The final part of the Biolume trilogy is nigh, and A Fullmoon Madness is a maddeningly exhaustive venture totalling just over two hours. Is this significant length worth your time to soak in the astral laments and cosmic invocations, or is this an ouroboric cycle of exhaustion? Madness would be not reading more before hitting play.
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Exulansis – Overtures of Uprising Review
Doom isn’t for everyone. Nor is Doom that includes copious amount of chamber-influenced violin, rough ‘n’ tumble Blackened sprints, and sadperson, melodic crooning. But that’s exactly the overflowing platter of existential exploration that Oregon’s Exulansis deliver with Overtures of Uprising. Rise and eat up.
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SOL – Promethean Sessions Review
The album oscillates between droney soundscapes that come across as somewhat improvised, and more focused gothic-leaning classic Doom. I am not aware of the methodology of improvisation used here, whether there were rules or guidelines, but the droney sections of the album are pleasant and even provide a sense of mental relief. But is this all enough to set Goat’s charts ablaze?
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Mourn the Light / High Priest / Ice Howl / Archdruid – Split Review
Ah, the split. The underappreciated release that can highlight potential up-and-comers, or showcase multiple bands that don’t bring anything interesting to the table. Sometimes, a split gets released and reveals the best of a band’s material. So where does this four-way split land? Pick your player.
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Neurectomy – Overwrought Review
Tech Death used to be an arms race of dishing out what some might consider too many notes in too little time. Nowadays a lot of Tech Death has lost that aspect in what I suspect is a pursuit of greener (read: more profitable) pastures and a style of Tech that is basically a heightened form of melodic Death Metal seems to be the norm. Neurectomy make an attempt at reviving this classic style of Tech Death. Overwrought or overwritten?
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Dyssebeia – Garden of Stillborn Idols Review
Melodic Death Metal is truly a mixed bag of a genre. You often know what you will get when you press play. For every Carcass, The Black Dahlia Murder and Amorphis, there are thousands of At the Gates, In Flames and Insomnium clones. Are Dyssebeia also gardeners of eternal imitation?
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Nightmarer – Deformity Adrift: Reformed
The concept that the band might want to re-engineer and partially re-record such a well realized album before it is even a year old is at once intriguing and baffling. Can the deformity go even more adrift? Let’s see how well Nightmarer float with the anomalies.
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Convocation – No Dawn for the Caliginous Night Review
My expectations were very high for this album, as they would be for any follow up in this band’s catalog. And yet again Convocation prove to be one of the best bands in the current Funeral Doom scene. So how exactly did this album leave Cosmo moonstruck?
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Autarkh – Emergent Review
Emergent turns inward and outward at the same time. The beats and glitches take on an Industrial character and serve the story more than before. I am no longer disappointed but genuinely intrigued. Emergent quality.
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Crypts of the Unknown: Bound and Gagged – Fornicate the Gutted
