2 posts tagged “female fronted”
Soup wrote this:
Since I just posted a review of a Velvet
Cacoon album, I figured I should review something on the exact opposite
end of the black metal spectrum. Unlike the drugged-out droning of
Velvet Cacoon, this band plays fast, melodic black metal with a strong
folk-ish slant.
Darkestrah, proud owners of one of the
most hilariously awful band names ever (sorry, but I simply can't
let that one slide), are a black metal band hailing from, of all
places, Kyrgyzstan, and currently based out of Germany.
Despite the really weak band name, this band plays some of the best pagan black metal I've heard in a long time. The band combines a black metal sound with the use of a number of highly uncommon folk instruments and techniques (especially for black metal) including the kyl-kyjak (a type of fiddle), the temir komuz (also known as a Jew's harp), and the use of sygyt (a style of throat singing), among others.
And speaking of things that are unusual in black metal bands, this is one of the rare female-fronted black metal bands. The singer, going by the name of Kriegtalith holds her own with the best metal vocalists out there. There is nothing for people who like fake metal bands with whiny mallgoth girls fronting them (you know who I'm talking about) here, and for that, I am incredibly thankful. Honestly, she sounds more or less androgynous to me. I wouldn't have even known if I hadn't been told. The point is, she makes Dani Filth sound like a eunuch.
Of course, all of that wouldn't mean much of anything if the music was bad, and the unusual elements sounded cheesy and tacked on, but the standard guitars, drums, bass, and vocals are all here, and there is lots of suitably brutal drumming and awesome enough riffs and melodies to silence all doubters, and the folk instruments are not only well-integrated into the band's arrangements (along with a number of other instruments that unfortunately were unnamed in the press kit), but they're also an essential melodic part of them. This is a well-composed black metal album that will not only satisfy the hordes that are already out there, but might even be tolerable to people who've never listened to a black metal album in their life.
More information can be found at their official website.
Seattle's Jex Thoth (formerly Totem), play a solid girl-fronted psychedelic doom. This is one of those CD's that just kind of came out of nowhere and surprised me with how good it is.
The album opens with a short intro followed by a kind of weird downtuned guitar sound, with Jex Thoth (the name of both the singer and the band) channeling Sabbath-era Ozzy Osbourne in her own unique, and really cool way. Topped off by an atonal solo, I'd say this track (entitled “Nothing Left to Die”) kicks off the album in a pretty awesome way.
The second track, “The Banishment” is based around an organ played in a way that makes me wonder how many flaming pentagrams they had going in the studio. Kind of kitschy, but tasteful. Reminds me of some old horror movie. It ends with a sped-up section with a guitar solo in it.
The next track is “Obsidian Night,” which opens with a downtuned, sludgy intro and a guitar lead with some gnarly feedback on it. Jex's vocals are particularly good on this track. I don't know if the echo effect that comes in about halfway through is really necessary, but it doesn't detract so much as just distract, and actually, on second listen, sounds pretty cool.
“Seperated at Birth” is a more uptempo track. I really dig the guitar lead on this one. The vocals stand out here, once again. This one leads into another more uptempo track called “Son of Yule,” which starts out all about the sludge and surprises with a sudden turn into organ-based psych territory and then breaks down to prepare for re-entry into the same heavy-ass sludge it started with.
“Warrior Woman” is a little more downtempo, and unfortunately, is the victim of rather poor placement on the album. I kinda wish it wasn't positioned right before the album's centerpiece, “Equinox Suite,” which is made up of four parts. “The Poison Pit” has some awesome guitar tone, with a sort of “medieval” vibe, and some restrained vocals that serve as a fitting intro to the rest of it. Part two, the instrumental “Thawing Magus,” is more on the psych end of things, with a syncopated hand drum beat under a noodling guitar line. It builds into a sort of reverb-drenched “jammy” thing, that leads straight in to part three, another instrumental confusingly titled “Invocation Pt. 1,” which is even more on the psych end of things, with the organ's tone sort of reminiscent of Geogaddi-era Boards of Canada. This track's purpose is to build into part four, “The Damned and Divine,” which is not an instrumental! The vocals kick back in. It's a slower track with an emphasis on the loud/quiet dynamic and the strength of the vocals, trading sections with sparsely arranged hand drums and vocals with a classic Sabbath-based sludge.
They follow that up with “When the Raven Calls,” which isn't one of the album's strongest tracks, and is also kind of a victim of being placed right after one of the album's strongest tracks. Thankfully, it closes on a good'un. “Stone Evil” opens with a sparsely arranged guitar/hand drum/feedback intro that's drowned out by what sounds almost like a low-flying plane and classic doom vocals to top it all off.
This is a great album, and I'm really glad to have gotten it for review. This band doesn't appear to be touring or anything right now. But other than this album, they have a split out with Pagan Altar, and a self-titled 3-song mini-CD from when they were called Totem. I haven't heard either of their other releases, but if this one is anything to go by, I'd be willing to bet they're good.
More info can be found at the band's official MySpace page
-Soup
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