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
Shrine means altar, it means temple, so these guys are pretend to be builders of a temple? They construct a fane? Yes they do! It’s a fucking alternative doom metal supergroup featuring Scott “Wino” Weinrich (Saint Vitus, The Obssessed, Place of Skulls, Spirit Caravan, The Hidden Hand), Scott Kelly (Neurosis, Tribes of Neurot, Blood & Time), Al Cisneros (Sleep, Om, Asbestosdeath, the Sabians), and Dale Crover (Melvins, Porn, Fantomas, Altamont, Nirvana). They get the idea for the band name; I think so, from an ‘Om’ song title, released as split record with Current 93. What do you expect from this band when you read these names and these bands they use to play? Nothing more than a superfreaking heavy metal act. And this is it! A doomy, dirty and noisy metal. A modern kind of doom and stoner metal. This is the dirtiest version of sludge metal. This is ‘Sleep’ meets ‘Om’ and ‘Melvins’ deal with ‘Neurosis’. Pitchfork wrote “Neurosis + Sleep + Melvins + Wino = Shrinebuilder” and I agree. Shrinebuilder is a brilliant affectation in hypnosis or trance… As long tracks drift into one another, sharing themes and sequence, it’s really easy to mislead into a waking dream. They share the vocal leading and that makes every song totally different. The difference is in the atmosphere and the doom attitude. This mini album is really heavy but at the same time so stoned and melodic; and I think these records bring slow metal in a new dimension. This is a compilation of new sounds bring out from Sleep, Sloth and Spirit Caravan. There is a psychedelic or something like space rock caprice around a desert and stoner rock atmosphere. This project is fresh over a traditional old school music. 
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: 
When I’ve listened “
Black Cobra spoils the poison of sludge metal in my veins. The band absorbs the energy of stoner rock, the dirty atmosphere of sludge, the metal attitude of doom and the modern concept of alternative post-metal. The duo, with guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian and drummer Rafael Martinez who played for ‘Cavity’, ‘Acid King’ and ‘16’ create a powerful release and the record it for on of my favourite labels “Southern Lord”. Remember ‘Boris’, ‘Sunn’, ‘Khanate’, ‘Pelican’, ‘Weedeater’, ‘Earth’ and ‘Om’ from this label. My head is going to explode. This album is really heavy. These guys have to be in the frontline of modern heavy metal. ‘Mastodon’ and ‘high on fire” are like sissies in front of them. They really surprised me like ‘Zozobra’ last year. Heavy as hell, dirty as mud, raw as a corpse. 38 minutes of unbelievable energetic guitars and noisy drum session. 
The British band since the “Paradise lost” album started taking backward steps in their sound. The album “In requiem” confirmed that, but I didn’t actually believed that they can go any heavier than that. I am in the happy position to say that they just did it. ” Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us” is the heaviest, the darkest, the most doomy goth piece of music they made since “Shades of God”. Nick Holmes is using harsh vocals again. Heavy riffing and heavy drumming are everywhere with some atmospheric parts bringing the melancholy on. Production is nothing but great. After 4 or 5 hearings the smile couldn’t fade. The darkness and melancholy of their early years was here again. I don’t know if I am a bit excessive here but that’s what this album made me feel. Do not miss this one. 
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:
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!
They still release their albums with the same name. Switchblade is the band, self titled are all their albums since 2001. So in order to individualize their albums, let’s call this one as the s/t ‘2009′ release. Slow motion aggressive metal, and that’s all. This is an album full of doom sludgy metal, dark and dirty music, fulfilled with extreme underground harsh vocals and blurred sound. Three extended tracks, distorted guitars, drone sounds and a shitty doom metal smell. Black, all black, the booklet, the attitude, the atmosphere is black… night, stoned and an atmosphere of dirty and dusty guitars. The band produces extreme doom metal diamonds and go with (I believe they are among the creators) the sound of Esoteric, Khanate, Moss, Arcana Coelestia, Leviathan, Mourning Beloveth, YOB and Minsk. This band is from Sweden, they are not the other one from Australia. Their death metal and grind roots are obvious in here but nowadays their speed is really disappeared. Slow, really slow stoned music. They are heavy as a big rock, too heavy to be lifted like a huge stone. Excellent modern doom metal and enviable sludge metal in slow motion attitude. Recommended to (extreme)doom, sludge and avant-garde metal fans. 
