Funeral Rain Press Corps

Genre: Dark Ambient

Label: Shaytan Productions

Now this… is… fucking awesome! As soon as I received Jilwah (and after I read a brief description of it and separated it from it’s black metal cousins in the stack of CDs that Shaytan Productions had sent me), I popped it into my CD player, turned off the lights and plopped down on the floor. Twenty seven minutes and twenty seven seconds later I got up, hit play again and laid back down on the floor and waited for Dhul Qarnayn to work his magic one more time.

To recap, I was expecting this to be a black metal album. I was hardly disappointed to find out that it was a dark ambient single. Upon further research, I discovered that I was a split and EP too early to hear any of main man Learza’s minimalist black metal offerings. (Shucks!)

Jilwah is just a shade under a half and hour of meditative serenity, intermixed with moments of shocking turbulence that, while only lasting a few seconds at a time, makes quite the impact. They’re like spiritual potholes that test the listeners soul alignment. There are a couple of section where you come across chanting (I believe that it’s in Arabic, but don’t quote me on that) that comes off eerily soothing. They’re the only verbal anything you’ll hear through the entirety of Jilwah.

There are folksy flourishes from time to time as well. They remind me of something that you might hallucinate if you managed to get yourself lost in the desert and were succumbing to heat stroke (sunburn not included). But then, in the nick of time, you stumble upon a lush oasis. You plunge into the glimmering spring before resting in the shade of the single massive palm tree, of which you feast on it fruits that magically fall into your mouth, ready to munch… yeah, I know. I’m doing that thing again where I go off on a tangent that is more of an interpretation of what I heard rather than a review. But you know what? Bite me. Ambient music, rather GREAT ambient music makes you to crazy things to let you know how much you appreciate it!

Overall: Jilwah is immeasurably amazing! It’s everything that I’ve personally ever wanted in an ambient offering: complexity, emotion and provocation of deep meditative thought. Jilwah and Phelios’s Astrial Unity are tied from first on my top ten favorite ambient listening experience!

10/10

Dhul Qarnayn has since called it quits so no links for you!

Genre: Ambient, Perfection
Label: Loki Foundation

After the cataclysmic disaster that was Control’s Deadly Sins, I’m almost too scared to review any more ambient releases. I mean, I fell HARD for this genre and I don’t want anymore shake-ups. My fragile Piscean emotions don’t like to be toyed with…wait. Michael JV Hensley of Yen-fucking-Pox is the sole musician at the wheel of Blood Box? Folks, I think I’ve overcome my fears!

Oh good lord! Funeral In An Empty Room is every bit as compelling, thought provoking and emotionally impactful as I wished it would be. Light, almost nonexistent “noises” greet you at the beginning of every track. It’s something that really used to get on my nerves as a budding fan of the ambient genre. But when Mikey H. does something, he does it right! Those little bits of sound heighten the anticipation for the good stuff to get going. So much so that in the following tracks, you’re going to sit there in the seconds between tracks and foam at the mouth waiting for them to start welling up from the void!

Every song is covered with layers upon layers of everything from cosmic scores played by a billion piece symphony of tachyons to harsh frozen swells that morph into whirlpools of flame to hypnotic tides that splash on the base of the rocky cliffs of madness! Yeah, it’s all in there. Every track is an adventure to the edge of reality and back.

Overall: Funeral In An Empty Room is easily one of the top five best releases that I’ve heard this year! I honestly can’t believe that an airy, ethereal release in a genre like this can be so complex and dense. There is so much going on in EVERY track that your head may very well explode!

10/10
Blood Box On Facebook
Blood Box On MySpace

Genre: Black Metal

Label: Moribund Records

Picture this: a lone alchemist that’s draped in a dingy, hooded cowl, siting at his work table in a dank, abandoned crypt. His hands are busy as bees; rendering old Dark Funeral EPs in a cauldron and demolishing Under The Sign Of The Back Mark in a mortar. His unholy goal? To distill the most evil of metals down to its very essence and ingest it to gain ultimate domain over all things black metal!

Who is this undoubtedly mad man, you ask? His name is Miasmyr. The lone genius behind Moon and my new favorite black metal anything, Caduceus Chalice. I’m not sure how many times I’m going to say this or even in how many ways, but this album is what black metal has been struggling to become (That being Black Metalus Superius)!

I can hear a bunch of you already, “But black metal was perfected in the early 90′s when it was conceived! Heresy!” Yes and no, I say.

