Blood Incantation are back with their signature progressive, cosmic death metal sound after their detour into the world of ambient that was their 2022 Timewave Zero project. Absolute Elsewhere basically consists of two lengthy tracks, "The Stargate" and "The Message" that make up each side of the vinyl release, with each track being further split into three parts. This time around they have delved even further into progressive realms than they did with 2019's Hidden History of the Human Race, with recognisable influence from several legendary 70's progressive artists, most noticeably Rush, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Tangerine Dream with TD's Thorsten Quaeschning's guesting on the second part of "The Message", which sounds just like an excerpt from the german progressive electronic crew's 1975 Rubycon album.

Of course, after their dalliance with a wholly ambient release last time out, most metalheads want to know if the band still have their hearts in the metal world and the answer is, undoubtedly they do and death metal is still the basis upon which their more expansive sound is built, but they are also on a mission to expand the horizons of the genre and bring in other influences so that it can continue to evolve, thus giving it an even brighter future and allowing it to reach out to a wider audience. Just within the opening segment of "The Message" we are treated to a Rush-like intro, with Geddy Lee-like staccato basslines and Alex Lifeson-influenced lead work leading into a ripping death metal riff, thundering blastbeat and Paul Riedl's growling vocals. These soon subside into a Robert Fripp-style gentle guitar and synth break which itself morphs into a short mellotron-led section (reminiscent of the synths Queen produced for the Flash Gordon soundtrack) which is then supplanted by a Dave Gilmour-esque solo. That then makes way for an eastern-flavoured death metal riff that could have come from the Nile songbook - and we are still only eight minutes into the damn thing! This may sound like a whole lot of disparate influences being jammed together and on paper may not seem that appealing, but the skill of the songwriting is that it takes these multifarious threads and weaves them together into a seamless tapestry of varying colours and textures in an entirely organic and unforced manner, with faultless and seemingly logical transitions, even between the most brutal and gentle passages. The opening extravaganza merely illustrates the ambitious vision that Blood Incantation have for their version of progressive death metal, with a fully-formed science fiction concept behind the album and a wide-reaching pallette of sonic pigments with which they illustrate this vision, metal alone being insufficient to convey exactly the feeling they require.

It is easy, I suppose, to get into a game of I-spy-the-obvious-influence, and on the intitial playthrough I was probably as guilty as anyone of that, but when you become more acquainted with the album I think the technical mastery and skilled songwriting make all that irrelevant and when heard as a coherent entity, rather than the sum of it's parts, that is when it hits the listener as to exactly how good this is. Despite all the progressive tendencies, it is still the effectiveness of the metal constituents upon which the success of the album ultimately rests and we are certainly in safe hands there because when the band let rip then they absolutely nail it with impeccable timing, consummate technical skills and some lethal riffs. The third part of "The Message" is probably one of the most "metal" parts of the album with a devastating set of blastbeats, some complex tech-death shennanigans and a deadly and brutal main riff, complemented with some nice eastern motifs that does more than cement the band's death metal credentials.

I was initially a bit sceptical as to whether Absolute Elsewhere was deserving of all the accolades being poured upon it, but this is undoubtedly one of those albums that increases the returns dependent upon what you put into it. Multiple listens are mandatory to really appreciate exactly what Blood Incantation are delivering here and it is gaining in stature with me as I uncover a little bit more of it's complexity and quality with each playthrough. As a metal album this is a cosmic-themed triumph, being at times exceedingly brutal and heavy, at others complex and cerebral, but it is also much more than that, thought-provoking and visionary with a willingness to embrace influences from outside the metal sphere which lend it an accessibility that will undoubtedly draw in new acolytes to the world of extreme metal and surely that is a good thing.

