Every Friday, a wagon arrives at the Sleeping Village’s gates, stuffed to the brim with our sustenance for the following week. Today is the day we must offload all this new music, and so, in the process, we thought it would be worthwhile to share some of our choice picks from this veritable mass of fresh meat. This is what we’ll be listening to today here at the Village HQ. We hope you join us in doing so! Note: there has been a veritable tsunami of high-quality releases today. This is but a fraction of the stuff you should check out. Reviews in forthcoming days will seek to fill the gaps! - Ed. On the docket for today, April 24th, 2020: Marmalade Knives, Total Fucking Destruction, Sölicitör, and Lord Fowl (and Firelink!)
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Every Friday, a wagon arrives at the Sleeping Village’s gates, stuffed to the brim with our sustenance for the following week. Today is the day we must offload all this new music, and so, in the process, we thought it would be worthwhile to share some of our choice picks from this veritable mass of fresh meat. This is what we’ll be listening to today here at the Village HQ. We hope you join us in doing so! On the docket for today, April 16th, 2020: At the Altar of the Horned God, FOES, REPTILIUM, and Funeral Leech
Here at the Sleeping Village, we keep our most revered albums in....a very special place. Their time may have gone, but they are certainly not forgotten. Today's pick: another one of The Voiceless Apparition's all-time favorites. The man, as you may have noticed, is on a goddamn roll with these retrospectives!
Written by: The Voiceless Apparition
Germany is quite known for their metal scene, whether it's the thrash of Sodom, the metalcore of Heaven Shall Burn, the death metal brutality of Morgoth...but then there's Bethlehem. Bethlehem is quite an enigma in the German metal scene. They're pioneers (hell, they basically created dark metal) but also remain underlooked and underappreciated. So for my next review I decided to take on their legendary and underrated debut album known as Dark Metal, released in August of 1994 (exact date unknown) on Adipocere Records. Let's dive in to one of metal's more obscure albums. "The Eleventh Commandment" begins the album on a catchy and eerily groovy note. The opening riff is superb: filled with melody, dread, and atmosphere. While this song is a great way to begin the album, it DOES NOT represent the album as whole, in my opinion. To drive that point home, track two, "Apocalyptic Dance," is where the album really kicks off. This song is the definition of dynamic. Melding in between spaced out sections and crushing doom, this song is a journey. My favorite part of the song is the last few minutes, because the song fades out, only to re-emerge into a down-trodden and depressive section with piano and a really memorable bass-line to keep you engaged, courtesy of founder Jurgen Bartsch. Here at the Sleeping Village, we keep our most revered albums in....a very special place. Their time may have gone, but they are certainly not forgotten. Today's pick: another one of The Voiceless Apparition's all-time favorites. Read on! Written by: The Voiceless Apparition Part III of my retrospective review series! Today's review is brought to you by the highly underrated Italian black metal band Opera IX and their second studio album entitled Sacro Culto, released on April 18th, 1998, on Shiver Records. This album marked an evolution in the band's sound compared to their first album, bringing in more elements of doom metal, gothic metal, classical, and small hints of folk, while still retaining their black metal roots. Does this extension of the bands sound work in their favor? Let's dive in. Right off the bat, opening track "The Oak" swings out the gate and beats you over the head with a barrage of brutal and heavy riffs, but there's also a strong emphasis on the keyboards being a major part of the band, as they are implemented throughout Sacro Culto as a whole. This song is pretty pummeling the whole way through and serves as a teaser to what's to come, but without showing too much. Followup "Fronds of the Ancient Walnut" is a beast of a track. While still being brutal, there is a lot more atmospheric compared to the previous song. The stars of this song are the riffs, and the keyboards/piano. They really complement each other so well, the guitar riffs/tone are so heavy and the keys are so pretty and spacious and gothic--all told, it really mixes well together. This is a definite highlight on the album. Every Friday, a wagon arrives at the Sleeping Village’s gates, stuffed to the brim with our sustenance for the following week. Today is the day we must offload all this new music, and so, in the process, we thought it would be worthwhile to share some of our choice picks from this veritable mass of fresh meat. This is what we’ll be listening to today here at the Village HQ. We hope you join us in doing so! On the docket for today, April 10th, 2020: Like Rats, CURSE, Benighted, and the Women of Doom compilation
