This was quite a nice surprise. Very recently I got in touch again with Dutch act The Shiva Hypothesis. I wasn’t sure, to be honest, whether these guys were still active. I was truly impressed by their promo-EP from 2015 and their sole official release, 2018’s full-length Ouroboros Stirs. However, as from then on, things went extremely silent.
After an ear-devastating silence – their last album was released in early 2020 – this Flemish combo, Wound Collector, returns with a four-track EP, called Begging For Chicxulub.
The Centipede Abyss is a strongly upcoming community for Extreme (Metal) Music acts with an outsider-thinking attitude. Several musicians share different collaborative acts, showing the inherent and strong connectedness in between these same-minded (or is it: lunatic-minded) human beings.
Short review about one of the releases in an interesting ‘package’ by No Sides Records. It’s an effort by Madison-born Anthony Bradshaw Schmitt, released posthumously (this human being left earthly life way too soon; he was only 39 years old when he passed away in early Summer 2023) – yet let’s focus on the sonic content.
Very recently, I got in touch with David from the totally frenzy Illinois-based label No Sides Records. Once in a while, this label releases a bunch of things on tape or compact-disc, dwelling in spheres of Ambient, Electronics, Techno, Jazz, Impro, Avantgarde, Drone, Industrial, Classical, Chiptune, and much more. Sometimes things sound serious, then again it’s just hilarious or cynically-meant. But it works (most of the time)!
Country (for what it’s worth): France
Members: Romain Habrzyk (vocals) & Maxime Beiler (aka Leprince) (strings)
Availability: digipack-CD (100 copies) & digital
Artwork: Macchabée Artworks (Matthias Bonhoure) - very adequate cover-artwork, by the way!!!
Production: Nebiros Studio
Duration: 26:42
Genre: DSBM (Depressive-Suicidal Black Metal) / Atmospheric Black Metal
I wouldn’t define this Ukrainian band like just a side-project of Bestial Invasion, yet fact is that the (original) members are (were) involved with that well-known Sumy-based act (relocated to Zhytomyr in the meantime). The trio started under the Cosmic Jaguar moniker in 2022 and released their first full-length The Legacy Of The Aztecs in early 2023 via Thrash / Speed / Heavy / True Metal label Metal Warrior Records (also home to Bestial Invasion).
I wasn’t sure how to start this review. I think it is not necessary to focus on the history about this duo; in case of interest (and why shouldn’t you, except for when you are trusted with this act’s, eh, unique sound-sculptures), I’d kindly want to ask you to read one of the former reviews I did about this project (links: see below), or to visit their Facebook / Bandcamp, or whatever, pages.
I do not give a score anymore when writing a review, and this since a couple of years. You know, giving points is such useless reflection of utter subjectivity and it says nothing at all. What’s the difference in between 79/100 and 81/100. It’s just a difference of nearly two percent, yet mentally it makes quite a difference. And it is not because I give a score of, for example, 99/100 that you need to agree. I nowadays rather prefer to express my ideas through the canalisation of my thoughts and impressions into a review. This said…
WarHymn is a very young band from Romanian soil (more specifically: from the capital city of Bucharest), which was formed in 2019 by Alin ‘Shavy’ Savlovschi. In very early 2020, WarHymn (still a solo-project) self-released the debut Gnosis; soon after it got re-released physically via Narcoleptica Productions.
