HEXVESSEL – Polar Veil

RELEASE YEAR: 2023  BAND URL: https://www.hexvessel.com/ Hexvessel is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating and musically adventurous entities that I have had the great pleasure of listening to since the debut offering entitled Dawnbringer from 2011. There is an enigmatic aura to every single output of theirs, and with the gifted Mathew “Kvohst” McNerney in charge…

WINTER – Fire Rider

RELEASE YEAR: 2022  BAND URL: https://winter5.bandcamp.com/album/fire-rider I was quite taken with Winter’s atmospheric and moving Looking Back compilation CD, which was released earlier this year and consisted of reworked and re-recorded tunes, but this latest output, Fire Rider is a frustratingly mixed bag in terms of cohesiveness and quality. It incorporates ideas and influences from hard…

ARDOURS – Anatomy of a Moment

RELEASE YEAR: 2022  BAND URL: https://www.facebook.com/ardoursband/ Anatomy of a Moment by the Italian outfit Ardours, which includes Mariangela Demurtas (Tristania) on vocals, is a weirdly anticlimactic experience. With its gothic rock overtones and prominent nods to alternative rock and experimental metal, there is a modern flair to this pristine-sounding output, and a number of good ideas…

HEMESATH – So Schön

RELEASE YEAR: 2022  BAND URL: https://www.facebook.com/hemesathband/ The German act named Hemesath is something quite different and hard to pigeonhole in terms of style and genre. Using such diffuse terms as alternative rock and alternative metal often blows ass simply because they tell you very little about the actual music, but in this case, I have no…

WINTER – Looking Back

RELEASE YEAR: 2022BAND URL: https://winter5.bandcamp.com/album/looking-back Looking Back by Winter is not merely a retrospective anthology or a compilation but rather a collection of re-recorded and reworked tunes from the outfit’s back catalogue. Musically speaking, this is an eclectic and interesting mixture of many different things, and dark rock seems like an apt description here. Hard…

SILVER DUST – Lullabies

RELEASE YEAR: 2022  BAND URL: https://www.facebook.com/SilverDustOnline The latest opus by Swiss act Silver Dust, namely the goth-tinged “Lullabies”, was a rather pleasant surprise to these ears in that it incorporates traits and elements from theatrical rock and dark electro rock to good effect. This is the outfit’s fourth full-length album and undoubtedly the most accomplished one…