A storm of Light – Forgive Us Our Tresspasses
[Neurot, 2009]
genre: sludge, post-metal, metal, doom, post-hardcore, experimental, ambient
Album Review by Sovereign
I met this band some months ago because of a live performance with the post-rock legends Mono
and a split release with drone doom masters Nadja. This is Josh Graham’s project and is related with Battle of Mice, Neurosis, Red Sparowes, Blood & Time, Unsane and Tombs. They record for Neurot Recordings, the label of Neurosis. Joel Hamilton (guitar, wurlitzer, modular synthesizers), Nerissa Campbell (vocals), Jarboe (vocals), Lydia Lunch (spoken word), Carla Kihlstedt (theremin vocals and violin) and Marika Hughes (Cello) are some guests for this album. The music is truly atmospheric and the attitude is post and meta-modern. Their music is really close to Neurosis’ atmospheric parts and Isis’ post era points. Fantastic metal sounds and dark ambient bridges. I am a huge fan of post-metal legends like Neurosis, Isis, Cult of Luna, Pelican etc and I really like experimental joints in metal music, so I think this band could win a great place in my discothèque and in my heart. I am quite sure they already try to gain those. They worth it and their music is step by step, better and better. There is no bad ‘Neurot’ release, so what you are waiting for. Join!
The album:
A storm of light forgive us our trespasses 2009 rapidshare
links
http://astormoflightband.blogspot.com/
http://www.neurotrecordings.com/
http://www.myspace.com/astormoflight
http://www.astormoflight.com/
tracks:
1. Alpha (Law of Nature Pt. 1)
2. Amber Waves of Gray
3. Tempest
4. The Light in Their Eyes
5. Trouble is Near
6. Arc of Failure (Law Of Nature Pt. 2)
7. Midnight
8. Across the Wilderness
9. Time Our Saviour (Law of Nature Pt. 3)
10. Omega
Sovereign
We are trying to support this band because I realize that their post-rock is really easy listening and truly well constructed.
Nuggies a have a released a new ep entitled The Sound of Explosions from the Northeast . The EP is being released by Gorilla Ointment and is also being distributed for free via the internet.
“Il fuoco” (the fire) was a silent movie directed by Giovanni Pastrone in 1915.
This is the debut album for this Polish band. The band is the brainchild of the duo Michal Sliwa and Jarek Lesklewicz, who perform all instruments, samples and production. They perform really well and their metal is quite experimental. Their mood is dark, experimental and doomy. Their music is really interesting and I found some special and really inspired sounds inside their compositions. This album is ambitious and this band is promising. The music is full of ambient soundscapes and there is a fantastic drone atmosphere. This band is trying to go forward and the atmosphere is dark like the most of these kind of artists but its much more creative than others so it makes the 76 minutes pass really easy. The release is in 500 copies limited CD digipack edition. Their sound is psychedelic, I can’t really describe it as a metal release, but the doom metal and drone metal influence is the strongest around. The album mastered by James PLotkin (Isis, Khanate, Pelican). Fantastic fresh and influenced modern kind of slow metal. Try to listen to this band and found out this release to buy it. I can say this album is one of the best among the others in this experimental and modern kind of drone doom metal. Fantastic sounds, I said that again but there are fantastic sounds spreading around the album. Fantastic point of view, Releases of a great combination between metal and ambient sounds. I am proud of them. 
I think this is the sixth time I wrote for this band only this year (2009). And this is the 8th or the 9th release of them for 2009. What else to say, collaborations, compilations, live, old covers, full length albums, 12”inch, EP, remixes and singles. Here are all the other 2009 nadja posts of this blog: 
This is a great chance to meet 13 new bands around the music genres of post-metal, post-rock and ambient. There are some great songs which some of them can make the difference in the near future. Check this compilation and choose your favorites. I think you can find interesting compositions and fresh ideas around here. Remember the names and check them in 
Feedback guitars and an Isis join Tool and meet Boris sound!! Some tracks in this album remind me the feelings I had when I first listened to Tool’s awesome tracks from Lateralus and AEnima. Arnold which is the whole band produces an unbelievable clean sound. The music production is fantastic. The album is one of the best progressive releases of the year. I met the project through 
Caïna is a one-man band, from Hampshire/Sussex. Stylistically, it draws from genres as disparate as black and post metal, drone, doom, shoegaze, neofolk and post-rock. 
