Winds of Tragedy – Death Wash Over Me Review

By Twelve

Since its inception in 2022, Winds of Tragedy has put out one full-length per year, and I was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t happen this time. Maybe, I thought, running a record label has finally taken up enough of his time that Chilean mastermind Sergio Catalán will have to dial back on his usual creative outlets. More fool I—Catalán seemingly never stops, and Winds of Tragedy is back with its third full-length release, Death Wash Over Me. In the past, I’ve commented that the rapid cadence of these releases leads to too little change or shift between them, and so with every release, I look for the changes, the progress, the forward momentum that signals a new direction on the horizon. It’s a fascinating way to review new music, but Winds of Tragedy is an interesting project. How does the new one hold up?

Death Wash Over Me is a bleak album—the cover art should give that much away—but not in the doom-heavy way that Hating Life and As Life Drifts Away were. Death Wash Over Me sees Winds of Tragedy experimenting more with sound than Catalán arguably ever has. The album is filled with thrash-y riffs and snarling vocals, and pulls back on the mournful leads, heavy keys, and guttural roars that have been Catalán’s hallmarks for several years now. In fact, the vocal style is so different from previous Winds of Tragedy and Rise to the Sky releases that I had to double-check that there was no new vocalist—the rasps and snarls that dominate Death Wash Over Me are impressive, very well-suited to the music, and a huge step up from the previous two albums.

The other notable thing about Death Wash Over Me is that, as it progresses, it moves increasingly into depressive black metal territory. “I Am No One” is standard Winds of Tragedy fare, with a slow strings start and a gradual build over a solid riff. “My Feet Don’t Touch the Floor,” on the other hand, even apart from the title, is significantly more desperate, with guest vocals from Void in the form of manic shrieking that evokes Ezkaton in a darkly depressive duo with Catalán’s snarls. “I Built My House to Suffer” leans further into the depressive side, with more shrieks from Void and strong riffing infused with emotional keys. There is a lot of this depressive imagery in use across the album—even in the song titles (“I’m Fine But Not Really,” “Giving Up on Life”) it’s hard to avoid the dismay and depression that dominates the forty-minute runtime.

That aspect of Death Wash Over Me is likely to be its make-or-break element for many listeners, with the extreme vocals and imagery enhancing or damaging the album’s flow depending on whether or not you like them. It’s always a risk for an artist to experiment with extreme elements like this. For me, the best moments on the album don’t make use of them; “I’m Fine but Not Really” and “Giving Up on Life” have great acoustic moments and electric leads that add so much emotional depth that I wish Winds of Tragedy had utilized them more. The vocal samples in “Blood Will Wash All That’s Left of Me” don’t quite add that same depth, and Void’s guest spots feel awkward in a few places. Fortunately, the album is rooted in a fair, if slightly loud mix that does a good job of balancing these many elements into a cohesive whole.

These elements make Death Wash Over Me a tough album for me to rate. In some ways, it is the strongest Winds of Tragedy release for me, with some of the best vocals Catalán has ever done and superb instrumental moments. On the other hand, it demonstrates a potential departure from familiar territory into a side of music that I usually don’t turn to. I’d try to be objective, but that’s obviously impossible, so I’ll just go with my gut and say it’s a good album that shows untapped potential. Winds of Tragedy could go in several directions from here—I’ll be very interested to see which one Catalán treads next.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Tragedy Productions
Websites: windsoftragedy.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/WindsofTragedy
Releases Worldwide: December 13th, 2024

#2024 #30 #BlackMetal #ChileanMetal #DeathWashOverMe #Dec24 #DepressiveBlackMetal #Ezkaton #Review #Reviews #RiseToTheSky #TragedyProductions #WindsOfTragedy

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

Grau – Abseits des Lichts Review

By Twelve

I appreciate modern black metal. The original stuff is not for me at all, but there’s something about a well-polished flame of rage that just works for me. Stepping away from pure, often theatrical, hatred and into such things as emptiness, suffering, frustration—that stuff speaks to me. So when I read that Abseits des Lichts (“Outside of the Light”), the sophomore full-length from the German black metal Grau, lyrically focuses on “pain, emptiness, and the animalistic aspect of the human mind,” well, I was, to put it lightly, intrigued. Proposing a “more modern and complex approach” that mixes black, death, and doom metal, the band has lined up everything I could ask for in my black metal. Do they deliver the goods?

As the aforementioned promo material alludes, Grau does a very good job of blending black and death metal on Abseits des Lichts, incorporating touches of doom here and there to tie the whole together. Two tracks into the album, this dichotomy is on full display. “Einnerung” is the album opener, and, after a brief but effective intro, descends upon the listener with huge tremolos, blast beats, and M.K.’s vicious vocal assault. It works well, but so does the follower. “Niemy” opens with a sudden drop in tempo; the song feels closer to death-doom than black metal, despite the absolute assault M.B’s drums launch midway through. It’s a slower, more measured track that maintains the backdrop of black metal in a more immediate way. At first glance, these tracks may feel out of place next to each other, but there’s a beauty in Abseits des Lichts in that it all works anyway.

That beauty really lies in the atmosphere of the album; throughout, Grau craft bleak, angry, and, rarely, moving melodies that link each song together to form a cohesive album regardless of the stylistic shifts from song to song. It’s everywhere—in the adventurous black metal feast of “Fiebertraum,” the moody death metal ravaging of “Ohnmacht,” and the aforementioned assault of “Einnerung.” Everywhere you look, there’s a familiarity to Abseits des Lichts, a clear sense that this is one album, crafted under one idea, and everything is working together to perpetuate it. In this sense, the album performs extremely well; cathartic, familiar, and strong.

The main trouble I have with the album is really that the atmosphere, production, and mood are so prevalent that it winds up feeling overlong at 51 minutes. There are clear attempts to mitigate this, in the distant cleans in “Fraß,” the existence of interlude track “Wildnis,” and the album’s beautiful outro (“Outro”)—but in addition to being largely in the back half of the album, these moments also appear infrequently. The album’s production does a great job at emphasizing each instrument, but the songwriting is both too varied and not varied enough at once. There’s always a lot going on, but by the end of the album, despite the strength of “Fraß” as an individual song, it feels like more of the same. The feeling never fully shifts or wavers—as I said earlier, Grau does an excellent job of blending styles!

So on Abseits des Lichts, Grau come across as experts of their own music; this is an album that chiefly does one thing very well. Across the album, Grau crafts a thick, oppressive blanket of angry, bleak, and ferocious black metal. If, like me, that sounds like your thing, there is a lot to like here. I’ll look forward to the follow-up, and if I’m hoping now that there’ll be a little more nuance on it, that isn’t likely to stop me from returning to this release for some catharsis on a frustrating day.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Tragedy Productions
Websites: grau-band.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/grau.blackmetal
Releases Worldwide: December 1st, 2023

#2023 #30 #AbseitsDesLichts #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #Dec23 #GermanMetal #Grau #Review #Reviews #TragedyProductions