Narrow House - A Key to Panngrieb [Full length] (2012, Solitude Productions)

Hailing from Ukraine I can only imagine what bleak and desolate place spawned Narrow House into existance. 4 man and 1 woman strong the band's lot in life is creating godforsaken funeral doom metal focussing on atmosphere, and in 2012 the world would hear the first eldritch groaning that the band has to offer.

Like the strange creaking and moaning of a long-abandoned house the 4-track album slowly blunders into life with the opening track. The mental images created by Narrow House at this early point are those of complete desolation, abandonment and horrid lonesomeness - As it turns out these themes of eerie atmospheres and tenebrous matters are frequent on the album, and definitely one of the band's strongpoints. Their incorporation of classical instruments such as the cello fits the style of funeral doom metal perfectly and gives the music a destinct feel of authenticity and hints toward the filmic, making it almost sound like the soundtrack to some long forgotten black and white silent horror movie.

Narrow House have put the funeral in funeral doom metal with A Key to Panngrieb. Though I don't understand a word of their lyrics or song titles the music speaks its own language. A language of death, ragnarok and darkness. To some the music of the Ukranian band may seem uneventful or bland, but to me it seems to have great depth and particularly well thought through. Add to this that the production is as clear as it needs to be with this type of music. It leaves every aspect audible and yet making it possible for the band to have certain suggestive themes that make their music excel in creating atmospheres.

I like how the funerary procession guitars aren't actually the main focus of the band. The droning chords of guitar and bass go perfectly in unison and are crucial to the music, but without the vibrant cello-work the album would be incredibly boring. The tracks are generally speaking very lengthy, and this serves both as the main attraction and annoyance of A Key to Panngrieb. As most funeralesque graveyard bands the length of the tracks can make it hard to stay interesting, especially when there's so little going on. But again, this is both the thing that makes this type of music work and the thing that makes it tiresome to listen to for prolonged periods of time. But all in all A Key to Panngrieb is a prime example of great funeral doom metal, even if it isn't the heaviest of sorts. 8/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Poslednee Pristanishe
2. Psevdoriatunok
3. Steklianniy Bog
4. Pod Maskoy Etoy

NARROW HOUSE official site
NARROW HOUSE official Facebook
Solitude Productions official site

Only a Shadow Remains - The Grinding Stone [EP] (2013, Self-released)

With today's level of technology and the accessibility of it one-man projects are far from rare. Where one once had to rely on session musicians or having to play everything by one self, you can nowadays get machines that can do most things for you. What machines still can't do for you is write your material, and the lack of varied input and feedback means that some, if not most, one-man bands suck uncontrollably. I was surprised to find that Only a Shadow Remains is a band that not only has a good sound for a solo-project but also has a relatively solid and varied output.

I was originally supposed to review Only a Shadow Remains' second EP, Premediated, but I ended up reviewing The Grinding Stone, the band's newest EP, instead. Now, I did listen to Premediated before listening to The Grinding Stone, and honestly not much has changed in the time between the two EPs were released. It's not necessarily bad that the band has a steady and consistent output, but the only real surprise I got with The Grinding Stone was that this release consists of 21 tracks of relative short length. Only a Shadow Remains centers around gory vocals, growled vocals and heavy but melodic guitar riffs, and this is definitely still the case with The Grinding Stone, even if the riffs have gotten much heavier than previously, but naturally I thought, given the title and the length of the songs and the sheer amount of tracks on the EP, that the band had adopted a more grindcore-inspired aspect. However, I found that this simply wasn't the case, even if the band has gotten heavier. Premediated featured songwriting that bore a heavy nod towards the old classics of death metal, but on the Grinding Stone EP the band has switched to a much more modern and brutal focus.
On The Grinding Stone EP Only a Shadow Remains leaves a little less room for melodic riffs and hooks, but the vocals have become more varied, varying from traditional growls to hoarse screams. The riffing was what attracted me to the earlier material from the band, and because this new incarnation of Only a Shadow Remains focus less on those aspects, it is far less personal and sinister than the previous EP.

