Samsara showed a band truly owning their craft the instrumentation was tighter, the breakdowns felt tailor-made to send bodies flying and – perhaps most crucially – it sounded completely fresh. Venom Prison - Samsara (opens in new tab)Ĭompletely ignoring the hype machine that would usually necessitate an underground band aiming for wider mainstream appeal, Venom Prison doubled down on the nastiness for record number two, proving they really weren’t fucking around as contenders for the death metal throne. Intimate, arresting and utterly unforgettable, Wolfe’s latest effort was a gloriously grim affair from one of the most creative and interesting artists in the underground right now.Ġ5.

Heaving with folk-flecked, spellbinding slow burners, the sonic shaman’s return to her quieter roots was a welcome one and the likes of ghostly lullaby The Mother Road and the dreamy, Portishead-esque American Darkness will be set staples for years. While sonically the record dialled back the molar-rattling, blood-and-thunder approach of previous efforts like Abyss, in terms of subject matter and mood Birth Of Violence was unflinchingly heavy.

The genre-straddling songsmith’s sixth album was born fromĪ need to break out of the creativity sapping cycle of tour-album-tour.Īfter eight years of “being in constant motion,” Wolfe took some much-deserved time off to both stitch herself back together and assemble her most hypnotic and haunting collection of songs to date. Chelsea Wolfe - Birth Of Violence (opens in new tab)

Download metal albums 2019