Written by:	RaduP, musclassia, nikarg
Published:	11.11.2023

Wait A Minute! This Isn't Metal! - October 2023
Metal Storm's outlet for nonmetal album reviews





We here at Metal Storm pride ourselves on our thousands of metal reviews and interviews and article; metal is our collective soul and passion, which is why we bother with this junk. That being said, we'd be lying if we stuck to our trve-kvlt guns and claimed that metal is the only thing we ever listen to. Whether we want to admit it or not, we do check out some other stuff from time to time; some of us are more poptimistic than others, but there's a whole world out there aside from Satan-worshiping black metal and dragon-slaying power metal. We do already feature some nonmetal artists on our website and have a few reviews to back them up, but we prefer to limit that aspect of the site to those artists who have been a strong influence on the metal scene or who are in some way connected to it. This article series is the place for those artists who don't matter to metal in the slightest but still warrant some conversation - after all, good music, is good music, and we all know metal isn't the only thing on this planet for any of us.

Down below, you might find some obscure Bandcamp bedroom projects or some Billboard-topping superstar; as long as it ain't metal and the album itself isn't a best-of compilation, it fits. Obviously, we're certain that not everything will be for everybody (you guys can be viciously territorial even when metal is the only thing on the menu, and we're all supposed to like the same things), but we do hope you find at least one thing that you can enjoy, instead of just pointing and screaming in horror "Not metal!" as if that would be an insult.

Here are our previous features:

September 2023
August 2023
July 2023

And now to the music...

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Over 250 million albums sold, over sixty years in the music business, countless live shows in sold-out stadiums and arenas, and a name that even an alien who just landed on Earth five minutes ago should be familiar with. The Rolling Stones, the biggest rock band in history, release a new album 18 years after the previous one, A Bigger Bang. Produced by Andrew Watt, who has co-written some songs, without drummer Charlie Watts (RIP) but with him present on two songs recorded back in 2019, with quite a few special guests, and with Mick and Keith celebrating 80 years on this planet, while ‘young’ Ronnie is only 76. Hackney Diamonds is what you get when you have your windscreen smashed to tiny pieces of glass… in Hackney. Hey, they are a London band after all, and this title makes sense. And the music is unquestionably the Stones.

“Angry” opens the album in a catchy and confident, old-fashioned way. “Whole Wide World” is a fascinating radio rocker with an unforgettable chorus and not just one, but two super-cool solos. “Live By The Sword” brings together the classic rhythm section of Watts and Wyman. “Mess It Up” is a dance-pop-rock anthem, and the most radio-friendly tune here. The country blues “Dreamy Skies” and the dishevelled “Tell Me Straight” with Keith on vocals offer a bit of roughness to an otherwise polished album. My favourite song is the gospel "Sweet Sounds Of Heaven", featuring guest vocals by Lady Gaga, and keys and piano by Stevie Wonder. It is absolutely glorious, and I love how there is a fake ending, because the last two minutes are too great for words. The "Rolling Stone Blues" cover of the Muddy Waters song that gave the band their name is an apt career closure. I don’t know what one can expect from The Rolling Stones at this point, when everyone is rightfully astonished that Keith is still alive, let alone that he is part of a studio album. But his performance here is truly commendable, all things considered, and so is Jagger’s and everyone else’s. These guys have defied age and time. Hackney Diamonds is surprisingly enjoyable and, even more surprisingly, energetic. And it has quite a few tracks that you should add to your playlists.

Apple Music | Spotify

by nikarg





Årabrot are by now seasoned veterans; it’s been over 20 years since bandleader Kjetil Nernes formed the group, and 2023 represents the 10th anniversary of the band’s current line-up, in which Nernes is joined by his wife Karin Park. Tasked with following up a landmark record in the form of Norwegian Gothic, the duo joined forces with producer Alain Johannes (also appearing this month as a guest vocalist on the Venera debut), who travelled to Årabrot’s Djura Missionhus studio to craft what was the band’s first album recorded entirely in this deconsecrated church they call home.

