My first review for this site was the dark and menacing Eryn Non Dae. And a year later I’m listening to EtHERSENS, which was founded by END’s bass player Mickaël André (although in this band he demonstrates his admirable guitar playing chops). That’s pretty much where the similarities end. EtHERSENS is dark and menacing but display more melody and more accessibility on this, their second album, Your Wandering Ghost.

Ominous chords and notes herald the start of an epic musical journey as ‘Two For One Mind’ snakes and slides out of the speakers like a fog. Vocal harmonies entice you into the fog until, almost 3 and a half minutes in; a wall of guitars hits you. It’s a brave, adventurous start to the album, the band displaying a deft use of dynamics and employing vocals that you can sing along to. ‘Same Goodbye’ revolves around the monotonous yet engaging drum part from Stéphane Nestiri. It’s bleak and barren filling you with a sense of emptiness. ‘This Is Where You And I Part Ways’ is a more straight-ahead rock tune that could easily garner radio airplay, singer Laurent Mora conveying swathes of emotion is his delivery. ‘Livin’ Memory’ follows in much the same rock vein but has the catchiest riff on the album. Shades of Deftones on this track but that is no bad thing!

After the driving force of those two tracks, EtHERSENS drag us back into murky depths with ‘Mourning Light’. With a nod to the structural qualities of Tool, we wander our way through spikes of jagged melody and slabs of heaviness with singer Mora as our only guide and provider of light. ‘Reflect’ begins with a nod to the heavier end of the musical spectrum with a bit of thrash riffing and blast beats, the band wisely realising that this part of the song is most effective when deployed sporadically, alternating between this adrenaline rush and a much slower drone-y sequence. One of my favourite moments on the album can be found in the main verse riff in ‘Waking Disorder’ when the guitars become staccato machine guns whilst the drums punch and jab underneath. It’s a wonderfully aggressive yet totally restrained piece of metal. Midway through the track the aggression dissolves in a dreamily musical section that allows the band to build back up to a higher peak. Album closer ‘To Live Is To Forget’ a prog gem filled with riffs, tribal drum patterns, passion-strewn vocals, melody, atmosphere and quirkiness. It’s a brilliant summation of everything that has come before it and a brilliant track to end on.

EtHERSENS have created a real gem of an album here. There are touches of Deftones, Tool, Alice In Chains and even Katatonia in parts. If you like your music 4 minutes long with guitar solos then this is not the album for you. This is a sprawling, consuming album its 8 songs reaching to almost an hour running time. For many the word ‘prog’ is anathema, a mark of excessive and density. But used here, it’s more a symbol of pride. This is a progressive album of a high calibre. I can only hope that it doesn't take the band another 5 years to release their next album.

There’s no better proof of a coincidence than being in front of the Andalusian sea, putting on some random music, then looking up the track name and finding that it’s titled ‘Reveries’. Or rather, there is no better proof of lack of a coincidence! ‘Reveries’ is the outstanding track from the album Reveries released by the musician Solarein.

So first, a few words about the label.  Bleeding Light Records is something more than a label: it’s a place meant to release meaningful art – music, of course, but also literature, painting, photography, etc. -  for the sole purpose of aiding artists.  In all honesty, I recommend you to check it out.

Solarein is a brand new project name to my wide database of tracked artists, but after a few consecutive listens it quickly took a good place in my playlist.  Solarein is the dream project of electronic producer Vru Patel, from Boston, Massachusetts. Vru Patel ‘s music came on the electronic/shoegaze scene in 2010, when he released the Demo I-VI EP. Reveries is the first full length album of the artist and it has some of that gorgeous electronic music that I have been craving for.

The 10 movements of Reveries come from the labyrinth of sounds of the previous works adding to them beautifully woven melodies. The album is full of experimental sounds and chilled out vibes. This is the sort of album you need to sit back, relax and let it the music flow. Each track will take you on an experimental journey with various sounds flowing in and out and I appreciate the intelligent design behind each and every tune.

The first time I listened to the title track what caught my attention was the aura of calm taking over after the beats wipe through Vru’s vocals, in the form of exotic bird chirps. ‘Reveries’ has a different mood compared to the other tracks. If the overall album mood is joyful this song has a laid back ambient feel that is more intimate that leads you to lay down while feel like you are being taken on a sonic and intergalactic journey at the same time. I like it’s minimal start where the beats are suspended in a space where Vru’s vocal resonate from everywhere but they are like an instrument and therefore I consider this one an instrumental track. ‘Reveries’ is intimate and hypnotic.

The album opens with the experimental ‘Oceans I’ that works as intro to the journey through the whole collection of sounds. In a bit more than two minutes this tune has in it a wide range of spacey sounds backed with some industrial drum beats. From the following ‘Forty Thousand’ each track is quite chilled out giving off a relaxed vibe while also having a pile of activity throughout.