I find a lot of cutting edge metal to be a bit beyond my capacity to enjoy, particularly the excessively dissonant or avant-garde, but Absolute Elsewhere has opened up a brave new world of ambitious and forward-thinking metal made from distinctly recognisable parts that is as listenable as it is ground-breaking. It is hard, if you really listen to this, to not feel refreshed and energised by the possibilities this opens up for the future of death metal inparticular and extreme metal generally. I am sold.

Melbourne thrash metal trio Rampage are definitely one of those bands that you would only have come across if you were heavily involved in the underground Australian metal scene back in the latter part of the 1980's & first half of the 1990's. They released just two demo tapes & a single full-length album across a four-year life span but wouldn't manage to achieve much commercial success & eventually decided to call it quits two months after vocalist/guitarist George Mitrov found God & promptly left Rampage in May 1988. The Spotify age has seen the band's legacy being revitalized for a new generation of Aussie metalheads to indulge in though & the question is now whether that commitment is actually worth the effort or not. My recollections of Rampage's "Veil of Mourn" album weren't that great if I'm being honest but I have been wondering whether a little context might see it taking on some additional importance. My recent revisits to the two Rampage demo tapes have done nothing for my confidence but I did recall "Veil of Mourn" sounding a little different to those two releases so I decided to grit my teeth & battle my way through one of the less understood records from a time when the Aussie thrash scene was still in its infancy.

Neither of Rampage's 1986 "Acid Storm" or 1987 self-titled demo tapes received a lot of record label attention which was a critical ingredient if you were going to take things to the next level at the time. Young bands rarely funded their own full-length albums & some of that came down to a lack of belief & understanding as much as it did anything else because the option was always there. But the lack of hype didn't stop Rampage who self-funded & self-produced their debut album in 1988 with a run of just 600 vinyl copies being manufactured after the recordings were completed. A gentleman going by the name of Rock was responsible for assisting the band through those sessions & I can't say that I'm surprised that he hasn't gone on to bigger things because the production job on "Veil of Mourn" is nothing short of a dog's breakfast, failing to even compete with that of the band's two demos, particularly the self-titled one which sounded much better than this mess which comes across more like a crude rehearsal recording than an album. The guitars are much too far back in the mix in comparison to the bass guitar while the cymbals possess a boomy white-noise characteristic. The performances are really quite loose too with guitarist George Mitrov's pitchy high-pitched vocals regularly seeing my face struggling to prevent a cringe. Rampage were far from a well-oiled machine at the time but, to be fair, they had other things going for them.

Rampage's lineup for the album was a little different to the one that had recorded the "Acid Storm" demo tape two years earlier. Original guitarist Mark Bailey had left the scene by this stage with Mitrov taking on the guitar duties on top of the vocals while drummer Rick Sorrentino had been replaced by future Hobbs Angel of Death skinsman Bruno Canziani. Former Tyrus bass player David Frew (who would join Canziani in Hobbs Angel of Death during the mid-1990's) was still onboard but it's worth mentioning the differences in sound between the two demo tapes & the one we receive on "Veil of Mourn", despite it containing a few of the same tracks as the demos in "Acid Storm", "Sinister at Sunrise" & "Producers Edge". The "Acid Storm" demo saw Rampage hovering somewhere between thrash metal & traditional heavy metal while the self-titled saw that heavy metal component heading more towards power metal. There isn't any heavy metal on "Veil of Mourn" while the power metal influence is limited to "Sinister at Sunrise". This time Rampage have expanded their sound with a very interesting progressive rock influence which sees them hitting on some highly unusual song & riffs structures & it's this element that would become the band's calling card. On the evidence here, I'd have to suggest that Rampage had been listening to a fair quantity of Voivod records in the lead-up to these sessions as I can clearly here the Canadian progressive metallers impact here, although I wouldn't suggest that it's enough to see me reaching for a dual tag as the thrash side of the trio's sound still sits comfortably in the ascendency.

