THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Dec 282023
 

(Andy Synn delivers one final retrospective on albums from 2023 you may have overlooked)

Hey everyone, I’m back, feeling fully refreshed and ready to rumble after my week (and a bit) hiatus.

Before I get fully stuck into 2024’s upcoming slate of releases I’ve got two more pieces for 2023 for you all to enjoy – namely my last Synn Report of the year (coming on Friday) and this extra-big edition of “Things You May Have Missed”.

Now unlike previous editions, this one won’t just be focussing on albums from the last month (though there’s seven – I think – albums from December featured here) but will also take a look back at certain albums from the past year that I either didn’t get the chance to cover at the time, didn’t discover until much later, or just wanted to highlight one more time for people to check out.

Of course, even so there’s more artists and albums I wanted to include than I had space or time for – so I’d urge you, if you have any extra time, to check out the new Moonreich (which almost made my “Personal Top Ten“, Rosa Faenskap (which did) and Witch Ripper (which I know was on my “Critical Top Ten“, but still seems to have flown under a few radars) – but first, feel free to go through everything I’ve featured here (which I’ve broken up into separate sub-categories) and check out a few things you may have missed!

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AN NCS PREMIERE: CHALLENGER DEEP — “CONFIDENCE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Jul 202023
 

In their own words, Challenger Deep is “an experimental Belarusian band that plays an emotional, atmospheric mix of post-metal, black metal and hardcore,” whose live performances bring “a cold shower of emotions and nerves stretched to the limit, supplemented by atmospheric light show and video background.”

To date, the band have released two albums (Our Own Prisons in 2011, and Irreversible in 2014), a pair of splits (with their countrymen Barrow in 2013, and with Poland’s Hegemone in 2015), as well as a 2016 single named “Indifference“. And though there’s been a long seven years of silence since that last release, the band have brought themselves back together and are working toward the release of a new album — III. The Path — by the end of 2023.

To help pave the way, today we’re premiering a new single from the album named “Confidence“, and based on the power of what it delivers, expectations for the new full-length should be be very high. Continue reading »