#ambientblackmetal — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #ambientblackmetal, aggregated by home.social.
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MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY (Austràlia) presenta nou àlbum en directe: "A Mass of Fallen Stars - Live in Toulon" #MidnightOdyssey #AmbientBlackMetal #Ambient #Maig2026 #Austràlia #NouÀlbumEnDirecte #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY (Austràlia) presenta nou àlbum en directe: "A Mass of Fallen Stars - Live in Toulon" #MidnightOdyssey #AmbientBlackMetal #Ambient #Maig2026 #Austràlia #NouÀlbumEnDirecte #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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NONE – ⧄
#BlackMetal #Metal #ambient #ambientblackmetal #atmosphericblackmetal #cinematic #darkambient #deathdoom #doommetal #minimalist #postrock #soundscape #Amadora
CC BY-NC (#CreativeCommons Attribution Non Commercial) #ccmusic
https://hypnoticdirgerecords.bandcamp.com/album/--3 -
https://www.europesays.com/nl/178293/ Ultha – A Light So Dim #2026 #ALightSoDim #ambient #AmbientBlackMetal #Amusement #AshBorer #atmospheric #BlackMetal #BlutAusNord #CultOfLuna #Dutch #Entertainment #Music #Muziek #Nederland #Nederlanden #Nederlands #Netherlands #NL #recensie #SunWorship #swans #ultha #VendettaRecords #weakling #wiegedood #WolvesInTheThroneRoom #YellowEyes #ZwareMetalen
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https://www.europesays.com/be-nl/38889/ Ultha – A Light So Dim #2026 #ALightSoDim #ambient #AmbientBlackMetal #Amusement #AshBorer #atmospheric #BE #België #Belgium #BlackMetal #BlutAusNord #CultOfLuna #Entertainment #Music #Muziek #recensie #SunWorship #swans #ultha #VendettaRecords #weakling #wiegedood #WolvesInTheThroneRoom #YellowEyes #ZwareMetalen
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Foghazer – He Left The Temple
#BlackMetal #ExperimentalBlackMetal #Metal #ambientblackmetal #atmosphericblackmetal #avantgardeblackmetal #deathdoom #doommetal #postrock #triphop #Amadora
CC BY-NC (#CreativeCommons Attribution Non Commercial) #ccmusic
https://hypnoticdirgerecords.bandcamp.com/album/he-left-the-temple -
Free download codes:
Black Shaman - Tradition
"Descend into hypnotic darkness: 'Tradition' by Black Shaman takes you on a journey through shamanic rites, death and rebirth fusing black metal with ambient."
#cinematic #blackmetal #atmosphericblackmetal #ambientblackmetal #blackdoommetal #music
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MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY (Austràlia) presenta nou single: "The Cold and Distant Oracle" #MidnightOdyssey #AmbientBlackMetal #Ambient #Gener2026 #Austràlia #NouSingle #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY (Austràlia) presenta nou single: "The Cold and Distant Oracle" #MidnightOdyssey #AmbientBlackMetal #Ambient #Gener2026 #Austràlia #NouSingle #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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Free download codes:
Black Shaman - Tradition
"Descend into hypnotic darkness: 'Tradition' by Black Shaman takes you on a journey through shamanic rites, death and rebirth fusing black metal with ambient."
#cinematic #blackmetal #atmosphericblackmetal #ambientblackmetal #blackdoommetal #music
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Free download codes:
Deceitful Sorcery - Of Kings And Landscapes
"'Of Kings and Landscapes' is a dark, epic tale of a war-born king destined to conquer."
#metal #blackmetal #dungeonsynth #atmosphericblackmetal #austrianmetal #ambientblackmetal #runningwildproductions #austria #music
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https://www.europesays.com/nl/55325/ Amenra en Marissa Nadler in uitverkocht TivoliVredenburg #AmbientBlackMetal #amenra #Amusement #AtmosphericPostMetal #BlackMetal #concert #concertverslag #Dutch #Entertainment #Music #Muziek #Nederland #Nederlanden #Nederlands #Netherlands #NL #PostMetal #RelapseRecords #SethAbrikoos #sethabrikoos #sethpicturesmusic #sludge #TivoliVredenburg #ZwareMetalen #zwaremetalen
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VIALS OF WRATH (Estats Units) presenta nou àlbum: "Remnants for Remembrance" #VialsOfWrath #BlackMetal #DeathMetal #AmbientBlackMetal #Octubre2025 #EstatsUnits #NouÀlbum #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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Free download codes:
Deceitful Sorcery - Of Kings And Landscapes
"'Of Kings and Landscapes' is a dark, epic tale of a war-born king destined to conquer."
#metal #blackmetal #dungeonsynth #atmosphericblackmetal #austrianmetal #ambientblackmetal #runningwildproductions #austria #music
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KAKASBAL (Mèxic) presenta nou Split: "IV: Kakasbal / Gukumatz" #Kakasbal #AmbientBlackMetal #Octubre2025 #Mèxic #NouSplit #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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GATES OF DAWN (Estats Units) presenta nou àlbum: "III" #GatesOfDawn #AmbientBlackMetal #DungeonSynth #Setembre2025 #EstatsUnits #NouÀlbum #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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FAUNA (Estats Units) presenta nou àlbum: "Ochre & Ash" #Fauna #AmbientBlackMetal #Setembre2025 #EstatsUnits #NouÀlbum #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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KAKASBAL (Mèxic) presenta nou single: "III: Morituri te Salutant!" #Kakasbal #AmbientBlackMetal #Setembre2025 #Mèxic #NouSingle #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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Free download codes:
Deceitful Sorcery - Of Kings And Landscapes
"'Of Kings and Landscapes' is a dark, epic tale of a war-born king destined to conquer."
#metal #blackmetal #dungeonsynth #atmosphericblackmetal #austrianmetal #ambientblackmetal #runningwildproductions #austria #music
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KARG (Àustria) presenta nou àlbum: "Marodeur" #Karg #AmbientBlackMetal #PostBlackMetal #Abril2025 #Àustria #NouÀlbum #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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Free download codes:
Skialykon - Aura Kósmos I: Madre Notte
"Nocturnal black metal from the wilderness to the stars"
#bandcampcodes #blackmetal #atmosphericblackmetal #ambientblackmetal #italianblackmetal #music
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By Thus Spoke
We tend to underestimate how great a role knowledge of the artist plays when experiencing their art. Even if unfamiliar with their work, the awareness of them as a person (or group of people) whose intentions are either plain or discoverable through interviews, notes, or academic consensus informs our opinions insidiously but inevitably. In an age when self-promotion is easier than ever thanks to the internet, a musician choosing to remain anonymous speaks to a desire to center their music in as absolute a way as possible. Who comprises Blood Abscission, and how many of them are there? That may never be known.1 All that exists is their art. This too eschews identity beyond numbers: sophomore II following in inevitability debut I, and all tracks bearing only the numerals of their album position. We must listen to II exactly as it is, with only Blood Abscission’s solemn proclamation as potential guide: “United in pain, we step into the abyss – not as mere individuals, but as a collective force seeking meaning within the chaos, finding a voice in the silence between the stars.”
