Not long before bands like SKEPTICISM, BEHERIT, WINTER, DISEMBOWELEMENT, SADNESS, THERGOTHON, PAN-THY-MONIUM, KATATONIA surfaced, UNHOLY had already recorded a demo, back in 1989. That was a year after they started the band under the name HOLY HELL. They then changed it to UNHOLY (www.unholy.fi) and suddenly people started talking more and more about this Avant-garde Black Doom Death Metal entity. Then the British wave came along and bands like PARADISE LOST, MY DYING BRIDE and ANATHEMA added Gothic touches to the mixture. The Slow Doom Death Metal spread into different ramifications like Drone, Funeral, Psychedelic, Stoner or Sludge. Yet we can still state that UNHOLY remain pioneers of this darkened musical style and can be considered a pillar of the genre. I don’t think there’s a Death Metal band today who hasn’t drawn its inspirations from albums “From the Shadows” or “The Second Ring of Power”, albums birthed in the second half of the 90s. After that UNHOLY became silent for the next 12 years. Some rumors and some interviews with the band members surfaced in the last years, and they spread the word about intention of reuniting the band for a couple of rehearsals and maybe some concerts during this summer, but nothing was certain.
DonisArt‘s wish to see this band alive and playing on stage after so many yeas of failed attempts of resurrection will become reality. Even if the band might be an unknown entity for those who are young of age, the importance of the band in music history should not be disconsidered. Their four albums are regarded as cult in the whole Avant-garde Black Doom Metal scene. The Finns are coming to DBE 4 on the evening of the 17th August to play an almost forbidden and impossible ritual. Let’s check out their inner spirits during this cold frosty season.
Hi, Ismo. How is winter in Finland? Here we have around -25 degrees…
“Same here, minus 20-25… fucking awful!”
UNHOLY is one of my favorite Underground Metal bands from all times… Why you decided to stop the activity a few years ago?
“Few years ago? In fact it’s 10 years ago. Well, we were kind of stuck in position where we couldn’t get more famous, to get tours and gigs abroad and to conquer the world really. We could have been able to continue as ‘nameless legend’ but we already seen that life. That’s what we were the whole time Unholy existed. So it was no point to continue, because we were suffering from lack of motivation.”
Who had the idea to restart again to work to the band? Have you kept the contact between all of your members in these years?
“No, we haven’t been in contact a lot, except with Pasi who is as the matter of fact, my brother-in-law. We got the idea of reborn when Rusty Crowbar contacted us and wanted to release our demos. When that project went forward, and same time our albums got reissued, things began to seem quite auspicious for comeback. But this is just a project, so we’re not going to be alive with Unholy for next 10 years. This may end already after this summer, if we feel that we’ve made everything that had to be done. So this summer is for sure the last possible chance to see Unholy alive. We may release something new if it feels good, but gigs will not happen after this summer touring.”
Are you listening to Metal music? What old albums are you prefer? How about from the new ones?
“No, I listen more like rock and progressive stuff, and some other stuff not so easy to categorize. I like very much the band called Alamaailman Vasarat. Very interesting music! Could be good visitor to DBE also.”
Going back to the state of the band… Are you intending to create a new album? If yes, what kind of musical direction will be? Your 4 albums are really masterpieces. How do you see these albums today?
“We don’t know. The style will be pure raw, ‘old-schoolish’ and not overproduced. That’s the vision we have, because nowadays there’s too much overproduced music that sound nice and clean, but lacks the feeling and presence. It’s a long story to detailed describe every album, but I’ll put it this way: every album has its own feeling and style, and so it’s really hard to put any album before the other.”
Tell me a few things about the current line-up. The rest of the guys play also in other bands, maybe?
“We’ll do this the old fashioned way, with 2 guitars. No keyboards, female vocals. Just pure, aggressive, ultra heavy Doom for doomers.”
You have more than 12 years of no live activities. What are you expectations from your upcoming shows? Have you decided where you will play this year, maybe?
