Lividus – Teratorns (2023) / 83%

 

Uta is back!

I was pretty shaken by Uta Plotkin’s departure from Witch Mountain almost ten years ago. I guess I’m fine now, it’s been a while, come on Tony! After leaving the Portland doom band, she became a yoga teacher but didn’t do a lot musically (at least stuff that’s been released) but I was glad to learn that she was back with a new band. Teratorns is the second extended play by Lividus and it bangs hard.

Plotkin’s minimal use of harsh vocals in Witch Mountain (see the albums South of Salem or Cauldron of the Wild) was enjoyable even though I really loved her clean ones. They have a bigger spotlight here and it doesn’t disappoint. The second track “The Witness” is an even mix of gnarly slicing harsh vocals and high pitched powerful cleans and it works well, I was happy to hear her amazing voice again. Musically, we’re somewhere else from Witch Mountain, it’s quite interesting too. Drummer Pierce Williams ( Ænigmatum, Skeletal Remains, Torture Rack...) and guitarist Rob Shaffer (Dark Castle, Lord Dying...) are in the lineup and they’re both super talented musicians adding their influences to the fold. I’d say that this is some sort of avant garde progressive death/thrash/extreme metal, there’s dissonance, fast death metal riffs (check out the opener “Tis’forundal”) and intense blastbeats. All this is intertwined with Plotkin’ fantastic use of layered vocals singing dark poetic lyrics. The three tracks are all fairly short and fast and doesn’t mess around. The band sorts of reminds me of Voivod in how peculiar they are.

Lividus are able to combine dissonance, darkness and experimental ideas with a melodic approach, it’s surprising and takes a few interesting turns throughout the eleven minutes duration of this release that I’ve put on repeat, it’s quite good and I’m stoked to hear what they’ll do next.

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Khôrada - Salt (2018) / 90%

Tasty like salt-cured pork

After the highly publicized dissolution of Agalloch, one of this generation’s most important band, we were promised two different projects by its members. Pillorian was formed by the “leader” John Haughm who received a lot of flack for the way Agalloch ended and the three other members (Don Anderson, Jason William Walton and Aesop Dekker) decided to join forced with Aaron John Gregory from California’s Giant Squid, recently put on hold

I’m not gonna do a review within a review but it’s hard to talk about this album without talking about Pillorian too. I was far from thrilled with the new project from Haughm and the way he pushed his fellow band members under the bus definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. Pillorian’s Obsidian Arc felt like an unfinished continuation of Agalloch’s black metal identity. While competent, it didn’t impress me and I thought originality was lacking. While the album was released, I had high hopes when Gregory was announced to be a part of the second band as Giant Squid’s Minoans was one of my favorite albums of 2014. My hope wasn’t misplaced as this a grand and epic album.

We’re served seven elaborated pieces of music all furnished with elaborate rhythms and time signatures while remaining fairly melodic and atmospheric. The influences of Sculptured (Don Anderson’ band who’s been quiet since 2008) and Giant Squid are fairly present but it’s its own thing. Their style is fairly hard to categorize (which frankly can often be an inane thing to do) as they mix a lot of different styles into one really solid amalgam. While heavy enough to be seen or considered as metal, there’s a smooth feel throughout the whole record. Dekker’s intense and uncompromising drumming casts light where darkness is present and the guitars of Anderson and Gregory have never felt so vibrantly intelligent. From quasi funeral doom to blackened elegance, songs like “Seasons of Salt” encompass their whole sound in a compact nine minutes. It’s fast, elegant and can bring back some of the late 90s avant garde/doom/gothic/progressive death black sound found in Northern Europe, something Agalloch was also quite fond of.

There’s a lot of subtle surprises on Salt. From the ode to family that is “Augustus” which feels like a mix between a lullaby and some folky gospel to the quasi synthwave overture of the closing song “Ossify”. Let’s not forget the beautiful opening of “Glacial Cold” with its cello. Despite those moments, the album is a constant masterpiece without any boring sections or unnecessary parts. Aaron John Gregory’s vocals are surely the highlights for me. From raw and deep to soft and charismatic, he did a great job at the helm of Khôrada. He reminds me of Alan Averill (Primordial) with the way he can make clean vocals an eerie affair and still maintains an aura of darkness with the combination of his lyrical prowess and vocal exercises.

Gregory also wrote all the lyrics which are painting a pretty grim portrayal of Earth’s natural equilibrium. “Water Rights” speaks of how profit is ruining our resources and “Wave State” talks about how we’ll be destroyed by a drought and possibly engulfed under water as the Earth is destroyed. Regardless of the lyrical matter, I feel that their music isn’t without hope and the album serves more as a conceptual lecture about what sort of catastrophes the future has in stock for us than an arrogant warning written by someone who joined Greenpeace last week.

