Pale Roses - Fear of Dawn

Pale Roses is a neofolk band from Lorient, France that keeps it stripped down to mostly acoustic guitar and vocals with splashes of bass, piano and drums. Their influences are laid plain with a song called Sol Invictus and like it's namesake it conjures images of plaintive balladry on the moors. The vocals are prominent in the mix and while not always perfect they project a mood of a troubled troubador watching the world disintegrate. The video I'm including is not on this album but it's the only one I can find and it is also a great cover of a Saxon song.



Tracklist :

1 Flow My Tears
2 Four Winters
3 Sol Invictus
4 Lord Gregory
5 Heroes Dawn
6 When the War is Over
7 Niflheim
8 Pagan
9 Two Ravens
10 Are You Ready( For Total War) ?

Website : http://www.myspace.com/morepaleroses/blog

Label : The Eastern Front

Release Date August 10th 2010

Heretoir - Heretoir

The debut full length from German duo Heretoir is a post black metal album that mixes acoustic passages with washes of heaviness to achieve an atmosphere of bleakness and modern decay. The occasional use of clean vocals heightens the tension felt throughout the album and the inclusion of a few short ambient tracks furthers the overall mood. This release should appeal to fans of genre leading bands Alcest and Amesoeurs.



Tracklist :

1 The Escape Part I
2 Fatigue
3 Retreat to Hibernate
4 0
5 Weltschmerz
6 Graue Bauten
7 The Escape Part II
8 To Follow the Sun
9 Heretoir

Website : http://www.myspace.com/heretoir

Label : Northern Silence Productions

Release Date : February 25th 2011

Musk Ox - Musk Ox

Musk Ox is Nathanael Larochette from Ottawa, Ontario and he gives us a beautiful sonic expression of landscape that delivers you to the isolated Canadian wilderness to contemplate life. The mostly nylon string guitar compositions are enchanting and the vocals appear like the wind. There is an organic feel to this record that is captivating, you can feel the moss beneath your feet and and see the opening sky. A beautiful journey.



Tracklist :

1 Un Jardin Au Bout Du Monde
2 Sur Une Infinie Route De Terre
3 Entre La Terre Et Le Ciel
4 Les Plus Beaux De Nos Jours
5 Lullaby For Ghosts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45R4dqbTJb8

Website : http://www.myspace.com/embraceinashes

Label : Absurdist Records

Release Date : January 19th 2009

Kanashimi - In My Tears

Hailing from Shizouka Japan, Kanashimi translates as sorrow or sadness and those feelings are abundant here on the third release. The band's sole member Misanthropy creates a suffocating atmosphere of hopelessness with recurring piano melodies, funeral paced drums, distorted guitar and vocals that sound as if channelled from some other realm. While only three tracks at twenty minutes this EP feels complete and is a fine release in the depressive, suicidal, black metal genre.



Tracklist :

1 In My Tears
2 Algos
3 Life

Website : Unknown

Label : East Chaos Records

Release Date : February 2010

Download : http://www.mediafire.com/?34d9147q507801j#1

The Last Days - When the Tomorrow is a Grey Day

The duo from Sao Paulo, Brazil and Toluca City, Mexico gives us a post rock EP that washes over you in waves of echoing melancholy. From the ambient beginnings of the title track the album builds incrementally through emotion but really takes hold with shredded vocals in " Soul of a City " which is the only nodding black metal track on the release. The album closes much as it started with with a more ambient feel that allows the listener to digest what has just transpired. The atmosphere is not as bleak as the song titles may suggest and at times one may even detect an undercurrent of contentment in the music. Perfect listening for a lazy, rainy day.


Tracklist :

1 When the Tomorrow is a Grey Day
2 Make the Change
3 The Time Will Never Come Back
4 Soul of a City
5 A Vague Look

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvo7HNsHD0s

Website : http://www.myspace.com/thelastdayssuicide

Label : Pest Productions

Release Date : July 1st 2010

Knox Om Pax - Laudanum

Taking the name from a book by Aleister Crowley the one woman project from Milwaukee, Wisconsin delivers a haunting cello and piano based album of droning melancholy. The subdued anguish of this release comes to the fore on third track " Salt, Sulfur, Mercury". While relatively short I would hesitate to call this an EP as the emotional ride is intense and exhausting and the listener is left wanting more but relieved that the sadness has quieted. This is the only thing I know that Jess M has created but I long for more.



Tracklist :

1 The Builders of Adytum
2 Agapae
3 Salt, Sulfer, Mercury
4 L.O.S.T
5 The Abandonment of all Hope
6 Laudanum

Website : http://www.myspace.com/knoxompax

Label : Destructive Industries

Release Date : 2007

Malneirophrenia - M

Malneirophrenia is defined as the state of depression after a nightmare or the time between nightmare and waking when reality is questioned. This is an appropriate moniker for the instrumental trio from Reykjavik, Iceland as they play a brooding style of music they've labelled chamber punk. The band consists of piano, cello and electric bass performing a dark variety of classical with metallic and cinematic qualities. An amazing debut that is at times softly mournful and at others crescendoing into razor sharp fury. It is an engaging and engrossing listen.



Tracklist :

1 Halpin's Theme
2 E Tu Vivrai Nel Terrore
3 I am the Arm and I Sound Like This
4 Le Diaboliche Alchimie Del Dottor Morte
5 It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us, Bach!

6 La Mattanza

7 Every Morn and Every Night
8 Inquietanti Segne Premonitori
9 Music Control Instruction No. 1
10 Il Valzer Degli Zombi

Website : http://malneirophrenia.com/

                http://www.myspace.com/malneirophrenia

Label : Unsigned

Release Date : January 1st, 2011