Though I discovered it in retrospect—the debut having been dropped via self-release with zero fanfare—II continues exactly as I began. Blistering, raw-adjacent atmospheric black metal, relentless beyond the occasional lapses into dreamy gaziness where the keyboards shine and feedback hums (“III,” “IV”), not unlike a synth-obsessed Alcest. Its intensity, the desperate, unintelligible screams of the vocalist, and the grand melodic themes see-sawing between melancholy beauty and eerie dissonance bring to mind Aara on one face (“I,” “V”), Decoherence the other (“II”). II feels like an exercise in pure catharsis, the repeated climaxes of ever-fiercer roars and ascending tremolos communicating only unfiltered emotion, and the contrastive stillness a cleansing indifference. With no identifiable words, and even the muffled samples dampened beyond comprehension, II’s features are solely confined to this ebb and flow, amplifying once more the facelessness and pure aesthetic centrality that Blood Abscission impose by not naming it, or themself. It is a musical black hole, both in atmosphere and sparseness of properties, and is appropriately powerful.
Unlike an actual black hole, II is something we can escape from, though Blood Abscission do a good job of holding you in place. At its most ardent peaks, when beauty pitches fearsomely into urgency, it is hard to ignore, let alone switch off (“II,” “V”). The moves from one state of being to another are smooth, regardless of their speed—whether neo-second-wave and assured to a vulnerable undulation between sorrowfulness and heartenedness (“I”), or gentle contentment to grieving resolution (“III”). “IV”‘s emanation out of the chiming whine of “III,” and procession into the torrent that opens “V,” is not just an obvious example of this compositional fluidity, but itself proves to be a thoroughly absorbing interlude that belies its length. II repeatedly invites introspection, and does so through its rawness that reaches beyond the way the vocals and instruments are mastered, a corollary of the necessary focus on the sweep of its melodies, interplay between airy keys and darker riffing, and the tides dictated by pleasingly crisp percussion. The echoing croon of an escaped tremolo, the escalation of a minor refrain into devastation, and the torture of a conclusive shriek—with the closing act of “V” standing as the album’s crowning glory in this regard—are notably affecting.
Yet II’s consistency in perdurance is a double-edged sword. While full immersion grants the listener an undoubtedly intense and emotional experience, less conscious enjoyment threatens to leave them a little cold, outside of standout apexes at least. Perhaps this is always a danger with atmo-black, particularly of this more unrestrained and unstructured variety. I can testify that after spending some time with it, its magnitude seems greater than it did initially, thanks to deeper appreciation of its nuances, but even the influence of II’s potency doesn’t eliminate flaws entirely. II could stand to be a shade shorter, to give every moment more impact; something not needed so much by its peaks, but from which some of its lingering passages would gain better standing as transitions of beneficial steadiness between outbursts.
With so much atmospheric and raw black metal out there that might as well be anonymous for all its uniformity and ironic placidity, Blood Abscission stand out not only with real anonymity, but music that speaks for itself. In form resisting memorability, in actuality quite impactful and resilient, II shows what the genre is capable of. Even if it lacks the concrete immediacy to solidify it into long-standing greatness, its noise is not meaningless, and its meaning is not lost, however imprecise it might seem.
Rating: Good
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Debemur Morti
Website: Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025Show 1 footnote
- And as is stated quite forcefully in the promo material, “Blood Abscission is NOT available for interviews.” ↩
#2025 #30 #Aara #Alcest #AmbientBlackMetal #Apr25 #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #BloodAbscission #DebemurMortiProductions #Decoherence #II #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews
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SILENT THUNDER (Estats Units) presenta nou EP: "Soulspear" #SilentThunder #AmbientBlackMetal #Març2025 #EstatsUnits #NouEp #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
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La Torture des Ténèbres – Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor Review
By Dear Hollow
La Torture des Ténèbres, in spite of the sadistic propensity for aural flaying, offers a unique voice in black metal. A one-woman show with an aesthetic evoking dystopian urban shimmer, decopunk, classic science fiction, and the space age, it conjures images of glittering mile-high cities built on the backs of the impoverished, brave women overcoming the adversity of the stars, the sneaking static cutting through a dictator’s commands through the radio, the jazzy bombasts of the elite’s decadent galas – and the loneliness of it all. There is no overselling just how noisy and jarring this act’s sound is on the ears, but lone mastermind JK has concocted a trademark stew that makes it stand out in nearly every way. Episode VII arrives a mere five months after its predecessor, expressing a fusion of its aesthetics.
Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor deals in a sound that retains La Torture des Ténèbres’ signature style, the vicious rawness and lonely melodic tremolo leads while fusing its two aesthetic influences. 2016 began with the formidably raw and ambient spacefaring canon of Choirs of Emptiness and Acadian Nights,1 but was reinterpreted by the more dystopian Civilization is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods, which set the tone for the following releases up to last year’s V and The Lost Colony of Altar Vista. In this way, Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor blends these two themes, dystopian civilizations set amongst the stars, its vast colonies and glorious cities plagued by inequality, sexism, and the hive mind’s whims.
La Torture des Ténèbres lives up to Revenge of Unfailing Valor’s description (“VOLITIONAL EXPLOITATION // SMOULDERING HIVES”) by channeling its trademark melodic template and ambient sensibilities into a fuller sound that amps violence while hinting at a tragic heart beneath machinelike mania. Its trademark is intact: the rawness and utter saturation of rawness is ubiquitous, as even its more placid moments of lonely melodies are scathing. However, one distinction is melodic motifs that tie the album into one cohesive whole: an ascending jazzy synth run (“Vast Black Claws Drag Her Back to Space,” “Metropolitan Warfare,” “Out of All the Years We’ve Come…”) and sanguine synth melodies (“The Second Piscean Abyss,” “Angels”). As always, this is communicated through the ebb and flow of three prongs of scathing second-wave blasting/tremolo/shrieking, lonely tremolo, and distorted vintage samples. This arsenal and dynamic are as intriguing as they are jarring, samples and melodies inviting comparisons to classic science fiction (“Vast Black Claws…,” “The Second Piscean Abyss”) and the roarin’ twenties worship of decopunk (“Breathe in the Fucking Sawdust and Die,” “Yes But Can a Camp Girl Do This”). The first act in particular utilizes a bombast of violent second-wave rawness in contrast with an over-the-top sample presence. A grandiosity pervades in a way that recalls predecessor V, but La Torture des Ténèbres‘ fuller sound adds to the assault – tinnitus is guaranteed.
The second half of Episode VII finds La Torture des Ténèbres taking risks – the samples are fewer, the melodies are far more tragic and empty, and there is rest to be found. The brutal mid-album climax in “The Second Piscean Abyss” allows for reinterpretation for “Metropolitan Warfare” and beyond, trademark and motifs carrying across in emptier and more tragic melodies and moments (i.e. the release of all sound but tinny tremolo and blastbeats in “Traditions” and total collapses into noise in “Out of All the Years…”). This reinforces the need for bulletproof songwriting rather than reliance on samples and jarring movements to do the heavy lifting, and JK is up to the task. “Angels” is placed perfectly, its minimalist, distorted, and aptly angelic sample providing rest for the weary ears – for the first time in La Torture des Ténèbres’ career.
