A black metal band that leans very heavy on EBM music, is that real? It is. And the end result is getting more spacey by the record. As put forward by Cheryl in her Only Death Is Real series: "Mesarthim use their electronic impulses to work in a wholly different way as their music reaches higher than the stars". And she is right. The first couple of tracks shine brightest, but they are radiant like a star.

After an absence of 11 years, Dutch band Akelei (finally) returns with new music and they continue as if no time has passed at all. Considering the almost glacial pace of their music, this kinda makes sense. The opener is almost acoustic which was a bit of a surprise. This setting lends itself very well for the typical Akelei mood. The subject tackeled on this release is connectedness and loss. This EP will give me something to chew on for now, but I do hope the band will not let me wait this long again (the note accompanying the CD I ordered tells me I will have something to look forward to in 2022, oh yeah!).

Grandeur cramms riffs for ages in only four songs. Grandeur also manages to blast them together into coherent songs. This is no mean feat, especially considering the amount of projects the man behind Grandeur runs. I am always scared that people that run many different, but connected projects loose focus. This does not seem the case here. This is top notch black metal.

There are two bands in the post-punky metal scene that I like and follow. One is Unto Others, whose album this year left me disappointed. There are a couple of real bangers on that album, but as a whole I think it is a big step down from their debut. So when Rope Sect released a new EP I was careful not to be too excited. I did not need to worry, Rope Sect did not let me down. This EP follows right in the footsteps of their debut album. Nothing new, but I think that is just what I wanted from them.

I can almost hear you think: but Dennis, this is out for just a few days, how can you put this in your best of list so soon? Well, dear reader, with music this direct it doesn’t exactly take a thousand spins to digest the music, right? Pus does what they did so well on their EP: mix black metal influences with crust and punk and add loads and loads of reverb on the vocals. I loved it and I love to hear it again. SXFXCX is less to my liking to be honest. Their side of the split is very raw grindcore, where I like my grindcore Nasum like.