Black Forest Magazine

Art in its Blackest form

Mesarthim – Isolate

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The Australian black metal scene has been on a rise the last ten years or so with high ranked bands such as Austere, Woods of Desolation, and Nazxul amongst others. Mesarthim is a worthy addition with their debut album ‘Isolate’.

Mesarthim - Isolate

Mesarthim sounds somewhat like a sci-fi version of Summoning, with slow hypnotic atmosphere that creates an impression of being completely alone in the desolate space. If you have seen the movie Gravity, you know what I’m talking about. That hopeless claustrophobic feeling of being lost in an endless void. So as you already may have thought, this release delivers an atmosphere that is pretty close to the depressive black metal sound that you may know from the mentioned Australian acts. The sound is so close to Nazxul, that you may even suspect they share some members, as the two members of Mesarthim go by the cryptic names . and ..

If you’re a fan of sci-fi and black metal, this is definitely a band to look out for. Start with checking their debut album in the Bandcamp link below, and get lost in space.

‘Isolate’ tracklisting:

1. Osteopenia
2. Declaration
3. Interstellar
4. Abyss
5. Floating
6. Isolate

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New song from Grave Pleasures’ upcoming album

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Cover artwork for "Dreamcrash"

Cover artwork for “Dreamcrash”

Earlier this year Beastmilk announced that they had parted ways with their founding member and guitarist Johan “goatspeed” Snell. They changed their band name to Grave Pleasures and has since recruited Linnea Olsson (The Oath, Sonic Ritual) and Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu) on guitars, and Uno Bruniusson (ex-In Solitude, Procession) on drums. The release of their album “Dreamcrash” has been set to September 4th, 2015, and has made public a song called “Crying wolves”, which can be heard below.

The band describes the album as a complex and feverish set of modern rock songs. Urban tribal rhythms; potent melancholia; raw pop sensibility; irreverent ferociousness – “Dreamcrash” is seductive in its surrealism one minute, and a cold shower of harsh reality the next.

“I am concerned with a total collapse of our dreams”, says their vocalist Mat McNerney. “Hacking out this feverish, frantic and very uninhibited music, it exposes and lays raw some intense emotions. As we get deeper and closer to capturing the spirit of what we set out for this band to be, we are touching some vital nerves. It’s getting under the skin, under the flesh.”

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Papa jr. in new video from Ghost

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Ghost just released a video for their song “Cirice”, that will feature on their upcoming album “Meliora”. The album will be released August 23rd, 2015.

ghost-melioraTracklist:
01. Spirit
02. From The Pinnacle To The Pit
03. Cirice
04. Spöksonat
05. He Is
06. Mummy Dust
07. Majesty
08. Devil Church
09. Absolution
10. Deus In Absentia

Tribulation – The Children of the Night

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Lately we’ve had a wave of occult bands moving between heavy and black metal. Sweden has been one of the of the countries that has been leading way with bands such as Ghost and In Solitude amongst others. With the decease of In Solitude, we definitely lost one of the masters of occult heavy metal. The throne has now been passed on to fellow countrymen.

Tribulation

Tribulation moves gently between heavy metal and black metal. It’s not without reason I mentioned In Solitude in the beginning, because Tribulation are pretty close to them music-wise. But on another hand their vocalist Johannes Andersson has a lot more darker vocals, and in many ways resembles the vocals of Jon Nödtveidt.

‘The Children of the Night’ is a diverse album, and is a collection of dark emotions represented by everything from piano parts to more classic heavy metal styled grimness. A band to look out for, and a must see live in 2015. Watch the video of ‘Strange Gateways Beckon’ below.

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Lynch will not be directing Twin Peaks

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Earlier last year the Blu-ray box set Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystere was released. After hints and speculations, Showtime announced that Twin Peaks would be returning in 2016 with 9 new episodes.

This trailer was released with the announcement:

According to Rolling Stones, Lynch was planning to direct all the episodes. But now it seems like this won’t be happening after all. Today we got the devastating news, announced by David Lynch himself:

Dear Facebook Friends, Showtime did not pull the plug on Twin Peaks. After 1 year and 4 months of negotiations, I left because not enough money was offered to do the script the way I felt it needed to be done. This weekend I started to call actors to let them know I would not be directing. Twin Peaks may still be very much alive at Showtime. I love the world of Twin Peaks and wish things could have worked out differently.

Based on the announced it might seem that the show might go as planned, but without David Lynch, who actually is considered the mind behind the Twin Peaks universe.

UPDATE: The actors of Twin Peaks has joined forces and created a video where they tell us what Twin Peaks without David Lynch is. You can see it below:

In Solitude enters the grave

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After all the success they’ve had lately, it came as a shock to us that In Solitude has decided to call it quits. From the band’s statement there are no bad blood within the band, and they actually even says that their love for each other and the music is stronger than ever. It seems like they’ve just come to the end of their journey as In Solitude. Being fans of the band, seeing them live, and even claiming their latest release ‘Sister’ as one of the best albums in 2013, it’s a bit sad to see them leave the ranks of great metal bands. Certainly they left while they were still on top, and their legacy will withstand.

This has been one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever had to make and we’ve had to investigate every inch of our beings in order to make this right. In Solitude has been the center of our lives for 13 years and we’ve invested everything we have in this and to make this decision was to rip us up by ours roots and make us re-evaluate our entire lives and our future.

Read the full statement from the band here.

In Solitude

Beastmilk enters the grave and rises!

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gravepleasures-band

The news just dropped that Beastmilk has transformed into Grave Pleasures. The name change is said to be due to some ‘irreconcilable differences’ between the co-founders of the band, resulting in Johan “goatspeed” Snell leaving the band.

The lineup now still consists of Kvohst and Arina, and Linnea Olsson (The Oath, Sonic Ritual) who joined the band earlier in 2014. They also recruited Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu) as their new guitarist. It’s a bit shame they dropped their Beastmilk name as it really represented something new and unique, but the great news is that they are now entering studio to record their new album. And yes, they will still be playing the Beastmilk classics live!

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Black Forest Magazine is a Norwegian, digital magazine dedicated to dark arts and artisans.