#tangerinedream — Public Fediverse posts

Free download codes:

Echo Vocation - Mutable Vol. 1

"Spacious guitar lines trace paths across expansive synth-infused canvases."

https://getmusic.fm/l/zJs645

#electronic #downtempo #krautrock #ambientguitar #avantprog #tangerinedream #music

The bit that you skip #165: Tangerine Dream – Charly The Kid

I have no defined idea of when the Tangerine Dream reappraisal began. When GTA V was released in 2013, Tangerine Dream were an integral part of the atmospheric music, along Woody Jackson, Oh No, and The Alchemist. The dynamic score was integral to the game’s success, and you can still find youtube channels with extended versions recorded in-game for those of us who love to lose ourselves for hours on majestic cinematic scores.

I suspect the newfound cult status of Michael Mann’s Thief was a consequence of GTA V’s success. After all, GTA V always took inspiration from Mann’s movies. Vice City, GTA IV, and GTA V have bank jobs, and the presence of hockey masks is no coincidence. Thief is a great film and originally was going to be today’s post, but I thought about another Tangerine Dream movie that needs some reappraisal.

Firestarter stars Drew Barrymore, David Keith, George C. Scott, and Martin Sheen, and it’s an adaptation of a novel by Stephen King. Directed by Mark L. Lester, it almost feels like a test run for Commando. I mean it! Kidnapping of a loved one, slightly diabolical acting from the two villains (George C. Scott and Martin Sheen), and a pyromaniac’s daydream with the fiery ending of The Shop, the secret agency that caused all the trouble.

Stephen King was notoriously vocal about hating the adaptation, and Roger Ebert was miffed by it. As an 80s film, it’s what it says on the tin, expect no more. Book purists will side with King, though. Since I grew up with films like this, I’m more partial to the adaptation. Feels breezier without the usual King tangents that extend his books to door-stopping length. I still read him, but, you know.

Tangerine Dream’s soundtrack is heartfelt. It does go into heavy 80s territory from time to time, especially on the wonderful Crystal Voice. I’m recommending Charly the Kid. It has that smouldering crescendo Tangerine Dreams so well, where a sense of wonder and dread are interlocked. You could almost place vocals on it, but it doesn’t need them. A beautiful track for a character with a terrifying, world-ending power.

-Sam J. Valdés López

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY2tdkoxi50

Free download codes:

Echo Vocation - Mutable Vol. 1

"Spacious guitar lines trace paths across expansive synth-infused canvases."

https://getmusic.fm/l/sYJTzK

#electronic #downtempo #krautrock #ambientguitar #avantprog #tangerinedream #music

Free download codes:

Echo Vocation - Mutable Vol. 1

"Spacious guitar lines trace paths across expansive synth-infused canvases."

https://getmusic.fm/l/Z9wxg1

#electronic #downtempo #krautrock #ambientguitar #avantprog #tangerinedream #music

An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City Review

By Killjoy

When a group strikes gold, I imagine that there might be a temptation to continue mining the same vein. In 2022, Sweden’s An Abstract Illusion seized the metalverse by the collective throat and shook it with forceful pathos. Woe was a start-to-finish progressive death metal masterpiece which edged out some stiff competition to take the number one spot on my personal Top Ten(ish) list that year. The same was true for Carcharodon, whose mighty shoes—flippers?—I humbly struggle to fill. Now, with the release of The Sleeping City, An Abstract Illusion boldly declares that they are not content to repeat themselves.

As a comparison of their cover artworks suggests, The Sleeping City is something of a tonal opposite of Woe. Whereas Woe was despairing with occasional hopeful spots, The Sleeping City is mainly bright with pockets of ferocity. At its core, An Abstract Illusion still plays a deeply emotive strain of progressive death, like a more intimate and less pompous In Vain or In Mourning. Vivid neon synths in the classic fashion of Tangerine Dream or John Carpenter now abound. This invites comparisons to last year’s Blood Incantation record, but I daresay that the synths are integrated more naturally and tastefully in The Sleeping City. An Abstract Illusion never goes full synthwave, though they do flirt with the style on “Silverfields” and “Frost Flower.”