La Torture des Ténèbres will not sway any naysayers of raw black or blackened noise. In fact, many will point to their ringing ears or pinched nerves2 and say “See??” after Episode VII concludes with the noise fadeout of “Out of All the Years…”. Those who are willing to endure will find treasures aplenty, an opus of hyper-atmospheric, excessively noisy, and endlessly tragic melodies and motifs. Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor sweeps you away to a universe yet to be explored; but even in the dead vacuum of space or within mankind’s hive-mind colonies, you can’t escape your humanity.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Self-Released
Website: latorturedestenebres.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025#2025 #40 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #AtmosphericBlackMetal #CanadianMetal #Chaosophia #EpisodeVIIRevengeOfUnfailingValor #LaTortureDesTénèbres #Mar25 #Noise #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased
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La Torture des Ténèbres – Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor Review
By Dear Hollow
La Torture des Ténèbres, in spite of the sadistic propensity for aural flaying, offers a unique voice in black metal. A one-woman show with an aesthetic evoking dystopian urban shimmer, decopunk, classic science fiction, and the space age, it conjures images of glittering mile-high cities built on the backs of the impoverished, brave women overcoming the adversity of the stars, the sneaking static cutting through a dictator’s commands through the radio, the jazzy bombasts of the elite’s decadent galas – and the loneliness of it all. There is no overselling just how noisy and jarring this act’s sound is on the ears, but lone mastermind JK has concocted a trademark stew that makes it stand out in nearly every way. Episode VII arrives a mere five months after its predecessor, expressing a fusion of its aesthetics.
Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor deals in a sound that retains La Torture des Ténèbres’ signature style, the vicious rawness and lonely melodic tremolo leads while fusing its two aesthetic influences. 2016 began with the formidably raw and ambient spacefaring canon of Choirs of Emptiness and Acadian Nights,1 but was reinterpreted by the more dystopian Civilization is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods, which set the tone for the following releases up to last year’s V and The Lost Colony of Altar Vista. In this way, Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor blends these two themes, dystopian civilizations set amongst the stars, its vast colonies and glorious cities plagued by inequality, sexism, and the hive mind’s whims.
La Torture des Ténèbres lives up to Revenge of Unfailing Valor’s description (“VOLITIONAL EXPLOITATION // SMOULDERING HIVES”) by channeling its trademark melodic template and ambient sensibilities into a fuller sound that amps violence while hinting at a tragic heart beneath machinelike mania. Its trademark is intact: the rawness and utter saturation of rawness is ubiquitous, as even its more placid moments of lonely melodies are scathing. However, one distinction is melodic motifs that tie the album into one cohesive whole: an ascending jazzy synth run (“Vast Black Claws Drag Her Back to Space,” “Metropolitan Warfare,” “Out of All the Years We’ve Come…”) and sanguine synth melodies (“The Second Piscean Abyss,” “Angels”). As always, this is communicated through the ebb and flow of three prongs of scathing second-wave blasting/tremolo/shrieking, lonely tremolo, and distorted vintage samples. This arsenal and dynamic are as intriguing as they are jarring, samples and melodies inviting comparisons to classic science fiction (“Vast Black Claws…,” “The Second Piscean Abyss”) and the roarin’ twenties worship of decopunk (“Breathe in the Fucking Sawdust and Die,” “Yes But Can a Camp Girl Do This”). The first act in particular utilizes a bombast of violent second-wave rawness in contrast with an over-the-top sample presence. A grandiosity pervades in a way that recalls predecessor V, but La Torture des Ténèbres‘ fuller sound adds to the assault – tinnitus is guaranteed.
The second half of Episode VII finds La Torture des Ténèbres taking risks – the samples are fewer, the melodies are far more tragic and empty, and there is rest to be found. The brutal mid-album climax in “The Second Piscean Abyss” allows for reinterpretation for “Metropolitan Warfare” and beyond, trademark and motifs carrying across in emptier and more tragic melodies and moments (i.e. the release of all sound but tinny tremolo and blastbeats in “Traditions” and total collapses into noise in “Out of All the Years…”). This reinforces the need for bulletproof songwriting rather than reliance on samples and jarring movements to do the heavy lifting, and JK is up to the task. “Angels” is placed perfectly, its minimalist, distorted, and aptly angelic sample providing rest for the weary ears – for the first time in La Torture des Ténèbres’ career.
La Torture des Ténèbres will not sway any naysayers of raw black or blackened noise. In fact, many will point to their ringing ears or pinched nerves2 and say “See??” after Episode VII concludes with the noise fadeout of “Out of All the Years…”. Those who are willing to endure will find treasures aplenty, an opus of hyper-atmospheric, excessively noisy, and endlessly tragic melodies and motifs. Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor sweeps you away to a universe yet to be explored; but even in the dead vacuum of space or within mankind’s hive-mind colonies, you can’t escape your humanity.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Self-Released
Website: latorturedestenebres.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025#2025 #40 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #AtmosphericBlackMetal #CanadianMetal #Chaosophia #EpisodeVIIRevengeOfUnfailingValor #LaTortureDesTénèbres #Mar25 #Noise #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased
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La Torture des Ténèbres – Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor Review
By Dear Hollow
La Torture des Ténèbres, in spite of the sadistic propensity for aural flaying, offers a unique voice in black metal. A one-woman show with an aesthetic evoking dystopian urban shimmer, decopunk, classic science fiction, and the space age, it conjures images of glittering mile-high cities built on the backs of the impoverished, brave women overcoming the adversity of the stars, the sneaking static cutting through a dictator’s commands through the radio, the jazzy bombasts of the elite’s decadent galas – and the loneliness of it all. There is no overselling just how noisy and jarring this act’s sound is on the ears, but lone mastermind JK has concocted a trademark stew that makes it stand out in nearly every way. Episode VII arrives a mere five months after its predecessor, expressing a fusion of its aesthetics.
Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor deals in a sound that retains La Torture des Ténèbres’ signature style, the vicious rawness and lonely melodic tremolo leads while fusing its two aesthetic influences. 2016 began with the formidably raw and ambient spacefaring canon of Choirs of Emptiness and Acadian Nights,1 but was reinterpreted by the more dystopian Civilization is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods, which set the tone for the following releases up to last year’s V and The Lost Colony of Altar Vista. In this way, Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor blends these two themes, dystopian civilizations set amongst the stars, its vast colonies and glorious cities plagued by inequality, sexism, and the hive mind’s whims.
La Torture des Ténèbres lives up to Revenge of Unfailing Valor’s description (“VOLITIONAL EXPLOITATION // SMOULDERING HIVES”) by channeling its trademark melodic template and ambient sensibilities into a fuller sound that amps violence while hinting at a tragic heart beneath machinelike mania. Its trademark is intact: the rawness and utter saturation of rawness is ubiquitous, as even its more placid moments of lonely melodies are scathing. However, one distinction is melodic motifs that tie the album into one cohesive whole: an ascending jazzy synth run (“Vast Black Claws Drag Her Back to Space,” “Metropolitan Warfare,” “Out of All the Years We’ve Come…”) and sanguine synth melodies (“The Second Piscean Abyss,” “Angels”). As always, this is communicated through the ebb and flow of three prongs of scathing second-wave blasting/tremolo/shrieking, lonely tremolo, and distorted vintage samples. This arsenal and dynamic are as intriguing as they are jarring, samples and melodies inviting comparisons to classic science fiction (“Vast Black Claws…,” “The Second Piscean Abyss”) and the roarin’ twenties worship of decopunk (“Breathe in the Fucking Sawdust and Die,” “Yes But Can a Camp Girl Do This”). The first act in particular utilizes a bombast of violent second-wave rawness in contrast with an over-the-top sample presence. A grandiosity pervades in a way that recalls predecessor V, but La Torture des Ténèbres‘ fuller sound adds to the assault – tinnitus is guaranteed.
