Altarage – The Approaching Roar (Season of Mist)

This is a dirty, muddy sort of death metal. The vocals sound like a wounded boar, which is interesting, and for me, this is the chief selling point of the album. It is a dying beast that I hear.

The insistent pounding of the drums is interspersed with thick, oozing sludge. The production isn’t very pretty, but that is because it delivers an atmosphere of ugliness.

This monstrous music is hard to compare to others, which is good. It can be safely added to your metal diet without side effects.

Altarage - The Approaching Roar
Altarage – The Approaching Roar

Devil Worshipper – Music for the Endtimes (I, Voidhanger)

The last time when I heard something with a slightly similar feeling was the band “Black Pentacost” which featured anguished yelling, as of someone being tortured. The music seemed to serve as a ritual rather than as songs.

This album bears some of that, but there are words, and the vocals are more varied, sometimes sounding like psychotics who are wailing while suffering mental horrors, and at other times there is black metal rasping or spoken words, but each flavor is heavily demented. This is like a legion of demons.

The strangeness of this album is enough to merit a purchase. The dark creativity and the atmosphere of derangement provide immense pleasure if heard in the right mood. then again, simply listening can place you where you must be.

Take a chance and support originality.

Devil Worshipper - Music for the Endtimes
Devil Worshipper – Music for the Endtimes

Woebegone Obscured – The Forestroamer (Aesthetic Death)

Woebegone Obscured – The Forestroamer (Aesthetic Death)

This is an older album, but I must review it because I have only discovered the album a few months ago, and if I was unaware of this excellence, there is a chance that you may also have somehow lived without this music. I am seeking out their other works, but this CD on Aesthetic Death is a must-have in any doom-lover’s collection.

I really need not tell you anything other than to just go buy it. The album has all that you would ever desire of a doom band with death metal vocals (as well as parts that have clean singing, which are quite fitting to those passages, like the words, “Beyond this world there is a hope the sun will burn a sign for you”).

Each flavor is measured and applied only in the amounts that are needed. The ear is constantly stimulated this way. Tempo changes not only snap the ear out of the abyss, the transformation is sometimes frightening, deepening the darkness. Indeed, this is even sung, “Nothing but the dark to live for.”

One of the songs has lyrics that are presumably in Danish (this is a band from Denmark).

I am still shocked that I had not been made aware of this album, or band, until now. This is why it is good to take chances on music. You need only yourself and a willingness to explore. I found this album by going on the Aesthetic Death web site (https://www.aestheticdeath.com) in search of any music by the band ESOTERIC that I may have not heard about, and yes, I found their demo double CD, but I kept snooping around and investigated their other releases. THE FORESTROAMER is one of the albums I decided to support, and I am incredibly happy that I did, even though it is the anthem of my sorrow for now.

Bergraven -Det Framlidna Minnet (Nordvis Produktion)

Bergraven -Det Framlidna Minnet (Nordvis Produktion)

This is quite an odd album. When I first heard a random spot, I expected black metal, and indeed, I did get the sense that this comes from that world, but the album has no known category, which is good.

The voices are not the screechy bitch-vocals of black metal – they are more on the exasperated shouting side, mixed with the melancholy folk sort of singing.

The music ranges from unusual timing and long riffs. to more straightforward and recognizable passages, but the songs seem to have been made to put the listener in a strange place. Even the upbeat portions have something twisted going on, as if a mad clown attempted to play something catchy, but is so bonkers that the otherwise accessible tune becomes demented.

There are bursts of aggression, but that’s just an ingredient in this insanity-potion, not the main flavor. Add to this, non-English lyrics, making this a welcome visit to another realm.