An Abstract Illusion’s unbridled emotional outpouring is still present in ways both familiar and new. To this end, the vocals are even more expressive. Christian Berglönn’s screams display his signature unsettling anguish (“No Dreams Beyond Empty Horizons,” “Emmett”) and guest Lukas Backeström’s singing in “Frost Flower” is crisp and angelic. The Sleeping City also features a couple of guest violinists (Dawn Ye and Flavia Fontana) and a cellist (Jonathan Miranda-Figueroa), who pair extremely well with the crystalline synths to hone their poignant edges. Crucially, the strings are not overused, which might have cheapened their impact. The real magic happens when these elements come together, namely during the lush instrumental section in “Blackmurmur,” which builds to a sexy synth solo (Robert Stenvall) and then erupts into despairing howls. Drummer Isak Nilsson is a great addition, whose frenetic tempos and deliberate tom rhythms heighten listener engagement.

On The Sleeping City, Karl Westerlund again proves himself a master of long-form songwriting. Unlike Woe, which felt like a singular body of work with distinct movements, The Sleeping City is composed of tracks that fit together more like jigsaw puzzle pieces. The individual tracks flow effortlessly while also subtly crossing over with one another, such as the similarly mysterious synth tunes which manifest back to back in “Frost Flower” and “Emmett.” The overall pacing feels less meticulous and patient than Woe, though this is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. An Abstract Illusion makes good use of the hour runtime; the aimless noodling at the end of “No Dreams Beyond Empty Horizons” being the only part that could have been trimmed away.1 The production doesn’t quite do this magnificent music justice—see the DR score below—but it’s hardly a dealbreaker.

The Sleeping City is evidence that Woe was not a one-hit wonder. Even more impressive, An Abstract Illusion managed to recreate prior success while significantly overhauling their style. The Sleeping City is different enough to further expand An Abstract Illusion’s fanbase while retaining the heartfelt compositions that garnered such a large following before. The gorgeous cascading arpeggios that bathe The Sleeping City are an easy highlight. Recurring notes and melodies give each track a sense of identity, yet each is of equal quality that I can’t (nor do I want to) pick any favorites. An Abstract Illusion is still firing on all cylinders, and it’s exhilarating to behold.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: FLAC
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: anabstractillusion.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/anabstractillusion
Releases Worldwide: October 17th, 2025

#2025 #40 #AnAbstractIllusion #BloodIncantation #DeathMetal #InMourning #InVain #JohnCarpenter #Oct25 #ProgressiveDeath #ProgressiveMetal #Review #Reviews #SwedishMetal #TangerineDream #TheSleepingCity #WillowtipRecords

Free download codes:

Echo Vocation - Mutable Vol. 1

"Spacious guitar lines trace paths across expansive synth-infused canvases."

https://getmusic.fm/l/o29zZd

#electronic #downtempo #krautrock #ambientguitar #avantprog #tangerinedream #music

Free download codes:

Echo Vocation - Mutable Vol. 1

"Spacious guitar lines trace paths across expansive synth-infused canvases."

https://getmusic.fm/l/8J8ABn

#electronic #downtempo #krautrock #ambientguitar #avantprog #tangerinedream #music

Free download codes:

Echo Vocation - Mutable Vol. 1

"Spacious guitar lines trace paths across expansive synth-infused canvases."

https://getmusic.fm/l/BdVBOi

#electronic #downtempo #krautrock #ambientguitar #avantprog #tangerinedream #music

AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö: Wist – Strange Balance

By Dolphin Whisperer

“AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö” is a time-honored tradition to showcase the most underground of the underground—the unsigned and unpromoted. This collective review treatment continues to exist to unite our writers in boot or bolster of the bands who remind us that, for better or worse, the metal underground exists as an important part of the global metal scene. The Rodeö rides on.”

