Strobegirl and D’Jaly – How Are You? EP

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Having been seduced by The Strawberry Sessions EP a few years back, we have always had time and dreams over the melodic crafting and tones of its creator, UK singer/songwriter Strobegirl. Weaving a mix of pop, indie, and folk spices in a host of sultry embraces, the Croydon girl is one of Britain’s musical secrets. With the release of new EP How Are You? may be that hiding place will be under threat through its magnetic temptation. The release sees Strobegirl, better known to her stalkers as Heather-Jane, team up with fellow Croydon based artist D’Jaly. It is a tantalising union as evidenced by the seven track release, a collaboration which sets the new EP alongside the acclaimed Strawberry Sessions in temptation and imagination.

Strobegirl is no stranger to collaborations, having worked closely with producer Roger Fife (Cyndi Lauper, Anthony and The Johnsons, The Orphans) on her successful debut EP and subsequently the likes of UK Industrial band Illustrial as well as other artists on individual songs. Marked by dreamy shoegaze kissed textures to her music and vocals, Heather-Jane won indie artist of the year on Somojo radio in 2010 as well as being heavily played and promoted on various radio shows, especially the champions of independent music Audioburger. Her partner in invention upon the How Are You? EP and better known to his family as Jon Daly, has been emerging as an artist/producer through his infusions of electropop, house, and deep house. Originally called Unknown Tone with an electronic/dance flavouring to his creativity, Daly first released debut album the Fourth Dimension under his own name in 2008 before unleashing robotic dance machine 4000 in 2010 as Unknown Tone. Now the two artists have combined to craft a tantalising offering which joins both their styles in one electro pop persuasion, an encounter which leaves ears alive and passions feasted.

You Can’t Stop Me Now starts things off and immediately cloaks the ear in a melodic coaxing aligned to sultry keys all aided by a brassy temptation. It is a smouldering mix of funk and jazz within an elegant pop embrace, piano and the appealing vocals of Strobegirl casting an emotive allure which only accentuates the beauty of the melodies which brew, merge, and erupt with evocative flames across the song. It is a magnetic persuasion which soon recruits thoughts and hunger towards its impressive invitation into the release.

The following Nothing Else Counts Now unveils an electronic wash of grandeur and crystalline beckoning to make its entrance. Its initial coaxing is strong but arguably not as reassuring as to what will follow as the hinting found at the start of its predecessor. Those doubts are soon pushed aside though as the track twists its body to release a striking flame of Depeche Mode like melodic caressing littered with startling electro pulses and splurges of sound to shake up the song and expectations. Slight whispers of industrial and dubstep mischievously play their part in the bait of the song too and though the more general electronic course of the track is less inspiring than those elements, it is a refreshingly enterprising and imaginative eccentric dance within melodic witchery holding an almost spellbinding call.

Next You and My Heart steps forward with its own distinctive fusion of electronic eccentricity and electro pop bewitchment, the song another which comes with a devilry to offset and taunt the raging melodies and ever appealing vocals. Production wise the track does want a little, the clashing electro scatterings and climatic orchestral bred melodies often suffocating and overpowering the vocals, though to be fair it does also help a haunting breath to wash the piece which does the song no harm. Overall though despite the smothering it is a lingering wash of melodic persuasion which adds extra to the release if less potently as elsewhere.

The best two songs on the release come next, firstly Wake Up which admittedly we have a soft spot for having heard it in its early stages a while back. A summer wind of folk seeded pop placing the acoustic skills and vocal enchantment of Strobegirl in a rich electronic stimulus, the track is a warm stroll through evocative aural sorcery. Again the production is a touch claustrophobic but cannot derail a quite delicious croon of shoegaze revelry. With a chorus I dare you not to join in by its second tempting the song is one irresistible romance.

The title track is equally infectious in its individual way and passion conjuring character. With almost sinister shadows flitting in and out of the song as the keys play with light and dark intermittently within a flame hued melodic narrative, vocals and lyrics adding another bloom of passionate colour and imagination to the picture. The best track on the release if not quite the favourite, it is a thoroughly captivating incantation of Siouxsie and the Banshees mystique filtered through a restrained Propaganda sculpted beauty.

Completed by the Monster Electro Mix of You Can’t Stop Me Now and lastly the Deep House Mix of Nothing Else Counts, How Are You? is a delightful enveloping of the imagination and emotions, a release which might finally push Strobegirl and indeed D’Jaly in a new deserved spotlight.

