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Back in stock - Extreme Metal and Dark music
This is the sound of nostalgia and authenticity - the album that started it all! "Westfälischer Schlachtenlärm" was originally never intended as a first album, but as a demorecording. It sold out within 3 months after its initial CD release, making it highly sought after. After 8 years, it's now finally available again.
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Originally released in 2006, 'Ashes Against the Grain' seamlessly blends heaviness with atmosphere and precision. With their third full-length, the band continued their musical journey, always a step ahead, but without losing grip of their dark metal roots. The album combines elements of black metal, Scandinavian prog-rock, and post-rock with the unique, melancholic, contemplative style that is so typical of Agalloch.
From the driving force of “Falling Snow” to the dissolving trilogy “Our Fortress Is Burning...,” this is Agalloch at their most direct and elemental. A contrast to the warmth firey nightsky of 'Pale Folklore', the monumental poetic folk of 'The Mantle' , 'Ashes...' gazes into a horizon of dying embers with clarity.
The band’s panoramic scope of songwriting - takes on a widescreen scale - combined with the albums imagery, and production all aligned into a monolithic statement — sharp, modern, and unrelentingly melancholic.
Solid hardbound book edition (20x20cm) featuring bronze hot foil finish, 64 pages with artwork, lyrics, and information around the album. Extensive liner notes from the press and musicians and specifically curated interview related to the album itself. Double CD set with Ashes Againast The Grain on Disc 1, and Selected Fragments on Disc 2.
Originally released in 2006, 'Ashes Against the Grain' seamlessly blends heaviness with atmosphere and precision. With their third full-length, the band continued their musical journey, always a step ahead, but without losing grip of their dark metal roots. The album combines elements of black metal, Scandinavian prog-rock, and post-rock with the unique, melancholic, contemplative style that is so typical of Agalloch.
From the driving force of “Falling Snow” to the dissolving trilogy “Our Fortress Is Burning...,” this is Agalloch at their most direct and elemental. A contrast to the warmth firey nightsky of 'Pale Folklore', the monumental poetic folk of 'The Mantle' , 'Ashes...' gazes into a horizon of dying embers with clarity.
The band’s panoramic scope of songwriting - takes on a widescreen scale - combined with the albums imagery, and production all aligned into a monolithic statement — sharp, modern, and unrelentingly melancholic.
Throughout the "Suns of Perdition" tetralogy, Panzerfaust has managed to expand upon their distinct sound and infuse it with a clear vision and intensity. In the third act of the tetralogy, the band takes listeners on an incredibly immersive, yet harrowing journey to an outer darkness, documenting mankind's descent into collective madness and forcing listeners to face the mirror of a hideous reality, in all of its glorious terror, horror, and disgust.
The music contained on "The Astral Drain" is incredibly captivating and immediate, whilst retaining a strong sense of atmosphere. In particular, the intensity of the performances is truly something to behold. While many contemporaries may drift toward increased tempos in order to artificially create a sense of intensity, Panzerfaust have achieved songwriting brilliance in ensuring that every moment on "The Astral Drain" is filled with passion and purpose. This is all the more impressive as much of the material seems purposefully composed at a more mid-tempo, allowing for these songs to be embellished with stunning details in melody, primarily provided by guitars, vocal arrangements, effective ambient sections as well as incredibly precise and deep percussion work. Specifically, the drums manage to provide a solid foundation to these monolithic tracks, while offering stunning compositional diversity and creativity. Furthermore, the band's boldness in vocal performance and delivery enhances what would already be a captivating listening experience. As such, it is the fantastic compositional detail placed on each element throughout this record that elevates "The Astral Drain" to stand as Panzerfaust's most accomplished and ambitious work to this date, certainly warranting repeated listens.
The band's ability as songwriters are on full display here, as each song refuses to fall back on genre conventions, instead of allowing the music to develop organically, with movements in each song seeming to convulse and develop into new sections that drive the music forward. This is an impressive compositional achievement, as the shifts in musical form occur naturally, belying the fact that great effort was placed in the fluidity of the music, something that is often ignored in more "progressive" extreme metal.
As pertains to production, the band has managed to infuse these songs with depth and a strong sense of atmospherics that never drains out the main instruments. Produced by Greg Dawson at BWC Studios in Kingston, Ontario, and mastered by Sergei Lazar at CDM Records, Moscow, the sound of "The Astral Drain" is stunningly organic, whilst retaining clarity in all instrumental elements, an impressive accomplishment when considering the audible layers on display throughout the album. The production is warm and entrancing, perfectly fitting the compositions of the record.
Despite - or perhaps due to - this compositional and conceptual boldness, "The Astral Drain" is a profound black metal record, filled with sonic despair and darkness.