Nature is convinced
it's time for a sixth
extinction event
before man has the chance
to gnaw her to the bone


While I loved the album, I’m sure Khôrada can actually do better and I have high hopes for their future. Salt is both bright and grim, it’s both balanced and inventive and never forgets to be profound while maintaining an accessible approach.

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Oksennus - Sokea idiootti (2016) / 84%

Finland is weird. We all know that. Still, I wasn’t quite prepared for Oksennus’ music. I was intrigued by the simple yet out there artwork so I decided to check their sound and I wasn’t disappointed. Most stuff released by Caligari Records is high quality and this is no exception.

Oksennus (vomit in Napero-speech) relies heavily on the excellent bass to build their compositions, the bass is heavy and fast but at the same time, it’s also soft and melodic. It creates some sort of dichotomy with the guitars that are often quite noisy and metallic. There’s this conscious choice to make the rhythm section louder than the guitars and it works well for them. The bass creates the main melodies and the guitars just builds the foundations underneath. It’s a cohesive album, it’s the songwriting that’s just very fucked up and original. They took the current blackened doomy death metal trend, stripped it of everything, burned the house and built a new one from scratch. There’s also this odd technical feel, probably inspired by how they thought Demilich used to sound.

The vocals are mostly deep cavernous howls but the track “Ekstirpaatio” features some clean but ominous chanting, reminding me of a twisted version of Viikate. All in all, like with most metal genres, Finland shows that it’s able to put its own touches to something and make it crazy. Oksennus’ music is cold, unforgiving and worth looking into if like the Finns, you hate everything but saunas.

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StarGazer - A Merging to the Boundless (2016) / 96%

Academic War Metal

This is a seriously weird but addictive album and its wide mix of elements shouldn’t work as well as it does. The Australian trio cultivates a mysterious and magical aura throughout their elusive albums. This 2014 effort was released 4 years after the excellent A Great Work of Ages and I bet it’s gonna take a while to get a new one. This is fine though since despite the short length of this album, there’s so many things to discover on every spin. The fact that the members are involved in other high caliber bands such as Mournful Congregation or Cauldron Black Ram (if you’re not familiar with both of them, check them out too) could also explain the long periods between full lengths.

While I certainly like straight death metal with no frills or gimmicks, I do prefer adventurous bands unleashing weirdness upon weirdness. That’s why I think Horrendous released one of the best recent death metal albums with  Ecdysis and it’s probably why Opeth is my favorite band (I guess they still count as death metal, right?). StarGazer are definitely one of those exploratory bands and they have an unparalleled vision. Traveling through avant-garde seas like their fellow Australians Portal, I do feel this trio made their experimental blend of extreme metal more natural by removing the obsessive Lovecraftian horror element of The Curator’s band. The most impressive component of this trio is their level of musicianship, it’s simply through the roof. They’re basically Australia’s extremely cult response to Rush, Atheist, Death but also to Incantation and Demilich, if this makes sense. Like their other compatriot Ulcerate, the trio consisting of the usual metal instruments are able to push the generic envelope of such a formula but contrary to the Everything Is Fire Tasmanians, they don’t do it by creating a massive wall of sound. They do it with a superbly smart sound full of intelligent moments like no one else.

What’s also exceptional about them is their ability to integrate an experimental approach so easily in their songs. They almost hide the fact that they’re weird by just being riff machines, a good example of this would be “Black Gammon”, the aggressive opener. The song starts in a somewhat safe way but then bludgeon you with insane bass licks.

There’s also the variations in moods and tempos that are quite interesting, “An Earth Rides Its Endless Carousel” has this smooth section incorporated with ease and it’s just unbelievable. There’s also some brief clean vocals to accentuate the transition. Speaking of vocals, I’ll admit I can really say who of either Damon Good (known as The Great Righteous Destroyer here) or Denny Blake (The Serpent Inquisitor) are singing since they share the duty but there’s a grand variety of extreme metal vocals styles. From deep, cavernous growls to the more traditional thrashy death style (opening of “Incense and Aeolian Chaos”), and I must say that every facets of this aspect of StarGazer’s personality is thoroughly enjoyable. If you add the fact that the lyrics are totally bonkers, you get an interesting album. The mix of magical, mystical and fantasy themes written with in poetical but also academical sort of way is without a doubt one of the highlights of the record for me. Let me go back to what I was saying about the “hidden” weirdness, the lyrics absolutely add this eccentric flavor.