Årabrot have long been a non-metal band renowned for attracting metalheads, as their multiple Roadburn appearances and presence on the Pelagic Records roster are testament to, but their signature rock sound, which draws from noise rock, post-punk and to a certain extent sludge, is a bit softer this time around compared to the riff-heavy Norwegian Gothic. There’s a driving energy to scintillating opener “Hangman’s House”, which is occasionally punctuated by moments of intensity, and “Fire!” also goes hard with its crunching noise rock riffs, but Årabrot are keen to explore other facets of rock music. There’s a 60s psychedelic flair (with a slight Queens Of The Stone Age slant) to “You Cast Long Shadows”, while the deceptively named “Horrors Of The Past” has an oddball 90s indie/synth jangle to it. Park’s synths play a more central role on the new wave-influenced “Madness” and organ-laden “Swan Killer”, but it is the 00s heavy rock swagger of “We Want Blood” (which has a very “No One Knows” feel to its central rhythm) that stands out most. In comparison to its predecessor, Of Darkness And Light is a full 15 minutes shorter than Norwegian Gothic while also being more scattered stylistically; the extent to which this shift in approach is appreciated by the Årabrot fanbase may vary, but this album still offers plenty that will please.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia







2023 marks 40 years of existence for Ed Wynne’s Ozric Tentacles; I personally can’t comment on most of that history, as my only previous encounter with the group was 2020’s Space For The Earth, but that album alone has given me a very positive view on the band, which is further reinforced by Lotus Unfolding. What enthrals me about both albums is that they sound nothing like the music that is traditionally referred to as ‘psychedelic rock’, but in many ways one could argue that this style has just a valid a claim on the title; it has a recognizable rock foundation, but the elaborate and colourful electronic soundscapes crafted onto each song are incredibly vibrant and trippy, bearing a clear resemblance to modern psybient music.

It’s such an infectious combination, and a very brief and rushed comparison with some of their earlier songs suggests that the electronics have become more prominent over the guitar side of the band as time has gone on, which based on these results is a very valid decision to take. This album, just like Space For The Earth, is fundamentally just incredibly fun to listen to; the songs are all so lively, quirky, rich in fun melody and with delightful rich textures. It’s hard to highlight any one song as a standout, but “Deep Blue Shade” is one of the bounciest and grooviest, while “Burundi Spaceport” flies along at an energetic pace, even with its more ambient-minded soundscaping. I would say that this album doesn’t quite match up to Space For The Earth, mainly because of the slightly awkward flow and combination of sounds in “Crumplepenny” and to a lesser extent “Green Incantation”, but this is nevertheless one of the most enjoyable releases this year.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia





It has been quite an interesting last decade for Animal Collective, one where all the creativity of their 2000s work seemed to kinda fizzle out for their lukewarm 2010s, a decade in which it felt like the albums each of them made solo became more vital than the records made together, even if some of their solo albums also suffered from that fizzling out. With that in mind it is quite impressive how much of a turnaround they had since the pandemic, both in terms of solo albums like Panda Bear's Reset and Avey Tare's Cows on Hourglass Pond, but most suprising was getting that same kind of turnaround for the band's Time Skiffs album from last year. It makes even more sense that Isn't It Now? continues that trend when taking into consideration how much they are actually sibling albums.

Both albums were written around the same time before the pandemic happened, with the songs that could be recorded remotely being recorded for Time Skiffs, and the ones that would wait until the band could be in the same room being left to be recorded for Isn't It Now?. That context does affect the way the songs turned out a bit. For one, the songs do sound more organic due to recording together, but also it feels like there's less room for any spontaneity in the songs due to the period between when these songs were written and when they were recorded. The organic sound really benefits a lot of the songs here, and you can tell by the amount of extra instrumentation and vocal harmonies why these songs were selected to be part of this album instead of the previous one. That works with the more introspective and quite sorrowful tone of the record.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





Closure In Moscow is a name that I’ve been meaning to give a proper listen to for a while, without ever getting around to it. Their first record in 9 years, Soft Hell seems as good an opportunity as any to further familiarize myself with the group. The thing that stands out most on first listen is just how much vocalist Christopher de Cinque subscribes to the Cedric Bixler-Zivala school of vocals, channelling both aspects of his tone and moreso his phrasing/delivery. They work very effectively in tandem with the fluid, complex instrumentation in the lively opening song “Jaeger Bomb”, a song that nevertheless ends up feeling slightly misdirectional in its approach.