Remember way back in the days of radio? You might have been on a road trip before with your family, and, freshly tasked with trying to find a station that works as you stray away from familiar territory, you turn the knob and land right in between two stations playing a song. It doesn’t sync up, but there’s a mystery to whether that noise worked. Try as you remember, though, you can’t find this balance between two stations again. Wist, I believe, feels this struggle, and with their sophomore outing Strange Balance, they explore the duality of their progressive and atmospheric black metal selves to see where it leads. Would you follow three black metal fans into the Epping Forest? What if they said their album only cost four pounds? Our brave riders thought it wise to say yes, and the results may surprise you. – Dolphin Whisperer

Wist // Strange Balance [June 24th, 2024]

Dr. A.N. Grier: London’s Wist is one hell of a weird atmoblack band. This three-piece outfit goes beyond the traditional Alcestian ways of working, introducing some rather interesting synth atmospheres that lend well to their weird progressive attitude. With their 2022 debut, Stone Still Settling, they only scratched the surface of their sound. With this year’s Strange Balance, they go for broke, shoving everything they can into this tiny album. The title track begins the album with a soothing, ethereal introduction that gets obliterated by a traditional frenzied atmoblack attack. Around the midpoint, it sidetracks to a bass and drum-heavy transition that feels overblown by the lofi production but stomps along all the same. After building for the next few minutes, the chaos fades and is replaced by gorgeous, reverberating acoustic guitars. For all of the opener’s diversity and interesting twists, “Betrayal” is the more divisive of the bunch. Opening with silly cackling the song erupts into gnarly guitars, gigantic, popping bass, and drum work that runs faster than a roadrunner. Using this simple riff structure, the band peppers it with reverberating guitars that feel like they are almost dancing over the surface. When the intensity peaks, the track fades away like its predecessor. In its wake doesn’t come acoustic guitars but Tangerine Dream-styled synth work. Unlike other bands of its caliber, this outro doesn’t have me gazing at my fat gut but instead has me looking to the dark sky to see if the stars are moving. And as if to signify that Strange Balance has always been here and we just walked into it, the instrumental closer, “The River Returning,” fades in with melodic, soothing guitars, adds multiple layers to the mix, and fades away as if driving down an abandoned dirt road. I wouldn’t say Strange Balance is balanced but it’s an interesting record with some unique twists I can get behind. Having never heard of Wist before, they are definitely on my radar and I’ll be looking to see what they do next. 3.0/5.0

Dear Hollow: There’s a lot going on with Wist. It’s black metal, sure, layered with a thick smog of modular synths and overlaying psychedelia à la Tangerine Dream. It’s like Pink Floyd decided to make a black metal album, but really liked Opeth’s acoustic breaks. What makes Wist stand out is that they firmly follow the ambient stylings of black metal or blackgaze but do their damnedest to stay trve to the kvlt in debut Strange Balance—the blackened cackles at the beginning of “Betrayal” would make Immortal blush. “Betrayal” is the wildest and best collision of its ’70s synth and ’90s second-wave black metal palettes, with bouncy 6/8 pagan rhythms and a chill noodling guitar line, only to collapse into a full-on blackened attack. While closer “The River Returning” also features a tasteful repetition and fades that together feels like a modernized rendition of the depressive “My Dying Bride” by ColdWorld. However, the opening title track is nearly impenetrable and painful in its densest synths overlaying high energy blastbeats and shrieks, even if its concluding acoustic passage is decent, and “Grendel” feels incredibly directionless in its fusion of slower DSBM and spacy synths, with a wonky off-key synth conclusion being its only redemption. Ultimately, Wist has some cool ideas that periodically work, but Strange Balance lives true to its name in disproportionately dense and threateningly boring sounds, violently yoinking black metal’s cranky history for an album that feels imbalanced but promising. 2.0/5.0

Dolphin Whisperer: The experience that conjures from the mystical and dated synth layers that Wist pushes against the hazy and shrill is one of an otherwordly atmosphere. In this metal world which we so valiantly occupy, it’s rare to find an album that skews both so alien and terrestrial in scope—a way in which Strange Balance breathes its name. Akin to the new age swells of Tangerine Dream, or similar punctuated by textural guitar works with Fripp & Eno, Wist finds an electronic, oscillating moan to accompany it’s cutting black metal works (“Strange Balance,” “Grendel”). Similar to modern explorations in this world by recent Krallice albums, Wist often finds a forward movement through tightly wound, treble-loads fretwork—a fuzz-loaded squeal, a bend that’s ever so slightly off, a percussive palm-mute more reminiscent of a Cynic slide than any trv kvlt act would hammer—and warbling, nasally fretless bass whines. On heavier sections, and particularly on the horror-tinged mania of “Betrayal,” Wist’s progressive black metal attack feels chanting and bouncy against the lush synth layers in the same way you might, while star-gazing, hear Enslaved if Isa were playing on AM radio at the end of the tower’s nighttime reach. Strange Balance brings fog. Strange Balance brings intrigue. And, most importantly, Strange Balance brings an atmosphere to black metal that doesn’t rely on trem-loaded, trope-chomping sounds of the recent past. There’s a world where the first track is actually the last track, giving just that more weight to its lengthy endeavor. But I’m happy to be in a world, at least, where Wist exists to steal my attention again as they continue to grow. 3.0/5.0.

