Old Man Gloom - No (2012)

After 8 years. OMG has finally released new album entitled NO. And holy shit! opening track sounds like it couldn't be from anyone else. lo-fi ambient static and electronics which leads into the more common bone crushing post sludgecore sound these guys are legends for. You can hear the trade off between Aaron Turner (ISIS) and Caleb Scofield (Cave In) who seem to come across as the main writers of the collaboration which also includes Nate Newton (converge). With NO clocking in at 59mins its a fairly epic listen that doesn't let off for some time, but I am a little disappointed that towards the end of this recording it does start to run a little thin and recycled. Not the best OMG release but definitely has its moments.  

NO

Tracklist:

1. Grand Inversion

2. Common Species

3. Regain/Rejoin

4. To Carry the Flame

5. The Forking Path

6. Shadowed Hand

7. Rats

8. Crescent

9. Shuddering Earth

Twilight - Monument To Time End (2010)

Monument to time end is not your general black metal album. think of it more as the post rock of black metal. There is still your guttural swamp creature vocals but gone are the days of the trebal heavy guitar tones that sound like its been played inside a corrugated water tank. Twilight are a lot more atmospheric soundscape heavy with progressions moving between light and dark throughout. A huge reason for this is because of Aaron Turners (Old Man Gloom, ISIS, Mamiffer) input. Im not a huge fan of black metal but this puts faith in the future.

Monument To Time End

Tracklist:

1. The cryptic ascension

2. Fall behind eternity

3. 8, 000 years

4. Red fields

5. Convulsions in wells of fever

6. Decaying observer

7. The catastrophe exhibition

8. Negative signal omega

Russian Circles - Geneva (2009)

So i saw Russian Circles last night after only finding out about them the day before. Without knowing anything about this three piece band i gave their last album Geneva a good listen before heading out. Geneva is a pretty massive sounding Post Metal recording made up of multi layered guitar, keys, strings, and horns making it an extremely lush recording which i was very excited about witnessing it live. The only thing with three piece bands which record albums with a huge array of other instruments is that it cannot be pulled off live to the same degree. their songs ended up sounding a lot less hollow and two dimensional with sections not blending into each other as seamless as the album. sure the wall of sound and shear volume was enough to keep me happy but i personally found their live show a bit of a let down compared to the recording. 

Geneva

Tracklist:

1. Fathom

2. Geneva

3. Melee

4. Hexed all

5. Maiko

6. When the mountain comes to Muhammad

7. Philos