Antiquial light shed with a wave of lichen hand
An ancient tress, a wooden pulse
Varnish reeks, shadows creak
A stale grace, old tea, old tea

The Australian trio are in fact a war metal band turned into an university professor. They went to war, killed a bunch of innocent people, came back and finished their English literature PhD and wrote about their experiences. The skilled marriage of death and black metal (war metal is often a mix of both and some added elements) is actually hard to distinguish, I do think they’re a bit more on the death metal side most of the time but there’s definite black metal elements on Merging. They play technical death without falling into the easy tropes of the genre, no overlong soloing or disastrous odd time signatures written to impress kids. It’s just unhinged drumming with mesmerizing bass lines and intricate guitars. The eleven minutes song “The Grand Equilizer” is obviously the centerpiece of this album, it has all their elements and it’s just a fantastic progressive metal track full of twists and turns. The album then ends its (relatively) brief essay with two harder and to the point tracks. I guess I’ll just replay it until I fully understand it.

The album is usually pretty cheap on Nuclear War Now! so grab it, it’s just incredible.

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Koprotopsy – Eternal Extinction (2016) / 70%

Mesopotamian brutal death made in a French bedroom? 

Koprotopsy is a one man band from France and I’m not totally sure why I like this album as much as I do. I mean, I know I shouldn’t and deep down I’m pretty sure that my inner person thinks it sucks but I managed to ignore what my brain is saying and enjoy this album. Michaël Sikli also known as Sainte Vermine, is in many projects, now something common with the development of technologies and internet but this is the first one I’ve discovered and it’s impressive in its own way.

Even if it can be seen as amateurish or even a bedroom metal band, there’s an obvious richness to this project. The combination of genres is pretty unique and it creates an avant-garde formula. You take the bass heavy dynamics of the totally insane Estonian duo Neoandertals but remove some of the crude craziness from it and you add guitars but not loud ones as you don’t want to bury the clicky bass! This is the core of their genre but it’s not over yet, Koprotopsy is adding ethnic influences to make their music completely bonkers. At times it sounds like Melechesh and Cult of Fire just discovered brutal death metal in a Russian basement full of slam wiggers. While it’s all programmed instrumentation for the estranged parts, it sounds good and it’s well done. The production for the metal elements is definitely sub-par but I didn’t really mind this. Sure, a solid production with real drums, louder guitars and real ethnic instruments would had been better but I think a large part of my enjoyment come from the fact that it’s a cheap home production.

The fourteen minutes track “Engraved Into Ashes” has pretty much everything. Piano parts intertwined with huge bass licks, dark ambient bits and toy machine gun blastbeats played underneath a symphonic doom/death moment. It’s fun, for sure. The vocals are probably way too high in the mix and the deep growls are nothing really special, it’s not what’s interesting about this album and should probably be considerably lowered on the future releases.

It’s the equivalent of cooking something that you think will turn out totally inedible because you mixed weird ingredients together but when you take a bite, you tell yourself “ehhhh not bad”. This is bad but good and it’s hard to explain why I ate the whole thing. He also released the Primitive Deathcult EP in 2016 and it’s worth checking out as well, it’s one long track showcasing the ethnic side even more.

Thanks to my buddy Caspian for the discovery.

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Metal Bounty Hunter: Volume 6

Yellow Eyes – Sick with Bloom (2015) / 79%
Gilead Media
"Behind Yellow Eyes" - Fred Durst

New York is definitely a hot bed for “hipster” black metal with Krallice at the forefront (sup Colin Marston) and Yellow Eyes fits the scene. While I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan of dissonant black metal, I do appreciate the genre and I don’t think it’s the worst thing to ever happen to the underground. While not as discordant and “technical” as Krallice, Yellow Eyes do share a lot of similarities with them in the way they compose their songs and riffs. Their six compositions are all somewhat on the long side with loads of well written riffs and buried yet enjoyable typical screams. While not an atmospheric band per se, tracks like “The Mangrove, The Preserver” explores a more natural territory than most of their counterparts without turning too much into hippie/tree lovers like Wolves in the Throne Room or Skagos. Nonetheless, the excellent closer “Ice in the Spring” certain has this forest feel with its ethereal outro full of cicadas and subtle acoustic guitar

Band members Will and Sam Skarstad (no, it’s not a Viking metal band) self produced the album and they were able to retain this vivid raw sound and it was for the best, really. I can’t wait to see these guys in Montréal when they’ll play with Forn.

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Witchthroat Serpent – Sang-dragon (2016) / 54%

Deadlight Entertainment

The Baguette Doom Series pt. XVI: Cloning

The big trend in doom metal right is to sound like Electric Wizard. This French trio is quite good at it, perhaps too good even. The main problem of this scene is the fixation on the SOUND and the AMPS. I mean it’s one of the reasons it’s getting more and more popular with the non traditional metal crowds. It’s LOUD music. If you know your doom, you’ll get nothing new with Witchthroat Serpent, even their name is inspired by the used, unoriginal tropes of the genre. What you’re getting here is the standard doom/stoner clean vocals (not as buried as usual) with heavy, mid-paced to slow riffing and efficient bluesy solos. I mean, it’s not bad at all, it’s even pretty good sometimes (“Into the Black Wood”) but it’s just mundane. There’s too many bands playing this style and the scene is saturated. Be an innovator, not a follower. If you can’t wait for the next EW album, check this out.

