Black Forest Magazine

Art in its Blackest form

Alfahanne – The Heavy Burden

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The Swedes of the post-punk ensemble Alfahanne just released their first song with english lyrics. And it might be their best song to date. It’s darker and more atmospheric than ever before! Look out for their upcoming album Atomvinter, which will be released October 4th on CD and vinyl!

Tracklist:
01 Atomvinter – Feat. Hoest
02 Lovers Against The World
03 Alla Mot Alla – Feat. Nag
04 A Place To Call Home (Ärla Boggie)
05 Sluten Cirkel
06 Sakna Mig Som Om Jag Var Död
07 The Heavy Burden
08 Himlen Kan Vänta
09 En Tight Knut

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With the End in Mind – Unraveling; Arising

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Beautifully intense desperation.

That’s the words that comes to mind while listening to this record. With the End in Mind combines soothing instrumental parts with intense atmospheric post-black. And they do it really well.

With the End in Mind were originally formed back in 2010 as a solo project, but “…though initially a solitary, introverted endeavor, musical allies were recruited in 2013”, according to the band’s press letter.  Since 2010 they’ve released two EPs and performed several gigs. Now they are ready to release their first album consisting of 5 songs (songs up to 14 minutes long). ‘Unraveling; Arising’ was actually already self-released back in 2016, but will now have an international vinyl release.

If you’re a fan of post-metal and black metal you should check out With the End in Mind. This album surely combines the best from both worlds, accompanied by desperate vocals. Album is out July 6th, 2018 through Sweden’s Temple of Torturous.

Tracklist:
1. Sings The Sky
2. Anguish Symmetry
3. Unraveling; Arising
4. From The True Source
5. Wheeling, Endlessly Wheeling

More:
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New videos from Grave Pleasures

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We’re listening to Grave Pleasures new album ‘Motherblood’ alot these days, and thought we should share their new videos.  For those of you who don’t know of Grave Pleasures, you might have heard of Beastmilk? Grave Pleasures rose from the ashes of the last mentioned, and they are throwing us a funeral party!

Our prediction is that ‘Motherblood’ will be their big breakthrough – with a little help from Fenriz who promoted them on his ‘Radio Fenriz’. He even said:

The new Grave Pleasures is sooo good, I even went to see them live fer Chrissakes!

Their genre is apocalyptic post-punk, and if you ever get the chance to see these guys live, you really should! It’s intense, it’s dark and it’s an experience you won’t be forgetting any time soon. And a little tip from us, remember these lines:

Oh happy death
It’s been too long
I’ve come to be with you again
My friend of death
Open your arms
I’ll be your joyful native

 

 

Grave Pleasures – Motherblood

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We’ve been listening to Grave Pleasures ever since they called themselves Beastmilk. Back in 2010, when they first entered the scene, we thought they were a fresh breath with really appealing aestetics. We covered them when they changed name to Grave Pleasures, and released their ‘Dreamcrash‘.

Now they have unleashed their brand new ‘Motherblood’ on Century Media, and we’re in awe. Once again Grave Pleasures feels like a fresh breath! The lyrics are poetic in all their gloomy post-punk apocalyptic catchiness. Just sing along to these lines:

Be My Hiroshima
Be my great destroyer
Make these crimes of my heart erupt
Like flowers on the far horizon

They have made some changes in the line-up since Dreamcrash, and the band now consists of  writers Mat McNerney/Kvohst (Hexvessel, Beastmilk, Code, DHG) and Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu, Atomikylä), Aleksi Kiiskilä on guitars, Valtteri Arino on bass and Rainer Tuomikanto on drums. Frontman Mat/Kvohst explains ‘Motherblood’ this way, and we can’t but agree:

If you have never danced with the skeletons, then this album is your gateway drug to all the nihilistic pleasures of the grave. Apocalyptic post-punk never sounded so desperately bleak and wild yet never grinned so maniacally and writhed so fervently with tongues that whip the tombs.

You can find out more about the band here:
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Gravepleasures.com

And listen to them here:

Never again

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Today is a day of mourning here in Norway.

It’s been 5 years since our government quarter was bombed. 5 years since the Utøya massacre, where a right-wing extremist executed 69 people – most of them teenagers – at the Norwegian Labour party’s summer camp for youths. It’s our 9/11. It is almost impossible to imagine the horror these youths and children experienced, trapped on an island with a terrorist and his semi-automatic weapons and expandable ammunition. He laughed as he walked around, shouting “you are going to die today, marxists!”. They had nowhere to hide.

77 people died that day. Hundreds were injured and traumatized. And the terrorist was one of us.

Today Utøya is a memorial and a center for learning about what happened there on 22nd July 2011. The Labour youth party still arranges summer camps on the tiny island, shaped as a heart.

I’m writing this as I’m listening to Harakiri for the Sky and their heartbreaking song ’69 Dead Birds for Utøya’. You should to.

 

Is it true, that we are nothing but handprints on a misty pane?
How can we fall asleep while the world is still burning?
How shall I sleep, when I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders?
How shall I sleep?
How shall I sleep?

Everytime you think the most stupefying incident in this world already happened,
there comes one more.

 

If you want to learn more about what happened, I recommend reading these:

Extract of ‘One of Us’ by Åsne Seierstad (you should read the whole book)

“Is he coming? Is he? Oh God, I think he is.” by GQ

2011 Norway attacks – Wikipedia

Harakiri for the Sky – III: Trauma

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Harakiri for the Sky has been around since 2011, and for those into post-black and depressive black metal, this Austrian duo is probably not unknown.

Already from their first album, I’ve admired their visual and lyrical expression. Their artworks are simply beautiful, and their depressive lyrics has a really poetic touch to them. And for each album they have crafted their style more and more, and their upcoming album ‘III: Trauma’ stands out as a unique performance of grandiose hoplessness. Listen to their full album below.

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