Now Playing #17

Evilfeast - Funeral Sorcery

In recent weeks, I've made a conscious effort to listen to more atmospheric black metal.  I went through an atmoblack phase about 10-15 years ago, but at some point, this quasi-genre lost its luster.  There is only so much you can pull from songs that dwell on Carpathian winds.  And yet, I quite like "Carpathian Winds," the fourth track on Evilfeast's second long player.  When I'm in the mood for this kind of stuff, I suppose I could listen to any number of Scandinavian acts.  Here lately, this Polish one-man project has been doing the trick.  There is nothing groundbreaking here.  "I Reach the Winter Twilight," for example, contains plenty of frosty riffs and a flurry of synth melodies.  The production is sensibly raw, meaning you can at least tell it was recorded indoors.  I think.  Evilfeast is listed as "active" on The Metal Archives, but it's worth mentioning that the last studio offering came out in 2017.

Also worth mentioning?  If you want to get into Evilfeast, any record would serve as a righteous starting point.  As far as rad titles go, Funeral Sorcery wins the day.

Blazing Eternity - A Certain End of Everything

I didn't discover this album until earlier this month.  Otherwise, it would have been featured rather prominently on my "Best of 2024" list.  Blazing Eternity peddle a frothy blend of epic doom and melodic death metal.  I've read several reviews that compare them (favorably) to early Katatonia, but if I had to finger a contemporary touchstone, I'd go with Mother of Graves.  You do need to have a taste for "sadboi" music, as it's called.  Expect to hear glum guitar harmonies and occasional clean vocals that approach your ears with the tempered grace of soft rainfall.  Hmm, I only allow myself one saccharine metaphor per paragraph.  I better wrap this up before I go over budget, so to speak.  Let me LINK you to the lead single from A Certain End of Everything.  A fair warning, if I may...it's going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the afternoon (or evening, depending on when you read this).