Posts Tagged ‘Ajna Offensive’

Album of the day: Negative Plane – Stained Glass Revelations

Posted on Sunday, December 18th, 2011

As we move towards the end of 2011, here’s a worthy record that we overlooked the first time around earlier this year. Lovingly pinched from Chronicles of Chaos: Somehow, Negative Plane have turned their moniker into sonic reality. With Stained Glass Revelations, the band has sculpted a sound that refracts melody, instrumental prowess, and heavy metal songcraft through some kind of anti-light prism that turns rot into rebirth and every family picnic into an audience with the spider-demon Shelob.

This music will probably appeal mostly to the adventurous black metal crowd due to its harsh vocals, haunted tones, and percussive aggression, but Stained Glass Revelations rarely allows itself to be so comfortably labeled. Stormy melodies rise regally out of a murk that never quite reaches the filthy depths, thanks to the choral chants, humming organ, and bells that chime liberally throughout the album. Tempos shift from blackened blasting to doomy trudging to the nodding groove of an alternate-universe rock song, often (as in ‘Lamentations & Ashes’) within a single track. Every riff is bent into geometric impossibilities and painted with violent alien colors.

Maybe Stained Glass Revelations should be subtitled ‘Flight of the Fire Bats Through the Lair of the Necromancer’. Or maybe I’ve played too much Diablo II and should never be allowed to name records. Ill-advised or not, the imaginary subtitle above describes the SGR sound exactly. Searing leads flutter around a melodic core, barely brushing a note before flitting on to the next. Vocals match the music’s crooked cathedral vibe, conjuring images of a cranky old wizard cawing ancient curses into the darkness.

Numbering the strengths of individual tracks here (‘Angels of Veiled Bone’, ‘All Souls’, etc.) is futile, given a) the sonic unity that the band accomplishes throughout the record, and b) the abundant wealth of those strengths.

Continue reading: CoC : Negative Plane – Stained Glass Revelations : Review.

Tags: Ajna Offensive, Album of the day, black metal, Chronicles of Chaos, Negative Plane, Stained Glass Revelations
Posted in 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended | No Comments »

Album of the day: Saturnalia Temple – Aion Of Drakon

Posted on Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Praise for Saturnalia Temple ‘s Aion Of Drakon from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: We first heard these occultic stoner psychedelic black doom Swedes on the 4 way split On The Powers Of The Sphinx, where they were teamed up with Aluk Todolo, Nightbringer and Nihil Nocturne. We were pleasantly surprised, ...read more