Iceberg: If I’m going to reach for lo-fi black metal, it sure as hell better have some small-batch, artisanal hot sauce drizzled all over it. Dolph knows this about me, so when he hawked Wist’s latest black-metal-but-with-other-stuff record for a Rodeö, I trusted his cetacean judgement. Strange Balance—you’d be hard-pressed to find a better name for this album—does a mostly brilliant job of oscillating between cavernous second-wave wailing and psychedelic sojourns with droning synths and ren-faire-ready acoustic guitars. The synth work reminiscent of Tangerine Dream (“Strange Balance”) and old-school NES soundtracks (“Betrayal”) makes for an odd bedfellow with the black metal it envelops; but it works! The band stays in a boisterous 6/8 meter for most of the record (“Grendel” especially), giving the music a swaying quality that reinforces the air of blackened whimsy. Listening on good headphones or a quality speaker set-up is a must here; the layering of the clean and harsh vox in “Strange Balance” and the discordant outro of “The River Returning” hold many treasures for the tuned ear. The only thing keeping Strange Balance from greatness is a tendency to harp a bit too long in transitional sections (“Strange Balance,” “Betrayal”), and a bizarre closer that—while well-performed—never seems to justify its existence. But don’t let these quibbles get in the way of a refreshing, unique take on ambient black metal. For those of you who like your shrieking weird and experimental, I have to recommend you check this out. 3.5/5.0

#2024 #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo2024 #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #EnglishMetal #Enslaved #FrippEno #Krallice #Opeth #PinkFloyd #ProgressiveBlackMetal #ProgressiveMetal #StrangeBalance #TangerineDream #Wist

AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö: Wist – Strange Balance

By Dolphin Whisperer

“AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö” is a time-honored tradition to showcase the most underground of the underground—the unsigned and unpromoted. This collective review treatment continues to exist to unite our writers in boot or bolster of the bands who remind us that, for better or worse, the metal underground exists as an important part of the global metal scene. The Rodeö rides on.”

Remember way back in the days of radio? You might have been on a road trip before with your family, and, freshly tasked with trying to find a station that works as you stray away from familiar territory, you turn the knob and land right in between two stations playing a song. It doesn’t sync up, but there’s a mystery to whether that noise worked. Try as you remember, though, you can’t find this balance between two stations again. Wist, I believe, feels this struggle, and with their sophomore outing Strange Balance, they explore the duality of their progressive and atmospheric black metal selves to see where it leads. Would you follow three black metal fans into the Epping Forest? What if they said their album only cost four pounds? Our brave riders thought it wise to say yes, and the results may surprise you. – Dolphin Whisperer

Wist // Strange Balance [June 24th, 2024]

Dr. A.N. Grier: London’s Wist is one hell of a weird atmoblack band. This three-piece outfit goes beyond the traditional Alcestian ways of working, introducing some rather interesting synth atmospheres that lend well to their weird progressive attitude. With their 2022 debut, Stone Still Settling, they only scratched the surface of their sound. With this year’s Strange Balance, they go for broke, shoving everything they can into this tiny album. The title track begins the album with a soothing, ethereal introduction that gets obliterated by a traditional frenzied atmoblack attack. Around the midpoint, it sidetracks to a bass and drum-heavy transition that feels overblown by the lofi production but stomps along all the same. After building for the next few minutes, the chaos fades and is replaced by gorgeous, reverberating acoustic guitars. For all of the opener’s diversity and interesting twists, “Betrayal” is the more divisive of the bunch. Opening with silly cackling the song erupts into gnarly guitars, gigantic, popping bass, and drum work that runs faster than a roadrunner. Using this simple riff structure, the band peppers it with reverberating guitars that feel like they are almost dancing over the surface. When the intensity peaks, the track fades away like its predecessor. In its wake doesn’t come acoustic guitars but Tangerine Dream-styled synth work. Unlike other bands of its caliber, this outro doesn’t have me gazing at my fat gut but instead has me looking to the dark sky to see if the stars are moving. And as if to signify that Strange Balance has always been here and we just walked into it, the instrumental closer, “The River Returning,” fades in with melodic, soothing guitars, adds multiple layers to the mix, and fades away as if driving down an abandoned dirt road. I wouldn’t say Strange Balance is balanced but it’s an interesting record with some unique twists I can get behind. Having never heard of Wist before, they are definitely on my radar and I’ll be looking to see what they do next. 3.0/5.0

