Frostmoon Eclipse bring Italian ice to US

Frostmoon Eclipse

Italian black metallers Frostmoon Eclipse, whom I wrote about here, embark on their first US tour this Sunday. (See dates below.) The routing is frankly strange - scattered locales in the South and Midwest. This is probably due to their tourmates, Nashville's Chaos Moon and Ft. Lauderdale's Benighted in Sodom, whom I reviewed here and here. Dubbed the "Beauty, Darkness, Chaos Tour," the package should help shed light on these wonderfully idiosyncratic acts. Frostmoon Eclipse are like a black metal Opeth, interspersing electricity with moody acoustic guitar. Chaos Moon and Benighted in Sodom make lush, dreamy black metal - they're USBM's next great hopes. A split CD with these three bands will be sold on this tour.

Frostmoon Eclipse - Fury of the Elements
Chaos Moon - The Palterer
Benighted in Sodom - Paradigm Inumbrate (excerpt)

- Nov -
16 7th Street Entry - Minneapolis, MN (no Chaos Moon)
17 Metal Shakers - Chicago, IL (w/ Velnias)
20 The Borg Ward - Milwaukee, WI (w/Foetopsy, Half Gorilla)
21 Club 161 - Columbus, OH (w/ Velnias)
22 Little Hamilton - Nashville, TN (w/ Velnias)
23 Charlotte's Underground - Charlotte, NC (w/ Mysteriarch)
25 Radio-Active Records, Fort Lauderdale, FL
26 Swayze's - Marietta, GA (w/ Winds of Malice)

Aere Aeternus - Humanity Needs No Funeral

by Cosmo Lee

Claudio Alcara is a talented fellow. In Frostmoon Eclipse, he unleashes black metal with bouts of acoustic picking. Stroszek is his delicate, mostly acoustic project. (I wrote about these here and here.) Aere Aeternus is his collaboration with folks in England and France, and it suppresses his six-string prowess in favor of dark ambience. It's no less musical, though, overlaying the requisite ominous synths with found sounds. Voices are the chief condiments, with men and women at various distances in various states of agitation/ecstasy. These voices undergo copious mutilation; one can almost hear the computer cycles crunching them up. Cavernous reverbs help create an endless tunnel feeling. Such detailed and atmospheric sound design is almost going to waste in the underground. It would make a marvelous video game soundtrack, especially as video games grow increasingly immersive (see this interesting New Yorker article on Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski). Perhaps Aere Aeternus is already thinking along these lines; this CD contains a grainy video of images of bondage, a skull, and a knife. Humanity may need no funeral, but Aere Aeternus seems determined to provide its requiem anyway.

Ouverture - A Conspiracy of Rats
Hatred to My Last Breath

Buy:
Kaosthetik
Rage in Eden

The Secret, Origin, Sourvein, In Flames

The Secret

I was watching UFC a few nights ago, and it occurred to me that brutal music is like mixed martial arts. One has to vary one's attack. When bands do blastbeats for entire songs, that's like going into a fight doing only high kicks. You look for any opening, then shoot in and take advantage of it. Sometimes you triangle choke, sometimes you armbar, sometimes you go for the good old-fashioned KO.

The Secret - Funeral Monolith
Origin - The Aftermath
Sourvein - Septic Werewolves

Italy's The Secret, whom I've reviewed at Pitchfork, understand this. Using fists, feet, elbows, and knees, "Funeral Monolith" reduces three and a half minutes to a bloody pulp; the breakdown at 2:29 is ground-and-pound in slow motion.

Origin, on whom I did a Decibel feature, are starting to learn this. Previously, they were guilty of blasting themselves into submission. On Antithesis, which I've reviewed here, they insert more space and melody, and launch themselves into my year-end Top 20 list. The CD's artwork, by Orion Landau, is amazing. It's a combination of Aliens, Star Wars, and Motörhead's Snaggletooth mascot. When I opened it up, I actually exclaimed, "Wow, that's cool!"

At Decibel, I've also reviewed the new live disc by Nasum, and a short but nasty EP by Sourvein. Try not to commit acts of domestic violence upon hearing "Septic Werewolves." At Pitchfork, I've reviewed the new In Flames; at Metal Injection, I've reviewed retro thrashers Warbringer. Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. What is up with Celtic Frost???

One Starving Day - Broken Wings Lead Arms to the Sun

Saying that One Starving Day is a lesser version of Neurosis is no dis. It's a fine wellspring from which to draw. If Neurosis move mountains and scar the sky, One Starving Day build a good garden, with a gnarled oak nearby. This Italian group may not play new tones, but it pitches them perfectly, which is perhaps more important.