20 Buck Spin’s press release statement said : “The idea for a collaboration between Canada’s prolific neo-doom duo Nadja (
The French metal scene is one of the best in the world. The modern metal scene, even with black metal, sludge or hardcore and post music bands is truly in very high standards in this central European country. This band, which is actually a project and this is their first ever release as a 4 track extended play cd. Their music is similar with Overmars, Rosetta, Russian Circles, Cult of Luna and Isis. A modern kind of metal, fulfilled with electronics and ambient noises, under screams and harsh vocals and over the huge guitars and bass lines(followed by endless distortions). Heavy metal with a meta modern approach. This is the new European metal point of view. I think this band can be the leader in the genre. I think these 4 tracks are some of the best ever tracks in the genre of sludge metal, in this dirty and noisy part of hardcore metal. Excellent ambient metal, a dream mix of doom metal, ambient electronica, hardcore, epic metal, black metal and experimental noise. This music is not an encyclopedia of genres; it is a collage of my best dreams. This is the most atmospheric (also dirty, sludgy, dreamy and inspired) hardcore release the last years. Excellent blackish vocals, over noisy doom riffs, under electronic noises from the background and an unbelievable music structure. Try to buy it. It could be classic. 
This release includes a remaking/reworking of some of Aidan Baker’s solo works. Actually is a kind of cover’s in older songs of him. The release is limited in 500 copies. I think Nadja is the only band that can cover their songs… it is clever and quite interesting. The atmosphere of all the remakes is under a strong and heavy drone sound. Recommended only to fans. Great atmospheric drone doom tracks, under a dark and doom ambient soundscape. I do not have more to say, it is one of the 8 2009 releases of the band:
Just like 2 years ago “A sunny day in Glasgow” produces an experimental kind of pop music. As I said at that time they produce “
This 12inch vinyl recorded after Nadja moved to Germany. The record which was recorded in Berlin, with artwork done by a Swedish living in Berlin ( www.hlg.se ) , on two Berlin based labels ( adagio830 & vednetta ) is in front of us. ‘Clinging to the Edge of the Sky’ is not the usual Nadja record.
Greymachine is a projet of Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Final, Godflesh) in collaboration with Dave Cochrane (Head Of David, God, Ice), Diarmuid Dalton (Jesu, Godflesh) and Aaron Turner (Isis). Again and again Justin reviewed in this blog. I can’t understand where this guy find time for all these superbands and all the projects and collaborations he is a part of. Anyway this record is a super wow record. Broadrick is back to his lovely experimental but noisy shit. This sound is brilliant; this is what he can do. This band could be awesome. The album is the origin of ambient metal, this is the definition of noisy sludge, this is experimental shoegaze, no one can play this kind of noisy drone metal. This is a mix of rock, electronica, noise and metal. My head is exploded. Fantastic drone noise, excellent FX, awesome soundscapes, interesting hardcore drums, dirty guitars, never ending distortions, fantastic minds, great harsh vocals (Aaron). I can’t say anything else, if you like ambient metal, if you miss the Angelic Process and Overmars, if you like Earth, Grouper, Nadja, Tribes of Neurot and Tim Hecker, if you appreciate old Godflessh and original Jesu and if you try to remember and put in your mind bands like Fear Falls Burning, Troum, Black Boned Angel, Burning Star Core and Birchville Cat Motel under a Khanate or an Isis prism then you have this super album. This project is Einstürzende Neubauten of sludge, it is Yellow Swans and Noxagt of metal, This is a scream, this is truly loud. This is post, this is modern, this is meta music under no illusions, behind hallucinations and in front of its time, this sound is progressive. I think this album could be the spot of the year! It’s an industrial noisy atmospheric doomy music. FANTASTIC
Sunlight Ascending is a new band, formed in 2007 by some kids (aged from 15 to 21) in USA. Their music is fully inspired by Radiohead, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, God is an Astronaut and GY!BE. Is a great try and I am thinking that they deserve a lot of attention from fans of classic post-rock and modern shoegaze. They don’t miss anything from the bands that influence them and they have the potential to be better from them. This band could be the future of the saturated genre of post-rock. A fully atmospheric modern rock and a young and fresh music idea! Beautiful melodies and idyllic compositions, a travel in a dream and rigmarole from a sweet newborn baby. The disk is very sweet and it can raise your sentiments and your thoughts, something that all post rock groups who deserve to write music, can do and should do.
