Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters

 

Let the process of revival begin!

Wolves in the Throne Room is a Black Metal band living in the forests of Olympia (not where the greek gods sleep, but in Washington). They have released 3 albums and some minor releases.

These guys are playing superb Atmospheric Black Metal that is surely able to put you in a forest immediately when you close your eyes or just make your brain download a cheesy collection of Darkthrone videos. Their lyrical concepts are about nature and shaman rituals, one of the many things that caught my eye when I decided to check them out back in '07 (their band name was the first thing I noticed, how can you skip such an awesome name?).

These guys are one of my favorite bands and I picked this album because it was the first I heard with them. I recommend that you should check their other albums if you are fond of this one.

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P.S. If you like this album and have listened to their other LPs you should check out Krallice, Altars of Plague (seriously you gotta' love the Khanate part!), Weakling, Drudkh (some consider them nazi, looking past that they create mind blowing black metal) and Burzum's Filosofem.

Son of Aurelius - The Farthest Reaches (2010)

I admit that I seem to have been defeated by the internet. I set out to find some info on this album and I could not find out if their name was Son of Aurelius or Sons of Aurelius or if their album is called The Farthest Reaches, Son of Aurelius or Myocardial Infection. I have now made a semi-educated guess and I hope it's close to the right thing.

Son of Aurelius is a band from Santa Cruz, California. They play Technical Progressive Death Metal. This is their first album (I think).

This album is really growing on me. They make me think of Arsis which was also a grower for me. It's tech death with melodic riffs. I guess it's Technical Swedish Metal.

I think this album is really good and this band could become very big. The musicianship is top-notch, especially the bass player who displays his Berklee skills throughout the album. The other guys also play very well. The guitarist is also a member of Animosity and a live member for Decrepit Birth. The album is really flawless in terms of playing. I think you should definitely give it a listen.

Check it out on MediaFire

Obscure bands from Czech Republic part II

!T.O.O.H.! - Rad a Trest
Now it's time for the second post about this weird deathgrind movement coming from Czech Republic and this time it's !T.O.O.H.!'s(which is the acronym for The Obliteration of Humanity) Rad a Trest (order and punishment).!T.O.O.H.! is probably the weirdest band I have heard of so far from Czech Republic.

The first thing I noticed while listening to this album for the first time was probably the vocals, not the Average Joe in death metal neither grindcore. The song writing on this album is great, lots of catchy moments and a fair amount of technicality.
They disbanded shortly after releasing this album, they released 4 LP's in their career, so making Rad a Trest a swansong.

Though two of the guy's went off forming another band called Duobetic Homunkulus, which has a bit of !T.O.O.H.! feeling to it and I will definitely do a review on those dudes!


Highly recommended.
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!O.B.F.C.R.! part I
obscure bands from Czech republic

Malak - Malak EP (2010)

Malak is a band from Florida. Their music is very hard to classify but I think I'm going to call it.... Technical Progressive Death Metal because in fact it's very technical but also very progressive.

This album has one of the coolest intros I have ever heard. It really gets my attention when I listen to this. The album sounds very professional, like their a very experienced band. That is great given that this is their first release.

I guess Malak borders on Deathcore sometimes but I really don't want to think of them in those terms. They have breakdowns and a few other Deathcore symptoms but given that I like Deathcore a fair amount though the genre has really run it's course. People tend to forget that it's the really generic ones that seem to stand out while the good ones are forgotten, at least in Deathcore.

You should definitely check them out on MediaFire

Obscure bands from Czech Republic part I

Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris
(2000)

Well, this is my first post on Czech Republics obscure deathgrind movement and definitely not the last, this is probably my favorite movement ever.
Well I'll start with Lykathea Aflame, a progressive and atmospheric deathgrind band, with lyrical concepts like Sadness and giving gifts. This band formed out of the bands Appalling Spawn and Garbage Disposal ex-drummer, Appalling Spawn actually sounds much like Lykathea Aflame just bit more death metal.

The drumming on this album is unbelievable, growling is done seriously well and guitars are out-standing. This album is a brilliant work of art. Except for one minor flaw, that god damn ambient track in the end, though it just builds up with this awesome atmosphere (therefore a minor flaw) they managed to create.

Everything to this album is great and unique, it's not everyday that you find a death metal band that puts emotion in their music.
recommended for fans of experimental death metal.

Download

P.S. They said that they were going to record in autumn 2006 ever since I have been waiting for almost 2 years for them to give out that new album under the name Lykathé instead of Lykathea Aflame, Those lazy bastards just started recording 2009. Haven't heard anything more of it since then.