CD

Released two and a half year ago, but that does not matter, does it!? Indeed, I thought so…

I guess it would sound like an exaggeration to call this band a ‘super-group’, yet still it is formed by, and consists of, three experienced musicians from French soil. This ‘result of an instant jolt that leads a man to leave a trace of the intangible evil that takes possession of him everyday’ was formed not that extremely long ago by drummer Naja-Atra (also known from e.g.

Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, U.S. of A., Kommandant are active for almost two decades (founded in 2004 or so). Throughout the years, they recorded and released several Ep’s and full-lengths (this review deals with their fifth official full-length album), as well as more than one hand full of (often stunning) splits (with the likes of e.g. Missouri’s Fever, Animus Mortis or Absentia Lunae). This introduction in short…

I think most people do recognize the name of David Cronenberg for his (horror) movie The Fly, or films like A History Of Violence, eXistenZ, Naked Lunch or Eastern Promises. And I know that this site deals with reviews about Aural Art and not motion pictures or any other form of (visual) artistics, but I have to admit that this Canadian film director and screenwriter is one of my personal favourites.

The new project The Great Old Ones was recently formed by Raffaele ‘Sonologyst’ Pezzella. Via his own label Eighth Tower Records, Raffaele releases a series which is dedicated to the mighty fantasy-world of H.P. Lovecraft. I (recently) wrote and published a review for the second one in that series, Mythos Of Cthulhu, but I promised to write down my thoughts on the first recording too. So, here I am, even-though I’ll keep in short and concise this time.

We must suffer for all that we do …and for that which our forbearers bequeathed…

I have several reasons to explain the reason of this review, even though it was release almost one year ago: the community behind this project, the specific content (‘one year after …’), and of course the Aural Art. I’ll briefly explain these elements.

Cyclic Law, currently located in France, were formed in 2002 ‘to promote international musicians working in the field of Ambient, Experimental and Industrial Soundscapes’. The label gets run by Frédéric Arbour, who is the same mastermind behind projects like Visions, Instincts and some others.

The history of Stuttgart, Germany-based act Beyond Helvete goes back to the second half of the first decade of this century. At that moment, this project was the main outfit by Sven ‘Natrgaard’ Krause and could be considered a renewed direction on top of his (now defunct) outlets Nachtfrost and Zwenz. After some mini and full-length recordings, things went silent. An immense emptiness remained…

I did not know the band with the unpronounceable name H, even-though they were already formed in 2015 or so. But that can be, for they did not release anything official yet until now. This Italian act was ‘born with the idea to create something extreme that fits both their musical inspiration and tradition’. The main intention was to establish a concept based on John’s The Apocalypse - the biblical epos, if you want to - written by one of the ‘legendary’ evangelists.