Canyon of the Skull-Canyon of the Skull

Self-Release/Independent
2015

 

Blackened and doomed to walk a scorched earth in misery for all eternity, Canyon of the Skull is a two-piece instrumental act that is based in Austin, Texas and comprised of Erik Ogershok (guitars, bass) and Adrian Voorhies (drums, percussion). In addition to this spectacular two track recording (which is due to drop on October 30th) the band has the "Demo 2013" to it's name. Meanwhile the Metal Archives lists this demo from 2007, but that's neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned. Right now the name of the game is "Canyon of the Skull" and it's a damn fun game at that! Or at least it is if you love creepy crawly blackened doom! On "Canyon of the Skull" we find this Texas two-piece (which incidentally was formed in 2006 by Erik Ogershok and is otherwise known as COTS) engaging in the fine art of sonic destruction that is otherwise known black metal. Over the course of two deathly cold tracks these doom warriors make the long trek across a tortured wasteland where no signs of life exist. In the process COTS creates a sinister soundtrack that is not that far removed from what you might experience on a stoner rock and/or sludge metal recording. Now, even though there are only two tracks on this forthcoming release there is a lot of material for your mind to chew on. For one "The Path (Of Bear And Wolf)" is a little over 17 minutes in length! Then there's "Canyon Of The Skull" which clocks in at over 18 minutes!! Between these two tracks you end up with well over 30 minutes of bruising metal(!) and (needless to say) COTS packs a lot of ideas into that time frame! Instrumental blackened doom has seldom been so epic so kudos to founder Erik Ogershok and his bandmate Adrian Voorhies! With the excellent "Canyon Of The Skull" serving as the group's official debut album it's hard to imagine this Austin act doing anything other than moving there way up the ranks of the blackened doom metal scene. Overall the instrumental "Canyon of the Skull" is a great first effort and one that should be appreciated by fans of this niche market.

 

 

 

 

BANDCAMP: https://canyonoftheskull.bandcamp.com/ 

 

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/canyonoftheskull

 

TWITTER: twitter.com/canyondoom

SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/anyonofthekull
 

REVERBNATION: https://www.reverbnation.com/canyonoftheskull2
 

BANDSINTOWN: http://www.bandsintown.com/CanyonOfTheSkull

MYSPACE: https://myspace.com/canyonoftheskull

 

Apostolum-Winds of Disillusion

Moribund
2014

I don't like being lied to or mislead. Italy's Apostolum didn't lie to me, but opener "Intro (Light Into The Void)" most certainly mislead me! Imagine a grand piano intro that channels the spirits of both dark metal and goth rock. Now imagine that said intro leads into blackened doom metal with rock sensibilities. So far so good right? Well, then the vocals of one Mr. Meba kick in on "Unworthiness and Decay" and that's all she wrote. There's flat vocals and then there's Meba. Yes, they are that bad and any hope that this one might be worthwhile or salvageable are thoroughly flushed down the crapper. Granted the actual music/musicians that backs up Meba does not exactly install confidence that the black metal scene is moving onward or upward. Forget lighting up the night or anything. This group, which is at best a mediocre collective, couldn't light up a child's bedside night light! Despite ten years in the business, which is a long time in this day and age, the band sounds as if they have just crawled out of some dark hole somewhere and, after trying and failing at forming a reasonable My Dying Bride tribute band, they struck out on their own with little to no song-writing ability at their disposal. And the results speak for themselves! How anyone can combine what would be interesting elements like goth rock, dark metal, black rock n' roll, doom and black metal (while also incorporating not only acoustic grand piano/keyboard parts, but even brass!) and still make it all sound so trivial and dull is beyond me! Even if you could overlook the flat vocals, which would make you a much more tolerable man than me, how could anyone (reasonably) expect you to ignore what amounts to a glorified high school, death and despair-obsessed, band project? I can't and I would have no right telling others that they needed to. Avoid this one at all cost and whatever you do please do not encourage any new/up and coming bands to try their hand at the same thing! Think of humanity!

