecraft. Olga did work on it over a period of many months during 2021 and 2022, and now it got finished under the working-title Gravedigger’s Diary: The Lurking Fear. It’s her third conceptual album (the fourth official release under the Cryo Depth moniker), consisting of no less than thirteen tracks this time.
I know that a new opus has been finished in the meantime (the compilation Forlorn), yet I sort of promised to write a review on the last ‘full’ recording, released at the very beginning of this year, called Kuumet. In Finnish Folklore,'kuumet' is the name for creatures that were believed to cause lunar eclipse.
There are a couple of reasons why I do appreciate the project Rojinski. First of all, I do appreciate the human being behind this project. The both of us seem to share some common ideas about ‘the world’, the human kind, hypocrisy, social media, the future, misanthropy; enfin, we’re not the only ones caring about our world and criticizing civilization and the human nature to destroy everything around us, just to satisfy our narrow-minded, selfish needs.
I will keep it short, yet I just needed to do this: writing down my thoughts on this split-album. Why? Because of the great Music and since it includes three projects that are sort of crawling out of the pits of oblivion lately.
This release is something I just needed to write down my thoughts about. It has two reasons: the concept and the aural result.