The How Are You? EP is available as a buy now name your price download @ http://strobegirl-djaly.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/StrobegirlUK

https://www.facebook.com/djaly0

8/10

RingMaster 22/01/2014

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

http://www.audioburger.com

Burial Hordes – Incendium

Jan22

burial hordes cover art

Spiritually dark and sonically ravishing, Incendium the new album from Greek black metallers Burial Hordes is a captivating tempest of threatening imagination and corruptive craft which leaves the deepest satisfaction in its venomous wake. A release which at times makes you work for your rewards but perpetually intrigues and excites with unpredictability and incendiary adventure, the album easily fulfils and satisfies the anticipation which brewed for its arrival. There are moments which slightly labour alongside other towering and scintillating offerings on the album but from its first toxic note to the very riveting last, Incendium is a recommended immersive treat.

Since forming in 2001, Burial Hordes has earned a respected potent place within European underground metal. Two well-received and acclaimed albums in the voracious shapes of debut War Revenge and Total Annihilation in 2005, which received a re-release via Pulverised Records three years later, and its successor Devotion to Unholy Creed also in 2008 and again through Pulverised, pushed the band’s presence along with demos, subsequent splits, and further releases into greater awareness. Now the new Devo Andersson (Marduk) produced album is primed to take things to another level with a shift in sound and maturity which only puts the band under a spotlight.

The first rapacious violation on the Hellthrasher Productions released album comes through Unleash Havoc, thumping beats and galloping riffs bringing the opener immediately into compelling view before a melodically honed sonic weave of imagination and skill paints an evocative and enticing invitation. Once secure in its mission the track explodes into a ferocious scourge of suffocating intensity and ravaging riffery driven by the malevolent guttural squalls of vocalist Cthonos. It is a predatory seduction which enthrals without making grand hook gifted gestures thanks to the persistent, almost nagging, and inventive guitar and bass craft of N.e.c.r.o and Psychaos.

The strong start is soon cemented by Horns of Consecration, its entrance also a scourge of pestilential energy and vocal spite but with an even stronger expectations avoiding exploration to its intrusive design. Like its predecessor the song is not setting down raging flames in its corrosive tracks but again provides a tumultuous engagement of invention and enterprise which seduces and grips the fullest attention whilst raising a real appetite from thoughts and imagination. That hunger is impressively taken care of with scintillating endeavour from here on in, starting with Nailed Curse. From its first breath a groove is dangling irresistible bait from its lure whilst a rhythmic barracking only weakens and absorbs any possible resistance. A stomping provocation with the strength of a battalion and ingenuity of an alchemist, the track casts a maze of twists and detours within a riveting expanse of fierce atmospheres within an annihilistic evocation.

Both Path of Bloodshed and Abomination keep the album foraging senses and thoughts on this new lofty plateau. The first combines melancholic and cantankerous emotiveness into a slowly pervading and consuming temptation which seduces and menaces simultaneously whilst unveiling an ever increasing and infectious weave of barbed melodies and caustic grooves. Insatiably addictive the emotional entrapment is soon exceeded by its outstanding successor, again bold adventure and virulent grooves adding potent temptation and thrilling enterprise to the niggling black hearted incessant call of the song. The best slice of deleterious mastery on the album, it sparks greater rabidity in the appetite for the song and the release itself which the emotionally intensive Scorned (Aokigahara) reaps. Near on eight minutes of scholastic teasing, injurious sonic adventure, and mouthwatering ruinous majesty the track is a gloriously evolving and investigative aural examination of theirs and our imaginations. It is epidemically contagious at times and ominously malignant in others to match the previous imperious peak on Incendium.

Black Shrouds of Depravity and the album’s title track almost come as an anti-climax having to follow the stunning quartet of tracks before them. Both are impressive and uncompromising slabs of blackened pestiferous excellence but more straightforward and direct without the spark of adventure which elevates the previous treats. Nevertheless they complete an impressive and commandingly satisfying provocation with a centre which sparks up moments of rapture in return for their brilliance. Burial Hordes has turned into one of the new essential investigations within modern black metal and Incendium the undeniable reason why.

www.facebook.com/BurialHordesOfficial

8.5/10

RingMaster 22/01/2014

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

http://www.audioburger.com

Heretic Cult Redeemer – Self Titled

Jan22

Heretic Cult Redeemer photo

Released on vinyl in the September of last year and now receiving its CD unleashing through Hellthrasher Productions, the self-titled debut from Greek black metallers Heretic Cult Redeemer is a deviously compelling slab of extreme niggling provocation definitely deserving wider attention. Maybe not quite a pestilence to create new realms within the genre, the blackened insidiousness masking as an album impressively accosts and lights the imagination with a tortuous intent and compelling craft to only invite keen admiration.