Altarage – NIHL (2016) / 93%
Iron Bonehead/Doomentia Records/Sentient Ruin Laboratories

Basque annihilation

I really liked Altarage’s debut demo (both tracks reappear here) released last year and I was expecting something great for their debut full length, I’m far from disappointed. This is perhaps the heaviest and most insane album of the year, it’s mindblowing good. It’s primitive death/black metal with a strong war metal attitude, they’re usually in an insane crushing vibe but they can deliver on the occult atmospheric side as well (such as the debut of “Graehence”). As expected, the drumming is super fast, the guitars are so loud and heavy that their sound just creates a loud but totally blissful and enjoyable mess. Sure, it’s repetitive but so is life, death is the only solution and these guys certainly kill everything they encounter.

Think of Adversarial but add some grind intensity, a more vicious attitude and an additional thickness and you wouldn’t be too far from what Altarage plays. Their music and pummeling guitars are so intense that NIHL becomes some sort of trance experience that will nail you to your chair Nightmarish music that would make our ancestors kill themselves out of fear. All hail nihilism, the Earth is doomed anyway.

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Geryon – The Wound and the Bow (2016) / 83%

Profound Lore Records

Bass n' drums abstract exploration

This band formed by the rhythm section of Krallice (yes, them again) is quite interesting. It’s some sort of bass and drums exploration into cacophonous experimental death metal. They’re like Neoandertals if the Estonian band wasn’t terrible and hilarious. The bass playing of McMaster is perfect in all its dissonant glory, as a novice (if I can call myself a novice at all) bass player, it’s fun to hear the instrument at the forefront. Compared to what I’ve heard from the debut, this is more experimental and less than trying to play death metal without guitars. The drumming of Weinstein is jazzy and full of subtleties, he really shows how good he is on the closer “Dioscuri” and its long extended instrumental moments. There’s not a lot of vocals but when McMaster sings, it’s deep vitriolic harsh vox with a sludgey feel. It's meditative, entrancing material with a simple and uncomplicated yet technical approach, I think the cover art done by the bassist/vocalist is a good representation of how abstract the whole thing is.

It may seem like a pretentious fest played by NY snobs but it’s actually highly emotional in the same sense that improvisational jazz can be, it’s metal that’s free of conventions, rigid ideas of what the “metaldom” should be and should like. It “transcends” labels and isn’t for the narrow minded. Post-black? Avant-garde? Experimental? Who cares, it’s intelligent and well played.

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Leeches of Lore – Motel of Infinity (2015) / 95%

Room service is here and it's freaking delicious

One of the oddest bands in America but also one of the most interesting and talented is back with their fourth full length after a short hiatus and I couldn't be more pleased. They once again released a masterpiece and it's a shame that this band isn't widely acclaimed. The New Mexico trio led by Steve Hammond (guitar, vocals) has always been a peculiar beast and a superbly varied affair. They're an extraterrestrial being who's not afraid of experimenting and breaking the boundaries of music's apparent limitations. From fast paced and thrashy heavy metal to noise rock, drone (their Giant Sloth extended play) and Western, these guys can play anything while never being totally confused of confusing. They could be compared to Melvins, the godfathers of weirdness in terms of vision and and for their numerous genre jumping jacks. They also really love the Washington state band, Hammond covered some of their tracks on his solo releases and they got the help of longtime Melvins producer and guest musician Toshi Kasai (who also plays additional instruments on this record) to produce and record Motel of Infinity. This dude definitely gave them their best production yet

Starting with the first thing I've noticed: the cover art, I think it's a good representation of the spirit of Leeches of Lore, an old cheap motel with a view on a clear and beautiful sky. I think it's an analogy to the humble identity of the band while explaining their grand vision. I probably like it because it reminds me of the album Motel Capri by the popular Quebecois folk/rock band Les Cowboys Fringants. Anyhow, like the epic cover of their previous record, this more down to earth artistic approach fits the festive, at times summery album.

LoL (best acronym ever?) surprised us (me, at least) with a country EP in late July. I instantly shared it to my father who's a big Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings fan and he totally liked it. This shows that they're an authentic group of musicians who are as ecclectic as much as the United States is cosmopolitan. I wasn't sure of what to expect with this new full length as Frenzy, Ecstasy was some sort of transition effort (this doesn't mean that it's not a masterpiece, I gave it a 98% three years ago and this score is still adequate) after their first two lps which were generally much heavier or more metallic (listen to “I am the Raptor” from their self titled). Their third album was heavy but in a noise way and the spaghetti western side of the band was deeply explored. I think the western side of the band has been diluted for Motel, there's some sort of surf rock feel that is now more prevalent and while there's some metal moments like “Don't Open till Doomsday”, a track that reminded me of Faith No More's Angel Dust, it doesn't seem like a totally metal album, it's instead all over the place but in a cohesive way. It's a more controlled sort of craziness than your usual Mike Patton project.