“We have no touring manager or anyone to organize gigs. And we don’t know any organizers. So we basically cannot get any gigs by ourselves. We just have to wait is someone asks us to play. That’s why I’m not waiting for any world tours.”
You will come in Romania in August. What do you know about my country?
“Honestly, I don’t know anything about Romania. Except, when I was a kid, my second violin teacher was Romanian. I remember him as very demanding man. Romanian and Hungarian classical musicians have always been highly respected in Finland.”
DBE 4 is a platform where will play a lot of bands with different musical roots… Do you know some bands that will play in the same edition with you?
“I haven’t looked at the list in detail. But I will.”
What tracks you will play in August here and how will be the show in comparison with your past gigs?
“The track list is under construction, it’s too early to say. But as we will play with two guitars, most of songs will be from demos and first couple of albums. (keyboards are in too big role in last two albums to leave off).”
Thank you. See you in a few months. Do you believe in some sort of religion?
“Thanks to you too, friend! I hope we get lots of fans in there. I’m an atheist. I am a believer in physics.”
Les Discrets finished their very first video clip and it’s a clip made for the song “Ariettes Oubliées”, the title track of their upcoming second album, one that will be released on February 13.
Fursy Teyssier on the video: “We’re very happy and proud to share the very first LES DISCRETS music video with you. It was such a pleasure to make it. Audrey Hadorn wrote and directed it, and it is the first music video she did. We really hope you’ll like it as much as we do…”
Les Discrets – Ariettes oubliees (promo clip)
Les Discrets: “Ariettes Oubliées…” sound samples
Today 03.02.2012 in one week “Ariettes Oubliées…”, the successor of the highly acclaimed Les Discrets debut album “Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées”, will be released. Here are some sound samples to get an impression of what to expect from Fursy Teyssier’s new work:
Mourning Lenore are a melting pot of atmospheric rock and metal music influences. Doom metal, progressive rock, post rock, psychedelic, just to name a few. Chords of melancholy, riffs evoking landscapes and atmospheres of bleakness…
After an injection of new blood and renewed hopes, Mourning Lenore are now preparing a whole new set to return to stage and by the fall some new material should be available.
The doomsters announced the release of a new song with their new line-up. The song is entitled “Shortcut To Nowhere” and you can listen to it on High Definition below.
French black/doom metal band Mourning Dawn is currently working on 8-9 songs which will make up their upcoming album scheduled to be released at a later date. The band posted the following on their Facebook page: “As some of you may know, we are just fucking late due to various reasons. Truth is we had to face some internal problems we are trying to solve right now.”
“You know, it can be really tiring to handle a band like this one when people don’t really feel like it, and you have to work 50 hours/week, only for the passion of it. Worse, the actual musical business is just totally falling down. Labels don’t sign any new bands (by the way, are they still useful?) Everything’s changing these days, and I feel like an old dinosaur still buying CDs and stuff…”
“Question would be then: what should we do? Is music free? If you want to get a chance for your band to grow, do we have to suck some dicks to get gigs? Do we have to spam the whole web for us to be known? Do we have to pay for everything for our album to be released? Furthermore, is music condemned to be out of the physical world and have to stay in that digital prison?”
“Anyway, we hope to have pre-production songs ready in the next weeks. There will be like 8-9 songs, which means way more songs than expected for one album.”
Solitude Productions / BadMoodMan Music and Slow Burn Records presents new 2011 promo compilations. Each compilation – is a label’s summary for a 2011 year. All presented tracks are FULL no cuts this time.
Compilations won’t be released on CD format and only available as a FREE digital download. However we’ll make a 1 CD short promo compilation which will be included for free in each order made in January.
