Black Aleph's debut album, Apsides, is a sonic journey that unfolds through layers of atmospheric weight and textural complexity. Consisting of Lachlan Dale (guitar, effects), Peter Hollo (cello, effects), and Timothy Johannsen (percussion), the Australian trio masterfully blends elements of post-metal, ambient, and experimental rock, weaving together influences from the likes of Neurosis, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sunn O))), and Earth.

Opening with "Descent," the track immediately sets the tone with a dark, brooding atmosphere that feels almost claustrophobic and ritualistic. The haunting combination of dissonant guitar riffs, throbbing cello lines, hypnotic beats and dark chants instantly draws the listener into a world that feels heavy and foreboding. The use of effects adds an additional layer of menace, making this track a powerful introduction to the album's thematic exploration of space, tension, and inner conflict.

However, as the album progresses, Black Aleph begins to shift gears, leaving behind the almost claustrophobic intensity of "Descent" for a more expansive and contemplative sound. The influences of Arabic music become more apparent, especially in tracks like "Ascension," where the intricate, almost hypnotic rhythms blend seamlessly with the ethereal, echoing sounds of the cello. This shift in tone creates a dynamic contrast, allowing the music to breathe and open up, transforming from moments of tension into waves of introspective calm.

This album is a bold and adventurous exploration of sound, texture, and atmosphere. The lack of traditional song structures gives Apsides a fluid, organic quality, but also a sense of unpredictability. It's a journey through sonic landscapes that feel at once alien and familiar, with every moment offering something new to discover. For fans of dark, atmospheric music with a profound emotional depth, Apsides is an essential listen. (8/10)

Jason Hicks

Band info: https://blackaleph.bandcamp.com

Label Info: https://www.artascatharsis.com

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Vokonis are a Swedish trio from the city of Borås, comprised of Simon Ohlsson – Guitar/Vocals, Jonte Johansson – Bass/Vocals and new(ish) drummer/percussionist Peter Ottosson. Per Wiberg of Opeth, Spiritual Beggars, Kamchatka also makes an appearance on keyboards.

Odyssey is the follow-up to 2019's acclaimed third album “Grasping Time” with artwork by Kyrre Bjurling (artist behind Vokonis' previous works Grasping Time and the reissue of Olde One Ascending). The cover alludes to the naturalistic yet mystical world evoked by the works of Roger Dean (Yes, Asia, Atomic Rooster, Uriah Heep) and thus betrays the band's intentions to delve further into prog-rock waters. This will doubtlessly whet the appetite of fans of the proggier wing of sludge/doom metal.

Odyssey starts with its shortest track 'Rebellion' at a mere 3:17 minutes with a crunching heavy metal riff that reminds one of the likes of power metal revivalists Grand Magus, there is definitely a NWOBHM vibe present here. There are also some pleasant melodic Alice In Chains' Layne Staley vocal lines courtesy of Jonte that contrast nicely with Simon's more aggressive approach. A bracing and effective opener that sets the listener up for the album to come. Second track 'Odyssey' brings to mind Oakland psych prog outfit Mondo Drag with the heavy Hammond Organ flourishes, making this a potential psych classic. 'Blackened Wings' takes us back to the conciseness of the opening track and takes a sludgier approach ala Elder who they coincidentally shared a stage with back in the pre-covid era. 'Azure' follows a similar pattern in terms of track length and style but also adds some gorgeous soloing from Simon towards the end that melds effortlessly and brilliantly with Per's Ken Hensley/Jon Lord influenced keyboard playing, all of which make for a thrilling conclusion.

'Hollow Waters' tips its hat to Lateralus/10,000 Days era Tool with strong anguished vocals reminiscent of Maynard James Keenan. The track winds back on the heavy sludge somewhat and embarks on a psychedelic journey into mysterious worlds as intonated by the aforementioned album cover. 'Odyssey' and 'Hollow Waters' may have been longer pieces but they were veritable warm-ups for album closer 'Through the Depths' which is a mammoth 12:48 minutes, an extraordinary piece that further demonstrates the band's ongoing musical maturity. For the first quarter we are met with the band's trademark brand of progressive sludge/doom before being greeted with some beautiful melancholy Blues Jamming which one would have heard from the likes of the late, great Gary Moore. This continues right through to the album's conclusion and proves true the old adage saving the best till last. Without doubt the finest track by a country mile and a perfectly epic way to conclude the album.