Here at the Sleeping Village, we keep our most revered albums in....a very special place. Their time may have gone, but they are certainly not forgotten. Today's pick: another one of The Voiceless Apparition's all-time favorites. Read on! Written by: The Voiceless Apparition Hello everyone. Here is part II of my retrospective review series. Today I'm going to be reviewing the second studio album from Chicago dark metal pioneers Novembers Doom. Entitled Of Sculpted Ivy and Stone Flowers, this album was released on May 25th, 1999. This album marks a huge shift in the band's sound compared to their debut album, as they almost completely shed their death/doom bruteness (not entirely) and went instead for a more melancholy and melodic gothic metal sound. The album begins on a melancholic note, as "With Rue and Fire" is a hauntingly painful song. Drowning in despair and regret, this song pulls at your heartstrings. With such heartbreaking lyrics like: "In some sick way, I enjoy my pain/It always seems to indulge me," you can't help but feel for vocalist Paul Kuhr as he belts out growls with such agony and conviction. "The Jealous Sun" picks up the pace a little bit, albeit with dynamic and mood shifts. I really liked the choice of layering the growls and clean vocals together in the first verse, it gives it more of an epic feeling to it. Major praise needs to be given to guitarist Eric Burnley as his choice of chords and melodies is fantastic. Towards the 4:00 mark we segue into a beautiful section of gorgeous clean guitars and the amazing vocals of Cathy Jo Hejna. Here at the Sleeping Village, we keep our most revered albums in....a very special place. Their time may have gone, but they are certainly not forgotten. Today's pick: one of The Voiceless Apparition's favorites--an album with which this slumbering administrator was sadly unfamiliar. Until now. Read on! Written by: The Voiceless Apparition I've decided to do a small retrospective series during this quarantine and review some of my favorite classic and underrated metal bands. Today's review is the sole studio album from Cabal entitled Midian. This album features legendary Necrophagia singer Killjoy on vokills. "Images in Blood" begins on a mighty note. Strong frantic riffs, groove, and hooks. Killjoy's vocals are absolutely unhinged on this album, ranging from maniacal throaty screams and evil growls. "Midian" starts out with this really airy and sinister riff before exploding into a thrashing fury. There's one particular section in the song I want to talk about and it's around the 2:47 mark: this riff is beastly and I love the way they open with the tom hits and keep building up until we go into the most insanely catchy groovy section ever. "Dark Desires" is once again another highlight. While still having fast parts, this song is far more groovy in my opinion. The riffs are infectious. So memorable and catchy, I guess that could be said about all of the riffs on the album. A fantastic way to close out the first half of this album.
Here at the Sleeping Village, we keep our most revered albums in....a very special place. Their time may have gone, but they are certainly not forgotten. Today's pick: one of 2018's most blatantly fun albums. Read on!
We Villagers are hardly the first to recognize that metal fans, despite corpsepaint’d convention, sometimes like having a little bit o’ fun. Representing one side of this attitude are deliberately goofy groups such as Gloryhammer and Nekrogoblikon...and on the other are bands like The Crown whose sheer joy in making music injects a palpable sense of fun, albeit minus the silliness. This is all to say that Cobra Speed Venom, despite small flaws, remains one of the most deliberately fun and exciting releases I had the pleasure of hearing during the year in question.
Since those primordial days of Ye Olde Sleeping Village, I've found myself returning to this album somewhat regularly. It's a form of comfortable escapism, if you will.
Here at the Sleeping Village, we keep our most revered albums in....a very special place. Their time may have gone, but they are certainly not forgotten. As ye may have noted, we're trawling through many of our 2018 Album of the Year picks--many of which, I'm pleased to state, still hold up today. On the docket for today: my personal #3 album of '18. Read on!
Like dissecting a joke, the process of over-analysis often kills the magic...but sometimes, it serves to enhance. The latter holds true here, & I can say with great satisfaction that over multiple attempts to pen this review, Paara’s Riitti has only tightened its delightful stranglehold. This is a masterfully crafted & richly emotive album, expressing folkish and blackened influences with a vibrancy eschewing mere imitation. Comparable to the glory days of Insomnium, or perhaps Moonsorrow if their songwriting wasn’t so, well, bland, each of these four tracks drives forward at natural gait without ever feeling overdone. This is particularly so in the case of intro track "Viimeinen virta"--the longest of the bunch, no less. A brave move with spectacular payoff.
Every Friday, a wagon arrives at the Sleeping Village’s gates, stuffed to the brim with our sustenance for the following week. Today is the day we must offload all this new music, and so, in the process, we thought it would be worthwhile to share some of our choice picks from this veritable mass of fresh meat. This is what we’ll be listening to today here at the Village HQ. We hope you join us in doing so! On the docket for today, April 3rd, 2020: SKAM, Weed Demon, AARA, and Lucifer Star Machine
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Welcome!We provide thoughtful reviews of music that is heavy, gloomy...and loud enough to wake us from slumber. Written by a highfalutin peasantry. What are ye
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