Along with Cold Meat Industry, Loki Foundation is since 1991 one of the best labels into the dark ambient/industrial genre and INCENDIUM II is a great way to discover why. Spanning through the last three years of Loki and Power & Steel releases (there are no unreleased tracks but here you can find tracks previously released only on vinyl and it costs only 3 euros) INCENDIUM II presents the main label's acts with representative tracks. Herbst9 are here with a track from their "Buried under time and sand" and with one from their collaboration with Z'ev, Antlers Mulm present "Sunflowers" (a beautiful minimal electronic melodic track picked from the "Of withered sparks" album). First Law, Inade and Ionosphere are present with two tracks for each of them (some of them are excerpts of long tracks). You can also find excerpts from the Vestigial/Penjaga Insaf great split 12" and if you missed it, by listening to these three minutes from each track, you'll ask for more. Good label compilation, your curiosity could be fulfilled for a cheap price! Here's the whole tracklist:

CIRCULAR The Triangular Center
FJERNLYS Intermediate Nature
ANTLERS MULM Sunflowers
HERBST9 4000 Years Of Damascus
PREDOMINANCE Quantum Statics
FIR§T LAW Bad Influence (excerpt)
INADE Divine Hybrid (excerpt)
INADE Kwa Non Se Part II (excerpt)
LAND:FIRE Space Interferometry Mission (excerpt)
IONOSPHERE Gravitation In The Mind
FIR§T LAW Creating Worlds (excerpt)
INADE Uninhabited Red
VESTIGIAL Summoned By Panopticonian Flames (excerpt)
PENJAGA INSAF Tenangan (excerpt)
IONOSPHERE Meta III
HERBST9 vs Z'EV Enshrinement (Maschinenkult pt.2)
EX.ORDER Skillful Killing

Personal project of Jack Harris, Plan 29 in 2004 released for Unschooled Records a MCD titled "What is a threat", EP that was more industrial influenced compared to this new album PERNICIOUS LULLABIES. Released as a download only album (if you want a CD copy of it, Ekleipsi offer also this service) PERNICIOUS LULLABIES is a good album made of dark electronic ambient tracks. Do you remember the unused "Hellraiser" themes Coil did? Well, most of the tracks of this album recalled to me those atmospheres (check "Dollhouse" first if you want a cinematic track full of tension and great sounds/melodies). Jack uses different layers of melodic synth sounds where the atmosphere created is the main thing. We have tracks with few rhythmical sounds like "Lost" or the electronic/experimental "Syrup 2 empty" as well others ("Die todesstrafe" or "Nowhere train" to name a couple) where rhythms are often industrial oriented and underline the tension created. Plan 29 is influenced by electronic and industrial music (with a bit of post-punk) but here those genres are reprocessed and enhanced. Good one! Check it... it's for free!

THE SKY OVER REICH/THE SKY OVER BERLIN is a reissue of one Majdanek Waltz MCD released two years ago with the add of four Sal Solaris' tracks (one of them have been previously released on a 10"). The split album continues the theme that Madjanek Waltz started on their MCD "Cranes": the war between East and West Germany troops. The tracks want to underline the absurdity of a war which involved people coming from the same country. "Democracy", "The Sky Of Reich", "We" and "City" blend folk atmospheres with industrial sounds and theatrical/neo-classical/martial intuitions. The first three tracks see the band using spoken word, snare drums, strings, acoustic guitar, industrial noises and samples just to create a convincing atmosphere of despair (effect that it's even more emphasized on the fourth track thanks to a distorted guitar which create an industrial grinding sound). Sal Solaris on "The Sky Above Berlin", "Trembling", "Suspence (In Danger)" and "Start" chose a more experimental/cinematic approach using reversed sounds and guitar feedbacks. Their approach is less theatrical and more ambient industrial and their aim seem to be the creation of industrial suites where noise layers are mixed with strings and samples. A more extreme approach to sound compared to Majdanek Waltz that made me prefer the first ones but an approach which undoubtedly is able to create a good tense atmosphere.