Despite the intriguing complexities of Rampage's new sound though, I have to admit that I've once again struggled with this release in much the same way that I did with the two demo tapes. Yes, the band's sound certainly keeps you on your toes by maintaining the electricity of a live performance throughout but the obvious production & performance issues are simply too much to overcome the majority of the time. It's only really closing track "Transgression to Sin Under the Invisible Empire" that sees me able to look past the album's inadequacies & achieve true enjoyment but that's not to say that Rampage didn't come close on material like opener "Terrortaphobia (Fear of Giving Birth to a Monster)", the previously mentioned "Acid Storm" & prog thrasher "Autopsy". The other half of the album falls well short of the mark but has somehow managed to keep my attention in a similar way to a fatal car crash. You don't really want to see the horrors inside but you struggle to look away nonetheless. It's for this reason that "Veil of Mourn" has managed to avoid a more embarassing rating but I'd still suggest that the simpler "Acid Storm" demo is perhaps the release that saw Rampage coming the closest to producing a genuinely rewarding experience. Even it didn't quite get there though so I can't say that I'm disappointed to have finished my exploration of Rampage's quietly spoken back catalogue. While I seriously doubt that I'll be returning to them in the future, I do give Rampage some credit for producing one of the more unusual debut albums in Aussie thrash history.

For fans of Bezerker, Tyrus & Midas Touch.

Portland’s Vitriol may have adopted a band name that instantly screams deathcore or metalcore at least, but a listen to any of Suffer & Become and you will soon find that they something else altogether. This album is a dense and chaotic explosion of death metal; probably the best modern death metal I have heard this year outside of the mighty Ulcerate. Make no mistake, there is A LOT going on here. The multitude of parts that layer Suffer & Become take some digestion most certainly (here, multiple listens are needed folks) and at times I do find myself looking for space to breath and absorb this raging torrent of death metal.

Clearly put together by accomplished artists, the contributors to this album come from a varied palate of metal experience. The drums from a brutal death metal background, the guitars are more deathcore (yet Steve Jansson of epic doom outfit, Crypt Sermon fame guests on track three) with supremo Kyle Rasmussen showing his agility on leads and riffs alike. That is not to say that the experience of the riffs on the album is them being deathcore sounding. Whilst there most certainly is a hint of it somewhere, as a band Vitriol have a huge amount of Hate Eternal influence here alongside the grindcore sounding aspects of Cattle Decapitation (thankfully minus the horrible vocals of the latter band). With nods to Nile, Morbid Angel and Cryptopsy, the group allow a healthy platform of death metal staples to shape Suffer & Become. The solo work is some of the best I have heard in a long time. I have lost count of how many death metal albums I have heard over the last five years alone that are sadly redundant in the lead work department. Rasmussen and Ellis are fucking beasts though. Think Morbid Angel at their Altars… or Blessed… best (minus a lot of the swarming chaos) and you are on the right track.

Confidence feels high on this record and the inclusion of an instrumental track in the exact middle of the record shows this. In an otherwise manic riffest of a record, some clean strings are quite striking in their arrival, especially given their off-kilter tuning. This track too ends up a nefarious mass of riffs which introduces the second (and for me better) half of the record.

For the front end of the album, Vitriol appears to be setting pace only. From Weaponized Loss onwards is where they truly hit their stride, however. This track is the first one where the chaos gets some order applied to it, some discernible structure alongside those diving, blackened melodies that works to a truly overwhelming effect. As the backend of the album continues, tracks seem to grow in stature; that earlier confidence seemingly taking on new heights of assurance making this part of the album the domineering force. In some regards, this gift could be considered a curse as if the whole of the album matched the virility of the last five tracks, then we would have a real contender for album of the year here. As it happens the first half of the record feels unfulfilled by way of comparison.

The clear highlights of the record for me are the final two tracks. Both, I Am Every Enemy and He Will Fight Savagely see the band finally pull all that potential promised on Weaponized Loss and hone into perfect death metal music. Bearing in mind that this is their sophomore release, the potential for Vitriol to grow into a modern death metal behemoth feels tangible and wholly realistic. If they can maintain a stable line up then these guys could well be unstoppable come album number three.

