Music
| Soror Dolorosa - Mond >>> 04.10.2024 | |
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Creatures of the night probably miss the 80s of the last century badly. Post-punk and New Wave reached glorious heights and their epic explorations of mixing hard guitars and driving electronics dominated alternative dance floors. Names like SISTERS OF MERCY, FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM, DEPECHE MODE, JOY DIVISION, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, ULTRAVOX and others still have a magic ring to them. |
| Psychlona - Warped Vision >>> 29.09.2024 | |
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When it's time to pick your poison, a blend of KYUSS and FU MANCHU is nearly always the base for a delicious result. Spice up the flavour with a particularly British note via a chilled infusion of HAWKWIND and a liberal sprinkling of PINK FLOYD over the lusciously creamy top, and you'll find that PSYCHLONA has served up a concoction ready to explode spectacularly in your aural taste buds. |
| Elephant Tree - Handful of Ten >>> 07.09.2024 | |
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The seed for ELEPHANT TREE was planted in a rehearsal space somewhere in the smelly back alleys of England's sleepless capital of London in 2013. There, the first notes of what would become 'Attack of the Altaica' sprang from the bass of Jack Townley and Sam Hart's drums. Thus, it is fitting that this earliest demo became the opening track of the band's new rarities collection "Handful of Ten" |
| Vuur und Zijde - Boezem >>> 13.07.2024 | |
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Love and heavy metal have always had a somewhat strained relationship as the former is at least nominally topic number 1 in pop music. It becomes even more complicated when black metal is involved, a genre in which hate is a major ingredient as much as blues musicians must have felt utter sadness. |
| Perchta - D'Muata >>> 14.06.2024 | |
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The image of a solitary woman living in a remote Alpine mountain place literally at the edge of civilisation evokes strong connotations of which 'witch' is probably one of the first. An independent woman confident and free in her actions, sexuality, and self-determination still goes against the collective expectations of our society. |
| Brume - Marten >>> 03.05.2024 | |
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BRUME (pronounced 'Broom') are living proof that California is not all sunshine and easy living. The San Francisco-based quartet organically blends doom metal, goth, and indie rock into a sometimes monolithic, and at other times delicate blend of heaviness that resides firmly on the darker side. |
| Dool - The Shape of Fluidity >>> 19.04.2024 | |
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Everything flows, nothing ever stays the same. This notion of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus applies to all of us as life itself is in a constant state of change. The same can be said about the third studio album of the fast-rising Dutch rock band DOOL. |
| The Vision Bleak - Weird Tales >>> 12.04.2024 | |
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THE VISION BLEAK return in grand style: The German duo's seventh full-length "Weird Tales" constitutes a monumental tribute to the eponymous American pulp magazine and other tales of mystery and dark imagination. The album consists of a single track that is divided into internal chapters, which are each inspired by weird tales, poems, and other literature of horror and the macabre. |
| Heavy Temple - Garden of Heathens >>> 12.04.2024 | |
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HEAVY TEMPLE are back. Back from touring across the United States as well as finding adventure and making new friends in Europe for the first time. Back from the rehearsal room where the making of new songs became far more of a group effort than on the debut album. And back from Animal Farm studio where John Forrestal gave the new album "Garden of Heathens" a rich and warm organic sound that is also crisp and crystalline. |
| Austere - Beneath the Threshold >>> 05.04.2024 | |
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Beneath the Threshold" represents AUSTERE in the here and now. With their fourth full-length the Australians have taken a long step into the present and embrace their musical future in a way that might have been expected after a 13-year hiatus. |
| Brother Dege - Aurora >>> 15.03.2024 | |
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If you make the trek down to Louisiana, you wont leave the same way you came. Listening to BROTHER DEGE, you breathe in the backwoods air, fall under the spell of the swamp, and get to know the ghosts of the Delta. Materialising at a crossroads between soul-rousing rock and roll, eloquent folk, backstreet Americana, and psychedelic bliss, the GRAMMY Award-nominated troubadour absorbs the spirit of his home state in threads of droning slide guitar, naked vocals, and blood-soaked poetry. |
| Kirlian Camera - Radio Signals for the Dying >>> 24.02.2024 | |
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KIRLIAN CAMERA are an ever churning maelstrom of creativity and musical innovation. Their inspirational power is both destructive when it comes to limitations of genre, style, and conventions as well as constructive for example regarding building new sonic structures on the ruins of the old. The Italians latest masterpiece, "Radio Signals for the Dying", is no exception as a new artistic high-watermark. |
| Aureole - Alunarian Bellmaster >>> 09.02.2024 | |
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For whom the bells toll in the Citadel Alunar shall encounter the Bellmaster! The particularly sinister and insidious musical and lyrical universe that Markov "M.S." Soroka is continuously creating with his various projects AUREOLE and TCHORNOBOG as well as ETERNIUM, KRUKH, and DROWN is enriched by a new chapter: |
| Kinit Her - The Nature Out There >>> 15.12.2023 | |
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With their fifteenth full-length "The Nature Out There", KINIT HER have reached a culminating and breath-taking height in their organic growth. Transcending all artificial limitations such as genre or instrumentation, the symbolist post-folk collective present a beautiful kaleidoscope of bursting musical colours and spiritual journeys into the wonders of nature with lush soundscapes that amazes and thrills with every note.