The omnipresence of Noah Wolter's keyboards (rhodes, etc.) is giving a sort of The Doors/Deep Purple vibe but played in Area 51 since it's totally bonkers. There's no bass guitars so the rhythm section consists of the proficient and interesting drums of Andy Lutz and the keys. It's almost as strong as the Manzarek/Densmore duo! Their musicianship is impressive in its ability to navigate many styles without breaking a sweat, they're excellent musicians in complete control of their direction.

I like the fact they rerecorded “White Debbie” (found on Attack the Future), it's much shorter and feels like a more joyful and softer version. There's also “The Olm” originally on Hammond's experimental album Canclo and it's the only long track on there with its six minutes length, the track has this sort of drone/doom/ambient part before exploding into their bombastic style. Most songs on Motel are short bursts of creativity (many are around the two minutes mark) but they're so rich with details that the relatively brief duration of the album is inconsequential, I'll only press the repeat button since I doubt I'll get tired of it. While the songs are shorter overall than on Frenzy, Ecstasy, it's perhaps not as instantly memorable, it takes a lot of tie to dissect all the organs but it's truly rewarding.

Leeches of Lore is a persevering band but you need to make some effort in order to decipher all the artefacts they buried underneath their inventive blend of music. They're adventurous not only because they mix genres that are rarely or even never combined together (speed metal + western, anyone?). LoL has once again wrote a masterful album and took the lead for “best album of 2015” as far as I'm concerned.

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Remmirath - Shambhala Vril Saucers (2015) / 86%

Too weird for Agent Scully

Imagine something weird, something magical and truly out there or something hidden in the highest mountains of Nepal and you have yet to reach the pinnacle of what Remmirath is about. The Slovakian's troop second full length is one of the weirdest albums you can find in metal nowadays. Sigh wishes they would be this exploratory and avant-garde but Mirai is probably too busy hanging out with Mikannibal backstage. This quintet definitely went to the Master's Hammer's school of wonders (think of their controversial album Šlágry), it's just one country away and everything is nearby in Europe while I need to pack provisions for a week if I'm going out to get the newspaper here.

I knew that I was in for an experimental ride when I noticed that the album had a member dedicated to and I quote “Effects, Tingsha and Throat chanting”. Some other instruments included on the record are the Melodica, the Glockenspiel, the Thunderbox, the jaw harp, the claves or even some maracas. We're pretty far from the traditional bass, guitar and drums setup, friends. They still manage to incorporate these elements gracefully, it's all over the place, yes but not in a highly chaotic, dissonant or disorderly manner. Compared to their excellent debut “Polis Rouge” released back in 2008, this album is less metal but perhaps as good and interesting.

The six songs release could be divided in at least two parts but let's keep it minimal and say that the first four four tracks are an amalgamation of extreme metal and well, everything that they managed to fit inside their minds. This includes ethnic world music (think Indian, Nepalese and obviously Eastern European as the band is Slovakian), progressive metal à la Alchemist, surf rock and Sergio Leone spaghetti western music reminding me of one of my favorite bands, Leeches of Lore (listen to “The Gunfighter's Quest for Enlightment”).

Secondly, the last two songs are non-metal psychedelic explorations with strange sampled vocals and Melechesh-esque Mesopotamian rhythms. The album's ending is unusual but it's not a bad thing, it's incredible to hear an album that's so diverse but so cohesive at the same time. It almost has nothing to do with Satan's favorite music though, it's more about the Dalai-Lama playing poker in space while getting a blowjob from an Indian hooker living in Bratislava.

The opener “Tiger of the City” starts with a bang and these deep harsh vocals and includes a wide array of psychedelia. It has a vintage video-game section before going back to the melodic progressive black metal riffs that you heard early on. The metal riffs, when present, are legit, not always black metal either, it has this progressive death metal vibe from time to time. Outside of the unorthodox instruments mentioned earlier, the traditional rock music elements are through the roof. The bass is thick, highly audible, almost fret-less in its presence and the drums are varied and technically proficient. Nonetheless, these doesn't quite matter in the grand scheme of things, I was wooed by the tremendous originality of their music. It's not for everyone, probably for a small minority of people, this is uncompromising and weirder than Yoko Ono on acid.

Also, random fact, the album was released on my birthday and I heard it on the same day. It was a weird anniversary to say the least!

