For those who still had hope

This Blog Is Dead. Thank you, and goodbye.

A non-committal list of albums released in 2009 that I really enjoyed lots (now with pictures 'n shit)

picture also unrelated

Because you know, it's hard for me and a huge emotional confrontation to rank albums because it feels like they are living humans and I don't have the right to tell them that maybe some other album is better or more loved, it would cause lasting damage to their faith in humanity and I would feel really wretched if I did that.

Creature with the Atom Brain - Transylvania

Great and very groovy psychedelic rock that makes Belgium sound like the new San Francisco.
Probably posted shortly.

Martyrdöd - Sekt
Swedish blackened crust, gloriously driving, nihilistic monotony and filth.
Previous album posted here.

Geïst - Galeere
Nautical-themed atmo-black metal album that has been shockingly underrated.
Previous album posted here.

Antony and the Johnsons - The crying light
Unique voice, unique music. I would gladly give up gender certainty for such a voice.
Previous album posted here.

The Urgency - The urgency
Indie rock barely touching on punk energy, the result is criminally catchy.
Probably posted shortly.

Skagos - Ást
Sublime Canadian atmospheric black metal with apparently some left-wing sympathies.
Posted shortly.

Sólstafir - Köld
She destrooooooooys againnnnnnn!! As good as the previous album,
which you can find here.

Rome - Flowers from exile
Best neofolk-ish stuff I heard since Spiritual Front.
Posted in the longer term.

The Cavalcade - Meet you in the rain
Just a five-track twee folk EP but SO captivating!
Posted shortly.

Alcest & Les Discrets - Split
Fine appetiser, especially the Les Discrets part is amazing.
Earlier material by both here (LD), here and here (A).

Austere - To lay like old ashes
Visionary band daringly taking suicidal black metal into new territory.
Posted shortly.

The Exploding Boy - Afterglow
Anachronistic neo-postpunk goodness from Sverige.
Posted shortly.

Powerwolf - Bible of the beast
Campy yet strong power metal with superb vocals.
Earlier album will be posted shortly.

It May Never End - Such is life
Unknown Aussie group, but best post-rock album I've heard all year.
Posted in the longer term.

Der Blaue Reiter - Nuclear Sun
Intriguing, mysterious, distressing martial ambient.
May feature some time or another, or it may not.

VNV Nation - Of faith, power and glory
Once more with feeling: Great and thoughtful EBM/synthpop champions.
Earlier album posted here.

Panopticon - Collapse
Anarcho-black metal guru Lundr proves himself once more. Old gods, no masters! (?)
Posted here on a blog you should be visiting anyway.

Miserere Luminis - Miserere luminis
Collaboration between Gris and Sombres Forêts, luckily the Gris influences win out.
Gris album can be found here.

Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs
"Amesoeurs is dead", not with a whimper, with a bang.
Demo and split here.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The pains of being pure at heart
They'll have you gazing at your shoes through tears of joyful misery.
The proof can be found here.

Why aren't you posting, you dick?

You'll have noticed the post rate dropping still further lately, and this last week there hasn't been any activity at all. Please rest assured, I have not run out of music, but my computer has finally collapsed under the strain. It had been taking over half an hour for it to start up for a few months now so nothing unexpected, and it's been slow but faithful to the end so I don't blame it. The harddisk is probably the problem, but then I have two harddisks and the one that is dead is probably not the one I have all my music on so good for you.

I hope to be able to post something again after the weekend when my programmer dad will install some new hardware in hope of reanimation, but it won't be much since I'm still very busy being such a serious, disciplined student.

But tell me something. What music are you missing on here? I like to keep things as broad as I can, and all the music you can find on here is stuff that I like. What is there that you would like to see posted one day, something weird, something different, something I probably don't know but would like if I did. Recommend me stuff. Anything goes. Thanks in advance.

Hasta la musica siempre!

Less posts and stuff

I have re-entered wage labour, pickin' dem orders for a distributor of pharmaceutical supplies, about three days a week. From halfway down the afternoon until usually way past midnight I'll be dragging that trolley fillin' it up with the sweet, sweet medicine. And catheters. And enemas. This kinda limits the time I can be posting here but it fills the dwindling treasury and keeps me off my assbutt. Don't be surprised if I'm not posting for a while, I will try to make up for lost time when I do.

Also from thursday until monday I will be at Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium and it will be super mega awesome even though the line-up kind of sucks, though there will surely be some positive surprises. More than the music I'm going for a good time with good friends, and it's all the vacation I got this year.

