Drottnar sure takes their sweet time putting out albums, with 6 or 7 years between full-length releases. This time, it was definitely worth the wait. I was a fan of the first album, Spiritual Battle, but found 2006’s Welterwerk too chaotic and have rarely listened to it after the first few spins. Stratum seems to have taken the best of both those releases and melded them together into a furious sonic fury. There is still plenty of technical playing involved, maybe even more than in the past. Yet it never seems to get too chaotic or noisy, as those parts are juxtaposed with a more subdued grind and some atonal chord work, of all things—and it works. Add to that the stellar production, and this album shines. It’s already been a great year for extreme Christian Metal, and Stratum does its part to contribute.
Features
The Top 25 Albums of 2020
When the going gets tough, artists create art. Despite a world reckoning outside our quarantined doors, musicians relentlessly created new music giving birth to genre-defining releases and, despite a year spent indoors, a marked 2020 full of passion and fervor. Here are our Top 25 albums of 2020.
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The Space for Rebirth
On Age of the Abstract's new EP, 'Rebirth,' the duo explores what a new sound looks like apart from the day-job in Canidria. Here, contributing writer Andrew Voigt talks with Julio Arias about influence, vision, and how writing in the wake of his father's death propelled the band forward.
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Overflowing with Wrath
Dempsey Mills is the brains behind Vials of Wrath, an atmospheric solo project rooted in Nordic inspiration, historic genre, and a dichotomy of peace and tension that underlies the heaviness of the music. Just don't call it unblack.
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Droning On
The world came to a halt in 2020, but London-based Drones trudged on, giving a voice to the hurt that circulates with (or without) a pandemic: "You shouldn’t underestimate the power of writing things down or literally speaking them out loud, which I’m learning. I’m glad I made these songs, no matter how personal they are."
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