Going further down the progressive rabbit-hole like countrymen Opeth could have proved a risky move, thankfully it has paid off and Odyssey is brilliantly balanced between more immediate tracks and longer challenging fare that will appeal to both fans of doom/sludge and vintage prog. (8/10)

Reza Mills

Band info: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialVokonis
Label info: http://thesignrecords.com


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Landskap may be a common word in Scandinavia (you can probably guess its meaning) but this coming-together of 60s and 70s heavy psych obsessives actually hail from London, England. Formed in 2012 by members of Father Sun, SerpentCult, Fen, Pantheist and Dead Existence, their debut LP reeks of retrospective magick - right down to the tracklisting. It's a 34-minute, 4-song, 2-track disc - the 2 tracks being a hypothetical Side A and Side B in true arcane vinyl tradition. It is Landskap's refusal to fully bow their heads to modern music industry demands that lands the first blow in their war on the new world in which we all dwell.

From the off, the delicately-balanced 12 minutes of layering that constitute "A Nameless Fool" draw inspiration from Pentagram's psychedelic catalogue combined with Sabbath's soft-sided drift. There's an opening explosion of cymbals and strings that drop off into a cosmos-wandering solo. As the bell tolls in, the emotional atmosphere and elephantine pacing is set for Jake Harding's sultry resonant vocal to impart his words of wisdom into the echoing yonder.

"The things you crave, they draw you near / Desire's reason remains unclear / But still you crawl on weathered hands / Dragging down your fellow man."

As the demonic solo drops you'll find yourself straining to pick up a wedge of fat-stringed dissonance. Had they thrown that in, you'd be staring straight down the barrel of St. Vitus. In its place, a warbling organ rumbles along in the background sprinkling a fresh layer of cheese. It's immediately clear that Landskap are the preachers and us fans of old school doom are the converted.

Somewhat precariously tacked onto the end of Side A is the menacingly-titled "A Cabin In The Woods". Surprisingly it takes us about as far from the dark horror that its title suggests. Instead, we get a 3-minute gently warbling instrumental full of warming tones and astral patterning that takes us floating towards the exploratory edges of bands like Procul Harum and Pink Floyd.

As Side B kicks in, "Fallen So Far" rolls up with a feisty riff and a dark purpose. There's one initial smack of heady psych rock before it all settles back into doom-laden verses with a dissonant, splattering bass and antagonistic choruses. The whole stomp soon steps it all up into double-time and we're quickly careering towards a noisy oblivion. Headbangers beware - this is a beast.

"To Harvest The Storm" is another warm-toned instrumental with top-end wandering bass and twinkling, echoing Doors-esque organ. As the guitars kick in the rhythm gets more urgent and the smacks of Deep Purple and Hendrix begin to really come through. By the end you'll be jiving to the Hammond-induced psychedelics like a tripped-out turkey, arms flailing, head rotating, lost in the midsts of some intense Woodstockian flashback. Yes, at 12:30 it is a monster but, by god, it's worth every second for the intense surge of climactic pleasure that it offers.

Way too short, yet beguilingly sweet and utterly absorbing, you could wedge this debut into the heart of your old man's record collection and he wouldn't even flinch. It's hard to decide whether Landskap are retro to the point of being reclusive obsessives or whether they just invented a time machine and brought this "debut" back as a gift. Whichever, a debt is owed.

John Skibeat

Band info: www.facebook.com/LandskapUK
Label info: www.ironbonehead.de

John Skibeat is a self-described word monkey hampered by cravings for strong ale and stinky cheese. He continues to practice surgical dissection on most genres of music with the leftovers currently reaching publication at 'zines like Heavy Blog Is Heavy, The Line Of Best Fit or Ave Noctum. When not smacking seven bells out of various sizes of orb, he tumbles at johnskibeat, tweets @johnskibeat and blogs at, yes, you guessed it, johnskibeat.

