CD

Celtefog is an outfit by Archøn, whom you might know as guitarist of Greek act Empathy. He started this project to play a more Pagan-oriented form of Extreme Metal, often helped out by his Empathy-colleague Wolfram as session drummer.

(copy-paste from my review, posted on December 24th 2014, for Bring Down The Sky, released via the superb Belgian label Consouling Sounds, as introduction – sorry; it’s not out of laziness, and the essence remains the same):
Northumbria was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the east of England with quite an interesting history. As from about 500 A.C. on, it was quite an important and mighty kingdom, until Danish Vikings conquered the region in the ninth century. But since we’re not an online encyclopedia…

Loud Rage Music is quite a ‘small’ label, but one I do foresee a future. They are sort of specialised in the heavier sides of Metal: Gothic / Doom, Death and Black Metal especially. I did write some reviews for them before, and there are some coming up soon as well (enter the label’s name in the ‘search’ option to find out).

I had not heard of this guy before, but apparently James Batty is a multi-instrumentalist who lives and works in London. As from his youth, he’s fascinated by music and sound compositions, and he did some studies at the known Chetham School Of Music. During his studies, he was elected in a competition for the BBC, the Young Composer Competition, which he eventually did win. Throughout his career, he did quite some solo things, including improvisations, and he did work with a huge variety of famous musicians too. That, in short, is like a brief biography.

The New Apsurd, also acting as The New Apsurde (mind the additional ‘e’), is a young collaboration by two guys I appreciate a lot within the Noise / Drone / Ambient / Experimental / Post-Rock (and so on) scene. There’s Marko Jovic, from Croatia, who’s the guy behind acts like mighty Antisocial Block and Xtematic, or Asimonde, SR90 and Re_a. The other one is a sympathetic guy I came in touch with last year: Arthur Arsenne.

‘Les Fleurs Du Mal’ is the title from a collection of works by no-one else but Monsieur Charles Baudelaire, and now it is the title for a new album by Ukrainian project While They Sleep as well. This outfit of Kvolkaldur (he acted under the monikers Ildverden and Prosopagnosia too in the (recent) past) did release a first album in Spring 2016, but due to circumstances I had not the ability to write anything down about that material (yet I did listen to it several times, and I liked it).

Antiquus Scriptum is the moniker of the main project of Jorge Magalhães aka Sacerdos Magus, who started this outfit after he left Firstborn Evil almost two decades ago. Throughout these many years of activity, Jorge recorded and releases quite some stuff, which actually isn’t that bad at all.

Luvart is the name of a Brazilian act, but to be honest, I had not heard of them before. They sort of started playing ‘for real’ at the very end of last decade. But apparently they had been around for a short while during the first half of the nineties too, yet without a successful career, maybe with exception in their local scene.

Clay Ruby’s Burial Hex is an extremely productive outfit, with really tens of tens of recordings and releases. And you know, Clay is active under other monikers and in different constellations as well, with much more releases going on. But okay, that is nothing but an objective remark, with no consequences whatever for this review.

I did never hide my dedication for Nordic styled Black Metal.
I did never hide my appreciation for R., the very sympathetic guy behind Hass Weg Productions.
I did never hide my preference for that French label I just mentioned.
Why these three phrases? Well, for Hass Weg Productions release about nothing else but true Second Wave-oriented Black Glory Supremacy! And this time, well, what do you think…