I ‘ve already said everything I believe for the band’s new release (here–> 
After 4 full length releases : ‘Elaborations of Carbon’ 2002, ‘Catharsis’ 2003, ‘The Illusion of Motion’ 2004, ‘The Unreal Never Lived’ 2005 and a split up back to 2006, YOB are back with a great and a quite heavy release!! The vocalist Mike created Middian when they split up YOB, but now he reformed his old band and they had a great release. The Great Cessation is the album that connects traditional old school doom metal with drone doom and modern noise metal. This sludgy metal profile is the first time that YOB adopts it. They left back stoner sounds and transform them to sludge and drone metal. I think the old releases of them are cleaner and more youthful. This one is darker, noisier, a bit more mature and heavy more than ever before. Here is the dilemma, I think a lot of people who used to love old Yob will find the new album a bit experimental and not so traditional and pure as before, but the most of the fans and the new comers will appreciate this try and will understand the advance and the progress of the band. You will find excellent sounds and great compositions in this album. A good CD for the summer!!
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
As I read from Justin’s blog: “Full album length song ‘Infinity’ on Avalanche Recordings (AREC017), written, recorded and mixed early 2009, with all instruments by Justin K Broadrick. ‘Infinity’ is the most expansive and organic jesu release to date, here JKB revisits his roots of heavy guitar driven music yet still retaining the ethereal atomsphere / soundscape of modern jesu.” Again a heavy Jesu release, a dark atmosphere and a strong music dimension. As I already said many times before 
Fall of Efrafa 
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.
That’s the second album for Arcana Coelestia and I can say that I’m quite overwhelmed. This is not funeral doom. It’s funeral doooooooooooooooom. Easily compared with Esoteric but this has a bit more ambient, dramatic tone. Vocals are death groooowls mostly, but you can also find clear ones. In the fifth track there is some Italian talking which lead to true black metal growls coming right from the early 90’s. There are also a few female vocals in this album. Drums are really heavy and really slow. Guitars are slow too. The compositions cause an emotional explosion. Melancholy, darkness, romance, madness, fear all are here together. Pretty amazing work by these guys I believe they are at the same level as Esoteric. And a big applause for the glorious closing track. 
As you can see the cover of the album is pink, but the Vinyl cover is a bit more green-blue (and I think is better). The album is the first full length attempt from the band and it has been captured by engineer/producer Kurt Ballou (Converge, Torche). They sound like Conifer ,Pelican, Intronaut and Mouth of the Architect. Atmospheric creations and a slow motion metal that combines great guitar strings and heavy distortions. They sound fresh but with a connection to old metal roots. Doom metal with a more modern point of view. They are heavier than other bands from post-metal ,Isis alike genre… I think here is their power. Nice music, aggressive and strong feelings and noise background. The album is replete of metal music, noises, heavy distortions and hails! They are good and they can make the difference in this difficult and full of replicates and fakeries genre… they sound authentic and they are original.
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)
“Crawl Back In” is a Neurosis song from their 2001’s release ‘A Sun That Never Sets’, maybe the most ambiguous release of the band, but, in my opinion, their most atmospheric and psychedelic album. So this first element makes me to sympathy the band from the beginning (as they get influenced to name their band, from a favourite band like Neurosis). Martin from ‘Crawl Back In’ has sent to noiz their new EP, which they are going to release it for free (check myspace page), and to be honest I am very happy for that(he send us). The EP has 3 songs, 3 long-play songs, aggressive, hardcore and dark. The Swedish play an aggressive, hardcore and experimental post-metal. Their metal is influenced by Cult of Luna, Neurosis, Knut and Old Man Gloom, but they have something really dark and shitty inside their compositions. The vocals are excellent and fully experimental. Screams, black metal howls, brutal whines, death hoarseness and experimental squalls. Their rhythm is slow and doomy, and their music structure is scaled. The mix of all these kinds of vocals with the aggressive attitude and the huge riffs from the guitars makes the band really interesting; their sludge metal is quite modern and heavy. I think I will be a fan of them directly. 
