Where the Gloom Becomes Sound is the fifth full-length from Swedish goth metal quartet Tribulation. Ten songs, forty eight minutes, and without doubt the band’s strongest performance to date.

Where the Gloom Becomes Sound slows the tempo quite a bit compared to The Children of the Night or Formulas of Death-era Tribulation. The slower tempos seem to suit vocalist Johannes Andersson quite well, as he delivers his strongest snarls. The band seems to have felt this growth too, writing melodies and song structure around Andersson’s poetry. The vocals have been a point of contention in the past for a particular subset of listeners, who argued that the growls felt “tacked on” for the sake of heavy metal expectations. Gloom should put a definitive end to that argument. The band has tightened up the song lengths as well, with most songs in the four to five minute range, as compared to Children of the Night’s six to seven. The pacing of the album is nearly perfect, always keeping the listener engaged in the mood, never letting any one approach become stale.

Here is the strength of theatricality. The melodrama of “Dirge of a Dying Soul,” the sensuality of “Inanna,” the furious energy of “Funeral Pyre,” all joined by this theme of gloom. After all, what could be more a goth response to all the emotions and despairs that this world hands to us but to turn them into sound? To build art and beauty out of horror. Tribulation is able to do it with simplicity just as well as they are with complexity: contrast “Hour of the Wolf”’s 70s rock sensibilities with the harmonized guitar pomp of “Inanna” or the swirling gallop of album closer “The Wilderness.” Indulge yourself. Get lost in the tale of “Dirge of a Dying Soul.” Why not? If the world has given us gloom, then let’s shape it into something like this.

Tribulation are the band Opeth would have been if Mikael Åkerfeldt grew up listening to Bauhaus and Christian Death instead of King Crimson and Rush. They continue to develop and deepen their sound, and nobody else seems to be doing it quite like them. Where the Gloom Becomes Sound should find a solid place in your listening, whether you enjoy it in a castle, in a forest, or in a warehouse. Long live progressive goth metal.

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Ulcerate are a death metal trio from New Zealand, and their music has been alternately described as “technical death metal,” some combination of “Immolation + Blut Aus Nord,” and “the world’s fastest drone band.” Stare Into Death and Be Still is their sixth full length album. Drummer Jamie Saint Merat, who also produced, mixed, and mastered the album, is widely considered one of the most mechanically impressive drummers in death metal today, which is where much of the “Tech death” narrative arises. But if you’ve heard Ulcerate before, you know that the band shares less in common with bands like Spawn of Possession and Decrepit Birth than they do with far-afield weirdos like Portal or Dodecahedron. And if you haven’t heard Ulcerate before, welcome to the furnace.

Stare Into Death and Be Still is eight songs and fifty-eight and a half minutes. The shortest song, “Visceral Ends,” is five minutes forty seconds, while the longest (penultimate track “Drawn Into the Next Void”) is eight minutes thirty-seven seconds. This is music that seethes and writhes; a twisting fury that is just as likely to drown you with dense tremolos and blasts as sprinkle sparkling harmonics and cymbal trills amidst the wreckage. The tonal center of Ulcerate’s music is dark and fiery, ringing out in minor keys and adding bright tension with diminished and augmented high register notes. It’s important to appreciate this music for what it is, though, rather than be disappointed by what it is not. Ulcerate doesn’t write riffs that invite you to headbang or thrash around in the way that Immolation does. Their songs don’t have the sharp prickles and jabs of a band like Portal, nor the raw noise you’d find in a Teitanblood album. Instead, Stare Into Death and Be Still carries you like an ocean wave, flowing back and forth to reinforce the mood over and over until you are overwhelmed by the anger that hates and rages but cannot move.

The songs on Stare Into Death and Be Still are much sparser than what we heard from the band on 2016’s Shrines of Paralysis. Listen instead to the subtle build in “Inversion,” where Michael Hoggard and Paul Kelland layer guitars and bass in giant stacked chords that St Merat plays stick-destroying tom runs before the first vocal completely changes the pace of the song at 2:10. When high speed bursts of verse fade back down to the chords that opened the song, “Visceral Ends” immediately follows up with one of the most spacious, grandiose songs the band has ever penned. This is black metal, with old school blast beats and frigid tremolos. This is death metal’s dark bellows and double bass thunder. This is Ulcerate at the top of their form.