Bye. :)

Sigue, sigue, sigue...

this is Madness Sparta!

Hey, I was just thinking, if you have been enjoying the music so far, why don't you click "follow blog" to the right there in the sidebar, sit back and be kept up to date about the posts on here automatically? It's like, super handy.

Of course it would also enhance my status in Blogland but y'all know I don't give a mandrill's technicolour ass about that, right?

As it is there seems to be somewhat of a disconnection between the amount of downloads served (over 20 000 now according to Mediafire statistics, wooo!) and the small but militant core of individuals that keep an eye on this page over a longer period of time. You have no idea how often this has made me call my dear Mum in the middle of the night, crying.

So hop aboard and stick around if you want to, and make a hard-working blogger proud!

Cheers and kindest regards,

Bart / "Charles D. Ward" (it's a Lovecraft thingie, y'know)
Your blog operator

About that "post extra metal" period thing...

It's done. Metal to music ratios are well and comfy again. Back to the order of the day!

That wasn't so bad now, was it? Bet you wouldn't even have noticed without the stupid announcement. I hardly caught a whiff of it, myself.

Peacock is the devuhl! Ask an Arab.

On the revolutionary necessity of temporary black metal domination

Those who come by here regularly (by the hundreds!! not really) to check for new stuff may have noticed a considerable increase in metal posts lately, which of course means there's less room for actual music. You may think this is good, you may think this is crap, you may not be able to care less - whatever.

Though black metal has always been the largest category of music I share, I would like to state that this is not a black-metal-with-sometimes-some-other-stuff blog. It has never been and will never be. Let me explain.

I go around my files every now and then and pick albums I like to upload. I RAR about thirty, forty of them and upload them. Before half of them are posted, I'll have another few dozen of albums upped. The problem is that the ratio of metal to music has been, say 60:40 in the last batches, while I'd like it to be around 40:60 or less, like it used to be. So I have to post the metal in 70:30 ratios now if I ever want to have a 40:60 blog again, right? Simple common sense.

What I am afraid of is that people who are looking for happy mix of different music styles will be put off at the relative uniformity of the recent two months or so (a uniformity that would be shared by a host of black metal blogs, the one more irrelevant than the other). I want them to know that this current uniformity serves the ultimate goal of future non-uniformity.

So don't lose hope, there will forever be little points of light in between the seemingly endless swathes of darkness and aggression, and the end of the long, dark tunnel is already in sight. Stand fast, music lovers, stand fast!

We don't want to have this blog turn into a miniature of the capitalist system with its cycle of boom and bust, where they attempt to "solve" each crisis with measures that will only make the next crisis bigger and more difficult to overcome. So in the meantime it would be a good idea if you people spammed me silly with all kinds of non-metal music that I might like so I can one day upload it to share through this blog, and keep a comfy metal:music ratio.

Kind regards,

Your Faithful Blog Poster

Time for a new blog header

RIP old banner, May 2008-April 2009

To those who've always wondered what the hell the previous banner was supposed to depict: it's one of the Meta-malevitch sculptures by Jean Tinguely. Tinguely (not the man in the picture) was a Swiss kinetic artist, sculpting all kinds of bizarre contraptions that move like a machine but serve no actual function. The Meta-malevitch series consisted of painting machines, which mechanically scratched full pieces of paper or canvas. Pieces of art that create pieces of art! For more works in this fascinating style, see the Wikimedia gallery here.

Twenty Albums that Shook the World in 2008

Okay, okay. A top 20 of 2008. I find it difficult to compare and rank albums but here's an attempt. Thank the Chief Commie (thought that was me? Ha! He's the real Party animal) for pressuring me into it. Since black metal is the only genre I actively follow in respect to new albums being released, the list will disproportionately lean in that direction, moreso even than the rest of this blog. I have most of these set for posting at a later time so stick around!

As this blog is primarily for spreading music I will add links to any material of the bands included that I have posted earlier, and because you really, really need the Panopticon I've linked to a friend's blog.

