Füneral Rain Press Cörps

German metal label Naturmacht Productions has released a press release on MySpace:

“With the signing of the contract we can inform you either about a release date for the first Demo of Winternacht: It will be the 26.03. 2010 and the name will be Rêveries Hivernales. The artwork is made by Nordstjärna herself and will spread its beauty on 8 pages of booklet. The amount will be a strong limited one (50 copies).”

Genre: Dreamful Black Metal
Label: Naturmacht Productions

Opening with the 8+ minute long “Embrace of Nostalgia”, Wild Enchanted Gardens is another CD that makes my job easy, and I knew it would in the first three minutes of the song.
The music is so full of pure emotion that this could be an instrumental album. But Cristina’s voice is so powerful that I’m glad it’s not. And the sound, production-wise, is just stunning, and the tag that the band uses to describe the music itself is perfect: dreamful black metal.
The album reminds me of Emperor, musically, with some Opeth-like beautiful passages that drop in to hard sections that would make Satan himself smile with glee. And although Cristina sounds completely different, she uses her voice in a way that reminds me of I from Morgul. And concidering I is one of my favorite black metal vocalists, I’m aiming that to be a compliment.
This is the perfect album for symphonic black metal fans that want to relax a bit. It’s something to kick your feet up to, go for a long drive to; it’s one of those kinds of albums. And despite being only six songs, it’s still as longs as many albums with twice that many songs.
In short, I fucking love Streben. 10 out of 10.

An odd post in the MySpace blog of Streben, the Italian dreamful black metal duo. Posted by Cristina it stated simply:

“The project can’t be brought forth due to sudden and unexpected complications which occured to the friendship between the two founding members. Warm thanks to those few but sincere people who have been showing their interest and support so far.”

It is confirmed. Streben is no longer a band. Whether Cristina will continue on with Streben as a solo act is still unknown to me, or if she will continue with a different band. Again, when I know things on this front you will too.

GORGOROTH will perform their only UK show in 2010 at the Bloodstock Open Air festival which takes place from the 13th to the 15th of August. This will be the band’s first UK concert since the European tour in 2005.
More info can be found at the Bloodstock website.

The sixth full-length from swedish black metallers SETHERIAL will be called Ekpyrosis. Says drummer Alastor Mysteriis:

“We have now recorded six drumtracks and this time we decided to go for a full acoustic drum sound using no triggers or other modules. This week we will continue with the drums and also continue with the guitars and vocals. We are aiming for a much more organic production with this album since it fits the overall concept and the pre-productions we’ve done sound extremely promising. The lyrical theme of Ekpyrosis is about a metaphoric connection to the unavoidable conflict of the universe, through the Satanic angle and perspective.
The Ekpyrotic Universe draws its name from the ancient Greek word ekpyrosis, meaning ‘conflagration’ (disastrous fire or conflict). A tribute to the complete obliteration spiral of all particles that is ever created where the all-seeing/all-destroying eye of Satan’s singularity is represented by the destructive forces and dark energy of this vast, unknown universe.
We are also working with different ideas for layout and will present them to the public soon.”