(EchO) – Devoid Of Illusions

Interesting 6-pieces combo from Northern Italy, (EchO) delivers its own brand of death/doom metal. Throughout all the years this sub-genre has been eviscerated, mixed, spoiled, enriched so that today there are various variations on it, each of them equally fascinating and worthy a listen. In particular the style adopted by ours is a a sort of funeral doom metal with a lot of melodies and atmospheric parts.

Tears Of Mankind – Memoria

I was definitely eagerly waiting for a new album by the Russian one-man-band Tears Of Mankind led by Phil Skobelin.
After the awesome ‘Silent Veil Of My Doom’ here it comes the follower ‘Memoria’ which shows new features and new ways of expression for Skobelin’s art.

Deadend In Venice – See You On the Ground

New band from Germany, Deadend In Venice embraces what we normally call melodic death metal, with a particular eye upon the best In Flames more than other, under a more modern light. Although the roots can be found in the precious Gothenburg school, of course there’s much more in ‘See You On The Ground’ that a mere attempt to benefit of the fame of such albums as ‘Whoracle’ or ‘The Gallery’.

Raventale – Bringer Of Heartsore

Continuing on his tortured path into darkness, Astaroth recorded another collection of tracks for his creation Raventale with the title of ‘Bringer Of Heartsore’ still for BadMoodMan Music.
Not very dissimilar by the previous work, the songs here show more interest for the atmospheric aspect of doom metal music rather than the aggressive one.

Johan Wolfgang Pozoj – Escape Of Pozoj

The legend of Pozoj goes on with this second release out of a trilogy by the Croatian band. Recorded in 2009 and now remastered and refurbished by Code666.
In this chapter, which musically is not dissimilar from the previous one, the band keeps on showing its particular interest more on atmospheres and pathos than in violence just for the sake of. According to this statement, JWP’s music perfectly fits in the Avantgarde scheme, with no boundaries nor limits.

Enid – Munsalvaesche

Enid from Germany are one of those bands which are totally out of any music business while completely and genuinely into pure music creation process! Since my first encounter with the band (at the time of the release of their ‘Seelenspiegel’ album, back in 2002) they recorded only an album (‘Gradwanderer’, 2004) so I was fearing them to be disbanded or, worse, on an indefinite hiatus.
Surprisingly enough, here they are again with the new ‘Munsalvaesche’, always for Code666 label, and their medieval/opera metal has risen again.