Nocturnus - The Key

Nocturnus - The Key

1990 / Death Metal

Take the band Death, put Chuck Schuldiner on meth, and launch them into space, your result would be Nocturnus’ “The Key”.

“The Key” is a vortex of speed, aggression, and chaos; set in a sci-fi universe where a cyborg goes back in time to destroy Christianity. This fresh perspective of Florida-based death metal from the early 90s employs an “occult meets sci-fi” theme, exploring territories unknown to the genre. The utilization of keyboards (which was basically unheard of in the scene) provides a mysterious ambiance, perfectly supporting their sci-fi theme. While the keyboards are an important aspect of the music, their function is purely support (Nocturnus IS a death metal band after all). Heavy riffs, ripping solos, and sporadic fills chiefly dominate the songs and are whipped at the listener at a relentless pace.

“The Key” is an essential piece of American Death Metal from the late 80s and early 90s. If you are a fan of the scene this album is a must.

Favorite Song: Visions From Beyond The Grave

Hateful Abandon - Liars/Bastards

Hateful Abandon - Liars/Bastards

2014 / Post-Punk, Black metal

Imagine a cold, merciless and colourless concrete hell where misery and hatred flow like wine flows at higher class parties. Utter frustration causes unrest and fear is used to keep the situation stationary. If imagining is too hard, the movie 'Hobo With a Shotgun' shows you a setting quite close to the former description. 'Liars/Bastards' is a perfect soundtrack for an urban dystopia.

Hateful Abandon's other releases are not familiar to me at all, but according to the almighty internet, their material has moved from black metal to post-punk step by step. 'Liars/Bastards' shows only slight black metal elements anymore and it mainly consists of eerie and hollow synths accompanied with frustration filled semi-harsh vocals. Even though the parts are repeated for quite a long time, the album doesn't feel dull at all. In the end, the songs differ from each other quite a lot, but the feel of misery and mental nausea is present throughout the album.

'Liars/Bastards' is not meant for a joyful summer day without a single worrying thing in mind. It's a journey through the world of oppressed people and their every day frustration. This is a recommended listen to anyone into eerie and cold music.

Favourite tracks: 'Culprit' & 'There Will Never Be Peace'

Weekly album: Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

Akercocke -Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

2005 / Progressive Black/Death metal

1. Verdelet

2. Seduced

3. Shelter from the Sand

4. Eyes of the Dawn

5. Abbadonna, Dying in the Sun

6. Words That Go Unspoken

7. Intractable

8. Seraphs and Silence

9. The Penance

10. Lex Talionis

btcarey: Akercocke was a completely foreign band to me before being exposed to them for this Weekly Album. This left me with little, to no expectations for how the music would sound or what genre I was preparing for. Those of you familiar with Akercocke, can imagine my surprise after spinning their record of the first time. Coming out of it I was a bit disoriented to say the least. To the untrained ear Akercocke’s style can sound like a junction of different genres mashed together in one record. But after you understand the flow of the music and know what to expect Akercocke’s “Words that go Unspoken, Deeds that go Undone” shines as an exceptional album.

When researching Akercocke, most sources defined them as progressive blackened death metal. Personally, I think this branding is incredibly misleading (remember, I haven’t heard any of Akercocke’s material besides “Words that go Unspoken, Deeds that go Undone”). While there are few black metal moments throughout the album (one of my favorites being on the track “The Penance”), the album in its entirety is a split between death metal and progressive metal. If I had to compare them to anything, I would say they take a large amount of influence from Opeth (which is totally fine with me). Personally, the proggy parts are my favorite aspect of the album, especially on the final track “Lex Talionis”. It’s just a perfect, eerie yet beautiful conclusion to the album. Even though the awesome prog stuff somewhat shadows the heavier parts, there is some QUALITY DEATH METAL on this record (It even delves into the technical death realm on a few tracks).

Overall this is a great album. Check it out. Buy it. Steal it. Frame it. Whatever you have to do. This is a must for death metal and Opeth fans.

Favorite Song: Eyes of the Dawn

tp5170: Mixing different genres can result in something rather interesting if done right, and despite not doing a PERFECT job, I think that Akercocke was on the right track with the album ‘Words That Go Unspoken, Deed That Go Undone’.

