SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): KARG, WOLVENCROWN, MÁDRA, HVØSCH

 SHADES OF BLACK  2 Responses »
Nov 172019
 

 

I have a lot to cover today, not counting a big stack of new albums I might mention by way of excerpts tomorrow, as I did last week, so by way of introduction I’ll say only that I grouped the two sets of songs in these two Parts in a purposeful way. Here, there’s a lot of heart-rending distress to be found (among other things). For the most part, what will come in Part 2 is much more… demonic.

KARG

For more than a decade, Harakiri For the Sky‘s vocalist J.J. has maintained a solo project named Karg, whose discography will soon include a seventh album entitled Trakat. The first single, “Irgendjemand wartet immer“, was released a few days ago. I think it’s best introduced through J.J.‘s comments about the album as a whole: Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SEA OF BONES, HÄXENZIJRKELL, HVØSCH, SHYY

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  15 Responses »
May 012016
 

Sea of Bones-Silent Transmissions

 

Most of the music in this Shades of Black series comes from the realms of black metal, but not all of it. Music can be black for other reasons as well, as demonstrated by the first of the four bands featured here.

This is a collection of songs that have been keeping me company in recent dark days. Until I decided to add the fourth band, I was going to call this Shades of Black — Long-Form Edition, because the songs by the first three bands are indeed much longer than average. They convincingly earn the extra minutes, and I hope you’ll carve out some space for them.

SEA OF BONES

As far as these selfish ears are concerned, far too much time has passed since New Haven’s Sea of Bones released their last album, The Earth Wants Us Dead. At last, we have something new. Continue reading »