#blackgaze emotional

[sadeyes-dream]

https://instagram.com/juvenfire?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

[tiredsoundsofagnes]

my emo/skramz label, SEE YOU NEXT SUMMER, just released a new vinyl!!! im super stoked about this 🖤

vægtløs - aftryk

post rock-ish screamo with blackgaze parts! real emotional stuff. check it out!!!

and go follow my label on instagram if you haven’t yet! got some fun stuff cooking

THAT WAS IT! LUV YA XOXO

[idiotcoward]

Agriculture - Agriculture Well here it is! The long awaited first release from the LA based black metal project Agriculture. Agriculture has been building up steam from pre-release reviews and commendations from metal blogs, critics, magazines, the whole lot. This album, at least in my circles, had a lot of hype. Even had a whole meme associated with the band: "I love the spiritual sound of ecstatic black metal by the band Agriculture" and it's pretty good! First off, a lot of black metal fans will shit on anything blackgaze-esc. Anything that even has the smallest whiff of Deafheaven or Liturgy is considered "Not Kvlt" or "poser shit" and frankly a lot of those people think that way because they're more invested in the aesthetic of music, how it makes them look to others, how it makes them feel, then they are about pushing forward the genre. Listening to the same four Norwegian black metal bands from the 90's isn't KVLT. Listening to endless repeats of the same tired BM tropes just reminds me of a Satanic version of Greta Van Fleet, and that is an ATROCIOUS thing to be similar to. Not too mention, all too often, these "TRUE BLACK METAL KVLT BANDS" are just Nazi Black Metal. From Burzum to Deathspell Omega. It's just Nazi shit. Agriculture on the other hand really dives deep into the blackgaze genre. Really pushing against what people expect when they turn on a black metal album. There is an interlude that is just a man singing over guitars. There are trumpet and jazz-esc sections. I mean there's still a shit ton of tremelo picking and high pitched screaming but it's black metal you know. There are definitely moments where it all works and it all felt so incredibly epic. Those emotional highs that I got listening to Liturgy or Deafheaven, but, at least on the first listen, I came away thinking "Yup. Kinda what I thought it would be." Not that that's a bad thing just, I wasn't blown away. The instrumentation was good, the singing was good, just... maybe it just didn't click for me. I'm excited to give it another listen and see if maybe I'll pick up on more nuances in a different context or mood. If so maybe I'll revisit my thoughts. But for now I think it's fine. If you really like this kinda music you'll absolutely love this, but for me, I'll probably just listen to some more liturgy.

[antifascistblackmetalnetwork]

Knights of rain - The Witch's Garden Stays Hidden from Dawn (2023 - full album)

Hello again, folks! And welcome once more to another chapter of ABMN Does a Cool Review About an Amazing Album (tm).

Today we will dig into the German project KNIGHTS OF RAIN, with a beautiful and enchanting proposition of synth-y post-black metal in "The Witch's Garden Stays Hidden from Dawn", their latest work so far from this mysterious and promising Berlinese project that comes directly from Agnosis. Little can be known in depth about this project's involved artist except for a pseudonym, that is the knight Petrichor behind all music here accompanied by the fantastic illustration by Harry Clarke showing us a bit of the taste for this album's conceptual body.

With a gentle melody serving as introduction and continuing in the first part of the next song, the album grab the listener into a dreamy passage of faint -even ethereal- voices and clear strings strongly focusing on an ambiance and on the song's line with still notable riffs and a harmony reminiscent to that of blackgaze. To dive even more in this beautiful blend of elements, lyrically the album does close this experience as well as musically within its rethoric drawing from imagining a dark fantastic scene with direct yet poetic messages expressing spite against power as seen in "A Rose-shaped Mace", for example, where we can hear a weary but rather hopeful voice speaking on the pointless and perishable is, while no less harmful, to reign, watching the figue of kings fading away as we watch the light of a new dawn over what's left.

This is an emotional, personal and reflective album that will totally hook anyone into post-black and unorthodox compositions, being a solid piece of work altogether, where every detail adds to a memorable listening experience.

[black-metal-artists]

Cursed Flesh Prison - Emotions in Motion (Demo: 2024)

Post Black Metal, DSBM, Melodic BM, Blackgaze From Austria.

[luuurien]

moondaughter - phosphenes and iridescent lights

(Ambient Pop, Slowcore, Dreampunk)

Diving fully into the ambient pop & dreampunk her projects as sonhos tomam conta used to guide the flow of heavy screamo and blackgaze, Lua Viana's debut under the moondaughter moniker is a potent dose of her unique soundscape stylings. With a weightiness and dark undertow to each luminous track, phosphenes and iridescent lights shows off Viana's ability to pierce the heart's center through mood alone.

