Forest Dweller is creepy and rotten noise which has a black metal feel to it. Well, take a look at that pic and you have to say that the guy at least digs his black metal. I guess you could call it black noise, but to me its more like noise with a black metal aesthetic apart from the last two tracks where some vocals and an actual riff are introduced. Real evil.
Raw anti-cosmic black metal from France. What the shit is anti-cosmic?! I'm not too sure, I think it is some form of satanism, but anyway this sounds pretty awesome so fuck the cosmos.
New Clair Cassis EP, featuring members of Velvet Cacoon. I thought they had broken up but apparently not.
One of my most anticipated releases of the year. Here is some Death in June influenced neo-folk from New York City (of all places). I've loved everything they have released up until now but this is even better and a very early contenteder for album of the year for me, even after just one listen. An amazing masterpiece and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Thirteen Bats (now known as Bat Nouveau which is a better name imo) are a deathrock/gothic rock band from Brisbane, Australia. Everything that is great about gothic music can be heard here - the melodrama as well as the dark and brooding sound. The band takes influence from (obviously) Christian Death and post-punk like Joy Division.
When the band's name is Goatfago, do I really need to write a description?! Anyway, its members of Sadomator/Sadogoat. This demo is sold out but you can grab their second demo which is a split tape with Baphomation over at Siver Key Records.
Black Vomit are a truly bizarre beast, mixing a buckletload of completely different styles to form a fucked up and weird listening experience. I can't really describe whats going on with them, they are a total clusterfuck of noise and insanity - theres blastbeats, fuzzy black metal, electronics, sound effects...you just have to hear this one for yourself. Really one of the strangest sounds I've ever heard.
One-man complete noisy Japanese punk rip-off from the US. There is constant fuzz on every song on and they even cover GAI and Confuse.
Man, I fucking love Codeine (the band) and I instantly loved Bluetile Lounge for the same reasons that I love Codeine. This is music for sitting in your room and crying because all you have in your pathetic life is listening to music, watching porn, masturbating and writing on a stupid fucking blog about how Codeine is the greatest band ever. Ummmm. Anyway, Bluetile Lounge were a 90s slowcore band (how'd you guess?) from Perth, Australia. I never thought a good slowcore band would have come from my home country but this excellent, obscure little gem has thankfully proven me wrong.
I don't care what you say, Moonsorrow own and are one of the few bands I like within the generally shitty and cheesy folk metal/viking metal genre. Here you've got more of the same 10+ minute epics, full of fist (or sword if you've got one) raising power. Nowhere near as good as their masterpiece Verisäkeet, but still great. Onwards to Vahalla brothers.
Heavy as fuck riffs - check. Evil, piercing and raspy vocals - check. Lovecraft inspired lyrics - check. Incredible sludgy goodness from Canada. This is such wonderfully crafted album, you can hear acoustic interludes that are interspersed beautifully with desperate, gut-wrenching screams that then flow into heavy, riff-oriented sludge with hints of black metal (both in asethetic and sound). The last track in particular is a stand-out, fucking epic. For fans of Cough's first album and Thou.