Sadgiqacea-False Prism

Candlelight Records
2013

Can a four-track release really be a full-length album? When you see that "True Darkness" is over 14 minutes long then I guess the answer is yes, a four-track release can be considered a full-length album! This four-track release is the work of  the two-man group Sadgiqacea. The band, which you would expect to reside somewhere south of hell but in reality reside in Philadelphia, play some of the most foul metal you could dare to imagine! Picture the blackest, most sludgiest, psychedelic doom noise act out there and then turn the whole thing upside down and inside out. That is the essence of Sadgiqacea who cut a nice and jagged path straight through your flesh and soul. Formed in 2010, with the ambient "False Prism" serving as their first full-length release, the group is made up of Evan Schaefer (vocals/guitar) and Fred Grabosky (vocals/drums). What about the bass guitar though? Sadgiqacea doesn't need it and (frankly speaking folks) it's not as though you're likely to miss out on it when this post-metal sludge-feast get's rolling along. When it comes to breaking down this nearly 40 minute-long avalanche of  blackened doom, which is most definitely a mood massacre waiting to happen, you're likely to find tiny pieces of poisoned metal that has been sharpened so it can deliver maximum carnage as only ambient material like this can. Some will likely call "False Prism" a divine work of post-metallic wonder while others would shutter at it's uneasy assault on the senses. I find that I'm falling somewhere in the middle of all of that, but the more I listen to this one (and I've been through the mirror with this one three times now) the more I feel inclined to embrace it's madness. It certainly grows on you with repeated listens folks. That's for sure.....

Stellar Master Elite-II: Destructive Interference Generator

Exciter Records
2013

Commercialized blackened doom? Is there really such a thing? Before listening to Stellar Master Elite's new album I would have said no. Or at least I think I would have said no. Maybe I would have just said that yes, it could be possible, but what would be the appeal? As it turns out there is more then enough here to appeal to heavy metal fanatics or, better yet, those who have always thought that what the world needs more then anything right now is a blackened, sample-filled and slowed down to a Black Sabbath-lie crawl, hard as a rock metal album. If that's a need then you just might want to consider this Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) based band. Formed in 2010, the band is technically just Dave (Crucifixion, Massacre The Wasteland, Rostnagle) on guitars, bass and synthesizers and Marco (Wintermoon, ex-Necroccult) on drums and vocals. That said, it appears as if more then half of the vocals on this album were provided by Benjamin Borucki of the black metal band Sonic Reign. Stellar Master Elite (or SME for short) released their well-received debut album, "I", back in 2011 and, from all accounts, it also displayed signs that the band was more then willing to paint outside the lines. But that was only one album. To carve out a career of playing music that falls outside of the norm though is something else all together. Even in something as nonconforming as black metal it takes skill and a huge set of balls to stand up and dare to stand out. Avantgarde metal has certainly been creeping about in the black metal scene for sometime now so that might not be so shocking in and of itself. But taking it to such an extreme as this? Yeah, it's a whole new world. But, we need to turn back around and see what exactly it is we have here right? Now, while "I" was a self-released album and all, and reportedly a damn fine sounding one at that, the band is now signed on to Exciter Records which should help break this band into new markets. I do have to admit something funny though before I go on any further with this review. I was all set to criticize the band for their self-absorbed and pompous name (Stellar Master Elite? Really? It's just like how it was pointed out in Robot Chicken where you have the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime, who had to have a name that said "Yeah, I'm the boss so I need a name that spells that out in bold letters!!!" Arrogant much?) when I saw that the band was actually named after a song by Thorn. You see, it does pay to read any/all of promo material/information that comes (often times packed in like sardines) with new albums! Anyway, I'm getting off track (yet again) so let's get back to this album and it's (give or take) 45 minutes worth of simply lovely metal. For these guys the bottom line seems to be blackish doom metal although, seeing as the vocals are actually somewhat clear for this sort of genre, it might actually lean closer to death-like doom. The usual, run-of-the-mill, raspy black metal rasps you'd normally expect to hear are not as present here and, when you add to that things like thrash rock ("Pattern of Perception") and even groove-happy, spaced out, Rob Zombie-like rock (about 1:40 into "Empty Shells of Being" things get downright wicked!), then you end up with a near-perfect example of how to keep even the darkest of genres interesting! I'd have never guessed it myself (that an album like this, from it's album artwork to the song titles, would be so adventurous and down-right interesting!), but just when you begin to think that you've seen and heard it all along comes another "new" band like this to shake things up and offer up a freaking cool alternative to the usually humdrum you're exposed to on a daily basis! If I had a dollar for EVERY black metal release that ends up in my email or (physical) mailbox I'd be pretty well-off! What's more, if I went and listed all of the black metal releases that sound spot-on identical (black metal needs a major shake up in my opinion) you would quickly get a sense of how boring it can and often times does get reviewing this form of metal. But, if you go looking for a reason why black metal can and will survive (and along the way natural evolve into something seldom seen but gloriously embraced) then you might end up stumbling across a release like this. Germany's Stellar Master Elite might not be a well-known band yet, but releases like this should open new doors for them and bring in new fans. So, why not get in on the ground floor so you can boldly proclaim how you were a fan before they became huge and famous?