☆☆☆☆

If you've heard a sonhos tomam conta song in the past, you'll already know a decent bit about what phosphenes and iridescent lights sounds like. While Lua Viana's work under the name took much inspiration from black metal, shoegaze and emo, she spaced these songs out with tender ambient pieces where her love of Grouper and Angelo Badalamenti were readily apparent, full of rich guitar and synth layers along with light dashes of percussion that provided breathing room within the anguish and distress her albums focus on. As moondaughter, those delicate ambient sections become the focal point, phosphenes and iridescent lights letting more vivid colors and greater contrast into them as the album gets closer to her heart than ever before. It's a slow album, but by no metric an unengaging one. Part of what makes Viana's ambient pieces so interesting is how her noisier influences always find themselves in the rearview: even as she moves further away from them, that discordance and intensity is always around in one for or another, be it in the ice-cold synth pads that swallow up endless sea of nothingness' electric guitars or the touches of distortion and noise in first blossom of the evening's midsection, thickening up Viana's mixture with a buoyant low-end that gives the album more space to work with (midnight prayers largely forgoes all that in favor of ethereal textures and softer instrumentation, though its implementation is a bit too heavy and causes it to feel much airier and less enriching than its surrounding tracks). There are even some nods to post-rock in lonely people / neon cities, its brushing percussion and gnashing vocal performance from meu quarto é vazio the closest thing to standard sonhos tomam conta fare the album delivers. Viana can be both breathtaking and heartbreaking at once, and that dichotomy is what phosphenes and iridescent lights thrives on. Choosing to go with a more exposed sound also brings phosphenes and iridescent lights incredibly close to Viana's soul, her writing lighter than usual but all the emotion condensed into just a few short verses: "My shadow greets yours in the nightfall / The memory of me feels blurred with yours," she sings alongside fellow shoegazer Della Zyr on early highlight when i fall asleep, and her songs written in Portuguese take on feelings of listlessness and overwhelming sorrow made all the more crushing when unprotected from the elements her intense blackgaze songs normally provide. Though it's an ambient album at heart, there's a folk songwriter's sense of intimacy and tactility to Viana's work here she hasn't shown before, phosphenes and iridescent lights her first chance to take on these emotions without the commotion of noise rock keeping her steady. With the shift in tone phosphenes and iridescent lights brings, Viana positions herself as not just one of the most exciting talents in modern noise rock, but a well-honed crafter of different emotional worlds her music gives shape to. It's in how she softly travels around the bottom three strings of her guitar on mais vívida que o mundo real, or lets her voice shoot out the mix clearer than ever on caminho das rosas, or brings a little bit of glitchiness into first blossom of the evening like sand being brushed around by the tip of her finger, phosphenes and iridescent lights her most heartfelt project to date simply by stripping back everything but the core of her songwriting and artistic expression. She knows precisely the kinds of stories and feelings she needs her music to tell, and phosphenes and iridescent lights does nothing less.

[skeletonofsplendor]

My head on your lap while I explain why Sunbather is one of, if not the greatest and most emotional blackgaze album ever. I'll probably cry, but that's okay. You'll get there.

[metalshockfinland]

SULDUSK Celebrate "Anthesis" Album Release with Music Video for New Single 'Mythical Creatures'

[photo by Naomi Baker] Today, March 1, Melbourne-based dark folk/blackgaze project SULDUSK will celebrate the release of their much-awaited, sophomore studio album, Anthesis, due out via Napalm Records! “Magical, emotive, and utterly dreamlike in execution – be they dreams or nightmares – SULDUSK enrapture the listener to follow them down the musical well with Anthesis. It’s the type of album…

[illiminatibass]

🎸🌌 Immerse yourself in the ethereal sounds of Alcest's "Sapphire" with my bass cover enriched with detailed TABS! 🎶💎

As a devout fan of Alcest, I'm thrilled to present my rendition of "Sapphire," one of my all-time favorites from this exceptional band. 🎵🤘 The track is a testament to Alcest's mastery in forging the atmospheric and emotional realm of BlackGaze, a genre that transcends metal itself. 🌠🎸

With this bass cover, I've aimed to capture the very essence that makes "Sapphire" so enchanting. The gentle yet poignant basslines resonate with the song's ethereal aura, intertwining with its sonic tapestry. ✨🎧

For those eager to journey with me, I've included comprehensive TABS (tablature) in the video. 📜🎶 Whether you're a fellow Alcest admirer or a bass aficionado seeking to delve into the intricate beauty of this song, this cover is your gateway to the extraordinary. ⚡🔊

Let's together pay homage to Alcest and their profound influence on the evocative realm of BlackGaze. 🌌🤍 Let the music guide you through emotions and landscapes you've never ventured before. 🌄🌟

[gbhbl]

Album Review: Zorya – Mystic Lament (Self Released)

Zorya continues to impress here. Mystic Lament is a must listen for fans of beautiful misery and blackened fury.

