Running Wild - Blood on Blood (2021)

Country: Germany
Style: Heavy/Power Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 29 Oct 2021
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | Official Website | Twitter | Wikipedia

Running Wild are one of those perennial European bands that are so easy to dismiss because they've been around longer than dirt and they play every festival and they may be the definition of "reliable" and, yeah, they were pirate metal before the guys in Alestorm knew how to stand up on their own two feet and isn't that genre over yet? But then you throw on another album and listen to them again for the first time in a while and remember just how damn good a band they are.

They were formed back in 1976 as Granite Hearts, changing their name to Running Wild, after the Judas Priest song, three years later. Rolf Kasparek has led the band since the very beginning and has been the sole founding member since 1984. He's still there, singing and playing guitar, though he did disband for a couple of years in 2009. The line-up has been stable since 2015 and this is their seventeenth studio album, their first since 2016's Rapid Foray.

And it's refreshingly good. The lyrics to the opening title track may be cheesy, with their "One for all and all for one" mentality but it's an upbeat and catchy number to get us going and it doesn't stop being upbeat and catchy for a long time. It doesn't matter how far into the album you move—a cynic might call the next four tracks interchangeable—you'll pay attention and tap your feet and wonder at how effortlessly the riffs and hooks are. This isn't a tired forty-five year old outfit in the slightest; this is a vibrant forty-five year old band who knows precisely what they're doing and just continues to do it and do it again and do it once more for the back row and...

I have to admit to being a little out of touch with regards to Running Wild. I listened to them quite a bit back in the eighties and nineties but can't remember the most recent album of theirs that I played. I see that their ratings haven't been great since maybe The Brotherhood in 2002, but this doesn't feel to me like it deserves a 53%, 54% or 60% rating like their previous four. This is easily a solid 70% all the way to Crossing the Blades and then it livens up even more.

Now, I should emphasise that there's nothing here that Running Wild haven't done before many times so you're not going to find anything original here at all. I don't think it counts as ripping off when you're ripping off yourself and bands as great as AC/DC have made careers out of that. The songs here are all decent, even if they were never going to be innovative or revolutionary. It's fair to say that Running Wild haven't been innovative or revolutionary since inventing pirate metal in 1987.

I recently reviewed the new U.D.O., Game Over, also a seventeenth studio album from a German heavy/power metal band with a constant lead singer, and that was great until it wasn't. Whether it was the fourth track or later that crossed the line into filler territory, U.D.O. got there and they struggled in vain to get back out again. Running Wild does far better here. The first six tracks are easily worthy, with Say Your Prayers perhaps the best amongst them.

Maybe the seventh, One Night, One Day, lets the side down a bit with its overly anthemic outlook, but it's not filler and it's going to find an eager audience. The Shellback is able to restore things to business as usual, just as anthemic without trying qite so hard. Wild, Wild Nights is as cheesy as its title makes it seem, but it isn't filler either. These late songs may make you fistpump or cringe or wonder how you got transported back to the late eighties, but they're not filler, and neither is the ten minute epic that closes out the album, the clumsily titled The Iron Times (1618-1648).

So,nothing here is filler and a lot of it surprisingly strong. However, the lack of originality doesn't help it towards higher ratings and I have to wonder about those most recent four albums with the low scores. If I dive into them, will I find four albums just like this one and it's the fact that they're all the same that's letting people down? Or do they truly deserve those ratings and this is a step up in the band's 45th year? I'm actually interested in finding out and I don't think I was coming in. That has to count for something.

Dust Mountain - Hymns for Wilderness (2021)

Country: Finland
Style: Psychedelic Folk Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 22 Oct 2021
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

I've been listening to this album on and off all day and it keeps on captivating me. It would be easy to just dismiss it as old hippie music, as we've been rather conditioned by pop culture to think that way, but chat with any old record collector and they'll regale you for hours about underrated rock, folk and psych from the late sixties and early seventies, albums that most will never hear but that resonate to the knowing. And this reminds me of those in general and one of them in particular.

