IN ROTATION: Our most played albums in August 2019
THE TRVE MEDVSON’S SANCTUM
This month was either lots of new discoveries of older stuff I missed or relistening to some stuff in preparation to new releases. Also, lots of listening for reviews, but those you can check in the review section. These are my most played of August 2019!
CULT OF LUNA & JULIE CHRISTMAS – Mariner
April 8th, 2016, Indie Recordings
Needed to listen to this again in preparation for “A Dawn to Fear”… “Mariner” is definitely one of the best CULT OF LUNA albums, I’d even say one of the all-time greatest Post-Metal albums! Amazing musicianship, spacey synths and great vocal work both from CoL and Julie Christmas, this is a trve journey. As said by the band, the sound, especially of the closer “Cygnus” is inspired by the Star-Gate sequence from Kubrick’s “2001 – A Space Odyssey”. This I truly feel every time I listen to this, a journey through deep space, through a vortex that by far exceeds human comprehension!
PAYSAGE D’HIVER – Paysage d’Hiver
1999, Kunsthall Produktionen
A record that I was interested in for a long time, for the cover-art alone, I finally worked myself through this ice-cold lofi black metal masterpiece. Wintherr’s demos are all solid releases, but the self-titled is the one that ultimately stuck with me, featuring buzzing, harsh guitars, muddled blast-beats, chilling keyboard tones and, what stood out to me especially, a compelling use of violin in between the harsh black metal onslaught. While this is not an easy listen, I come back to this regularly and recommend every fan of black metal to spend some time with the winter landscape that this demo has to offer!
TORCHE – Admission
July 12th, 2019, Relapse Records
A band that I previously didn’t know, TORCHE surprised me with their new release “Admission”! While I’m already a fan of doomy music, the dreamy and more shoegaze-infused elements that were incorporated in this new release were what really convinced me, the album is very trippy and just sounds very recognizable and unique. TORCHE have mastered the art of sounding heavy and light simultaneously!
SADNESS – Leave
March 21st, 2017, independent release
After the masterful release that was “I want to be there”, SADNESS quickly turned into one of my favourite projects out there. No need to mention that since then, I’ve worked myself through the entire catalogue of this band. While they are all solid releases, “Leave” stuck with me the most! The album is a great mixture of extremely melancholic ambient sections and muffled, distant black metal. It has a very recognizable sound to it, like all SADNESS releases, something that is hard to describe… I recommend that everyone experiences this by themselves!
MAYHEM – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
May 24th, 1994, Deathlike Silence Productions
Another one in preparation for a new release. MAYHEM will release “Daemon” on October 25th and since the sound is going to be a more “back to the roots”-approach going by the first single “Worthless Abominations Destroyed”, (a couple of) relistens to the one and only “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”, a stone cold black metal classic are more than needed! I think everything about this album has already been said… so just listen to it!
An honorable mention goes to “Grand Declaration of War”, which is on repeat these last couple of days, the 2018 remaster that is, although I also appreciate the original mix more and more, as I grow to understand the original intention of the album. This album was ahead of its time and is a definite underappreciated classic!
This is it for my “In Rotation”-list this month. Nothing spectacular, but lots of preparation for great albums to come soon, hope you had a great month and listened to a lot of great music!
Yours truly
the trve Medvson