Yes: As many thought, it was the best the genre was to ever be…

No: You’re fucking wrong! Music is supposed to evolve, as Caduceus Chalice clearly demonstrates with its base in all things classic, the Norwegian ways while forging ahead with little progressions in structure and overall atmosphere. I guess you could say that Caduceus Chalice finds new ways of being creepy, evil and metal as hell while not alienating its core demographic.

Songs like Monastery and Beneath incorporate more of an ambient sound into a bulk of the track, while still stuffing them with ripping, black metal riffs and chaotic snare insanity! It’s a perfect imbalance!

Overall: Moon/Miasmyr IS black metal. That is final.

10/10

Moon Official

Genre: Melodic Death Metal

Label: Independent
If At The Gates had Phil Bozeman on vocals, a more free wheelin’ lead guitarist and (believe it or not) better lyrics, then they’d be Beyond The Red Horizon. If that didn’t snag your attention and set your imagination lose in a metal-candy store, then stop reading at the end of this sentence, since the rest of this review is going to be me gushing all over Into The Cosmic Realm.

This five track EP weighs a ton! Twenty minutes and forty-five seconds? No way. As many times as you’ll be starting it over and over again, it’s easily break the hour mark! I honestly couldn’t get enough of the ethereal imagery and pan-dimensional soundscapes that these four young lads conjured up!

Vocalist Nathan Mote has some of the most balanced vocals I’ve heard in a while. His barbaric growls (which sound JUST like the aforementioned Whitechapel vocalist‘s without any of the post-production tampering) are on par with his shrieking and each seem to compliment each other without either one overpowering the other. Which seems to be quite the pitfall nowadays in this genre. But let’s not forget about Jason Borton, bringing up the rhythm section. I swear on a stack of pancakes that this guy was born doing blast beats and probably even had his first snare as a zygote! Borton is a machine! It’s not very often that you can isolate a drum track and still hear a great melody! Color me beyond impressed…

Vlad’s guitar work is, once again, in tip-top from. His leads sound terrific. Organically growing and receding with the natural ebb and flow of the melody, when suddenly; SOLO AHOY!!! An acid rock inspired wah-wah fest springs up and Vlad’s fingers go into overdrive, shredding up and dishing out lightning fast riffs that lay waste to the listener! But backing him up, we’ve got Colin St.Claire on bass. Laying down thick yet speedy lines that boom, bounce and bludgeon your ear drums. The occasional solo is thrown in too (my favorite is towards the beginning of Storms Within), just to let you know that the talent is band wide.

Overall: Beyond The Red Horizon is the premier melodic death metal entity in Pacific Northwest! There. I said it. It can’t be unsaid. That’s it and that’s all.

10/10

Beyond The Red Horizon On Facebook

Genre: Dark Ambient

Label: Malignant Records

Up next on my round trip into the gates of madness and back to where reality and dementia connect through a leyline of self discovery is Phragments and their 2008 dark ambient and third release, Earth Shall Not Cover Their Blood.

Right off the bat, Phragments separate themselves from the rest of the Malignant Records releases that I’ve heard so far by tossing actually vocal and lyrics into the fray. This intrigues me! Normally ambient artists tend to let the music speak for itself through avant garde channels. Luckily, instead of blathering on about absolutely nothing at all, they spend what little time they do on vocals warning mankind about it’s own atrocities. War. Genocide. Cultural rape. These things chime back at you through industrial distortion, tapping that little guilt button in the back of your mind. Ah. Human feelings forced to respond to the actions of the cruel. It’s one hell of a self-awareness exercise.

As for the actual ambient music, it get the emotions flowing with gusto! From the opening title track to album closer The Return, you feel the weight of the world come slamming down on your shoulders and slowly, but surely you’re crushed under the sheer magnitude of what Phragments brings to town. Metallic  “twangs” and “clanks” can be heard mostly at the beginning of the songs as an attention grabber, then gradually fade into the ether. In the track entitled The Fogs Have Risen, you find yourself greeted by what sounds like a muffled, digital klaxon. It’s like it’s warning you to turn back now if you have doubts about the amazing finale that’s heading your way! I, of course, braved through it and was rewarded with twenty six tons of atmosphere that finished the job… Phragments have a brand new fan.

Overall: I don’t know how many times I can keep falling in love with this genre! Phragments co-owns the dark ambient crown and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

10/10

Phragments On MySpace

Phragments Bandcamp