Funeral Rain Press Corps

Candlelight Records today confirms October 26 as the North American release date for The Isolationist, the new album from Krieg. Recorded at Volume Studios in Chicago, the nearly hour-long album will challenge the listener with its primitive yet complex sound. It is Krieg‘s sixth full-length recording, and the first since 2006’s Blue Miasma.

Working with producer Sanford Parker (Nachtmystium, Pelican, Yakuza), The Isolationist finds Krieg further experimenting with sound. The rage and dissonance fans have come to expect from the New Jersey band emerges even more frenzied making the journey through this album far more intense than on previous efforts. Vocalist Imperial admits, “The Isolationist presents Krieg at it’s most evolved yet primal state thus far in fifteen years of causing problems for people’s hearing. It is my ugliest and most personal child, going deep into the darkest places in my own history on earth. I’m a fucked up wreck, and this record shows that.”

The Isolationist features performances from guitarist Joseph Van Fossen (Noctuary), bassist Wrest (Leviathan), and drummer Chris Grigg (Woe). “It was an intense process, considering everyone only had a few days in and out due to their own hellish schedules. I was fortunate to work with dedicated artists who each brought their own identity to the project and a good understanding behind the meaning of the record.”

Krieg has been an integral part of the American black metal scene since forming in 1995. In addition to their full-length albums, including 2003’s acclaimed The Black House (which Terrorizer Magazine noted it as “one of the ten most important American black metal records”), Krieg has recorded and released numerous demos, split and live recordings. Fans tally more than 40 individual items as part of the band’s creative efforts. In addition to Krieg, vocalist Imperial has several other band projects including N.i.l., Apothecary.Sound.Lodge and his doom band March Into the Sea. He is also a member of Twilight which features members of Nachtmystium, Leviathan, The Atlas Moth, Isis, Minsk and more.

The Isolationist Track Listing:
1. No Future
2. Photographs from an Asylum
3. All Paths to God
4. Ambergeist
5. Depakote
6. Religion III
7. Blue of Noon
8. Decaying Inhalations
9. An the Stars Fell On
10. Remission
11. Dead Windows

Krieg on MySpace.

Genre: Progressive Black Metal
Label: Southern Lord

Reformed with a mostly new line-up, featuring Blake Judd from shithot black metal band Nachtmystium, Twilight return to the scene.
A true supergroup of black metal, and mostly from very different styles of black metal, progressive metal, and doom, Twilight is more than the sum of its parts. Because these are all guys that are very knowledgeable as to what they are doing, and considering this was written as a truly collaborative effort, unlike the Twilight debut, this is a much stronger album too.
The music takes at times more rock structures, but with very blackened overtones. I think this comes not from black metal thinking but the progressive thinking of the FOUR guitarists (Blakemystium, Wrest, Aaron Turner from Isis, and Stavros Giannopolous from The Atlas Moth) and the vocals are throat destroying and amazing. I honestly do not know how N. Imperial does such work. The drums and bass are done by Wrest himself, and are done amazingly.
All told, Monument to End Time is a gorgeous piece of work, and truly is genre defining and breaking at the same time. If you don’t get it, you’re missing the fuck out.
10 out of 10.

Twilight on Southern Lord.

When TWILIGHT’s self-titled debut was delivered in 2005 it was an explosive new time for American black metal, where several stateside acts were captivating the world’s attention. It was during these times that a crew of henchmen hailing from said acts covertly assembled to formulate a collaborative album, under the banner of TWILIGHT. Then comprised of members of Nachtmystium, Leviathan, Kreig, Xasthur and Drautran, the album’s gritty and varied content was an instant cult classic for the genre.

Due to personal differences within the unit, TWILIGHT officially disbanded a year later, with no plans of a new record on the horizon. Yet in early 2009 several members resurrected a modified lineup. These alterations would expand this “follow-up release” into a full-blown masterpiece.

TWILIGHT’s massive lineup on the upcoming Monument To Time End includes three founding members – Blake Judd (Nachtmystium), Wrest (Leviathan, Lurker of Chalice), and N. Imperial (Kreig), – and new recruits Stavros Giannopolous (The Atlas Moth), Sanford Parker (Minsk, Buried At Sea) and Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom), as well as vocal contributions by Robert Lowe (Lichens, OM).on three tracks. This wholly forward-thinking alignment of artists presents this TWILIGHT release as an entirely new entity.

Undoubtedly, the harsh and cantankerous black metal underbelly of the foundation of the unit is still intact throughout Monument To Time End, but it’s the visual hell the listener feels personified through the more dissonant, demented and ethereal realms of utter madness explored, where seemingly psychotropic nightmares come to life with an ethereal, beautiful vengeance.