The strength of Solarein’s music is its fluidity. Although Vru adds several beats, his music persistently maintains a nice and melodic flow. Listening to 'Rain' is the aural equivalent of exploring a new art museum. The vocals that slowly prevail over the rain sound are charming and the track is a soft, dreaming pause. The album then continue on the same path of the previous tracks creating a lively rhythm, joyful and colorful atmospheres that can easily be the soundtrack to your cycling along the river side under a bright sun or to your nights spent lying on a carpet enjoying music in complete darkness. I have to admit though that my favorite moments are those when Solarein's music becomes deeper so I feel it closer to me.

The amazing waves of 'Ocean I' are back with 'Ocean II' like in a perfect circle and the whole composition is like if the multitude of vibes we listened from the beginning are an explosion of a main sound that works as the incipit of everything.

The journey through Reveries ends with 'The Warning' that has wonderful upbeats and energetic build ups and it's an example of how Solarein's music is layered as it happens in the best electronic music genre. It's a power track and a great way to close this episode of Solarein's music world. 

Listening to Reveries is a pleasant and enjoyable experience; the album execution is brilliant, the drums are lively, the melodies are in focus and memorable. I listened to this record several times before writing about it and each time I found new details. Do the same and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. 

The first thing that grabs you on first listen to this new Smoke Fairies album is how they have manage to shore away the paltry sixth form lyrics that plagued the last one and have happened on a much more mature sound. Nothing else changes though but just as you are about to consign the album to another lacklustre effort, something happens and you find yourself drawn into the music. Those first listens serve as a bedrock to the confounded love that you suddenly feel for this band as you start to succumb to their world.

OK, maybe love is too strong a word for it, but what is for certain is that on this third album, Smoke Fairies have hit upon a sound which brings out the best in them and casts aside all those clammy feelings of All About Eve who sat lurking in the wings all through their previous efforts. This one is more akin to mid period Kate Bush minus the extreme experimentation and can sit proudly as a fine piece of work.

What makes this album is the lush saturation of the vocals with the music. Smoke Fairies main stumbling point for many will be the airy fairy vocals but mixed in with the fantastic music it all starts to make sense. You get the light and bouncy 'We've Seen Birds' which darts gracefully out of the speakers in what may be a statement of intent followed by the much darker and broodier 'Eclipse Them All' which dissolves in a world of goth freak out-ness and desolation. It's not Cure territory but it's certainly knocking on the door.

Another highlight is the brilliant 'Hope Is Religion' which lightens the mood (albeit only slightly) after the morbid 'Shadow Inversions'. Hammering home with a chorus you may find yourself singing along to; it's one of the more unusual aspects of Smoke Fairies that they can do this to you.

It's not all wonderful abandonment though and there are periods where they sink into gothic more. The middle section of the album tends to drift from one song to another without much inclination to change the mood although it's worth remembering that the formidable four track opener may have just taken a shine off these.

Redemption is waiting though with a wonderfully light ending of pianos and trilling voices as a light at the end of the darkness is reached through 'Want It Forever' into final track 'Are You Crazy?'. It offers an insight into a world which always seems just out of reach and one is reminded of The Secret Garden and other such fanciful Victorian literature. In fact, maybe we can call this such a thing...Victorian Gothic? It's got a nice ring too it...or maybe we'll just stick with the fact that Smoke Fairies have earned themselves a reprieve from a disappointing past and now are on the right track.

What started off as a side project in 1991 and subsequently labelled a super-group upon the release of their first album, Down have thankfully transcended both those tags and are a definite and very real band in much the same way prog giants Transatlantic have and are. The similarity doesn’t end there either, with both bands taking hiatuses in between records to focus on other projects and bands. With the release of Down IV – Part 2, the band have a lot to live up to given the return to form that Part 1 is perceived to be.

The good news is that this EP is a storming record. The bad news is that there’s not enough of it at 6 tracks totalling 37 minutes. It’s greedy perhaps, but given the quality of music on offer here I would have liked a little bit more. Still, I suppose that’s what the repeat function is for.

With a doom laden howl and a riff heavier than a bag of bricks ‘Steeple’ kicks the EP off with a bang, albeit one that lasts a good minute before things kick up a notch with a crushing groove that thunders along occasionally going halving it’s speed just to make sure you feel the heavy. ‘We Knew Him Well’ has a magnificently bendy main riff that it’s impossible to not bang your head to. There is something compelling and magnetic about the combination of Anselmo’s impassioned vocal delivery and the sludgy rhythms that you cannot deny. 

‘Hogshead Dogshead’ further reinforces Jimmy Bower’s reputation as drummer par excellence as he deftly compliments guitar runs and rhythms with a fluency and dynamism. This is the one track on the EP that blends the heaviness and riffs of NOLA with the experimentation of DOWN II. ‘Conjure’ is the greatest song that Black Sabbath never wrote. It’s ominous, epic and dark. Anselmo (again) utilising his voice to great effect from screams to almost narrating lyrics. ‘Sufferer’s Years’ sounds like it could easily have fit on NOLA with its southern rock riffs and soloing and with a middle section that is both exhilarating and disorientating in equal measures it’s one of the stand out tracks. EP closer ‘Bacchanalia’ is the track that all future Down tracks will be measured against. Shimmering into view with what sounds like a jam, it then takes a left turn and beefs up the riff and takes the song off into a different direction. And the ending? Wow. Unexpected. It’s a beautiful acoustic figure with Anselmo laying a woozy vocal harmony over it – Down’s nod to pyschedelia.

