Katatonia – Sky Void of Stars (2023) – Review

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Katatonia - Sky void of Stars - Album Cover

It’s interesting, isn’t it? Many bands of renown never made it onto the famed RMR review pipe. One reason might be that we tend to favor the underground. Those vile creatures of the mucky metal Middle Earth, slithering around in the oily dark corners of our crusty pipeline. Just to be pulled out screaming into the light to sometimes spectacular effects.

In other words, the RMR Review Committee usually shuns the mainstream. And many of those big outfits kinda placed themselves in their most commercially viable channels. And there’s – after all – nothing wrong with this approach. Gotta buy … [...] Click to raid more!

Deathless Legacy – Mater Larvarum (2022) – Review

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Deathless Legacy - Mater Larvarum - Album Cover

Steva Deathless with her powerful and smoky pipes always make us return to that particular well called Deathless Legacy. The band’s an absolute beast on stage with pretty elaborate productions. But this quality of the band – unfortunately – doesn’t always translate correctly once sound only plays. A fact that we painfully discovered on their 2018 piece Rituals of Black Magic, apart from the last track on this record that turned out to be top-notch indeed.

Yet again, Saturnalia finally added some much-needed spice to their portfolio a bit later. And – in truth – this encouraged the … [...] Click to raid more!

Celestial Season – Mysterium II (2022) – Review

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Celestial Season - Mysterium II - Album Cover

Okay, Celestial Season announced it. Once Mysterium I released, the band promised more records to come in 2022 and 2023. And that may very well mean two records in one given year. So, sure enough, here they are with Mysterium II, a mere few months after their last marketing event in April of this year. The RMR crew may be damaged by experience, but it also tells us that releasing too much material in one year is dicey at best. Unless you have an abundance of creative energy and stamina to pull this off. After all, many of today’s … [...] Click to raid more!

Vorbid – A Swan by the Edge of Mandala (2022) – Review

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Vorbid - A Swan By The Edge of Mandala - Album Cover

Who ever said there would not be enough prog in 2022? Ah, yes. RMR’s upper echelon made some ugly noises about that. But fear naught. The year already spawned pretty decent old prog fare, albeit a bit less than usual. And even Haken sent some signals that seem to point to new, exciting proggy objects heading our way. So, let’s not abandon hope, right?

In the meantime, though, we found some hybrids like Seyr. But also bands like Infanteria that may be closer to the mark for this here new record. The latter sport a thrash/prog tincture that we … [...] Click to raid more!