Unsigned and Unholy: Deliverance, Imperial Gates, Underling

Holy elephants marching riff to open this song! Deliverance remind me of a hybrid between Gojira, Nails and NYC progressive black metal faves Castevet. These guys are from France, because of they are. This is some seriously heavy stuff, and heady too, although not overbearingly so.

Imperial Gates are also from France (Paris, to be exact), but are a whole different ball of wax than Deliverance. Their description of themselves as “well-considered yet truly organic progressive instrumental rock” sounds about right. Their music has nothing in common with anything currently trendy in the instrumental metal/rock scene… they kinda remind of Cynic without vocals and with a little more overt emphasis on musicianship.

Underling feature Fallujah bassist Robert Morey in their ranks, but their music is nothing like the lofty sci-fi epic adventures of the former. Underling play chilled out, atmospheric black metal, the kind of music it’d be relaxing to sit back and smoke a bowl to on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Let’s call it like Nachtmystium without all the musical anger.