This is a belter on an EP. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the online fraternity when it was announced that Kirk Windstein was leaving last year. But new guitarist Bobby Landgraf has not only ably filled those shoes but also, perhaps, has given the band a little kick in the arse. This is the sound of a band that is in love with the music they create. It lives and breathes and is dark, menacing and abstract yet there are moments of intense melody and groove. Down are clearly enjoying a purple patch in their career at the moment. Long may it reign.

The first thing that attracted me to In Lesser Brightness was the name of the band: Colossus Of Destiny; sound familiar? This is the name of an experimental live album from none other than The Melvins. The second thing was the fact that I’d heard their previous releases: a self-titled debut effort  released back in 2010 and Eden which appeared in 2011. For sure, they have an awesome and uncompromising approach to music and with In Lesser Brightness it’s clear that the band have managed to build upon their previous EPs (all of their music is free to download on their Bandcamp site) and this Parisian quintet certainly deliver the goods here: the production is crisp and rich, the drumming thunderous, the solid riffing substantial: all underpinned by a heavyweight vocal performance.

Formed in 2009 the group comprises vocalist Adrien Guilmoteau, guitarists Julien Laville and Mathieu Miquel, bassist Guillaume Taliercio, and drummer Jérémie Le Formal. Each song on their latest EP is strong, in its own way, and contains aggressive powerful influences from the likes of Baroness, early Mastodon, Tool and Kylesa.

The EP opens with ‘Dismay In Empty Eyes’: crashing waves provide a subtle ambience which leads into pounding rhythms and soaring, twisting guitars all underpinned by a sullen bass and growled vocals. No explosions or build-ups just layer upon layer of sludgy musical textures, perhaps with a tiny amount of post-rock and metalcore just to spice things up; a great start to the EP.

Shorter songs follow: ‘Unleashed’ and ‘Get Lost’ are crushing and hard-hitting they use uncompromising sludge as a foundation to build upon, adding hardcore and punk to attack the eardrums in the same way as a High On Fire track does. These two tunes, for me, bled together and lost some of their individual distinctiveness. Don’t get me wrong, these tracks are a blast but perhaps it was just the placing of them of the EP which should’ve been altered? A minor niggle. ‘Naked & Unbound’ closes proceedings and highlights Jérémy Le Formal’s drumming to create a rousing amalgamation of might and contagious listening; a great way to round off an enjoyable EP.

The band should follow-up this release with a full album which will hopefully nail their colours to the mast as to what genre and direction they are trying to follow: blistering all out post-metal assaults or something slightly more melodic? From this EP it’s clear the group have the songwriting capabilities to progress in any direction they choose and I can easily see fans of Mastodon and other bigger groups appreciating the sounds on offer. Link in some heavy promotional activities and extensive touring then there’s absolutely no reason at all that they can’t gain a wider audience and take the first step towards mega-stardom. I recommend you add this EP to your Wish List and give it a spin at the earliest opportunity.

It’s a brave move, putting the name of another band on the front of your album, and Geronimo! haven’t just gone for any old band’s name as the title of third full length release. They’ve gone for one as revered and respected as Cheap Trick. Lets get it out of the way though, they’re not a band particularly influenced by Cheap Trick, they’re not a band who sound a lot like Cheap Trick. If you’re after a lazy comparison based on an album title, maybe this should have been called ‘A Bit Like Shellac and A Bit Like Devo’. But lazy comparisons tell us nothing other than an overview, and Cheap Trick is a record deserving of more.

Past the cover and into the music, another brave move. Opener 'Electronic Parrot' is a red herring, in no way setting the tone for the album as a whole.. A slow, sludgy riff, the vocal a spoken work narration from the point of view of the eponymous bird. It’s not bad or unenjoyable per se, but the subject matter and the sound jar. Is this a comedy rock band that aren’t very funny?

Thankfully not. Over the next few tracks we discover Geronimo! are a band with the confidence to play with genres until they melt into a sound at once referential and different. '1000 Realities' is angular and noisy when it needs to be, straight ahead pop when it doesn’t. After that, 'Aging Sound' has a hook and a surf guitar solo built on the work of the rock stars of the past the lyrics and title bring to mind. The two tracks introduce a guitar sound slightly off clean which gives them a sound at once alternative but accessible.

Despite that accessibility it’s when the band reach their noisiest that they also reach their best. '60 Ways To Tie A Tie' is nearly 7 minutes of pulsating bass, screeching guitars, a begging, pleading vocal that knows exactly when to give way to irregular moments of calm which highlight the sublime chaos that came before. The record's first single 'Mr. President' is a sub two minute slab of rabid energy, lyrically and musically pointing the finger at those who crave power, an inspired brief stab at the American National Anthem bringing home the point.

