Odds & Ends: March 3, 2025

Band: Besna | Album: Krásno | Genre: Post-metal | Bandcamp

Slovakian quartet Besna’s newest album is a powerful record full of searing, anguished post-black metal. The band expertly blends haunting and disorienting atmospheres with raw emotionality and clever and unexpected song structures. There are moments of stark beauty woven into the piercing guitar lines. The closing track is an especially strong encapsulation of this band’s best tendencies.

Score: 82/100

Artist: Marton Juhasz | Album: Metropolis | Genre: Jazz, Jazz-fusion | Apple Music

This is certainly at the jazzier end of things I cover, but it isn’t out of place here. Juhasz’s latest album sees him toy around with complex meters and rhythms, and the drumming is especially impressive. Warm saxophones and glimmering electric piano lead the way on most songs. He also draws from a fairly diverse set of influences. “Sao Paulo” has fitting Brazilian flavors; the guitar on “Helio” would be right at home in a post-rock song; and “Radar” features the structured chaos of an avant-leaning math rock band.

Score: 81/100

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Album Review: Neptunian Maximalism – Solar Drone Ceremony

Band: Neptunian Maximalism | Album: Solar Drone Ceremony | Genre: Drone, Krautrock, Experimental metal | Year: 2021

From: Brussels, Belgium | Label: I, Voidhanger Records

For fans of: Om, Sunn O))), Ash Ra Tempel, Van der Graaf Generator’s weirder stuff

Bandcamp

I briefly covered Neptunian Maximalism’s (NNMM) last album, Éons, in an Odds & Ends last year. I said that I liked the idea of that album—an abrasive, sax-forward assault of drone, psychedelia, zeuhl, and more—more than its realization. I’m not a big fan of drone, but I sensed that NNMM could put forward something a bit more palatable to my tastes while still maintaining that genre’s aesthetic language.

Solar Drone Ceremony is the second full-length studio release from this Belgian ensemble, and it contains just one 52-minute track. It’s a creepy, occultic album wrapped in befittingly H.R. Giger-inspired artwork showing some sort of sexualized alien ritual.

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Lesser-Known Gem: Эпос – Илья (Epos – Ilya)

epos

Band: Эпос (Epos) | Album: Рок-Былина Илья (Rok-Bylina Ilya) | Year: 1989 | Genre: Progressive rock, Progressive folk

From: Leningrad, USSR (now Saint Petersburg, Russia) | Label: Мелодия (Melodiya)

For fans of: Magma, Batushka, Sigur Rós

I have an inexplicable affinity for Eastern Bloc progressive rock. I suppose it extends to music from oppressive regimes more generally, but Communist Europe had a rather thriving artistic scene (outside of Albania). Epos was among the most distinct groups to come out of the Soviet Union, a bizarre blend of cosmic synthesizers, earthy strings, and haunting vocal arrangements. That being said, there is almost no information available about the band. The musicians’ names are listed on the back of the record sleeve, but the (English-language) internet holds very little background about the group. Even looking through the first two pages of Russian-language Google results didn’t yield anything at the time of writing.

This album tells the story of Ilya Muromets, a folk hero of the Kievan Rus. It bills itself as a “rock-bylina” (a bylina being traditional East Slavic style of epic poetry), and this album is one of relatively few that actually feels uniquely Slavic. Continue reading “Lesser-Known Gem: Эпос – Илья (Epos – Ilya)” →

Album Review: Kekal – Deeper Underground

kekal

Band: Kekal | Album: Deeper Underground | Year: 2018 | Genre: Progressive metal, Black metal, Electronic

From: Jakarta, Indonesia | Label: Hitam Kelam Records

For fans of: Agalloch, Atheist, Kayo Dot

Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon | Apple Music

Kekal have been around for two decades, but this may be their best album yet. The band’s signature sound of complex black metal, catchy pop sensibilities, and wonky electronics comes together in a way more balanced than anything else I’ve previously heard from them. This is a huge improvement over their last release, 2015’s Multilateral, which was an uneven effort. Throughout much of this band’s discography, they’ve often had a hard time getting the black metal and electronic influences to meld effectively.

Here, however, Kekal have dialed back the electronic elements of their sound. Bloops and bleeps are saved for interludes and building texture and atmosphere. It’s rare for synthesizers to take the spotlight for any extended period of time. This isn’t some purely black metal shredfest, either. Yes, a lot of the metal here is extreme, but the band also mixes in gentler sounds, ample interludes, and surprisingly accessible moments. Continue reading “Album Review: Kekal – Deeper Underground” →