A Challenge of Honour vs. Praetorio – Hadrian’s Wall

This split 10” contains two new tracks by well-known Dutch act ACOH, as well as two tracks by newcomer Praetorio. Both create bombastic neo-classical synth-based music.

:Golgotha: – Waste Land

This is without a doubt the most ritual release I heard this year. This album is entitled “Waste Land”; the title couldn’t be better to describe the musical contents. This is no uplifting energetic song-oriented music, no…this is oppressing cinematographic ritual music! Although it’s easy to compare this project with diverse Cold Meat bands, there’s a difference in instrumentation…

Un Défi d’Honneur – Le mort homme

As many know, Un Défi d’Honneur is one of the A Challenge of Hounour side-projects by Peter Savelkoul, hailing from Limburg/The Netherlands. This piece of vinyl comes in an absolutely stunning gatefold cover with marvellous artwork by Nikolay from Levoi Pravoi (whose release I also reviewed at Funprox)…

Nick Grey – Les eaux territoriales

I was quite anxious to check out this promo cd by Nick Grey. I knew about this artist through the Stateart label, which recently moved out of Germany to Texas. Until now I only listened to some audio samples of Nick Grey on the Stateart website, and I liked them…

Levoi Pravoi – March in September

“March in September” is the official debut release, vinyl only, by this Russian/American duo. What immediately strikes me is the fantastic artwork, consisting of a Jugendstil-like drawing combined with natural brown and green…

Fire in the Head – Solace through Psychosis

My initial reaction to receiving this cd by American noise act was a happy one; finally I was able to listen to some brutal noise again, without having to pick a cd out randomly from the pile of releases in this genre. The logo, artwork, and website look serious and the slogan says it all: Nihilism, noise, narcissism…

Des Esseintes – Les Diaboliques

Although I missed the concert by Des Esseintes a while back here in the Netherlands, I heard quite some positive feedback on his performance. This made me quite curious about the album I’m reviewing here. The cd comes in a white digipack which is decorated with black and white pornographic pictures, both contemporary as well as some older ones…

Morbide Eenheid – Op een booreiland twee jaar geleden

I have no idea why the band decided to send promotional material to Funprox. Although covering lots of musical styles, it’s about (dark) underground music mostly (but count black metal out). This project plays some kind of improv./jazzy rock/metal with no vocals…

Division S – Something to drink #3

This is what happens when bands try to copy Novy Svet and the likes. “Eleven songs about hate, love sadness and fun.”

Anus Solaire, L` – Orifices

When I received this cd and noted the name of this project I found it to be something between stupid, hilarious, and disgusting. After looking a bit closer by checking out their website and the accompanying booklet I came to understand a bit what the philosophy behind this project is…

Ghosts of Breslau – Peste

Bunkier Productions from Poland is a relatively young label, specialising in obscure neofolk and martial music. Up for review is a promo cd by Ghosts of Breslau, a Polish project inspired by the city of Wroclaw (Breslau was the German name). After a nice intro with classical choirs the first real track offers German speech samples, a soundscape, and muffled timpani’s…

Stormfågel – Kinder der Vergangenheit

I received this obscure promo cd-r by Stormfågel a few days ago. Judging by the name, this is probably a Swedish project. On the booklet we see the well-known logo Puissance also uses: planet earth in flames, penetrated by two swords. Furthermore there’s a picture of children with guns on the backside of the cover…

Ulver – Blood Inside

Although not officially released so far, I stumbled upon this new album of one of my all-time favourite bands on the web. After some experimental glitchy output and two soundtracks, Ulver comes up with a very surprising album of tremendous quality. I had no idea what to expect from this album, although I did expect more of an electronic approach than it turns out to be…

Sol Invictus / Sieben / HaWthorn – Writ in Water

This 4 track compilation cd is also called “The John Keats, Percy Bisshe Shelley, Lord George Gordon Byron album”. Indeed, influenced by three great Romantic poets, contemporaries who all lived from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century…

Arditi / Toroidh – United in blood

In a nice grey digipack and limited to 1000 copies comes this collaboration between Arditi and Toroidh. Both projects are quite well-known in the martial/neo-classical genre. Arditi being a side project of Puissance (which is I believe more popular and/or famous in the black metal scene than it is in the martial/neofolk scene, perhaps because the men involved look(ed) very `true`)…

Genitor Lvminis – Virgae

I received this 3” cd in very nice folded postcard sleeve a few weeks ago from the highly interesting Stateart label. Two long epic compositions are featured on this mcd, namely Virgae (part I) and Virgae (part II). Virgae I starts with heavy orchestral arrangements with a slow pounding low timpani…

Der Feuerkreiner – La `Nvidia

Kim from Neuropa Records was kind enough to supply me with a copy of this LP. I already knew Der Feuerkreiner from their excellent contribution to the “Wir rufen deine Wolfe” compilation. The 12” mini-LP starts with “Tanz”, which reminds me of fellow Italians Camerata Mediolanense; a really nice neo-classical track with marching drums…

Ô Paradis & Novy Svet – Entre siempre y jamas…

This collaboration between two very good (and weird) projects was preceded by a picture 7” which I also reviewed on this site. I already liked the track Siento Sensacion which is also on this full-length, but still this album is full of surprises and in a way surpasses my expectations…

Ulver – Perdition City

I always liked Ulver. From their “Vargnatt” promo to the “Lyckantropen themes” they released a bunch of albums which all sound different from each other. When this band released their first full-length “Bergtatt” (atmospheric black metal with Norwegian folk influences) they were one of the best bands in the flourishing Norwegian black metal scene of the first half of the nineties…

Wiener Aktivisten – Chapter II

This second release by the Wiener Aktivisten contains a picture 7” e.p. and a cd-r. Eternal Soul records released the picture 7”, and Greyland Records released this set containing an extra (black) cd-r with 5 tracks on it. On this cd there are 5 tracks, of which track 4 (‘Sacrifice’) and track 5 (‘Never Forget’) can be found on the 7” as well…