Trumpet of Amdusias

  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

  I find it very difficult to listen to most music I talk about here while I work. I am way too involved in paying atrention to the music to get any actual writing done. Enter Cryo Chamber Records. Essentially a collection of the best in dark ambient music, they are where I turn for help actually concentrating and getting work done. I think of them as my "lo-fi beats for studying" alternative. They have a YouTube channel full of work-day length mixes in a variety of sub-genres of dark ambient music, and through them I have discovered a whole world of interesting soundscapes, that help me turn my office into a creepy tower in the fog. Which brings us to these Serbian weirdos. "Chants of Liberation" is a set of three gothic litanies to liberate the spirit of Man from the temptation of sin and a crooked path of Heresy. The robed priests from the upper sky-dome of the grand Cathedral are uttering the chants of Salvation to cleanse the ones who stray. The metallic s...

  Jaketeme Odo from Pessimista goes solo to do some anti-fascist  atmo-black.  Tinged with dungeon synth and sometimes melting into straight up 4am dark ambient synth creepiness, this is a bleak album. To isolation, personal losses, hatred for those at the top of the pyramid ... From inside the cave of loneliness, the echoes of wails and fury form shock waves that advance over their heads and open the earth beneath their feet. I just decompose in a dark corner, while I observe the peace of society in the face of aggression. Domesticated, you live peacefully in line at the slaughterhouse. Here inside the cave, I can smell the rotting of his creation and his fears. Unfortunately, it seems to be too late for a reaction to take place on the dominating hand. Maybe this is all just a hallucination, maybe I'm next in line at the slaughterhouse. Maybe I am also blind and I created a parallel reality that I call a cave so that I can feel safe. Our approachin...

  Hailing from Santiago, Chile, Ermita play a very weird, but compelling mix of doom metal and ambient goth rock. It is unusual for me to not have a comparison to make with a band, but this has me stumped. This is a highly idiosyncratic band, and every time I think I have them pinned down, I'm thrown for a loop. But, if you like doomy goth rock, sad boi noizes, and have a generalized unhealthy obsession with crushed black velvet, red candles, and cloved cigarettes, this is an album you should give a listen to. Finis Gloriae by ERMITA

  "Une balle dans le pied" is the lacerating new EP from THROANE, the unsettling sonic incarnation of lauded multi-disciplinary artist Dehn Sora. This latest work finds THROANE engaged in a particularly violent form of void surgery, as the diseased tissue of nightmarish Black Metal, wall-of-sound Doom, Industrial, Noise and Dark Ambient is ripped, reformed and reanimated into a lightless chimera of savage beauty. In Sora’s own words: “THROANE is a project based on instinct. ‘Une balle dans le pied’ translates as ‘A bullet in the foot’, a French expression symbolizing the act of sabotaging oneself. Two tracks, forming one, exploring the language of rhythm and forming a bridge for future full-lengths. As with each release, this composition is the fruit of a short time, an accumulation leading to the need for explosion.” Cover artwork depicts Sora's sister, in echo of previous releases featuring close individuals and the personally symbolic: “Working as a...

 The other day I talked about Forest Shrine , the dungeon forest synth side project of A.Virdeus. This is his main project, dedicated to exploring fantasy versions of what his home region of Värend in Småland, Sweden would have been like in various alternative timelines.  Now, let's be clear, this is ALSO dungeon synth. It is more informed by black metal aesthetics and tropes, but it is still squarely in the dungeon synth genre. (I find myself listening to a lot more of this genre now that I am tied to a desk. Thanks covid for making all my outdoor hobbies potentially deadly to my ancient neighbors) Urheimat by Werendia

  Okay, so Dungeon Synth is a weird weird weird genre. It revolves around black metal musicians making Enya tribute albums, essentially. Taking black metal's primitive, ethereal and, often medieval aesthetics and applying them to ambient soundscapes is the name of the game. Classic dungeon synth releases focus largely on recreating medieval musical styles and textures with synthesizers. More modern dungeon synth branches out a bit, into more traditional black metal preoccupations like forests, hating monotheists, and wearing leather. However the genre's original ethos of foreboding eeriness remains an important foundation.   A. Virdeus is the person behind Forest Shrine, a much more ambient and dungeon synth offshoot of his Werendia project. Whereas Werendia (which will appear here promptly) is an atmospheric or ambient black metal project, full of snarling vocals and guitar work, Forest Shrine is pure synth madness. Forest flavored synth madness of course. Forest Sh...

  Dungeon Synth is a thing that really divides people. It seems to not be enough to dislike it for some. They have to let you know how beneath them they think the whole thing is. The rest of us however, like functioning adults, can either take it or leave it. I'm not one for the more sword and sorcery themed dungeon synth, but this moldering castle on a foggy hilltop vibe is definitely my thing. When it is like this - brooding and damp - I'll take it.  This goes firmly in my "I need to get some work done" concentration playlist rotation. The 'lo-fi hip hop beats to study by' for middle aged dudes in corpse paint. Bane of The Old Gods by Ancient Iron