Just a quick dump of awesome here today. As an operator of a Metal blog, I find that my name is on the mail list of a whole load of different labels and PR agencies. Consequently the amount of news messages poppin’ into my mailbox on a daily basis is quite huge, to use an understatement. Usually I open them, check for one prerequisite that’s usually missing and then disregard them. What’s the prerequisite? There has to be a link to a video! I’m not copying prefab news statements, but need something to talk about. Logical second requirement then is that the video tickles my long John and with this one that has definitely been the case! More than definitely.

The news message that was sent to me in the first place already hinted at this being good shit. It said: ”Betraeus to support Xerath and Scar Symmetry in the UK”. Hadn’t heard of Betraeus yet, but Xerath and Scar Symmetry are a couple of big names and high quality bands and I didn’t figure they would hire the first bunch of loose guns to come and play their show opener. Looked into things a bit further and it turns out these guys are definitely a rising act in the UK Metal scene and this is probably just one of their first steps.

Where Equal Minds Theory went abso-fuckin’-lutely completely mental on our ass, another Russian band, called Cosmonauts Day, takes a whole different approach today. I’m not mentioning the two bands together here, or reviewing them so shortly after another, as the two bands are connected. Both hail from Moscow and they share members as well, at least guitarist Dima – the rest I’m unsure of, as I can’t read the Cyrillic on EMT’s album art.

But there are also differences, and they are larger than the similarities. Where EMT is completely fucked up Mathcore on some techno-club drug – I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way, as you’ll be able to judge from that review – Cosmonauts Day, named after a Russian holiday that was instituted after Yuri Gagarin’s first flight into space in 1961, take an approach that is Sludgy, atmospheric, dreamy and melodic. And surprisingly harmonic.

Some time ago, you found me ranting about lengthy albums, and I discretely hinted about some lengthy goodness which was to come. And finally it’s here. Some time ago we presented you with an Australian one-man project called Aquilus with their full-length Griseus. Amazed by the song Arboreal Sleep I set out to find some more, which I found, but to my disappointment only in digital format. After expressing my distress to main man Horace Rosenqvist, he kindly sent me a little link, and I set off onto a wondrous journey into the Lands of Ashes.

A long introduction for a long album, this beauty contains 80 minutes of Atmospheric epicness. One might find it to be a tad long, but in this case it’s totally justified. After hearing Arboreal Sleep, my jaw dropped an immeasurable amount of inches, while Griseus as a whole just made me pass out.

From a UK band whose name is a palindrome I’ve got a short but capturing little EP to review today. The band in question we’ve written about and reviewed before. Based on that experience with the guys I was expecting some mildly melodic, atmospheric sludge, breathing darkness, a bit of despair and light tints of anger. I praised the band’s 2011 EP Mammalian as a ”a good piece of freak-fuckin’ underproduced Metal”, as well as ”an accessible step up” into the genre of Sludge. Nothing wrong with that!

Where Mammalian was, with its nearly forty minutes, an EP of considerable proportions. This year Naisian members must have had to spend more time working and / or studying though, as Monocle contains only two songs adding up to thirteen odd minutes. And as a result of its limited length nothing that’ll keep you satisfied for too long. But that’s absolutely the only reason why that’d be the case.

Mond vol land or ’Mouth full of earth’. That’s what that means in Dutch and it’s the name of a Black Metal formation from the hilly forest area called Montferland near Arnhem that, according to legend, was created by a bunch of giants. And indeed, the Dutch are tall people, so who knows, perhaps some early species did munch away on a load of sand and then shat it out somewhere on a big pile and forests started growing. It’s not impossible.

Anyfuck, back to the band, we find that it was formed in 2006 by Martijn and Mickeal, the latter also active as a session member in the Folk Metal group Heidevolk. Currently a four-piece, the band works in Dutch or Dutch dialects and its lyrical content is about the region in which it has its origins. My own roots aren’t far away and it’s an awesome fuckin’ place to sing about! Very recently the band released a three-song EP for promotional purposes that is absolutely delicious. And free too. Kudos to Islander of NCS for pointing me at this.

Remember Oak Pantheon? The American atmo-melodic Black Metal outfit is working on an upcoming album and have sent out a little poll they could use our help with. There are three songs that they are considering to release ahead of the album as a teaser. The problem is they don’t know which yet.

So, what they’ve done is upload a reel with preliminary fragments of each of the three songs and it’s up to us to tell them which to prepare for the promo. There are no lyrics yet, but even the purely instrumental content is extremely convincing of the idea that this upcoming album may well blow its predecessor straight out of the water. And if you don’t remember, that was already an absolute masterpiece.

Anyfuck, what you need to do now is listen to this player, determine which of the three bits you like best and then go to their Facebook and select corresponding selection. Simple!

Our most active link dumper Motig once spoke the now-legendary words “I guess I do shit links”. From this sprang the discussion on whether he shits links or whether he submitted shit links. In relation to this, today’s post proves that he certainly doesn’t submit shitty links here. Woods of Desolation are one of the many gems Australia holds as a Metal-country, and with their latest studio album Torn Beyond Reason.

I’d actually heard of Woods of Desolation from another source, namely Threnodies’ Sound in Autumn Woods Sampler, roundabout the same time I received an e-mail with Motig’s links. The name Woods of Desolation sounded famous and the fact that I had to cover them, made me pluck the song Darker Days of that sampler. The song was quite good, certainly worth its spot, however, while playing some other songs, I just realised how magnificent this album actually is.

With the sixth issue of this series, we continue to stay true to the series’ title, aswe’re still dealing purely with One Man Shows. Still female perpetrators as of yet. If you’ve got a good suggestion, drop us a line!

Today saw the release of Alcest’s long awaited (at least by me) third full-length, with a long French name I do not care to write again, but which translates as The Voyages of the Soul . Pretty interesting title. As of today the whole album is uploaded on Youtube, so I’m just picking out some of the highlights for you to listen to, before you buy this beauty.

Ok, wait. I won’t get you any highlights because there are none. This is one big fucking highlight to me. So at the end I will just dump you a link to a Youtube playlist with the whole album and I’ll wish you a whole lot of epic fun with this for the next hour.

So, after our recent announcement of the list of lists, today marks the first part of three of our list. We’ll start with a grouping of six albums. Albums that are ‘good’, to such an extent that they should really be in any Metalhead’s collection.

These first six are in no particular order. In fact, to express this, I’ve put them in alphabetical order based on band name – and so actually they are in a particular order, but it has nothing to do with how high I would rank each.

By the way, to cover my ass, my list entries may not necessarily match up 100% with the grading given or the reviews themselves. The reason is time. Sometimes hearing something the first few times can be an amazing experience, but as time passes and you hear something more often, the experience wears off. Obviously a review should incorporate this possibility, but the simple truth is you can never be completely right or accurate. And tastes and preferences shift, in my case quite heavily over the course of this year.

So, what this list captures is longevity. An album’s capability to continue to capture its listener. In that sense, these are all albums that will stay interesting. Albums that need to be taken out of your huge motherfuckin’ album rack regularly or from time to time, because they will keep on tickling pleasure bones.