Poseidon - Prologue

After only existing a year London UK band, Poseidon release their debut album "Prologue". When a band opens with an album with a song that spans past the thirteen minute mark, it better keep the listener's attention. Poseiden manage this feat by changing styles without a blunder in "The Beginning The End The Colony"with the tunes opening Neurosis heavy drone later integrating a layer fuzzed out stoner rock on top without halting the drone, then there's a post-metal/hardcore part with guttural vocals that keep a listener which twist Poseidon will take next.
There's a real surprise in the second track as the band take a much quieter approach with an acoustic guitar and keyboards on "Mother Mary of Scorn" which brings The Church to mind due to the vocals. There's a menacing torment of a metallic hell about to break out in the latter parts of the track.

Anyone who has ever been curious as to what fuzzed out post-metal sounds like should hear the intro to "Chainbreaker"which breaks the shackles and chains with interludes of short metallic riffing. The track builds into an absolutely ripping finale. The album concludes with a lengthy track "Omega", which starts with samples from a mad preacher then a Pink Floyd style intro builds and there are a few thrash metal style riffs and drumbeats spiced up with more than a teaspoon full of sludge.

"Prologue"is an interesting start to an ongoing narrative entitled "The Medusa Chronicles"which Poseidon promises to carry through to future records and detail the collapse of civilization and its reconstruction all wrapped in a post apocalyptic sci-fi opera. I'm anxious to hear much more from this UK band.

Release date: 21 July 2017


3.5/5


Poseidon on bandcamp


Poseidon on facebook


Pos

UPYR Altars/Tunnels

 Black metal has never really been my cup of corpse paint.  However I have been a fan of musical hybridization for a long time  although that Run D-MC/Aerosmith collaboration should never have happened since it was the genesis of nu-metal.  Since I've contradicted myself in my opening statement I'll get on with the business on hand and say I was recently emailed a bandcamp link from a Bulgarian band called UPYR.  My initial reaction was to consider the band to be huge fans of text messages as I get lost with all the abbreviations the kids use these days.  A quick google revealed that the name is a type of vampire.  What really got my attention though was that the band was described in the email as blackened doom, which caused raised eyebrows as that is a musical description that isn't witnessed every day.

The band also has yet another thing I usually hate: long songs.  There is a difference here as UPYR flirt with different styles within their songs but also stand up on their own two feet and proudly identify themselves through their chosen sounds.  There are tinges of goth here and there and some of the slow spoken parts have a similar bleak feeling and gloominess to "Burning World" era Swans but also British doom bands such as My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost.

There are three songs on the band's CD but their bandcamp site includes a song which is from a cassette.  It's hard to know if it's because this was a December release that I keep staring at the goat and imagine it standing up on two legs completely draped in red. You should do yourself a favour and check this band out.

4/5


UPYR's bandcamp


UPYR's facebook




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Noye - Away

In the review of Ukranian band Nonsun, I mentioned that I hadn't heard any Russian rock or metal bands since the eighties and then sure enough a Russian sludge band shoots and lands an email in the inbox.  Calling them sludge isn't really fair as there's much more going on in the band's music.  Noye themselves state "we play some mix of sludge, doom and post-metal but we try to do it our own way".  

The album features a few short songs by an electronic band called Kratong which assist in creating a post-rock atmosphere and in some ways this could be considered a split release except for the fact that Kratong are on track 1, 5, 7 and 10 instead of the usual direct split separation of bands on shared releases.  The first track "Mire" by Noye is Sabbath tinged sludge with all the heaviness of elephant testicles.  The song quietens down towards the end and will keep those who like a little post in their metal smiling happily.  The vocals fall somewhere between Cookie Monster and Caveman but are still more accessible to a more casual meta listener than the average death metal vocalist maybe because the vocals are much sparser here.

  I'll admit I'm not the greatest fan of a great many bands who have tried their hands at post-metal hybridization but with this crew it works.  A problem many of the lesser post-metal bands suffer is the songs sound disjointed but Noye's quieter moments are obviously part of the song and wallop with a crushing heaviness that lighter moments, when in the right hands, can provide in "Spinners".   On the surface, "Fracture" is a noisy beast but there's a soft underbelly that allows you to stroke it but then yells at the listener and stands up to brutally assault the senses in a pleasurable way.   Doom strikes in more than one way in "Terror", the riffs are slow paced and convey that an unescapable evil is making its journey your way.

Noye are proof that the Russians are coming and also offering up musical hybridizaton of the highest and heaviest order.  Check out "Away" on Noye's bandcamp page.

Noye on facebook

4.5/5

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