April 13, 2016 / 4 comments

EMV spotlight – London is a cultivated Prince of Darkness

Something wicked is here and it has been for some time and hopefully will continue to show up in the future. After being awestruck by two debut albums from two relatively new bands hailing from London, UK, it triggered me to have a look at the musicians involved and how they’ve been interacting musically in other bands. The trail can be traced as far back as 1989 to a band called Salem’s Orchid. This write-up won’t go that far back in time but will rather shed light on four London based bands linking the musicians together in servitude of goat adoration and metal mayhem!

All extreme metal scholars have touched upon Akercocke. If not, then now’s your chance for redemption. The band formed in 1997 by longtime friends and music companions Jason Mendonca and David Gray. Through five full-length albums, the band dismissed the rule books and went into a berserker-filled exploration of dark, twisted and progressive songwriting which has made a vital and lasting contribution to the extreme metal evolution. The first time I heard “Leviathan”, I could swear I felt the presence of his infernal majesty breathing down my neck, you couldn’t ask for a more brooding introduction. I became a fan shortly after exploring the band some more and hold “Words That Go Unspoken…” in highest regards. The fact that they played in finer suits posing as the devil’s advocate made them even more interesting. Unfortunately Akercocke disbanded in 2012 and said their wicked goodbyes with the rugged but equally compelling “Antichrist” album.

Other plans had been forming while Akercocke was slowly dissolving and it didn’t take long before drummer baron Gray opted to go forward working with fellow Akercocke members Peter Benjamin and Sam Loynes (live musician) in a new formation simply named Voices. Now this band has taken what Akercocke had started with and propelled it into new gruesome atmospheric depths most horrific. Especially their latest album, titled after its populous, vice-filled homebase of London, has some of the most confronting music you’re likely to encounter.

At the same time of forming Voices, Mr. Gray and another Akercocke member Matt Wilcock (also in The Berzerker) would meet up every Friday night in the studio, complain about work, have a coffee and blast out some metal. The result of these afterwork sessions became what you hear on The Antichrist Imperium’s self-titled debut, released last year. I recently purchased this album and I have to say that this is some vicious death/black goat worship, experimental and brutal at the same time with some peculiar yet intriguing vocals from Sam Loynes, otherwise acting as guitarist in Voices.

The last band I’m going to mention in this poor attempt at an essay on a snapshot of UK extreme metal is Shrines. It is a bit unclear to me as to when master Loynes and his squad have initiated this band, all I know is that their debut album, also self-titled, was released last year as well. Shrines is another great example of the escapism from metropolitan havoc. It has plenty of ravishing death and black metal passages, it even sound strangely close to a blackened version of Gojira at times but has enough of left-field turns in the songwriting. Again, the vocal aspects are intriguing, teasing the psyche of the listener amidst the noise and chaos. A fairly eclectic sound that promises something grand in the future. Check out the album’s prologue “Ariadne’s Thread” below.

To close this essay, I’d like to mention Apocalyptic Witchcraft, a new UK based extreme metal record label. There’s limited info to be found, but I’ve been browsing the roster and there’s some seriously cutting edge artists residing on the label covering a wide spectrum of unconventional sounds. It’s probably wise to mention that both The Antichrist Imperium and Shrines albums have been released by this lot, and also the Australasia album “Notturno”, which I covered last year. I recommend you to check them out, I´m sure you’ll find something of interest by paying them a visit. Check out their website here

 

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extrememetalvoyager

Name´s Fróði Tórálvsson Stenberg, extreme metal voyager. Based in Tórshavn, The Faroe Islands, metal has always played a huge part of my life. It´s been an integral part of me and has teached quite a few valuable lessons about life and reality. I´ve celebrated this style of music for over twenty years now, I really appreciate its intensity, extremity and sometimes underlying irony, it takes me out of my comfort zone. My interest increases each year instead of slowly growing apart. During hardships, I´ve always turned to metal music, listening, detecting an empowering resonance that has given me relief, especially the more extreme forms. Extreme Metal music was basically nonexistent on The Faroe Islands in the nineties. You had the classics of course, your Maiden, Priest, Kiss, Metallica, Motley Crue etc. Later on, extreme metal albums were imported for a short time before the internet platforms gave me access on a more frequent basis and a whole new world opened in front of me. I´m constantly looking out for new bands, searching back and forward, left and right. An obsessive record collector. I´ve done hundreds and hundreds of reviews, interviews, articles at sites like Urkraft and The Metal Observer since 2002. The opportunity of joining a metal community has exposed me to a lot of metal music… A LOT! Good, bad and just plain weird, the sub genres are plentiful. It´s been an interesting ride. Having this outlet, I´ve considered myself as an ambassador for Faroese Metal through my position as a writer at the aforementioned websites, promoting them whenever there´s been releases. This page is intended to be tied with my future blog, which is being designed at the moment. I feel that I´ve started Extreme Metal Voyager for the right reasons. It´s all about the music, first and foremost, like a digital tape trading “underground enviroment”. There´ll be a staggering amount of link posting of old favorites, new discoveries, left-field guilty pleasures and so on. I´ll post my personal recommendations, review albums, do some interviews and hopefully write some interesting articles about all things Metal. I´ll try to keep the content varied and interesting. Everything kept with a healthy sense of sarcasm, irony, enthusiasm and loathing. I do not apologize for the amateur level, I call the shots here.

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  1. Heavy Metal Overload April 14, 2016 — 11:24 am

    All these bands are big favourites of mine. Shrines and The Antichrist Imperium were both in my Top 10 last year… and Voices’ London album is going on to become an all-time favourite. Easily, the best album of the decade so far at least! And Akercocke… you just can’t go wrong with them can you? Great post!

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  2. disgusting akernerd April 14, 2016 — 12:22 pm

    His name is Matt Wilcock, not Matt Wilcox. Good article otherwise though.

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  3. Matt April 14, 2016 — 1:18 pm

    Sam Loynes formed Shrines out of the ashes of Diminished Fifth, as Voices and Antichrist Imperium rose from AK, I think as well, some of the music on AI, was from bits and pieces of what would have been in the next AK album, but sadly, it doesn’t look like it will happen, I think if Mendoca was on board it would happen and I read in an interview with David Gray that he would if Mendoca wanted, here’s hoping one day!

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