For #SelfPromoSaturday I'll be directing some attention towards my Animated Vehicles for Avernus!

Paid Version: https://ko-fi.com/s/d358c8ac2c ($5)
Free Version: https://ko-fi.com/s/23f45d3b77 (Not Animated)

Hellish vehicles for your vehicular warfare in D&D hell!

#dnd #dungeonsanddragons #avernus

Guerriero: Hai la mia spada! 🗡️
Mago: Hai i miei incantesimi! 🔥
Bardo: ... Hai il mio tamburo! 🥁

#dnd #animals #fantasy #oc #rpg #harengon #leporidian #avernus #bard

Out now! My new animated vehicle tokens for D&D!
... I can't post all the examples. 😭
But check em out!

https://ko-fi.com/post/The-Animated-Avernus-Vehicles-Now-OUT-O5O01LM8D1

Will be on Roll20, DriveThruRPG and Itch.io soon.

#dnd #dungeonsanddragons #dndart #ttrpg #ttrpgart #avernus

And I curse your world, and I curse your sun
for in your ivory world, I am no one

And I left my soul, where the sleeping shadows lie
and I find my soul where forgotten shadows die

So empty here, in my usurperous awakening
so empty here, in this life I am forsaking

The light is burnt and bereaving, upon the shore, grieving
An ocean black beneath me, my endless sea of evening.

#Avernus

Louise Glück's 'Averno' is an ambiguous, but scalpel-precise collection of poems, riffing obliquely on the Persephone myth. Don't ask me what it means, but I loved it!

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/cfc012b7-70d7-49f5-a95f-5bc0606a13ac

#poetry #louiseglück #averno #avernus #persephone #nobelprize #books #bookstodon @bookstodon

GardensTale’s Top Ten(ish) Album Art of 2024

By GardensTale

Man, I am getting later and later with these each year. I’ve already spoken at length about my writing woes lately, so I won’t go into all of that, but I’ve also come to realize that a late delivery on this piece really is not a big issue. Case in point: it allowed me to include a piece from a TYMHM article that otherwise might not have made the cut. It’s not executive dysfunction, it’s functional laziness!

I feel that it’s been an overall good year for album art. There’s still tons of diversity in style and subject and medium, and also tons of big monsters looming over small people. That just seems to be a never-ending thing in metal. The only big name missing this year was Eliran Kantor, who has been in the top 10 every year and usually with multiple nominations (he and Adam Burke are the chief reasons for the ‘one entry per artist’ rule). Can anyone do a wellness check on Kantor? See if he’s doing alright?

If you have kept up with these in the past (and if you wanna catch up, here are the last six editions!) you might notice a new section to this article. Whilst last year I merely decried a rule against AI covers, I now shall battle actively against this most heinous trend, this lazy cheap cop-out that betrays a disregard for art as a whole. View this section as worse than the worst, because the worst at least put some effort into it. Though the AI Hall of Shame entries aren’t the only ones using machines to piss in the pool, they are the most blatant, soulless, and unimaginative AI monstrosities that got vomited from a generator onto a metal album this year.

As for the rules that haven’t been elevated into a full-blown public stoning, they remain by and large the same:

• Only albums we’ve reviewed will be considered
• One entry per artist, to keep diversity high
• No public domain art (Avernus had a very good one this year, though!)

AI HALL OF SHAME

#3. Tyraels Ascension // Hell Walker — It’s a new band and they also released an entire videogame to go with the album, so some leeway can be granted, but not much. The intricate logo is pretty cool, the border is tasteful, but the utterly generic-looking demon thing is just a load of washed-out bleh.

#2. The Nidra // Destination Locked — This one is just baffling to me. Am I to read this as an underwater mutated skeleton dance-off? Most of the bones are disconnected and the longer you look at it, the less sense the skeletons make. The glossy AI filter really makes it feel like a first-pass effort, too. The only thing I use AI image generators for is NPC’s for my Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and I put more care into those than these guys do. And PAPYRUS? Fuck off.