Subsequent songs such as “Primal Sinister” and “Absolute Terror Field” offer a more streamlined songwriting approach; the vocals still deliver plenty of wackiness, and there are left-field detours (such as the synth-only bridge in the latter song), but structurally and rhythmically, they follow a more standard rock format. Still, the album does jump around; “Holy Rush” lies somewhere between funk and Dance Gavin Dance, while “Keeper Of The Lake”’s chorus has a bluesy poppy sensibility to it. When the more lively and fluid mathy/post-hardcore instrumental arrangements pop up, such as on “Better Way” and “Fine”, they do leave you mourning their absence elsewhere on the record, but surprisingly it is the relatively straightforward “Lovelash”, a synthy track with ballad tendencies that delivers a wonderfully beautiful guitar solo near the end. When listening to Soft Hell, I do find myself suspecting that I’m not listening to the best version of Closure In Moscow, but there’s enough here to encourage me to try their earlier albums.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia





I'm usually a big fan of alternative rock and its offshoots from the 80s and 90s, so I'm quite surprised hearing about a band from that period that I hadn't ever come across before. Blonde Redhead are an alternative rock band from New York formed in 1993 (so happy 30th anniversary, I guess), and it seems like their 2000s work is the one they got the most attention for after they turned down the noise rock elements from their 90s material in favor for something more dream pop leaning. Though it doesn't seem like the band ever broke up in the meantime, Sit Down For Dinner marks a nearly decade long gap between albums, the longest in their career.

I can't contextualize how Sit Down For Dinner sits in the grander Blonde Redhead discography, but I can tell that the band, which hasn't changed lineups for more than two decades, are quite adept at creating melancholic and dreamlike landscapes that still feel grounded as songs with memorable vocal lines. It's straddling a pretty thin line between dream pop, neo-psychedelia, ambient pop, and indie rock, with none of these overpowering the others. There's something quite charmingly odd about a lot of the harmonies here, or how the percussion interacts with the rest of the song, and somehow that works in tandem with the songs having a bit of a dream logic to them.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s latest dabbling with metal on PetroDragonic Apocalypse was described by bassist Lucas Harwood as one part of a two-album ‘yin and yang’ concept. Well, if borderline thrash was the yin, a look at the cover of The Silver Cord makes the focus of the yang pretty obvious; the guitars are taking a back seat to synthesizers on this one. That’s not the only feature of note here; the album is in some ways two albums, taking the form of either a 28-minute ‘standard’ version of the seven songs, or an 88-minute compilation of extended versions of the same tracks.

Realistically, given that the standard version take up only a third of the extended version’s runtime, it’s fair to consider these effective distinct records. The shorter version is probably easiest described as synthpop; “Theia” has that signature King Gizz psychedelic feel, but “Set” goes in a more beat-heavy quirky pop direction (particularly in the boisterous closing stages), while “Gilgamesh” features semi-rapped vocals and thumping acid rave rhythms. The short iteration of The Silver Cord is not particularly up my street; in contrast, the long-form psychedelic meanderings of the 21-minute extended version of “Theia” is soothing and hypnotic, the longer title track has some nifty drum & bass hooks, and even the initially irritating “Gilgamesh” gains a certain something by being extended and exploring the confines of dance electronica. In my opinion, the extended version of The Silver Cord is so much better than the standard version as to render the latter basically redundant.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia





Much like their Norwegian compatriots (and fellow husband-wife duo) in Årabrot, Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden’s Lost Girls are following up an album featured in our April 2021 non-metal article. Menneskekollektivet, the debut Lost Girls album, offered a more avant-garde spin on Hval’s already distinctive synth-based art pop sound; some of those tendencies have been dialled down on Selvutsletter, which mostly shies away from the trend towards super-long songs on the debut (the lengthiest cut here is 9-minute closing track “Seawhite”).

