██████ – Demo

Generally speaking I am not a huge fan of bands with unpronounceable names, or that give "non-names" to their works — such as the famous "( )" and so on — not so much because of their attitude (in the end we all love being to "pose" a little), but more because of the actual difficulty that arises when we want to talk about them or recommend them to our friends.

Therefore, you should understand my concern when I found myself confronted with a band "called" ██████ and that chose the sentence wedonthaveaname for its bandcamp page. Where to start? ██████ (see! I'm not mad!) is a project related to black metal, that has found a safe spot under Pest Productions' expanding cloak. The Chinese label distributed this demo in the first half of 2014, after its first independent release in January 2013.

This is a quintet from Plzen, Czech Republic, a continuously growing country in terms of metal bands. In four tracks (entitled with Roman numbers from one to four), the band goes on to exploring many of the faces of modern black metal. From the more atmospheric moments of "I" to the feriocious assault of "II", always accompanied by Michal's bloodcurdling scream. All of the four tracks on this demo clock in at around 5-7 minutes, and give a really clear idea of the influences of this band without a name, anticipating positive things for the future.

On the cover, the black rectangle which the band is (not) named after is found on a restless background devoid of colors, where black and white seem to be fighting to occupy as much space as possible, just like what happens to our inner selves. The digipak is sober and contains the lyrics both in Czech and English, words oozing with dissatisfaction for the real world and its failures.

██████ have recently released a split together with the emerging American band Old Soul, where they proceeded with "V" and "VI", leaving some room to their "deafheavenian" part. In conclusion, if you like black metal mixed a little with post-rock, a little with hardcore, this is definitely a band to recommend, especially if you don't have any issues with not being able to name them.