Doomtree - False Hopes

Artist: Doomtree
Album: False Hopes
Genre: Hip-Hop
Year: 2007
Origin: USA

Doomtree is the hip-hop collective of P.O.S., Dessa and a bunch of other cool cats. They seriously are the best hip-hop artists in the world, to the point where I almost feel like they ruined other rappers for me. They have released a self-titled album now that is also very good (you should buy it if you like this stuff!), which they say is the music that really represents them. But I think this album might be their best collaborative work, despite being called False Hopes which is what they name a lot of releases that they think of as secondary.

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Astrix - Artcore

Artist: Astrix
Album: Artcore
Genre: Psytrance
Year: 2004
Origin: Israel

This is the most well-thought-of release from Israeli psychedelic trance musician Astrix. It isn't innovative or anything, just good, solid, fast psytrance. Track 2 is a remix or collaboration or something involving Infected Mushroom, though I feel like the music picks up much more toward the second half of the record.

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Evangeli - ...In Sin

Artist: Evangeli
Album: ...In Sin
Genre: Folk Black Metal
Year: 2006
Origin: Sweden

I've been posting a lot of black metal in a row, and I usually try not to do that... OH WELL. Evangeli is a band formerly known as Magog, which changed its name because of another more popular band by the same name, and I've been looking for this album since first hearing some Magog tracks years ago. This is the audio portion of a live CD/DVD that is pretty much the only thing Evangeli released before promptly breaking up, and it includes one of the old Magog tracks as well. Long explanation aside, this is what viking metal is to me. It doesn't have any of the battle horns or whatever (it is a live recording after all), but the song melodies really capture an atmosphere of glorified pagan violence.

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Menace Ruine - Union of Irreconcilables

Artist: Menace Ruine
Album: Union of Irreconcilables
Genre: Black Noise
Year: 2010
Origin: Canada

It's the brand new album from Menace Ruine! If you're familiar with the duo's previous recordings, this seems like a middle ground between the noisy black metal on Cult Of Ruins and the psychedelic drone on In Vulva Infernum and The Die Is Cast. Geneviève's vocals are much more up-front in the production this time around, and I'm not yet sure if it's a good or bad thing. Menace Ruine is still one of the recently formed bands I'm most excited about.

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Fell Voices - Fell Voices

Artist: Fell Voices
Album: Fell Voices
Genre: Black Metal
Year: 2009
Origin: USA

Fell Voices is an atmospheric, "cascadian" black metal band that has only released one demo and this self-titled album. When I first heard the opening track I wasn't overly impressed, but then the second (and final) track came along and blew me away. Not that the first song is bad, it just took me a few listens to get it, while song 2 was love at first listen. The band is probably some flavor of anarchist, and they're from Santa Cruz (where I went to school), so that's something! I'm probably going to see them play in a few days with Ashdautas and maybe again later this month with Altar of Plagues.

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Birushanah - Akai Yami

Artist: Birushanah
Album: Akai Yami
Genre: Doom Metal
Year: 2007
Origin: Japan

Birushanah is a sludge/doom metal band that gets the 'experimental' label for the strong influences from traditional Japanese music. The three long tracks on this, their only full-length release, are great. The bass player is a former member of Corrupted, so expect a similar feel.

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