Dear Hollow: There’s a lot going on with Wist. It’s black metal, sure, layered with a thick smog of modular synths and overlaying psychedelia à la Tangerine Dream. It’s like Pink Floyd decided to make a black metal album, but really liked Opeth’s acoustic breaks. What makes Wist stand out is that they firmly follow the ambient stylings of black metal or blackgaze but do their damnedest to stay trve to the kvlt in debut Strange Balance—the blackened cackles at the beginning of “Betrayal” would make Immortal blush. “Betrayal” is the wildest and best collision of its ’70s synth and ’90s second-wave black metal palettes, with bouncy 6/8 pagan rhythms and a chill noodling guitar line, only to collapse into a full-on blackened attack. While closer “The River Returning” also features a tasteful repetition and fades that together feels like a modernized rendition of the depressive “My Dying Bride” by ColdWorld. However, the opening title track is nearly impenetrable and painful in its densest synths overlaying high energy blastbeats and shrieks, even if its concluding acoustic passage is decent, and “Grendel” feels incredibly directionless in its fusion of slower DSBM and spacy synths, with a wonky off-key synth conclusion being its only redemption. Ultimately, Wist has some cool ideas that periodically work, but Strange Balance lives true to its name in disproportionately dense and threateningly boring sounds, violently yoinking black metal’s cranky history for an album that feels imbalanced but promising. 2.0/5.0

Dolphin Whisperer: The experience that conjures from the mystical and dated synth layers that Wist pushes against the hazy and shrill is one of an otherwordly atmosphere. In this metal world which we so valiantly occupy, it’s rare to find an album that skews both so alien and terrestrial in scope—a way in which Strange Balance breathes its name. Akin to the new age swells of Tangerine Dream, or similar punctuated by textural guitar works with Fripp & Eno, Wist finds an electronic, oscillating moan to accompany it’s cutting black metal works (“Strange Balance,” “Grendel”). Similar to modern explorations in this world by recent Krallice albums, Wist often finds a forward movement through tightly wound, treble-loads fretwork—a fuzz-loaded squeal, a bend that’s ever so slightly off, a percussive palm-mute more reminiscent of a Cynic slide than any trv kvlt act would hammer—and warbling, nasally fretless bass whines. On heavier sections, and particularly on the horror-tinged mania of “Betrayal,” Wist’s progressive black metal attack feels chanting and bouncy against the lush synth layers in the same way you might, while star-gazing, hear Enslaved if Isa were playing on AM radio at the end of the tower’s nighttime reach. Strange Balance brings fog. Strange Balance brings intrigue. And, most importantly, Strange Balance brings an atmosphere to black metal that doesn’t rely on trem-loaded, trope-chomping sounds of the recent past. There’s a world where the first track is actually the last track, giving just that more weight to its lengthy endeavor. But I’m happy to be in a world, at least, where Wist exists to steal my attention again as they continue to grow. 3.0/5.0.

Iceberg: If I’m going to reach for lo-fi black metal, it sure as hell better have some small-batch, artisanal hot sauce drizzled all over it. Dolph knows this about me, so when he hawked Wist’s latest black-metal-but-with-other-stuff record for a Rodeö, I trusted his cetacean judgement. Strange Balance—you’d be hard-pressed to find a better name for this album—does a mostly brilliant job of oscillating between cavernous second-wave wailing and psychedelic sojourns with droning synths and ren-faire-ready acoustic guitars. The synth work reminiscent of Tangerine Dream (“Strange Balance”) and old-school NES soundtracks (“Betrayal”) makes for an odd bedfellow with the black metal it envelops; but it works! The band stays in a boisterous 6/8 meter for most of the record (“Grendel” especially), giving the music a swaying quality that reinforces the air of blackened whimsy. Listening on good headphones or a quality speaker set-up is a must here; the layering of the clean and harsh vox in “Strange Balance” and the discordant outro of “The River Returning” hold many treasures for the tuned ear. The only thing keeping Strange Balance from greatness is a tendency to harp a bit too long in transitional sections (“Strange Balance,” “Betrayal”), and a bizarre closer that—while well-performed—never seems to justify its existence. But don’t let these quibbles get in the way of a refreshing, unique take on ambient black metal. For those of you who like your shrieking weird and experimental, I have to recommend you check this out. 3.5/5.0

