Every year, I grow more impressed by the breadth of new ideas introduced into the world of black metal. I’ve long held the belief that the “blackened” prefix manifests in more unique ways than any other metal subgenre. Even the lightest introduction of black metal aesthetics can significantly alter the…
Uniqueness is often conflated with interesting ideas in our modern music consumption landscape. There’s plenty of experimental music that, while undeniably different, is pretty deniably good. I’ve encountered albums of all-acoustic black metal and blackened trip-hop on my travels, both of which defied the norms of their genres but were…
Foscor exist in a space among metal that I have a lot of time for. Their music feels both modern and nostalgic at the same time. Like it could be from the early 00s, yet with the veneer of modern needle-pushing metal. This expression is often used for music that…
You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed The proliferation of a medium typically leads to a more diverse array of messages, which has certainly been the…
Editor’s note: the world is going to shit, this is known. But what’s less accepted is that, in many ways, the world has always been going to shit. In certain points, it has gotten worse, to be sure. In others, it has gotten better. But my aim with this note…
As with any artistic venture, albums can be a lot like a favorite painting, book, or film which, when returned to with fresh senses, lends us an all new understanding of the work than that which we initially took away. Some would argue that this is what the very best…
There’s been so many good albums this year it’s easy for some to slip through the cracks, even ones that you’ve already listened to. When I first heard The Chemical Mind’s Beneath the Shadow It Casts, admittedly I listened to a couple of songs and sort of just dismissed it…
I’ve found a tendency of late to gravitate towards music that doesn’t easily fit into one genre, or sub-genre even. These niche sub-genres like blackgaze that I originally have fawned over, I’ve found to have quickly grown easily saturated. I also have a seemingly insatiable appetite always for something ‘new’.…
Earlier this year we ran an article about “what we’re looking forward to in 2019” where I highlighted my excitement for what the sub-genres of blackgaze and post-black metal would have to offer this year. I noted concern of a growing trend to just replicate what those before them have…
At this point I tend to never question Season of Mist when they present a new album and so it goes once more with Numenorean’s latest offering, Adore, which dives deep and headlong into atmospheric blackgaze that, at once, echoes bands like the Cure, Alcest, and Behemoth in equal measure.…