#1. Deicide // Banished By Sin — The other two entries, at least, are debuts. Struggling artists without much cash to speak of, I’ll be disappointed, but I won’t be angry. Deicide, on the other hand, are top of the food chain. Seeing a band of their stature use AI so brazenly makes my blood boil. Overtures of Blasphemy had pretty sweet art: hit whoever made that up, get a new piece from them, and pay your fucking artists! This is low even for Glen Benton. And the result just looks bad even at a glance, a monochrome mess of random shapes and details tacked together without vision because a machine doesn’t have vision, it just has an infinite grab bag of things to stick together. I’d say go to hell, but it’s Deicide, so that was probably already the plan.

THE WORST

#3. Tommy Concrete // Unrelapsed — Enough with the straight-up anger, time for some laughs! I’m not sure whether a grade school kid actually drew this or whether it just looks like it, but the daisy chain of spoon-toothed spines with one wing and one leg, going round to end up on a hysterical were-rat… It’s bad, even awful, but it does make me laugh. Perhaps if there were more of that and fewer random crayon colors for a background, I’d not judge this as harshly.

#2. Oscillotron // Oblivion— This is less than nothing. An entirely black cover with just the words on it would have been better than this. Is there some deeper meaning behind it? I don’t know, and I don’t care, it’s static in a box and it’s bad.

#1. Jeris Johnson // Dragonborn — But not as hilariously awful as this collage of 1999 gaming screenshots, cut from a frumpled magazine with imprecise kitchen shears and stuck together lazily for an arts and crafts project at school. The album is fucking awful and the cover does a great job of warning people to stay away. Good job, Jeris, here’s a gold banana sticker, now fuck off.

THE BEST

#(ish). Sidewinder // Talons (artist: Sophia Dainty) — I had to resort to asking the band directly who created this cover art, and I can’t really find other art from Ms. Dainty, which is a shame, as her talent is undeniable. The illustration uses techniques that evoke woodcutting, befitting the druidic nature of the imagery. An unusual but evocative image.

#10. Sunburst // Manifesto (artist: Vasilis Georgiou) — Mr. Georgiou is both the artist and the artist, as he leads Sunburst on vocals and created this dynamic, colorful cover art. The enigmatic figure dissolving into color as if snapped by a hippie version of Thanos makes for a striking bit of contrast, and I love the way the band logo has been incorporated into this artwork.

#9. Unhallowed Deliverance // Of Spectres and Strife (artist: Kaja Kumor) — Color and contrast are also the strong suits of Kaja Kumor’s burning cathedral that graces Unhallowed Deliverance’s album. The angelic blue overhead clashes beautifully with the fire. It matches the gradient of the subject matter: peace up above, growing into chaos and violence below. The two watching figures and the departing planes really add to the story depicted, too, rounding the piece off on multiple levels.

#8. Iotunn // Kinship (artist: Saprophial) — Saprophial’s art of Kinship is an unusual piece. The focus is off-center, not even in a golden ratio kind of way. The figure’s anatomy is strange and vague, largely hidden in the shadows. There’s something graphic novel-like about its contours, and a kind of roundabout anonymity usually reserved for the late Lewandowski. But zoom in and you see a highly intricate piece of sublime texture, perfecting the art of hatching in different styles to make the picture feel like you can touch it and feel the lines under your fingers.

#7. Vredehammer // God Slayer (artist: Simon Bossert as S. Bossert Art) — Though both seem to be drawn on a dark canvas and leave a fair amount of space beside their subjects, God Slayer is in every other way almost an antithesis to Kinship above, which reflects in the music of both bands. No mystery here: this is colossal, epic and violent, imagery that gets your heart racing immediately. What strikes me the most about this cover is the framing, the fish-eye lensing of the sea that seems to pulls the ship and serpent together, drawing the eye back to the center. One of the better monster pieces of the last few years.

