CD

Stu, the guy behind Aesthetic Death, knows how to make me happy. Just send me the second album of Russia’s trio Goatpsalm and I start smiling (the sardonic way, evidently)!

When it comes to ‘occult’ themes within the Black Metal scene, many countries might claim ‘courtesy’, but I guess Greece is one of those unnaturally-created eras (aka ‘country’) on Mater Terra that houses many ‘occult’ bands. And within quite an impressive list of bands worth mentioning (but I won’t enlist them, for it will distract from the essence, and since I am too lazy…), Acherontas cannot be denied / ignored at all.

Greek act Soulskinner was formed almost two decades ago under the Terra Tenebrae-moniker by members involved with e.g. Thou Art Lord and Necromantia (!). The band recorded and released several mini and full length albums (as Terra Tenebrae and as Soulskinner), showing their passion for the Old School. And still now they pay tribute to the early years, when our globe started being sonically infected by the nastiest sounds of the Underground.

Doomsday Juggernaut was the first official release by Catalonian act Edenkaiser, originally self-released on February 7^th 2014. I wrote a review back then, which was uploaded on May 8^th 2014. But apparently this material has been re-issued on both CD and tape. Since Cold Raw Records did offer us their edition, I will re-consider my initial thoughts, which weren’t that positive (yet with a modest optimism).

When listening to this band’s debut album, one might think that they are heavily inspired by the Old School in all its glory. But actually, Atomic Aggressor are part of that legendary Old School, for this Chilean band was active as from the end of the eighties. They had two demos back then, Bloody Ceremonial in 1989 and Resurrection in 1991, but then they broke up.

Line up :

Sammy DeJohn - Vocals

Kenny McGee - Guitars

Dave Watson - Guitars

Marc McGee - Bass

Jason VanSlyke – Drums

Mother's Finest had their peak already in the 70's. In 1977 the band released their hit "Baby love" followed by a few more longplayers. The last release was ‘Meta-Funk'n-Physical’. They have been pioneers in combining funk ryhthms with rock guitars; years before bands like Living Colors and Mordred picked up this crossover again in the 80's and 90's.

With the intent of making Pop-oriented music with heavy guitars, Michiel Korsten, Lars Geukens, Gert-Jan Stehouwer and Ferry van der Woude founded this Weerter-based (Rotterdam area) Dutch band in 2010.

Hailing from Hildesheim in Germany, Kalamata is a relatively young instrumental band founded in 2013.

Hum, the name of this Belgian “Hard Rock” act from the Limburg province sounded rather familiar to me, so I thought that maybe I'd come in touch with the quintet through a previous release and so, after having browsed through the info sheet we were sent along with the physical copy of this album, and having found that the guys indeed had a first album out in 2012, I checked all my reviews for that year...and the following half year, because sometimes stuff gets to us a bit later. All in vain, because trace of a previous encounter with the band was non-existent.