I'd be very surprised if the folk behind Dust Mountain haven't heard Parallelograms, the album by Linda Perhacs that was almost universally ignored on its release in 1970 but which has become an important influence to many, including Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth. It's overt in the opening track, Harvest Maiden, and it's overt in Holy Equinox, which feels like Perhacs singing for Hexvessel.

And, talking of Hexvessel, the last time I mentioned Perhacs at Apocalypse Later was in my review of their wyrd folk masterpiece, Kindred, my album of the year for 2020. And, looking at the line-up of Dust Mountain, I see drummer Jukka Rämänen of Hexvessel among members of a who's who of bands from the Finnish psychedelic and avant-garde scenes. Organist Toni Hietamäki performs for Oranssi Pazuzu and the Waste of Space Orchestra; guitarist Pauliina Lindell hails from Vuono; and bassist Riku Pirttiniemi is part of Death Hawks.

The most obvious presence as we begin is Henna Hietamäki of post-rock/dreampop outfit Cats of Transnistria. She's an ethereal presence, her soft voice inviting us into all sorts of things we know nothing about and might enjoy but come to regret. Never accept a gift from the Fae, right? She's a dreamweaver of a singer and we tumble headlong into the worlds she conjures up without even thinking twice. She isn't kidding when she sings that we're under her spell. She opened her mouth and that's all it took.

I mention Fae gifts because these songs initially seem sweet and innocent but gradually reveal an acutely dark side. The longer we listen, the darker we realise it all really is. It was there all along in the lyrics, hiding in plain sight, telling of dancing with the devil, of burning down villages and of casting spells over people. It's there in the music as well, if we pay a little more attention, though it becomes unmistakeable by the time we get to Apollo, the album's eight and a half minute epic.

Before that point, there are jarring moments in some early songs that shake us momentarily as if we're waking up from a dream, before they shift back into comforting, deceptive beauty. They're warnings, just like the final note in Village on Fire to return us to reality from the trancelike state we've just spent the previous five minutes and forty-nine seconds. And then Apollo, with its overt and dark chords and, well, we can't be helped at that point. We've already committed ourselves to being willing sacrifices.

There's a lot to digest here in an album hiding behind its bright and cheerful hippie demeanour. It isn't bright and cheerful, or, if it is, it isn't for everyone. There's folk here, of course, with a neatly psychedelic edge, but that's not all that's to be found on these grooves. Under My Spell features jazz beats. A number of songs betray the rock and metal roots of many of its musicians. It's never just one of those things either, because it's always mixing things up.

It isn't this year's Kindred. I frankly wasn't expecting anything to be that good, while lying in wait like a panther for something that is. It's a damn good album though and it underlines just how we should be paying very close attention to what's coming out of Finland lately, especially what can't be easily confined in a single bucket.

Monolord - Your Time to Shine (2021)

Country: Sweden
Style: Stoner/Doom Metal
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 29 Oct 2021
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | Official Website | Twitter

Those Swedish purveyors of ultra-heavy doom metal are back with another new album, their fifth in only seven years and it doesn't really surprise if you've heard them before. This one starts out bludgeoning in near monotone for a minute or so before shifting into such a quintessential Black Sabbath riff that I was humming it on my first time through, even if I was going with the original of A National Acrobat rather than this take on it called The Weary.

I should add here that, while Sabbath are never far away from any reviewer's lips when taking on a modern stoner/doom album, it's often a cheap reference that can usually be better served with another band Not here. Monolord are trying to channel early Sabbath in so many ways that it's impossible not to bring them up first and foremost. A cynic would suggest that there are only two bands in their sound: Black Sabbath and Monolord.

On The Weary, their nod to Sabbath is mostly in the riffs and an occasional Ozzy shout. On To Each Their Own, it's in the mellow sections, because this band is not only a brutally heavy riff machine. However, I couldn't find my way into either of these songs, which mostly do what they do and move on, and that's not a great thing when they constitute about a third of the album.

I do find that my take on Monolord tends to be pretty negative on a first listen only to shift slowly into positive with each further listen. I have to say that To Each Their Own has grown on me a little but I'm still not a big fan and The Weary just seems derivative to me. It was on I'll Be Damned that the album started to grab me. It has a bit more oomph from the outset and it feels more like they mean it, whatever it is that they mean beyond simply heaviness. I really like the riff halfway which is acutely simple but very effective.