Black Star Aeon (excerpt)
Fate Drainer (excerpt)

My only quibble, and it is small, is that when this band tills earth, it doesn't do so deeply enough. There are a few heavy moments, but mostly this album (five songs at 47 minutes constitutes an album) remains in indefinite suspension, spreading wings, not landing. That's fine, though. The digressions open small but palpable cuts - cello drones, string overtones, volume swells that clamp shut like unrequited love's hope.

The production is natural, exposed, and so is the packaging, a matte-finish gatefold with matter-of-fact typewriter font. Old Dischord releases come to mind. These guys have hardcore punk backgrounds, and it shows. I like their offerings of soil; however, I await the day of complete burial.

Broken Wings is available on CD from Planaria, and on beautiful white-and-black colored vinyl from KNVBI.

Stroszek - Songs of Remorse

Whenver electronic/pop music writer Simon Reynolds weighs in on metal, it's always interesting. I've been chewing on a recent post of his: "metal has just swallowed whole goth (especially 4AD goth-lite), industrial, post-rock, shoegaze, techno, isolationism, folk....to the point where what defines metal as metal these days is nothing sonic but really just the bombastic and verbose band names/song titles (and also contextual/institutional stuff like where you're likely to read about it) (and perhaps the clothes the bands wear)."

The House Told Me
The Night Porter

Such sweeping statements are glib, but Reynolds is onto something. Earlier in the post, he comments on the "label cloud" of Icelandic blog Blodvargr. It's something I've wondered about for a while, too. What is the connection among black metal, dark ambient, folk music, shoegaze, drone, and noise, other than it's somehow completely logical for those who are into the stuff?

Remember that we started the week with straight black metal band Hiems, which connected to half-black metal, half-acoustic outfit Frostmoon Eclipse. Now, Frostmoon Eclipse guitarist Claudio Alcara has a solo project, Stroszek, presumably named for the Werner Herzog film (speaking of Herzog, CineFile Video has printed some sweet t-shirts that recast directors' names in metal band fonts).

Alcara recording guitars

Stroszek slightly recalls Opeth's Damnation - mostly acoustic, with some electric guitar. While the electrics are highly distorted, they're also fairly low in the mix, so that even the rocking moments feel restrained. This is fine, as Songs of Remorse (God Is Myth, 2007) is decidedly melancholy. I'm not familiar with goth's subdivisions, but perhaps this could fall into one of them - 4AD, Mazzy Star, etc.

Pleasingly, the record is often just Alcara and his acoustic; more pleasingly, it's often just his acoustic. His voice is pleasant enough, but he mostly, and wisely, stays out of the way of his picking. I'm a big fan of flatpicked (as opposed to strummed) acoustics, and this record is full of them. The moody tritones in "The Night Porter" are like an old Metallica acoustic intro becoming a song in its own right; dig the tasty blue notes near the end.

Even though this record is mostly mellow, something about it is very metal. Perhaps it's the precision of the picking, or the overall darkness. Whatever the case, it's a lovely listen. Stroszek shares an upcoming split on a label TBD with ambient/modern classical project Godheadscope, which should be a very interesting pairing. Interestingly, God Is Myth is offering albums from both as a cut-rate package deal (I reviewed the Godheadscope one here). Otherwise, Songs of Remorse is available from God Is Myth's fine webstore.

Frostmoon Eclipse - Dead and Forever Gone

Speaking of Hiems, drummer Gionata Potenti also plays in Frostmoon Eclipse. The La Spezia, IT band is prone to bouts of acoustic guitar in its black metal, so it's perhaps logical that the band released an all-acoustic album, Dead and Forever Gone (ISO 666, 2005). But it's also brave, given black metal's penchant for obfuscation. Take away distortion, and what does a metaller have?

What Could Have Been
It Heals, It Hurts

Melody, as it turns out. Like other successful all-acoustic metal experiments (Green Carnation's Acoustic Verses, Borknagar's Origin), this album's fate rests with its guitarists. Open strings ring aplenty, laced by delicate, precise picking. Like Borknagar, a prog rock influence is evident, particularly in the bass lines. The production is bone-dry, fully exposing the performances. At times, the vocals waver, but when they back off to hushed whispers, they're effective. Beautiful, black and white artwork wraps up this intimate package.

Dead and Forever Gone is available in Europe at Drakkar, in the UK at Grief Foundation, in the US at Hells Headbangers, and directly from the band's website.