Remmirath on Bandcamp

Interview with Sami Hynninen (Opium Warlords, ex-Reverend Bizarre and many more)

Metantoine's Magickal Realm: I see you as a grand wizard part of the doom metal council at the top of some white towers, I know you've been kind of inactive in the purest tradition of the genre but what do you think is the state of doom in 2014? I personally think some of the innovations (see Pallbearer) are tacky.

Sami Hynninen: Yes, it is true that I am out of the scene in many ways, also as a follower of actions of other bands. I have heard some of the newer ones, but nothing really mind blowing, I am sad to say. 

Of the ones I have heard, I liked the ultra rough first demo of Doomsower a lot. Finnish band Carnutian also did an enjoyable demo, but then ceased to exist. I like Uncle Acid and the Deadbeat's “Mind Control”. I was bit puzzled with their massive following in Roadburn 2013, and did not quite get the thing, but that album turned out to be good! 

Pilgrim's debut album was delightful too. I think they are, or at least were on that debut – I have not heard the second album! – the only band that has succeeded to continue what we did with Reverend Bizarre, but even they lack, in their fantasy based themes and more coherent sounds, some lunacy and danger that was essential for our work. Good for them though, as the basis for that insanity and violence was in our bad life as a band. And I am not saying that they should sound exactly as we did, of course not –  but they almost did! Except that they can actually play their instruments.

In my ears Pallbearer is bit too soft to really attract or interest me.  I listen to many different kinds of music, but there has to be some element of roughness there. Some dirt. But I do not want to put anybody down as I am not “there” anymore. They have some echoes of Warning's magnificent second album, don't they? But then again for ME that has already been done. And even with Warning I liked the earliest material – “Revelation Looms” and  “Blessed by the Sabbath” – the best, when it comes to DOOM. That second album is something else; one of its own kind. Very emotional masterpiece! 

The state of doom in 2014 is good at least on that level that we are doing the fourth Spiritus Mortis album hah hah hah!

MMR: Taste my Sword of Understanding was pretty different for your solo project Opium Warlords (less experimental) from the first two albums mainly because it was composed while you were still in Reverend Bizarre. What will be the influences for the fourth upcoming album? Are you gonna return to a more droney/avant garde sound?

Sami: Most of the stuff that you have heard from Opium Warlords so far already existed when I was still in Reverend Bizarre, so that is not the explanation for “Sword” being as it is. It is as it is, because it has to be like that, in the larger continuation of Opium Warlords. In the bigger picture; I have not had a period of doom metal or period of black metal or noise, or what ever, when I would do only that one thing. It all comes all the time! Songs can wait, in the most extreme case, for almost twenty years before they come out to the audience. 

I started my career as an experimental musician, and for me Reverend Bizarre was all the time a “side project”. I myself saw that my main thing is this other kind of music, but I did not have time to do it, because of RB, so it was waiting there inside of my mind to finally explode out of me. Now is this time! I have music inside of me for the next ten years.

Of course I have been doing new stuff also, all of these years, so basically Opium Warlords albums consist of old material, and some new spices, but it is impossible for anyone outside of our circle to try to figure out any chronology in these albums. An album that will come out in 2017 may have older material in it than  the album that came out in 2012. 

However, you ask this question in perfect possible time as the next Opium Warlords album actually has all the material written after the times of Reverend Bizarre. And it IS a return to that droney/avantgarde style! I recorded the main bass tracks in 2007, and now in 2014 we will continue this process! 

One correction to a subject that seems to follow me where ever I go: Opium Warlords is NOT a solo project. The fact that one guy plays bit more instruments, does not, at least for me, make an album a solo album. I am the songwriter and the main producer, but I do not work alone! And even with RB and the Puritan I wrote and arranged most of the music and just showed others what I wanted them to do. When saying this I do not want to take away any thunder from the other guys though! Their souls are still there 100%!!!


MMR: What can you tell me about the next Spiritus Mortis' album? It was fun to hear your vocals in a traditional doom metal band again, it's perhaps the only remaining link to your days in RB.

Spiritus Mortis' The God Behind the God

Sami : Musically it will be everything you wish it to be!!! It really kicks some ass! Lyrically I am going to step out of the story telling style of “The God Behind the God”. I am not a big fan of this story telling in the first place – as a writer –  but with that album I wanted to go to the deepest traditions of Heavy Metal. I would not be able to do that kind of lyrics better than I did there, so it makes no sense to stick to that lyrical style either, so now I will write in the way I did with Azrael Rising; free form metal lyrics with some abstract and surreal elements. Thematically I am in the world of two obsessions: necrophilia and black magic. 