Surely the best song on offer here is the title track, which begins beautifully. Of course, it's heavy and it's slow but it's dripping with melancholy and the minimalism is glorious. I can't remember a bass fill that simple but effective since Joy Division. It's a ten minute piece, the longest here, but it grows well. Its extended finalé is the mellowness that played a part in To Each Their Own and I'll Be Damned at its most effective.

In fact, it's so effectively mellow that the arrival of The Siren of Yersinia is something of a shock. It kicks off as fast and urgent as this album gets, though it doesn't stay there. For a song that starts so emphatically, I found myself drifting away from it a lot and that pushes the downside to well over half the album. There's good stuff here, on this track once it gets into its second half, and notably on the title track, but the album as a whole isn't grabbing me with time the way that I've come to expect from Monolord. I definitely liked No Comfort more.

Seklumpulan Orang Gila - Second Voyage (2021)

Country: Malaysia
Style: Alternative
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 25 Sep 2021
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This may be titled Second Voyage but it looks like it's Seklumpulan Orang Gila's third voyage at a full album length, after 2014's Bahtera and 2018's Dermaga. Before all those was a 2013 EP called Civilization is on Trial. And I was fascinated to hear what it sounded like because I haven't heard a Malaysian alternative band before, my experience here at Apocalypse Later limited thus far to a melodic death metal band called Mothflesh.

Their brand of alternative is an interesting one because it's surprisingly varied from the outset, a very contemporary and trendy American approach mixing it up with traditional ethnic music. For instance, the album starts with what we can only see as an intro, even though it must be a song of its own, a solo female voice performing in an overtly south east Asian style that I can only assume is Malaysian. That voice belongs to Shafa’atussara and it's delightful.

But then we leap into the album proper with the title track, which features as western a guest as Tim Lambesis, the much troubled lead singer of San Diego metalcore legends As I Lay Dying. He's appropriate here, because this is an up tempo song, with Lambesis's shouty voice combining with the snarly one of a band member and another that's not just clean but sweetly clean. That makes this quite the synthesis of styles, especially when you factor in whatever ethnic instrumentation is happening in the background. I'm not a big metalcore fan but I really like this.

Sailors of Sorrow follows suit in a strippd down fashion, losing the guest vocals and cutting down on the ethnic material without losing it entirely. The quiet section close to halfway suggests that it's really keyboards but it sounds like wind instruments. Whatever it is, it's a fascinating contrast to the edgy guitars, overt bass and lively drums, just as the clean pop voice contrasts neatly with the snarly hardcore one. There are times when this ventures into post-rock but it's primarily still alternative rock, often metalcore without much metal, if that makes sense. Memories does more of this.

But then the band switch sound entirely. Tugu Ugut feels like a dance song with the electronica on mute, but with that overt bass almost duetting with the vocals. It gets a lot edgier, almost finding its way into experimental punk, but never really speeds up. The fastest it reaches is a woah woah chorus. Like most songs here, it's just shy of four minutes, but it veers from dance to post-rock via pop and hardcore punk. It's a fascinating mix and the band keep varying the balance between the edgy and the traditional as the album progresses.

One of my favourite songs is Pelukan Angkasa, which introduces a clean female voice to that mix. I came back to this one after listening to the whole album the first time to see just how much it gets into its, you guessed it, just short of four minutes. It starts out as ethnopop, the keyboards aiming for a chiming gamelan sound. It erupts almost palpably into a heavier chorus. The female voice, of famous Malaysian singer Shila Amzah, is a welcome addition and the two combine explosively and grow with the song too. There are strings to underpin the emotions. It gets traditional as it finds itself only a minute from the end but then builds back up. It's a heck of a ride.