Formed in 2009 and consisting of members rich in experience from playing in the likes of Acrimonious, Necrovorous, and Embrace of Thorns, the Athens quartet has created a deep and rich expanse of cavernous atmospheres and uncompromising exploration in their sound which in turn makes their first release an equally invasive and cosmically questioning experience. Consisting of seven tracks which show predictability a cold shoulder and leaves the senses stretched and basking in an intrusive sonic weave of old school seeded black metal invention cast with a death metal vitriol, the release is a thought provoking physical confrontation which leaves an impressive and lasting impact.

Opener Crawling Hope is as you imagine a relatively slow moving stalking beast of an incitement forged on careering rhythms HCR_Artwork_final and acidic and erosive sonic consumption. Overwhelming yet addictively persuasive, the track once joined by rasping toxic vocals lurches over and suffocates the senses whilst all the time placing tempting grooves and incendiary twists of ideas before their gaze to deflect from the malevolence washing their hopes. It is a magnetic mix in a song which from gnawing and poisoning the atmosphere can swing its vicious hips in a groove sculpted dance of temptation with assured ease.

The following Bleeding of the Giant Sun is bred from the same creative seed, its gait and intent akin to its predecessor and forged in a web of lure of dark virulent grooves and destructive intrusive intensity. Rhythmically the track is less aggressive but still uncages charges of rapacious testing to create seize the ears for the pestilential vocal delivery and lyrical spite to work its charm over. Like the first it is an absorbing and incredibly addictive proposition if also uncomfortable at times in its rabid causticity, a trait used to great extensive effect by The Oldest of Times. Over nine minutes of insatiable noxious imagination and sonic abrasiveness draped in a melodic poison, the track is a wonderfully meandering and spellbinding exploit which is unrelenting in its sonic irritancy and smothering resourcefulness. Possibly overlong going by the urge to check out what came next about seven minutes or so in, which is always a sign, the track is an enthralling evocation of thoughts and emotions with textures and depths which offer something new with each encounter.

The strong and serpentine envenomed if underwhelming Concatenation comes next, though it may be its less potent presence just comes from being sandwiched between the epic previous pestilential embrace and the following triumphant assault of Destiny of Death. A galloping fury of acerbic riffing and rhythmic combativeness, the second of the two is a virulent contagion of hunger fuelled grooves and thumping beats which aligned to equally addictive and maliciously honed melodies romps and harangues the passions with a carnivorous and masterful persuasion. The tallest peak on the album the track is soon challenged for top honours by Unknown Salvation. A Middle Eastern chant accompanies a similarly acclimatised melodic coaxing within a formidable and oppressive dark intensity as the bass and guitars create their startling and intimidating design to the song. The challenge feverishly menaces and beguiles, its body spewing a pathogenic sonic cancer and ambience over the senses. It is a hard task master without the bait and hooks of its predecessor but just as lingeringly effective.

Επτά brings the release to a close with another quite scintillating and infectious tempest of baneful imagination and explosively infectious invention. It completes a demanding but mesmeric, dangerous and most welcome sonic scourge which suggests that Heretic Cult Redeemer is a band with the potential to help shape the course of extreme metal ahead. Not a classic but well on the way, this is the time to check out a very promising and exciting pestilence.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heretic-Cult-Redeemer/108482089276374

http://hereticcultredeemer.bandcamp.com/

8.5/10

RingMaster 22/01/2014

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

http://www.audioburger.com

Winter Storm – Within The Frozen Design

Jan22

WS3

Listening to the potent and promise soaked Within The Frozen Design, you easily get the feeling that UK symphonic metallers Winter Storm are poised to move up into a more intensive limelight. Whether this, their second album is the spring board time will tell but it is hard not to expect on a near horizon to see the band making a big contribution at the fore of the genre. The twelve track release has issues which make you query if their time is quite yet but simultaneously provides an absorbing and skilful melodic embrace which only raises and stretches a keen appetite for the band and its expressive sound.