There’s more of a subtle dancefloor sensibility to the likes of “With The Other Hand”, albeit with Hval’s signature unique take on vocal melodies, but other dimensions are also introduced; the bassline to “Ruins” adds a post-punk feel, while the lack of rhythm and organ sheen on “World On Fire” take it in an abstract indie direction. Although Selvutsletter has de-emphasized long-form songwriting, it is the album’s two longest cuts that are arguably its most notable; the bouncy melodicism and lively electronic beat driving “Jeg Slutter Meg Selv” forward are pleasantly catchy, but conversely “Seawhite” ends the album on an odd and abstract note, meandering between warbling synths and scattered, structureless vocals in a seemingly directionless fashion. It’s a bit of a misfire to dedicate nearly a quarter of the album to this song, but the preceding material makes up for it in terms of quality.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia







I listen to a lot of music and there's a lot of struggling to keep up with how much is being released. Running into another album cycle by an artist who you felt has just released something shouldn't feel like a chore, but the pace of releases is pretty huge. In such an environment, something like Sampha coming up with his second album six years after his debut and delivering the absolute best without stuffing Lahai with too much material feels like such a breath of fresh air. Process was already one of my favorite if not actually the one favorite R&B album, so being met by there now being another Sampha album is a very warm kind of rejoicing.

A lot of Process relied on the absolute elegance of Sampha's voice, and while the songs were exceptionally well written, that was still the one highlight. Lahai feels like it relies a little bit on just that, with a lot of the instrumentals going into some very interesting territories, like pristinely layered pianos or pretty intricate and eclectic electronica beats that wouldn't normally fit with Sampha's vocals, but they do. The vocals themselves also feel even more interesting this time around, exploring different flows and textures while still keeping what made them this impactful in the first place. So, pretty much, an improvement on every front, and I have to reconsider my list of favorite R&B albums.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





2022 saw the first murmurings from Chino Moreno’s ††† (Crosses) in nearly a decade in the form of the EP Permanent.Radiant; this seems to have reignited Moreno and collaborator Shaun Lopez’s passion for the project, as, less than a year later, they have come back with the sophomore Crosses release, Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. Featuring guest vocal cameos from rapper El-P and The Cure’s Robert Smith, this new album is not just an extension of Permanent.Radiant, but a fresh vision for Moreno’s electronic explorations.

While electronica formed a major part of last year’s EP, there was still a connection to rock music that has dissipated this time around. There’s moment reminiscent of synthwave (“Invisible Hand”), RnB (“Found”) or hip-hop (“Light As A Feather”), but I find the album to be most compelling on the songs through which a darkly seductive electronic current runs, such as opener “Pleasure” and “Pulseplagg”. As far as the vocal cameos are concerned, I can do without El-P’s appearance late on the generally awkward “Big Youth”, but the subtle guitar sounds of The Cure and Smith’s simple-yet-effective vocal refrain bring a lot to late-album highlight “Girls Float † Boys Cry”. It can be a bit hit-and-miss in terms of quality, but there’s good things that come from Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.

Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia







Venera is a new electronic project comprising Atlanta-based filmmaker/composer Chris Hunt and James Shaffer, who is perhaps more familiar to the metal community under the name Munky, Korn’s guitarist. While Venera is in no way metallic, it is dark and ominous, and Venera have recruited some metal-adjacent artists, including Jacob Duzsik of Health and former The Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks. This album can at times be unsettling, a feeling that the combination of glitching beats and dramatic synth blasts on “Erosion” and harsh fuzzy noise on “Swarm” likely evoke, but Venera are also capable of creating dark atmosphere in more subtle ways.

Duzsik’s characteristic soft high-pitched voice gains a surprisingly haunting quality when paired with the minimalist yet creepy backdrop of “Ochre”, wherein a mostly ambient backdrop is occasionally punctuated by faint yet sinister synth lines. Parks’ own contribution on “Disintegration” helps the song capture the essence of its title; the frantic, erratic bursts of noisy drum fills scattered across the eerie song lend a very decompositional vibe, serving as a stark contrast to the more mellow, gloomy vocals features from VOWWS and Alain Johannes on “Hologram” and “Triangle”, respectively. Shaffer and Hunt have evidently found well-matched writing partners in one another, as Venera successfully carries the moody, ominous vibe that the duo were seemingly intending throughout its runtime.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia





