Last Leaf Down – Weight of Silence Review

By Killjoy

I imagine we all have our own personal keywords that snag our attention and interest. Marketers (and record labels) know this and try their best to capitalize on our weakness. The descriptor “dreamy shoegaze from the woods” doesn’t sound particularly like something one might look for on Angry Metal Guy, nevertheless, it was the deciding factor for me to fish Weight of Silence out of the promo bin. Last Leaf Down originally formed in Switzerland in 2003 as a “dark doom” metal band. Whatever that sounds like, we may never know because on their debut album Fake Lights in 2014 they had already veered into the shoegaze sphere. Now, coming off a long break since 2017’s Bright Wide Colder, Last Leaf Down offers a reinvigorated interpretation of this timeless genre.

Although I’m not so sure that the woodsy label fits, Weight of Silence is certainly dreamy. The serene, melancholic atmosphere strongly reminds of Slowdive. Last Leaf Down have been steadily adding more and more alt-rock to their original shoegaze formula, specifically the polished, moody alt-rock of Snow Patrol and The Fray. The pairing is a good one; the hazy allure of shoegaze and the reliable structure of alt-rock complement each other well. As might be expected, Weight of Silence is heavily reliant on the vocals, and Benjamin Schenk’s voice has a vulnerable timbre that gives the music a distinct character. He’s clearly been working to stretch his singing abilities further during the extended break, and, despite the occasional signs of strain, he sounds more confident compared to prior albums.

Weight of Silence seems designed to magnify rather than produce intense emotion. This is largely a function of the instrumentation’s stripped-back, minimalist nature. The guitar parts are usually simple and supportive (I was surprised that three guitarists are credited), with nary a keyboard or synthesizer to be heard. In some ways, this approach is refreshing, as it leaves plenty of room for Daniel Dorn’s bass lines to add subtle depth in “Cold Heart” and satisfying heft to the chorus of “Reach the Sun.” On the other hand, the guitars and drums seem relegated to primarily building atmosphere and supplementing Schenk’s vocals. I appreciate the instances when they can break free from the norm a bit, like the swirling post-rock guitar melodies in the ending of “The Ending”1 or the tom grooves in the second half of “Falling Sky.”

This probably explains why the closer I pay attention to Weight of Silence, the less invested I feel. It makes for a great companion while sitting at my desk late at night, catching up on work, but my focused listening time usually results in lukewarm enjoyment. The more upbeat songs with well-defined choruses are, understandably, more memorable (“Illusion,” “Mislead,” “Reach the Sun”), while others feel too repetitive, particularly in the lyric structure. Album opener “Silence” is the biggest offender of this, with some variation of the phrase “It feels like I’ve lost myself” comprising around half of its lyrics sheet. To Last Leaf Down’s credit, they have improved at self-editing. The shorter overall runtime helps the punchier moments retain their potency and ushers the less engaging parts along, making Weight of Silence far from the longest 42-minute record I’ve heard.

The best way I can sum up Weight of Silence is that it’s aggressively inoffensive. Like morning mist, it’s pretty, pleasant, and refreshing when the mood strikes, but also ultimately immaterial. It’s the strongest Last Leaf Down album to date, and I like the direction in which they are trending. Their blend of shoegaze, alt-rock, and post-rock makes for an agreeable musical palette. I wouldn’t mind hearing them revive the dark doom style that they purportedly used to play, as I think it could have real potential inside this framework. I encourage anyone who, like me, feels even slightly enticed by the phrase “dreamy shoegaze from the woods” to take a chance on Weight of Silence.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Lifeforce Records
Websites: lastleafdownlfr.bandcamp.com | lastleafdown.ch | facebook.com/lastleafdown
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AltRock #Alternative #Apr25 #LastLeafDown #LifeforceRecords #NotMetal #PostRock #Review #Reviews #Shoegaze #Slowdive #SnowPatrol #SwissMetal #TheFray #WeightOfSilence

NIGHTRAGE – Remains Of A Dead World
https://eternal-terror.com/?p=66960

RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://nightrage.com/

Although one of the Gothenburg melodic death metal three, In Flames, had stopped making music with the “wow” effect (to borrow from a commercial) after the fantastic Clayman²⁰⁰⁰, arguably they haven’t stopped making melodeath until after Reroute To Remain²⁰⁰², Soundtrack To Your Escape²⁰⁰⁴ where they started Kornizing […]

