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. Nowhere is this more evident than on the 21-minute long "梦邀 ( 广寒 / 仙游 / 南柯 )" "Sleepwalking (Moon Palace / Sacred Walk / A Fond Dream)".

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Coffin Lurker - Foul and Defiled

Industrial sludge death doom funeral noise from Oakland. Maurice De Jong is the most prolific dude in music, I am certain. Gnaw Their Tongues , Cloak of Altering , De Magia Veterum , Dodenbezweerder are just a few of his projects. Apparently Rene Aquarius from Imperial Cult decided that he would challenge Maurice to a doom-off, and the loser would have to sweep up after the planet was destroyed. This is the sonic record of that planetary destruction. It is also one of the best doom records I've ever heard. Thankfully free of Sabbath worship and lazy rehashing of every boring stoner riff imaginable, this is actually a brand new thing. Suffocatingly vile and planetarily heavy, this is the answer to the unasked question "what would happen if Sunn 0))) were from New Orleans. Foul and Defiled by Coffin Lurker

SPECTRAL WOUND - A Diabolic Thirst

TRVE KVLT BLEK METAL. Black Metal Without Adjectives. However you want to signal that a band or an album is orthodox, foundational, traditional, what have you - this is it. 100% blast beats, tremolo picking, and wraith-rasp shrieks. This is crudeness as an art form. Spectral Wound are now the keepers of the black flame. There is zero nostalgia here. This is true modern black metal, but also exactly what 90's black metal was. I'm going to go ahead and predict that this will be my black metal AotY. It would take truly herculean effort to make better black metal than this. A Diabolic Thirst by SPECTRAL WOUND

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

This album answers an incredibly important question: What if Rick Deckard was a goth? A goth replicant that could pass the Voight-Kampff test easily. More importantly, it provides a stunning backdrop to the writing I am supposed to be doing, but keep avoiding. French composer James Kent has always been something of a polarizing figure. Much of his earlier work has been very HOTLINE MIAMI style synthwave. This is most definitely NOT THAT. Instead you a weird robot sex soundtrack - a post-punk mood piece cloaked in goth rock nihilism and sexual malevolence. Gritty, misanthropic, but still atmospheric and ambient, this is some nice stuff! Lustful Sacraments by PERTURBATOR

Trumpet of Amdusias

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