Exactly how much you will (or won’t) enjoy the debut recording from US Doom merchants Weightlessness hinges solely on one singular question, and just in case anyone from Massachusetts is trying to read this, I’ll dumb the question down a little: Does it bother you when bands sound exactly like other bands? For a lot of critics, this is the bane of their existence. Every band must have a totally unique sound all its own! You can tell by the horrible shit they like. Sure, the album sucks leper barf through a straw, but hey… it doesn’t sound like anybody else. This ideal has never made much sense to me. I don’t mind a copycat whatsoever, as long as they’re copying something I like. Say you have a favorite Italian restaurant, and their lasagna is the best you’ve ever had. Then for some reason you have to try a different Italian joint, and you find out their lasagna’s basically the same but just as good. Does that bother you? Lets say you break up with your old lady and start dating someone new, only to find out she gives the exact same deep throat, no-hands-except-for-ball-fondling, slobber-crazy blow job that your ex did. You upset about that? You gonna dump her for a lack of originality? I think not. Now, I get the gripe completely if the original idea being copied was lame to begin with. Like these Hollywood directors making the same goddamn Liam Neeson-as-the-ultimate-bad-ass movie every 2 months. “They took somethin’ from me! I’m gonna use m’skills to get it back!” No one wants to hurt your family, dude. Please go away. Then every other 2 months it’s the Denzel Washington movie where he plays an omnipotent, omniscient superhuman who has 90 minutes to get to the bottom of something, co-starring your pick of outwitted pretty white boy. If it seems as though I’ve gone too far off topic, it’s because I have, but finally back to Weightlessness. They sound identical to the band Loss. If you don’t know who Loss is, then congratulations on a happy life. Take the family to go see Taken 18 (“They took m’Sunday paper! I’ve gotta use m’skills!”) and then kill yourself. For those familiar with the abject hopelessness of Loss’ beyond-despondent Funeral Doom style, Of Lachrymose Grief is 4 songs/40 minutes of that same style from a different source. Again, who cares if you have to use a different weed guy as long as it’s that same Couchlock? Hell, Mike Meacham himself does guest vocals on the band’s cover of Black Sabbath’s “Solitude.” Clearly he’s not upset about it, so why should I be? Sure, the similarities are so striking that, under the right circumstances, it could actually be comical. For instance, I’d probably refer to these guys as Weightlossness in jest if there were ever anyone around to talk to. But there isn’t. So, at the end of each miserable, meaningless day, I need miserable, meaningful music to soak my life-destroyed brain in. Original or not, Weightlessness is able to serve that purpose as well as anyone on any given evening.

“Hope is the refuge of the hopeless, and I have forsaken such weakness.”
-Victor Von Doom

This is my first time hearing Arathgoth, and the Sci-Fi nerd in me likes this band a lot. Their music isn’t especially groundbreaking, but anybody that can reference Battlestar Galactica, The Running Man, Captain Harlock, Dune, Transformers, and Alien on one record is cool in my book. As a music critic, though, I have the unpleasant duty of telling it like it is from a musical perspective. Arathgoth has an identity crisis. They don’t know whether they want to be Electronic Ambient/Industrial or Atmospheric Black Metal. Some of the songs are Black Metal in style, incorporating Gothic/Industrial keyboards and elements, coming off similar to old Aborym with Sci-Fi elements. Other songs are wholly Industrial/Ambient, incorporating mechanized drum beats and atmospheric keyboards, shedding the guitars and raspy vocals entirely and going instrumental only. Taken individually, each song is good for what it is, being either Electronic or Black Metal. As an entire LP, though, it doesn’t gel as well as it could. The Electronic stuff is passive and atmospheric, with the Black Metal parts going the opposite direction and being aggressive sounding, creating something of a schizophrenic whole that is at times dark and tranquil, while others, twisted and violent. This might have worked as an Atmospheric Black Metal album with Electronic Ambient/Industrial interludes, but unfortunately, the reverse doesn’t. Fans of Electronic Ambient music don’t want Black Metal interludes because it breaks up the Ambiance. In this case, there’s too little Black Metal for this to work as a Black Metal release. My suggestion for the band is to decide what they want to do: either be Black Metal or Electronic Ambient. Electronic Ambient/Industrial elements can be incorporated into Black Metal with a great deal of success. Many Black Metal bands have done this. Having separate Black Metal and Electronic Ambient/Industrial tracks just makes things confusing. Given the amount of Electronic/Ambient stuff on this LP, I’d say that going wholly Industrial/Ambient is probably the direction they’re headed. If Arathgoth ditches the Black Metal stuff entirely, they may find a more receptive audience for their music in the Gothic/Industrial scene, where they would fit in better.

