Shotgun Sawyer – Bury The Hatchet (Vinyl, LP) Label: Ripple Music – RIPLP103 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition Country: USA & Canada Released: 2019 Style: Stoner Rock, Blues Rock
Shotgun Sawyer is a loud, three piece blues-rock band from Auburn CA featuring David Lee on drums, Brett (the Butcher) Sanders on bass, and Dylan Jarman for vocals and lead guitar. Their musical style is best described as a heavy, authentic, modern approach to the raw Delta Blues style.
Fostermother – The Ocean (Vinyl, LP, Color) Label: Ripple Music – RIPLP160 Format: Vinyl, LP, color in color red inside electric blue Country: US Released: Feb 18, 2022 Style: Doom Metal, Stoner Rock
FOSTERMOTHER made an impression within the stoner doom scene with their self-titled debut album, which Everything Is Noise described as, «hitting both soft and hard in all the right places, leaving oddly-comforting destruction in its wake.» Now a three-headed hydra with the addition of drummer Jason Motamedi alongside guitarist/singer Travis Weatherred and bassist Stephen Griffin, the band signed to Californian heavy rock powerhouse Ripple Music for the release of follow-up LP «The Ocean». This massive7-tracker cranks it up on all levels: it’s darker, harsher, slower, fuzzier, more rumbling, and uncompromising in its ability to drag listeners into the darkest alleys of the human soul.
Bethlehem – Mein Weg (2 x Vinyl) Label: Prophecy Productions – PRO 107LP Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue Country: Germany Released: Jul 8, 2022 Style: Doom Metal, Goth Rock
Experimental Black/Doom Metal band from Grevenbroich, Germany, active since 1991. They call their style «Dark metal», which is the term they coined in the debut album title.
Until Dictius Te Necare, Bethlehem faced censorship and was even banned from playing in some German cities. It started when Matton gave one copy of their first demo to a 14-year-old boy. After a while his mother started to call the band, saying that because of their music, her son became aggressive and built a «Satanic altar» in his room. In cooperation with other parents, they started a crusade against Bethlehem and their «satanic» music (ironically, Bethlehem were never satanic).
Antimatter – Leaving Eden (Vinyl, LP) Label: Prophecy Productions – PRO 088 LP-1 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition Country: Germany Released: 2022 Style: Alternative Rock
The first album of Antimatter as solo project
Unconstrained and with tremendous force – that’s a good way to characterize Mick Moss’ performance on Antimatter’s fourth album, “Leaving Eden.” The Englishman has undoubtedly found a way to gather his own power after his composing partner of many years, Duncan Patterson, has left the band – and this power has flown into a kind of music that has quite a rocking edge at times. “I wanted to create power and wide spaces in the studio,” Mick says. He was envisioning a “dark and laid-back rock album”, combining the hardest with the most light-hearted songs from ANTIMATTER’s history. It seems fitting, then, that Mick invited a more than competent session musician, Anathema’s guitarist Danny Cavanagh, into the studio for the dynamic recordings. The sensitive riffs and melodies do open vast spaces for Mick’s vocals – sounding self-confident and melancholic at the same time – and his personal lyrics with their introspective focus. “The album stands on its own two feet,” Mick acknowledges the changes in sound, which he however doesn’t think are that huge: “There are so many familiar elements; there’s one song with a violin lead like on ‘Planetary Confinement’, there are atmospheric parts, but now there are also the rockier tracks.” To the listeners, all of the above means that once again they are invited to sit back and join ANTIMATTER on their journey – a lively one at first, then growing ever more pensive to finally end in contemplation. Like in that line in the album’s last song, “Fighting For A Lost Cause”: “Some things never change” – this is also true of ANTIMATTER’s haunting atmospheres… The sensitive riffs and melodies do open vast spaces for Mick’s vocals – sounding self-confident and melancholic at the same time – and his personal lyrics with their introspective focus.
Column One / Idpa / Mz.412 – Live Action / Voodoo Bumble Bee Label: Tourette Records – tourette 012 Format: Vinyl, LP Country: US Released: Apr 2010 Style: Noise, Experimental, Industrial
Numbered edition of 412 copies. Sleeve states 2009, but the record was released in 2010. Title is misspelled on the spine. Side B recorded live at Collapse festival, Rostock, Germany 19.08.2000. Reworked in Berlin, 2009. Track B1 is a locked groove; the given track time on the sleeve represents the length of time the track is intended to be played. Share
Nordvargr – Pyrrhula (Vinyl, LP) Label: Cold Spring – CSR98LP Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Remastered Country: UK Released: May 21, 2021 Style: Dark Ambient, Drone, Doom Metal
Recorded winter/spring 2008 at Villa Bohult, Sweden.
This edition has been restored from the original masters, and further refined for the vinyl format.
Based on Swedish doomlord mythology.
Partly based on an old Swedish folktale, Pyrrhula (“doomlord”) is a pitch black journey into utter darkness. This is a tale of foreboding doom… a portent of dark times to come… a blight on the face of this earth. These eight Black Ambient / Doom / Droneworks were brought forth from the abyss of Villa Bohult exclusively for Cold Spring and contain the malevolent vocals of Lord Nordvargr himself!.
“Beware the small creatures of light, they only bring misery and death upon the enlightened ones. For they will paint their breast with blood and reap your unborn angels.”
Ltd x 500 copies on pale amber vinyl. Black Fruit Of The Loom Heavy Cotton t-shirt with front and back print.