20. Nachtmystium - Assassins: black meddle part 1
It's nice, I like it, etc. Earlier EP here

19. Forefather - Steadfast
Their most balanced, organic album to date

18. Masshysteri - Vår del av stan
Just heard this yesterday. Great Swedish punk, tough but catchy

17. Lifelover - Konkurs
Fits in well with their other albums, a bit too much so I'd even say

16. Nightbringer - Death and the black work (here!)
Raw, chaotic, demanding, overwhelming

15. Ida Maria - Fortress round my heart
Great voice, simple but super-uplifting songs

14. Voyager - Voyager
Heavy, melancholic death-doom, the post-rock way

13. De Silence et d'Ombre - Vol. II - Ascension manifesto
Surprising spacey black metal newcomer, could go pretty far indeed

12. Sabaton - The art of war
My favourite imperialist power metal band did it again. Download their debut here

11. Tiamat - Amanethes
Temple of the crescent moooooooooooon!

10. Darskspace - Dark space III
...and I'm floating in a most peculiar way...

9. Smorzando - Smrad
Unexpected little gem of noisy depressive black metal with capital D

8. The Weepies - Hideaway
Not as good as Happiness (here), but still Weepie-tastic

7. Ska-P - Lagrimas y gozos
They're back! Poppier, sadder, but as good as ever. Live album here

6. Lantlôs - Lantlôs
Impressive debut of melancholic, postmodernist BM

5. Panopticon - Panopticon (here!)
Political black metal as there should be more of it

4. God is an Astronaut - God is an Astronaut
Exemplary post-rock, one of the best in its genre

3. Doom:vs - Dead words speak
Solo project of Draconian member. Total darkness and despair

2. Woods of Infinity - Hopplös väntan
Hamptjärn (here) is better, but this is the release that got me into them which is to be rewarded

1. A Forest of Stars - The corpse of rebirth (here)
Yay winner! See the post directly below

Defiant statement on Cyndi's disappearance

Okay, what the fuck? I uploaded some Cyndi Lauper and both the post and the mediafire upload have gone. H4x0red by record company executives? Come on, the album sold in the millions, surely you guise have profited on its sales enough by now to let one illegal upload slip? Maybe Cyndi is totally down with music piracy, why don't you ask her?

The peaceful coexistence of black metal on one hand and actual music on the other is one of the main justfications of this blog's existence and I will not stand for a depopification of my illegal internet activities.

Besides, is it not way more criminal that we are actually expected to pay for such absolute necessities to live a human(e) life such as food, drugs and music than that I'm distributing the latter for free? POPular revolt against record companies now! Workers of the music industry unite, the power is YOURS!

GENERAL STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE!!1

(Okay I'm better now.)

Heds Upp.

Sorry if the blog's been going a bit slower lately. It's not that I'm that much more busy than usual, but since the very start I've been churning out albums faster than I receive new postworthy ones, and understandably I want to avoid running out of great releases to blog about. I'm very picky about what I listen to and even more picky about what I want you to listen to, so in order to safeguard a continuous stream of quality music sometimes I have to step on the brakes.

But don't worry, there's still plenty more where all of this has been coming from and I am at all times fanatically looking for new stuff. :)

Reclaiming the Instaweb.

Oh fucking hell yes. I finally have a connection to thee internet again from my own place so I'll be able to share music more often than just a couple albums every one or two weekends. There's still a lot of stuff I want you all to hear so I should get to it right away. However, it's rarely been as busy as the last few weeks so don't think too much of it, an album a day like I used to do would not be realistic. But it's a start, right?

Eine Welt zu gewinnen

Okay, I've finally been able to post some stuff again from my parents' place. Funny thing is, at my own place I have had about ten albums lined up to be uploaded to mediafire for weeks now, but my internet there is still dead - in fact, I think I made it even worse. :( I think it may be due to the fact that the previous tenant of my room was still paying for the tv and internet connection, but I'm not sure.

I'll try to have it fixed in time to post a few of them albums, because in two weeks (maybe even just one) I'll again be housed far, far away (Brabant is a whole different province, you know) for more digging at another excavation, this time for four or five weeks. No instaweb, except maybe in the weekends. It's a tad sucky having to spend your whole summer holiday working and doing unpaid work experience full-time.

I'm still thinking about something I might try after posting those albums, namely making mixtape-like compilations of only the awesomest songs that I know. It would be a bit fairer to the artists involved, but I would miss writing those little album reviews. Let me know what you would prefer.

Cheers,

Bart / Charles D.

Dear people,

From next friday I will first be in Belgium at Graspop Metal Meeting and subsequently spend two weeks in Hulsel, Dutch Brabant where I'm going to work at an excavation. So you'll have to go without new updates for the time being. I was planning to do a few extra posts to keep you satisfied until I'm back but my internet broke down at the most inconvenient time imagineable so I'm sorry to announce that I can't post or upload anything ATM.

Well, goodbye then. See you at half past July!