The albums closing third messes with genre even more. 'Magic Waters' is, of all things, disco inspired. The album’s signature guitar sound this time finding a home amongst a calypso rhythm and a falsetto vocal proclaiming “I’ve lost my keys and I don’t know where they are.” 'Euphoria' meanwhile, the albums’s sort-of closer is reminiscent of early Weezer, particularly the long sprawling 'Only In Dreams' which closed that bands classic debut. It sounds like it shouldn’t fit, but by installing brief moments of the sounds which have run through the rest of the album, and building to a suitably noisy last sixty seconds it works.

'Euphoria' is the albums sort-of closer as following it is the one minute '.Wav Memories', a brief soundscape built around an echoy spoken word sample., Like 'Electronic Parrot’s introduction to the world of Geronimo! forty minutes ago, the album has book-ended on another odd irrelevant note.

What’s inbetween though is marvellous. It’s obvious Geronimo! still have a lot of growing to do in order to create a sound that is truly their own and escape even the possibility of lazy comparison. However, the way they take their constant guitar sound and marry it into genres they obviously know inside out and respect means Geronimo! have managed to create a record they can carry on their shoulders proudly. They’ve gotten away with naming it Cheap Trick by quite some considerable margin. They should probably avoid calling their next one ’The Beatles’ though.

With psych at an all time high it's time for many of the bands to start proving their worth now on a bigger field. A statement which to us psych heads is utter nonsense but to a certain cross section of the population, they will be thinking where are the albums that are going to be remembered.

2014 has already thrown up a dark classic from Cult of Dom Keller which reflects the deep, twisted sound that emanates from the black chasm of psych. Now we have it's polar opposite and contender for album of the year from Dead Rabbits. This is an album which has seemingly come out of nowhere and is destined to end the year on the top of many peoples lists as the defining moment of the psych scene. This is the journey into the heart of the sun and once there you are going to meet raptures.

The pounding 'Here She Comes' is all thrills and indie rock shenanigans with it's pumping chorus and uplifting guitar hiding a dark heart. It's an invigorating start but one that is more than matched by stunning second song 'Remember Me' which submerges itself in early 80's indie with more than a dash of early Cure and Joy Division yet still finds a way to be uplifting. The stop/start of the guitars interspersed with the synths give it an almost dance like feel and the vocal drip pure lysergic acid on to your soul.

The reach for the stars beginning of 'Should've Known Better' brings in a dose of scally mayhem as if early New Order were fronted by Shaun Ryder (and imagine that!) but you need to be prepared for the utterly magnificent 'Vanilla Skies' which is one of those slow burning psych epics which positively drips emotion and almost becomes cinematic in its approach. This is the heart of the album and opens up Dead Rabbits for all to see. This is the point when you realise you are in the presence of a classic album.

Now on a roll, Dead Rabbits are pulling out all stops to take you on a trip of a lifetime and the anthemic 'We Want More' reeks of pure abandonment as the synths and guitars build to an almighty crescendo. Tears of joy will be slipping from your eyes as you feel yourself delivered to the sun only to have you come out the other side in the pastoral loveliness of 'I Wrote A Song' with it's beautiful guitar chiming away to a lovelorn lyric that manages to both cause happiness and sadness.

They can't resist adding to this beginning with yet another anthemic chord change and this is where Dead Rabbits could easily have slipped up. Fortunately they know exactly when to stop and keep the song running on an even level. To counter balance the eagerness to uplift they take things down a notch for 'Where I Go' which is the soundtrack to any motorway drive you will ever do. It is also the sound of Dead Rabbits reaching into the dark end of the spectrum and reminding you that it's not all sweetness on your trip.

The slow piano of 'I Don't Care Where You Are' ushers in a quiet end to the album which makes a complete change from the usual grand finale. Full of the spirit of Jason Pierce, it's a heartbreaking end which uses discordant riffs to disturb your slumber just in case you are not listening anymore. It ends with a wailing mantra which leaves you utterly breathless and completely grounded after what has been the trip of a lifetime.

It is difficult to see any album matching up to the power of this one in 2014. Barely a note is out of place and the whole album works as one complete trip. There are the sing along bits, the moments of crushing reality and most of all, those moments when you transcend your body through the music and feel the spirit of Dead Rabbits running through you. To put it simply, it's a bit of a masterpiece and one that is going to be regarded as the high point of this whole new psych movement. Simply brilliant.

Iceland's white, glacial landscapes seem to be a fertile breeding ground for a burgeoning electronic music scene. Indeed, Samaris' glacial electronica (I do enjoy a good genre neologism) has been reverberating beyond its shores since Samaris' impressive self-titled début of 2013. It is these landscapes, which are evoked in the band's second album Silkidrangar (meaning 'silk cliffs') which picks up where the eponymous full-length's later tracks finished, with elegant production, an awareness of their own sonic palette and how best to wield it.

