Tag: Zeitgeister Music

Valborg – Der Alte Review

The less-is-more approach to music, art, architecture, and basically any other form of aesthetic expression has, throughout its history, yielded widely varying results that often feel like contrasts. Punk stripped away the excesses of arena

Missing Pieces 2019: The Best Of What We’ve Missed So Far, Part 2

Here at Last Rites, we listen to a metric shit-ton of heavy metal—it’s just what we do. But every year there’s so much great metal that we simply don’t have time to cover it all…

An Interview With Christian Kolf Of Owl & Valborg

Christian Kolf has been in a whole bunch of bands, with none more important than the work he’s produced with Owl and Valborg. 2017 saw Valborg release Endstrand to much acclaim (especially here at Last

Owl – Nights In Distortion

Over the course of a couple full lengths and several EPs, Germany’s Owl has delivered a blend of synth-heavy ambient and dark, morose doom/death, never twice bringing the same mix or balance of the band’s

Absolutum – I Review

If half of the Absolutum roster sounds familiar to readers of these pages, it’s because Christian Kolf and Jan Buckard make up two thirds of the mighty Valborg (with Kolf also doing time in Island,

Klabautamann – Smaragd Review

Music criticism doesn’t exactly have its own version of cinéma vérité, but here’s a poor substitute: earlier in the morning on the day I wrote the bulk of this review, I took my daughter to

Valborg – Nekrodepression Review

German (and Central European) metal has always contained a notable strain of off-kilter innovators. Sure, the careers of Destruction, Kreator, and Sodom have been staked on aggressive but mostly straightforward thrash, but one also must

Woburn House – Sleep Summer Storm Review

For those interested in quirky experimentation, restless progression, and a decided absence of preening pretension in their heavy music, the interconnected family of bands on the roster of German label Zeitgeister Music (including, in addition