It's fair to say that not everything in this sound is up my alley, but my ears are always open to new syntheses of sounds and the end result here is fascinating to me. By the time Radicalism towards the end of the album shifted into new genres a few times in a short period of time, I even started to think of Mr. Bungle as a comparison. No, they're not that adventurous, but they are definitely adventurous and I haven't seen Kuala Lumpur as a hotbed of that sort of thing. The closing songs, Senja Yang Tua and We are Stronger Than Before, sound like different bands, but they're not out of place next to each other.

Sometimes, styles that I'm not particularly fond of can work really well as counterpoints and that is how the shouty hardcore voice plays here for me. I don't like celery either and wouldn't eat it as a snack but it can work in the right soup. The shouty voices and boy band vocals work in this wildly diverse soup, as do the strings in Senja Yang Tua, the wind instruments in Second Voyage and the fundamentally traditional vocals on the intro, Warkah Dari Rumah. It's quite the album and I'll be adjusting to it for quite a while. Which I like.

Death SS - X (2021)

Country: Italy
Style: Industrial Metal
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 29 Oct 2021
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | Twitter | Wikipedia | YouTube

Death SS have been around since 1977, with a couple of breaks, though they haven't crossed my radar often since then. With this tenth album behind me, I'm eager to hear their early work, not that there is much of that. Their debut, ...in Death of Steve Sylvester (the SS of the title, which does not appear to have any Nazi connection), didn't show up until 1988 and they only managed three more before the year 2000. Given that they split up for four years a decade or so ago, they've clearly been busier in the 21st century than previously.

I heard that they had moved over time from heavy metal to doom metal to industrial metal but, even if that's true, it's not the whole story. This album starts out as traditional heavy metal, reminding me of Mercyful Fate but with Alice Cooper at the mike rather than the falsetto of King Diamond. It's hard not to see this as "horror music" too, the organ and effects at the outset of Zora guaranteeing that if the chanting monks in The Black Plague didn't trigger that thinking a song earlier. The industrial side manifests in Under Satan's Sun, effectively so without ever taking over.

Just as I wouldn't call this an industrial metal album, even though there's industrial in it, there's one other influence I kept hearing that doesn't take over and that's gothic rock. This is not a gothic rock album either, but there's often a driving anthemic groove that reminds me of gothic rock, especially the Sisters of Mercy. It's here on The Temple of the Rain and The World is Doomed but it's most overt on The Rebel God, which nails its groove so well that it's impossible to ignore it once it gets going. It's initially just a good song but, by the time it gets past its first chorus, it's the sort of good song that'll have you looking up from the bar and suddenly finding yourself on the dancefloor.

So far into their career, I have a feeling that Death SS wrote this with all their different styles in mind, but the shifts can be a little jarring. It's not so bad in the first half, as we move from heavy metal into overt horror rock, then though the gothic industrial drive back to the most emphatically heavy metal song, Ride the Dragon. After that point, it's a bit more awkward.

Suspiria (Queen of the Dead) is clearly horror rock, with characterful bookends—a harpsichord and an accordion at one end and more accordion, female voice and violin at the other—but it's slower, much slower, and more textured. It's notably gothic, drenched in velvet and fog, and it feels like the texture is the point, far more than the music itself. It's less a song and more a backing track to whatever Steve Sylvester will be doing on stage at the time. Heretics continues that and, like Suspiria, it sounds great but doesn't stay with me past the end of the album, unlike The Rebel God and The Temple of the Rain, which carry on playing in my head.

The World is Doomed hearkens back to those two, but with a little less effect. It's a lesser version but still a step up at this point of the album. And then we return to the most obvious Alice Cooper number on offer, which is Lucifer. It doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to picture the godfather of the genre covering it and making it his own. And so this ends decently enough but in a way that I struggle to see as anything but a doomed attempt to bring the album back to its early levels. The first half is a 7/10 for sure but the second half is more like a 5/10, so I'll split the difference and give this a 6/10.

Amarok - Hero (2021)

Country: Poland
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 9/10
Release Date: 15 Oct 2021
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | Prog Archives | Twitter | YouTube

I have to say that the first thing to cross my mind when looking at this album was that there's a music application on Linux called Amarok, but I don't have it installed right now. Of course, when prog rock bands call themself Amarok, that's not because they use the software either but likely because they liked Mike Oldfield's polarising album of that name. I say likely rather than assuming it as a surety as I'm not hearing almost any Oldfield in the music here. I'd state rather than suggest that the primary influence of Amarok is Pink Floyd.

