Did you ever just say, "I don't know why, but I really feel like listening again to that album I heard a few days ago," and then you start to realize how amazing it is?

That happened to me with this one, and then I started playing it 3 or 4 times a day.

I was so busy enjoying the music, I didn't notice I was listening to a mix of black metal & death metal. Anyway, it's all good, but with the 4th track Silent Gatherers, the album gets amazingly powerful. The singer's approach is very satisfying and most of the guitar melodies are extremely catchy. The drummer stays very busy. The drums are either very complicated, or in rapid kick drum paradise, or both at the same time. The tone of the album is mostly bleak and simultaneously spiteful and mocking. The result is delectable and hypnotizing.

Next about the album cover. It's the band's spokeswoman. She put on her best earrings and brought out her most radiant smile to promote Morkera's debut. To be serious though, this is a very striking painting, and I think she might be the personification of the band's name. Mørkera is a plural form for a Norwegian word for 'darkness.' I'm sure you'll remember a bunch of black metal bands with names like mork-something. However, I have a hunch that this artist took the singular form mørker and made it into a female name, and then chose this awesome painting by Vladimir Chebakov to match that idea. It's like she's the one singing the songs to us.

The drumming is probably the most amazing part of this album, and the guest drummer, Pierce Williams is in Skeletal Remains (the one from California) and other bands too. I hope we'll be lucky enough that Williams and the anonymous Croatian work together on the next Morkera album, because they had such wonderful synergy here. ... See More

I feel a little guilty not giving this one a perfect 100/100 because it's so apparent that tons & tons of hard work goes into making this style of music. However, I enjoy it just a tiny bet less than my perfect 100s for this year, like Blut aus Nord, Starer, and Andromida. That'll be my justification.

Stylistically, this is heavy heavy heavy, and they make a point of weaving the symphonic element into the song as a whole, but then sometimes as a break from the metal, so there's no getting in a rut with this songwriting. There's that special something about singing in Japanese that gives this album that Japanese sound you might be familiar with. The singers are all amazing too; they use their native language expertly, and they're clearly well trained vocal pros. If you're having misgivings because you're familiar with the sounds of totally commercial and cringeworthy Japanese music, don't have any misgivings about this album. It's full of passion, energy, and being genuine. It's not underground, though. Check out the music video for track 4. It's obvious their label is investing a lot in them.

One more note. Even starting with the album title, it's obvious these guys are into using Japanese in a very ancient, classic, literary way with terminology unknown to native speakers and sentence formation in a high fancy register. Not only do these guys practice their brains out to achieve this kind of sound, they're probably hitting the books. All in all, super impressive. ... See More

The first note on this album you can hear that it won't be an imitation of everyone else in the genre. The note warbles into darkness and feels unsettling. This album goes on to capture many different atmospheres; foreboding, adventurous, sombre, and more. I find every track huge in its climax and sometimes spine tingling buildup.
The title sounds like a boring post rock album. The What It Is To Be is a little post, but the least boring album ever. It's atmospheric fundamentally, but gets into more symphonic territory for a few bars here and there. Super high level songwriting, produced well, and played precisely. Lo-fi and Hi-fi are used expertly for the best effect throughout. I've been listening to this regularly for months now, and it's definitely gonna rank high for 2022's top picks.

Wow. With his Hellscape album, I thought just 30% or so of the songs were his best level of songwriting. Now with Wrath of the Vanguard, all of the songs are his top level. These songs rock so hard and have so much energy, and it's all played by a blind person.
It's djent and pretty progressive. The beats are often hip hop rhythms and it blends in electronica too, but definitely metal predominantly, and it's extremely groovy metal at that.
If you check out the YouTube video of this album, he starts with a few on-screen sentences telling the beginning of a science fiction story. Then each song with it's title and sound give a feel of a continuing story. Also, each track has it's own artwork which just adds to the feeling of plotline even more. The artist that creates these pictures is really awesome too, and I'm just glad Andromida and the artist found each other.
This is fully instrumental music, but it tells more of a story than almost any other metal album with or without the video. I was pleasantly surprised to find he finished this new album, and it's even better than I hoped for. This album is so good I feel sad for anyone who hasn't heard Andromida yet. ... See More

This is totally classic rock and psychedelic, with a little influence from black metal. Which could be good, but it forces the singer into some approaches that force him to lean on bravado, projecting, and fullness. He doesn't really excel in these areas, so the effect kinda drains the passion out. It's different for a singer like Ian from Jethro Tull who can't do Robert Plant kinds of things, so he leans on charisma and puts some theatrics into his voice, kind of like acting. The way I see it, the singing that shows up in the song is not only performance, but also songwriting and conception, not just a flaw like an athlete getting clumsy, so the singing really drags it down for me. Instrumentally, Into the Twilight is pretty nice with fantastic melodies. The mix of good points and bad points convince me to rank as average and split the difference. ... See More