#6. Vitriol // Suffer & Become (artist: Dylan Humphries) — If I had a nickel for every ‘stuff winding through a skeletal ribcage’ cover this year, I’d have two nickels. One of the earliest contenders, Humphries’ art for Vitriol is of the immediate eye-catching variety. The large and detailed skeleton and the vivid coloration of the snakes ensure the image grabs your attention. But a longer look gives a more forlorn feeling. The turned away pose, the approaching storm, the distant castle, the warrior’s items in the skeleton’s lap. All attributed to a sense of failure, a sense that something has gone wrong. I do love an image whose emotional response evolves as you study it.

#5. Feind // Ambulante Hirnamputation (artist: Jasper Swerts as Infested Art) — This year’s best black and white art without a doubt. Infested Art lives up to its name with this grueling piece of body horror, of which the emotional evolution goes from ‘nope’ to ‘NOPE’ to ‘FUCK NO.’ The linework here is sublime, with crisp contours and dotwork shading working together to create a highly precise account of all the horrifying things happening to the central torso. There are as many fresh horrors in this picture as there are details. We can leave it at ‘too many to count.’

#4. Uncomfortable Knowledge // Lifeline (artist: Reuben Bhattacharya as Visual Amnesia) — It’s a shame that Uncomfortable Knowledge doesn’t seem to be getting off the ground musically, because I love the concept they are going for with Visual Amnesia’s excellent art, continuing the tale of the Black Queen from the band’s debut. What would otherwise be a somewhat picturesque scene in the early 1900s is made disquieting with the skull robot masks and impossible day-night reflection, creating a sort of downplayed nightmare scenario. Subtle, elegant, and haunting in hushed tones.

#3. Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun (artist: Adam Burke) — Adam Burke is a mainstay here, and it seems he is branching out of pure space pictures more and more. Though this striking scene is still largely on-brand, unlike the Burke runner-up for Hideous Divinity, it gets points for its sprawling surreal cosmic horror. It can be difficult to depict a figure larger than mountains that actually feels larger than mountains in 2D art, but this piece succeeds, and it wins Burke the coveted ‘big thing looming over small people of the year’ award.

#2. Pyrrhon // Exhaust (artist: Caroline Harrison) — Ms. Harrison and Pyrrhon have become fast friends, as few can depict ugliness as beautifully as either in their respective media. The art for Exhaust is a harsh and tragic depiction of death and the self-inflicted destruction of our environment, yet surrounded by the holographic rainbow of the oil spills that wash away in the rain, there is a strange sense of beauty here as well. The visceral and realistic horror is front and center, however, and it’s confrontational in a way few bands or visual artists dare to be.

#1. Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay (artist: Francisco Abril and Nuria Velasco as WelderWings) — The duo known as WelderWings make some astounding surreal art that is beginning to be noticed by the metal community. Witnesses used another beautiful piece from their studio, but when I saw Dawn Treader’s, I knew it would be nigh impossible to top. The meadow is rendered in beautiful soft tones. Blur is applied with artistic precision, which makes the details on the focused elements pop better. But the way the skeletal figures contrast with this peaceful scenery is what truly makes this cover. It makes the quietude feel false, a decoy for something terrible. This is all the more effective with the absence of skulls or limbs, suggesting a kind of body horror we can only hope will remain as far in the past as the bones suggest. Endless imagination and pure artistry resulted in a gorgeous yet perfectly unsettling masterpiece, more than deserving of the title of AMG Artwork of the Year.

#2024 #Anciients #Avernus #DawnTreader #Deicide #Feind #GardensTaleSTopTenIshAlbumArtOf2024 #Iotunn #JerisJohnson #Oscillotron #Pyrrhon #Sidewinder #Sunburst #TheNidra #TommyConcrete #TyraelsAscension #UncomfortableKnowledge #UnhallowedDeliverance #Vitriol #Vredehammer

Reykur and Jokull sure found themself in a pinch, those stirge ain't playing around!