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If you've been paying attention to modern metal of late, you will have noticed that most bands not besotted with retro, are pushing their music forwards with varied attempts at blurring the lines between genres. Some, of course, are taking the concept to the extreme by fusing those lines into a vast wall of sound. South Carolina's Darkentries, contentedly sat on Kylesa's record label, are one of the latter and have drawn influence from such quarters as sludge, hardcore, doom and post-metal to create a blackened, nihilistic cacophony.

What stands out the most here is the production. Recorded with Kris Hilbert at the curiously-titled Legitimate Business Studio, with the mastering taking place over at Audiosiege, the overall impression is of a vital, raw mix loaded with enough echo to bring it back from the brink. Carefully layered within, the powerful, mud-flinging guitars take pride of place at the forefront, the drums sit in the middle distance, and the vocal is left to rant and rave from somewhere out back. It's an odd experience to discover that the gapping between the levels mean you can actually pick out the points where Hampton Dodd's vocals start phasing. Of course, it is exactly because the band don't utilise every inch of space that, inside the sections where instrument drop-outs occur, it all begins to feel slightly removed from the present. Whilst a shame that slight fault does leave them much room for experimentation - hopefully more so when they finally get round to issuing that full-length.

Digging down into the tracks, 'TV Fuzz' shifts from a gentile guitar introduction into pounding black doom. With the vocal lurching between one that pitches mournful shoegaze and another that seems ensconced in inflicting post-hardcore chaos, the effect is intense and shattering. Though 'Honey Eater' and the stunning 'Feedback Funeral' stay on the same path, they muscle up every element. The vocal sinks deeper to create a more resonant, more forbidding atmosphere and finds a red-raw animosity when it gets its 'core on. Even the sludge-packing guitars wind it all down until the buzzing begins to vibrate at the back of your brain. What stands out, is that somewhere amongst all the to-ing and fro-ing, you'll hear strong hints at the kind of ambient, miserabilist post-hardcore peddled by bands like The Elijah or Devil Sold His Soul.

Upping their game, 'I'm Tired Of Being Awake' finds joy in warping the attack; picking up the desert and blowing it back in our faces. In these mere three minutes they find room to echo the emotional, death-addled contortions of Ihsahn and even time to tap out some Mastodon-esque string progressions. '1200-S' is their chthonic monster, emerging from its abyss to rip out some suitably alien roars and illicit agonising screams form its prey. There are also vast open power chords, gutsy basslines and heart-pumping chugs to get on board with. Lyrically, you'll not find much to sink your teeth into with this EP, save perhaps for 'Feedback Funeral' and that repeating disembodied scream of "just bloody kill me" or in the wild-eyed chant of "paradise, paradise" awaiting in '1200-S'.

Understandably short, impossibly indulgent, strangely exhilarating. In a sense, this kind of carefully-constructed lunacy is exactly what we, as disciples of extreme metal, crave. It's music that breaks barriers, retaining an essence of ancient majesty but remaining unafraid to let things get a little ugly and a little twisted. Easy listening this is not, but then this is, in effect, Darkentries' crack at sonic catharsis. Their ball, their rules. The Make Believe represents their own honest attempt to define what modern heavy metal means to them. It will be very interesting to see what kind of unholy noises they can conjure up in the future.

John Skibeat

Band Info: www.facebook.com/DRKNTRS
Label Info: www.facebook.com/retrofuturistrecords

 

John Skibeat is a self-described word monkey hampered by cravings for strong ale and stinky cheese. He continues to practice surgical dissection on most genres of music with the leftovers currently reaching publication at 'zines like Heavy Blog Is Heavy, The Line Of Best Fit or Ave Noctum. When not smacking seven bells out of various sizes of orb, he tumbles at johnskibeat, tweets @johnskibeat and blogs at, yes, you guessed it, johnskibeat.

