Blood of the Black Owl - Rivers Within Shadows

Switching things up for today, we've got some pagan/nature worship inspired funeral doom for you, courtesy of Seattle Washington's Blood of the Black Owl, a one(?) person project dedicated to “Medicinal Musicals” and personal transformation.

Enigma for the Cascadian Metal contingent (and I mean that in the best way possible), this is an album you could imagine hearing playing in a new age bookstore in a college town circa 1995.

Given that I lived in the basement of such a store in such a town in 1995, this is a blast of nostalgia, nicely updated.

Comments

Agriculture - Agriculture

a While calling themselves ''ecstatic" black metal, Agriculture traipses along the line between atmo-black and blackgaze pretty adroitly. I am not as head over heels as some of the metal press I have been reading about them (like Rolling Stone for instance), but I think they have a good thing going here. They remind me of Vattnet Viskar sort of, and I am going to withhold judgement until I can see them live to really decide. That said, this is an album that has been in heavy rotation at my house since its release. Agriculture by Agriculture

葬尸湖 (Zuriaake) - 孤雁 (Gu Yan)

The thing I continue to love about this album, now five years after it came out, is how unabashedly Chinese it is. For me, there is nothing quite so nice as taking something from somewhere else and adapting it to your particular circumstance, whether it be food, music, or whatever else. The world is filled with terrible Nordic imitators, so I am always really stoked to see bands who lean in hard to their local scene / culture / roots. This is probably one of the albums that really sent me down that path, and I will always be indebted to Zuriaake for that. Gu Yan is an epic, sprawling, even cinematic, album, and should appeal to fans of bands like Wolves in the Throne Room and Primordial . Musically, there are serious elements of Summoning here, but most of this album is utterly unique to Zuriaake and the atmosphere they build is entirely their own. Traditional instruments back up the backbone of the sound, not as a gimmick, but as the bedrock on which the whole edifice rests. ...

Valais - Valais

I love the pathological hatred of self-promotion that defines a lot of underground black metal, but it sure does make it hard to write about new bands some times. I know absolutely nothing about this band other than that they are from Dublin Ireland, and they play the sort of goblin vocal, snare heavy ritual occult black metal I like to listen to in those rare moments where I have the house to myself. Three main songs, with two shorter interludes, identified by roman numerals and nothing else. The interludes are piano and acoustic guitar bits that add a deeper dimension to what might otherwise be too much onslaught of 90mph diabolism. I personally am pretty into this as an End of Year List candidate. Definitely one of the best albums I've heard in May. Valais by Valais

Trumpet of Amdusias

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