#CenturyMediaRecords #DespotzRecords #FortisBenardo #GeorgeNerantzis #Gothenburg #Greece #LifeforceRecords #melodicDeathMetal #nightrage #RemainsOfADeadWorld #Thessalonican

Glare of the Sun – TAL Review

By Carcharodon

We’ve had a long wait for the follow-up to Glare of the Sun’s 2019 sophomore album, Theia. That was a record I liked quite a bit, giving it a place on my first year-end list here at AMG Industries. I admit that I thought, even then, that it was slightly overrated in our review. I will also admit that I can’t remember when I last listened to Theia until revisiting it as a precursor to diving into its successor, TAL. It probably wouldn’t get the same list spot today. However, upon revisiting, it is, as I remembered, a densely layered and starkly beautiful slab of progressive doom, dabbling also in the post-metal realms. Does TAL match the highlights of its predecessor or is it left in the shadows?

From the outset, TAL feels like Theia with all the dials turned up to 11. Where Theia dealt in shades, shifting slowly between huge doom riffs, post-metal melodic, and more, bridging the gap between mid-career Katatonia and Ghost Brigade, TAL is a more in-your-face affair. That’s not to suggest that Glare of the Sun has fundamentally changed its sound but TAL is packed with more immediacy and energy. Delicate instrumental passages remain (the first third of “Amnesty,” for example) but there is more purpose and endeavor to them. It feels like they are guiding you, rather than wandering and searching. There is also a much greater sense of grandeur at play on TAL. It just feels massive, with the heavy, progressive doom riffs still in play. However, they now carry a slightly more abrasive post-hardcore, Cult of Luna-adjacent vibe like the opener “Colossus.” In contrast, other parts border on a grand symphonic feel (the rest of “Amnesty”). The other thing coming through, particularly in the deep, sustained clean vocals on the likes of “Leaving towards Spring” and “Rain” is a strong Prey-era Tiamat feel. This balances some of the album’s mountainous heaviness with a much more introspective silkiness.

Glare of the Sun combines the elements of their sound to great effect on TAL. The back-to-back pairing of “Äon” and “Relikt” exemplifies this, with the former feeling like Clouds meets Slow, while the latter is a masterclass in progressive doom, tinged with that Ghost Brigade sense of despair. “Stonefall” could easily have been penned by Cult of Luna for Somewhere along the Highway, its textures and builds feeling both nuanced and cathartic. What the album does so well is to shift between these influences and genres, while retaining a sense of cohesion. Although closely related, these genres all have their trademarks and tells, which are not easy to mesh, without sacrificing an album’s flow. Glare of the Sun’s five-year absence has led to an album that feels much more confident in its writing, with both “Rain” and “Äon” vying for a place on a songs of the year playlist.

That said, perhaps managing that creative flow led to TAL being longer than it should be. Clocking in just shy of an hour, there is a lot to digest here and, because of its intensity, it feels more tiring to listen to in a single sitting than Theia, despite being slightly shorter. The vinyl version, which won’t include the final two tracks appearing on the CD/digital version, would be almost a quarter of an hour shorter, and much tighter for it. However, you lose the excellent “Horizon,” with “Amnesty” an anticlimactic replacement to close the record. The other track missing from the vinyl, “Storm of Light,” is less of a loss. It’s solid enough but forgettable, not matching the aggression or the subtle melodics of the rest of the material on TAL. Similarly, while “Leaving towards Spring” does nothing wrong, it fails to match the power of “Colossus” or the beauty of “Rain.” TAL’s production is very good, with an airy, balanced mix that gives prominence to Christoph Stopper’s very good vocals (both harsh and clean), without allowing them to eclipse the rest of the band.

I’m very pleased to see Glare of the Sun back and they’ve grown in confidence as songwriters during their absence. The immediacy TAL serves up, in contrast to Theia, is fantastic but it needed to be matched by just a bit more restraint. Cutting the likes of “Storm of Light” and shaving off a few more minutes here and there would have given the record as a whole the same directness and intensity as the individual tracks. Falling just shy of greatness, TAL is a very good record, deserving of your time (and money).