By the middle of the 1990's, I was absolutely obsessed with extreme metal to the point where my entire life virtually revolved around it. I had finished high school at the end of 1993 & was now attending an Electrical Engineering course at the local TAFE college during the week but the reality is that I couldn't have cared less about that & was 100% focused on living a life of metal glory. My tape trading addiction had grown so intense that there were few major bands that I wasn't well across so I'd begun searching out ever more underground acts in order to secure that much sought after adrenaline rush. This would lead me to reading a kazillion reviews of little-known artists in order to identify those that might offer me some level of appeal & it would be through a very positive write-up in Terrorizer magazine that I'd uncover Dutch death metallers Altar whose debut album "Youth Against Christ" was being touted as the most evil thing since Deicide's highly celebrated first effort. Ironically, Deicide were very much like gods to me at that point in time so a statement like that was always gonna see my interest being peaked & I'd find myself very quickly racing to the local record store to order my imported CD copy of Altar's first full-length which would arrive a month or so later. Unfortunately though, it didn't make the impact that I'd hoped & I'd end up casting it aside after a few listens in favour of more accomplished releases. It wasn't that it was bad as such. It was just an also-ran in the grand scheme of the thriving death metal market of the early-to-mid 1990's, a third-tier release that was obscured by the dazzling array of more significant ones. It's been three decades since I listened to "Youth Against Christ" now though so I thought I'd give it another chance to impress me this week. Perhaps I'd been too harsh on it given the landscape at the time?

Altar were a five-piece outfit that released a single demo tape called "And God Created Satan to Blame for His Mistakes" in 1992 & maintained the same lineup for their first full-length which was released on Dutch extreme metal label Displeased Records in 1994. The album was recorded at Franky's Recording Kitchen in Nieuwleusen during March & April of that year with Berthus Westerhuys & Dead Head/Asphyx/Beyond Belief guitarist Ronnie van der Wey sharing the production duties. Westerhuys was a very experienced & well credentialed contributor to the Dutch metal scene & the result that the duo managed to produce here is very clean & precise for a debut from a relatively unknown act which has perhaps given Altar the extra initiative it needed to reach people such as myself who resided on the other side of the globe. I have to admit that it certainly sounds like a decent death metal record which has given the band a great opportunity to make a significant dent in the scene. The guitars are very tightly performed with the blast beats of former God Dethroned drummer Marco Arends remaining well-articulated & cleanly presented throughout while the vocals of front man Edwin Kelder sit comfortably over the top. The basslines of Nils Vos are probably the only loser in this space as they aren't exactly highlighted in the mix but you can certainly feel the bottom end so there's very little to complain about in relation to the production.

Altar's main calling card is their anti-religious & unapologetically Satanic lyrical approach which was likely the reason I encountered them in the first place. With titles such as "Jesus Is Dead!", "Divorced From God", "Hypochristianity" & "Cauterize the Church Council", Altar weren't exactly subtle about their attitudes towards the Christian faith & one gets the impression that they'd been majorly influenced by Deicide in that regard because there a whole bunch of musical references to the Florida's most blasphemous group of nutcases here too. I'm just not sure it's anywhere near as believable as it is with Deicide whose self-titled debut sits amongst the most intimidating records of all time. It probably doesn't help that Kelder's lyrics are so blatant in their approach as there's no sense of poetic artistry about them. They're far more obvious than that but Kelder's vocals are reasonably decent with his delivery being more of an angry bark than a growl. The song structures are quite ambitious compared to the lyrical themes with the track durations being a lot longer than they needed to be. Many of the songs simply feel like they've been needlessly extended. There's enough brutality here to keep me interested though & I think Altar are at their best when they're really going for it. Their mid-tempo material seems to highlight their limitations a little more while the guitar solos of Marcel van Haaf & Bert Huisjes are fairly primitive, lacking a bit of class, polish & control. 

