Music Tracking

Name: Wizards of Aldur Album: Enchanter’s Endgame Released: 21 October 2024 One of the things I really enjoy doing, because it helps me unwind, is searching for new music online. When that happens, something I consider inevitable, since as the years go by the need for repetition grows, it does so for several reasons. I want to remind myself of what once moved me and to see whether it still does, I want to track the passage of time more clearly, and, above all, because the act itself matters. With that in mind, it is very easy to get lost in the past and fail to devote proper attention to the present, which is not particularly healthy. You might ask what is right and what is wrong, and I would not disagree, but in my view it is important to strike a balance in order to preserve variety, avoiding both nostalgia for its own sake and the relentless chase to keep up with everything new. Things will happen gradually anyway, and if they do not, nothing terrible occurs. Why all this purs...

Name: Napalm Death Album: Utopia Banished Released: 18 May 1992 The other day I was sitting and listening to this incredible record, and somehow a spiral of thoughts began, centered on myself and my circle of acquaintances. The reflection that emerged concerned the outlook held by many people around my age, close to forty or slightly above, without this limiting the scope, since many older people behave in the same way, as do quite a few younger ones. This is particularly noticeable in the country we live in, and that matters, because those who have lived abroad do not share the same frames of reference and therefore have a different picture of everyday life here, which I believe acts as the catalyst for what I want to address. Within this age range, I observe many angry people, or rather a mixture of anger, disappointment, and indignation, which in my view is driven by the exhaustion they experience across many areas, economic, emotional, and so on. Of course, the human psyche is not ...

Name: Teitanblood Album: From the Visceral Abyss Released: 28 March 2025 I first encountered the Spanish band Teitanblood with Seven Chalices in 2009, but at the time I only managed to listen to it three times before setting it aside. Some time passed, and with Death in 2014 it seemed I was finally ready, as the album received many spins back then. By the time The Baneful Choir arrived in 2019, the moment had come for me to take the plunge and swim in the dark waters of many aspects of life, and music, always a constant companion for me, was there to confirm that I was not alone. That was also when I went back and fully appreciated the contribution of this band, as along with a few others they opened yet another door in this art form and led me to discover a room of purification, if I may use that word. This music plays a cathartic role for me. It is so powerful and aggressive, so overwhelming that it sweeps away everything standing in front of you and blocking your path, at least th...

Name: Septicflesh Album: Codex Omega Released: 1 September 2017 Sometimes a single track is enough to make you latch on, without implying that the rest are inferior. It is simply that something the particular piece triggers, whether thematically or musically, its atmosphere, or even the combination of the moment you first heard it and how you were feeling at the time. There may also be a melody buried inside that lasts only a few seconds, yet is enough to bind you to it forever. In any case, when such a connection with an album emerges, it is priceless and serves as a reminder of the importance of music. Taking Martyr as a starting point, I want to say a few words about Codex Omega by Septicflesh , who in 2017 released this outstanding album, one of several remarkable works in their catalog, and the one that drew me back to them after I had drifted away. I do not know exactly why, or rather I do not remember, why I had distanced myself earlier. Most likely I had heard an album that di...

Name: Sacrifice Album: Volume Six Released: 21 February 2025 One of the records that could easily have made my list of yearly favourites, although it is impossible to fit everything into a top five, and creating an extensive section of honorable mentions would dilute the purpose, so I decided to write a dedicated post about this work by the Canadian thrashers. To be honest, I have not followed their discography in depth, as we are talking about a band active since the 1980s. In 1993 they either stopped or went on hiatus, I am not entirely sure whether they remained active without releasing material, but they returned with a compilation in 2006 and a full-length album in 2009. I know their first two releases quite well, Torment in Fire and the striking Forward to Termination , which I consider one of the greatest thrash metal albums of all time and certainly one of the most ferocious. After that there is a gap for me, and this year, at the beginning of it, I discovered that they had re...

Name: Unsheathed Glory Album: Beneath Sun & Soil Released: 25 April 2025 I feel very fortunate that in recent years this music, dungeon synth, has flourished so much, because in the past it was difficult, at least for me, to discover albums I could listen to while reading books or stories of similar themes, sometimes fantasy settings and sometimes sci fi. Today the genre is so widespread that all you need to do is type the words into Google and endless lists appear before you. The downside is that many rely on AI to compose for them, which is disheartening because it undermines the essence of creation. It turns the result into a patchwork of technical training with numerous borrowings, while true exploration is absent. Imagination is not used to shape a musical composition. Someone might say that it has become so hard to identify this phenomenon, especially in music, so how can you be certain. Sometimes for me it is impossible, though at other times, when the credits are listed, yo...

I had been thinking for a while about creating another online space, beyond Framescape where I write about films, Current Readings for books and comics, and Pixel Tracking for videogames, but due to various obligations I kept postponing it. So we have reached the last month of the year, and as always, for many years now, I prepare a list of my favourite albums I listened to that year. Once I simply wrote them down in a notebook, later I recorded them as a podcast, and now I write them as text so that anyone who wants to listen to something relevant, and happens to be out of ideas for any reason, has a few options available. Of course this act in itself carries another meaning. Texts have a distinct power, they last through time more than anything else, especially handwritten ones, without implying that anyone who chooses to communicate what they enjoy in any other way creates something of lesser importance or value. Especially when it comes to music, and even more so Metal music, on wh...