Black Boned Angel – Verdun
[Riot Season, 2009]
genre: drone, doom, metal, experimental, noise, dark ambient
Album Review by Sovereign
As the press release info says: “Sharing a similarly bleak ground to Corrupted, Sunn 0))) and Earth, New Zealand’s Black Boned Angel return with their fourth full length album ‘Verdun’, and perhaps their most sombre and fully-realised work to date.” This is Campbell Kneale’s drone metal project. I am a fan of Birchville cat motel -the other solo project of him-and I was really expecting this one. The result is fantastic, an awesome dark ambient masterpiece and a drone doom metal fuss. This man is creating really progressive music, his noise is unreachable, his mind is genius and this album is again one of the best ever drone metal releases and maybe one of the most inspirational ever dark ambient(under huge noise passages) albums…. It is like a battle!
The album:
Black Boned Angel Verdun 2009 rapidshare
http://www.riotseason.com/REPOSECD020.htm
http://www.myspace.com/blackbonedangelnz
http://www.myspace.com/itsriotseason
Track:
Black Boned Angel – Verdun
a. Prayer Sodden Holes
b. Tears Strike the Mile High Gong
c. Creeping Barrage
51:55
Sovereign
Noisy atmospheric black metal. Harsh background vocals, dark production, distortions and dark ambient atmospheres.
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. 
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. 
Mara sends us their work and it is a pleasure for us to review it. Black post-metal compositions with dark ambient elements and many samples, it is a kind of depressive black metal with industrial influences. Vocals are black, reminding Leviathan. Production isn’t good but it doesn’t bother me because it gives to their music a cold and dry atmosphere. And don’t forget they have all the excuses for that, no label, no budget, first recording etc… These guys showing that they know how to use all sounds their instruments can create and how to manage samples. On the other hand they are lacking in the composition part. Seems like in this demo they try to cover the shortness of ideas with good sound management. Although I can recognize this as a good first recording attempt and these guys showing good potential. Recommended to ambient black metal fans.
Last year I have been impressed with the experimental live performance Sunn did in Norway (
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. 
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.
Really atmospheric music. The track Mira Mama is in Spanish and I think is the most unconventional song I’ve listen so far this year in post-rock. Exassens is a band similar to god is an astronaut, but they have their own style and sound. Actually I think Exassens is a solo project by Jordi Ruiz from Barcelona, but I m not quite sure. The unique characteristic is the beauty of the melodies he use and the explosions of the guitars. There is a great guitar ambience inside this cd. Could be the next explosions in the sky or mogwai? Who knows, who cares. Is a great album full of extraordinary and unusual themes. 
Exactly like the Locust and Daughters, An albatross is an experimental noise rock band. Their music is insane, fast and synth driven. The album os 30 min long. This is enough for this kind of music. Unbelievable, hot and cockamamie. Screams, yells, synths, electonics, psychedelic percussions, guitars, bass and a great shot of noise and crazily and lunacy!!!!
Aaron Turner of Isis and Hydra Head of course and Chris Common from These Arms Are Snakes are behind this act. It is Faith Coloccia, a Seattle-based pianist, and a collective of song-weavers and visionaries. They produce a kind of experimental ambient. A piano driven music, fillflled with noise , electro vibes and deformations. 
Silence. The sound of silence. A saxophone and a piano. A cigarette, the smoke goes up, the view from a balcony, dark night, stars, exhale, sit comfortably in a couch and listen to them. A dream. A trip to vernal Berlin, a journey to sunny Barcelona, a visit to wet Amsterdam, a view from mystic Athens, a walk through dark streets of London, a kiss near Sein in Paris, a loss in the crowd of New York, a flight over Tokyo. Dreamy music. Slow ballads, atmospheric themes, influenced softcore compositions. 