I know that many people are waiting to hear “normal” heavy metal vocals from me again, and to be honest, I am for the first time in my life bit anxious about these expectations. It is almost like how I would feel if RB would return! How can I top what I have already done? But I guess when it is about the time to record those vocals I just do as I always do; go inside the lyrical world and deliver what is needed.

By the way, talking about these links, I have one album for Opium Warlords which is like Reverend Bizarre turbo boosted with some serious progressive rock hah hah! It won't be done in the next few years, but when it comes I think some of the more traditional oriented fans, of what I have done, should be rather happy! But I do not see it as my purpose, to try to please these old timers hah hah! I just do what I want to do. And what I have to!

MMR: I thought Orne was particular since it has the whole RB trio (albeit you consider your involvement to be as a session vocalist), how was it to work with Kimi's dark proggy folky compositions?

Orne's debut album The Conjuration by the Fire

Sami : Well, that first album was done when we were still RB, so it was not so different from how things went with us. Except that, as you say, I was a session man, so basically I did what Kimi wanted me to do. I went through very dark times in my private life during that day the vocals were recorded, and I think that it can be heard there too. 

The second album was a different case. At first I was not even about to do the vocals, but then I talked with Kimi about the situation with the vocalists, and it became quite clear that with some other vocalist it would not be exactly what he wanted to have, so I thought about it for a while, and then agreed to do the vocals. In the first place it was a question of helping him out of the situation, but also about the album of course. The material he had for it, did not feel as close to me as the first one, which I liked a lot right from the beginning, but with few modifications we were able to make a good album of that second one too.

MMR: The dissolution of your old band and your will to work on more obscure genres lead me to believe that you could like this question. Do you think the life of a musician is in turmoil nowadays? The way you need to live on the road to truly succeed is as an example of being part of an industry. We see the creations of many solo projects (it's easier nowadays to work on music with all these digital tools.) I think there's many changes to come with the evolution of technology (a curse or a plus?), what do you think about that?

Sami: I feel lucky now that I was there early enough to start with analogical 4-trackers and cassettes, and when I went to the studio it was analogue too! The first RB albums and KLV stuff, were recorded and mixed with completely analogue system. Sometimes in the mixing – which was all in realtime – more than two or four hands were needed, so me and Void joined the engineer there on the board. It was a good school for us! Also for the playing. You did not get endless chances to fix something as the tape started to break down, and what was even more important: you could not edit the tape! You had to play the whole song, and if you fucked up in the end, you had to start again. It really was hard for the nerves.

Digital recording has many benefits but it has also caused me enormous stress. What ever can happen when you work with 0's and 1's.

For artist like me who do NOT do gigs these new times are harder, as it is true that only by being on the road and selling merchandise you can make any money. But I just have to try to go on.

MMR: You've worked as a graphic artist (Jex Thoth, Fall of the Idols...), I really like that work, you seem picky (nothing wrong with that, quite the contrary) with the bands you choose to work with. Is a shared vision important when you accept to design or draw something? Furthermore, what kind of vision or people you prefer?

Jex Thoth's Blood Moon Rise

Sami: With the bands I worked with it was my own vision that I followed. Of course I asked for the title and in the best case I got to hear the music, but only with Furze I strictly followed the vision of the band. In other cases I just maybe got some wishes or details that could be there in the sleeves, and of course I did my best to add them there. It is not like I put down the ideas the bands had, but usually they did not have anything special, and they knew how I worked. 

I am not one to work as a member of the group, but for example with Jex Thoth I have what might be called a spiritual connection. I somehow KNOW what she wants.

I prefer many kind of visions. There have been, and still are, many geniuses among the masses of so called ordinary people. I get mesmerized very often with some great piece of art, or film, or album. Right at the moment I am mesmerized by couple of bands, Iceage from Denmark, and Oxbow, Karp and Pyrrhon from America, as well as At the Gates' first album.

                                   Furze's Psych Minus Space Control

What kind of people I prefer? I try my best not to harass other people. I expect this from the other people too. I prefer those geniuses I just talked about. People with vision, either in mind or heart. Or both. Spiritual, but open minded people. People who do not hurt animals, or rape nature. And people who make it possible for me to continue my work; the audience!




Bonus Question!

MMR: I'm fascinated by the music and culture of Finland (I did a whole series about Jussi Lehtisalo's projects). What are your favorite things about the country as of recently? Food, hockey, movie, anything really!

Sami: Nature. Language. Some art, literature, cinema, music, and archtitecture. But for me this is not any kind of paradise really. The atmosphere is rather heavy. Still, as long as I can't live in somewhere in the aristocratic British country side or luxury regions of London, or under the sun of Florida, I rather live here, as I know the language pretty well. Not that I would use it much in conversations hah hah. So why am I here actually anymore? I like Jussi Lehtisalo! That is one reason. 

MMR: Thanks for accepting to do an interview with me, it's fun for a small blog like mine to have this opportunity. 