Progressive metal with female vocals. A modern heavy metal, a great performance and a really interesting music. I was stacked with Madder Mortem back on 2001 when they release ‘All flesh is grass’, a huge album, a masterpiece for the genre, a really aggressive release, a hard and rough metal. I met them back then with that album and I realize that their music is unique and quite complicated or maybe sophisticated. The band from Oslo can approach music and sounds like Tool and Ayreon produce and at the same time can instruct bands like Lacuna Coil, Epica and After Forever. I‘ll dare to compare them with Opeth, I think they are quite similar to them, despite the female vocals. The cover of the album is excellent, and you can find it as a poster in the digipack edition of the album. Extreme music, fantastic guitars, modern and meta-metal inspiration, inspired lyrics, hard sounds, and classic string routes. It is progressive metal, it is not easy to understand it, it is complicated and quite flush. They change the rythms every 1-2 minutes and they produce the most colorfulness metal of the last days. Different kind of moods and atmospheres and a great distorted tone around. “See, it flows so easily, a ruthless piece of art”
Ramesses – baptism of the walking dead [ep] 
Moss – Tombs of the Blind Drugged EP
The album starts with something from Mastodon’s previous releases… and then there are diffused some psychedelic atmospheres and a lot of clean vocals. The album sounds heavy and it is, but in the end there is a softer, more post-rock sound, scattered around. In some parts I can’t believe it is Minsk. I think Grails and some other more psychedelic and experimental bands can be linked there. All this criticisms are not planned to harm the band’s compositions and inspiration. I think the album is more interesting than the previous one, but from another point of view, a bit more alternative and experimental. This is not doom metal like before; this is post-metal, experimental rock, progressive something or just alternative metal. For sure there is a sludge sound inside the noise of the guitars and this is the base of their music structure. Sometimes when I listen to a record and I can’t have a direct opinion for it from the beginning, it results to a great and classic album (for me). I spend days per days to understand this album, and I started to like it after the 10th-15th try. So I think it could be one of my favorite (again). There is a great turn for the band, but maybe is for good. I think this style they have in this work is really interesting and this kind of experimentalism is great and innovative. I also think the title of the release hit the bull’s eye, and maybe there is a definition of their point of view: Echoes from stones… 
Last year I have been impressed with the experimental live performance Sunn did in Norway (
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.
Thanks to Damian from the band for sending in their album ‘Alchera’. This release is quite strong. I find out influences from all around the extreme genres of rock and metal. This is a metalgaze release, really experimental and truly inspired. It is their debut full length album. Damian used to work as a solo project but this year there is a full member band over there. 42 minutes of noisy modern metal recorded at Head Gap Studios by Neil Thomason in the heat waves of Melbourne and mastered from the post and noisy albums master, James Plotkin (Isis, Khanate, Burning Witch, Pelican, Earth). All this things together with the Label, Denovali, offer us a great mix of influences, profile, image and attitude. I really respect this label, I strongly respect Mr Plotkin and I really fall in this album. I dive deep in the waters of the Ausies. Excellent guitar riffs and drone doom atmosphere. I think this album could be one of my favourite. Industrial fuss, grief, turmoil and rattle mixed together. I can affiliate them with bands such as Jesu, Bossk, Rosetta, Cable, Black Boned Angel, Conifer, Electric Wizard and Khanate, but at the end they are more atmospheric and melodic from all the above. . A combination of sludgy, dusty, doomy, gloomy, and dirty metal with experimental ambient and noisy passages. Great job. 
