Black Metal.

[MasterOLightning]

The bonus track for Leviathan - MCAAL is an ambient track in the style of the Silhouette in Splinters LP, which I like a ton. The LP itself seems kind of noisy, and probably a better listen on cd. I would only recommend to collectors or serious fans, although the large format booklet is nice.

It's too bad this album came out this year rather than closer to when it was recorded (2005 or 2006). The whole technical black metal thing is starting to sound a little old. This stuff was written well before something like Fas..., yet years from now the two will surely be compared. There are several good songs on the album, but nothing exceptional, possibly Merging With Sword, Onto Them. I've spotted a riff borrowed directly from a Leviathan demo (c. 2000), so I wonder how many of the ideas are taken from previous works (there are lots). I haven't really gone into the dozen or so demos (I own one), but I wouldn't be surprised if a great deal of the full-lengths have borrowed significantly from them.

I wonder who owns all those old demos. They rarely show up on ebay. I bought Shadow of No Light (#6) for a pretty fair price, but some ass was trying to sell Time End (#2) for $500.

I liked the Shadow of No Light Demo a lot. Half was stuff that you would associate with proper Leviathan releases, but the other half is just so creative and inventive. Lots of clean vocals, ambient, some (good) Celtic Frost worship, oddball stuff. It's great. I like that on demos bands take chances. I probably will cave and download all of the Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice demos someday, but I'd like to own as many as I can afford. This guy as more 100x more ideas than most bands ever have.

[MasterOLightning]

On a different note, does anyone know anything like the n.i.l. - s/t album? I doubt it's 100% original, so if you know what it's based on, I'd like to know. Good stuff.

[Onder]

Originally Posted by ~Neurotica

So, I've finally heard "Antikosmos", and I must say that I like it so far.

It's a lot more accessible than his earlier works, but yeah, I like it too. I still won't buy it (definately not in near future, as I don't like the A5 format of the case. The cover looks badass though.

[KevenZ]

Originally Posted by Zephyrus

Not quite:

Oops, too bad. I'm sure it was in stock a couple of weeks ago.

[SkiesAtOurFeet]

Craft - Total Soul Rape is excellent. Vocals are a bit different than the two post albums but the music is top notch.

[unknown]

so my obscure black metal (w)rec(k) (see what I did there?) of the week is: Varuna The Epical Trilogy of Vorlaufen I: Night Master. avant garde cosmic epic progressive keyboard laden black metal hailing from China. Pretty solid stuff. if you like adventurous black metal that's pretty melodic, you might enjoy Varuna

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Sounds good. Have you heard Stielas Storhett?

[Vossyrus]

^ I remember Stielas Storhett. I really liked their debut album a couple years ago.

[unknown]

Originally Posted by V.V.V.V.V.

Sounds good. Have you heard Stielas Storhett?

no...I'll have to look into them

[DarkBliss]

A certain RYMer's one-line review of Velvet Cacoon's Genevieve:

"A broken air conditioner screams at you".

Amusing.