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A number of things link the countries of Canada and Sweden (besides being my two favourite). Both have similar climates, Green elected officials, excellent hockey and killer metal. Which brings us to Culted. This blackened doom group is a collaboration of members of both countries. Michael Klassen (guitar/bass/percussion/noise), Matthew Friesen (guitar/bass/percussion/noise) and Kevin Stevenson (drums) hail from Canada and vocalist Daniel Jansson from Sweden. Despite the distance and Jansson never having met the other three, Culted operate as a unit, at least musically if not spatially or temporally. Their shared vision resulted in debut Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep and 2010's Of Death and Ritual EP. Four years have passed and now Culted return with Oblique To All Paths, a stunning example of the way doom can be the most powerful form of expression.

For over an hour Culted envelope the listener in a vast array of emotions through layers of guitar, bass, noise, ambience and savage vocals, starting with the 19-plus minute “Brooding Hex”. Beginning an album with its longest track (of 7) is a bold move but it never feels stagnant and so it keeps pushing the listener forward until it circles back around to the main riff. A riff that inspires dread through its immensity. As with most of the album, elements drift in and out, back and forth, balancing the heaving might with elegant beauty. It's like getting a glimpse of hope through oppressive clouds heavy with discontent. “Illuminati” takes a more forceful path. Thunderous doom with a more classic bent, driven by a momentous riff, simple yet effective. Just as the Illuminati is multi-tiered, the track is stacked with layer upon layer of dry feeling (tonally) riffs, ambient noise and Jansson's equally dry yet harassing vocals.

“Intoxicant Immuration” sounds like defeat. It's slow, brooding cadence pulls you deep into the pits of despair. It's so melancholic you can taste it, before rising from the depths to imprison the listener within walls of massive doom and disconsolate melody.

Culted's melodic and varied darkness carries through the album's later half as well. “March of the Wolves” purposeful cadence leads in to the noisy “Distortion of the Nature of Mankind” and the weathered “Transmittal”, a track bleeds with more progressive and experimental vibes yet remains ungodly heavy in unexpected ways. The track is swollen with drama and shifting moods leaving the listener beaten and exhausted.

Closer “Jeremiad” brings Oblique To All Paths' harrowing journey to its conclusion. Its slow and methodical doom is threaded with industrious noise and a cursed malevolence. As with the rest of the album, its shifting moods resonate deeply making its integration with the soul complete.

Nothing about Oblique To All Paths can be taken for granted. Culted's commitment to the expression of anguish, pain and isolation is unwavering while refusing to follow the path laid before them. The use of nuance, atmosphere, ambience and variation is reverent and painfully affecting. It's also telling of the care and engagement essential to its creation. After a multitude of listens Oblique To All Paths continues to blossom, revealing untold depth beneath its suffocating doom, making it unquestionably essential.

Matt Hinch 

Band info: www.facebook.com/Culted
Label info: www.relapse.com

Matt Hinch lives an unassuming life on the backroads outside Forest Mills, Ontario, Canada. He packs in as much metal as he possible can amid factory work, raising three daughters with his wife and working the land. In addition to Scratch the Surface Matt also writes for Hellbound, Ghost Cult Magazine, About Heavy Metal and his own blog, Kingdom of Noise. Keep up with him on Twitter @KingdomofNoise.

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I can't say I wasn't expecting a challenge when approaching From All Purity, the newest from Chicago doom miscreants Indian. But I wasn't expecting a challenge this great. The title is apt as the album has had purity stripped from it. It's unclean, dark and tainted with the stain of unsanctimonious hostility. It would be easy to bandy about using half-clichéd buzzwords to describe the nearly 40 minutes of filth on hand but one is left with no choice. Because they're true.

From All Purity consists of six misanthropic administrations of contempt, so bleak and caustic as to be practically indigestible. Indian's excruciating doom raises spires of hatred and discontent at every turn. Their slow, torturous and droning riffs suffuse the listener with a feeling of unending dread. One feels trapped beneath a seething, writhing mass of negativity. The unyielding repetition feels explicitly Sisyphean, and equally as frustrating. The merciless beating laid upon the ears with mechanical persistence is enough to drive lesser men/women to the brink of annihilation.

Indian give no quarter vocally either. Astringent screams reign supreme. A sad desperation bleeds from the voice of a soul-sucking wraith. The terror inherent in these vocal ministrations is inescapable but one may sometimes wonder whether the voice is that of the prisoner, or of the captor. Most likely both are one and the same. Without a lyric sheet one cannot be entirely sure, but one can sense a delitescent intelligence behind the virulent rasp. There is no relief from those vexatious screams rife with pain and misology.