#2024 #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo2024 #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #EnglishMetal #Enslaved #FrippEno #Krallice #Opeth #PinkFloyd #ProgressiveBlackMetal #ProgressiveMetal #StrangeBalance #TangerineDream #Wist

AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö: Wist – Strange Balance

By Dolphin Whisperer

“AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö” is a time-honored tradition to showcase the most underground of the underground—the unsigned and unpromoted. This collective review treatment continues to exist to unite our writers in boot or bolster of the bands who remind us that, for better or worse, the metal underground exists as an important part of the global metal scene. The Rodeö rides on.”

Remember way back in the days of radio? You might have been on a road trip before with your family, and, freshly tasked with trying to find a station that works as you stray away from familiar territory, you turn the knob and land right in between two stations playing a song. It doesn’t sync up, but there’s a mystery to whether that noise worked. Try as you remember, though, you can’t find this balance between two stations again. Wist, I believe, feels this struggle, and with their sophomore outing Strange Balance, they explore the duality of their progressive and atmospheric black metal selves to see where it leads. Would you follow three black metal fans into the Epping Forest? What if they said their album only cost four pounds? Our brave riders thought it wise to say yes, and the results may surprise you. – Dolphin Whisperer

Wist // Strange Balance [June 24th, 2024]

Dr. A.N. Grier: London’s Wist is one hell of a weird atmoblack band. This three-piece outfit goes beyond the traditional Alcestian ways of working, introducing some rather interesting synth atmospheres that lend well to their weird progressive attitude. With their 2022 debut, Stone Still Settling, they only scratched the surface of their sound. With this year’s Strange Balance, they go for broke, shoving everything they can into this tiny album. The title track begins the album with a soothing, ethereal introduction that gets obliterated by a traditional frenzied atmoblack attack. Around the midpoint, it sidetracks to a bass and drum-heavy transition that feels overblown by the lofi production but stomps along all the same. After building for the next few minutes, the chaos fades and is replaced by gorgeous, reverberating acoustic guitars. For all of the opener’s diversity and interesting twists, “Betrayal” is the more divisive of the bunch. Opening with silly cackling the song erupts into gnarly guitars, gigantic, popping bass, and drum work that runs faster than a roadrunner. Using this simple riff structure, the band peppers it with reverberating guitars that feel like they are almost dancing over the surface. When the intensity peaks, the track fades away like its predecessor. In its wake doesn’t come acoustic guitars but Tangerine Dream-styled synth work. Unlike other bands of its caliber, this outro doesn’t have me gazing at my fat gut but instead has me looking to the dark sky to see if the stars are moving. And as if to signify that Strange Balance has always been here and we just walked into it, the instrumental closer, “The River Returning,” fades in with melodic, soothing guitars, adds multiple layers to the mix, and fades away as if driving down an abandoned dirt road. I wouldn’t say Strange Balance is balanced but it’s an interesting record with some unique twists I can get behind. Having never heard of Wist before, they are definitely on my radar and I’ll be looking to see what they do next. 3.0/5.0