The album is the strongest batch of songs the trio has put together since 2009’s Everything Is Fire. It seems that the move from Relapse Records to Debemur Morti Productions, itself primarily a black metal label, has done the band well creatively. Everyone has stepped up their technical game on this album, particularly Paul, who is becoming much more proficient as a vocalist. The lyric sheets have all been provided for the album, so you can more fully take in the themes. “No worth remains of this condemned existence, Soon to be annulled” says the title track. A grim message fitting for the time in which this album comes into the world.

If you’re already a fan of Ulcerate, Stare Into Death and Be Still will delight your ears and most likely make it into permanent rotation in your collections. But if you’ve given the band a pass before, or perhaps were disappointed in the last few albums, I urge you to come back with fresh ears, because this is the best the band has been in a long time, if not ever.

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“Titan” is the first real song on the album, immediately introducing the listener to the cavernous production that Bâ’a has employed. Lightning speed tremolos dance around nimble blasts while the vocalist delivers a sermon of rage. Unlike some bands that go for all speed all the time, Bâ’a employs dynamics in both volume and tempo changes to keep the songs immediate in your ears. Pay close attention to the spoken word interlude in longest song and album highlight “Procession” where the band uses wind chimes, choirs, and the ambiance of nature to bring texture and drama to the music.

Deus Qui Non Mentitur is a particular kind of apocalyptic that seems all too fitting in today’s world of fear and isolation. Songs that could feel triumphant with their blend of major mode tremolos interwoven with minor arpeggios instead feel oppressive and resigned. Compare “Des Profondeurs je crie” with “Jormundangr” by Wodensthrone, a band that stylistically shares much in common with Bâ’a. Bâ’a’s song never shines the bright light of nature on the proceedings in the way Wodensthrone or Saor manages. Instead, this music remains murky and dismal, with melodic interludes serving to provide contrast to the furious despair.

Even including the two minutes taken up by the intro and outro tracks, Deus Qui Non Mentitur is only 36 minutes long. This length is, frankly, perfect. The album rips in and roars out, leaving the listener in a mood for more. More bands should take note. Less is often more. In Bâ’a’s case, this goes double, since neither the lyrics nor the identity of the band members is made public. Hopefully the band will continue writing these evocative and angry sermons. I highly recommend you give this debut album a spin.

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Unfortunately, nobody will be able to stop you. Who will say, “Hey, this section isn’t working, let’s cut it and move on,” if not bandmates? Who will point out that the ride cymbal sample you chose sounds like somebody tapping on an IKEA desk leg with a ballpoint pen if not a producer? Nobody, that’s who! And so there exist now dozens or perhaps even hundreds of bloated, self-indulgent one-man-band albums available for your listening pleasure that contain 20 minutes of genius lost amid 80 minutes of noodling.

Spectral Lore is the one-man project of Greek multi-instrumentalist Ayloss, and Mare Cognitum is the one-man project of American multi-instrumentalist Jacob Buczarski. Together, they are two one-man black metal / dark ambient projects that both happen to release music through I, Voidhanger Records. In no way do they temper each other to play less, cut songs short, or not go for any haughty concept that they might think deserves exploration. This should be a recipe for absolute disaster. And yet, it is brilliant.

Having already covered the over-indulgent nature of this project and the potential downfalls of solo black metal projects in the introduction, no more needs to be said of that at this point. If you’re here for the album, you’ve already decided that those are small costs to pay. Wanderers is designed to be a heady concept album, and the lyrics have been made available to listeners who wish to delve into the poetry in question. Normally, I wouldn’t do a track-by-track breakdown of an album, as that’s not a good way to present rock music to an audience. But since the artists behind this project have specifically presented this project more in the mode of a classical composition than an album, mentioning Gustav Holst’s famous Planets cycle as an inspiring light, I will be approaching the album the same way I would movements in a symphony.