Solitude Productions Compilation 2011
01. Mare Infinitum – Sea Of Infinity (9:47)
02. Funeral – Your Pain Is Mine (7:47)
03. Heavy Lord – Fear The Beard (7:53)
04. Stangala – Al Lidou Esoterik An Dolmen Hud (7:36)
05. Fangtooth – Father (5:53)
06. Night Of Suicide – Desire (11:05)
07. Abstract Spirit – Post Mortem (11:20)
08. Comatose Vigil – Autophobia (23:15)
09. The Undergrave Experience – Mater Mortalis Tenebrarum (24:21)
10. Septic Mind – Doomed To Sin (18:43) FREE Download here: http://solitudeproductions.bandcamp.com/album/solitude-productions-compilation-2011
BadMoodMan Music Compilation 2011
01. In Loving Memory – Even A God Can Die (6:43)
02. (Echo) – The Coldest Land (9:09)
03. Raventale – These Days Of Sorrow (5:50)
04. Kamlath – One Tired Wise (6:45)
05. The Sullen Route – Hysteria (5:37)
06. Tears Of Mankind – So Long And Recently (8:22)
07. Benighted In Sodom – Chains Of Bliss (7:30)
08. The Morningside – The Trees: Part One (12:38)
FREE Download here: http://badmoodmanmusic.bandcamp.com/album/badmoodman-music-compilation-2011
“Autre Temps” is the first single of Alcest‘s third album, “Les Voyages De L’Âme”. The single is out now as limited etched vinyl 7″ (http://shop.prophecy.de/product_info.php?info=p1259_ALCEST—Autre-Temps–ltd–7–Etched-Vinyl-Single-.html) and digital download.
The album will be out on January 6, 2012.
“Autre temps” lyrics:
Une prière lointaine que porte le vent du soir
Anime les feuilles dans leur danse alanguie.
C’est le chant des vieux arbres entonné pour toi,
Pour ces bois obscurs maintenant endormis.
Sans nous attendre tant de saisons ont passé;
Les feuilles dorées s’en allant mourir à terre
Renaîtront un jour sous un ciel radieux,
Mais notre monde érodé restera le même
Et demain toi et moi serons partis.
——————
English translation:
Another Time
A distant prayer, carried by the evening wind
Enlivens leaves in their languid dance.
Hear the song of the old trees, singing for you
For the dark, resting woods.
So many seasons have passed; they did not wait.
The golden leaves dying on the ground
Will be reborn under bright skies
As this weatherworn world remains the same,
And tomorrow, you and I will be gone.
BadMoodManMusic/SolitudeProductions presents the debut album by an Italian band (EchO)!
Outstanding music which cannot be limited by the frames of a certain style combines heavy guitars with atmospheric keyboards, deep growling and clean male vocals while the music varies from extreme death doom metal to aerial post rock. «DevoidOfIllusions» is based on perfect performance and intent attention to details such as arrangement or CD artwork.
The album was recorded in UK at PrioryRecordingStudios (SuttonColdfield) and CMATStudios (Birmingham) and produced by Greg Chandler (vocals and guitars in Esoteric) who also appeared as vocalist at the final track!
Format: CD Release Date: 11.11.2011 Country: Italy Genre: Dark Metal / Doom Death
Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Summoning The Crimson Soul
3. Unforgiven March
4. The Coldest Land
5. Internal Morphosis
6. Omnivoid
7. Disclaiming My Faullts
8. Once Was A Man
9. Sounds From Out Of Space
The fourth long-awaited album from a Russian one-man-band Tears Of Mankind.
As always, the band presents diverse material which not focuses at some exact style, but skillfully fuses various directions basing on dark metal and doom death metal. The new project work “Memoria” can be considered as a conceptual album whose tracks are united by the idea of personal experience and memories connected with it. The album is divided into two essential parts: the first one presents heavier material with English lyrics while the second one is more lyric and features Russian texts and more atmospheric music which, nevertheless, stays in the frames of metal style. The strongest and most essential features of the album are typical for Tears of Mankind sensuality and melodies.