Lord Worm (ex-Cryptopsy) is back again with his Black Metal band, Rage Nucleaire. Though I was never much of a Cryptopsy fan, I do find myself liking Rage Nucleaire a lot more. I missed their first LP, 2012’s Unrelenting Fucking Hatred, but after listening to Black Storm of Violence, I think I might try to track it down. While I’ve heard this band described as having a similar sound to Anaal Nathrakh, I don’t hear Rage Nucleaire as being that Industrial. They have a similarly mechanical drum sound, and the riffing style is in the same vein, but Rage Nucleaire is more stripped down. Both bands have keyboards as part of their arsenal, thoughAnaal Nathrakh uses them far more than these guys do. When I heard that this band contained an ex-member of Cryptopsy, I expected it to be hyper-technical, but this isn’t the case at all. It’s very simplistic, and the no-frills, no-wankery approach makes Rage Nucleaire far more listenable. Lord Worm sounds like a psychotic Donald Duck raging into a microphone with so much reverb on it that you literally can’t understand a damn thing he’s saying - which may be the point. If you think of him as just another instrument, this works very well. One of the detractions I’ve heard about this album is that only Lord Worm sounds like he’s totally into it. Having listened to this multiple times with that in mind, I have to say that this is a valid point. While he sounds like a raging psychotic, the other members do seem a little on the flat side. I wouldn’t say that the other players are lifeless, just that things sound a little too clean and precise. Maybe having a rawer or more distorted guitar sound, and a more natural drum tone would have made this better, though it might have had the opposite effect and turned everything into a bigger ball of sound than it already is. I still found this LP to be something that I enjoyed. While it could have used a more powerful production, particularly where the guitars are concerned, I still recommend checking it out, if for no other reason than to hear just how insane Lord Worm sounds.

I’ve been following Empyrium for quite a while. I first heard about the band back when they were playing a form of Black Metal that was similar to early Ulver, mixing acoustic and atmospheric elements in with the harsher stuff in a way that was pretty interesting to me at the time. Over the years, the group shed their Black Metal edge and went more and more into the realms of Neo-Folk, sounding more like Sol Invictus than Emperor or Burzum. I’ve never been a huge fan of Neo-Folk, mostly because a lot of those bands are dreadfully boring in my opinion. Still, I always made time for Empyrium because they were one of the few bands out there that could make an acoustic album work. The Turn of the Tides is very much in the same vein as their last release, the live Into the Pantheon, which captured the essence of the band’s style. Two of the songs from The Turn of the Tides, “Dead Winter Ways” and “The Days Before the Fall”, were played on Into the Pantheon so if you have that release, you have a good idea where this LP is going already. The difference between the live renditions of those songs and the studio versions, though, is pretty noticeable. The live versions were good, but the studio versions are positively epic. They have far greater atmosphere and bombast, mostly because the keyboards/symphonic elements are more prominent. It borderlines Atmospheric Doom at times, channeling that dark and somber feeling extremely well. The Turn of the Tides has a more symphonic quality, and while not full-on Metal, it is more complex and interesting than your average Neo-Folk release. If you’re already a fan of Empyrium or you like Neo-Folk that’s more atmospheric and complicated than the “two-man acoustic jam” style that seems to be prevalent in that scene, The Turn of the Tides is an LP I recommend checking out immediately.