Daniel Lopatin has always been a pretty huge figure in underground electronic music, with his legs in ambient, drone, plunderphonics, progressive electronica, vaporwave, and everything in between. But for the most part he was kind of a musician's musician, and not the kind of artist you'd see getting any kind of media attention. And he's still very much seated in the underground, but the last six or so years have definitely increased his presence outside of the usual circles. With soundtrack work for the Safdie brothers' Good Time and Uncut Gems, and then the mix of Daniel doing writing and production on The Weeknd's last two albums, and Abel appearing on Oneohtrix Point Never's Magic Oneohtrix Point Never album from three years ago. Again comparatively is sort of a return in more ways than one.

Pretty much all main Oneohtrix Point Never releases since 2015 have dealt in some ways with the past and this concept of Daniel collaborating with younger versions of himself to retouch on sounds he already touched isn't new, but Again feels like the more loose version of this. Age Of had the new age angle, and Magic Oneohtrix Point Never had the radio concept, meanwhile Again feels like a very diverse and familiar Oneohtrix Point Never album. Aside from the familiarity, I'm pretty amazed at the album not sounding disjointed considering the variety of sounds it pulls from (relatively, still just weird electronic niche sounds), and it's really the lush production and the creative songwriting and texturing that keeps the whole thing together, making it still sound fresh and gorgeous despite its inherent familiarity.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





Laurel Halo has been making electronic music for a while over a decade at this point, and even though the albums I visited most were the more ambient pop leaning Dust and the techno Quarantine, a lot of her work as an electronic artist has been in the field of ambient. From her Antenna debut to her previous Raw Silk Uncut Wood record and to the soundtrack she did for Possessed. It's the latter of these that feels most relevant for Atlas, not only because it's the most recent thing she did, but because it's also the closest stylistically, outside of the fact that Atlas is not a soundtrack album.

And what I mean by that is that Laurel Halo's ambient work has been borrowing from drone and electroacoustic music before, but Possessed was the record that also had the biggest share of orchestral music alongside it, and that slightly jazzy orchestral music is also a big part of Atlas' sound. This is still first and foremost an ambient record, so any orchestration within it is washed in dreamlike reverb and feels more like a thing that is happening within the subjective world of the record, very slowly and very washed out, quite akin to something that'd be made by The Caretaker or William Basinksi, coupled with some Tim Hecker-like drones.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





DJ Shadow, who made his name producing instrumental hip-hop (most obviously Endtroducing....., has subsequently found himself experimenting with vocals on his music, with 2019’s Our Pathetic Age featuring a wide range of guest hip-hop artists. In writing a follow-up album, he found that he no longer saw a use in making music ‘formatted for vocals’, and as such, he’s returned to his instrumental-only roots on Action Adventure. The composition of this album was influenced by 80s radio mix tapes bought during the pandemic, and perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s an 80s electronica influence upon this latest album.

DJ Shadow is most strongly associated with instrumental hip-hop, and there are songs here that are tethered to the world of hip-hop in their beats, such as “All My”, “Craig, Ingels, & Wrightson” and “Witches Vs. Warlocks”; however, the album as a whole isn’t confined to hip-hop. Opening song “Ozone Scraper” sees those 80s influences coming through quickly, serving up a synthpop sound in the vein of A-Ha’s “Take On Me”, while the lengthy “Time And Space” feels more closely tied to IDM through its beats and production. Also, having said that this is instrumental-only, there are vocals sampled on this album; “You Played Me” features Jan Jerome’s vocals from RnB song “Baby, Got Me Goin”. Action Adventure can be a bit scattered stylistically, and in truth there’s relatively few songs here that compel further listening, but it’s a respectable enough effort from the veteran.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia





It's a bit ironic to have, in the same edition, an Earl Sweatshirt album that has a MIKE feature, and a MIKE album that has an Earl Sweatshirt feature, especially considering that the former is an album that's a collab with The Alchemist, and MIKE also released a collaborative record with The Alchemist last month (that I didn't get to cover, but it's still pretty good). Small world, huh? Well, especially within this abstract hip-hop scene it's not that uncommon to see these names recurring as collaborators, and MIKE has been making it since 2015, and yet it is Burning Desire that seems to be the one album that has gotten the most attention so far.

