Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave (2022)

•  †  •

Here's another album I'm looking forward to based off the teaser tracks on their respective bandcamp page, Cloakroom's third full-length, Dissolution Wave. I can deduce, by unpacking what I'm hearing in these three songs that this shit is going to be a scintillating coast down sonic highways traversing shoegaze, drone, bits of sludge and indie with helpings of stoner rock and post-punk (just to namedrop a few more genres into the fray).

I would be jumping to conclusions to speak any more factually without actually hearing the full album first, but it sounds like it's the bands most cohesive effort yet, which is saying something for me because I was never really gung-ho about the two previous albums fully. Again, speaking preemptively, it sounds as if everything has come to full bloom on Dissolution Wave. The songs are robust and the production is right on the fucking money—when it needs to pack a hammer, it does so with force, when it needs to float in suspended animation, it gently sways along beautifully, when we ask it to marry the two forces, it answers with complete fluidity.

I find it tiring to read about music in an overly-intellectualized way, so I'll try to say this succinctly. The overall tone is a shifting one. Unfurling riffs and tone that hit like a megaton hammer towards gradually cascading into ephemeral shoegaze and drone that inevitably sputter into moments of dream-pop. Which is only to be cut back into a vast doom like territory filled with more crunching lo-fi guitars and reverb. Highly recommended!

Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave (bandcamp)

Midwife - Luminol (2021)

•  †  •

The Flenser has been an incredibly reliable merchant in the world of sonic satisfaction for a long time now and I don't think any of that is going to change moving forward—Music begrimed in reverb and a penchant to delve into strange territory will always have a home here.

And with that Midwife, both begrimed in reverb and strange in its own right. Madeline Johnston commits her dissonance through a musical cloth which has been woven through threads of magnificently bleak guitar tones that often give way into something beautiful and dark with the help of a thick atmosphere of reverb, feedback and warm ambiance. Often serene and calm but with an omniscient feeling of dread and malaise. I don't think its through way of self-deprecation or a fatalistic outlook that Madeline chooses her austere landscape but through way of her own self-critique and disenchanted mindset when it comes to life's many riddles and follies. For fans of Sister Grotto, Planning for Burial, Lightning Bug, Drowse and Whirr.

Midwife - Luminol (bandcamp)

Sunset Images - Centro de la Ciudad [single] (2020)

•  †  •

I've talked about these guys a while back on here, and I still find myself returning to Obscure Daze for a listen though pretty often due to the potency of its sound – Which to be sure is completely mired in noise and shoegaze psychedelia, but still manages to capture a lot of beautiful sounding passages throughout the ensuing chaos, which as a juxtaposition in sound, works very, very well.

I check on these guys from time to time to see if anything new has been put out but unfortunately there hasn't been anything other than two songs in the last three years… This tune came out this year though and if it's a teaser for anything new to come, I'm all ears. Get some reverb into ya!

Centro de la Ciudad (bandcamp)

Ragana / Thou - Let Our Names Be Forgotten (2018) [Split]

•  †  •

I'm about as familiar of Thou as I am with the irrelevant process of taking in oxygen, it's a warm type of familiarity that seems to have been omni-present for half of my life… Unlike breathing, which I have only been cognizant of doing for the last couple years, before that it was just drawn' in shallow breath after shallow breath, without giving life any real thought. I digress, Thou have been around a while, prolific you might say. Hard working, you may even add. Consistent too. They also released 'Magus' this year too, a full-length that is making a strong case for album of the year to me.

Ragana, not so much. At least in the sense of being omnipotent and prolific… That's not to stomp on their parade and call it a rainy day or nuthin', Ragana have put out a few great records… You just can't win that kind of number game against Thou.

I'll keep this short now. Ragana and Thou combine for 35 minutes of barbarism in sonic form. Happy Hallow's eve kiddos. †

Ragana/Thou 

Ghost Bath - Moonlover (2015) preview

A black metal purist would rather be baptized than slap Ghost Bath with the label 'black metal', in part due to fear of being strung up by his heels and tarred and feathered by droves of furious black metal traditionalists… They are also as fiercely loyal as they are obtusely ignorant when it comes to protecting the genres aphotic purity. This is fine by me.

With that being said, Ghost Bath's upcoming release 'Moonlover' seems to nestle in more accurately with the Black Gaze movement, a term that gets some crowds all rankled and riled up.

