As I already indicated in the comments of this NCS post, I recently rediscovered an epic Finnish Melodic Death slash Gothic Metal band called Before the Dawn. We’ve seen the band here once before. We’ve also seen a couple of solo projects of BtD’s criminal mastermind Tuomas Saukkonen, of which Black Sun Aeon is the darker project, tending towards Black Metal, and Dawn of Solace is more melancholic and atmospheric. (There aren’t the only bands/projects he’s active in, as he’s active in two more bands.) In any case, all three are different, but with a certain Saukkonen-signature. Regardless of which you think you prefer, all three of them are absolutely awesome, rich with heartfelt emotion!

Another find by Rufio: Witchbreed, out of Portugal. The name sounds every bit as evil as the music sounds. Now, Rufio found this, because their singer, Ruby Roque – too good a name to be real if you ask me – is the new singer of The Project Hate MCMXCIX (top band in the post, in which you can also hear ex-Scar Symmetry and now Solution .45 singer Christian Älvestam). In short a fuckin’ ace band!

Well, so is Witchbreed. The setting is less like a storm coming straight out of Hell, more like dark witches conjuring up all kinds of crap, taking apart orphans in the process: evil. It’s also quite symphonic with choirs in the background providing part of the atmosphere.

Tarragona, Spain is the city in which Laments of Silence holds its residence. After its formation in 1995, it took until 2002 when the line-up was, sort of, complete and they started recording their first release, Mutta, Goddess of Silence. Then in 2006 they went through a line-up, and corresponding style, change, after which the band had the form it still has today; that of a band holding the middle ground between a Melodic Death Metal style and a style that is more Gothic and more atmospheric. Restart Your Mind is their second full-length album and it was released on February 19th 2010

At that time we didn’t know about it yet, or about the band itself for that matter. However, since their label sent us a whole stack of albums to review, in which we also found Restart Your Mind, we do know them and we can basically say we’re happy to have made our acquaintance with Laments of Silence. The simple reason: they make good music with a clear own style.

Three juicy fresh bands for you wrapped in crispy paper. A joy to unwrap, an even bigger joy to listen to. Today’s first band is WhispersaW, which produces a delicious piece of Metal music. Sweet on the outside, with a big hard nut on the in.

After that, you get Atrum Aequora from Australia, playing what’s probably best described as Gothic Metal crossbred with Melodeath, and Devil Sold His Soul, from the UK, with some sort of slow sludgy Metalcore. Enjoy!

Like I expressed in my first contribution, featuring a band called System Divide among others, I would like to change the fact that the Israeli band Distorted isn’t represented here yet. That intention is changed into action in this post. And because women with microphones aren’t just good to listen to, but also to look at, we’ll have two more metal beauties fronting their bands.

So, apart from Miri Milman from Distorted, we’ll also hear Anna “Aya” Stefanowicz of the Polish band UnSun and Lennon Murphy of Devil’s Gift from the US.

Time for a new pack of music on this Wednesday morning! I’m amazed by how many bands I’ve already discovered since I started this website and how many I still discover every day, either helped by you lot – I massively appreciate that! – or by myself. It’s like the production rate of metal and the creation rate of new bands are much much higher than my metal consumption rate. I just hope it is, because then my supply will never run dry!

That said, what new stuff do we have in store today? We’ll start in Southern Europe with an Italian band that’s currently on hiatus and has been for quite a while. Doesn’t seem like they’ll ever get out of their dormant state, so you’ll have to satisfy yourself with the one track we have here and the album which it’s on.

The next track isn’t a new band, but it is a new song. It’s Insomnium, one of my personal favorite bands, from Finland, joined by Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne on vocals. Bloody bloody awesome, I can tell you that in advance!

And then finally, because there is non-metal music that is good – though only some – and because I’m a huge fan of the movie The Boondock Saints, some Dropkick Murphys. I’m sure you’ve heard the name of this Irish American folk-punk rock group before. Cheerful Irish music, with banjoes and accordions. Get y’er Guiness out laddies!

Cars of metal?! You’re probably thinking: “aren’t all cars made of metal?” Well, technically no, although most are. There are some cars that are made of some sort of composite and in the Ukraine some dude figured it to be neat and useful to build a two-faced wooden car and even quit his job for it. Hooray for senselessness!

Anyway, I wasn’t referring to the cars’ material when I came up with this title. I was referring to their musical metallicity. If you’re a metalhead you may want to show off this fact to the world, after all, your musical taste is far superior to that of anyone else! But ideally, you’d like people to know what kind of metal you listen to.

In the coming series we’ll discuss metal genres’ perfect rides. What car should you buy if you’re a Grindcorian, a prog metal fan or a Gothic? A question we will answer in this series! Today: Gothic Metal. Go read/watch!