The album is simply put a combination of progressive, death- and black metal elements, and the shear amount of variety displayed on this album always amazes me. It is also noteworthy that none of the elements is used as a gimmick implemented badly or as a trick that would only appear in half of the tracks or something like that, but instead most of the tracks actually have like two or three sides to them and time is given equally to the different genres they tried to mix. 

Of course not all of the different elements are equal or superb in quality; for example there are moments that simply end up feeling like an overly complicated mess and some of the death metal parts are pretty lackluster, but these things don’t bother me too much, because the general sound on the album is surprisingly enjoyable even with its flaws.

Out of Akercocke’s albums, this one has always struck me as the most engaging, and overall I’d say that the album is quite solid and that you can clearly hear that there were several interesting ideas used in composition of the album.

Kattroll: Based on the album cover, my first guess would be that the album would consist of some atmospheric jazz rather than metal music. The name of album is also a monster of its own kind, because in my opinion, the name should be something short and concise.

The music itself was a pleasant surprise: I've been told that I've been sort of picky about music lately, but I could actually say that I like this album, even though I really don't listen to this sort of stuff. The album doesn't depress and I'd be glad to listen to this diverse album. Usually, I steer clear of progressive elements, but on this album their use is quite moderate and well done. The same goes to the clean vocal parts. I could almost say that this album is the best unknown weekly album we've had to date. A huge plus for the beautiful outro.  

Moloch - Meine Ganze Hoffnung Stirbt

Moloch (Ukr) - Meine Ganze Hoffnung Stirbt

2011 / Dark Ambient, Piano Music

Moloch is another band I recently came across while exploring the vast world of Internet. I just couldn’t resist checking them out after seeing that artwork in their logo. (I mean just look at it.) 

But how about the album, is it any good? To summarize, yes it is! Actually to be honest, before listening to this album I wouldn’t have thought that an album mainly focused on ambient could strike me as this engaging, but it’s good that there are still some surprises left in the field of music. 

So basically every song on the album consists solely of ambient playing in the background and some piano parts played over it. The two components merge together quite nicely and as a result we get a pretty intense and sad atmosphere which resembles closely that of atmospheric black metal. Technically it’s quite simple, but it works surprisingly well as there still seems to be so much going on with the melodies, and the songs don’t end up dwelling too long in one place. 

The songs themselves are also not that long and they link together almost seamlessly so the album starts almost feeling like a single thirty minutes long track that keeps evolving after every couple of minutes. Personally I like this was of approach a lot and it seems to work really well with the album. 

I was pretty much amazed by the overall quality of the album and it kind of left me aching for more, so I am quite confident that I’ll be listening to some more Moloch in the near future.

Batushka - Litourgiya

Batushka - Litourgiya

2015 / Black metal, Doom metal

Mysticism has always been part of black metal and the interpretations of it usually differ from each other quite a lot. The mystic elements are not always present of course and on some albums the absence of these elements is one of the reasons they are dull. Also, some artists' views of the arcane element fail to evoke any sort of feelings  and some artists' executions of the element blow you away. Batushka definitely belongs to the latter group.

The identities of Batushka's musicians are still unknown, but that's only a visual element in their mysticism. The music itself, which is fantastic blend of black metal and doom metal elements, feels so mysterious, emotive and piercing. Even though at least some of Batushka's members are Polish, 'Litourgiya' always gives me Soviet era lo-fi vibes. Like a musical equivalent to the gloomy and melancholic Soviet produced cartoons. Somehow I link their production quality and especially their instrument tones to Soviet Union. These are not bad traits at all and in my opinion, for they are one of the largest factors in Batushka's sound's mysticism.

Quite many have praised Batushka's use of orthodox chants and I'll gladly join this crowd. Using orthodox chants isn't a new thing in black metal at all, but the usage is usually only a minor element. Batushka, on the other hand, uses the chants as a major element and it works wonderfully. Massive choir melodies on top of heavy doom and black metal riffs and parts that have focus on the chants show extraordinary songwriting skills and the chants aren't even the only reason for this. 'Litourgiya' is one of the most solid black metal albums I've heard and the album in its entirety has no weak points. When listening to 'Litourgiya' on vinyl, the coherence stays solid until the end. It's actually quite difficult to notice the moment when a track changes and that's actually an excellent thing in this case.

Black metal albums don't usually charm me instantly, but Batushka managed to succeed in that. I would go as far as to say that 'Litourgiya' might easily be the best black metal album released in 2015 and could be, even in 2010's.

Favourite track: 'Yekteníya 3'