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| Dool - Visions of Summerland live >>> 24.11.2023 | |
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| Howling Giants - Glass Future >>> 27.10.2023 | |
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Every song on HOWLING GIANT's sophomore album "Glass Future" tells its own story. Yet even without an overarching concept, all could exist within the same universe. Such crafty lyrical world-building is hardly surprising coming from a trio of enthusiastic fantasy and science fiction aficionados. "Glass Future" downright asks to inspire a book or graphic novel, even as it explodes with furious energy and thunderous acrobatics. |
| Laster - Andermans Mijne >>> 13.10.2023 | |
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LASTER are stylistically a jack in the box and the same is true for the fourth album of the Dutch trio. Every attempt to cram "Andermans Mijne" (someone else's mine' or 'someone else's mine') into any given pigeon-hole" will be greeted with the next track jumping out again with a delighted devilish grin and a hearty slap on the wrist with a fan. |
| Restless Spirit - Afterimage >>> 06.10.2023 | |
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In the case of RESTLESS SPIRIT, the band name says it all – and in more than just one way. Their third album, "Afterimage", embodies the East Coast trio's aim of never wanting to sound exactly like before. Long Island deep-fried guitars meet pounding rhythms and emotionally raw vocals. Where the predecessor "Blood of the Old Gods" (2021) sometimes ushered the listener into twisted complexity, "Afterimage" delivers short, sharp shocks that hit straight home. |
| Silence in the Snow - Ghost Eyes >>> 22.09.2023 | |
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There are only a very few bands today that manage to combine the classic spirit of dark wave and post-punk with emotional musical intelligence. SILENCE IN THE SNOW can easily count themselves among this vanguard. The duo has in the meantime relocated from Oakland to Arcata in the North of California, a town situated at the picturesque Arcata Bay that opens into the Pacific Ocean, and surrounded on land by national parks and Redwood forests. |
| Tar Pond - Petrol >>> 17.09.2023 | |
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The blues legend claims that the devil waits for those wanting to sell their souls at the crossroads. "PETROL", the second full length of Swiss doom visionaries TAR POND is very much born from such a convergence – but one where more than three dimensions meet. On a temporal level, "PETROL" connects the past, present, and future of the band, and the album's conception even transcends life and death. |
| Domkraft - Sonic Moons >>> 10.09.2023 | |
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On their fourth album, "Sonic Moons", Sweden's DOMKRAFT set forth on a voyage into the inner cosmos, riding their fuzz-driven, psychedelic riff-doom through the galactic psyche and into alternate metaphysical realities, all in search of escape, respite, and release. |
| Bees made Honey in the Vein Tree - Aion >>> 18.08.2023 | |
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On a calm day, water can appear gentle and inviting. Yet what seems permeable and supple can become vicious and brutal in an instant, as anyone who has ever been caught in a storm at sea can attest. As such, water is the perfect elemental theme for "Aion", the third album of German psychedelic doom contenders BEES MADE HONEY IN THE VEIN TREE. |
| 1476 - In Exile >>> 07.07.2023 | |
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There seems to be something sinister lurking beneath the beautiful surface of the lands that have become known as New England with the arrival of European settlers. Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, all three American originators of the horror genre have been born and raised, and also have created their dark masterpieces there. |
| FEN - Monuments to Absence >>> 07.07.2023 | |
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The colour of any FEN album always provides a dead giveaway to its conceptual and musical direction. The cover artwork of the East Anglian's seventh full-length "Monuments to Absence" features an abundance of the colour red for the first time in the band's history. |
| High Priest - Invocation >>> 24.06.2023 | |
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Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here to worship the gods at the altar of heavy metal. HIGH PRIEST have come forth from Chicago, Illinois in the United States of America to brighten your days with a message of hope and doom, one that is hammered into metal, stone and rock to assume the shape of their debut album "Invocation". |