I loved this project years ago with the album 
Aaron Turner and Justin Broadrick (these guys never stop) working together, that’s awesome!!! 2 tracks of noise-ambient industrial music and a promising album coming out this summer (2009). Fantastic tracks, awesome noise, great work, compositions full of ideas, ambient and noises. This EP and I think the forthcoming album; will be perfect for fans of the Angelic Process, Godflesh, Alec Empire, Einsturzende Neubauten, Ministry, Swans, Genghis Tron, Khanate and other extreme experimental but always atmospheric acts. This music is progressive, these sounds are avant-garde, you may gain a lot of things after the listening of these tracks. This is post music and maybe one of the most original compositions of the last years. Drums, synths, noise, brutal and harsh vocals, electronics, dark, ambient, dust, stoned and fly away with this 12”. Don’t miss it. I really expect the album in some days…
Noisy soundscapes that can thrill your brain. “White Static Demon is a new Justin K Broadrick project for which he has been working on recordings for over one year. Again, like Council Estate Electronics, White Static Demon was inspired by Justin collecting and compiling material from Final cassette releases on his Post Mortem Rekordings label circa 1984-87”( http://justinkbroadrick.blogspot.com/). An album full of extreme noises, drones and experimental electronics. An abstract electro drone distortion. This is extreme and this is experimental. It is a new release which has been inspired by old material. I really enjoy it because it is a noisy ambient trip. Dreamy and gloomy vacations offered to my brain. Jump up and then dive into an extreme and rattle or hooting pool. 
Jonathan Dakers himself send me an email in order to make his work known to more people through our blog, this is also our politic and our point of view about music promotion and distribution. I have already listened to this album months ago, but I was always delaying this review, that was a mistake. It was a mistake, because it is a great album of drone sounds under a post background. These guys from Auckland, New Zealand make really good music. Ethereal ambient sounds, drones and noises with a post-rock and an experimental attitude. Their music is heavy and sometimes comes close to post-metal and drone doom releases. In general it is an experimental try with an extreme sound profile and excellent distortions and experiments. Some times relaxing others extreme but always beautiful and original.
“Justin Broadrick has always made music which could one day serve as a soundtrack to the end of the world, should we ever need one. Whether with Godflesh or Jesu [click here for other noiz post about: 
A sludgy post-hardcore from an Italian band. Brutal vocals rotate with clean and give to the atmosphere an alternative color.
This EP is a kind of folk doom, it is not exactly a metal release, it is more an experimental rock something than a heavy sound music, it is instrumental music with strange instruments and a folklore attitude.
This is a Digitalis Limited 2008 release, but back then, it was in an audio cassette version and in a limited edition. This year it comes out in a vinyl release from Dekorder. Two ambient tracks, full of experimentalisms and noises. 40 minutes of trips and dark memories. Track No1 ‘Black Scripture’ is very atmospheric and really experimental, it is a great composition from the band and I think is my favorite. Dark and gloomy, noisy and a bit dreamy. This track is the ambient, chilly part of the vinyl. Track No 2 ‘Gilted Rose’ it isn’t so atmospheric like the previous one, but is more mysterious and really black and scary. There’s a distant black metal style evil vocal that appears to possess your mind. It is recommended to fans of drone, ambient, noise and maybe black metal. It is the dark and black metal part of the vinyl and it can contradict to great dark ambient and atmospheric black metal bands. Great try from the band. Check out the previous releases of them. 
I strongly believe that there are some records that you must listen to at the right time under the right conditions in order to like them. That’s exactly what happened to me with field’s new album “Yesterday and today”. As being influenced from their magnificent debut album “From here we go sublime”, the first two-three times I listen to it was a disappointment to me. Then, one summer evening I started to listen to and in the same time I was scanning the sun from my balcony. The music got into me and I felt the summer mood of the album. I imagined sunset in a beach, summer parties and chill-out on a deck-chair near the sea. This album is dedicated to all of us that our business duties don’t allow us to enjoy the summer atmosphere all the months that it lasts. 