Hiems - Cold Void Journey

Speaking of Italian black metal, in recent heavy rotation for me has been Hiems, of the northwestern city of Novara. Hiems plays good, strong black metal. With black metal, I don't often use "strong" to connote "powerful." I am a fan of black metal, but for all its posturing with weapons and spiky wristbands, much of it feels powerless to me.

Sign of the Hammer
The Last Sunset

In fact, the first time I heard black metal, I questioned whether it was even metal at all, so devoid of low end and balls it sounded (the shrieking vocals still seem rather witch-like to me). Its appeal for me remains mostly atmospheric and textural, a feminine counterpoint to metal's usual hypermasculinity. I find it ironic that black metal bands go onstage dressed for medieval battle, but often muster only limp-wristed tremolo picking on guitar.

Hiems runs the oomph of first wave black metal through modern production. Instead of the typical blastbeat-palooza, Cold Void Journey (ISO 666, 2005) has actual riffs, grooves, and heaviness. Though Hiems is Algol's one-man project, session drummer Gionata Potenti provides much of its impetus. His drumming is deservedly equal with guitars in the mix. Thunderous yet deft, it spans a wide variety of speeds and beats. "Sign of the Hammer" alternates thrashy d-beats with storming blastbeats; dig the industrial metallic snare accents near the end.

This album's weight keeps me returning to it. Little black metal has this much full-bodied presence and variety; Algol sometimes deploys stringy clean tones that recall Joy Division. The ISO 666 website seems to be down at the moment, but Cold Void Journey has been remixed and remastered for reissue on Moribund (which carries either the old or new version here; Red Stream also has it). This album doesn't need new sound, but at least it'll reach new listeners this go-round. Moribund also reports a new Hiems album due out this year, though time is running out for that...

Kylesa to tour with Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation

In WTF news, Kylesa will be playing select US west coast dates with Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation. This makes no sense other than for the fact that Kylesa happens to have a woman in its lineup also (and that maybe it qualifies as Southern gothic rock). It's great that the band will reach new audiences, but the Hot Topic set may be in for a nasty shock.

(with Lacuna Coil, Within Temptation)

5/30 - Spokane, WA - The Boulevard
5/31 - Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater
6/01 - San Francisco, CA - Slim’s
6/04 - San Luis Obispo, CA - Downtown Brewing Company
6/05 - Sparks, NV - New Oasis
6/06 - Salt Lake City, UT - Avalon Theatre

The band has also released a video for "Hollow Severer" from its album Time Will Fuse Its Worth. Accompanying the video is a contest offering the chance to win Kylesa vinyl and t-shirts.

Kylesa - Hollow Severer

The Orange Man Theory - Riding a Cannibal Horse from Here to...

Merendina Will Have...
Where We're Going...

Indelirium
2005


When album cover stickers mention people other than the artist, such as engineers or guest performers, they shortchange and potentially overshadow the artist. That's the case here. The sticker says "Produced by Steve Austin, TODAY IS THE DAY, Featuring Steve Austin on Guest Vocals and Synth." No mention of the actual band, The Orange Man Theory.

That's both shameful and ironic, as the production is the only thing holding this album back. Steve Austin isn't some synth virtuoso, so that bit puzzles me. This band doesn't need to ride on his coattails. Basically, it's hardcore punk with some rock 'n' roll.

Sure, a million bands do this now. But The Orange Man Theory stands out, since its rock vibe is unforced. You don't get the awkward "Agnostic Front in the verses, Pantera boogie in the middle" thing so many bands do. Instead, there's a true bluesiness here, which weirds me out, since it's an American sound, and this band is from Rome. I get a slight Unsane vibe, maybe some Dischord, maybe some Botch.

The production is pretty rough. The drums lack punch, the ride cymbal jumps out of the mix, and the guitars are coarse and curiously twangy. However, I don't mind. Music like this should sound raw. While I wouldn't choose this particular sound, it's better than some of the higher-budget productions I've heard for similar material. You can find this album for cheap at Interpunk.

Belladonna - Metaphysical Attraction

Black Swan
Mystical Elysian Love

Self-Released
2006


Not the Anthrax singer nor the adult film star, Belladonna is an Italian band that falls somewhere between hard and goth rock. But these terms are really too crude to describe this band. The former implies a certain simplicity, and the latter a certain aesthetic, neither of which apply here. Whatever it's called, I'm not normally into music like this; it's a testament to its quality that I quite enjoy it.