Spectral Lore starts the album with “Mercury (The Virtuous),” luring the listener in with ambient guitar textures before opening up the first blast beat at three and a half minutes. Ayloss keeps the feeling dynamic, using a layered vocal delivery to add aural space and a cosmic feeling atop triumphant, almost Nordic chord patterns. The drumming has a hint or two of being programmed, but overall has a pleasing acoustic tone and enough variety to suit the trance-like quality of the song.

Mare Cognitum’s approach is more straightforwardly aggressive, opening immediately with a furious tempo and a thick, modern production sound. These drums have a more thunderous, death metal tone, and are mixed wonderfully to provide a heavy bottom end anchoring Buczarski’s reverb-heavy high gain guitars. The leads in “Mars (The Warrior)” bring to mind the best sounds from Blut Aus Nord’s Memoria Vetusta series, but without the brittle icy timbre BAN is known for. The energy of Mare Cognitum’s song carries the listener deep into the narrative while screaming “All life is dust in the wind” and throws them violently into Spectral Lore’s next song.

“Earth (The Mother)” starts off as a doom song, not a black metal one. Slowly plucked arpeggios and cavernous funeral vocals, intertwining guitar leads and massive cymbal crashes. The lyrics sing of the regret of humans who have left the planet, perhaps for dead, and are troubled by that reality. Halfway through the song, the drums pick up the pace and the guitars tremolo leads to weave a net of sound around the listener. The final crescendo of the song, from heartbeat pulse to inhuman drum machine snare rolls bordering on white noise is one of the most memorable moments on the album.

The next two songs, “Venus (The Priestess)” and “Jupiter (The Giant),” are both Mare Cognitum songs. Despite sharing the planets equally, Mare Cognitum actually has slightly more solo time on the album, with 48 and a half minutes to Spectral Lore’s 43. “Venus” calls to mind the epic black metal stylings of Summoning, with steady drums, huge reverbs, synth pads, and plenty of tempo changes for verses, bridges, lead breaks, and more of all of that. This album is incredibly dense, so if you just throw it on as background metal you’re missing out on the experience of Wanderers as a meditation. “Jupiter” might be by the same band, but Buczarski has changed up the sound again, bringing his take on the slower, doomier style. Synth and piano interludes break up the verses, and the guitars provide an ambient wash reminiscent of ocean waves. Even when the double kicks come in at the 12-minute mark, “Jupiter” feels vast and stately, far from the fury that was “Mars.”

Spectral Lore returns for “Saturn (The Rebel)” at the half-way point of the album. The echoing plucks immediately give this song the most experimental, eeriest tone so far, with major modes being hinted at in the progression but always collapsing back into diminished dissonance. The song feels uneasy, crawling along through ooze. This is the first prominent display of bass playing I noticed on the album; where before the bass simply filled in the sonic bottom end, here it meanders, outlining the most interesting of counter-melodies.

After a slow song, “Neptune (The Mystic)” returns us to the high tempos, thick production, and heavenly tremolos of Mare Cognitum. This is the final solo Mare Cognitum song on the album and thoroughly demonstrates the differences between the two bands. While Spectral Lore has a warmer, more analog or perhaps what one might call “traditional” timbre, Mare Cognitum provides a thoroughly modern atmospheric sound. Yet when it comes to songwriting, Spectral Lore is much more likely to try experimental, unique arrangements. When listening to Mare Cognitum’s work, you might think “this reminds me of…”, whether that’s Summoning, Blut Aus Nord, Immortal, or Borknagar, even if the final arrangement is still a fully unique experience.

These thoughts don’t intrude nearly as much in Spectral Lore’s songs, which wrap up with “Uranus (The Fallen).” Ayloss again makes good use of prominent bass lines, dancing scales up and down while the heavily distorted guitars drone a single chord deep in the mix. “Uranus” is the tightest turning of the screw, with the first chord change coming in at nearly five and a half minutes. When you’re engaged with the album, the constant feeling of tension pushes and pushes until everything breaks at seven minutes. The clean reverb pluckings build like harp and lyre strings as spoken vocals intone “the age of men is past.”