A dark and cloudy release, a relaxing sound, an ambient music picture, all these together can result this album. The use of German language in the lyrics makes it darker to me and gives to it a folk and traditional dimension. Christoph Ziegler who is the guy behind this project, proves that his inspiration is abyssal or something like bottomless. 
Idyllic music, sometimes with beats and drums others just like a pure melody, an ambient soundscape. Pandora’s Black Book is a project of Lucidstatic, actually is the Alaskan composer James Church. This is a well done album, nice production and an intelligent kind of ambient sounds. A really complicated release flies from dance vibes to experimental passages, and goes through ambient seas to noise cloudy skies. This isn’t a pure ambient album, because there are, as I said, a lot of different sound lines and music origins. I think it is a well composed album and is really interesting and sweet to listen to it in summer days. Electronic experimentalisms from a well established new label with a lot of interesting releases. Quite atmospheric and sometimes high level ambient music can fly you away. In here there is a dream that can be ideal and really beautiful as never before. Enjoy. 
Heavy sounds and hot icons… Two progressive and modern post-metal songs and a passage like an ambient/noise, terror experimental…bridge ‘between’ them. The compositions they made are fantastic, maybe they create one of the most interesting sludge metal tracks I’ve listened so far this year. If you like slow post or doom metal bands, with experimentalisms and clever structure here is the band you’re looking for. I really enjoy listening this EP again and again, there something intelligent in their minds. They already support bands like Neurosis, Storm Of Light, Cult Of Luna, Vader and The Ocean, so it is obvious to understand what is their style!! The track ‘Impulse’ is the heaviest, classic sludge, post-hardcore attitude, hoarse vocals and energy, huge energy with a heavy and angry attitude. Fantastic metal! Track number two ‘between’, is a great atmospheric ambient track, full of electronica vibes and noise creepy sounds. ‘Distant Earths’ is a totally different track. It starts like an ethnic myth, like a slow and atmospheric ambient chill out track for lounge bars in a beach and continues with a brit pop attitude which concludes to a doom metal aggressive and black cry. This track is maybe one of the best songs recorded from a band in central Europe the last decades… I think their style change from their last record on 2008, ‘Blindead – autoscopia / murder in phazes’ and they develop a new totally different sound style, a slowcore, an ambient metal, a post-rock myth a new progressive rock with ambient influences, brit heart and a gothic and dark atmosphere. I think they try to open their minds and include in their sound all the genre I enumerate above. Yes they mix a lot of thinks, but the result is excellent, they made it! Follow this band, in their Europe tour with Rosetta, and city of ships. (An Club, Athens, 19/06/1009)
Ramesses – baptism of the walking dead [ep] 
Moss – Tombs of the Blind Drugged EP
An excellent ethereal and rhythm release from an Austin based band. They mix all kinds of strings like violin, cello, guitar, banjo, double bass, with piano and more, and they create a collage of sounds. This band is an emotional orchestra. Talented people, create fantastic music. The most of the times instrumental albums is not so commercial, and it is not so attractive to the ears, but these guys create great soundscapes and their work can be more attractive than others. They can intertwine your mind, your soul and your feelings. Their music is quite cinematic and theatrical. 
This band has no distributor. They are not in a label, but I think they should be. Electronic post-rock music, ambient sounds and slow motion vibes. Easy listening relaxing music and dreamy compositions. Half an hour of decently and trimly soundscapes. I think their music is quite original, pioneer and innovator. Check them out if you like experimental rock, ambient electronica and lo-fi. This is really modern post-rock by a band from Ukraine. Great job, they deserve some congratulations.
Another ambient trip album. They remind me bohren and dur club of gore. They are similar with the above, but they have a more alternative, indie and dark rock side. Their guitars are murkier. They are so experimental, and they combine darkwave music and post-punk feelings with ambient and emotional sounds. I vote for this album, and it can be a fellow traveler for every night. Sometimes the sound of this album sounds really progressive and other times scary. Dark music and slow tunes. Dusty noises and soundtrack recordings. 