I was fortunate enough to catch Samaris live on a recent tour and, whilst the more discerning beard-scratching muso might be a little sceptical of the man-on-laptop-twiddling-knobs-and-definitely-not-checking-emails, it would take a hard and cynical heart indeed not to be captivated by Áslaug Jófríður Ákadóttir’s haunting voice and Rún Magnúsdóttir's moody clarinet playing. Still, I digress - I would still recommend seeing them live if you can, but this is an album review, so on with that.

On record these elements blend seamlessly with the aforementioned knob-twiddler's production. Þórður Kári Steinþórsson's (fortunately AKA 'Doddi'), has refined, ripened and matured Samaris' sound since the first album, rather like a good cheese. Gone are the subwoofer-bothering LFO wobbles of tracks such as 'Góða tungl' and so with it perhaps, the immediacy of their début. Don't be put off, though. This album is a grower that will reward you with repeated listens.

Album opener 'Nótt' draws you in with off-kilter synth rhythms, before big four-to-the-floor beats suddenly drop and caress your face with all the tenderness of a newborn puppy. The layers break down again, until Ákadóttir's voice, doubled with that ubiquitous but achingly cool vocal-harmony effect, sounds the opening refrain. It's at moments like this when you wish you understood what she was singing - it's all in Icelandic, in case you hadn't got that.

I have heard in interview that all Ákadóttir's lyrics come from old Icelandic poems, which is a concept I rather like. In between songs on stage, she expounds on the desolate Icelandic scenery, the moon and the stars, and the daily struggle that mere existence entails. These idiosyncracies of landscape, and presumably the lyrics, pervade the record. It is dark, broody and melancholic without ever being overpowering or depressing, and much of this is down to the vocals. They ping-pong and reverberate their way across the record creating space and, conversely, a sense of optimism.

I will not compare Ákadóttir's vocals to a certain other well-known Icelandic female singer; that would be supremely lazy, although it might not stop you making the comparison. Listen instead to the first single 'Ég Vildi Fegin Verða' (I would be glad) and you will understand a) what I'm talking about and b) why they've chosen it as their first single. The vocals drive the track forward and stick with you like an earworm*. The voice itself is breathy, delicate and ever so slightly needy. It hits you, to coin a phrase, like a silk cliff.

I could easily write more about the depth of the remainder of this record: the relaxed swagger of 'Tíbrá', 'Hafið's' aria-like lament or the beautiful reworking of 'Vögguljóõ' from their début. Instead I recommend you just buy it and listen to it, ideally under candlelight in a draughty old house, wrapped up in front of a fire with a good single-malt.

*I've anglicised the German idiom "Ohrwurm", literally earworm, i.e. a song that gets stuck in your heard. Try it out, you might like it.

Let me start off by saying that I have a problem with most bands that label themselves “progressive metal” these days, and especially with those that include some sort of genre crossover/fusion in there, like “progressive death metal” or something. I love progressive metal, as in metal that is actually progressive, but I thoroughly despise most genre labels, especially when used for their own sake. Too often “progressive metal” means the blandest, most nondescript metal with the cheesiest synth presets available thrown on top. Hardly Between the Buried and Me or Gojira. So when I saw the Ageless Oblivion promo e-mail’s subject line with the aforementioned descriptor, I was naturally intrigued but greatly skeptical.

Fortunately the above paragraph applies in no way to this album. Penthos is in fact just over an hour of balls-to-the-wall, no-holds-barred metal for the sake only of metal, and creative choices made to complement each other rather than a pre-conceived notion of what the stylistic label should sound like. The riffs are powerful yet refreshingly melodic; they grasp your attention and do not easily let it go. On my first listen, I screwed up a Tube interchange at Finchley Road because of them. The growling is deep and guttural, just the way I like it, with spot-on rhythmic choices.

No strange obsession with attempting to integrate clean vocals here, although some wonderful stuff ends up happening with layered semi-clean lines and pitched growls (and one beautiful female clean vocal line), making for some extremely powerful outros (see 'Glacial Blood').

Where Ageless Oblivion really shine, though, is when they start playing around with longer instrumental melodic sections, such as the intro to 'Where Wasps Now Nest' (probably my favourite track on the album). Their arrangements are so interesting that the song length never feels forced, and they manage to build everything up so brilliantly that the riffs in the more intense sections continue the melodic ideas explored just before, which gives the pieces an amazingly cohesive feel without being repetitive.

It’s not a perfect album – I would’ve enjoyed more interesting rhythmic variation and interplay in the riffs (à la Gojira), more refined transitions, and more complementary drumming (à la BTBAM, although I’m not asking every drummer to be Blake Richardson). I also have continuing gripes with overall production and especially mastering in a lot of modern metal, but I realize that is (mostly) out of the band’s (direct) control.

This is, however, an extremely refreshing metal album in an age where too many bands are only looking for “the next interesting/cool thing to do”.  Ageless Oblivion clearly don’t care much about being at the forefront of a trend, and seem more interested in simply creating the very best metal they can. It’s raw, it’s sophisticated, and it’s progressive not by pre-definition but as a consequence of great writing. But above all it’s a bit of wonderful music that I heartily encourage you to check out.