Woven betwixt the oppressive doom and distressing vocals lies a terrific low rumble, permeating the album with a burning intensity. It feels like a volcano spewing molten nightmares and coating the world in ash. Agitating and insectile noise also rears its misogynistic head, irritating and pestering like a mosquito in the dark.

From All Purity begs for a stout heart and sound mind lest the ponderous, mind-numbing doom, simmering, acerbic noise and apocalyptic vocals be the vehicle for your ascent beyond the mountains of madness. Indian's incessant doom, harsh noise and vocals radiant with anger indeed present a challenge. May perseverance be your strength, for the bittersweet reward is not without peril.

Matt Hinch

Band info: www.facebook.com/IndianDoom
Label info: www.relapse.com

Matt Hinch lives an unassuming life on the backroads outside Forest Mills, Ontario, Canada. He packs in as much metal as he possible can amid factory work, raising three daughters with his wife and working the land. In addition to Scratch the Surface Matt also writes for Hellbound, Ghost Cult Magazine, About Heavy Metal and his own blog, Kingdom of Noise. Keep up with him on Twitter @KingdomofNoise.

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Snapped by Svart Records greatly due to the strong reactions garnered by their 7” released last year, Mantar are a duo from Germany that plays a punishing, monolithically heavy doom that could easily soundtrack the coming of the apocalypse.

Bolstered by an uncompromising and raw production, Mantar’s debut album Death By Burning stocks a massive amount of crushing, raw and wicked riffs within its 45 minutes. It’s quite amazing how full and intense this stuff sounds with only two members in the group, these guys harness more power and vitriol than many full-fledged groups.

They cite Motorhead, Melvins and Apshyx as musical influences and you can certainly hear elements of Motorhead’s full-frontal and straightforward attack throughout the album, especially on album opener “Spit” and “The Stoning”, where Mantar disintegrate our eardrums with a punk’n’roll bombast akin to the work of Lemmy & co.

The murky, gloomy influence of Asphyx is also evident on some occasions, most notably on tracks like “Into the Golden Abyss” and closing song “March of the Crows”, where some crushing, crawling riffs collide with a slow-motion drum battering and tortured vocals to create an overall tone of discomfort and anguish.

Svart Records is best known for the psychedelic doom and black metal of generally good quality, but snapping up a band like Mantar was a wise move as this is surely one of ugliest, most uncompromising albums to ever emerge from their catalogue. It’s nothing new, I reckon, but it is quite difficult to raise a finger or argue against such a threatening, crushing release.

Band info: www.facebook.com/MantarBand
Label info: www.svartrecords.com

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Sometimes people want to listen to music that makes them feel good. Sometimes just to party. Sometimes they need to connect with something to realize they're not alone with how they feel. Sometimes they listen because they love a good riff or to sing along in the car. And sometimes they just want to listen to music to feel pain. That's where Sea of Bones comes in. Just imagine the pain inflicted to create a sea of bones. Now manifest that into massive riffs and galaxy-melting tone and you have The Earth Wants Us Dead.

Sea of Bones harness the destructive energy locked beneath the earth and use it to pulverize the listener with tectonic force. If the earth wants us dead, nothing shall stand in her way. Just as nothing stands in the way of the huge riffs and soul-destroying tone here.

For the first five tracks, Sea of Bones lay down ultra-slow motion funeral doom balanced by slightly quicker movements brought on by momentum alone. It's like sitting at the top of a mountain, feeling the earth move deep beneath you until tumbling toward your end, breaking everything including your spirit on the way down. Over and over. Not to say there's no variation.

“Black Arm”, the shortest track at 7:02 feels chaotic and unsettling. The monstrous and apocalyptic vocals are as demanding as they are elsewhere but an almost black metal atmosphere runs underneath lava flows of doom. As the foundations of life decay in the track's dying moments, one can almost feel death's dying breath in oneself.