| Xasthur - Inevitably Dark >>> 24.06.2023 | |
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There is hardly a more fitting title for the new XASTHUR compositions than "Inevitably Dark". Darkness is the element that holds all the tracks together despite the fact that they are expressed in a multitude of genres, which even includes black metal. This time. Be warned: this album is neither meant as a return to black metal of mastermind Scott Conner, even though he does this time, nor a guarantee that it will happen again next time although, he might. Maybe. |
| Saturnus - the Storm within >>> 16.06.2023 | |
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The crashing of the waves, the lashing of icy rain, and the relentless tearing of the winds, wedged in between the North Sea and the Baltic, the Nordic country of Denmark, home to the band SATURNUS, knows the at times even lethal force of storms only too well. |
| Tenhi - Valkama >>> 10.06.2023 | |
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When night falls onto the sub-arctic landscapes of the Land of the Thousand Lakes, in the twilight of forest and swamps, the veils between our reality and the otherworld grow thin. It is at those times that stories such as 'the fairy tale that never was' leak into the lyrics and music of TENHI. |
| Ocean Lord - Kingdom Cold >>> 26.05.2023 | |
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Behold! Hark! From the dark depths of the southern oceans, Australian doom trio OCEANLORD have conjured an eldritch monster of an album with their tentacled debut "Kingdom Cold". |
| Botanist - VIII Selenotrope >>> 19.05.2023 | |
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Only a very few original metal acts emerge each decade from the mass of bands that are stylistically easy to label. BOTANIST are both in musical and lyrical aspects one of those unique bands that are obviously different. Now, the act's eleventh full-length, "VIII: Selenotrope" is announced. |
| Fvnerals - Let the Earth be silent >>> 04.02.2023 | |
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Darkness. FVNERALS have created an album that turns the emptiness of the void and the depth of the abyss into sound with their third full-length "Let the Earth Be Silent". The duo gives sonic shape to the silence of extinction that humankind brings to all life on earth and itself. Depression, isolation, and the despair that this existence brings ooze out of every note.. |
| Haavard - Haavard >>> 11.11.2022 | |
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If anybody else were to release an album that sounded as remarkably close as "Haavard" to ULVER's magical acoustic masterpiece "Kveldssanger", which stunned the Norwegians' followers with its radiant beauty in 1996 and that also contained a track entitled 'Kveldssang II' – that musician would be accused of blatant plagiarism. |
| Disillusion - Ayam >>> 04.11.2022 | |
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Who are we? Where do we go? These are the kind of existential questions that have arisen for many of us during these last years and that have also been haunting DISILLUSION during the process of creating their fourth full-length "Ayam". Without a chance to perform live and their personal lives also being affected by many restrictions the focus of the German avant-gardists shifted fully towards their band and the creation of new songs as well as recording. |
| Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a cruel Master >>> 21.10.2022 | |
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With "Fear Is a Cruel Master", RUBY THE HATCHET deliver exactly the brain-frying, catchy yet full of raw energy thriller of an album that the American trailblazers' acclaimed predecessor "Planetary Space Child" (2017) promised it could be."The reflection in the mirror is nice and clear now", guitarist Johnny Scarps nods. "This is the record we've been working towards." Five long years have passed since the heavy rock quintet dropped their last album, but the wait is finally over. "We have reached a new peak of writing music as a collective", vocalist Jillian Taylor adds. "We all sacrifice for this, like any band or artist. We would not continue doing so if we weren't reaching new levels." |
| Gospelheim - Ritual and Repetion >>> 21.10.2022 | |
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Lo and behold! 'Tis a wondrous beast that GOSPELHEIM have conceived with "Ritual & Repetition": Its glittering skin is made from catchy dark rock melodies. Its bones are carved from solid gothic metal. Its forked tongue sings with both a beautiful female and a male voice. Its fiery eyes reflect deep melancholia, yet its sharp teeth bite hard without remorse. |