Complex lllustration for @reykur thank you! :D
__________
#art #fantasyart #dnd #avernus #stirge #dragon #furryart #MastoArt

Avernus – Grievances Review

By Twelve

The last time Avernus released a full-length album, the year was 1997, which means the release of Grievances represents the longest delay between a debut and sophomore album I’m aware of. Twenty-seven years is a long time for fans to wait, but you have to admire the dedication! These U.S.-based doom-slingers experimented with death and doom metal back in ye olde 1990s before life and limbo got in the way. The intervening years are a long time to hone a sound, so there was no telling what to expect with Grievances—except one look at that cover should tell you we’re in for some serious doom metal. With only that to go on, I was eager to see how nearly three decades make a sophomore album.

Straightaway it’s clear that the years have been kind to Avernus, as Grievances sounds excellent. The guitars (Erik Kikke, Rick McCoy, and James Genez)1 have a great tone to them, with just the right amount of distortion to sound both heavy and clear. McCoy’s growls evoke Swallow the Sun, and even the drumming (Rick Yifrach) sounds great, with enough punch to adapt to the many shifting paces and moods adorning Grievances. Rounding out the Avernus sound, synths from Genez made subtle appearances to add layers to most tracks, sometimes acting as a lead (“Exitus”) but generally supporting the many guitars acting as the heroes. Add to this an excellent mix that emphasizes each contributing player, and we’re off to a great start within seconds of pressing play.

Grievances is primarily a doom metal album. And after 27 years, Avernus seems to have shed most of their death metal influence, except perhaps in the pacing of the music. “Nemesis” is a quintessentially modern doom song, opening with gorgeous arpeggios and subtle keys before transitioning into a melancholic theme that persists throughout the nine-minute song. This main idea allows the guitars to shine and gives the song a hopeful feel to contrast against its opening woe. Similarly, “Return to Dust” is a powerful track, with a memorable chorus and a comforting theme. These songs remind me a bit of My Dying Bride in the guitar work and prevailing sadness that hangs over Grievances. There’s a gothic influence in the compositions, a general preference for long songs, and an energy that keeps you engaged across the full runtime. It’s a strong sound, and Avernus performs it well.

The main drawback for Grievances is its length, and, sadly, the length of nearly every song on the album. “Nemesis,” “The Burning Down,” and “Quietus” all feature too-long interludes that feel mostly like filler, and few of the album’s eight-or-nine-minute songs quite justify their length. There are also several interlude tracks on the album that give the impression of recycled song ideas rather than thematic, connective tissue making things more coherent. “Open Arms” and “Plateau” are two such tracks; they’re genuinely beautiful, but at three minutes apiece awkwardly tread the line between proper song and album break. In the back half of Grievances are “Utter Uphoria,” a spacey track with touches of electronica that feel very out-of-place, and “Abandoned,” a five-minute song in which almost nothing happens. When you put all of this together, it’s hard not to regard Grievances as an album with quite a bit of bloat. Even though none of the songs are bad, I can easily picture an alternate album that is fifteen or even twenty minutes shorter, and I think I would have much preferred that version.

The good news is that there isn’t any part of Grievances that isn’t enjoyable; perhaps the lengthy break between albums meant that Avernus had a lot of ideas going into this and the vast majority of them are good. If you’re just a little less picky than me about album flow, you’ll probably enjoy Grievances significantly more than I do. Every song, band member, and idea sounds great—the ideas just tend to stay a little overlong. Still, there are much worse things than too much of a good thing and the world of doom metal will be better off to have Avernus back in it. I am certainly looking forward to seeing where they take this next.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: M-Theory Audio
Websites: avernus.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/avernusdoommetal
Releases Worldwide: September 20th, 2024

#2024 #30 #AmericanMetal #Avernus #DoomMetal #GothicMetal #Grievances #MTheoryAudio #MyDyingBride #Review #Reviews #Sep24 #SwallowTheSun

#TheMetalDogArticleList
#BraveWords
AVERNUS Release New Single And Lyric Video "Return To Dust"

https://bravewords.com/news/avernus-release-new-single-and-lyric-video-return-to-dust

#Avernus #ReturnToDust