Atmosphere shines through elsewhere as well in the melancholic guitar on the following three tracks. Their emotional core and quieter opening are inevitably flattened by vocals conjured from the earth's core and the heaving riffs growling with the definition of heaviness. The listener is pummelled and bludgeoned under gruelling sludge and thick-as-tar doom, concluding with a rumbling, crumbling, grinding end. These are the kind of tracks that sap the energy and will from your soul. They compress your being into a dense mass of fear.

Then we have the title track. (For those who still buy CDs, it's actually a second disc.) For nearly 40 minutes Sea of Bones drone with a desolate ambience. It's as if the Earth had her wish and all that left is dust in the wind. Dramatic percussion and waves of ethereal noise give the track a sense of drama, reaching a climax of sorts with around eight minutes to go. The next seven are somber indeed, and the last, distant voices.

The Earth Wants Us Dead is a massive record built on huge tone and a grand sense of scale. Most importantly it's an album about feeling the weight of a thousand worlds pressing down on you as you cower with insignificance. At over an hour thirty, it's a test of will to be sure, but when the mood for doom strikes, head for the Sea of Bones.

Matt Hinch

Band info: http://seaofbones.bandcamp.com

Matt Hinch lives an unassuming life on the backroads outside Forest Mills, Ontario, Canada. He packs in as much metal as he possible can amid factory work, raising three daughters with his wife and working the land. In addition to Scratch the Surface Matt also writes for Hellbound, Ghost Cult Magazine, About Heavy Metal and his own blog, Kingdom of Noise. Keep up with him on Twitter @MetalMatt_KofN.

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I should like Perigea Antahkarana more. The latest from Wolvserpent, it hits plenty of the targets of what I enjoy: blackened doom, drone, expansive instrumental choices, voices that sound like they’re being astrally projected into the studio from the sixth dimension. Maybe it makes sense that my favorite track, “A Breath in the Shade of Time,” hits most of these, but at the same time, I’m actually confused. While I enjoy extreme music of all kinds, I’m a big rock guy, in terms of rhythm, momentum, the tension inherent in even a simple bass-drums-guitar lineup. And “A Breath” is almost entirely void of these things, instead consisting of about ten straight minutes of feedback drone overlaid with chanting vocals, opened by expressive cello work and closed in a harsh sound collage.

But, somehow, that’s the most exciting the record gets. The first and last ‘real’ tracks are fairly standard issue doom, super slow and very protracted. You could stretch an entire powerviolence album between the strums on closer “Concealed Among the Roots and Soil,” it takes so long with its time. This style is gratifying, certainly, or otherwise bands wouldn’t still be playing it. But so much more can be done with it: look at something from just this year, like Northless’s World Keep Sinking, or maybe 2012’s Longing by Bell Witch.

Wolvserpent prove this themselves with “A Breath,” which tries so many new things and ultimately succeeds at all of them. “In Mirrors of Water,” while carrying more of that doom baggage, nonetheless throws in a blackened barrage for good measure, varying things nicely. I don’t doubt live that I would want the exact opposite, desiring the crush of their standard-issue doom as opposed to drawn-out amplifier torture. But listening at home, the latter proves much more interesting to me, holds a greater draw. I can’t tell you why, it just is.

This is why I wished I liked Perigea more than I do. It’s certainly a well-made record, and Wolvserpent is a band that knows what it’s doing, but the things I want to excite me just don’t. Most of their atmosphere, being campfires and birdcalls and wind, is pretty par for the course in the genre, and there’s nothing about their riffs that puts them apart from most other riff purveyors. It’s not a bad record by any means, and if this style is your bag Wolvserpent do more than most with it. If only there was a little more of the strangeness of “Breath,” less of “Mirrors’” standard-issue riffs.

Rob Rubsam

Band info: www.facebook.com/wolvserpent
Label info: www.relapse.com

Rob Rubsam is a freelance writer and itinerant resident of Upstate New York. His writing about music has been published at CVLT Nation, Tom Tom Magazine, The Rumpus, Burning Ambulance, and others. When not contemplating giant squids or erecting a standing stone in his backyard, he tweets at @millenialistfun. Do not contact him with your black mass-related inquiries, please.

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