The second half of Episode VII finds La Torture des Ténèbres taking risks – the samples are fewer, the melodies are far more tragic and empty, and there is rest to be found. The brutal mid-album climax in “The Second Piscean Abyss” allows for reinterpretation for “Metropolitan Warfare” and beyond, trademark and motifs carrying across in emptier and more tragic melodies and moments (i.e. the release of all sound but tinny tremolo and blastbeats in “Traditions” and total collapses into noise in “Out of All the Years…”). This reinforces the need for bulletproof songwriting rather than reliance on samples and jarring movements to do the heavy lifting, and JK is up to the task. “Angels” is placed perfectly, its minimalist, distorted, and aptly angelic sample providing rest for the weary ears – for the first time in La Torture des Ténèbres’ career.
La Torture des Ténèbres will not sway any naysayers of raw black or blackened noise. In fact, many will point to their ringing ears or pinched nerves2 and say “See??” after Episode VII concludes with the noise fadeout of “Out of All the Years…”. Those who are willing to endure will find treasures aplenty, an opus of hyper-atmospheric, excessively noisy, and endlessly tragic melodies and motifs. Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor sweeps you away to a universe yet to be explored; but even in the dead vacuum of space or within mankind’s hive-mind colonies, you can’t escape your humanity.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Self-Released
Website: latorturedestenebres.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025#2025 #40 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #AtmosphericBlackMetal #CanadianMetal #Chaosophia #EpisodeVIIRevengeOfUnfailingValor #LaTortureDesTénèbres #Mar25 #Noise #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased
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La Torture des Ténèbres – Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor Review
By Dear Hollow
La Torture des Ténèbres, in spite of the sadistic propensity for aural flaying, offers a unique voice in black metal. A one-woman show with an aesthetic evoking dystopian urban shimmer, decopunk, classic science fiction, and the space age, it conjures images of glittering mile-high cities built on the backs of the impoverished, brave women overcoming the adversity of the stars, the sneaking static cutting through a dictator’s commands through the radio, the jazzy bombasts of the elite’s decadent galas – and the loneliness of it all. There is no overselling just how noisy and jarring this act’s sound is on the ears, but lone mastermind JK has concocted a trademark stew that makes it stand out in nearly every way. Episode VII arrives a mere five months after its predecessor, expressing a fusion of its aesthetics.
Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor deals in a sound that retains La Torture des Ténèbres’ signature style, the vicious rawness and lonely melodic tremolo leads while fusing its two aesthetic influences. 2016 began with the formidably raw and ambient spacefaring canon of Choirs of Emptiness and Acadian Nights,1 but was reinterpreted by the more dystopian Civilization is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods, which set the tone for the following releases up to last year’s V and The Lost Colony of Altar Vista. In this way, Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor blends these two themes, dystopian civilizations set amongst the stars, its vast colonies and glorious cities plagued by inequality, sexism, and the hive mind’s whims.
La Torture des Ténèbres lives up to Revenge of Unfailing Valor’s description (“VOLITIONAL EXPLOITATION // SMOULDERING HIVES”) by channeling its trademark melodic template and ambient sensibilities into a fuller sound that amps violence while hinting at a tragic heart beneath machinelike mania. Its trademark is intact: the rawness and utter saturation of rawness is ubiquitous, as even its more placid moments of lonely melodies are scathing. However, one distinction is melodic motifs that tie the album into one cohesive whole: an ascending jazzy synth run (“Vast Black Claws Drag Her Back to Space,” “Metropolitan Warfare,” “Out of All the Years We’ve Come…”) and sanguine synth melodies (“The Second Piscean Abyss,” “Angels”). As always, this is communicated through the ebb and flow of three prongs of scathing second-wave blasting/tremolo/shrieking, lonely tremolo, and distorted vintage samples. This arsenal and dynamic are as intriguing as they are jarring, samples and melodies inviting comparisons to classic science fiction (“Vast Black Claws…,” “The Second Piscean Abyss”) and the roarin’ twenties worship of decopunk (“Breathe in the Fucking Sawdust and Die,” “Yes But Can a Camp Girl Do This”). The first act in particular utilizes a bombast of violent second-wave rawness in contrast with an over-the-top sample presence. A grandiosity pervades in a way that recalls predecessor V, but La Torture des Ténèbres‘ fuller sound adds to the assault – tinnitus is guaranteed.
The second half of Episode VII finds La Torture des Ténèbres taking risks – the samples are fewer, the melodies are far more tragic and empty, and there is rest to be found. The brutal mid-album climax in “The Second Piscean Abyss” allows for reinterpretation for “Metropolitan Warfare” and beyond, trademark and motifs carrying across in emptier and more tragic melodies and moments (i.e. the release of all sound but tinny tremolo and blastbeats in “Traditions” and total collapses into noise in “Out of All the Years…”). This reinforces the need for bulletproof songwriting rather than reliance on samples and jarring movements to do the heavy lifting, and JK is up to the task. “Angels” is placed perfectly, its minimalist, distorted, and aptly angelic sample providing rest for the weary ears – for the first time in La Torture des Ténèbres’ career.
La Torture des Ténèbres will not sway any naysayers of raw black or blackened noise. In fact, many will point to their ringing ears or pinched nerves2 and say “See??” after Episode VII concludes with the noise fadeout of “Out of All the Years…”. Those who are willing to endure will find treasures aplenty, an opus of hyper-atmospheric, excessively noisy, and endlessly tragic melodies and motifs. Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor sweeps you away to a universe yet to be explored; but even in the dead vacuum of space or within mankind’s hive-mind colonies, you can’t escape your humanity.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Self-Released
Website: latorturedestenebres.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025#2025 #40 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #AtmosphericBlackMetal #CanadianMetal #Chaosophia #EpisodeVIIRevengeOfUnfailingValor #LaTortureDesTénèbres #Mar25 #Noise #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased
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Choir – Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]
By Dear Hollow
Bring them tired ashes to the black waters and sing an anthem for the famine! Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence is blasphemy, a molten and silt-laden horror that saturates every negative space with noise, desolation, and punishment. It dirges and roars like the gods that you thought were benevolent and merciful – their faces lurid and nauseating when you looked upon them. Hallelujah, you will go mad. You will embrace your fate with arms outstretched and feet running until you sink. You will vomit and rejoice at the coming of ruin. You will praise your master. Choir preaches to this manic truth and gospel of filth, recalling the memory of a ritual buried deep in a book of death-bathed dark. As you are baptized in the muddy river, buried with Christ, and raised to walk in newness of life, open your eyes and look below and you’ll notice the abyss of the dead and rotting staring back.
Choir is a one-man act from Singapore consisting of musician/producer The Choir, offering extreme metal dredged in obscurity and violence. At once blending the pulverizing weight of death/doom, the raw hatred of black metal, and the cavernous echoes of death metal, crammed to the brim with misanthropic dissonance, dense atmospherics, and vicious noise, the act can be compared to the likes of Impetuous Ritual, Infernal Coil, Menace Ruine, and Primitive Man, but with an interpretation of pain all its own. While 2021’s first full-length Songs for a Tarnished World introduced this noise, its follow-up Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence hones it, Choir’s sound achieves relentless devastation and palpable purpose. And it’s a damn shame it was released so late in 2024.
Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence consists of two twenty-two-minute songs, but the tracklist breaks them into three and four movements respectively – one of the few mercies you will receive listening to Choir’s relentless onslaught. Like 2024’s boundary-pushing Ingurgitating Oblivion, Choir combines the outer limits of extreme metal. However, contrary to the elegance, technicality, and grace of Ontology of Nought, Choir molds the festering and rotten loams of lumbering weight, blackened chaos, and ruthless dissonance into a lethal clay, encased in the thick grime of murk. Emerging like many-eyed and many-limbed creatures emerging from the muddy river, movements will sear themselves into your ears from out of nowhere, such as the Mitochondrion-esque chugging riffs (“Bring Them… I,” “Bring Them… III,” “And Sing… IV”), dizzying brain-bleeds and complete disintegrations into noise and dissonance (“And Sing… III”), full-on blackened assaults buried beneath the garbling Portal-esque weight of mud (“And Sing… I”), and ambient sprawls with a rotten hum and bilious distortion trembling beneath (“Bring Them… II”). Gorgeous synth melodies are sparse and stand in stark contrast during capitalizations of crescendos (“And Sing… IV”). While nonetheless bathed in the blood of distortion, they add a distinctly human feel that somehow makes the album much more punishing by contrast while also providing a jagged light at the end of Choir’s pitch-black tunnel.
Choir has accomplished an insane feat, creating an experience that balances haunting hypnotism, primitive ritualism, and cutthroat punishment in its misanthropic blend of extreme styles. Simultaneously a thunderously colossal and lumbering beast and a hateful specter with teeth of lightning, Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence is a portrayal of divine smelt, god silt, and blasphemous murk. Molten and filthy, hypnotic and punishing, Choir is an easy triumph for year-end lists had it been released earlier.
Tracks to Check Out: “Bring Them Tired Ashes to the Black Waters,” “And Sing an Anthem for the Famine”
#2024 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BlackenedDoomMetal #Choir #DeathMetal #DeathDoomMetal #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #ImpetuousRitual #InfernalCoil #IngurgitatingOblivion #MenaceRuine #Mitochondrion #Portal #PrimitiveMan #SingaporeanMetal #SmitheTheeSmolderingProvidence #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #TYMHM
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Choir – Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]
By Dear Hollow
Bring them tired ashes to the black waters and sing an anthem for the famine! Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence is blasphemy, a molten and silt-laden horror that saturates every negative space with noise, desolation, and punishment. It dirges and roars like the gods that you thought were benevolent and merciful – their faces lurid and nauseating when you looked upon them. Hallelujah, you will go mad. You will embrace your fate with arms outstretched and feet running until you sink. You will vomit and rejoice at the coming of ruin. You will praise your master. Choir preaches to this manic truth and gospel of filth, recalling the memory of a ritual buried deep in a book of death-bathed dark. As you are baptized in the muddy river, buried with Christ, and raised to walk in newness of life, open your eyes and look below and you’ll notice the abyss of the dead and rotting staring back.
Choir is a one-man act from Singapore consisting of musician/producer The Choir, offering extreme metal dredged in obscurity and violence. At once blending the pulverizing weight of death/doom, the raw hatred of black metal, and the cavernous echoes of death metal, crammed to the brim with misanthropic dissonance, dense atmospherics, and vicious noise, the act can be compared to the likes of Impetuous Ritual, Infernal Coil, Menace Ruine, and Primitive Man, but with an interpretation of pain all its own. While 2021’s first full-length Songs for a Tarnished World introduced this noise, its follow-up Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence hones it, Choir’s sound achieves relentless devastation and palpable purpose. And it’s a damn shame it was released so late in 2024.
Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence consists of two twenty-two-minute songs, but the tracklist breaks them into three and four movements respectively – one of the few mercies you will receive listening to Choir’s relentless onslaught. Like 2024’s boundary-pushing Ingurgitating Oblivion, Choir combines the outer limits of extreme metal. However, contrary to the elegance, technicality, and grace of Ontology of Nought, Choir molds the festering and rotten loams of lumbering weight, blackened chaos, and ruthless dissonance into a lethal clay, encased in the thick grime of murk. Emerging like many-eyed and many-limbed creatures emerging from the muddy river, movements will sear themselves into your ears from out of nowhere, such as the Mitochondrion-esque chugging riffs (“Bring Them… I,” “Bring Them… III,” “And Sing… IV”), dizzying brain-bleeds and complete disintegrations into noise and dissonance (“And Sing… III”), full-on blackened assaults buried beneath the garbling Portal-esque weight of mud (“And Sing… I”), and ambient sprawls with a rotten hum and bilious distortion trembling beneath (“Bring Them… II”). Gorgeous synth melodies are sparse and stand in stark contrast during capitalizations of crescendos (“And Sing… IV”). While nonetheless bathed in the blood of distortion, they add a distinctly human feel that somehow makes the album much more punishing by contrast while also providing a jagged light at the end of Choir’s pitch-black tunnel.
Choir has accomplished an insane feat, creating an experience that balances haunting hypnotism, primitive ritualism, and cutthroat punishment in its misanthropic blend of extreme styles. Simultaneously a thunderously colossal and lumbering beast and a hateful specter with teeth of lightning, Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence is a portrayal of divine smelt, god silt, and blasphemous murk. Molten and filthy, hypnotic and punishing, Choir is an easy triumph for year-end lists had it been released earlier.
Tracks to Check Out: “Bring Them Tired Ashes to the Black Waters,” “And Sing an Anthem for the Famine”
#2024 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BlackenedDoomMetal #Choir #DeathMetal #DeathDoomMetal #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #ImpetuousRitual #InfernalCoil #IngurgitatingOblivion #MenaceRuine #Mitochondrion #Portal #PrimitiveMan #SingaporeanMetal #SmitheTheeSmolderingProvidence #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #TYMHM
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Choir – Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]
By Dear Hollow
Bring them tired ashes to the black waters and sing an anthem for the famine! Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence is blasphemy, a molten and silt-laden horror that saturates every negative space with noise, desolation, and punishment. It dirges and roars like the gods that you thought were benevolent and merciful – their faces lurid and nauseating when you looked upon them. Hallelujah, you will go mad. You will embrace your fate with arms outstretched and feet running until you sink. You will vomit and rejoice at the coming of ruin. You will praise your master. Choir preaches to this manic truth and gospel of filth, recalling the memory of a ritual buried deep in a book of death-bathed dark. As you are baptized in the muddy river, buried with Christ, and raised to walk in newness of life, open your eyes and look below and you’ll notice the abyss of the dead and rotting staring back.
Choir is a one-man act from Singapore consisting of musician/producer The Choir, offering extreme metal dredged in obscurity and violence. At once blending the pulverizing weight of death/doom, the raw hatred of black metal, and the cavernous echoes of death metal, crammed to the brim with misanthropic dissonance, dense atmospherics, and vicious noise, the act can be compared to the likes of Impetuous Ritual, Infernal Coil, Menace Ruine, and Primitive Man, but with an interpretation of pain all its own. While 2021’s first full-length Songs for a Tarnished World introduced this noise, its follow-up Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence hones it, Choir’s sound achieves relentless devastation and palpable purpose. And it’s a damn shame it was released so late in 2024.
Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence consists of two twenty-two-minute songs, but the tracklist breaks them into three and four movements respectively – one of the few mercies you will receive listening to Choir’s relentless onslaught. Like 2024’s boundary-pushing Ingurgitating Oblivion, Choir combines the outer limits of extreme metal. However, contrary to the elegance, technicality, and grace of Ontology of Nought, Choir molds the festering and rotten loams of lumbering weight, blackened chaos, and ruthless dissonance into a lethal clay, encased in the thick grime of murk. Emerging like many-eyed and many-limbed creatures emerging from the muddy river, movements will sear themselves into your ears from out of nowhere, such as the Mitochondrion-esque chugging riffs (“Bring Them… I,” “Bring Them… III,” “And Sing… IV”), dizzying brain-bleeds and complete disintegrations into noise and dissonance (“And Sing… III”), full-on blackened assaults buried beneath the garbling Portal-esque weight of mud (“And Sing… I”), and ambient sprawls with a rotten hum and bilious distortion trembling beneath (“Bring Them… II”). Gorgeous synth melodies are sparse and stand in stark contrast during capitalizations of crescendos (“And Sing… IV”). While nonetheless bathed in the blood of distortion, they add a distinctly human feel that somehow makes the album much more punishing by contrast while also providing a jagged light at the end of Choir’s pitch-black tunnel.
Choir has accomplished an insane feat, creating an experience that balances haunting hypnotism, primitive ritualism, and cutthroat punishment in its misanthropic blend of extreme styles. Simultaneously a thunderously colossal and lumbering beast and a hateful specter with teeth of lightning, Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence is a portrayal of divine smelt, god silt, and blasphemous murk. Molten and filthy, hypnotic and punishing, Choir is an easy triumph for year-end lists had it been released earlier.
Tracks to Check Out: “Bring Them Tired Ashes to the Black Waters,” “And Sing an Anthem for the Famine”
#2024 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BlackenedDoomMetal #Choir #DeathMetal #DeathDoomMetal #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #ImpetuousRitual #InfernalCoil #IngurgitatingOblivion #MenaceRuine #Mitochondrion #Portal #PrimitiveMan #SingaporeanMetal #SmitheTheeSmolderingProvidence #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #TYMHM
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#DenTagStarten
#music
Heute mit #AmbientBlackMetal
Lustre - The First Snow
https://song.link/y/Sxws_dKEzxY -
La Torture des Ténèbres – V / The Lost Colony of Altar Vista [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]
By Dear Hollow
The breed of noise that courses through Ottawa one-woman act La Torture des Ténèbres is truly disorienting and off-putting,1 but it takes on a hypnotizing and triumphant quality when its curious blend of caustic and decadent settles into your bones. While 2016 debuts Acadian Nights and Choirs of Emptiness captured a predictable blend of raw black and spacefaring dark ambient, Civilization is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods found mastermind J.K. taking influence from classic science fiction and decopunk: raw black played as an accompaniment to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, perhaps. With this breed of raw punishment, discernment is a spiritual gift – V praises a grand civilization, The Lost Colony of Altar Vista laments it. Viciously raw, relentlessly noisy, and painfully discordant, while also beautifully grandiose and subtly tragic, La Torture des Ténèbres offers decadence and venom as few can.
April’s V is the more straightforward of the 2024 releases, reflecting its grainy album art basking in a birds-eye view of the grand metropolis.2 There’s a robotic quality about V that pairs neatly with its predecessor IV – Memoirs of a Machine Girl, as La Torture des Ténèbres saturates the palette of relentless blasting, dense and raw tremolo tinnitus, and tortured wails and harrowing shrieks with grimy feedback, noise, industrial ambiance, and the act’s trademark flaying melodic sensibilities. Reverb-laden melodic interludes would seem to offer reprieve during the punishment, but their blaring distortion and clipping only drive the knife deeper with a shrill and warped quality, like ringing sirens during the calm before the storm. Inspired by the shimmering deceptively utopian and futuristic civilizations, the juxtaposition of the grandiosity of tomorrow (“Accelerated Degeneration Descent,” “Valley of the Unclean”) and the horrors of today (“Descent into Suburban Hellscape,” “Catalyst of Tomb Reconfiguration”) only heightens J.K.’s themes. Lyrics detail paranoia, sexual oppression, obsession, and horror, idolizing beautiful cities built atop the broken backs of the ugly. And despite its triumphant ambiance, V is one of the ugliest black metal albums of the year.
October’s The Lost Colony of Altar Vista is a more lonely and contemplative affair,3 reflected in its artwork of the same city at a grimmer low angle and in a filthier light. La Torture des Ténèbres’ punishing palette and caustic rawness remain largely the same, but the empty tinny melodies contrast to the decadent gloss of V. Paired with experimental samples stuttered from audio clipping and perverted by distortion,4 the tremolo-picked melodies atop subtle ambiance and silence are more abundant and dwell more in somber countenance (i.e. “The Reflection of the Moon in Her Skyline Eyes”), with more complete collapses of noise (“Allison”) and doomed piano (“The Axis of the Exaltation and the Fall of Venus”). The Lost Colony of Altar Vista basks in its forlornness, its relentless rawness a jagged and jaded vessel for fragile pain.
V and The Lost Colony of Altar Vista showcase both sides of La Torture des Ténèbres, streamlined with a propensity for vicious noise and flaying rawness. It’s completely unforgiving, painfully harsh, and alienating to even the most hardened black metal fans. It’s jaggedly pieced, tracks cutting off abruptly and samples seeming to have no relevance to the sound, but every element adds to the themes of dissociation of both the beautiful glimmer and filthy underbelly of this metropolis. Truly a thin glossy mask atop a horrific face.
Tracks to Check Out: ”Descent Into Suburban Hellscape,” “Phantoms Over Altar Vista,” “Allison,” “Spectres Over Altar Vista”
#2024 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #BlackMetal #CanadianMetal #ConnieFrancis #IndependentRelease #JillianBanks #LaTortureDesTénèbres #Noise #RawBlackMetal #TheLostColonyOfAltarVista #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #TYMHM #V
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La Torture des Ténèbres – V / The Lost Colony of Altar Vista [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]
By Dear Hollow
The breed of noise that courses through Ottawa one-woman act La Torture des Ténèbres is truly disorienting and off-putting,1 but it takes on a hypnotizing and triumphant quality when its curious blend of caustic and decadent settles into your bones. While 2016 debuts Acadian Nights and Choirs of Emptiness captured a predictable blend of raw black and spacefaring dark ambient, Civilization is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods found mastermind J.K. taking influence from classic science fiction and decopunk: raw black played as an accompaniment to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, perhaps. With this breed of raw punishment, discernment is a spiritual gift – V praises a grand civilization, The Lost Colony of Altar Vista laments it. Viciously raw, relentlessly noisy, and painfully discordant, while also beautifully grandiose and subtly tragic, La Torture des Ténèbres offers decadence and venom as few can.
April’s V is the more straightforward of the 2024 releases, reflecting its grainy album art basking in a birds-eye view of the grand metropolis.2 There’s a robotic quality about V that pairs neatly with its predecessor IV – Memoirs of a Machine Girl, as La Torture des Ténèbres saturates the palette of relentless blasting, dense and raw tremolo tinnitus, and tortured wails and harrowing shrieks with grimy feedback, noise, industrial ambiance, and the act’s trademark flaying melodic sensibilities. Reverb-laden melodic interludes would seem to offer reprieve during the punishment, but their blaring distortion and clipping only drive the knife deeper with a shrill and warped quality, like ringing sirens during the calm before the storm. Inspired by the shimmering deceptively utopian and futuristic civilizations, the juxtaposition of the grandiosity of tomorrow (“Accelerated Degeneration Descent,” “Valley of the Unclean”) and the horrors of today (“Descent into Suburban Hellscape,” “Catalyst of Tomb Reconfiguration”) only heightens J.K.’s themes. Lyrics detail paranoia, sexual oppression, obsession, and horror, idolizing beautiful cities built atop the broken backs of the ugly. And despite its triumphant ambiance, V is one of the ugliest black metal albums of the year.
