Rwaken from slumber

Magik, misery and splendor in Arkansas.

Latest from Maud the Moth has dropped. Do yourself a favor and check out an informative video interview with Amaya López-Carromero over at Veil of Sound. This Ashenspire collaborator brings a twist to the 90s ethereal voices post metal sound in a collision of Nighttime Birds The Gathering, Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush.

Demo of raw funeral doom sludge in the form of Materia Muerta. Equal parts solemn and raging. Glacially paced, burly bass driven, background effects that could be processed guitar or keys/synths, meandering, sullen guitar work that straddles the line of post punk and traditional doom, all capped off with a raging vocal delivery. Something to keep an eye on for those into Hipoxia, Radien and Amen Ra.

A brisk follow up to last year’s Split Formations and Infinite Mania Venomous Echoes unveils Dysmor. The video track is an absolute blast with its Haxan and Faust aesthetics. If you’ve been following Venomous Echoes you know the ride you’re in for. Oppressive atmospheres of assaultive riffs, off kilter rhythms and savage display of otherworldly vocals. Take Portal’s Swarth guitar tone and the combined might of a Rutan/Azagtoth attack into SYL’s City and drop a nuke. Within that wreckage you’ll find the latest Venomous Echoes writhing and mutating where the slime live.

From hellscapes to outer space… Poland’s noomn legitimately have the Vangelis blade runner headspace locked in at the intro of “Tales of Wind.” From there it moves toward an instrumental Blindead a la Autoscopia / Murder In Phazes and/or Rosetta Wake/Lift. This should be very interesting to see what develops in the future.

Post supergroup Guiltless debuts its full length March 7. A couple churn and burn Breach meets Neurosis tracks are currently on display with those ragged, jangly notes over blower bass and tribal pounding complemented by hoarse vocals. Done with these veterans at the helm it adds up as more than a sum of its parts. I’m always a sucker for the drumming on Generation of Vipers material, so it’s no surprise Billy Graves lights it up here with Intronaut Sacha Dunable and A Storm of Light’s Josh Graham and Dan Hawkins. Sure, this is Josh’s brainchild, but, for me, Graves is the pulse.

Welcome back sons and sister of sludge and slow motion. The return of Rwake is a thing of magic. A masterclass of narrative songwriting with seamless shifts from sludge to blues, rhythmic pummel to delicate melody and landscapes in between. A big, ballsy move for Relapse to premiere a 12 minute long single. “Freebird” this ain’t. Moments here resemble an Allman Brothers influenced Trouble infused with tribal drumming, duelling caustic vocals and invocations. One may be able to extrapolate this to the Primeval Well debut stripped of its black metal elements and annointed with the sludge and mud of the Ozarks. Rising from that murk are moments of absolute shred tech guitar wizardry and graceful, light acoustic madrigals. Backline is tightly wound, yet lively throughout with perfect push/pull where it demands. All is in perfect balance over this 53 minute epic as if they’ve never missed a beat from 2011 until this incarnation. Perhaps best on display during “Distant Constellations and the Psychedelic Incarceration” where all stops are off and many disparate elements are in motion and given ample time to breathe and shine in the darkness.

Wrote it before, I’ll write it again, Sprain - The Lamb as Effigy was one of my favorite three albums of 2023. What would Sprain do moments after releasing it? Yeah, you guessed, break up. Shearling is the aftermath. Free form no wave art damage.

Denmark’s Embla initially formed as We Are Among Storms. They released an album The I In We under this moniker before renaming the project to Embla. Need I mention current and former members of The Psyke Project, Nordsind, Myrkur, Église and Meejah are involved with Embla to pique your interest? Enjoy. Or don’t.

Grecian vocal gymnast Dalila Kayros previews a track off forthcoming album. While her departure from SYK will be missed, on this track the electronic composition is as energetic and twisted as she’s dialed up in quite some time. In a sense it recalls Bjork following vespertine or the Katie Jane Garside collaboration with Hector Zazou.

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