Slow tempo obsessive and soul-destroying doom metal. A 2008 work that came as a CD-r and now released from 
Debut full length album from the Americans. Heavy metal and brutal vocals. Slow tempo and heavy distortion. This album is one out of a lot of garbage among the genre of modern metal. It can be the soundtrack of a rainy day and at the same time it can be the follower of a hot, sunny noon in a beach. It is a dirty myth or a heavy stone rolling down the slope and dive directly in the sea… Their doom is ambient and their ambient is sludgy. There is an unfamiliar rhythm and melodies which you can’t find it among heavy and doom metal releases. ‘Thresholds of Imbalance’ is an album that will surely satisfy many fans who are have trying to find all the shades of a fantastic release like this one in the next few listenings of them. Give time to the compositions. The tracks should concern all the underground doom metal fans who are searching for the perfect mix of hardcore, metal, doom and electronic ambient experimentation. There is a metalgaze smell around the atmosphere
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.
Fall of Efrafa play hardcore punk mixed with distorted extreme metal guitar riffs. This kind of music some people named crust. On the other hand FoE have really slow, doomy parts in their songs and they reach post-metal and sludge. This release is quite interesting and a great metal suggestion. Dusted vocals, slow metal riffs, noise guitars, heavy bass and dark drums. 
This band is a dirty heavy doom, drone and noise act. They experiment with the noise of the strings. This album is actually one song, more than one hour long, full of drones and noisy music. I can correlate them with OM, Nadja, Sunn 0))) and Earth, unlike these bands Bongripper have more melodic and pure metal parts. This music is totally stoned; amplifiers and boosters suffer a lot…
Experimental metal band. Nice music, great ideas, fresh sound and an amateur production that make the sound and the atmosphere better. I can define it as an atmospheric sludge. There is an ambience around the heavy sounds. I don’t have any other information. I think they are Spanish. 
Heavy metal, groovy rhythm, scream vocals, brutal attitude, stoner guitars, metal riffs, huge bass lines, punk atmosphere. This is a fantastic underground act from Canada. I don’t know why they are still unknown. This is a great album for headbangers!!!
The Greek Atmospheric Death Machine is Back after Several Years of Silence with a New Killer Production! Great songs, great atmosphere, really heavy music. Among the best Death albums of this year. 10 January live in Athens, Gagarin205. 
Conifer combine a space rock music background with metal, hardcore and modern alternative music. They are heavy and really hard. This album is really interesting and is a post rock wannabe with a heavy metal smell. Their sound is coming from the early 70s and ends up 2 or 3 years later from now. They remind me the Grails. 
The band comes from France, I hope they will be like Overmars. French metal scene is really big and proud. Caldera points out an excellent profile and offers us interesting works. They are a metal band, as simple as this. This album is similar with doom metal releases, or sludge instrumental works, but I can’t define it. It is heavy, it is metal, it is well produced and well played. 
Again this mystical metal sense. Jarboe tries to impress with her voice. The album definitely has a good mix of styles on it – random bits of metal, droning, avant-garde, noise, melody, experimental, rock and electronica stuff. A great job, a soundtrack of voices and modern sounds.
As I said (in Greek) for the previous release “unconquered” , Eric, research the interminable spectrum of ambient sounds and repeated drone guitars. He tries to search the use of guitar as unique generator of tone. Using real-time looper he manufactures soundscapes and basic musical structures. If you like Unconquered you ll love this one. Hurry up this is the best ambient album of the year…
For sure one of the best experimental rock albums of the last years. I can’t explain it with words. There are songs in this album that are filled with immense beauty. You only need to listen some tones of the album. This is 100% instrumental post rock. 
Progressive modern metal. Great harsh and brutal vocals. Post sounds and Neurosis like atmosphere. New band, fresh ideas. A technical way of playing the instruments. There are some epic compositions in this release. Huge riffs and excellent background sounds. 
Innovative hardcore, noisy guitars, post metal attitude, moody atmosphere, angry vocals. A great recommendation from Latvia. The first full length album from the band. Follow them. 
Another sludge band. Clean vocals together with harsh voices. Fantastic rhythm section. Melodic guitar lines and heavy bass lines. Reminds me Rosetta and Isis. For sure they are not better, but the clean vocals add another attitude to their music. It is something like experimental art prog metal… heh?
Fantastic sounds. Excellent atmospheric noisy drones. I am really sad I didn’t pay attention to this one the whole year… I promise I will from now on. Fantastic Nadja, great releases (check them out, there are 5 or 6 more CDs this year…)