Evidently, almost 48,000 other people on MySpace do, too. The band currently boasts over 200,000 profile views, a staggering number for an unsigned band. By comparison, Helmet and The Haunted have fewer profile views. MySpace is the promotional tool de jour of bands, but I'm suspicious when one pushes that angle this hard. "The most popular Italian unsigned band on Myspace!" "Belladonna in the Top 100 Artists MySpace chart!" What do these things mean?

For one, it means they have someone who sits at the computer and sends out a lot of friend requests. But to get that many "friends" in the approximately 15 months the band has been on MySpace, it would have to average over 100 requests daily. That would be physically feasible, of course, but hugely time-consuming. Thus, I'd bet that a good number of these requests are not outgoing, but incoming, meaning that many people actually like this band.

All this talk of MySpace might seem ancillary to the music. But I'm trying to figure out why a band that's posting these kinds of numbers isn't signed yet. After all, on the Earache Records blog, Digby Pearson said that 100,000+ profile views get labels salivating.

My guess is that the band's sound isn't hip at the moment. This album has a rock vibe rooted in the '70s and '80s. The band lists Kate Bush, Led Zeppelin, Ziggy Stardust, and Blue Oyster Cult as influences; these don't necessarily reflect in the sound, but they do in the band's sympathies. There's a passion and romantic quality here that's almost unheard of today. Key to this is Luana's strong, expressive, and soulful voice. The goth aura here isn't shiny and Hot Topic-esque like Lacuna Coil; it's more like PJ Harvey or Nick Cave.

Lyrically, the band straddles a line between pop and darker matters. Take "Black Swan," for example. It begins,

Prayer for a fallen hero
Angel with a broken wing
Am I going down?

The first chorus is

Black Swan – A new moon is on the rise
Black Swan - I’m alive
Beyond the speed of life
Free will is on my side
Black Swan – I ride - Back home

Typical gothspeak, right? But see the second chorus:

Black Swan – Wings of destiny open wide
Black Swan - I’m alive
Astray from Paradise
Hell-bent on homicide
Black Swan – I ride – Back home

It would seem this song describes Lucifer with beautiful, sympathetic imagery. And that's interesting for a band that could conceivably hit the pop charts someday. I hope that if/when this band gets signed, that its label doesn't sand off its edges. I could see a label trying to turn this band into the next overproduced Lacuna Coil. That would be a shame. Here's a band with a very analog sound - guitars, piano, drums, and that voice - writing impeccable songs that generate their own atmosphere. End to end, this album is a classy, intriguing listen. You can get it directly from the band.

SoulDaemon - Dead World

Wings of Death
Outro - The Breath of a New Day

Self-Released
2006


I firmly believe in "it's not what you have, it's what you do with it." Italy's SoulDaemon is a great example. Using only bass, drum machine, vocals, and effects, this one-man band has crafted a strange but cool EP in Dead World. Though the sound isn't exactly black metal, the sensibility is, with raspy vocals and a bleak vibe.

It's perhaps a bassist's dream come true to play with no guitarists. SoulDaemon makes the most of this, running his bass through distortion, playing full power chords, and overdubbing lead lines (back in the day, Ned's Atomic Dustbin did the same low/high thing with their two bassists). Some of the riffs are quite catchy, especially in the instrumental "The Breath of a New Day," which reminds me of those sped-up "TV" interludes on Ministry albums.

At times, the playing is a little loose against the machine percussion. Overall, that's not a problem, though, as this EP isn't meant to be polished. It's raw and has quite a unique air about it. Add in some nice artwork, and you have an enjoyable little EP. You can pick it up from SoulDaemon's MySpace or directly through email.

Derdian - New Era (Pt. 1)

Eternal Light
Anubi's Call

Adrenaline/Steelheart
2005


Why haven't I heard of Derdian until now? Granted, symphonic Italian power metal ain't exactly my bag. But on their first album, these guys do the style so flawlessly, I wonder why their name isn't up there with certain others in the recent resurgence of power metal.

Maybe it's due to lack of ego. Everyone in this group can play - the singer hits his notes, the guitarists shred and sweep, the keyboards keep step with the guitars, and the drums are precise and thundering. But no one element rises above the others. Despite their chops, the band plays for its songs, and thus it avoids the ridiculous showmanship that's frequent in this genre.

As with other power metal, you have to reset your cheese meter here. Expect galloping riffs, keyboard-guitar unisons, lyrics about sacred steel, and so on. The artwork follows suit, with layout that falls somewhere between a church tract and high school yearbook. But in terms of writing and playing, the music is airtight. You can pick this up from the band's MySpace.