Archive for neo-classical

Lumous Gothic Festival 2018

Posted in Festival, Live with tags , , , , , , on 15th July 2018 by izaforestspirit

Novus, Auger, Terrolokaust
Dog’s Home and Klubi, Tampere, Finland
13-14th July 2018

One of my favorite things to do in the summer is to attend festivals. Lumous Gothic Festival is the biggest Gothic event in Finland and it just happens to take place in the city where I live. I’ve been attending this every year since 2012. The music ranges from Goth rock, darkwave, neo-folk to various forms of industrial and EBM.

Friday

This time I was mostly interested in the Saturday line-up. There was however a free show happening at The Dog’s Home (a pub next door to the main venue). So I went to check it out. I did not know anything about the band except their name – Chaos Research. It turned out to be a mixture of neo-folk, neo-classical, darkwave and ambient. Eerie operatic vocals, electronic with some additional instruments such as an electric cello and drums. Their show produced a relaxed atmosphere in the venue. 3/5

Saturday

The main day of the festival. I was mainly interested in the industrial rock band Terrolokaust but I checked out the rest of the line-up as well. First up was a British electronic duo called Novus. I quite enjoyed their show. It was fun to dance to. So a good start to the night. 3.5/5

I really liked the next band, Auger – darkwave and also from the UK. Their music sounded like a mixture of Blutengel with the Gothic horror atmosphere of The Vision Bleak. Very theatrical performance, powerful vocals, haunting keyboards and good guitar work. Great show! I really want to check out some of their music. 4.5/5

Then it was time for the night’s headliner – the industrial rock band from Cataluña, Terrolokaust. I’ve seen them live once before at Resistanz Festival in 2016, so I pretty much knew what to expect. They played a very energetic show featuring a mixture of old and new material from all their albums. My personal favorites included ‘El Mundo Sigue Girando’, ‘Reasons’ and their cover of The Prodigy’s ‘Spitfire’ which they played as an encore. 5/5


In summary I had a great time. Terrolokaust was my favorite performance of the night. I also made a new discovery in the form of Auger. I really liked their show. Lumous Gothic Festival was pleasure as always. See you next year!

Iza Raittila

 

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Psychema – The Entry Point

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , on 10th July 2012 by mariadodarmata

Psychema
The entry Point
Released on 25th April 2012
Prog. Metal
Released via Inverse Records

Image

It starts with a smooth, instrumental song. The soft melody gets to your head and relaxes you in a way that when the second song starts your senses jump in surprise. The vocals start up harsh, but they soften up as the song progresses. You gives you an idea of what to expect from the album. By song number three and four, the heavy melodies get softer with hints of Symphonic/Neo-classical metal, Industrial and somehow Pop-rock.

My head had wondered off the music when song number six, The Past, started. With a slow rhythm, the acoustic song came in the precise moment to pull back the attention. Clean vocals beautiful melody, all ends to give space to the next song that goes direct to the point. It brings back all the heavy elements and keeps them throughout the rest of the album. It finishes with a beautiful outro song.

I have mixed feelings about the vocals that go from reminding me to Sepultura on the Cavalera era, to reminding me of Therion. They are right in the middle, too harsh to be clean, too clean to be harsh. But in spite of that the album is good, fun to listen to. It might be Prog. Metal but the influences of other genres are clear, giving the music a somehow Powermetalish sound that is surprisingly heavy.

4.5/5

María Mata

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