This is the debut full-length release from Norway’s Savn, a group composed of ex-The Sins of Thy Beloved members (Stig Johansen and Anders Thue, though Anders was only a live musician) and Carmen Elise Espenaes (the sister of ex-Theater of Tragedy member Liv Kristine, who guests on the song “I Am Free”) of Midnattsol. Their only other release to date is the single for “Hang On,” though if you own this, you’re not missing anything because both of the tracks from the single appear on this album. If the more lightweight material from The Sins of Thy Beloved is your cup of tea, Savn will definitely appeal to you. Right off the bat, I noticed that the music here wasn’t exactly intense or brutal. It’s essentially Gothic Metal that’s heavy on the “Gothic” and light on the “Metal” to the point where it almost sounds like the Metal parts were an afterthought. Even then, the riffing could easily qualify as Goth Rock. The guitar’s aren’t even prominent, being that the music is primarily keyboard and vocal-driven. I had hoped that this would be darker and more Doom-influenced than The Sins of Thy Beloved but given what’s here, it’s all sunshine and daisies compared to the new Lacuna Coil - and if you’re a Metal band, that’s bad news. Lacuna Coil isn’t exactly My Dying Bride, and if you’re not darker or heavier than they are, you may as well get some Techno/Industrial drum beats and start singing about how your job selling My Little Pony T-shirts at Hot Topic makes you feel all emo. The music doesn’t suck, but when you’re marketing to a Metal audience, it’s not exactly what most Metal fans are looking for. We want dark and heavy music, and Savn really doesn’t go there very often. It’s symphonic and atmospheric the way good Gothic Metal should be, but it’s just too lightweight. My recommendation to the band is to go darker and heavier. The band members have the skills to do it, which disappoints me a bit more than if they were a bunch of new kids. Dr. Ychoril prescribes old My Dying Bride, Mourning Beloveth and Eye of Solitude LPs in large quantity, all of which should give object lessons in what “dark” and “heavy” mean.

Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. Ancient Vvsidom has gone full-on electric. It seems to be the inevitable outcome of every project that starts out as an all-acoustic affair. Is it a feeling of inadequacy, or perhaps vulnerability, in the live setting? Peer pressure? Fan request? Boredom? Musical evolution? Who knows? Who cares? If I seem bummed about it, I’m really not. And if you can admit to enjoying a touch of silk and satin with your Satan, you shouldn’t be either. On Sacrificial, AVV makes the transition quite seamlessly. After all, it’s not like this was ever just a guy on a stool with an acoustic and one of those Bob Dylan harmonica setups. [As a side note, why aren’t cellular providers selling those things for smart phones? All a human being exists for anymore is to stare endlessly into some device. Why not free all these idle hands?] This has been a full band from the start, with percussive and electric elements to enhance the acoustic guitar-centered approach. But now that center is a distorted guitar with traditional drumming, and that’s really all that’s changed for these Pop-flirty pagans. When it comes down to it, all that really matters is Nathan Opposition’s voice, and he sounds terrific as always here. (I’ve been told he can’t pull it off live, but I honestly don’t give a shit. Live is for the living, and I’ve been dead forever.) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this guy could be doing something far more commercially viable than writing love songs for Lucifer if he chose to. He’s got an all-pro Alt/Indie Rock voice to call on at will. However, I for one am more than pleased to have him on the dark side. On the chorus of album opener “Chaos Will Reign,” it occurs to me that this is a voice I truly miss when I haven’t listened to it in a while. The heavy guitars might even serve to give that voice additional weight. Though I must admit, the playing is a tad sketchy at times (particularly on heavily palm-muted rhythm figures), and the actual timing at certain points seems to be off (see, “Worm Ridden Skull” among others). Luckily, Opposition is always there to save the day. Rain or shine, he is here to do the Devil’s work. Just listen to… um… “The Devil’s Work.” Just about every song here —save for maybe the somewhat pointless intro/outro bookends— is a keeper, warts and all. The band may owe partial songwriting credit to Nine Inch Nails for the beginning of “Blind Leading the Blind,” but that’s hardly a complaint. If you like good singers singing Satanic lyrics, then you probably already like this.