There's a sense that this is MIKE's most accomplished album due to this also being the biggest and with the most impressive roasted of guests. The tracklist is still mostly divided into short songs that have a bit of a vignette feeling, and that coupled with MIKE's deadpan monotonous flow can make this a bit of a rougher listen, but the production and songwriting is a bit more colorful this time around enough to soften those issues. That's also helped by how the lyricism deals with introspective emotions and how the guest spots provide a more expansive feeling compared to the flow.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





Abstract hip-hop has been slowly becoming one of the largest sounds of underground hip-hop, the kind of thing that the mainstream is pretty oblivious too but that gets a lot of rep in certain spaces. On the producing side, The Alchemist has worked with pretty much everyone under the sun, but also being very well suited for these kind of rapper x producer records, having done albums like these with Armand Hammer, Freddie Gibbs, and Boldy James. On the other hand, Earl Sweatshirt started out in the Odd Future collective and had one of the most interesting solo careers out of the group, with each of the albums getting more abstract and brief, with most of the songs on the albums since 2018's Some Rap Songs being under or around the two minute mark. The two have worked before pretty extensively, but never over an entire record.

Thus, a collaborative album between the two, from their history to the collaborative nature both of them have shown. There's a pretty tangible chemistry at play, and there's a consistency that comes with it being this focused on the sound. It is very much in the same brief and abstract vein that Earl Sweatshirt has been on for the past five years, hence why the album is under 30 minutes and the songs are this short, though they are slightly longer and more developed this time around. There's a slight feeling that this being just a continuation of the same sound gives way to some saturation, and it gets harder for anything to stick the more I listen to this exact type of sound. I'm generally more receptive to Alchemist's creative slightly jazzy and dreamlike samples than to Earl's malaise delivery, yet I can't deny why that sound works as well as it does is precisely because of that malaise delivery.

Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP





I'm not very well versed in music that is more regional and deviates from the anglocentric countries that have taken over culture for the entire span of my life. So the popular music of pretty much any country is still mostly news to me, but one of the countries that has always given the impression of having a very rich popular music scene is Brazil, with a lot of the samba and bossa nova and related sounds having some impact on the world scene as well. Whether the "MPB" (Música popular brasileira) is a catch-all phrase for that or a specific sound I'm not sure, but I did keep seeing albums with that tag as ones to check out. I didn't quite expect to see a resurgence of that sound with 2020's Ana Frango Elétrico's Little Electric Chicken Heart.

Both that, and the follow-up that we have now with Me Chama De Gato Que Eu Sou Sua are very dual albums. On one hand they work to sound as authentic as possible to the sounds that they're emulating. That seemed to have been more 60s-ish for Little Electric Chicken Heart and closer to 70s/80s smooth city pop for Me Chama De Gato Que Eu Sou Sua, but there's also a push towards taking on these sounds with an approach that can only come from someone in the current decade. There's a bit of a dreamlike feel to the entire record, even if the production is not what I'd call psychedelic, the warm soothing mood can have that effect.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP







Ludvig Swärd’s Forndom is one of the more established acts in the Nordic neofolk scene, thanks to the breakout success of deeply spiritual albums such as Faþir and Dauðra Dura. These subtle, droning compositions with understated melody don’t inherently give off the impression that they are particularly well suited for reworking into modern classical piano music, but Swärd’s next musical step has been a bold one; a re-envisioning of “Jag Vet Ett Tempel Stå" last year as the single “Och Med Vinden Ack De Gunga” has been followed by a full album of reinterpretations, mostly taken from Faþir.