Slovenian atmospheric/post black metal/blackgaze band, Zorya released their debut full-length album, ‘Mystic Lament’ on June 10th. The album is a life story, and features the two tracks from the Escapism EP, and five new tracks. The simplest and most effective way to sum up Mystic Lament is to call it the epitome of melancholy. It is all about emotion, the emotion of one’s life and how it plays…

[kvlt-ov-romance-blog]

[laborkyle]

The Sad and the Ecstatic

“Here and there one is separated from despair only by a thin partition, since one experiences one’s own life as useless, as unreal, or as absent. Despair, however, can appear as a means of recuperation on condition that it becomes a matter for reflection. To recognize this absence is in some way to transmute it into presence.”

Gabriel Marcel, Metaphysical Journal. Paris, April 24, 1939.

There are shared anti-social tendencies in post rock, shoegaze, and black metal that allow for an easy settling of similar motifs within if not entirely dissimilar, certainly distinct forms. Distortion across instrumentation, abstract and repetitious forms, a sense of elegance in (or at least some dedication to) vulgar maximalisms, introspection, moodiness, etc. While the latter genre’s more memorable points of social resonance have a fairly recognizable and distinct cultural and historical memory, the sort of transhistorical formations of post rock and shoegaze, lacking the ‘ol faithful tropic collection of culturally transgressive signs to encourage their own anti-social tendencies, are understandably elusive things. Yet close examination shows us some clear threads. Both indeed wade into transgressive forms in the discussion of life and death; both use technology to push instrumentation to various limitations and to, one can imagine, place primacy on the evocation of emotive forms not wedded to the traditional presentation of popular musical texts (stronger narration); both have enjoyed their own modest commercial successes; both are easily explained away in the late-80s and early-90s turn toward an after-punk (not to be confused with the genre) motion blur that stretches into our contemporary moment and plays loudly through our ready-to-blow speakers. As with other forms in rock/aggravated guitar music of which I’m quite fond, post rock and shoegaze tends toward the uncommunicative in sometimes unflattering ways. Unlike the ‘youth-culture driven’ braggadocios attitude of a post-nowave Sonic Youth declaring punk broke (we do love breaking things don’t we), the aforementioned genres’ attempts to aggressively bear down on depressive forms to color an already shattered world in surprisingly distinct hues of gray is still displaying its relevance during this strange extended neoliberal tailspin we find ourselves in. For good reason, I’d argue.

Sadness (Damián Ojeda) has frequently stood above the occasionally inspiring but often on-the-nose blackgaze/dsbm thing by finding healthy interplay between these subgenres, but Ojeda’s most current release has reconstructed these tripartite forms into an exceptional pop modernist motif that bends, explodes, shatters, and again makes whole the experience of misery. The universalizing experience of despair takes on a newly embodied value and depth, a musical convulsion that defies understanding by bending and stretching in several directions. Over 7:25, late spring true love masterfully and artfully brings experience into the commons again. 

The answer to despair is not its inversion but its sublation — elation manifests as a constantly unfolding process of celebration. The celebration of the consecration of our plenitude demonstrates that, perhaps as Sadness suggests, ‘our time is here’.

[vo-m-it]

I get emotional as fuck if I listen to this band ♡

[mykingdommusic]

DREARINESS sign with My Kingdom Music

My Kingdom Music is proud to announce the signing of DREARINESS, one of the most eclectic and decadent bands of the European Blackgaze and Depressive Black Metal scene. Their new album titled "Before We Vanish" due out April 15th 2022, will show a band destined to leave a deep mark in the scene thanks to different shades of melancholy and restlessness transmuted in pure emotions in a way that is so hauntingly beautiful that it hurts.

Rome based band, DREARINESS mixes Depressive Black Metal, Post Metal & Shoegaze with suggestive melancholic passages, dreamy acoustic bridges, suffocating atmospheres and violently anguished female vocals. After two albums and an EP they are ready, with "Before We Vanish", to give voice to all the negative emotions of which the formation is the poignant bearer, using music as a pure escape valve.

"Before We Vanish" will be released on April 15th, 2022 on My Kingdom Music in digipakCD, Deluxe Edition, digital and on July in double LP with the EP "Closer" as bonus.