Sami: I often rather be in these smaller circles than in the big business, and  their big magazines. This interview verifies why it is so. Thank you! 

Useful links: 

Opium Warlords on Facebook

Opium Warlords on Tumblr
Opium Warlords on Metal Archives

Review for Opium Warlords' latest album: Taste my Sword of Understanding
Review for Reverend Bizarre's So Long Suckers

Opium Warlords' debut album Live at Colonia Dignidad

Suruni - Ikuus (2014) / 77%

Dark and lo-fi exploration

The musical child of Sakari Piisti, Suruni from central Finland is a weird project to describe but I'll attempt the task anyway since I never run away from musical adversity. “Not for everyone” can easily describe this album, it's an unorthodox mix of experimental raw black metal with noise, ambient and drone all under a voluntary lo-fi approach.

One of the things that surprised me is the bass, it's freaking loud and I really like how it's played. I often wish this instrument would be more prominent in black metal and it's the case here. It's well incorporated in the sonic chaotic mass enriched by the use of acoustic guitars and some other nontraditional instruments (is that cello???). It's pretty slow stuff and it reminds me of the avant garde nature of Sami Hynninen's Opium Warlords and Armanenschaft projects. The overbearing bass licks are definitely a big hint to that.

Suruni felt like it doesn't have a metal core since there's so many additional elements to be considered but underneath everything, there is an undying dark atmosphere possessed by raw black metal riffing and a bunch of melodic clean guitar parts. It's simplistic but there's some really beautiful moments like the ethereal guitar at the end of “Ei Se Ollut Vahinko”. The drums (unsure if they're programmed or not) are fun albeit located in a weird place in the mix, they're kind at the forefront of the sound. This really adds to the uneasy feeling this album gave me.

Piisti's vocals (when there's some) are a mix of black metal shrieks and buried clean vocals, it fits well with the music but they could have be a bit more powerful. The project is more about instrumental landscapes and it's showcasing its wide range of influences (the instrumental black metal country of “Akana” is a clear highlight.) There's also this sort of martial influence sometimes approaching Akitsa.

Ikuus is a a decent and original album but there's still a lot to improve to play in the “big leagues”. The production, raw but melodic, is actually pretty interesting but I'd like to get more meat in the songs. That's a good debut, follow this band with me if you're into adventurous music without compromises.

Thanks to Sun & Moon Records for the CD copy.
Sun & Moon Records on Facebook

Why? - L'Uomo Appeso (1995) / 74%

Italian penile thrashy avant garde metal

Why I am reviewing this?  Well, it deserves to be since it's underrated stuff and I hope I'll help giving them a tiny bit of exposure through my review. The Italian quartet managed to stay alive for six years releasing four demos during their existence and outside of Alexandro Naitina who's in the excellent post metal band The End of Six Thousand Years, the musicians kept quiet. It's kind of a shame since they were pretty damn interesting, they need a re-release of their material as soon as possible!

L'Uomo Appeso (the hanging man) is their fourth and latest demo and it's perhaps the one with the largest avant garde/alternative metal influences in their discography. To my knowledge, all their lyrics are in Italian but this is the only one with all the titles in this romantic languages. The singer is pretty unorthodox, maybe akin to Faith No More's Mike Patton. It's a clean & fast paced delivery with some spoken vocals influences. He's not quite my style of vocalists for thrash but he fits the Voivodian approach the band was aiming for. Combined with the poetic but weird for metal language, he's probably one of the reasons this band never made it big but eh, he's probably as good as Snake! (Snake is obviously the weakest part of the Quebecois proggers.)

There's a huge funk influence in their sound, quite apparent in the song “La Giostra”, there's these groovy keys intertwined with the heavy bass presence but sadly the low production (still their best) wasn't truly able to transpose their vision as much as they wanted to. Their sound also has some post punk elements thrown in the mix making the avant garde tag warranted since even if it's fairly technical, it's not spastic thrash but rather weird, fucked up and fun stuff. This is almost not metal in some places, the guitars are often buried by the bass and the vocal declarations and the fact there's only one guitarist left in the lineup compared to their other demos probably influenced the metallic amount of this one.

The structure of the demo is quite strong, it's starting and ending with nice instrumental songs, the compositions are mostly on the short side and the rhythm is fast paced. I'm not quite sure I would be able to withstand a long release of these guys, thirty minutes is even perhaps too much for me, it's a bit grating at times due to the vocals and it's not easy to get into.

Nonetheless, Why? is a very fun band, perhaps underwhelming in some places but that's probably due to the release being a demo, getting a do it yourself production wasn't as easy twenty years ago. Out of old school thrash, avant garde meta or Voivod albums to check out? Listen to these Italians.

I have three of their demos that you can guys can download here: On my Dropbox