2014 was rough for Destrose. Early in the year, longtime vocalist Marina Hebiishi left in what appears to have been a less than amicable split. The band quickly recruited a new singer, stabilizing their lineup long enough to record this EP. No sooner was The Prologue released, though, when it was announced that their longtime drummer, Haruna, would be departing the band. Mina’s lineup problems seem to be chronic, but you have to give her credit for pushing onward in the face of adversity. I don’t know if there’s some lingering bitterness between Marina and the rest of Destrose, but this EP was recorded and released very quickly, thrown out there in what appeared to be an attempt to steal the thunder from Marina’s new band, Mardelas, who would be releasing their debut EP a month later. I don’t know for sure if this is exactly what happened, but it would explain why this EP came out when it did and also why it doesn’t sound nearly as good as their last release, 2013’s 霖 -Rin-/MAZE EP (the last recording they did with Marina on vocals). In a lot of ways, The Prologue is where Destrose is trying to find a new identity. Of the three songs on 霖 -Rin-/MAZE, two of them were written by Marina, and in a very big way, she defined what the Destrose sound was. Without her, the rest of the band has to figure out who they are. The lack of solid identity makes The Prologue something of an interesting listen. The music has kind of a “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” approach that isn’t all bad because all of the songs still have something of the old Destrose sound to them. Still, there are some rough patches, uneven songwriting and the sound isn’t nearly as powerful as it could have been. The guitars should have been louder and more prominent because there are times when you can’t hear the riffing properly. Mina and Narumi can both shred like it’s nobody’s business, but their impact is blunted because the vocals are so much louder than everything else. Part of the reason for this is because Marina’s replacement, Lisa, isn’t nearly as strong a vocalist. Compared to her predecessors, Lisa has a weak voice. This isn’t to say that she can’t sing. She has a good range and her sense of melody is in the right place, but when it comes to delivering the goods, she lacks the strength and presence that former Destrose vocalists Eye (now Mary’s Blood) and Marina (now Mardelas) have. Hell, Su-Metal (Suzuka Nakamoto) from Babymetal wipes the floor with her, and when you consider that Su-Metal is originally from an Idol Pop group (Sakura Gakuin) that sings sappy Dance tunes, that says a lot. In a way, Lisa’s voice has more versatility, but her tone and style is more suited for Pop music. It doesn’t help that the songs themselves lack consistency. Each of the members of Destrose contributes a song to this EP, and while they’re mostly in the Destrose vein, they go all over the place in terms of style. It seems that each member has a slightly different idea about what makes up the Destrose sound. The track that stands out as the most out of place is the fourth one, “悠遠” (which Google translates roughly to “Distant” or “Remote”). It’s not bad, it’s just a ballad sandwiched between two more aggressive songs. Maybe placing it at the end might have been better, but in this tracklist, it sticks out as an anomaly. Still, when things get done right, Destrose kicks ass. The standout for me was the closing track, “Rewrite the Curse,” which has a driving bass line and it’s arguably the most aggressive and musically like what Destrose is supposed to sound like when their songs are properly produced. Lisa was more in the background and the instruments, particularly the guitars, were more audible. It had strong melody and the intensity level is higher, both of which made the song stand out. One thing that remains unresolved for me , though, is what direction Destrose is going to go now that Marina is gone. I’ve heard the new EP by Mardelas and I know what direction Marina is going - and that direction involves leaving a path of destruction ten miles wide. The Prologue is too unfocused and uneven, flailing about and trying to latch on to anything, but never really finding that special “something” to define their sound going forward. I think that Mina and company really need to figure out what Destrose is supposed to sound like. Once they know who they are and what they want to sound like, they can get back to kicking ass like they did on their previous releases. I haven’t given up on them, and I hope that their next release will show a refocused Destrose that delivers concussions and severe neck damage like I know they can.

