Who knew that accordion would be so good in black metal? Путь, translated to Path or Pathway in English, is a Russian black metal band. Earlier, I reviewed another Russian band called Молчат Дома ( check out my review of Молчат Дома - Этажи here ) and, I'm not sure if it's a quality of all Russian music or just these two bands but, they both have this distant, detached feeling in their music that can only be described as "cold". This "coldness" can be easily felt on the album's first track "Эпитафия" or "Epitaph". The song starts with a slow plucked guitar melody, reminiscent of Молчат Дома. It slowly builds up till it suddenly stops and an overwhelming wall of guitars and drums sweeps in. The blast-beat is somewhat faded into the background, to give the song a smoother, more sullen sound, and cascades of toms are played in the foreground, resulting in this exciting, and almost mystical sound. In the last 20 seconds, the song brea...

As much as it pains me, I decided to censor this album cover because I realized it might not be a good idea to have the original image featured on my social media ( view the uncensored version here ) I thought it might be interesting to review another foreign band this week. You might remember that I reviewed the Russian band, Молчат Дома, last week (be sure to check out that post if you haven't yet). This week, I am reviewing an album by a German band, Einstürzende Neubauten.  Einstürzende Neubauten (translates to "Collapsing New Builds") is a industrial band from West Berlin, formed in 1980. Industrial was really big in Germany, and Einstürzende Neubauten was one of the bands at the front of the scene, even playing concerts with Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle fame at ICA London ( check out my review of Throbbing Gristle - The Second Annual Report here ). Unlike Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten doesn't stick to pure experimentation and noise in their...

You may be wondering, 'Is the band Молчат Дома, who created the album, Этажи, a foreign band?' and 'Are they going to be singing some non-english language, perhaps Russian?' The answer to both of these questions is yes. I can't remember how I found this album originally, but one day it came up in my YouTube recommended, I instantly recognized the cover, and decided to give it a listen. It was really good. It reminded of me listening to Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures for the first time. Note: In this review, I italicize Russian words written in the Roman alphabet, put "quotation marks" around English translations, and do nothing to Russian words written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Молчат Дома or Molchat Doma (roughly translates to "The Houses are Silent") is a 'cold wave' band. This is a genre of music that I don't know too much about, but from what I understand the genre is close to goth, except more detached and minimalistic. Si...