Altar's rhythm section were originally a part of another short-lived Dutch death metal band by the name of Manticore who produced a single 1990 demo tape called "Cauterize the Church Council" & it would seem that the duo didn't harbour any loyalties to their former band mates as they've taken a couple of the tracks from that obscure cassette across to Altar in the title track & "Psycho Damn", the latter having already been re-recorded for the "And God Created Satan to Blame for His Mistakes" demo. A couple of the better tracks from the record were taken from that demo tape too in opener "Throne of Fire" & "Forced Imprudence", both which sit amongst my album highlights along with "Divorced From God". It's interesting that Altar had been around for a good six years by the time the album was recorded so one gets the distinct impression that their material needed a fair while to mature & develop. There aren't any weak numbers included though with the shiny production job doing a good job at allowing the weaker material to offer some sort of appeal, even if there are definitely some parts of the album that are obviously lacking in sophistication & ambition. I just think that Altar needed to focus on what they do best which is blast away with relentless abandon rather than trying to be too clever. I don't think that they ARE all that clever & it kinda shows during the more subdued moments.

I think it's fair to say that "Youth Against Christ" was up against some formidable competition at the time so it's easy to be a bit harsh on it. It's not a bad death metal record after all. It's just not an outstanding one so I don't think it would have made too many end-of-year lists. Displeased Records were obviously hoping that Altar's Satanic imagery would be enough to see Altar receiving a level of underground notoriety but I don't think they sounded authentic enough to see that eventuating & they ended up drifting off into obscurity after this album. In fact, I don't think I've heard any of their other releases & they're still around today as far as I'm aware. Still... you could do a lot worse than "Youth Against Christ" & I'd suggest that most of our The Horde members will get a bit of mindless enjoyment out of it.

For fans of Deicide, Infestdead & Sinister.

My relationship with Katatonia has been distant at best. As documented in my review of their debut, it took many, many moons before I finally got to grips with it. In terms of the rest of their discography, well, I was approaching it at the same pace that I had the debut until recent life events led me to look for some music with a little more of an emotional connection to reflect my strife. Soon, The Fall of Hearts was not only on consistent rotation, but it more or less immediately adorned a spot in my vinyl collection.

I do not often listen to alternative metal, and although I get the connection here, still I do not feel The Fall of Hearts is necessarily justified of this tagging. Playing as a progressive rock record in the main, the album is certainly not my usual bag of extreme metal listening. Its more challenging aspects are still what draw me in though. That awkward structuring that forbids catchiness without sacrificing memorability is a welcome inclusion for me. Similarly, the expression of feelings, without the grandiose and minus the tedium is an honest share that I can acknowledge and respect in equal amounts. There are still some big riffs in here that inject real depth into tracks, often unexpectedly. A solemn and yet obvious bass presence also has great effect on proceedings, keeping the mournful and sorrowful themes of the album true against a background of solid if not all that remarkable drumming.

Vocally, I should not get on with Jonas Renke’s vocal style, having a usual disdain for clean vocals sung by a less than tuneful vocalist. However, his monotone style with those occasional harmonies that only half work is well suited and only adds to my enjoyment. The lyrics are what speak to me more however in terms of their content, seeped heavily in themes of uncertainty and turmoil, Jonas’ vocals only seek to enhance the appeal for me. I was not looking for something soulful, more the need was for an honest, rawer expression without the instrumentation necessarily leading this for once.

Suffice to say that this album struck the correct chord with me at the perfect time, standing out from the wealth of other music I was going through at the time to try and find some connection with. There truly is no greater feeling than finding such a record and on reflection I can honestly only say that this has happened on a handful of occasions over the years. Getting on for nearly forty years of listening to music, this has been a very unexpected yet incredibly rewarding find.