Dear Hollow: There’s a lot going on with Wist. It’s black metal, sure, layered with a thick smog of modular synths and overlaying psychedelia à la Tangerine Dream. It’s like Pink Floyd decided to make a black metal album, but really liked Opeth’s acoustic breaks. What makes Wist stand out is that they firmly follow the ambient stylings of black metal or blackgaze but do their damnedest to stay trve to the kvlt in debut Strange Balance—the blackened cackles at the beginning of “Betrayal” would make Immortal blush. “Betrayal” is the wildest and best collision of its ’70s synth and ’90s second-wave black metal palettes, with bouncy 6/8 pagan rhythms and a chill noodling guitar line, only to collapse into a full-on blackened attack. While closer “The River Returning” also features a tasteful repetition and fades that together feels like a modernized rendition of the depressive “My Dying Bride” by ColdWorld. However, the opening title track is nearly impenetrable and painful in its densest synths overlaying high energy blastbeats and shrieks, even if its concluding acoustic passage is decent, and “Grendel” feels incredibly directionless in its fusion of slower DSBM and spacy synths, with a wonky off-key synth conclusion being its only redemption. Ultimately, Wist has some cool ideas that periodically work, but Strange Balance lives true to its name in disproportionately dense and threateningly boring sounds, violently yoinking black metal’s cranky history for an album that feels imbalanced but promising. 2.0/5.0

Dolphin Whisperer: The experience that conjures from the mystical and dated synth layers that Wist pushes against the hazy and shrill is one of an otherwordly atmosphere. In this metal world which we so valiantly occupy, it’s rare to find an album that skews both so alien and terrestrial in scope—a way in which Strange Balance breathes its name. Akin to the new age swells of Tangerine Dream, or similar punctuated by textural guitar works with Fripp & Eno, Wist finds an electronic, oscillating moan to accompany it’s cutting black metal works (“Strange Balance,” “Grendel”). Similar to modern explorations in this world by recent Krallice albums, Wist often finds a forward movement through tightly wound, treble-loads fretwork—a fuzz-loaded squeal, a bend that’s ever so slightly off, a percussive palm-mute more reminiscent of a Cynic slide than any trv kvlt act would hammer—and warbling, nasally fretless bass whines. On heavier sections, and particularly on the horror-tinged mania of “Betrayal,” Wist’s progressive black metal attack feels chanting and bouncy against the lush synth layers in the same way you might, while star-gazing, hear Enslaved if Isa were playing on AM radio at the end of the tower’s nighttime reach. Strange Balance brings fog. Strange Balance brings intrigue. And, most importantly, Strange Balance brings an atmosphere to black metal that doesn’t rely on trem-loaded, trope-chomping sounds of the recent past. There’s a world where the first track is actually the last track, giving just that more weight to its lengthy endeavor. But I’m happy to be in a world, at least, where Wist exists to steal my attention again as they continue to grow. 3.0/5.0.

Iceberg: If I’m going to reach for lo-fi black metal, it sure as hell better have some small-batch, artisanal hot sauce drizzled all over it. Dolph knows this about me, so when he hawked Wist’s latest black-metal-but-with-other-stuff record for a Rodeö, I trusted his cetacean judgement. Strange Balance—you’d be hard-pressed to find a better name for this album—does a mostly brilliant job of oscillating between cavernous second-wave wailing and psychedelic sojourns with droning synths and ren-faire-ready acoustic guitars. The synth work reminiscent of Tangerine Dream (“Strange Balance”) and old-school NES soundtracks (“Betrayal”) makes for an odd bedfellow with the black metal it envelops; but it works! The band stays in a boisterous 6/8 meter for most of the record (“Grendel” especially), giving the music a swaying quality that reinforces the air of blackened whimsy. Listening on good headphones or a quality speaker set-up is a must here; the layering of the clean and harsh vox in “Strange Balance” and the discordant outro of “The River Returning” hold many treasures for the tuned ear. The only thing keeping Strange Balance from greatness is a tendency to harp a bit too long in transitional sections (“Strange Balance,” “Betrayal”), and a bizarre closer that—while well-performed—never seems to justify its existence. But don’t let these quibbles get in the way of a refreshing, unique take on ambient black metal. For those of you who like your shrieking weird and experimental, I have to recommend you check this out. 3.5/5.0

#2024 #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo2024 #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #EnglishMetal #Enslaved #FrippEno #Krallice #Opeth #PinkFloyd #ProgressiveBlackMetal #ProgressiveMetal #StrangeBalance #TangerineDream #Wist

#synthwave origins 06 by blastik
https://www.mixcloud.com/blastik/synthwave-origins-06/
Playing tracks by #Boytronic, #Kraftwerk, #Gandalf, #JeanMichelJarre, #TangerineDream, #PeterSeiler and more.
#em #electronicmusic