From the West Midlands, the quintet has earned a strong reputation and loyal following with their dark melodic metal, a sound honed through gothic shadows and symphonic atmospheres. Formed in 2008, Winter Storm were soon gripping attention live, supporting the likes of Alestorm, Sirenia, Theatres Des Vampires, To Mera, and Sarah Jezebel Deva early on before going on to share stages with the likes of Delain, Die So Fluid, The Birthday Massacre, ReVamp, The Lotus and many more. Debut album Serenity In Darkness of 2010 drew critical acclaim its way as have numerous festival appearances over recent years to cement and increase the band’s stature within British melodic metal. Now the strongly anticipated self-released Within The Frozen Design brings 2014 into a sharp focus for the band and its fans, an album if not setting raging fires undoubtedly reaffirms the creative strength and impressive potential of Winter Storm.

As the album title, and band name come to that, suggests the tracks frequent a chilled and icily haunting realm but one clad in WS-cover beauty and a melodic artistry which only warms. From the opening scene and drama setting intro Cold Creation, the album is soon caging ears in a rhythmic probing and brooding intensity as Wasted Feelings opens its arms. Its initial riffs seem predatory with an attitude to match the punchy rhythms barracking the senses. Equally though there is a breeze of synth colour floating over and through the aggressive touch of the track, its melodic soothing eventually tempering the snarl of the song ready for the impressive tones of vocalist Hannah Fieldhouse. Her voice is rich and tempting but with a restraint which sets her pleasingly apart from many other female fronted genre bands. The track provides an unpredictable expanse of sound and twists which without being startling in their impact only seduce the fullest attention on and satisfaction with its feisty yet elegant narrative.

The following Shadow Weaver like its predecessor makes a forceful and rapacious entrance; riffs and rhythms a cage of antagonistic intent wrapped in more keys sculpted temptation. Dark with a gothic ambience, the song again guided by great vocals flirts with and triggers the imagination as it ventures through a rugged landscape of heavy riffs and sonic enterprise. Pretty much like the album the song is a slowly persuasive encounter but one which proves its strength and quality through deliberate attention. The same can be said of the next up Symmetric Flow, a captivating wind of melodic vocals and endeavour within a sturdy and uncompromising heavy metal frame. Again the offering is not as instant to convince as you would maybe expect or like but unveils plenty to enthuse about upon closer attention. That is one of the ‘problems’ of the album, tracks do not leap out and grip preferring a slower seduction but this comes with a need to fully extend a concentrated focus on the album to reap it’s definitely existing rewards. It is hard to be critical though even if listeners need patience when immersing in the album.

Afraid To Speak steps up next, gently wrapping a sultry breeze of melodic enchantment around thoughts if again without sparking any major reaction; that power is left to its successor Beneath The Mystery. The track also springs from a reserved start to open up sinew driven riffing and heavily striking rhythms within the keys designed eighties sounding gothic weave which feels seeded in the likes of Sisters Of Mercy and Play Dead by. It is a fiery encounter yet one which does not erupt or stretch its attributes as far as you expect or would like, again an accusation you can make on Within The Frozen Design as a whole.

After the brief but decent enough instrumental Broken World, the album undulates a little but keeps the listener enthused starting with the impressive Universal Design, a track offering another accomplished and magnetic web of gothic and symphonic metal with a bite and almost antagonistic breath. It provides sizeable bait for the senses to devour eagerly before the enjoyable if underwhelming Gatekeeper shows its class. It is sandwiched between the previous track and the equally thrilling Dark Awakening, the song a heavy footed shadowed drenched beast with radiant beauty casting ripe melodic tantalising. As elsewhere the guitar craft and imagination is an irresistible lure whilst the epic tone of the track is aggressively bewitching.

Completed by the overlong but appealing instrumental Waves Of Misery and the final slice of gothic allurement of The Frozen Siren, the album is a pleasing and enticing encounter. The cloudy production at times does the release no favours, cloaking some of the piercing strengths of instruments and voice but Winter Storm and Within The Frozen Design emerge from it with strength and quality. As mentioned earlier the album does not ignite a fire in the passions but definitely provides company which only invites the fullest satisfaction.

www.winter-storm.com

7.5/10

RingMaster 22/01/2014