I have listened to the song Golden Number in full as I am posting this, being the first song I have heard of Ghost Bath as I wasn't familiar with their 2014 release Funeral. I was neither wooed nor disappointed, but I must admit that riff at 01:47 into the song nullified the evil atmosphere that was building up, for minutes after that riff the guitars and drumming are brazenly poppy in sound, sonically akin to a more post-punk ethos, which I guess is par for the course.

In lieu of total transparency, I'd rather just listen to Lunar Aurora, whom were untouchable when it came to making ambient driven black metal with a potent ability to construct genuinely eerie songs that never strayed too far from its roots. I don't mean to compare Lunar Aurora with Ghost Bath as I don't think Ghost Bath is really trying to mimic them, but those heavily drowned out vocal shrieks on 'Moonlover' really make me just want to listen to Lunar Aurora's 'Andacht' instead.

* Enough of what I think, how egocentric of me, I am more curious as to what you guys think of 'Moonlover'? Do we like it? Do we hate it? Do we not really give a shit?

One thing cannot be argued; That album cover is incredibly bleak and I give full points for that. At least they got a leg up on those stubborn black metal dudes with no visual art sense at all. Maybe.

Ghost Bath (bandcamp)

Khuda - Molasses Constricts The Clinostat (2014)

Khuda play a super honed in take on psychedelic post-rock with elements of math-rock, post-hardcore and shoegaze. It has the atmosphere of Kokomo, the quirky time signatures of Khann, and a more atmospheric, slightly funky take on something Cloudkicker would dredge up with the slightly bleak, yet uplifting elements of Explosions In The Sky.



As per usual, if you would like to listen to it but can afford the price on Bandcamp, email me and I'll get it to you as soon as I can.

Khuda Bandcamp

Islands - ISLANDS (2012)

Get this. Have it. Listen to it. Enjoy it. Appreciate it… Appreciate it for this won't get the recognition it deserves (among with many other solid releases buried under the 'known'), not this year at least. Islands S/T is the result of incorporating a cornucopia of influences; post-metal, sludge, shoegaze, ambient, doom, hardcore, among whatever else they fucking drew influence. In the end we are left with a powerfully cohesive album that makes you want to stare out your window and watch the world end. I have the right mind to include this in my year end list, maybe I'll take out Converge, because fuck you and how good they are.

I'm 98% sure that write-up alone has you convinced, but if not. Listen to it, if you dislike its beauty, come back here and… I'm just kidding, don't ever come back here.

Mediafire
Bandcamp (name your price)

Kokomo - If Wolves (2011)

Kokomo make use of no words. They speak through instrumentation in a whirring blend of ambient post-rock, and boy do they speak LOUDLY. It's as if you are watching the world end from a birds eye view… it feels bigger than you, it's beautifully somber and bleak and you can't look away.

The bread and butter of If Wolves is the atmosphere, a dizzying hypnotic drone of palpable emotion, it all feels profound and you can't understand it, you just feel it. Maybe you don't, but maybe you're vanilla as fuck. Listen to it for yourself, if you don't once become entrenched in a series of thoughts, or feel the unsettling yet uplifting ambiance through your blood, check your pulse - you're dead.

 If Wolves (Zippyshare)
Bandcamp/Buy

Alcest - Les Voyages De L'Âme (2012)

One full spin later of Alcest's Les Voyages De L'Âme and I must say, I dig what I hear. For me, Alcest is something I can only enjoy if I am in a certain mood, which ebbs and flows often enough. The weather today has been dreary, grey with a mix of snow/rain, which helped nudge me to this first listen.

Long drawn out layers of guitar build on top of dark, melancholic, esoteric and or dreamy atmospheres accompanied by either clean or shrieked vocals for a total of 50 minutes. My fuck is that album cover ever intriguing.

Grab if you like: Les Discrets, Old Silver Key, Amesouerus

Beings of Light (link removed)

Les Discrets - Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées (2010)

I remember I initially checked this album out because the undeniably cool album art, though I found something I didn't quite expect. I was initially a little bit disappointed with what I heard, as I was expecting something a bit heavier, and quite frankly, more metal. Though, through my experienced chagrin, I managed to find quite a bit of bright spots within the album.

There is something very daunting and cinematic about what you will hear. It's as though, the very world you live on is in question of its survival. (I dunno why the world is ending, but I sure hope its similar to "Cloverfield" and not over some political bullshit.)

It either floats your boat, or capsizes it:

 
The End is Nigh.