Πρόκειται για μια από τις καλύτερες κυκλοφορίες της χρονιάς. Οι ιρλανδοί post-blackαδες εδώ ζωγράφισαν. Η μελαγχολική διάθεση της μουσικής τους είναι εμφανής και διαχυτη σε ολο το δισκο. Black metal εναλλασσόμενο τέλεια με ambient, post, και doom μελωδίες, καθωτι ο drummer χρησιμοποιει synths αλλα και διαφορα samples. Οι συνθέσεις είναι καθηλωτικές και σε ταξιδεύουν. Στα φωνητικά κυριαρχούν τα black-death. Δε λείπουν βέβαια τα σημεία που αλλοτε θα σε κάνουν να χτυπιέσαι και άλλοτε να τρομάζεις μέσα από αργόσυρτες και σκοτεινες doom εκτελέσεις.
Slackly and without remorse heavy guitar riffs. This band is the British version of Neurosis. Slow motion doom metal and experimental passages. Modern metal and a more alternative seeing of the compositions. Crazy, it is insane, really noisy and industrial metal sound. Ohh my Lord… this is heavy and shitty. Fantastic, huge, unreal, fabled, fancy, incredible ambient metal. They are influenced by Neurosis, but this is the right thing. This is a noisy meta-modern metal. I think this is THE album that I seek for lot of years. A mix of the Angelic Process with Neurosis, Isis and Electric Wizard and a smack of My Dying Bride, Cult of Luna, Corrupted and Cursed, in the end there is a refreshment of Sunn 0))) and Nadja… One of the best crusty hardcore metal releases ever.
Subheim is the deeply personal project of electronic music composer and visual artist Kostas K., a downtempo, experimental venture fusing IDM elements with rich ambiance and female vocals by Katja. This release gives us excellent sounds. Ambient music mixed with melodic dance electronic vibes. Great music and easy listening soundscapes. Clever compositions and attractive or maybe ticklish beats. The vocals trip you away… this is the most atmospheric electronic album of the last years. Excellent job from the artist. An orchestra of vibes, ambiences and dreams. a melodic safe dream, a new dimension of ambient, a new kind of easy listening electronica. 
Slow tempo obsessive and soul-destroying doom metal. A 2008 work that came as a CD-r and now released from 
KTL is a duo made up of Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O))), Khanate) and Editions Mego head Peter Rehberg (Pita). In the compositions of IV, O’Malley’s doom riffs are more out front and centre and Rehberg’s tense electro-mind make the atmosphere of IV chillingly bleak. 
Post-rock rhythm section and post-metal guitar passages. An atmosphere of modern and progressive music combined with aggressive and dirty metal riffs and some soundscapes of provocative and tickling post rock guitar noises. They are mixing both genres excellent. Irepress are an easy listening experimental band, their music is sweet and the experiments of them are quite fordable and digestible. This release of them has an addition of keyboards and some vocals(which are quite weak for me). In general the album is really interesting and can attract fans of Pelican and Red Sparowes, Gifts from Enola, If these tres could talk.
There is another great collaboration of these two artists. As I read in the tqa site: “Baker & Quach have decided to do things differently by setting a simple rule beforehand: the record was to be played and recorded live together, adding a very minimal amount of overdubs if not any. The recording session took place in the fall of 2007, in Quach’s own home studio TQA-HQ in Montreal. Because of their very busy schedule, it took about a year before the two artists decided to get together to work on these tracks again. This time, Baker finalized the mixes in his home studio, resulting again in four long movements, clocking at around an hour’s length. Instead of the overall terror-ambient feel of their first collaboration, the first two tracks actually find both guitarists exploring the brighter side of their spectrum, evoking the hope and the beauty represented in Christy Romanick’s photographs that were again used for the artwork, in conjunction with Quach’s sketches”. This Album is great. This mix of sounds is fantastic. Dark tones and sunny minds. 
A new release from Baker’s Nadja. This one is an album full of covers. From A-ha till slayer… Excellent shoegaze restoration of the songs. Quite interesting and modern. Give a try to this one, you will find excellent drone doom metal songs.
The first one (Camouflage) is a limited edition album of 800 copies released in 2009 but recorded live on September
The second one (Somei) was produced by a Greek label and is not as difficult to find as the first one. This is a heavier noise record with faster songs and so fucking good percussions. Here, the sound is more interesting and I think it’s easier to listen to it than
