Album Review: Dark Funeral - Where Shadows Forever Reign

Dark Funeral
Where Shadows Forever Reign
(Century Media)

Unleashed from the cosmic nether comes the new and highly anticipated Dark Funeral album Where Shadows Forever Reign.

A legacy in black metal as genuine and mighty as Dark Funeral's is difficult to achieve. In a genre that often prides itself on being unpopular, and usually loses itself within a heap of stereotypes, Dark Funeral have burned their way to the top of extreme metal without being fake - ever.

Where Shadows Forever Reign is a thick cloud of terror pushing against the listener. The fear is real. Something terrible is happening in the atmosphere, and Dark Funeral are once again on top of it. The thickness comes from an incredibly produced sound made over at Dugout Studios in Sweden. The primal mood of a true black metal album was not betrayed by the attentive ears of Lord Ahriman and producer Daniel Bergstrand (In Flames, Behemoth, Dimmu Borgir). Lord Ahriman and Chaq Mol bury the listener in an unrelenting cadence of tortured riffs that dance around the blistering drumming of Dominator, while singer Heljarmadr recites the prophetic lyrics of eternal night through nine tracks of elite black metal.

Dark Funeral fans have waited years for this album, and the band has answered their summoning call with one of their finest albums in Where Darkness Forever Reign.

Twitter: Oceans Of Slumber Recapture Candlemass "Solitude" With Absolute Power And Grace

Check out @OceansofSlumber cover the almighty @candlemass! #doommetal @centurymedia They're absolutely fantastic!https://t.co/JrMSb0KgPo

— Nick Nihilist (@Metal_Elysium) April 6, 2016

Album Review: Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika

Moonsorrow
Jumalten Aika
(Century Media)

Moonsorrow’s music is just so wild, forlorn, and free. They are one band I will always have a deeply emotional attachment to from my pure metal days back in 2008. At that time I was 22, deeply depressed, and going through all sorts of changes that a 22-year-old man thinks he is prepared for but sometimes finds himself incredibly lost dealing with. Kivenkantaja, and Verisäkeet were two albums that helped me through that transition. Anyway enough about me, the music is the point here, and perhaps one thing that makes Moonsorrow such a strong band is their ability to play songs that beautify tragedy and sadness. I think that is a gift that a lot of people try to capture when they’re writing music, but it often comes off as very cliché. Moonsorrow are able to do that, and through experiencing it for me the music is kind of an esoteric mindfuck.  Obviously I can’t understand a single thing that vocalist Ville Sorvali is saying, but I can definitely feel it, and that has just as much if not more meaning. One could almost call Moonsorrow charming.

If you’re familiar with Moonsorrow, then you know that their formula is to write each track as an opus. I feel like I’m going on an adventure when I listen to Jumalten Aika. There’s certainly the sense that each track is a different stage on this journey through peril. I can imagine myself as a heathen on hill in the mist, or as a sailor on a boat off of the coast of a Finnish isle. It’s really beautiful, and their music is very organic.  They’ve done it again. They’ve raised the bar with Jumalten Aika. This is already going on my favorite albums of 2016 list. How can I choose a favorite song on the album, when they’re each an individually and carefully orchestrated piece to fulfill a part of the experience? It’s like asking me which tale from the Silmarillion I enjoyed the most. I couldn’t tell you. It’s all like one big long sad epic poem for a shelf designated masterpieces.

After several years bouncing around miserable in my post college daze, I’ve found myself back in my roots as an avid metal listener, and I couldn’t be happier that Moonsorrow have released this magical album at around the same time.  Is there no triumph at the end of this sad, long, and lonely road? Where are the gods to lift one up from the torment of this trial? Alas, as I said earlier there’s a distinctive charm here, and you’ll find it at certain points in each song just before the storm. Honestly, I think a track like “Mimisbruun,” which is a 15:55 song that takes the listener all over the place, is as much of an exegesis on northern European heritage and heathenry as anything a scholar or historian could put out there. 

How does this heathen expedition end? By a crackling fire, and a blowing wind…

Album Review: Voivod - Post Society EP

Voivod
Post Society EP
(Century Media)

I’m half way through the first track on the new Voivod EP’s title song, and I’m ready to say that the new Voivod is really good, but then again why wouldn’t I be? That expectation is made before I even hit play. In the thirty years of this band’s mighty legacy, the prog thrashers have never really let fans down. Every time they release an album, you can anticipate something really weird, fresh, and punk. It’s not just that they’re a metal band, but they’re different, and they really are different.
What Voivod gets that so many others lack is the necessary groove behind a good rock song. They have the good old D-Beat that carries along throughout parts of their music that might otherwise lose you in the fantastically overwhelming opus of proggy jazz metal. For me, it’s not open to discussion – this band is really good. I can just sit here and drift off in whatever awkward direction the band is going.

Whether it’s a kaleidoscope of images from a dystopian Shadow Run esque nightmare, or an alien invasion, every theme comes together with the dreamy guitar riffs and hooks that come courtesy of our main man, Chewy. Also, what’s a good rock band without a good bass player? Rocky has taken his spot in the Voivod lineup to no limits. His heavy rattling of the bass will be thum’ing in your head as an under piece to this entire post apocalyptic drama, guided by the bleak prophetic vocals of the colorful and genuine rock star Snake. And what would this band be without Michel “Away” Langevin, the mastermind behind it all? Once again the brilliant artist has conceived of a world beyond the imagination of the layman. What a genius rock star this guy is.

As for the finale, a dedication to the atmospheric rock band Hawkwind, the band delivers on “Silver Machine.”

Weird, cool, and maybe even worth a few extra credits in anthropology and political sciences, Voivod’s Post Society is another interesting and fun release from Quebec’s legendary progressive thrash metal unit. It came out February 26th, so go out there and get it before society becomes toast.