IN ROTATION: Our most played albums in October 2019

THE TRVE MEDVSON’S SANCTUM

October is the beginning of the dark time of the year, autumn has fully arrived now. This darker time demands some fitting music. We had some great reviews here at BAZ and some great releases that were not covered. I found myself listening to a mixture of current releases and some a few months older, but actually not a lot of classics, mostly newer stuff: Here’s what I played the most over the last month!

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD – Infest the Rats’ Nest
16^th August 2019, Flightless / ATO Records

The project that is KIND GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD has put out numerous albums, five in 2017 alone, and has never been shy of experimentation. They dabbled in Blues, Psychedelic Rock, Prog-Rock and more so far. In 2019 they released their first try at Thrash Metal in the form of “Infest the Rats’ Nest” and I got to say that especially for a first try at the genre, the band has put together an extremely well composed album here! Combining and merging classic Thrash elements with their Hard / Psychedelic Rock side, all melted into an apocalyptic and environmental concept, this might be my favourite Thrash record of the year. Crunchy riffs, compelling and energetic solos, punchy drumming and more make up this excellent album, a big recommendation for all Metal fans.

KARG – Dornenvögel
November 2018, AOP Records

Beautifully melancholic is the term that best describes KARG for me. The solo project of HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY singer J.J. has put out multiple Post-Black Metal records, all incredibly sad and atmospheric. The moody cover art, expressive vocals (performed in dialect) and depressing, yet beautiful instrumentation of “Dornenvögel” (“Thornbirds”) makes it a very fitting album to listen to in this time of the year. For me it truly captures the essence of autumn, a time of withering and death, that is also leading into something new, a time of hibernation before rebirth, something ambivalently sad, yet happy. Especially after reading about the new album “Traktat” to arrive in February of 2020, relistening to KARG has been a pleasure.

Check out my favourite track below: “Petrichor” featuring another great artist, L.G. // ELLENDE!

MEGA DRIVE – 199XAD
October 2019, FiXT Music

Now for something a bit different, yet actually fairly close to Metal. The Synthwave-scene has been emerging in the early 2010’s and developing ever since. Me as a fan of darker and heavier stuff, although enjoying the sunnier 80’s nostalgia every now and again, have been more attracted towards the subgenre of “Dark-Synth”, where projects like PERTURBATOR and CARPENTER BRUT have established themselves as the genre-greats. MEGA DRIVE has also been a big representative of this subgenre, especially with the raw and heavy classic that brought me to it in the first place: “198XAD”. Needless to say, I was very excited to see a direct sequel, 5 years after the original, and I was not disappointed. “199XAD” offers some of MEGA DRIVE’s best output so far. Heavy, fast and dark, a soundtrack for the Cyberpunk world!

VOYAGER – Colours in the Sun
November 2019, Season of Mist

VOYAGER has been one of the many lucky Bandcamp finds that I had this year. “Colours in the Sun” has just been released, yet it has been in my rotation for longer than the few days since November has begun. The singles released before, “Colours” and “Brightstar” have been played each and every day for the last weeks, and the video-exclusive “Entropy” (check it out below) featuring Einar Solberg of LEPROUS was also regularly checked out.

The “Synthpop meets Prog” approach that the band took in my opinion makes for one of the most compelling Progressive albums of the year, a colourful journey to the stars!

ELLENDE – Lebensnehmer
March 2019, AOP Records

The new ELLENDE album has definitely been a grower. After the tremendous 2016 album that was “Todbringer” (“Deathbringer”), I expected something in a similar vain with the new record “Lebensnehmer” (“Lifetaker”) and was, to be honest, a bit disappointed at first. Yet, since really getting the new approach and intent of the album, it has grown on me continuously with each play.

It’s a journey of death, decay, desperation and hopelessness, yet in a more direct and aggressive way than its predecessor. Very fitting for the autumn mood. By the way, this has been reviewed here at BAZ, you can check the 8/10 review here!

As always, I hope you enjoyed my list of albums. If you want, tell me what you think of these albums over on my Twitter. I excluded an album I will soon review here, watch the BAZ website this Wednesday, friends. Keep listening to good music and support the underground!

Yours truly
the trve Medvson