The EP is well executed, but it is at the same time pretty generic. The songs are generally too short, meaning that only rarely does a song achieve any momentum, and I found that most songs seemed to end rather abruptly. Armon Nicholson has previously proven that he is no novice songwriter, but his talents aren't properly showcased on The Grinding Stone as they were on Premediated. As such I think the longer songs on this EP are by far the best, and all in all the songs fit well together. But ultimately The Grinding Stone feels unfinished, and the amount of short songs makes it feel like the EP consists of mostly unfinished ideas for songs. It shows potential, but the overall picture needs work. The songs don't show enough individuality to justify having so many short tracks on one release. I would much rather have had an EP where the songwriting is condensed into 4-6 songs rather 21 like on The Grinding Stone, such as it was on Premediated. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Broken Glass in Your Eyes
2. A New Mask
3. Autocannibalism
4. I Despise Humanity
5. Burned
6. Corpsemeat
7. Pee Hole Torture
8. Asphyxiating on Feces
9. Extirpation of Necessary Organs
10. Filth
11. Fornicated Stab Wounds
12. Sewn Together
13. Infanticidal Urges
14. Carved Open
15. Vomit, Consumed
16. Punched in the Prolapsed Rectum
17. Skinned and Salted
18. Testicular Mutilation
19. Swimming in Used Needles
20. Orgy of Decomposition
21. The Meat Grinder

ONLY A SHADOW REMAINS on Facebook
The Grinding Stone is available for pay-what-you-want on Bandcamp HERE

Soliloquium - When Silence Grows Venomous [Demo] (2012, Self-released)

Soliloquium (say it five times fast) started out in Sweden in 2011, and already by 2012 they had released this demo. The band consists of two people, Jonas Bergkvist and Stefan Nordström from the death metal bands Ending Quest and Desolator. For Soliloquium they have kept some of the death metal elements, but chose to mix it up with melancholic and cold doom metal much in the same vein early Katatonia, Swallow the Sun, Ghost Brigade and October Tide. The thing these bands have in common other than the music style is location - All of them are from Northern Europe, and like them Soliloquium has that very destinct melodic and desolate sound.

The demo is rather short with only two songs, but the songs are well-composed and pretty lengthy. Often with doom metal the songs become too long and tedious because the band simply hasn't got enough to offer, and the songs just become bland repetitions of the same two or three parts. With that in mind I was at first reluctant regarding the whole demo, but I quickly found that the two tracks are more than worthwhile getting into. Once you sit down and really listen to Soliloquium their music will grow on you and you will notice the duo's skills in writing.

As with many other doom metal bands Soliloquium has one problem: The music has a tendency to feel unclimactic. Garden of Truculence and Autumn State never really build any momentum and thus you can never really tell how far along in the track you are. Some might argue that momentum and climax has nothing to do in doom metal (especially death/doom metal), but in the end this element is what makes a song come together and gets it from a 9 to a 10.
However, the slowly churning double kick drums in Soliloquium trustily forces the compositions onward, and helped along by the gloomily melodic guitars "When Silence Grows Venomous" isn't a half bad effort. Soliloquium are succesful in creating a truly doom-worthy atmosphere along with perfectly murky production. If there were 20 years earlier they would've been among the most known bands of the genre today. 8/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Garden of Truculence
2. Autumn State

SOLILOQUIUM official Facebook
SOLILOQIUM official Bandcamp

Download the demo for free and listen for yourself HERE
You can also download their newest EP "The Concept of Escape" HERE

Agamotto - Agamotto [Full length] (2012, Cosmic Swamp Records)

There can be no doubt about it, Agamotto is ambient with a capital A. Mixing different elements from ambient like Brian Eno or Steve Roach, dark ambient like Lustmord or Stupor and industrial like Throbbing Gristle and Nurse With Wound Agamotto makes for a varying experience. The first track "Solomon Grundy", named after a comic book villain like Agamotto itself, is predominantly dark ambient with some serious hints toward some of Throbbing Gristle's more creepy output like Hamburger Lady. The second track "Eric Dolphy" moreso captures the feeling of complete chaos and as such was the hardest track to sit through, while the last track "Antonio Margheriti" managed to recap the album by succesfully creating an amalgamation of the dark ambient sounds of the first track and mixing them with the chaotic industrial un-melodies of the second.

