ALBUM REVIEWS

30,000 MONKIES

Are Forever

CONSOULING SOUNDS

Sludgy, art-noise antics from the Belgian badlands

When a salmon-pink album sleeve features both an impenetrably spiky logo and shiny gold costumery you’d be right to expect something off the beaten track, though it takes 30,000 Monkies a little while get there. Starting with a punishingly annoying sample and some post-metal meandering suggests the band are trying to get our backs up, but before long the weirdness seeps in to disorientate via a puzzling mix of sludge slogs, angular dissonance, scraping rasps and arty electronic burbles. Uniting proceedings is a meanspirited sense of play: not something you’d necessarily expect from an album this crushingly heavy, but one that works extremely well given the peculiar circumstances.

FOR FANS OF: Will Haven, Cherubs, Melvins

ALEX DELLER

ADVENT SORROW

Kali Yuga Crown

WEREWOLF

Australian miserablists reach new depths, and new heights

Now seeing a wider physical run after a limited release earlier in 2019, Advent Sorrow’s second full-length moves through symphonic and depressive black metal, melding subgenres and creating affecting, atmospheric sounds. The Australian sextet are much more refined since their 2015 debut, As All Light Leaves Her, not least due to Rhys King’s vocals. His screams echo with anguish and the guttural side of his voice is laden with power. Both aspects come to the fore during the monumental Spearhead, while the sorrowful passages of Pestilence Shall Come spark wonder. Kali Yuga Crown is an impressive album; the melodies are rich, guitars soar and voices are carried with conviction. Advent Sorrow are embracing their evolution.

FOR FANS OF: Dimmu Borgir, Ultar, Totalselfhatred

CHERYL CARTER

ALUNAH

Violet Hour

HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS

Brummies stoner-doom crew reshuffle their decks

Last year, this Birmingham quartet offered the first recorded taster of their new line-up with the appetite-whetting Amber & Gold EP, and now they’re serving us the main course. Their fifth LP, and first with vocalist Siân Greenaway and Diamond Head axe-wielder Dean Ashton, is more of an evolution than revolution, taking the doom-tinged sound of their earlier days and peppering it with hard rock and goth. The new(ish) frontwoman makes her presence felt throughout, adding a more dramatic edge to proceedings and her expressive style really lifts bluesy rocker Trapped & Bound, while the incendiary, organ-led power ballad, Lake Of Fire, feels like the start of an exciting new chapter for the band.

FOR FANS OF: Castle, Royal Thunder, Type O Negative

EDWIN MCFEE

BLACKWATER HOLYLIGHT

Veils Of Winter

RIDINGEASY

Fuzz-laden psych quintet add some heft to their waft

The savviest hepcats were onboard with these Portland heavy psych soul sisters as soon as their debut slipped out last year, fluttering all hearts at Desertfest with their heavenly faraway vocal harmonies and throbbing low-end fuzz riffs. Second guitarist Mikayla Mayhew has bolstered the density, adding new layers and quirky harmonies, helping the band expand their horizons and sharpen their material. There’s none of the debut’s extraordinary gothic country twang; Veils Of Winter is a tougher, weightier, more metallic beast, though still flowing and stretching in their woozy psychedelic way. Plus the songs have more bite, especially lumbering Mogadon hip-swinger, Motorcycle, the 60s psych-pop sass of Spiders, brooding doomy death march Daylight, and closer ’s epic prog jangle.