Review: Blodarv's new album "Gâst"

Danish Black Metal band Blodarv just released exactly five days ago their new album called Gâst, through Self Mutilation Services. The album is available in both regular CD format and in a limited edition A5 format with different artwork. Booklet has 16 pages and includes lyrics. The limited edition merchandise includes a T-Shirt, patch and pin are also available.  
Please find an image for the artwork cover above.
This album musically is actually very attractive. Very melodic and melancholic.
The album has 8 tracks.
First track Indelukket starts with a 55 seconds intro with a low tuned sound until the song itself starts as a hymn. Very melodic and sad and also very powerful. It has throaty and clean voice on it. It's absolutely marvelous. Very slow and strong.
Don't expect lots of blast beats or you will be disappointed. But get ready for an explosion of emotions as this album is really very warm. There are also clean female voices, as in the fifth track The Heart of Art, which is maybe the slowest track in the album, before it really opens to some very fast and heavy drums when you are not expecting it to happen anymore. Good surprise.
Track 6 is called Lonely Journey and that title is just perfect. All you hear is a very creepy and almost funeral melody by the keyboards, and a monstrous voice kinda reciting. It is actually creepy and makes you feel very lonely and sad and empty of anything good. 
Last song Into the Halls of Orion is an acoustic song with varied voices (male and female) and sounds like whispers, very dreamy, very nostalgic. Beautiful harmony and melody. Sense of peace but great sadness as well.
These are probably the most remarkable songs in the album for Lachryma Christi.
If you like melodic, nostalgic, touching the depressive, sad, introspective, warm, emotional Black Metal, go for it, one of the best for 2012!
This really brings lots of intense feelings so get ready for an amazing journey while you listen to it.

Frequently asked questions about Lachryma Christi webzine

Sometimes online or in person people ask some questions regarding Lachryma Christi, and the questions are usually the same and they are really asked too many times. So here are the replies to two of these questions. 

Q - How many people contribute for Lachryma Christi? Are you accepting contributors?
R - Lachryma Christi is one person only. And no, there is no need of more contributors for now, but offer is much appreciated.

Q - Will Lachryma Christi ever have a proper website and leave the blog format? Will it ever be printed?
R - Both are in the plans for the future. But it is not easy so it is on stand by. However, a hard copy may be available to deliver in future gigs.

So, if you have any questions, don't be shy and address them to lachrymachristizine@gmail.com

Again, personal questions will not be answered.

You can also find the webzine on the following links:

http://www.facebook.com/LachrymaChristiWebzine

https://twitter.com/L_ChristiZine

Review: Spektr's upcoming album "Cypher"

Spektr, Industrial Black Metal band from France, will be releasing in February 2013 a new album called Cypher, through Agonia Records. Cypher has 9 tracks and will be available as a deluxe digipack CD and limited vinyl.
You can see the cover image on the picture above.
This is for Lachryma Christi a very good example of Experimental/Ambient/Industrial Black Metal. Very good quality. Very intense, even hypnotic.
Spektr really have their own identity, nothing or almost nothing sounds like them, and Cypher is a good proof of that.
This album was recorded with no vocals at all, which makes it even more special if you are a fan of this kind of music. You can hear some words being said and also yelled on the track Cypher though.
Don't expect this to be popular with a lot of dancing industrial sounds, because it is nothing like that. Black Metal is very evident here. Every song has very good arrangements of good healthy noise and everything makes sense.
The track Teratology is maybe the most ambient one, with keyboard sounds in the beginning, and after one minute of creepy and sharp keys, the song bursts into amazing Black Metal stuff, fast, grim, where guitars couldn't be better, very close to perfection in fact. Just before it gets back to the creepy keys and the experimental drums. Very groovy at times.
There is a message spoken in the beginning of the track The Singularity that will certainly make you think.
This is a very well elaborated work, full of experimental sounds and melodies which will leave you in a a trance.
So if you like Blut Aus Nord or Haemoth, for example, you will find Skeptr and Cypher album very interesting. For those who don't know, one of the two members, Hth, is also a member of Haemoth. Anyway, if this is your kind of music at all, don't ignore this masterpiece, it's just almost out there!

Lachryma Christi's playlist for the week

And because today is Monday, here is the playlist for the week. Please note that next week there won't be a playlist for the week due to going abroad and not having blog access, but it will be back! 

Marduk - Serpent Sermon

Negură Bunget - OM

Ancient - Svartalvheim

Carpatian Forest - Through Chasm, Caves and Titan Woods

Necromantia - Scarlet Witching Black

VON - Satanic (Demo)

Vreid - V

Nidingr - Wolf-Father

Anaal Nathrakh - Vanitas

Ov Hollowness - Diminished

Enjoy!

News: PANTHEON I

Norwegian Black Metal band PANTHEON I will be hosting a video Question and Answer Session, through their frontman Andre Kvebek. Anyone interested in participating just post your questions on their official facebook page on the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/pantheoni


According to Kvebek, there will be no bounds, meaning you can ask whatever you like, and he will reply.
As soon as they get enough questions, a video with Kvebek reading the replies will be published on PANTHEON I's official youtube chanel on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tjalve1349

Read more in:

https://www.facebook.com/pantheoni

Review: CSSABA's latest album "Underground Lo-Fi Songs"

CSSABA just released a new album on the 6th of December through Polish label Pagan Records. For those who don't know, CSSABA is an Industrial Black Metal project of Nihil, well known from bands like Furia. The album is called Underground Lo-Fi Songs and it is the second full-length of the project.
If you like noisy, experimental, industrial music, you will adore this release. 
The cover doesn't say much about what you will listen, as you can see on the picture above.
So this album has 8 tracks, all of them very much more experimental than properly industrial. Very hypnotic too, especially the last track.
First and third tracks (they have no names) are a bit more groovy and electronic.
Second track resembles Black Metal a lot more than the others, for the rhythm and composition itself and use of instruments, and also for the voice which is very throaty.
Forth track is also a bit groovy and slow, and actually much more melodic than the others. 
These are maybe the tracks that allow a description, because everything else is not much more than beats and noisy experimentations and unsettled voice.
There's the predominance of low tuned sounds, all very bassy.
If you are a fan of Ulver's Industrial works, you will find this album amazing. It's just a bit less melodic than Ulver.

Review: Sathanas' latest album "La Hora de Lucifer"

Sathanas, US Black/Death/Thrash Metal band, released their latest album La Hora de Lucifer in May 2012, through Pagan Records. It is a very easy going album. Very rhythmic and the influences of old Thrash are very there, which is expected since Sathanas were formed in 1988 and this has been their main influence since then. This is one of those bands who kept their style since the beginning, never changing much or following other styles. So if you like Old School Thrash Black Metal, this is the album and the band to go for. If you are already a fan of the band, you will really enjoy this album as they keep doing their thing and so well. Maybe this album is faster and more thrashy in fact.
The album has 8 tracks and the vinyl has two bonus tracks.
As for artwork cover, each version has a different cover and layout: the CD cover was painted by Kris Verwimp and the LP version by Chris Moyen.
Maybe for Lachryma Christi the most remarkable song in this album is Dark Conjuring's, as it is the most melodic song, never losing the rawness or the heaviness or the characteristically high pitched voice. There is also Forged in Eternal Fire, the first track in the album, which seems to never leave your brain anymore after you hear it, and lyrics are fantastic, very typical and very embedded in the song itself.
There's not much to say about each song really, as they don't bring us anything too new compared to what the band has been doing for so many years. It is a good album, one of the best of 2012 for Lachryma Christi, so the advice here is: if this is your kind of music, listen to it as soon as you can!