And that means that Michał Wojtas is a major Floyd fan, because this is emphatically his band. In the early days, it was a duo comprised of him and guitarist Bartosz Jackowski, but it became a solo effort with guests helping out here and there. Only in 2021, with five albums behind him, has it expanded to become an actual band, with four musicians now credited as band members. Surely, however, Wojtas remains the driving force behind Amarok, even if it's a band rather than a project now, and he stamps that unmistakable Dave Gilmour sound onto the music.

This is calm and subdued prog, but it's commercial and engaging. The vocals are soft and melodic but they carry a weight to them that commands us to pay attention, especially with clever turns of phrase such as "I look to explain the unknown reality. The world we could foresee is gone." There's substance here and it's decorated not only by a simple but effective guitar but odd sound effects and evocative percussion taking the place of a traditional beat. That beat doesn't show up for a couple of minutes, when the teasing intro becomes a song proper.

Floyd were always great at creating songs that sound so simple and effortless that anyone could have created them, until we realise what's actually going on and how well crafted they have to be. Amarok are clearly aiming at the same elusive magic and they do an excellent job at it. It's Not the End starts effortlessly but grows substantially to leave us wanting to listen to the song again immediately rather than move onto Surreal and into the album. And Surreal does the same thing. And Hail! Hail! AI. And...

And really, I could end my review with that and you'll either have already bought Hero, knowing that you're going to adore it, or moved on because you know it isn't for you. However, there's a little more that I should mention. Whenever Wojtas brings his guitar into play, he channels not only Gilmour, as obvious a guitar influence as a general musical one, but some Mark Knopfler too. Gilmour is still first and foremost, as is especially obvious in the second half of The Orb, with the notes not played just as important as those that are. The ever patient Wojtas never really speeds up, but the Knopfler comes out for me any time he thinks about it, like on the title track.

The other Floyd note to make is that, just as they were sometimes a guitar band and sometimes more of an electronic one, Amarok follow suit. The Dark Parade is driven by the electronic side with a dark bass joining the fray and that's not wildly unusual here. Often we'll hear the grooves first with the guitar joining in to develop the sound. The Dark Parade actually reminds at points of the Doctor Who Theme, not in content but in the way that it moves in waves, albeit rising and falling much more slowly.

And the result of all this means that this is a very easy album to listen to. I'm sure I could leave this on for a week and never get bored, even though it would become background music that would grab my attention back here and there. However, it's also an immersive album to listen to, one that we can fall into and explore. Every aspect is fascinating, whether it's guitar rock or electronic new wave, a guitar solo in an instrumental break, a narrative section from Marta Wojtas or just a background flourish at a random point. I've already found myself listening specifically for guitar and for percussion and for effects. I could see that becoming a rabbit hole.

I honestly don't know how to rate this because I clearly haven't listened to it enough, even after three times through. I know that I really like it and I'll be listening to it more. I'm struggling to pick my favourite tracks because that's all of them or, more accurately, whichever one I'm listening to at any particular time. So this is easily a highly recommended 8/10 but I don't think that's enough. I think this is my first 9/10 after diving back into reviews post-ALIFFF. It will be hard to move onto my second review for the day because the world seems emptier once this stops playing.

Now, what's going on in Poland that can generate albums of the quality of this one, the Kruk earlier this year and the Fren in 2020? I've found gems, but what have I missed?

Santana - Blessings and Miracles (2021)

Country: USA
Style: Rock
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 15 Oct 2021
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | Twitter | Wikipedia

It's been twenty-two years since Supernatural, the rebirth album of Carlos Santana, and this one is a fresh attempt to recapture that magic. And I don't say that as a commentary on anything he's put out of late, just that it's another collaborative album that clearly aims to give the veteran guitarist a set of opportunities to play with diverse musical talents and see what sparks. Some of it sparks very well but, perhaps inevitably, not all of it does and there's no obvious single here in the vein of Smooth, not even the Rob Thomas track, Move, which is decent but, well, not remotely as smooth as Smooth.

