Soulless, Sadness - burning as the first light (2024)

Damián Antón Ojeda, professionally known as Sadness is already a well-known name for any fan looking for the blackgaze scene's underdogs. The Mexican artist releases a number of shorter and longer albums a year and towards the end of 2024, he joined forces with his lesser known, but at least as interesting, Indonesian counterpart, Soulless. 

The album is opened by an intro that sound more like a melancholic ambientish piece, but soon enough bursts into Sadness' signature noise. It is made with harsh noise of guitars that is hidden behind the silky flow of piano keys and, finally, vocals. Those are rather fresh-sounding, hopeful, energetic, providing a pleasurable contrast with the music, beautiful in its melancholy. His second track feels like a complementing piece, an ornament underlining the importance of every edge of your name, burning.

The part of the split provided by Soulless has a slightly different taste to it. While it is also a prime example of underground blackgaze music, the vibes are changed: the black metal vocals add the element of anger and depression that, when juxtaposed with the synthy, flowy music, always brings a tear to my eye. The euphoric parts come to the picture in the second track by Soulless and they make the whole blackgazey picture absolutely complete.

burning as the first light costs 4 USD.

Check: every edge of your name, burning

Country: Indonesia, Mexico/US

Genre: synthy blackgaze

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sadness / oculi melancholiarum - springgarden (2023)

Damián Antón Ojeda and Victoria Carmilla Hazemaze, or as they are better known sadness and oculi melancholarium, joined forces to release a fantastic split album earlier this year. springgarden feels like a perfect soundtrack for greeting the intoxicating season that is upon us.

The two artist who feel extremely comfortable at creating the lo-fi, bedroom blackgaze with a lot of influences from everywhere. The first two tracks are provided by Ojeda and they are surprisingly lively and energetic. The fast-paced compositions do have the signature haze and noisy bits (quite long one in fact), but the main thing one focuses on is the signature, dispersed but definitely not subtle vocals and the pace. In especially love the free approach to the structure of the tracks with long drone'y passages that divide the instances of the noisy shoegaze madness. The part delivered by Hazemaze is what we would call a true blackgaze: angry metal vocalizations and oneiric, subtle vocals on top of guitar-based but also very synthy and extremely flow-reach music is what the genre is about. 

springgarden costs whatever you want to pay.

Sadness - Rain (2018)

Check: Best Friend

Country: Mexico/Illinois, US

Genre: lo-fi electronic shoegaze/blackgaze

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Sadness - Rain (2018) EN

Fenomenal atmosphere is the core value of the project creating under a meaningful name Sadness. It's a mysterious one but there's no need to know much when this dense, mesmerizing music is on, just like one from the newest album Rain.

The album is long and filled with the title sadness up to the edges. It's audible in the extremely loud guitar tempests interrupted from time to time by some quiet rain droplets of keys and sleepy atmosphere of a grey morning. The American artist uses both of the modes like a pro and feels great in them. And you can say the same thing about the audience being washed away by those lazy waves of bittersweet feelings.

Rain costs 4 EUR.

Check: Absolution

Country: Texas, US

Genre: slowcore post-metal

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Sadness - Rain (2018) PL

Fenomenalna atmosfera to właśnie to, czym zachwyca projekt o wiele mówiącej nazwie Sadness. Jest on owiany tajemnicą, ale nie trzeba wiele więcej niż gęsta i wprawiająca w hipnotyczne stany muzyka, taka jak na najnowszym albumie Rain.

Płyta jest długa i po brzegi wypchana tytułowym smutkiem. Przejawia się on w niezwykle głośnych, gitarowych nawałnicach przerywanych od czasu do czasu spokojnym pokapywaniem klawiszy i senną atmosferą szarego poranka. Artysta ze Stanów gra na tych dwóch biegunach uczuć po mistrzowsku, w każdym czuje się znakomicie. To samo można powiedzieć o słuchaczach, którzy zalewani są leniwymi falami słodko-gorzkich uczuć.

Rain kosztuje 18 złotych (4 EUR).

Sprawdź: Absolution

Kraj: Teksas, US

Szufladka: slowcore post-metal

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