DREARINESS: the beating of a heart that quivers full of agony.

[luuurien]

明日の叙景 [Asunojokei] - アイランド (Island)

Blackgaze, J-Rock, Post-Hardcore

The Taito quartet's sophomore album takes their spunky, passionate blend of jumpy J-rock and soaring black metal and expands it even further, melodic riffing and danceable drum grooves coated in distortion and Daiki Nuno's hellacious shrieks. Island's delightful genre blend is just one part of Asunojokei's mastery of their sound. 

☆☆☆☆☆

Black metal has long been a place for albums with a singular and solid sound, but Asunojokei has no interest in being like anything else out there. The Taito, Tokyo quartet are unique in that their influences are quite different from most other metal bands, the rich history of Tokyo's math rock and J-rock scene deeply embedded into the way they write progressions, how they employ upbeat grooves and bright melodic riffs into their music alongside the darker sides of post-hardcore and shoegaze. Because of these myriad influences, their fantastic 2018 debut Awakening felt a tad bit unsure of itself at times, Asunojokei steeped in post-metal atmospherics and noisy effect pedals that took some of the bite away from their colorful guitar leads and vocalist Daiki Nuno's versatile performances. Now, with those early years behind them and an even balance of all the different things that makes their music click, Island takes Asunojokei to new heights, an hour of some of the best indie rock in recent years where nothing feels out of their reach and every song is a new opportunity for them to wow you once more. Rarely is a band able to cultivate a sound so expansive and one-of-a-kind that's still a ton of fun to listen to, but here Asunojokei do exactly that with endless confidence and allure. Eschewing the usual turmoil of blackgaze for a sound more luminous and hopeful, Island thrives off its ability to harness the feistiness and fortitude of hardcore without succumbing to its traditional bitterness and pure aggression. There's all sorts of fun riffing between Kei Toriki's guitar and Takuya Seki's basslines, while Seiya Saito's groovy drum work weaves between bouncy rock rhythms and furious blast beats, Asunojokei able to place songs like the soaring Footprints right next to a lovely J-rock tune like Diva Under the Blue Sky without it feeling like an abrupt change in tone, all eleven of Island's tracks delivered with the same excitement even when they're working off different foundations. Surprising as it may be, the marrying of throat-splitting wails and guttural shrieks with lush guitars and refined instrumentation on the fantastically galvanized Chimera as they switch between rumbling J-rock and black metal bliss, or the short but electrifying Tidal Lullaby that erupts from its mellow starting point into shattered, searing shoegaze, works incredibly well, the cleaner mixes and pristine mastering from Lewis Johns supporting the heavier side of their music without taking away any of the clarity and warmth from Island's sweeter sections. Balance usually isn't something blackgaze like this accounts for so thoughtfully, but Asunojokei have to in order for all the different parts of Island's sound - the math rock, the metal, the post-hardcore, even a bit of plain old dream pop - to fit together in just the right way. Above all else, the songs here sound great and are always a pleasure to listen to, and it's that comfort they provide while still providing the intensity needed to keep Island from ever growing stagnant. And Island's sun-drenched sound doesn't just affect the music - more than ever, Nuno's writing speaks of self-determination and hopefulness in the wake of sorrow, far removed from the depressive and uneasy songwriting on Awakening while keeping in mind how those past emotions affect him today. Oddly, I'm reminded of the way Parannoul took advantage of noise pop in a similar way on his 2021 breakout album To See the Next Part of the Dream, utilizing a genre oft revered for its dissonance and unease to explore feelings of desire and hope, Asunojokei doing something similar throughout Island as Nuno wants nothing more than to figure out how to help somebody through a mental spiral they can't come out of on Beautiful Name ("How can I tell you? / You see things differently"), or to come to terms with duality and the conflicting emotions he feels throughout Chimera ("The windows reflect the same blue sky as in the morning"). Never does it become an optimistic album - Island is still quite the bleak listen - but it's those glimmers of sunlight in Heavenward's switch from jetting, distorted guitars to warm jangly ones as he looks for a path forward ("'You’re never too old to start something new' / ...But if you want to believe those words just a little more, it’s time for you to go find it") that keeps the album so magical all the way through. You might never get the answers you want here, but it's the feeling of grasping at them and striving for that stability Asunojokei nails perfectly here. It's out of the norm for blackgaze, but Asunojokei's highly creative and ambitious take on the genre with Island is a roaring success. They never fail to leave you in absolute awe of what they're able to achieve, their pristine production and slick guitar work managing to weave perfectly into hardcore madness in a way few have done before them. Where they were beginning to figure out what their music was on Awakening, they now know everything they can do and how to perfect it with Island, every song tightly controlled with the bolts loosened just enough for the music to keep spinning at a breakneck speed. Asunojokei don't rest for a moment here, making every song another triumphant moment within their discography and cementing Island as one of the best rock albums this year, a glorious step forward for a band like no other. They have a skillset that allows them to be both meticulous and devastating at once, Island the blossoming of the heavenly flower they've been feeding all these years. There's not going to be any other album like this the rest of the year, and I wouldn't want there to be - Asunojokei's world is entirely their own, a precious bubble constantly on the verge of a glorious collapse. Island couldn't be any more marvelous.