The Suns of Perdition IV concludes with its ultimate offering "To Shadow Zion" - a multi-layered title fusing the definition of Zion, in the context of "a heavenly place" or "utopia" coupling with the Jungian concept of the Shadow - together forming the vile, repressed nature of humanity with that of the sacred and of the holy. SUNS IV, in its final analysis is the last sounds of a borrowed world, where earth's last picture is painted - the terminus of all paradises lost - at Shadow Zion.
Digipak CD edition with 8-page poster booklet and album download
The second chapter of the band's tetralogy examining the malign episodes of this past century.
'Render Unto Eden' is an altogether more somber record: here do Panzerfaust more fully work with light and shade, their darkness displaying far more hues than previously deemed imaginable. Whereas the five-song first chapter was taut 'n' terrorizing, The Suns of Perdition II likewise features five songs but in a more expansive 44-minute runtime. As such, massive vistas of molten melancholy unfold, the inexorable push-and-pull patient but persistent; layers upon layers of understanding are packed into each of these scintillating minutes. The violence is more carefully doled out, in kind, and the sum effect is nothing short of hypnotic. The Suns of Perdition II: Render Unto Eden echoes within the mind and spirit long after the record's over...
Produced and mixed by Greg Dawson at BWC Studios in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the album was mastered by Sergei Lazar at CDM Records Studio in Moscow, Russia.
The track "Promethean Fire" features guest vocals from Maria Arkhipova of Russia's Arkona.
Canadian black metal fundamentalists PANZERFAUST are not taking their upcoming tetralogy The Suns of Perdition lightly. It is their most ambitious work to date and perhaps the band’s most extraordinarily violent. The first chapter War, Horrid War is OUT NOW on CD, LP
Reissue 2018
Originally released in 2004, Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest is a sarcophagi of despair as the album’s nine tracks account for a hour’s worth of raw misanthropic misery. Hauntingly primal, the album’s evocative nature is matched by its flawless lo-fi production of ghostly guitars and ethereal synths. Evilfeast’s lone multi-instrumentalist, GrimSpirit, begins his prolific body of work with a wintry dissonance. With over two decades of depraved black metal under his belt, it is easy to see why Evilfeast belongs alongside Burzum, Paysage d'Hiver and Midnight Odyssey.
Digipak CD with UV Spot, 20-page booklet, and designed download card.
Danish black metal force Afsky return with full-length number four simply entitled "Fællesskab", once again delving deep into the bleak, atmospheric realms that have defined their signature sound. Fællesskab reveals their most critical and emotionally charged work to date, a deeply personal voyage into the heart of Nordic black metal, where raw emotion and melodic depth keep reveling in sorrow and longing beauty.
Translating to “Community”, Fællesskab's six tracks weave a strong musical oeuvre within the Afsky canon; their walls of haunting melancholia, interwoven with vital intensity, have never been more powerful. Yet, this new work also sees the band at its sharpest in social criticism, as Ole Luk of Afsky notes:
Fællesskab - Overture to the Downfall.
Here, community is praised like herd animals fleeing responsibility. A parade of moral superiority, where truth is trampled in the name of consensus. Where unity means silence, and doubt is a crime. Six songs of shame disguised as care, of freedom suffocated, and of the solitary few who still dare to question. A chorus of hollow words, where silence screams the loudest. Welcome to the celebration – the curtain hasn’t just risen, it’s been torn away!
Digipak CD edition with booklet
AFSKY's second album "Ofte Jeg drømmer mig død" is a journey through the cultural history of Denmark, focusing on poems and lyrics by well-known and lesser-known Danish writers such as H.C. Andersen, Emil Aarestrup and others - reflections on the eternal misery in the age of industrialization, when people were considered "human material", trapped in everyday life and forced to work hard for the upper class until death.
To express this, a mixture of icy, nordic black metal with folk and doom elements is conjured up by Afsky, crowned by the melancholic and emotional interpretation and performance.
On "Ofte Jeg Drømmer Mig Død" AFSKY have managed to combine timeless poetry of the 19th century with their own timeless music - which draws attention to the injustices in today's world and even shows frightening parallels.
Digipak CD edition with booklet
The debut album of AFSKY is a cold atmospheric representative that can be clearly assigned to the DSBM genre. The doomy folk and classical music elements already appear here and there, such as the guest contribution of Amalie Bruun (Myrkur) on the nykelharpa and clean vocals - but the raw coldness is most present here.
Written at a time of frustration, sadness and dark emotions, the lyrics lead to a haunting and harrowing exploration of the various shades of suffering, but also reflect the magnificence of nature - as eternal inspiration and shelter.
This album expresses exactly what Afsky and Sorg stand for namely: disgust and sadness. The cradle and the cornerstone that bear all the hallmarks of Afsky in their original and pristine sound.