I’m personally very fond of Faþir, so was intrigued to see how much of the magic of these songs would still be present in the piano iterations. As it turns out, while it’s a different type of charm, the minimalist vibe and delicate ringing of the mellow piano keys manages to render the key melodies in the likes of “Jakten” and “Yggdrasil” to similarly great effect; “Jakten” in particular is so tender yet heartfelt that it serves as a perfect companion piece to the original. Alster is arguably a bit too understated to listen to intently for its full runtime, but it makes for exquisite background music, and it is rewarding to bask in the innate beauty of each individual composition.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia





Nordic folk has undergone quite the revival in the past decade or two, to the extent that even non-Nordic artists have fully committed to the sound. Such is the case for Siberian husband-wife duo Nytt Land, which celebrates 10 years of recordings with album number 9, Torem. By this point, the conventions of revivalist Nordic neofolk and the sound of Nytt Land itself have been firmly established, from the backing drones and the central role for percussion on the instrumental side, to the trade-off between spiritual female vocals and troll-like male rasps.

Still, it’s a very effective formula, as demonstrated by the first proper song on the album, “Nord”; the back and forth between Anatoly Pakhalenko’s sinister chants and Natalya Pakhalenko’s echoing evocations against a backdrop of ominous droning notes and steady percussive drive works very nicely, and the melodic strings cameos elevate it further. There’s not a whole lot of variation across Torem, but “Manito” does offer a change of pace by stripping back everything in favour of a dark ambient sound, while closing track “Iavel” gives the twanging mouth-harp centre stage to cap the album off in more light-hearted fashion. There are some shifts in tempo as well, and the lively chorus of “Rise Of Midgard” in particular stands out. There’s nothing particularly novel about Torem, but for fans of the likes of Wardruna or Heilung, Nytt Land are able to write memorable and engaging songs in the same style that should amply satisfy.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by musclassia







I've covered quite a lot of Sufjan Stevens in this feature, especially since he's one of my favorite artists, but it never felt like I was writing about the thing that made him one of my favorite artists. He's done a lot of stuff that was a deviation from his main line of albums, whether the extended ambient multi-series that was Convocations, the piano-led Reflections, and the collaboration with Angelo De Augustine in A Beginner's Mind sounding the closest to what one would expect from the sound. Even the more art pop The Ascension was one that another writer wrote about. So having Javelin as a return to what made me fell in love with his music in the first place, more than just because this marks a return to an indie folk sound but because it feels like the most emotional Sufjan Stevens album since Carrie & Lowell. Though the reasons behind are unfortunately very tragic.

I don't want it too seem like great art can only come from real life suffering, and I wish Sufjan would've made this album without his diagnosis and without his partner passing away. Lyrically and instrumentally, this is about as emotionally resonant as music can get, combining the very vulnerable vocal delivery and fragile structures with instrumentation that can work up to be grandiose. It is the kind of album that really invites you into its world and makes it so easy for you to understand its emotional angle and its beauty. There's a bit of straight-forwardness to the album being 40 minutes and having most of its songs feel like they stand on their own, but the whole thing is tied together by a very cathartic flowing build up in the final three tracks that unifies the entire emotional journey of the album.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP







Kristin Hayter is part of that niche of artists that are not metal and yet have been adopted by the metal crowd in a sense. Though she did appear on metal records by acts like Full Of Hell or The Body or Sightless Pit, but most of her notoriety came from the soul harrowing noisy neoclassical darkwave project Lingua Ignota, one that I covered before. The best way that I could summarize her work as Lingua Ignota is to call it "survivor anthems", and considering how trauma-ridden that material was, and how that trauma was a continuous event, it's understandable why Kristin felt like putting the material to rest, all laid down with a final live album.

However, the name aside, Kristin continues to make soul harrowing music, even if with some tweaks. A lot of what's being done on Saved! has been pointed out before, as religious themes have been part of Lingua Ignota's music since forever, but it feels most closely as a continuation of Sinner Get Ready's more folk-ish take. But Saved! has a much stronger anthropological angle, with a lot of what makes the record interesting being the way the production makes the record feel like something historical, from the lo-fi production to how rough the instrumentals sound to some of the ways the record skips or cuts to samples of speaking tongues. The performance itself, especially Kristin's vocals, is on a completely different level than the kind of hymns that they're emulating, but that only makes the record more unique.

Bandcamp | Apple Music | Spotify

by RaduP

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And that was it. You've made it through still alive. Congrats. See ya next month. Here's a Spotify playlist we compiled out of stuff featured here: