The Chronicles Of Israfel - A Trillion Lights, Tome II (Preview)

If any of you happen to have been around when I wrote my second ever review for Tzeeeac, just know I spoke of these guys that form part of the title of this article. And while seven years have passed since the release of Starborn, Dominic&Co. are sneaky enough to just tease us with snippets of the upcoming album, consisting of an instrumental song to bridge the gap between the two albums, followed by three singles from the upcoming LP, each one with its own art. 

Here's the songs for you, placed in order of release.









 Man, I cannot wait to hear the whole thing in context!

City of Ships - Minor World (2011)

While Chester and Marco sit around on the porch of their houses acting like two old ladies and debate the days when they were young and had more wishes and wants about musical journalism, while they do all that and more I'm going to continue to put stuff up on Tzeeeac because what the hell? There is still good music to be heard out there and if their lazy asses decided to take a break, that's something I don't have to do. 

And while there may not have been so much activity in the Tzeeeac inbox that actually sparks my interest, randomly going from review to review does occasionally put me in direct contact to some obscure bands that make me want to listen to them over and over again.

Evidently, the prize of the month of August goes to the US of A trio City of Ships that manages to convincingly blend together post rock, alternative and mostly harsh and angry vocals that wouldn't be out of place on some weird mix of punk and screamo outfit (yeah, I know, I've just fit one too many genres into a single phrase; sue me if you like or read on). The end result is, quite honestly, unlike everything I have listened to before, as they don't have any fancy instrumentation or riveting soloing that swipes the listener off their feet. No, they're more of a mood band, with songs that don't necessarily go out their way to dissociate themselves from the rest of the album, but work an approach towards adding on the atmosphere. 

With this said I'm putting their latest album, Minor World, as my favorite in their short discography. It's more laid back and refined than the rest and it seems that the group has settled comfortably in their formula. I'd like to specially highlight 'Darkness At Noon', a song that deviates completely from the rest of the act and stands like something that Steven Wilson would have recorded in early days Porcupine Tree. Here it is, find the rest of their stuff on bandcamp (and hope you enjoy it at least half as much as I do).

P.S: This is a note to Chester. It seems that you're commuting for two hours every day and that takes up some Tzeeeac time from your calendar.  Well, my commute is five hours daily; sorry buddy but you got nothing on me :P

HIATUS.

Hey everyone.

Just wanted to let you know we're going on indefinite hiatus. 

We're not shutting down for good. 

I can't speak for the others, but I have been feeling very burned out for a while and this whole thing seems a bit of a drag lately. Something that started out as a fun thing to do with my buddy has now begun to feel like an obligation and there's no fun in that. Real life obligations also play a part. Turns out it's not as easy finding time to write about emotional black metal bands when working a (pretty great) full time job and commuting for almost 2 hours every single day. Our platform of choice Blogspot is also a huge reason, at least for me - it's basically turned into a big pile of shit and I don't have the time and patience to wrestle with it and its dumb errors anymore.

Marco and I have been talking things over and we both feel the need for a fresh start with our blog. We don't know what that means yet, but we'll use this time to figure it out. 

So while we take some time off to find ourselves and reflect on the meaning of Kanye West lyrics on a sandy beach, this website will remain up as a testament of our greatness. Tumblr will still be updated daily through the mercy of our Saint Patron Gherasim and we're probably gonna post on Facebook every now and then, too. 

Don't be sad. We're gonna be back at some point. Just not too soon. 

The new Deafheaven song sucks, btw.