Agamotto aren't metal at all, but I chose to review it anyway. I did this because I for one am not a metal only kind of guy, but more importantly I did it because Agamotto features many of the same aesthetics as metal music. It may not have loud guitar, howling vocals or powerful drums, but it has the same eerie atmosphere that I connect with some of the more esoteric and tenebrous bands.
When all a band has to offer is atmosphere, that atmosphere better be damn effective. And with Agamotto this is just the case. The Italian project manages to perfectly mix the grittily chaotic noise of industrial music with the more deliberately sinister and considerate aspects of dark ambience.

The self-titled album takes us on a journey through bleak soundscapes with many surreal and horrific attributes. However Agamotto fails to deliver the otherwise well-produced atmosphere with the zest that I have come to expect from groups and projects of this sort. It's not that it's unmemorable, because music of this type seldomely has hooks or anything of the sort, but the whole effort at times feels a bit unmotivated and particularly unambitious. I wouldn't say Agamotto's album is a disappointing experience, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to any industrial and dark ambient maniacs out there, but I wouldn't recommend the album to people who are looking to get into the genre. For that it is simply too unremarkable. 6/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Solomon Grundy
2. Eric Dolphy
3. Antonio Margheriti

AGAMOTTO official site
Cosmic Swamp Records official site

Listen for yourself!

Furthermore, the entire album is available for free download HERE

Lamia Hyde and the Southern Witches - Conjuring Lamia [Demo] (2012, Self-released)

To briefly introduce the band Lamia Hyde and the Southern Witches is a band that according to their own biography play dark hypnotic music with a touch of inspiration from black metal bands and mythology aswel as horror movies. At the time of writing the band has 17 likes on Facebook. Though Facebook is by no means an indicator of quality it was already here that I began having doubts if my time would be well spent listening to it. The pretentious picture of a masked man aswel as the mind-blowingly horrible "art" that resemble the demented drawings of a mentally challenged 3rd grader didn't help much in staving off this assumption.I can only guess that Lamia Hyde and the Southern Witches, in spite of the very misleading band name, consists of a single person. While I have yet to actually describe the music on the Conjuring Lamia demo, let me tell you that I too would conceal my identity if I were the author of such horrid "music".

The demo consists of 4 relatively short songs ranging from just over 2 minutes to a little over 3 minutes in length. At 11 minutes of playtime total it seems excessive to actually call this a "demo" rather than just a small compilation of random material. And boy does it sound random. Most of the time the songs are comprised of parts that sound like they were composed for vastly different purposes and put together with complete abandon, and the lack of good flow seems to be a recurring theme with Lamia Hyde and the Southern Witches. For the most part the demo is poorly executed and sometimes an instrument will completely fall out and then come back a note or two later, leading to a generally untight disposition.

I don't think I have ever heard a demo that sounds so inadequate or incomplete. Conjuring Lamia has next to no artistic merrit or musical value. What disturbs me the most is that someone made this. This didn't just turn up on its own, someone deliberately created this monstrosity. Someone somewhere on this god forsaken planet is proud of having made this. Every single element feels out of place, and the elements that sound ouf of place don't fit together either. Every attempt to find a redeeming quality was met with disappointment. One might even think the band was created as a joke, but most joke bands I've heard are way better. The only small thing I found that has any hint of quality behind it is that rather than relying on programmed instruments and sounds the Australian band has seemingly recorded every instrument by hand, and this does grant the demo a small pinch of authenticity, but unfortunately not nearly enough to outweigh the inadequacies of the rest of its parts combined. 2/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Serpentine Glamour
2. Conjuring Lamia
3. Three AM
4. Throttled by an Angel

LAMIA HYDE AND THE SOUTHERN WITCHES official Facebook
If you by chance want to check out the entire thing, the EP is available for download here

Don't believe me? Think I'm being harsh? Check out this video and tell me I'm wrong.