It starts out surprisingly experimental, with Ghost of Future Pull a symphony for what sounds like saw and bicycle bell, but that recognisable guitar tone shows up and grounds it all as the intro moves into New Light. Then there's a quintessential Santana jam in Santana Celebration, which sounds like a Rio carnival with guitar wailing over the top. It's as lively as you might imagine from that, even when the guitar is replaced by keyboards and drums as solo instruments. It's a wild and glorious piece of music.

Rumbalero is kind of a wild and glorious jam too, though it doesn't seem it for a while. This starts out as electronica with an overt Latin feel that doesn't entirely come from the Spanish vocals. The guitar is very recognisable, though, and gradually the carnival spirit takes over as it builds. I liked where this one went, even though it hardly started out on comfortable ground for me. That's the best thing that I can say about this album, by the way. It took me to musical places I wasn't familiar with but found the common ground with what I know that made them accessible and enjoyable.

The guests on Rumbalero are Santana's son Salvador, who has run his own band for decades and done quite the variety of collaborations himself, and Asdru Sierra, the lead vocalist, trumpeter and pianist in the Latin fusion band Ozomatli. What Santana does with this song sets the stage for a set of similar approaches to other guests and other genres of music as the album runs on. He tends to let them lead the way in the style of their choice but chips in with his guitar and grows with the song to create quite a synthesis of sounds.

And these guests are very varied indeed. Some are established names, some of whom have been very famous musicians as long as Santana himself. That's versatile singer and organist Steve Winwood on a very odd cover of Whiter Shade of Pale that seems unnecessary. That's late jazz pianist Chick Corea on All Together, with his wife Gayle Moran Corea creating a conglomeration of voices in Angel Choir. Their presence makes it odd to realise that the oldest sounding song here is Mother Yes, with zero guests. I could believe that this was an early seventies Santana song, especially given that his current singer in residence, Tommy Anthony, channels Jimi Hendrix with his vocals.

A little less established than Winwood and Corea but still massively established are Diane Warren, an incredibly successful songwriter and singer for Debarge, on She's Fire, and a pair of thrash legends on America for Sale: Kirk Hammett, the guitarist in Metallica, and Marc Osegueda, lead singer for Death Angel. It's not a thrash metal song at all though, both those guests playing outside their style. I think Hammett simply has a blast trading licks with Santana while Osegueda sounds more punk than metal with his vocal. The result often sounds like heavy Chili Peppers.

Given these guests, it might be surprising to find that my favourite songs are Rumbalero and Joy, the latter featuring a solo country singer called Chris Stapleton. I also dug Peace Power a lot too, which is a heavy funk song led by Corey Glover of Living Colour that sounds rather like Lenny Kravitz jamming with the MC5, not only because of its black power lyrics. Even without thrash metal legends on it, it's heavier than America for Sale and more memorable too.

And, as you might imagine from this review, this is something of a patchwork album. When it works, it works really well, even if it that's not on the songs I might be expected to like the most. I'm hardly the world's greatest fan of Latin electronica or modern male country singers, but I really dug Rumbalero and Joy, with the instrumental Santana Celebration even better still. I even like Break with Christian soul singer Ally Brooke and She's Fire, with a hip hop lead vocal by G-Eazy.

When it doesn't work, though, it doesn't do much at all. There's almost an hour of music here, with no fewer than thirteen songs between the intro and outro. To be brutally honest, I've forgotten a few of them already even after two listens through the whole album this afternoon. That's not good and it's certainly neither a blessing nor a miracle.

It's a worthy album though, even if that's primarily through opening your ears to sounds you've never heard before. After all, it's a pop, rock, electronica, jazz, funk, alternative, soul, hip hop sort of album and there aren't too many of those out there for obvious reasons. I'm happy that Santana seems set on making quite a few of them. Best of luck to him.