Format: CD Release Date: 31.10.2011 Country: Russia Genre: Dark Metal / Doom Death
Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. In The Embrace Of Eternal Sunshine
3. Deadly Desire
4. Passion Blackfathom Deeps
5. Under The Great Dome
6. So Long And So Recently
7. Pamyat’
8. Mayatnik
9. Requiem
10. Wino Pamyaty
The second album from a Russian band Septic mind. “The True Call” consists of three long tracks and continues the evolution of musical ideas established at their previous album, “The Beginning”. The musicians still stand at positions of extremal doom metal, but they are moving away from the influence of Esoteric forming their own sound. This time Septic Mind music with typical cosmic psychedelic interludes features elements of sludge doom metal. “The True Call” is the next chapter of the gloomy and insane tale of Septic Mind covered with cold, despair and misanthropy.
Format: CD Release Date: 24.10.2011 Country: Russia Genre: Extreme Funeral Doom
Tracklist:
1. The True Call
2. Doomed To Sin
3. Planet Is Sick
Emerald Forest And The Blackbird, the brand-new upcoming album by Finnish doomsters Swallow The Sun is scheduled to be released on February 1st through Spinefarm Records.
Guitarist and songwriter Juha Raivio comments: “I found myself listening to an old Finnish lullaby called “Sininen Uni” over and over again, and suddenly images started pouring into my mind of a dad reading a tale to his dying child, trying to explain where the child is going that night, the tale of Emerald Forest And The Blackbird.
Finally this image lead me into a long journey through this night and got me trapped in the limbo between the dusk and the dawn. The place where you face your demons and angels, meet the souls of the ones you loved and lost. Will we walk the night forever, or let the night forgive us and let us say a last goodbye? These are songs from the limbo, notes of sorrow, hate, love, darkness and light. The tale of Emerald Forest And The Blackbird.
We are extremely honoured to have Anette Olzon of Nightwish featuring on vocals on “Cathedral Walls”. Her recognizable voice gives the song the depth and the angelic character it demands.”
In addition, Aleah Stanbridge of Trees Of Eternity – whose ethereal voice is familiar from our previous works – is also featured on two tracks.
Anette Olzon fills in: “When I got to listen to the rough demo of “Cathedral Walls” I fell in love with the song immediately and I was so honoured to be asked to sing on this song. The melody and lyrics are truly beautiful.”
Emerald Forest And The Blackbird tracklist:
01. Emerald Forest And The Blackbird
02. This Cut Is The Deepest
03. Hate, Lead The Way
04. Cathedral Walls [featuring Anette Olzon]
05. Hearts Wide Shut
06. Silent Towers
07. Labyrinth Of London (Horror Pt. IV)
08. Of Death And Corruption
09. April 14th
10. Night Will Forgive Us
US funeral doomsters Evoken are preparing to enter the studio in the upcoming week to lay down their next full-length album.
Profound Lore Records issued the following update: “It has been agreed upon that we will be releasing the next full-length album from legendary doom metal behemoth Evoken. This could very well be their glorious moment within their repertoire. The band’s fifth full-length album will be released sometime spring 2012.”
Also, the band issued the following statement on their official Facebook page: “The first 3 dates for the studio are booked, and we’re ready to go. November 11th, 12th, and 13th we begin recording our new opus. We will be returning to the same studio behind A Caress Of The Void with Steve DeAcutis behind the board once again.”
Avantgarde Music is proud to announce to have sealed an agreement with XASTHUR for the release of this giant combo:
“Nightmares at Dawn” Unreleased album
(consisting of 14 tracks recorded between 2004 and 2009!!)
“Summoning the End of Time” Re-issue
(split album with Acid Enema)
“Sermon in the Name of Death” Re-issue
(split album with Angra Mainyu)
“t.b.a.” compilation
(On top of the above three main curses, Malefic opened his vaults and put together another bomb in the likes of a collection of 9 bonus tracks taken from various moments of Xasthur history, including unreleased tracks and, i.e., the tracks from the Xasthur / Nachtmystium split 7″ from 2004)
Full details about “Nightmares at Dawn” (available formats and release date) that is the main feature of this agreement, will be unfold as soon as possible.
