Unfortunately this band is no more. Singer Ray-Ray snuffed it in early 2011 after overdosing on heroin. It really is a pity, as The Mayan Factor’s music is a real treat to the ear!

The band, from Baltimore, Maryland played a progressive sort of Rock characterized by the use of ethnic instruments and acoustic guitars, while still sounding solid and heavy. The main contributor to the band’s feel, in my opinion and based on listening to only a handful of songs, is the bass-acoustic guitar combination that creates immense depth. Over the course of the band’s career they released two albums; In Lake ‘ch (2003) and 44 (2005). Will serve up a song or two after the jump!

Credits to Rufio for directing our attention towards this group!

So many bands have named themselves after some thing or another from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. By now it would be easy to dismiss most of them as a bunch of unoriginal bums.

Whattamistakadamake in the case of Italy’s Ephel Duath. Named after the mountains surrounding Mordor, they’ve been dealing weird sorts of Progressive “Post-Black” and Avant-garde Metal since 1998. The group started out as a two-man game and is the brainchild of guitarist Davide Tiso and has released a small stack of full-lengths since. They must’ve done something right, because through time they managed to grab the attention of bassist Steve DiGiorgio, whom we should all know from such great Metallic names as Death, Testament, Iced Earth and Autopsy, who can now be heard on the band’s latest effort, a three song EP called On Death and Cosmos.

Also on board are German-born drummer Marco Minnemann and female vocalist Karyn Crisis, also the wife of Davide Tiso and seen with him on the band pic below. Recently the group moved to Polish label Agonia Records and On Death and Cosmos is the first release to be aired through this relationship.

Progressive Metal these days, at least the sort that flies into my inbox, seems to be more about chugging a la Meshuggah than anything else. In other words, it’s all turned into this thing called Djent. Or at least that’s my modest impression.

Wings Denied isn’t all that different. They call themselves a Progressive Metal band and they’ve got plenty of down-tuned guitar jamming going on. But for once they’ve got something that isn’t just a bad copy of the above mentioned Swedes. ‘Progressive’ is a stupid name any way. It suggests the band in question completely redefines the Metal genre. Such is not the matter with Wings Denied, but neither is it with 99% of the other bands that call themselves Progressive. However, they do play themselves a decent piece of Metal that cuts out their own distinctive sound.

Awake, a three-song EP, is the recently released evidence of that. Independently released and downloadable on a name your price basis through Bandcamp you ought to give it a spin.

A few moments ago I asked myself: “Now what is the purpose of Gathering the Troop?” It has been presented as some of my own ego-trippery, but while thinking about the rules that I go by, the actual purpose would be presenting news from lesser-known bands; ones that are either unsigned, or on a smaller label. So I won’t be presenting you the new Between the Buried and Me video, but today we’ll find ourselves some news from Mizraab and some older, while still relevant, news from CAPA.

But first, to quickly familiarise you with the rules of Gathering the Troop. Firstly, I have to be notified of it, either by a reader or a friend, or I have to come across it myself, it be on Facebook or on Tumblr. Secondly, the band has to be unsigned, or on a minor label. These two rules are simply there so I’m not simply repeating what others have written, but in order to secure that we’re presenting you something original.

With my work pressures slowly decreasing, I can slowly but steadily start to think about writing again. I did a double dose yesterday, so why not repeat that for today?

This one’s been spamming my inbox for a while; must have had like 400 e-mails announcing the coming of this album. Ignored ‘em all for months: no time. However, I did really enjoy A Wanted Awakening’s previous effort, an EP called Rebirth that I reviewed well over a year ago. It had some initial flaws and was later remastered quite successfully. Now they’ve got a full-length up, Catharsis, released about a month ago.

So, to stay in the vein of this website, I thought of this title just to bring you some news I come across myself, rather than just copying what I read over at the likes of NCS or perhaps what I get through from PR-propaganda. I’ll write what I hear and what I think, and of course this is hugely influenced by our fans, so I’d say, hit us up on Facebook when you have something hot, which is worth mentioning. In this issue, our friend Patrick Urban who pointed out that Dämmerfarben had posted a preview of their upcoming effort Herbstpfad, while I personally picked up a new track from Loch Vostok.

Starting with the latter, I hope we all remember my review of Loch Vostok’s fourth effort Dystopium, which is quite old by now. Reading back, I can’t help but think I grossly misunderstood the album at that point. However, that’s history and now the band is back with a new album. As with Dystopium, it is ViciSolum Productions handling the release of V – The Doctrine Decoded, which is due this autumn. The lads were kind enough to share the song A Tale of Two Kings with us, and with this stream comes the unveiling of the album art, to be seen below.

So I picked up writing again, not because I have the time to (it’s more of the opposite), but it’s just that I have no school or poetical inspiration to quench my thirst for composing literature. I stumbled across these two bands, Negură Bunget and Durdeduh, whose histories are intertwined through conflict.

In brief, Negură Bunget decided to break up in 2009, however drummer Negru treacherously decided to continue with a new line-up, leaving co-founders Hupogrammos and Sol Faur to form Durdeduh. Secretly I’m very grateful for Negru’s betrayal as this has given the world two excellent Romanian Black Metal bands in stead of one.

Four Songs for the Left Behind doesn’t contain four songs. It contains five; four original compositions and one cover of Motörhead’s Another Perfect Day, all of considerable duration.

Over two years ago I reviewed an album by a German one-man band called Another Perfect Day. The project is the brainchild of Kristian “Kohle” Kohlmannslehner, who also runs his own recording studio. Said album, titled The Gothenburg Post Scriptum, is a masterpiece. Through the past two years it has proven itself that time and time again. Amazing melodies and cunning progressiveness are mixed with the deepest of death growls and many an unorthodox element. Anyway, masterpiece, as said.

Now, you may have noticed it’s been rather quiet here at The Baboon. There are multiple reasons, but the main one is that my time to review anything is pretty much reduced to negative numbers, as my job has taken me to China and I’m working my balls off. Second reason is that there’s no YouTube access in China, except through VPN, but that’s just too slow to load anything. The third reason is that I’m just a lazy pig and I smell of manure.

But then, the other day, I got a message from Kohle, about the release of his new EP, Four Songs for the Left Behind and I was offered a promo pack as well. Pretty much at the same time reader Shaft dumped me the links to all five songs on Four Songs and given my experience with The Gothenburg Post Scriptum I just couldn’t let this one slip. So working in negative time, here’s my review of Kohle’s latest achievement.

A you’ve all noticed we’ve been on a bit of a hiatus today, but now it’s Friday night and the large part of my exams are over, so I’ll just throw down some of the music I’m digging at the moment. Nothing special, just some bands to keep you busy.

First up is a song by Enslaved, which seems to be a band of contradiction to me. I’m not very familiar with them, but I was really attracted to this song called Ethica Odini, an 8-minute long hybrid of Black Metal and Progressive Rock. It’s really a fabulous piece of music, but when I look at the list of album reviews at the Metal Encyclopedia, I actually find people who are angry with Enslaved for putting out this album Axioma Ethica Odini. I really like it though, because the balance between Black Metal and edgy Prog Rock is just perfect.

It wasn’t very long ago when I wrote a little something about a Russian outfit named Shturm. They are hot shit and so you should read that article if you haven’t already. I thought it worthwhile to sort out an interview with these chaps. Didn’t take long to get it arranged!

Thanks to Adar, vocalist and guitarist, for answering the questions and to Alex, from the band’s label, for arranging the interview for us!