Weltfeind are a new label, formed by Castellum Stoufenburc’s Soldat D. This label, with three releases at this moment (all of them will be reviewed, evidently), was founded in order to support and promote ‘Depressive Underground Music’. Two projects out of these three perform so-called DSBM (Depressive Suicidal Black Metal), but the label does not want to focus on that specific genre only, which I think is very honourable.
I like to read the great works by the hand, and mind, of J.R.R. Tolkien. Everyone knows The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit in mean time, thanks to the two movie-trilogies, but Tolkien’s other works are at least as interesting, if not more attractive! In The Lord Of The Rings, the ‘Dagor Dagorath’-battle gets mentioned, but there was a first reference to it in the posthumously published The Silmarillion (the Valaquenta-edition, more specifically).
Back in December 2011, guitarist/ bassist Will Peplinski (see also Omnipresent, Reeferhead, Necrosectomy, Clitoral Putrescence and Breast Ripper) and a close friend of his started a novelty band project under the name Malignant Abomination. It however soon turned into something more serious, and becoming Will's solo project, was renamed Hypoxid.
Darn, the life of a music journalist is an odd one : waiting around for those couple of rare releases which make one sit at the edge of the seat...and then having to let go to move on to more of those middle-of-the-road releases which make up the bulk of music put out into the world today.
2009, the provincial town of Gorlovka (40 km from Donetsk) in the Ukraine. A depressive industrial setting, where a population of 240,000 people are trying to survive on the remains of the Soviet era. It's in that setting that 5 Metal-hungry youngsters decide to start a band of their own, playing their favourite music, but influenced by the great variety of alternative bands that had always been around in their town's Underground scene.
Wow...I recently mentioned that this reviewer stays in his voluntary (and therefore quite un-paid) side-job for the sole benefit of encountering the music of bands which come by only every once in a blue moon, those who manage to create albums which grab me from the get-go, and have me hold on until the final notes. Sometimes this happens with bands which have only been around for a couple of years only, but occasionally this reviewer comes across bands which have been in existing for much longer, and already have several releases to their credit!
Humiliation are a band from Malaysia, not immediately the country-number-one when it comes to Death Metal nowadays. There was quite a vivid scene at the end of the eighties (as well as in the neighbour countries, like Indonesia – it truly was the case!), but nowadays it’s rather an exception to hear (new) material from bands hailing from that part of our ugly globe. But Humiliation are such a band that will put Malaysia on the map again.
With the release of Secular Music through hystoric British record label Flicknife (think of Hawkwind!), the Italian Progressive/ Gothic Black Metal act Hortus Animae effectively ends a near 9-year hiatus of studio releases.
This riff-oriented Modern Hard Rock (they add Thrash Metal elements to their Hard Rock based music) act from the town of Heilbronn (Baden-Württemberg) in Germany, was founded in 2006 by a foursome of friends sharing a same passion for hard rockin' music.
Everyone knows that Czech Republic-based Bizarre Leprous Productions are (one of the) most prominent labels when it comes to Grindcore. I think it is somewhat doubtful. At the one hand they house several splendid acts, with sublime release that caress every Grind-freak’s ear drum with rusty razor blades and electrified barb wire. At the other hand, unfortunately, there’s quite some ‘pulp’ around to within this scene, and I think Bizarre Leprous Productions sometimes took a wrong choice by signing band X or Y.
