Menace Ruine - Venus Armata (2014)

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One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. After selling your soul for a quart of raw ether and a back-alley tug the devil will simply ignore your extended hand, for he will not shake against the weight of post-cum depression, and anyone, especially the devil can pick up the scent of lost cause and moral ineptitude better than anyone, anything, anyway.

Menace Ruine from Montreal, Quebec are one of those bands that harbor a soundscape I hate to try and describe, searching my dull brain for trite platitudes a hundred other bedroom bloggers have used more than their toothbrush. I'll do it anyway, and I'll hate myself today like a soul-sucking vacuum because of it.

The duo create a sound fit for cathedral ceilings and soulless robed zealots humming strange juju, the candles lit in thirteen, the virgin flayed upon the alter, in a sweat and semen soaked, surrounded haze of incense smoke bellow Geneviève's pipes sounding like the songs of sirens and carrying the same force that draws one to be hopelessly and beautifully enamored. All of this beauty cloaked in a gothic atmosphere fit for a music box that once belonged to Elizabeth Báthory and can't help but run backwards on moral premise. The drums play out like a dirge and the organs may as well be emanating out of a Transylvanian castle because everything is bleak and life sucks, right Todd?

Kudos to Chris Bruni of Profound Lore Records for taking them on and putting out the hidden gems. Today I'm going to run along the Toronto boardwalk to this, the Hour of 13 self-titled, Lunar Aurora's Andacht and Drudkh's Autumn Aurora… Do the same, or not. Gloom dopamine brothers and sisters.

Invoke; Menace Ruine - Venus Armata (bandcamp)

Krypts - Remnants of Expansion (2016)

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Krypts from Colorado have a guitar tone akin to the grimy filth in your toilet bowl and a plodding movement speed like old people fucking but it hits real heavy and the recording on the drum kicks sound like distant battles being fought. Tight artwork too.

Krypts - Remnants of Expansion (bandcamp)