| Cavernous Gate - Voices from a Fathomless Realm >>> 14.10.2022 | |
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Voices from a Fathomless Realm" is the first full-length from CAVERNOUS GATE. The German death doom outfit is a solo-project of multi-instrumentalist Sebastian "S.K." Käkemeier. Sebastian has co-founded HELRUNAR under the alias Alsvartr and he also supports Markus "Schwadorf" Stock's black metal project SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS as well as EMPYRIUM live. |
| Crone - Gotta Light >>> 04.10.2022 | |
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With their sophomore full-length "Gotta Light?", dark rock innovators CRONE are cruising in a high octane fuelled hotrod. Channelling their personal musical inspirations that range from ALICE IN CHAINS, via KILLING JOKE, NEW MODEL ARMY, and JOY DIVISION to PINK FLOYD among many others, the Germans leave their very own and personal mark on the genre that has been brought back to the forefront of interest by acts such as GHOST in recent years. |
| Valborg - der Alte >>> 09.09.2022 | |
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Some bands prosper largely in a space that is mostly visited by connoisseurs and insiders for a large part of their career. Critically acclaimed German outfit VALBORG can clearly lay claim to such a fate until now. Beloved by many of their peers, knowing journalists, and a die-hard fanbase, the trio from the City of Bonn is long overdue for the "big breakthrough" despite a discography of outstanding quality that already includes eight albums. |
| Moirai - Blood Treasure, Woven Fates >>> 05.09.2022 | |
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MOIRAI specialise in the musical treasures of the middle ages with a focus on what has been lost in time, long before current notation systems came into use and of which only tantalising glimpses remain. The unique trio use original written sources and oral traditions, which they artistically interpret and respectfully recombine. |
| Pencey Sloe - Neglect >>> 21.08.2022 | |
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Who am I? This is the essential question that PENCEY SLOE explore on their sophomore full-length "Neglect". The Parisian dreamgaze rockers have dedicated their entire new album to the theme of identity. What is making humans into who they think they are and at the same time also how they project or hide their self-image to and from others. Are we shaped by our genetic code, or do we become what we are told to be by our family and peers. Is it our language, the country or the society that we live in, or the culture that we grow up with? |
| Arthur Brown - Long Long Road >>> 24.06.2022 | |
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WER IST ARTHUR BROWN? Wer sich für Rockmusik interessiert, ist schon ARTHUR BROWN begegnet. Wem sein Name nicht auf Anhieb vertraut vorkommt, der wird sicherlich bei der THE WHO Rockoper "Tommy" oder dem THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT Klassiker "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" hellhörig. |
| Venus Principle - Stand in your Light >>> 27.05.2022 | |
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Stand in Your Light" is a work of love. Passion drips out of every note from the bitter-sweet honeycomb of solemn melodies that VENUS PRINCIPLE have created for their debut album. Although this is the first record from the British-Swedish collective, these hymns for the burdened and broken come audibly with the profound maturity of hard earned experience from all the veteran musicians involved. |
| Ruby The Hatchet - Live at Earthquaker >>> 22.04.2022 | |
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With sultry, honey-smoked vocals, lush yet crisp guitars and spirit of rock 'n roll organ heroics, it takes just a few seconds for luxuriant opening track '1000 Years' from RUBY THE HATCHET's hot-blooded new EP to firmly sink its hooks into ears and hearts. |
| Darkher - The buried Storm >>> 15.04.2022 | |
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Darkness treads light as a feather. The voice of despair gently wafts through the air. Delicate pain wrapped in radiant beauty pierces the heart slowly yet without hesitation. The sinister yet beguiling images that DARKHER aka Jayn Maiven paints with her ethereal vocals, guitars, and added strings conjure iridescent cinematic scenes in which it becomes hard to tell whether there lies beauty in darkness or if it is the other way around. |
| E-L-R - Vexier >>> 11.03.2022 | |
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