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The Germans Black Spring Monolith mix various genres, producing a sound which we often come across in the current century. ‘Lightforger‘ is their fifth full-length album, exclusively instrumental. It is the first full-length album released by the newly established Stonehill Records (2013). The band mention that it is the second part of a trilogy, which began with the album ‘The Taste Of Mankind‘ (2014, Cosmic Gates Records). It comprises five tracks and one bonus track. Except for the first and the bonus track, the rest are all tracks of over 10 minutes in length, and are a very interesting mix of psychedelic rock, blackened experimental metal, with some drops of doom/sludge metal.

As the band claim, many musicians take part in order to experiment with various kinds of music. They characterize their sound as “Blackened Psychedelic Metal”, and one can see the term “blackgaze” tagged under their new release. Since this term is new (it appeared in the early 00s to describe the combination of post-black metal with the electro elements of shoegaze), it has not yet become established or widely accepted, as the term “post-black metal” or in particular “post-metal” includes rock, electro, shoegaze and other elements. Thus, in this album you can distinguish a lot of ‘post-‘ forms of different genres.

This fusion of these particular musical influences makes this album powerful. In ‘Lightforger‘ the tracks open with classic post-rock psychedelic sounds and the bridges lead to blackened riffs. In between, and this justifies the fact that the tracks are long, you can hear a crossover from electro to doom/sludge. But don’t be confused by all those genres written one next to the other. Better listen to this album, it won’t disappoint.

Mary Kalaitzidou