TRADITIONAL JAPANESE BOW SO HARD THAT YOUR FACE SMELLS SHOE POLISH, QUAINTLY AMASSING WORKBOTS!

On this specific Monday I wish call forth the tunes that will block out the sun, because space is so thoughtlessly brushed off in our daily conversation. We are essentially bacteria living on a rock that’s hurdling around a ball of explosive gases at death-defying speed, all while managing to eat Pizza Hut, binge watch an entire season of Iron Fist in one pass, and find time to accumulate an income by sacrificing hours your of life,

AND YET,

Through all of this we somehow find a way to come together as a species and stare at the slowly ticking bomb in the centre of our galaxy as a tiny piece of us nearly obscures it in it’s entirety. That’s right, today is our solar eclipse (as if we didn’t have enough crazy running around) and I expect an event scaled somewhere between “all the ice cream in the world disappearing” or “someone accidently let a nuke go”.

CRAFT – BRING ON THE CLOUDS

Containing members who have played with such acts as Hypothermia, Watain, and Shining, you know that Craft is here with a very distinct flavour to match the heaps of talent within. Having your second guitar comeback with a dissonant (and especially suiting) lead to play over most black metal can turn into the biggest pain in the saddle you’ve ever had, let alone if you’ve got a “black metal drummer”. In the case Craft’s 2011 album “VOID” the full spectrum of bells and whistles is presented. Everything from the vamps to the understanding of contention between tones, from the “craft-ed” solos to the intricate drum fills, no one is here is slacking. . . except for the fact that this album was 6 years ago and they haven’t released anything since.

HUNTRESS – ZENITH

Fronted by the eminence of vocalist Jill Janus, Huntress is not a “par” band. Through the past few albums there has certainly been more of an air of cohesion in the dynamic of the group, but “Starbound Beast” still exceeds their most recent release in my opinion as it is a very purposeful (teetering on the point of conceptual) piece of music. Elements of some of the best in the business are present in the song construction. Someone really went into the mastering with the idea of keeping a purity to the sound, as it doesn’t sound like it has snippets of audio files placed where they need to be, it just sounds like an album was written in it’s entirety and produced by someone who really knew their way around a soundboard.

DARKSPACE – 4.19

In the same vein of “heinous” as such acts as Paysage D’Hiver, or Xasthur, and Leviathan, the entity known as Darkspace have released four albums each with essentially the same title. Imagine, if you will, the leader of those assholes from Chronicles of Riddick coming down to Earth, hearing black metal, and in-turn forcing them to play music like that for millennia as they travel through the cosmos slaughtering worlds, then you’ve got a pretty good handle on what Darkspace is. If you ever hear vocals, you are likely hearing a sample from one of the best space movies ever, such as 2001: A Space Oddessy, or straight up James Cameron’s ALIEN.

Don’t look at the scareorb when lil brother rock gets in the way, ya plebs.

– BEAR