This is a free downloadable compilation compiled by the both UK-based label/promotion agencies Heresy and Dark Mourning Promotions. Both are working still hard in the pure British underground to promote and support Industrial-minded bands with multiple actions. While Heresy acts like a booking agency and shares country-wide contacts to clubs and organizes small tours for interested bands, Dark Mourning follows the idea to expand interest of the audience with a constant online promotion by using as much as possible the availability of communities like MySpace.
25 mostly undiscovered acts got united and are offering each one representative track out of their archives. Of course the musically dimension is wide-ranged and diverse, every thinkable style between pure Goth-Rock, multiple forms of Metal, Ambient and Experimental up to Electro/Futurepop and EBM gets featured here. It has to be said in advance that not all participating acts here offer music styles, which get normally covered by our online resource, for example all pure Metal-forms, while some others tend to play styles far away of my musically tastes. Therefore I’ll pick out only those causing some interest, any other ratings on acts providing foreign music styles wouldn’t be a fair deal.
The British duo BLIND BEFORE DAWN can already look back on several years of activity and they’ve released already 3 own produced albums in the past. Their featured track "Strangers" got remixed by REZUMAKI and plays well in the melodic Futurepop-genre, although it can’t offer anything new. A lot of Metal acts, be it Speed-, Death-, or Black-Metal offered by names like DE LA GRAVES, DEATH SHROUD or FIRE LAKE got thrown here in the arena, but, as I said, I better keep fingers and ears away from them. The Industrial/Powernoise act SCHULTZ comes out like the long awaited rain in the desert and sweeps away the dust provided by the uncountable Metal-heads before – well done rhythmically Powernoise-Industrial and I’ll look forward to their collaboration with the US-based Soviet Media Control label. Somewhere in between we have some decent Goth-Rock ballads offering some well done female vocals and melodic string- and piano-arrangements (HER BLACKENED ROSE). There has been too some more Electro/Industrial-minded appearances by IRA-K ORGANISATION and LOUIS GUIDONE (the track name is program: "Uber Cyber Total Bullshit"), but those still need some practice in the basement studios until they’ll be able to satisfy. Things are changing drastically with PSILOPSYB and their Hardcore-/Trance-Industrial massacre entitled "Amongst Orbs & Fairies". No matter, if this killer runs more than 9 minutes, it is definitely the revelation of this comp! The German project TANAROS (I guess they are from Germany) try to impress with a rather Harsh-EBM-like track, not bad, though not on top of the standard stuff. Also VALIUM ERA are concentrating to offer the harsh Hellectro-formula with a simple musically structure and a repetitive voice sample "Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People" – it is that sort of penetrating catchy, that the plan to set fire under the feet of the dancefloor addicts can succeed!
The opinions on the quality of the provided tracks may tend to differ, but that doesn’t wonder too much, since 99 % of the included acts are totally newcomers to their representative scenes. Plus the featured diversity of multiple styles on this free downloadable compilation makes it impossible, to enjoy all participants. But there’s in no way to argue against the efforts of both British promotion agencies. Support them, download this one, because it’s free and you’ll may discover one or another pearl.

Beautiful Dark - Alone in the Dark
Blind Before Dawn - Strangers (Rezumaki Remix)
Briar Rose - Hairy Eyeball
De La Graves - Angelita3
Death Shroud - Blacken the Sky
Dyonisis - Reaching
Fields of Iaru - Great Bark of Khepri
FireLake - Ghost City
Her Blackened Rose - On Another's Sorrow
Immundus - The Grieving Widow
Ira-k Organisation - La Maledicion
Jack's Hammer - Wicker Man
Louis Guidone - Über Cyber Total Bullshit (Entwined Edit)
Parasite - Twist the Knife
Psilopsyb - Amongst Orbs & Fairies
Schultz - Nekrophilia
Screams of Cold Winter - Nothing Left
Shallow Intentions - Bleeding Years
SILIZIUM - Love Also Means Forgiveness
Spekulus - Fragile
Tanaros - Failed
The Neurophobics – Necro
The Wired - Time Travel
Valium Era - Guns Don't Kill
Violet Vortex - Not

Formed in 2006 with members of Reynols, Minexio VII and Virgen Vapor, UL started to work on their sound based on guitar sound manipulations. If you have in mind the Glenn Branca's experiments of guitar orchestra, well, try to imagine something totally different because UL use guitars to create disturbing multi layered industrial ambient suites based on drones and guitar noises. Listening to III the impression I had is that the eight tracks have been recorded during improvisations but don't think about an artsy intellectual approach to the theme, because UL's sound is created with the guts rather than with the brain. The reverbered and distorted sound seems to have been generated into a metallurgic factory and I won't suggest to you this CD-r if you don't love experimental improvised sounds or industrial music.