The final 23 minutes of the split are the collaborative “Pluto (The Gatekeeper)” tracks. The first, subtitled “Part I: Exodus through the Frozen Wastes,” is an instrumental ambient piece, while “Part II: The Astral Bridge,” completes the story of the album, bringing us through the solar system and into the realm of death. As somebody who listens to a lot of dark ambient music, I enjoyed “Exodus.” It’s an entirely modern synth track, with the notes flowing seamlessly from breath to breath, using pads that give the impression of sampled industrial machinery to add pulse to the song. “The Astral Bridge” bursts into the listeners ears with distorted guitars and an entirely unique set of programmed drums. Here the drums aren’t even attempting to sound like their acoustic counterparts, instead creating a much glitchier texture calling to mind IDM artists like Squarepusher or Autechre. Synths and guitars smoothly combine into massive walls of sound on either side for the drums and leads to play between. These two collaborative tracks were mastered by Jacob Buczarski, which is fortunate because his ability to create thick, meaty sounds is absolutely necessary when the song literally enters the realm of death at the six minute mark. Hearing chugging death metal riffs after an hour and forty eight minutes of atmospheric black metal is a huge tonal shift, but the bands pull it off with aplomb, particularly as Buczarski’s reverb-drenched leads soar overtop of Ayloss colossal bellows.

Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine is not an easy album to get into. It isn’t the kind of music that rewards casual listening. But if you put yourself in the place where you can really take it in, it has much to offer the listener looking for something mind expanding. And honestly, people in solo black metal acts can learn a lot about the value of working with another creative mind, as “The Astral Bridge” is by far the stand out track on the album. Those listeners looking for the full three hour solar experience could combine Wanderers with the previous Sol, but that journey is only recommended with the proper application of drugs.

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Intronaut is a progressive metal quartet from Los Angeles, and Fluid Existential Inversions is their sixth full-length album, and like my window box of flowers, their growth has been both fascinating and chaotic. It’s been five years since The Direction of Last Things, and in the interim the band parted with founding drummer Danny Walker. Instead taking up the sticks is Alex Rüdinger, who played live with Whitechapel, The Faceless, and Revocation. The choice seems to have been a good one, as Fluid Existential Inversions is chock full of delicious drum grooves and cymbal work, from opening hallucinogen influenced “Cubensis” through seven minute, thirty-three second closer “Sour Everythings.” If you have a taste for jazzy polyrhythms with intermittent doses of death metal energy, you need to listen to the drumming on Fluid Existential Inversions.

If you’ve followed the band’s past work, Fluid Existential Inversions is a direct follow on from The Direction of Last Things. The Meshuggah-inspired heavy chunking chords; the sudden meter shifts; the fat as hell bass tone; the confusing song titles that may or may not be the result of copious ingestion of hallucinogens. I’m happy to report that the more boring post-rock experiments of Habitual Levitations seem to be left in the past, but if you were hoping for more of the organic, stoner doom vibes of Valley of Smoke, you’ll likely be disappointed.

Guitarist pair Sacha Dunable and Dave Timnick still have a fondness for big distorted diminished chords, as “The Cull” quickly demonstrates. Joe Lester’s bass alternately growls and sings, making excellent use of the wah pedal without attempting to get funky. “Speaking of Orbs” introduces synth pedals into the mix, flowing seamlessly into palm-muted guitar power chords. The sheer amount of sounds that Intronaut manages to flow through in the space of a single song is overwhelming, and although it’s impressive, can hurt the flow or make the album harder to remember after it’s over.

And that’s the only real problem that I have with Fluid Existential Inversions. Half the time when I spin it, I get lost in the grooves and the shimmering guitars and the rumbling bass. The other half of the time, though? I think of the other bands that do similar things, but more memorably. The Ocean’s Pelagial was a prog metal masterpiece and sometimes Inversions feels like a snapshot of that deeper piece with an Instagram filter over top. Leprous and Katatonia do clean singing with polyrhythmic grooves, too, and they’re responsible for some of the most memorable songs I’ve ever heard. Hell, I’m even reminded of previous Intronaut albums some times, and am tempted to spin the slightly shorter Direction of Last Things instead.

That said, all good progressive music has the ability to grow with repeated listens. I do highly recommend giving Fluid Existential Inversions a spin or three, if for the drumming alone. Perhaps even put some research into what kind of drugs the band is singing about, and see if that unlocks the hidden mystery.

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