October’s The Lost Colony of Altar Vista is a more lonely and contemplative affair,3 reflected in its artwork of the same city at a grimmer low angle and in a filthier light. La Torture des Ténèbres’ punishing palette and caustic rawness remain largely the same, but the empty tinny melodies contrast to the decadent gloss of V. Paired with experimental samples stuttered from audio clipping and perverted by distortion,4 the tremolo-picked melodies atop subtle ambiance and silence are more abundant and dwell more in somber countenance (i.e. “The Reflection of the Moon in Her Skyline Eyes”), with more complete collapses of noise (“Allison”) and doomed piano (“The Axis of the Exaltation and the Fall of Venus”). The Lost Colony of Altar Vista basks in its forlornness, its relentless rawness a jagged and jaded vessel for fragile pain.
V and The Lost Colony of Altar Vista showcase both sides of La Torture des Ténèbres, streamlined with a propensity for vicious noise and flaying rawness. It’s completely unforgiving, painfully harsh, and alienating to even the most hardened black metal fans. It’s jaggedly pieced, tracks cutting off abruptly and samples seeming to have no relevance to the sound, but every element adds to the themes of dissociation of both the beautiful glimmer and filthy underbelly of this metropolis. Truly a thin glossy mask atop a horrific face.
Tracks to Check Out: ”Descent Into Suburban Hellscape,” “Phantoms Over Altar Vista,” “Allison,” “Spectres Over Altar Vista”
#2024 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #BlackMetal #CanadianMetal #ConnieFrancis #IndependentRelease #JillianBanks #LaTortureDesTénèbres #Noise #RawBlackMetal #TheLostColonyOfAltarVista #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #TYMHM #V
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La Torture des Ténèbres – V / The Lost Colony of Altar Vista [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]
By Dear Hollow
The breed of noise that courses through Ottawa one-woman act La Torture des Ténèbres is truly disorienting and off-putting,1 but it takes on a hypnotizing and triumphant quality when its curious blend of caustic and decadent settles into your bones. While 2016 debuts Acadian Nights and Choirs of Emptiness captured a predictable blend of raw black and spacefaring dark ambient, Civilization is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods found mastermind J.K. taking influence from classic science fiction and decopunk: raw black played as an accompaniment to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, perhaps. With this breed of raw punishment, discernment is a spiritual gift – V praises a grand civilization, The Lost Colony of Altar Vista laments it. Viciously raw, relentlessly noisy, and painfully discordant, while also beautifully grandiose and subtly tragic, La Torture des Ténèbres offers decadence and venom as few can.
April’s V is the more straightforward of the 2024 releases, reflecting its grainy album art basking in a birds-eye view of the grand metropolis.2 There’s a robotic quality about V that pairs neatly with its predecessor IV – Memoirs of a Machine Girl, as La Torture des Ténèbres saturates the palette of relentless blasting, dense and raw tremolo tinnitus, and tortured wails and harrowing shrieks with grimy feedback, noise, industrial ambiance, and the act’s trademark flaying melodic sensibilities. Reverb-laden melodic interludes would seem to offer reprieve during the punishment, but their blaring distortion and clipping only drive the knife deeper with a shrill and warped quality, like ringing sirens during the calm before the storm. Inspired by the shimmering deceptively utopian and futuristic civilizations, the juxtaposition of the grandiosity of tomorrow (“Accelerated Degeneration Descent,” “Valley of the Unclean”) and the horrors of today (“Descent into Suburban Hellscape,” “Catalyst of Tomb Reconfiguration”) only heightens J.K.’s themes. Lyrics detail paranoia, sexual oppression, obsession, and horror, idolizing beautiful cities built atop the broken backs of the ugly. And despite its triumphant ambiance, V is one of the ugliest black metal albums of the year.
October’s The Lost Colony of Altar Vista is a more lonely and contemplative affair,3 reflected in its artwork of the same city at a grimmer low angle and in a filthier light. La Torture des Ténèbres’ punishing palette and caustic rawness remain largely the same, but the empty tinny melodies contrast to the decadent gloss of V. Paired with experimental samples stuttered from audio clipping and perverted by distortion,4 the tremolo-picked melodies atop subtle ambiance and silence are more abundant and dwell more in somber countenance (i.e. “The Reflection of the Moon in Her Skyline Eyes”), with more complete collapses of noise (“Allison”) and doomed piano (“The Axis of the Exaltation and the Fall of Venus”). The Lost Colony of Altar Vista basks in its forlornness, its relentless rawness a jagged and jaded vessel for fragile pain.
V and The Lost Colony of Altar Vista showcase both sides of La Torture des Ténèbres, streamlined with a propensity for vicious noise and flaying rawness. It’s completely unforgiving, painfully harsh, and alienating to even the most hardened black metal fans. It’s jaggedly pieced, tracks cutting off abruptly and samples seeming to have no relevance to the sound, but every element adds to the themes of dissociation of both the beautiful glimmer and filthy underbelly of this metropolis. Truly a thin glossy mask atop a horrific face.
Tracks to Check Out: ”Descent Into Suburban Hellscape,” “Phantoms Over Altar Vista,” “Allison,” “Spectres Over Altar Vista”
#2024 #AmbientBlackMetal #AmbientNoise #BlackMetal #CanadianMetal #ConnieFrancis #IndependentRelease #JillianBanks #LaTortureDesTénèbres #Noise #RawBlackMetal #TheLostColonyOfAltarVista #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #TYMHM #V
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Aprilmist – Homesick
#AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #Blackgaze #Metal #PostBlackMetal #ambientblackmetal #postmetal #KansasCity
CC BY-NC-ND (#CreativeCommons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives)
https://aprilmist.bandcamp.com/album/homesick -
Paysage d’Hiver – Die Berge Review
By Dear Hollow
While black metal and cold atmosphere are nearly inseparable, Paysage d’Hiver’s icy Nordic aesthetic is a step above. Through the eyes of “the wanderer,” mastermind Tobias “Wintherr” Möckl1 weaves tales of frostbitten wilderness, icy desolation, and vicious blizzards through raw tremolo and shimmering synth. Each release another chapter in the wanderer’s journey, fourteenth installment Die Berge is its final installment.2 Die Berge (“the mountains”) tells of the monkish pilgrimage taken across jagged peaks and forlorn valleys, the ultimate revelation and unveiling of death awaiting him. It’s a beautiful demise, but as anything you expect with Paysage d’Hiver, it’s cold.
Die Berge is Paysage d’Hiver’s third full-length. To say that is absolutely asinine because Wintherr’s long legacy of ten formidable demos spans three decades, including highlights like Schattengang, Winterkälte, and Das Tor, masterclass after masterclass of raw black and icy ambiance. 2020’s “first full-length” Im Wald was a pinnacle, a balanced two-hour trek through frozen wilderness that married Paysage’s trademark rawness with the dark ambient of demos like Nacht and Einsamkeit, evocative of both cold and darkness. This is what made 2022’s Geister a head-scratcher. While chilly like second-wave ought to be, Wintherr took a newfound dive into riffy grooves in evoking the Tschäggättä, masked beings in a regional Swiss winter festival. Die Berge is a step back and forward, its predecessor’s groove lending itself to muscular riffage, patient pacing, and frostbitten rawness that evokes the majesty of the mountains.