Composed By – Henrik Nordvargr Björkk Recorded winter/spring 2008 at Villa Bohult, Sweden. Artwork – Abby Helasdottir Mastered By – Martin Bowes
Reviews:
«What is most remarkable about ‘Pyhrrhula’ is given how unrelenting it is, it is an easy album to listen to. There are some pretty great melodies hidden in there… If ‘Pyrrhula’ was colour it would be vantablack, or more correctly the spectrum of darkness, and black, ending in vantablack. It’s an album that feels like it sucks the air out of the room. It makes you sit still and take notice, but most importantly, it still sounds as epic and devastating as it did 13 years ago.» (Vital Weekly)
Mz.412, Trepaneringsritualen – X Post Industriale / Rituals 2015 e.v. Label: Old Europa Cafe – OELP 024, AnnapurnA – HIM003 Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Limited Edition Country: Italy Released: Dec 2017 Style: Industrial, Dark Ambient
On October 31 2015 «MZ.412» and «TREPANERINGSRITUALEN» performed two memorable «Rituals» at OEC’s label festival the «X CONGRESSO POST INDUSTRIALE» at Club Kindergarten in Bologna – Italy. Those sounds are finally fixed into solid and heavy vinyl for all those who will re-live those rituals in the next million of years!
Co-released by OEC & AnnapurnA Gatefold-Cover plus Poster Artwork by Thomas Eklund / TxRxP Mastering by Henrik Bjorkk / Nordvargr Black Vinyl limited to 500 copies.
Each vinyl side includes one long «Akt» (Ritual) by the 2 projects
Tracklist: A. MZ. 412 – Akt I B. MZ.412 – Akt II C. T x R x P – Akt I D. T x R x P – Akt II
Pronoise – Low Light Vision Label: Horizonte Espectral Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, 140 gram Country: Spain Released: 30 Nov 2013 Style: Industrial, EBM, Darkwave, Goth Rock, Post-Punk
Limited Edition LP pressed in 140gram vinyl of 320 hand numered copies. Includes foldout insert 24″x12″ and inner picture sleeve, Astro-Postal with serial number, and download coupon. This album was recorded between 1996 and 1997 in Valencia by Nacho Artax and Javi Andreu. Produced by Pronoise. Post-Produced by Pronoise and Horizonte Espectral.
Der Blutharsch And The Infinite Church Of The Leading Hand – Rejoice (Vinyl, LP) Label: WKN – 59 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Stereo, White Vinyl Country: Austria Released: 22 Feb 2021 Style: Krautrock, Psychedelic Rock
Der Blutharsch is the main project of Austrian musician Albin Julius. Following in the footsteps of Autopsia and Laibach, Julius creates a marching music of bombastic rhythms and folkish melodies, often infused with historical military speeches and orchestral samples. The earlier works tended towards a minimalistic sample-based instrumental style in an industrial/ambient vein, while more recent material has headed into a folk/acoustic sound, often accompanied with live vocals and instruments.
Der Blutharsch’s first release was a self-titled picture LP released in late 1996 on the Arthur’s Round Table label, but the project didn’t became Julius’ main musical outlet until 1998 after the break-up of his previous band The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud. The first CD album «Der Sieg des Lichtes Ist des Lebens Heil» was released that year, followed by a series of limited EP’s, before the release of the masterpiece «The Pleasures Received In Pain» in 1999.
Almost all of the bands releases are through Julius’ personal austrian-based label «WKN» («Wir Kapitulieren Niemals»), which was distributed by World Serpent UK until 2000, when it switched to Tesco Distribution in Germany. Since 2001 various musicians have acted as part of the band, but Albin Julius currently claims Der Blutharsch to have four permanent members: Marthynna, Jörg B. (of Graumadh), Bain Wolfkind (of Novo Homo) and himself.
The band officially disbanded in 2010, but was newly founded as Der Blutharsch And The Infinite Church Of The Leading Hand in the same year.
Empyrium – Über Den Sternen (2 × Vinyl) Label: PRO304 LP Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, 180g Etching Country: Germany Released: 26 Feb 2021 Style: Symphonic Metal, Neofolk, Black Metal
With their sixth full-length, «Über den Sternen», an allegorical German rendering of their band name meaning «Above the Stars», EMPYRIUM still draw from the magic and spirits of wild places, nature’s beauty, and human relics of ages long past. «Über den Sternen» echoes this reconciliation of the old with the new on a musical level as well. The Franconian duo is putting more emphasis on the electric guitars and harsh vocals again, which marked their first two albums and stood strong upon the band’s melodic black metal foundations. Yet EMPYRIUM also revisit the dark folk style, which the Germans had progressively embraced on their third and fourth albums.
What used to appear to be a crossroad in their musical development has now merged into one breath-taking sound. The combined force of mastermind, multi-instrumentalist, clean and extreme vocalist as well as producer Markus «Schwadorf» Stock and classical singer Thomas Helm, who lends his amazing voice also to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, is painting a radiant sonic picture. It comes with the melancholic grounding of the sophomore album «Songs of Moors & Misty Fields” (1997), adds brushstrokes of the fairy-tale tempera colours of «Where at Night the Wood Grouse Plays» (1999), and also makes use of a few hues from the palette that DEAD CAN DANCE have infused with world music, which EMPYRIUM have already employed on «The Turn of the Tides» (2014). The crowning varnish is diligently crafted from rougher elements that reach all the way back to the Germans’ legendary debut » A Wintersunset…» (1996). EMPYRIUM have reconciled their early vintage sound with the acoustic expression of later recordings.» Staying true to the Romantic tradition, EMPYRIUM continue to take inspiration for their lyrical flights of fantasy from the local myths, ancient places, and natural wonders of the Rhön Mountains and their Lower Franconian homeland in the West of Germany. A circle is closing, and with EMPYRIUM’s label Prophecy Productions, which were originally founded with the mission to release the band’s debut album, celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2021, it happens in more than one way.