It’s becoming quite obvious to me that the people at Silent Time Noise Records, which is a subdivision of Satanarsa Records, REALLY have an ear for great doom metal. Especially of the extreme variety. Let me just say right off the bat that if you loved Shape Of Despair, especially the “Shades Of…” album and “Angels Of Distress,” and also really dig the music of The Howling Void, then there’s probably no reason for you to HAVE to read this review, I would suggest going out and getting this album RIGHT NOW… The Shape Of Despair influences are extremely obvious, though Ankhagram is no mere clone of the band. The CD starts off with the cut ‘Life’s Ocean,’ and from the opening landscape styled atmospheric synths, I am reminded of The Howling Void in the way they utilized the synthesizers to create ambient landscapes within their framework. Like most in the funeral doom/death genre, your first three tracks of this 6 song affair will clock in at over 32 minutes. (That comes from two 11 minute pieces and one 10 1/2 track).

The vocal work is all along similar lines, the inhuman sounding death vocals that were prevalent in the Shape of Despair album “Shades Of…” complete with a howling wind effect tacked on. Relegated to mostly the background, I sense that the vocals were meant to blend in with the rest of the atmospherics rather than to stand out. This makes them difficult to understand, and a minor complaint was the many spoken word passages that, while repeated and echo effected, made them frustrating when they were obviously trying to enunciate certain words clearly. This is most common on the song ‘Trees Of Feelings.’ ‘The Mistress’ starts things off with piano notes and synths, reminding me of the track ‘Woundheir’ from the aforementioned “Shades Of…” And here the synths take on the shape of violins, though with this track, and it’s 10 and a half minute length, it seems like the first half is all instrumental until the death vocals kick in at around 5:23. They only last a minute or two before they’re gone from this track forever. The biggest change comes in at track 4, ‘Shade You’ (obvious play on S.O.D.’s album title “Shades Of?”); here opening up you have some nice almost angelic female chanted style vocals and piano notes.That’s it for the first few minutes. Death metal vocals and heavier instrumentation come in at about 3:26 and simply add to what’s there, which was a nice touch. Then it’s instrumentation only to end out the cut with just synths and piano notes. Instrumentation on this disc is seemingly way more prevalent than vocals. ‘K.O.D.,’ which stands for ‘Kingdom Of Darkness,’ contains the heaviest and darkest instrumentation on the disc, the synths dual layering to contain some medieval and epic sounding passages, and I could easily see this as background music in some movie for some very epic and dark scenes. Finally, if you want a shock, watch a brilliant cover of the MGMT song ‘Kids’ to close this disc out. Probably the opposite, some of the most melodic and beautiful synth work rounds this disc out, and I never thought I’d hear a pop song covered so expertly in the doom metal realm. One small annoyance though was noticeable mostly on the last few tracks, a small buzzing noise was heard, and on ‘Kids,’ it’s most noticeable when the vocals are going on. It may take some who aren’t reading this review awhile to notice that however. A mastering error or something amiss on my particular copy of the CD? It doesn’t matter, because every track here is a fatal masterpiece of a band who merely takes influence from Shape Of Despair and runs with it (if you notice some synths sound like horns or trumpets, like on ‘Kids’ and ‘The Mistress,’ you can also say we’ve heard horn sounds from Colosseum and maybe one or two other doom bands). Silent Time Noise Records is on it’s way to becoming as masterful and noteworthy as Solitude Productions. Funny how both labels are from Russia!

This course was set for minimalism. Not hard to see that distractions practically disappeared.

Please pay special attention to the section “About Ankhagram“. He has undergone significant changes. Soon its subkeys also come in the right kind. Just great changes were to “Discography“. Added the complete information on all releases, including lyrics, and links for downloading.

Not done anything that was planned yet.

Stay tuned!

“Russian metal web-zine “Masterland” summed up the past year.

Release of the year in the genres of Doom, Dark Metal (Rus):

6th place: Ankhagram – Thoughts”

Actually, i’m surprised by that news. I thought nobody knows Ankhagram. Thanks for votes.

The project “FUTURE”. Composition “Before The Past”.

The fourth song for this project.

More information about the project can be found on our official website.
And remember to Subscribe!

Official site: http://www.ankhagram.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ankhagram
Join us in Google+https://plus.google.com/109246042558679451669

Video and editing: Dead Shinigami
Music: Ankhagram

The project “FUTURE”. Composition “Jean-Paul Sartre”.

“Smooth and smiling faces everywhere, but ruin in their eyes.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

More information about the project can be found on our official website.
And remember to Subscribe!

Finally finished another track for the project “THE FUTURE.” Once again, it is instrumental to the dominating influence of post-rock. According to the principle of this project, the composition will be free, and will appear along with videos on our Youtube channel. Needless to say, the channel subscribers will know about it very first.

The New Myspace page

Just recently received an invite to the New Myspace. Now Ankhagram’s music makes it easier to listen. Well, a page design is very beautiful and stylish. If someone has already registered with the New Myspace, welcome: https://new.myspace.com/deadshinigami

Today is the day to send CD.
Where Are You Now + Thoughts and a gift – Compilation Doom-art.ru 2007

As promised, sent a signed release.

Dead Shinigami

I decided to conduct a small blog about Ankhagram, music and thoughts. This is the first record.

The atmosphere of this project, called “FUTURE” is strange. In the summer it was quite melancholy, as confirmed by video-art and track names. With the change of seasons, the atmosphere changed. It has become more oppressive. Although, the music has remained at the same level, but the post-rock in it was much larger. This time, a huge influence on the music had post-rock.

This project does not interrupt the main work. It runs parallel to, and at the moment, Ankhagram still doom-metal project. Just after so many albums in this genre, I want to try something else.

Yeah, I do not have the equipment for winter shooting video for a project well for future clips Anhagram. This is rather unfortunate, because a lot of ideas. No one has the unwanted camcorder? lol. It is a great help donations. But they are rare and only enough to pay for the site.

And yet, very interested in becoming more active participants in groups on Facebook and in the VK. After all together – it’s a thousand people. I would like some kind of art and discussions.
Tell us what you want to talk? I just do not know how to communicate with people.

Dead Shinigami