Paysage d’Hiver’s effectiveness lies in its trademark simplicity. Each track features a chord progression or plucking motif around which shrieked and growled vocals, tremolo, percussion, and synthesizer revolve. Endlessly grim, the riffs are what sets Möckl’s compositions a step above, refusing the warmth and saturation of contemporary “atmoblack” in favor of something both searingly raw and frigidly haunting – truly like being caught in a blizzard on a desolate mountainside. The groove of Geister collides with the trademark atmosphere in riffs that sound bigger and more commanding than anything Paysage d’Hiver has ever written, sounding both jagged and majestic in their conjuration of snowy peaks (“Urgrund,” “Verinnerlichung”). As per the trademark, these riffs and melodies sway ominously between its triune of grim, dissonant, and beautiful – its range of emotions conveyed exquisitely across its mammoth 103-minute runtime. Contrary to earlier material, Die Berge feels remarkably more patient, its riffs beating to a nearly doom pulse, the grandeur enacted more commanding than the traditional blastbeats-and-tremolo duo that has pervaded Paysage’s catalog.
What has made Paysage d’Hiver so effective is its ability to progress the music forward without forsaking its trademark,3 and Die Berge is no exception. While the opening two tracks fit snugly into the act’s history of ice-crusted blasting, the final hour and ten minutes takes on new life. The “Transzendenz” trilogy revolves around the same chord progression, but each installment is a diminuendo and dissolution of scathing raw guitar (“Transzendenz I”) with a growth of icy synth, concluding entirely in synth-forward beauty (“Transzendenz III”). The conclusions of Die Berge are wonders unto themselves, aptly epic and bombastic closers that revel in both the desperation and denial, then beauty and clarity of a frozen death in synth- and piano-forward meditations (“Ausstieg”) and the ultimate succumbing to the colossus of frigidity at the summit with tragedy and gloom at its center (“Gipfel”).4 The demise of the wanderer is beautifully communicated without sacrificing the grimness so central to Paysage d’Hiver’s raw black metal aesthetic.
Die Berge is a beautiful end to the wanderer’s tortured life. Like all Paysage d’Hiver albums, it is a mammoth undertaking, and certain melodies can grow wearisome for some listeners after so many iterations (“Verinnerlichung,” “Transzendenz II”), but it’s more about the experience than riffs and highlights. Somehow, Die Berge doesn’t feel as bombastic as its spiritual predecessor Im Wald, but its subtlety and tragedy make it all more intriguing and its central storyline of the spiritual pilgrimage to the wanderer’s final breaths atop jagged peaks more tangible. While this may be the end of Paysage d’Hiver’s central character, Die Berge ensures his memory lives on in a grim and beautiful collusion of storytelling and raw black metal. We can only hope to never see the end of winter.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Kunsthall Produktionen
Websites: paysagedhiver.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/PaysagedHiver.Official
Releases Worldwide: November 8th, 2024Show 4 footnotes
- Also of Darkspace and owner of Kunsthall Produktionen. ↩
- Reports are mixed if this is the end of Paysage d’Hiver, however. ↩
- One reason why Geister was so divisive. ↩
- Aptly, these two tracks translate as “exit” and “summit,” respectively. ↩
#2024 #40 #AmbientBlackMetal #BlackMetal #Darkspace #DieBerge #KunsthallProduktionen #Nov24 #PaysageDHiver #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SwissMetal
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#BlackMetalMonday #(dolch) #dolch
https://dolch.bandcamp.com/album/nacht
I am looking forward to see them live. Did not manage it so far. 🤷♂️
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Lascar – Equinox Flower Review
By Dear Hollow
Ah, my old friend. We look upon our very first reviews fondly, as opportunities for meditation and embarrassment alike as we grow older and just plain old. Six years ago, for my first assignment as a meek n00b (10), I was assigned to Chilean post-black act Lascar and its third full-length Wildlife. It was, uh, not a good experience. The biggest gripe was its obvious paper-thin Deafheaven worship, pretty ambient post-rock passages copied and pasted atop milquetoast blastbeats and shrieks, which gave it an ultimately disingenuous feel that undermined the post-black necessity for emotional connection. Mastermind Gabriel Hugo wasn’t a one-and-done, no sir, as his 2023 side project Voidmilker’s trver and rawer black metal attack offered meager redemption. Time has passed, so how will Equinox Flower fare?
Hugo has not been sitting on his hands; although Wildlife was the first release sent to our humble establishment, it was the third full-length and there have been three(ish) full-lengths and two EP’s since its 2018 release.1 In Hugo’s defense, Lascar has taken a more streamlined approach. Instead of a stark contrast between the heart-wrenching and the blackened attack, Equinox Flower feels more dynamic and balanced. While atmosphere is first and foremost, as you’d expect from myriad post-black acts, its more diminished chord progressions and fusion of lush ambiance and heavier black metal instrumentation set it above Lascar’s history. Old habits die hard, but Equinox Flower is a better album than I ever expected from this act.
The streamlined approach works for Lascar’s aesthetic better, that while Equinox Flower’s first priority is melody and beauty, it does awkwardly juxtapose it with black metal but rather fuses them. As such, the four tracks here are given more opportunity to flow and breathe, effectively utilizing its atmosphere in place of hooks, while the blackened attack gives it needed momentum. Also useful is that Hugo seems to have taken a more depressive approach not unlike Naxen or Austere which doesn’t undermine its blackened thrust while more diminished chord progressions and melodies recall Evilfeast or Midnight Odyssey. More long-form tracks do the album a fair amount of good, because while the atmospheric bombast felt rushed and muddled in Wildlife, Equinox Flower effectively balances, with a fairer production and mixing blueprint to go by, each of Lascar’s instruments given its due.2
Case in point, closer “Late Autumn” feels like a very solid black metal song complete with melodic tremolo, double bass, and blastbeats as a backbone while the soaring ambiance serves as a transcendent motif that enhances the nature-based vibe. The opening title track and “Early Spring” also utilize memorable hooks and passages of tranquility to provide an organicity that was sorely lacking in the stiff and unyielding Wildlife. In fact, aside from listener stylistic choices, third track “Floating Weeds” is the only track with issues. Existing as the only cut without lulling passages, the overwhelming synth hook gets incredibly old incredibly fast as the track length backfires. Of course, Lascar remains post-black or blackgaze or whatever, and an extremely triumphant version of it, the more subtle atmospheres of Wolves in the Throne Room or Alcest be damned, and thus listeners who are expecting more subtlety will be disappointed by the (albeit better) post-black bombast.
When I was alerted of Lascar’s new album, I sighed heavily, expecting the pretty and paper-thin shenanigans of Wildlife from my fledgling years to rear their ugly pretty heads. However, thanks to a more organic songwriting and safer utility of melody and ambiance, Equinox Flower turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant experience. It’s still stubbornly post-black with all the warts and bombast you expect, but channeled into a far more productive form. Sorry for ever doubting you, Lascar. Keep improving, you glorious bastard you.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Tragedy Productions
Websites: lascar.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/lascarmusic
Releases Worldwide: June 7th, 2024#2024 #30 #Alcest #AmbientBlackMetal #AtmosphericBlackMetal #Austere #BlackMetal #Blackgaze #ChileanMetal #Deafheaven #DSBM #EquinoxFlower #Evilfeast #Jun24 #Lascar #MidnightOdyssey #Naxen #PostBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #TragedyProductions #Voidmilker #WolvesInTheThroneRoom
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Black Metal discovery of the day: #Arkhtinn.