[rainydawgradioblog]

RDR Music Rotation Adds (11/08/20)

FULL-LENGTH

Benny the Butcher - Burden of Proof (gangsta rap, boom bap)

Yet another solid release from the ever-prolific and consistent crew/label Griselda. Benny effortlessly shoots off boisterous yet often earnest bars, moving with machismo and  trading off with an impressive list of esteemed guests (Rick Ross, Freddie Gibbs, more) Hit-Boy contributes vibrant boom-bapish beats with psychedelic slow-mo samples and pulsating 80’s synth melodies.

Tobacco - Hot, Wet & Sassy (exp. electronic, neo-psych)

A new solo release by Tom Fec of Black Moth Super Rainbow. Heavy-hitting analog drum machines under hazy, wastey vocoders and noisy synths, floating in and out of focus and tearing themselves apart. Pop sensibilities shine through intermittently with glassy melodies and rapid trap hi-hats.

Botanist - Photosynthesis (blackgaze, avant-garde metal)

Powerful, cerebral and uplifting plant-themed shoegaze/avant-garde/black metal solo project for drums and electric hammered dulcimer. The distorted dulcimer hisses and drones over unrelenting, rapid drums that roll and chug and blast. Emotive extended chords and wide, clean ornamentations add contrasting lightness.

Luedji Luna - Bom mesmo é estar debaixo d'água (MPB, vocal jazz)

Afro-Brazilian songstress Luedji Luna sings soulful and subtle melodies with silky, flowing cadences in Portuguese and sometimes English. Hypnotic, soft-plucked guitar arpeggios and melancholic string orchestrations carry a few laid-back tracks while funky basslines and dense, harmonic keyboards drive the groovier ones.

Nothing - The Great Dismal (shoegaze)

Deep, gloomy guitar riffs break into thick walls of fuzz, chugging in time with crisp, mesmerizingly steady drums. Washed-out and warbly manipulated vocals swim through washes of guitar noise and occasional languid string sections. Also there’s a track called Bernie Sanders?

Tricot - 10 (math rock, indie)

Tricot’s 2nd album of 2020 is a celebration of the band’s 10th anniversary, and an impressive illustration of their ability to employ diverse stylistic elements while maintaining a consistent math rock feel. (???) , funk bass, doomy feedbacking amps, and a pseudo-rap break fit in oddly well with their usual punchy, complex rhythms, glittery syncopated arpeggios, crunchy chords, and catchy harmonized vocals.

Rodeoglo - BLVCKHEVRT (exp. hip-hop, cloud rap, trap)

A surreal, sonically maximalist album. Scatterbrained beats skip and warp and reverse, with glossy synths that bend just barely out of tune and goofy meme samples packed to the brim. Simple earworm hooks are autotuned beyond recognition, sped up and cut. Tik Tok music for people with goldfish attention spans. (in a good way)

Sa-Roc - The Sharecropper’s Daughter (conscious hip-hop, neo-soul)

Conscious hip-hop album with a modern take on an old-school sonic palate, lyrically centered on Black empowerment and liberation and political revolution. Heavy-handed midtempo drum machines, stuttery vocal effects, and even some record scratches. Sa-Roc shifts from a tight, punchy, nasal rap delivery to lush, flowy soul choruses.

Sturgill Simpson - Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1: The Butcher Shoppe Sessions (bluegrass)

The country singer’s latest album revisits some of his older material with more of a stripped-down bluegrass tinge. Fiddles squeak sweetly over bright, rolling banjos and trotting, subdued drums. On the slower tracks, the band sways every so subtly in loose tempos, with a slight drunken feel.

SINGLE/EP

Freddie Gibbs - 4 Thangs (trap)

Freddie Gibbs and Big Sean join forces on a succinct new single. Their flows interplay smoothly, dancing around each other and cutting intermittently into rapid-fire bars over a spooky, discordant synth melody and rattling hi-hats.