Do you like a bit of sludge/doom in your music?
Towers of speaker stacks thumping out bass drone?
Perhaps a touch of vocal harmonies?
Or long, epic tracks?
How about female choral singing mixed with huge power chords?
I know - do you like pop sensibilities thrown in a blender with metal & fuzz?

Then you'll dig this album. Promise.

USA Out Of Vietnam (???) have crafted a release which manages to do all these things without coming off as contrived or sounding like they're trying too hard, which is an impressive feat. Major key basslines warble below chugging metal guitars, male & female vocals entwine with each other, crisp and powerful drumming drives you forward and samples, trumpets and epic 'Polyphonic Spree' styled chorale vocals top it all off.

The 5 track, 60 minute album opens with a deep, menacing vocal growl on 'Archangel' that you could easily believe would be setting the tone for the rest of the album, but you'd be wrong. Before you know it the wailing guitar has 3-4 vocal parts cascading next to it while cymbals crash around your head in some beautiful pop cacophony and then it all breaks down into fat, squelching bass tones before picking up again... This would be a perfectly epic final track on most albums, but it's an opener here. And with a few final squelches it's done, 10 minutes flying by as we come into....

'You Are A Comet, You Are On Fire'. Perhaps the most formulaic track on the album (I’m using that word hesitantly as there's nothing really formulaic on here!), we have an off kilter time signature stuttering & starting as post metal guitars lead the charge into our ears with some great riffage. The shortest track on the album at almost 8 minutes, it gets halfway before a vocal sample comes in to lull us in, before layered trumpets explode at us with dirty riffs on the guitars underneath. Love the trumpet/dirty guitar counterpoint - it sounds excellent.

Then we're into 'Asphodel/1322', which opens with some GY!BE styled building ambience before epic major chords come tumbling at us. All is happy & bright for a few minutes before slowly decaying into some spooky, doomy (that's a word, promise) vocals that slowly pierce through the music, leading into soaring clean harmonies. And just like that it's as if The Beatles had a love child with Sunn O))). Think about that for a second. I'll wait.

'Leg of Lamb' us up next and my pick for best track on the album. The lyrics seem to be a touch ancillary (silly?) unless I'm missing some deeper Kafka-esque reference, but holy shit is the tone of them great. Throaty whispering, quiet piano and melodic drone begin the track until some marching band rock comes in to be overtaken by glorious major key power chords. I must be a sucker for that, because this track ticked all my boxes – passionate vocals verging on screaming, heavy piano, slashing guitars, fizzing cymbals and big heavy bass chugging away underneath. Imagine if the Polyphonic Spree went on holiday with a suitcase of distortion pedals and a case of vodka and you’ll get the rough gist. And it’s a thirteen minute long track, so the crescendo is suitably epic – a buildup of what seems like forever cascades into a coda of beautiful noise. One of those goosebump inducing tracks for sure.

And then we’re into the final track – ‘Tonight, The Dead Walk’. Phasing guitars crash into your ears to be replaced by some sludgy doom riffs and a chaotic drum breakdown until an almost ‘Fantomas’ crafted section begins, only to reprise back into a major key. This then descends into some female operatic styled singing and a 3 minute or so slow breakdown and fade out. It’s a fitting end to the album.

There’s a lot of comparisons that could be made of this release (lord knows I’ve made a few), but no one of them really sum up adequately what this band is all about. It’s varied, original, obtuse, melodic, dark, uplifting and a whole heap of other things. In short, a very impressive release and well worth your time. Well done crew.

The bleak beauty of Scotland's landscape has inspired countless artists since the Neolithic era.
A culture so deeply rooted in nature worship lends itself perfectly to droning soundscapes and harrowing lyrics, which is precisely what Glasgow's newly-founded The Woods have concocted for the unsuspecting listener's entertainment. Though the term 'entertainment' might only apply loosely here, as their self-titled tape release is anything but easy listening.

There are two ways to approach this monumental slab of atmospheric noise, one being the convenient way of online streaming, but to truly delve into The Woods' aural offering, I suggest you get your hands on a physical copy. Any band that decides to cover its tape packaging in stylised runes takes a great risk, and I was sceptical at first - do we really need more minimalist, pagan-folksy aesthetics in extreme metal? As it turns out, we do indeed.

When was the last time you've truly pored over a record's artwork beyond the 'oh, pretty packaging!' stage? Nothing quite beats the satisfaction of finally 'unlocking' the lyrics and getting a feel for the band's concept beyond the music, though the music itself is well worth checking out if you like noise of the sprawling, solemn and distorted variety.

'Birnam' starts out as a sparse, atmospheric composition and introduces sombre vocals reminiscent of Bell Witch, but with a distinct Scottish slant. This song demands patience as it ever so slowly unfurls and builds up room-filling layers of drone, until eventually it culminates in fuzzy distortion and faint screams offset by the drums, which maintain some sense of order and structure. The song title itself offers a glimpse at what may be The Woods' overriding theme: The Birnam Oak is an ancient hangman's tree located in the Highlands. As for the lyrics, giving away their content would spoil what I presume was The Woods' intention: if you want it bad enough, work a little for it.