Some basic but important notes for now:
1) It has to be remembered that Xasthur stopped his activities in 2010 and thus “Nightmares at Dawn” is not given as a ‘new’ album, but we can anticipate that this is gonna be a real and valuable Xasthur offering consisting of unreleased songs written and recorded in the last 5 years of its existence plus 3 Xasthur classics anthems re-recorded in different moments (‘Prison of Mirrors’, ‘Screaming at Forgotten Fears’ and ‘Suicide in Dark Serenity’).
2) The splits with Angra Mainyu and Acid Enema are longly sold-out and almost on a collectors stuff status now. We will try to maintain their original shape although some substantial rework in the artworks might be needed. We hereby thank THR Sweden for agreeing easy and on friendly terms at these glorious reissues.
Certain treasures dont need to be buried and forgotten.
3) The ‘t.b.a.’ bonus songs collection: we are going to sit-down and make a plan together with Malefic on what is the best and proper way to unleash them. Several ideas in the cauldron, but indeed it was clear since the beginning that to dismember and share them on the three other releases would be stupid and destroying the other releases purpose and original ideas. This might appear as a bonus disc for a special edition of the unreleased album or a self-standing release. Time shall tell (shortly!)
*** Last but NOT least, we are very happy to announce the first label’s joint venture of our history!
As everybody else who’s slowly getting old, we are caring about the youngers growing… and thus we are extremely excited to have involved in the Xasthur releases project the fresh but solid forces of Lo-Fi Creatures record label from Italy.
Lo-Fi Creatures is a rather young team with a clear vision of the actual record business and, most of all, growing-up month by month with concrete actions.
It is driven by creative and enthusiastic people working their asses 24/7 in all aspects of music: taking care of their artists & releases from the studio production and graphic characterization to the practical but necessary aspects, like organising (many!) live events and selling records at venues!
Soon celebrating their 1st anniversary on December 10th, the label already released an handful of aces, from the debut album by Whiskey Ritual to the recent missiles named Abaton (check out this amazing act!) and Frangar.
Keep an eye open on them:
http://www.facebook.com/loficreatures
as we do!
A virtual hand-shake and blood-drops sharing with Dott.Morte, A. and the rest of their pretty entourage, Miss Bones and Plague
Cups & glasses high! Now stop the bullshit and lets work.
Alcest’s new single Autre Temps (engl. Other Times) will be released on December 2nd, 2011 and is a harbinger of the band’s upcoming album Les Voyages De L’Âme (engl. The Journeys Of The Soul), which is scheduled for release in January 2012. In keeping with Les Voyages De L’Âme, Autre Temps presents itself as a beautiful and magical song, which will be available as a blue vinyl 7″ (with an etching on one side) limited to 500 copies as well as digital download single.
The vinyl single is now available for pre-order at Prophecy’s online shop at this location.
In tandem with the single, also an impressive video clip visually supporting the song’s fragile beauty will be released. A short teaser clip can be watched below.
Update :
The third Alcest album, “Les Voyages De L’Âme” (engl.: “The Journeys Of The Soul”), will be released worldwide in January 2012. The exact dates:
Germany/Austria: January 6, 2012
Europe: January 9, 2012
North America: January 31, 2012
Everywhere else: January 9, 2012
The album can now be pre-ordered as CD, Digipak CD, and limited Artbook-CD/DVD as well as limited gatefold LP with alternative cover artwork and in two different colours (black and white):
“Les Voyages De L’Âme” will contain eight tracks and have a total running time of 50 minutes. The complete track list:
1. Autre Temps
2. Là Où Naissent Les Couleurs Nouvelles
3. Les Voyages De L’Âme
4. Nous Sommes L’Emeraude
5. Beings Of Light
6. Faiseurs De Mondes
7. Havens
8. Summer’s Glory
and thus we are extremely excited to have involved in the Xasthur releases project the fresh but solid forces of Lo-Fi Creatures record label from Italy.
