Concrete Mascara – History Of Ruin CS
Trapdoor Tapes
This tape is a thick caloric slab of cranky power electronics. Very hard to consume, but worth your time.
Concrete Mascara has made the work of reviewing this tape difficult by offering a harrowing 45 minutes of nail biting power electronics. There is a certain vastness to this tape that is a little overwhelming. I haven’t heard anything else by this guy, but this release seems like a pretty good cross-section of sounds that offers nice variations in sounds but also …

Reptile Womb – Thee Fyrste Deathe: Serpent Wrything Beneathe Thee Graeve CD
Bestial Burst records
The lacerations which Reptile Womb has foisted upon the listener might be more effectively appreciated if one approaches Thee Fyrste Deathe from a power-electronics perspective. The tools used here are primitive and unpolished. Its true bedroom wizardry lies in the composition making for a remarkably ugly but catchy set of songs.
The closest comparison I can think of to Reptile Womb might be Gnaw Their Tongues. The latter opts for grand entrances, inundation of samples, …

Coberord – S/T
Coberord bandcamp
The pairing of ritual music and the slower register of metal produces some very interesting and imaginative songwriting. The previously mentioned Atarah and groups like Phurpa often recreate heaviness by drafting empty space in between barren landscapes of strings, organic instruments, and other acoustics.
Featuring members of Habsyll and Stille Volk, Coberord sulks in the creepy robe void where ritual and sludge/doom metal fumes converge. This album is a very slow starter. The opening 17 minute track is gratuitously sparse with plinks, croaks, ghoulish screams, …

End of 2015.

Here are a few things created this year that I liked more than I liked other things.
No order of preference implied, though bias for the artists featured certainly is.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

-DEMO-
Nycterent – Imprisoned By Reflection, Last Mercy
I asked myself whether or not I could separate the compelling backstory behind the artist (which I’ll keep to myself) from the release itself since this tape is so sparsely adorned (it is a tour tape after all). Upon re-listening, it is evident that this is a powerful demo tape which stands on …

Analfabetism – Av Hjord Är Du Kommen
Malignant Records
Here’s yet another Swedish entry into the growing database of Existence Establishment reviews. This is one release that makes no claims of outlandish innovation or ground breaking shtick…Av Hjord Är Du Kommen is a solid old school piece of electronics execution that draws heavily from the Cold Meat Industry world and references those artists respectfully and discretely while drawing from personal experience to produce one of the most unique pieces of industrial I’ve heard in a while.
I like that Malignant Records …

Diaphgramagic – Broken Man C30
Urgent Telepathy Recordings
Here’s a submission by Ohio’s Diaphragmatic. Released by Urgent Telepathy Recordings, Broken Man is a work of ripping junk metal scrapes, cuts, and even some tape manipulation. I think this medium is very cool, but 30 minutes is a bit much.
“Firefucker” starts out by banging out wallops of junk rhythm that disintegrate into some grinding swirls, swabs of feedback and clipped to hell rumblings. Similar to chaotic acts like Death Jenk that operate at maximum volume with disregard for the …

Ättestupa – Vattnet Drog Sig Tillbaka, Stenarna Blev Synliga
Järtecknet soundcloud
I’ve been following Ättestupa for the last three releases and they’ve become one of my favorite bands of inveterate instrumentation and songwriting. If you’re a fan of this sad, sad music, then Vattnet Drog Sig Tillbaka, Stenarna Blev Synliga (translated: The Waters Receded, The Stones Became Visible) will provide you with similar elements of the thick-air minimalism that defines their sound. On this new album though, there is a new approach of the band of traversing even more …

Tetrad Veil – Solar Sequence C45
Involition Records
If you enjoy listening to long and stifling processions of funeralistic doom flavored industrial, then this is your ticket. Solar Sequence is a brilliantly contriturated death industrial side project from one of the members of doom metal band Aldebaran. In four lengthy tracks, Tetrad Veil stomps through oozing frequencies and minimal but lumbering and hammering percussion with an array of dislocated vocals that range from Burning Witch screeches to ritual chanting you might find on a Root album.
Starting with “D.W.R.”, here …

Atarah – S/T CS
Auric Records
Atarah is a mysterious project devoted to occult ambient music with a slight hint of black metal. Instead of a haphazard jam fixed under the pretense of some mystical vaguely-eastern-dipped “exotic” experience, Atarah have conceived a diverse piece of music that glimmers with an aura of ritual without much of the fluff.
The compositions on this tape are seemingly deliberate and intentional offerings that do feel ritualistic in the same way a project like Ark-Tau-Eos does in that there is a subtle but distinguished eloquence …

Nycterent – S/T CS
Last Mercy Recordings
This self-titled tape represents a new name and a new perspective, but those familiar with Jon’s previous project, Erroraeon, will find solace in the fact that Nycterent is every bit as mangled and painful, perhaps even more so.
No track names are given, and in this case it works well…you have no way of anticipating the next movement because the tracks blend together seamlessly (or maybe it’s one track with several movements…). The layers of writhing tones upon one another is a strength of this …