'Janet Horne' follows a similarly restrained build-up: the warm, organic guitar tone and sparse cymbal hits briefly segue into clean vocals. This track however explores the band's doom and drone influences to a greater extent before it climaxes in distorted screams buried under layers of noise and reverb.

As a further link to Scotland's grim past, 'Janet Horne' refers to the last alleged witch burned alive in the country; the name also served as a generic moniker for witches. It is impossible to ignore the common theme The Woods offer up with this release: Scotland's rich history of bloodshed, mysticism and nature worship.

As the band remains anonymous, it is up to the listener to determine how much he wishes to read into the music and lyrics. As a stand-alone, The Woods' songs deliver ambient drone with austere shoegaze elements; a soundtrack made for a hill walk in solitude.

If you dig deeper, the ancient tree rune lyrics and music appear intrinsically linked and invite speculation about the band's objective.

On listening to this band you might feel as if you’ve discovered a gem. Full of soul and richness, Khruangbin, meaning ‘Engine Fly’ in Thai, is music for summer days and lazy nights. Which is probably one of the reasons why they’ve been featured in the Late Night Tales Bonobo compilation release. Late Night Tales is a series of artist curated compilation albums that are specially selected to create the ‘ultimate late night mix’ and Khruangbin sure does fit the bill.

Khruangbin was formed by three Texans with Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on guitar and Donald Johnson on drums. Purely instrumental with traces of alt- rock, surf, folk, blues and psychedelic rock with a touch of the orient, rounds into a Thai style funk that’s mellow and delicious.

Mark began teaching Laura bass in 2009 and in 2010 the two were invited to join Bonobo on his 2010 tour of America. After the tour they started making music together and DJ joining on drums made the band complete. Khruangbin takes inspiration from a diverse musical range. Mark and DJ have deep roots in Gospel, R&b and Hip-Hop music and have cited influences from 60’s psychedelic Thai funk which translates to their current single ‘A calf born in winter’.

‘A Calf Born in Winter’ gives a soothing harmonious beat with strong and engaging rhythms which grabs and carries you along. With a flowing guitar melody, it could be considered a substitute for the vocals, whose absence is really not missed at all, while the deep gentle hum of the bass sends you into an enraptured trance. The simplicity of everything is what makes it all work so well together.

Whenever you feel like relaxing this is the song you would want to be listening to. There is no distinct chorus or bridge in the instrumentals, it kind of just lingers on like it’s always been there in the back of your head.

Khruangbin has recently signed to LNT offshoot Night Time Stories with an album planned for 2015. A Calf Born in Winter is still available in its limited addition on white 7” Vinyl for Record Store Day and features ‘The Recital that Never Happened’ on the b side which is the first of the bands new material exclusive to this vinyl release.

Weird drone two-piece Nyogtha from Reading send back their notes from The Black Void Between the Stars.

Having recently seen the likes of Ghold, Eagle Twin, Pombagira and Bismuth demonstrate that sticking at just two noise-making band members can somehow vastly increase the cosmos-bending heaviness potential (and looking forward to Ommadon doing the same on tour with Horse Latitudes), I’ve been looking forward to checking out Nyogtha after they were recommended on a similar basis. It turns out that this cult doom duo is reporting back from territories a little further out from the various strains of pummeling doom of the bands just mentioned, and while they’ve certainly spent some consideration chiselling out their particular slow, low heavy droning, the overall effect is a fair bit more ethereal.

I love the opening of the first of four long tracks, 'The Wailing Woman:' a really distinctive sound in the low end tones, like sombre ink blots billowing slowly out through dark, watery atmospheres. After this all reverberates around for a bit, the eponymous wailing woman enters in a moaning indecipherable tenor, sporadically supplemented by a sort of monkish chanting in the background… lost in a dream, an underwater forest, a haze of painkillers and faint lights...

This is extended with minimal variation around these sonic tropes for 16 minutes, and actually, for the rest of the other three tracks too, two of which trek out beyond the 20-minute mark. This isn’t to say there aren’t moments of differentiation which stick out from the drifting morass: such as the more hissing, then screeching vocals not far into 'This Ceaseless Devouring;' or some subtly creative guitar swirls that nag at the sides of your attention in the first track. But the relentless consistency of the sonic palette, over such long tracks, combines to evoke some sort of lament, somewhere between grief and utter loss of memory.

It’s often said that droning music 'doesn’t go anywhere,' I generally disagree, and think it’s instead more about the way that only very subtle, patient development can open up certain wide vistas for reflection. But here it does feel that where you might expect some kind of minimalist journey, instead there’s a vague, reverberating stasis. At first listen I was reminded of Menace Ruine’s folk-noise drones, and admit that Nyogtha came off slightly the worse, since despite a similar set up (evocative vocals over a kind of blank, noisy drone) Nyogtha attempt their hauntings through other echoes than the kind of fragile, archaic-sounding melodies and lysergic summonings that make Menace Ruine so unique and unparalleled.

