Austrian label Napalm recently released Beg Upon The Light, the debut full length of Texan act Venomous Maximus. This outfit around frontman Gregg Higgins created a concept that isn’t that unusual in this kind of Music, i.e. the darkest vision of occultism. The album brings a modern and catchy mixture of Dark Rock, Stoner and Doom Metal with a very darkened, occult atmosphere. It’s melodic and, at the same time, rocking, it’s modern and traditional, it’s catching and obscure.
Italy’s Stormlord do exist for more than two decades in mean time, and besides a memorable collection of recordings, the band played live all over Mater Terra, along with bands like Carcass, Testament, Opeth, Ancient, Motörhead and many, really many others.
Schwarzer Engel are the solo-outfit of Ger-man Dave Jason. Via Trisol Music, he released the debut Apokalypse in 2010, followed later that year by the EP Geister Und Dämonen (‘ghost and demons’), and a second full length, Träume Einer Nacht (‘dream of a night’), in 2011. In mean time, Schwarzer Engel (Dave works with a permanent live crew) hit the road in our countries with e.g.
To say it took a few listens before False Prism opened up would be the understatement of the year. I still have to be in a particular mood to really enjoy the music fully. This is Sadgiqacea (pronounced sad-juh-kay-sha?) latest and they have created an album of the type that doesn't come along very often.
Sacrocurse are a very young act, formed in 2012 by Mexican sweetheart Carlos ‘Zolrak’ Montes, whom you might know from acts like Unholier, Obeisance, Nokturnel, Adumus, Morbosidad or Nodens. With friendly assistance of a friendly guy called Godslaying Hellblast, Zolrak and his Sacrocurse-project debut with a four-track demo-tape, Sulphur Blessing.
Rock Ignition are a fairly new band coming from Germany. Best known member would probably be Jûrgen Steinmetz who played with Headstone Epitaph some 15 years ago. But if you live in Germany, and are into rock opera’s, the name Heather Shockley also might ring a bell, since she’s performed in shows like ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and ‘We Will Rock You’, but also did some background vocals for US metal band Kamelot.
Revocation’s fourth album is a fair slab of modern thrash metal from USA. This album got a production of nice quality, heavy and stomping, and generally the band sound fairly good even though the vocals can appear quite less inspired Phil Anselmo like at times. Musically the outcome is not too bad, just quite unsurprising to say the least. While it may be difficult to point out any blatantly copied elements, you cannot avoid a recurring sense of déja-vu every now and then.
The Swedish act Quest Of Aidance was formed by Christian Lundgren (Carnalized, Miseration) and Christian Älvestam (think: The Few Against Many, Incapacity, Solar Dawn, Unmoored, Miseration and many others).
Our dearest Concreteweb’s headquarters did recently receive a cd-r / mp3 with seven Folk-oriented albums. As a matter of fact, Strawberry Oracle Promotions will give some renewed attention to seven bands / projects within the Folk scene by having this material put on the foreground again. It deals with both recent as well as pretty old recordings, and in order to give this stuff a boost, I will be so kind to have it reviewed.
Majalis (named after the flower?) were originally founded as an In Mourning side-project (Björn Pettersson and Tobias Netzell; the latter was also formerly active in e.g. Volturyon or October Tide), but it was a rather silently-existing act with only few activity. Last year, the duo recruited two friends, Jonas Martinsson and Daniel Jansson, and they recorded the three tracks for this debut-EP, Cathodic Black.