Le Chant Noir - La Société Satanique des Poètes Morts (2021)

Country: Brazil
Style: Avant-Garde Black Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 22 Oct 2021
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal Archives | YouTube

Let's kick off a new month with something unusual. Even though everything here seems to be French, from the very name of the band to the lyrics to all of the songs, Le Chant Noir are actually a Brazilian outfit hailing from Rio de Janeiro. They're fairly listed as avant-garde black metal, making the intro a notably appropriate affair, with its backward masking over a flavourful carnival organ and accordion. The outro and the final track proper, Eloa, le bel ange, play overtly in this vein too, and it's never quite absent at any point. However, the first song, Le vampire, kicks off with power chords so reminiscent of the Who that I found myself imagining the opening credits to another CSI spin-off show.

This is a really interesting song. Sure, those are are black metal vocals that entice and beckon like an orc carnival barker and we respond. There are some wall of sound moments but mostly the drums are the other black metal component, if we skip past the Satanic lyrical content for a moment, but they're typical black metal drums. When they're fast, they're very fast, but the production has the odd effect of making them sound like the drummer is galloping far beyond his capabilities but very consistently. It's an odd feeling! And they're rarely echoed by any other instrument so, when the drums slow down, we're back with heavy metal power chords, speed drifting slowly away in the rear view mirror. That's what happens at the end of Le vampire, which is effectively just drums and voice, one that seems very female to me.

I'm hearing two voices here, though I'm only seeing a gentleman named Lord Kaiaphas credited. One feels male and very influenced by Dani Filth in its theatrical approach, so that's likely His Lordship. It becomes very deep on Nuit de l'enfer, though it mostly sits in the standard black metal shriek range. However, the other voice seems female to me and it shows up a lot, often taking the lead. Is this some sort of admirable versatility or is there a guest here that I don't know about, perhaps even a second lead singer, one just as influenced by Edith Piaf as Dani Filth?

Sadly I'm not seeing a lot of information about the band. It was founded in 2016 by Lord Kaiaphas and a couple of others Malphas and Mantus. The suggestion is that Kaiaphas provides the vocals, Mantus handles lead guitar and bass, while Malphas does everything else: rhythm guitar, keyboards, drums and a varied set of percussion instruments including vibraphone and marimba.

All of them have other bands too. As DJ Zhyin, Kaiphas mostly performs psygressive trance as Minimal Criminal, though he's also in a black metal outfit called Thokkian Vortex that evolved from just him to a full band. Mantus belongs to what looks like every other black metal band in Brazil, playing an array of instruments under an array of names; the most prolific bands are Mysteriis and Patria. Malphas is also in Mysteriis, as their drummer, and he's in a few others too, drifting into death and power metal. So they're all experienced and ready to create something new and different within their collective genre of choice.

There are heavier songs here that come closer to traditional fast black metal, like Nuit de l'enfer and Le baron sanglant, but they're more interesting when they're mixing it up, as they do often. There's a gothic edge here that comes into play in slower sections and in the interlude called Marche infernale. Often there's an echoey piano or distant guitar that combines with the theatrical approach to create a lush environment that far outstrips the actual depth of instrumentation. This isn't layered densely but it achieves some of what Cradle of Filth do anyway, just in a more stripped down form.

I really like Les métamorphoses du vampire, because it starts out gothic, goes full blown black metal and never quite loses that gothic edge, the piano maintaining its stubbornly slow presence, even with the song shifting into hyperspeed. We lose it on occasion but it's always there. That female voice has a spoken return here, almost as an interlude within the song itself, and the drums are fascinating on this one, again sounding very different to what we expect, but in a really good way. La danse macabre does many of the same things, without spending as much time at full speed.

I listened to this more than I should have done today, but I keep finding more in it each time I listen to either a particular song or the complete album. I liked it from the outset, but I like it more now than I did that first time through. Now, to a rabbit hole that these musicians suggest I should dive into, with Mysteriis surely the first band on that list after the debut Le Chant Noir album, Ars Arcanvm Vodvm. I like when black metal bands do something different and this band definitely do that, though perhaps not as much as I'd have liked, given how delightful the accordion is when they haul it out. How about a dedicated orcish carnival metal album built around the sound in Eloa, le bel ange?