Instead, a more resonant comparison would be the self-proclaimed 'space drone ambient' of Nebula VII and Saturn Form Essence, sonic emanations meandering through unknown solar systems, then accidentally picked up and channelled through hazy synthy keyboards and photocopied pictures of galaxies wrapped around cassette tapes that then arrive in the mail from Eastern Europe.

As with these couple of projects, Nyogtha feel like they can be a bit hit or miss, but considering their slightly unnerving way of stopping time with such a distinctive and unchanging sound, it makes you wonder whether it’s just your reception of the remote signal that’s fading in and out.

There's been pretty slim pickings on the acid folk/psych scene recently with nothing really setting things alight, so it is real pleasure and surprise that the new album from Amen Dunes is a sublime and refined piece of work. Heading into 2014 and with a big year ahead including a slot at Liverpool Psych Fest amongst many other dates, it's only right that Damon McMahon should take up the mantle left by Syd Barrett and deliver one of the more heartrending releases this year.

It all starts so desolate and grim with the wonderful 'White Child' which drifts along on it's lo-fi sound which develops into a sort of acoustic drone which belies the limited instrumentation use here. It's pretty but also terrifying and the perfect start to the album and as it sinks into some sort of lost Strawberry Field reverie at the end we can only wonder what comes next.

'Lonely Richard' rests on a wonderful chorus which lifts us out of the drone and demands we have a good time which is pretty much the only thing you can do when given such a delightful melody as this. Reminiscent of early Boo Radleys, it sets your feet dancing which is no mean feat and you may find yourself lifting yourself from some cross legged position and discarding those mushrooms for something much more substantial.

It's the use of repetitive drone that works so well throughout this album and acoustic instruments seem to provide a much more warmer and enveloping sound that electric. Hearing this album is akin to sitting by a fire and feeling the warmth of good companionship. Try not to smile as 'Splits Are Parted' seeps into your soul or as the piano driven 'Sixteen' brings in a childlike mentality to proceedings. It's strange stuff and out of time...but oddly of this time.

'Rocket Flare' hits a melodic high with it's understated drums driving the song as it hits a sort of Wooden Shjips feel mixed in with some serious west coast psych and that's maybe where the heart of this album lies. Those heady daze of human be-ins and all night Deadathons would be the natural world for music such as this and we can be thankful that we have it for our own.

It's not all joyful though and it's the mix of dark with the joyful that makes this album so good. 'Everybody is Crazy' signals a descent into a dark trip which is matched by the equally morbid 'Green Eyes'. It's then a jerk back out of this doom into the garage like stomp of 'I Can't Dig It' which totally throws you backwards. Now that is psych music!

It's all left for the title track to wean you out of your trip though and 'Love' is a long, meandering epic which manages to be both understated and well, epic. It's forlorn but strangely uplifting and is a beautiful end to a rather fantastic album.

Amen Dunes may find themselves at the forefront of the psych scene this year and deservedly so with this album. It's one of those classic that sneaks in when you least expect it but leaves and indelible print on your psych. It has enough nous to stay out of the usual pile of psych heads and to try something different but enough in there to appeal to everyone.

Don’t laugh this is serious!

Well maybe not…. but anyway Fat Goth return to once again rock you cotton socks off despite the unfortunate handicap of being neither Fat nor indeed Goth.

‘One Hundred Percent Suave’ is album number three for this Dundee three piece and the follow up to their breakthrough album ‘Stud’ which in their own words: “if Stud is the overweight, unhygienic, eye contact-avoiding weirdo sitting in darkest corners of the nightclub, One Hundred Percent Suave is the pilled-up, pint-downing, football-chanting nightmare throwing it down on the dance floor and bothering all the females in his general vicinity”.

If you have been paying attention to The Goth thus far then don’t panic as this doesn’t mean they have gone crazy and changed their sound. For the uninitiated the ‘sound’ is a hybrid of quirky surf and American alt rock underpinned with caustic lyrics resulting in a refreshingly unique yet still hooks laden concoction.

Things start unconventionally (standard procedure to be honest) with the polite summertime vibes of ‘*disclaimer’ so it down to the frenetic ‘Sweet Mister Scary’ to properly gets this ball rolling with buzzing RIFFS and fizzing bass lines propelling a completely off kilter rhythm.

And all nine tracks on offer contain these features in abundance all backed up by frontman Fraser Stewart’s versatile vocal style that veers from soft croon to metallic grunt and everything in-between that adds a surging dynamic tension to proceedings.

The description “Off Kilter” and even “Eccentric” are very apt but do not mistake this as a disguise for a lack of song writing talent or playing ability as all three members have both in spades and every song will worm their way into your head, whether it be the heaviness of ‘Sin Altar’ of the initial jaunty pop into jazz freak out of ‘I, Corruption’.

The sign of a great album is if it teaches you something new in the process of rocking out, and here the final track is a melancholic ballad called ‘Caligynephobia’ which is apparently “The Fear of Beautiful Women”

So enter the world of Fat Goth… you won’t regret it.