I must be a masochist because I keep reviewing Burzum albums knowing that Varg’s musical heyday is over. That said, The Ways of Yore isn’t that bad. Sol Austan, Mani Vestan, Burzum’s previous LP, was about as musically exciting as watching paint dry without the benefit of inhaling the fumes. It was dreadfully boring at best. The Ways of Yore, though, is far better. It still isn’t great, but at least it goes somewhere. It’s keyboard based, but it’s more in the Neo-Folk vein this time around. If you can imagine what early ’90s Mortiis doing renditions of his favorite Sol Invictus songs sounds like, you’ll have a pretty good idea how this album sounds. One of the hallmarks of Varg’s style is the level of minimalism omnipresent in the music of Burzum. At times, that minimalism creates its own atmosphere, keeping things simple, memorable and even trance-inducing. In other situations, the minimalism creates a void where other instruments or melodies could have filled the gap and made the song more potent. What really hurts this record far more than the musical minimalism is the vocals. Varg either needs to learn how to sing or hire a vocalist. He can shriek like nobody else, but his clean vocals are terrible. If you’re old enough to remember how the singing was on the old animated versions of The Hobbit or Return of the King (from the 1970s, I believe), Varg sounds remarkably like that. It’s that fucking bad. Even when he’s just talking, he sounds horrible. His spoken word passages are terrible because he sounds so congested that you almost want to go out and buy the guy some cold medication. If the music can be bumped up in complexity a little and Varg can sort out his vocals (or hire someone else to do them for him), he may be able to reinvent himself as a Neo-Folk artist in the vein of Death in June or Sol Invictus. I doubt they care about his Neo-Nazi affiliations because that scene also tolerates the likes of Blood Axis and others who have fascistic leanings. He’d probably fit in fairly well with those folks and frankly, his music is more in line with their scene than any of the sub-elements in Metal these days.

Given that Quiescence is the debut LP from these Italian Melodeath upstarts, I suppose it’s excusable that I know virtually nothing about them. The members of this quintet all moonlight in various other projects, but I’m assuming names like Zippo, The Orange Man Theory, and Noumeno aren’t going to ring too many bells outside of Lazio’s small club circuit. The one thing I do know is that when these guys fully commit themselves to writing an incredibly memorable melodic Death Metal song, they succeed on a big-league level. Trouble is, that only occurs roughly half of the time on album #1. Let’s start with what they excel at: clean vocal harmonization and soaring majestic melodies. Four songs on this record have those in spades —”Souls of the Abyss,” “Night Will Come,” “Ruins Alive,” and “Quiescent”— all of them, oddly enough, grouped together in succession as tracks 3-6. “Souls of the Abyss” starts with an infectious hook right out of Insomnium’s playbook, and then digs yet deeper into the listener with layered clean vocal harmonization that buries the verses into the cerebral cortex permanently. There’s an all-pro quality reminiscent of Staley/Cantrell when lead vocalist Davide Straccione teams up with guitarists Raffaele Colace and Gabriele Giaccari for 3-part delight. “Night Will Come” continues the vibe, yet it’s the harsh vocals this time that really drive the chorus home. On “Ruins Alive,” it’s back to the cleany goodness as Straccione expands his range over a backdrop of saccharine melodies that would’ve made the guys in Pyogenesis jealous before they turned queer. And finally with “Quiescent,” the band takes a Doomier crawl towards more clean-sung perfection. It’s difficult not to (try to) sing along to these verses, and don’t be surprised if they follow you into the shower later. The downside to Quiscence is that, aside from this flawless 4-song EP placed smack dab in the heart of the record, the rest is pretty forgettable. Despite a few good riffs here and there, none of the other tracks are as brilliantly arranged or as commanding as the fantastic four. And really, once they lay those harmonies on you, everything else this band does just seems like second best. I’m not saying ditch the harsh vocals and more aggressive bits altogether, but clearly it’s the cleanest that’s the meanest for Shores of Null. If they could ever carry the momentum of that “4-song EP” over the course of an entire full-length, it’d be a masterpiece with Album of the Year potential.