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Lifeforce Records
Websites: gotslfr.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/glareofthesun
Releases Worldwide: September 13th, 2024

#2024 #35 #AustrianMetal #Clouds #CultOfLuna #DoomMetal #GhostBrigade #GlareOfTheSun #Katatonia #LifeforceRecords #PostDoom #PostHardcore #PostMetal #ProgressiveDoom #Review #Reviews #Sep24 #Slow #TAL #Tiamat

Praise the Plague – Suffocating in the Current of Time Review

By Thus Spoke

Evolution can be a tricky thing for a band to get right. Change too much and risk alienating an existing fan base. Or don’t change enough and risk pigeon-holing oneself, or even boring the audience who want to see some growth. Ever since Praise the Plague stepped onto the scene in 2018, they’ve been subtly shaping their intriguing admixture of doom and black metal. Particularly after sophomore The Obsidian Gate saw them commit to wielding in equal measure the grandiosity of the former with the sinister savagery of the latter, the question of where their approach would go next, as they established themselves, was foremost. Would they slide into a doomier, sludgier oppressiveness, or would they charge into a frostier, more overtly blackened fury? After just under three years of waiting, Suffocating in the Current of Time answers this question with satisfyingly assertive and ardent resolution: Praise the Plague have continued their dual aspect ethos, and further deepened and developed it.

Like those that came before it, Suffocating is heavily atmospheric, as well as heavily, er, heavy. But here as with most every aspect of their sound, Praise the Plague elevated the presentation, refining it to a level of polish that belies the surface-level grit. The vibrating resonance of guitars and percussion alike does not muddy the waters, but purifies them, as stalking notes hang ringing in the air (“Astray from Light,” “Throne of Decay”), sending ripples as over the water’s surface. As before, but to a greater degree, the patient crescendos of doom are balanced beautifully with the electric urgency of black metal, leading to stronger, more memorable climaxes and an overall depth that wraps the whole album in an articulate, brilliantly dark aesthetic. From the moody to the malicious, the music moves with cold grace.

Most striking is the progression of Praise the Plague’s compositions—the way they create and release tension, and use evolving melodies to seamlessly tie songs together. Opener “Veil of Tyrants,” and closer “Throne of Decay” both build beautifully through atmospheric echoing notes into crashing, chaotic doom from which tremolos take the refrain and draw it out into soaring, chilling apexes. “The Tide” and “A Serpent’s Tongue” do almost the reverse, centering themselves around rushes of burning, minor-riff-led black metal, before slipping elegantly into swaying dirges where guitars croon a mournful iteration of the theme. The increased dynamism, pulling and pushing tracks through these blackened spikes of urgency and ominous, melancholic marches (“The Tide, “Astray from Light,” “Devourer”) makes for a smooth and shiveringly good listening experience. And the melodies are often simply too gorgeous and slick, and the riffs too gnarly, to resist swaying, and humming along (“Veil of Tyrants,” “Throne of Decay,” “A Serpent’s Tongue”). Even the sole appearance of distorted spoken word that opens “A Serpent’s Tongue” sidesteps cringe and lands on the side of righteously malevolent.1

With everything ebbing and flowing so neatly and satisfyingly along, some of the subtleties are lost, and some sections fade a little into the background in comparison to the standouts. “Astray from Light,” and “Devourer” are less spirited than their companions, and while still displaying excellently crafted blackened doom, are nonetheless not as exciting. The mood created is so powerful that it can be easy to allow the music to pass you by without gripping you as forcefully. When the tempo shifts into a groove that renews the refrain (“The Tide,” “Astray from Light”), a lightning strike of riffery cuts through the gloom (“Veil of Tyrants,” “A Serpent’s Tongue”) or delicately built melancholy surges into explosions of tremolo (“Throne of Decay”) the listener is snapped back to attention. But it’s a shame it was lost at all.

Quibbles aside, Suffocating is a move in an exciting direction for Praise the Plague. More interesting, more melodic, and more exciting than previous outings, and tight to boot, at only 38 minutes. The band’s unique blend of black and doom metal, wrapped up in such a dark and atmospheric package, keeps me coming back repeatedly. Their masterpiece may be still to come, but right now, Suffocating is hitting the spot pretty well.

Rating: Very Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Lifeforce Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 16th, 2024

#2024 #35 #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #BlackenedDoom #DoomMetal #Feb24 #GermanMetal #LifeforceRecords #PostBlack #PraiseThePlague #Review #Reviews #SuffocatingInTheCurrentOfTime

2023 - THE UPCOMING TERROR!⚔️
➡️April 21st, 2023⬅️

VORNA - Aamunkoi🇫🇮🔥

4th album from Tampere, Finnish Melancholic Folk/Pagan/Black Metal outfit🔥

BC➡️https://vornalfr.bandcamp.com/album/aamunkoi 🔥

#VornaOfficial #Aamunkoi #LifeforceRecords #MelancholicFolkPaganBlack #TheUpcomingTerror23 #KMäN