Vinny's Reviews

The huge and rather grandiose logo for the band does no justice to the actual sound of Departure Chandelier.  Whilst there most certainly is a majesty to their sound it is a dank and drab majesty that manages to capture the core and basic elements of conventional black metal alongside dungeon synth and choral elements as well.  This four track demo from 2020 follows the success of their debut full length from the previous year which I am already getting on rotation along with their first demo from 2019 also which tracks a similar format to Dripping Papal Blood.

With an intro and outro track dedicated entirely to dungeon synth, we only have two tracks proper for DC to express their grim and grime-ridden black metal.  Thankfully, even over such a short format, they manage to impress us without seemingly breaking a sweat.  It is clear that the demo format allows for them to rely purely on the raw and slightly muffled/suppressed sound as opposed to being invested in any high level of production values.  They intelligently let the synths create atmosphere in keeping with the religious theme of the demo overall but they are also really strong with the riffs here as well.  The only element that feels a little too far removed from proceedings is the drums.  Whilst audible, they are only just so, a lot of the time they are just a "tishing" entity in the background and far more rhythm is developed from the guitar work as opposed to any real percussive input from the sticks.

Deploying a tried and tested rasping vocal style, the lyrics are sung as tortured incantations that compliment both the harsh bm on offer as well as the more atmospheric moments.  Clocking in at just over thirteen minutes, Dripping Papal Blood is memorable and departs leaving me with a real sense of closure as the minimalist synths count out the death knell of the outro track.  This has proven to be a very good find and holds much promise for me as I explore their wider discography.  I would recommend their debut demo The Black Crest of Death, The Gold Wreath of War for anyone who finds this format pleasing enough.

I have always struggled with Amon Amarth.  Notwithstanding that melodic death metal is not my thing at all, the Swedes continuous levels of praise is nothing short of baffling given that every song I hear by them sounds exactly the same.  I had spent time in the past with a couple of albums of theirs (Twilight of the Thunder God and Surtur Rising) and just got not get beyond seeing them being little more than background music.  In weighing up the options for this month's Review Draft for The Horde I clocked this, their debut full length release and had heard high praise for it being "brutal" and "glorious" so I decided to see if the band started out any better than they currently sound.

I would open the main part of my review by saying that the aspirations to be "glorious" are really obvious on Once Sent From the Golden Hall.  There is - even at this early stage in their career - an ambition to deliver songs on a grandiose and epic level and that is something I cannot help but recognise and acknowledge.  With track lengths ranging from four to eight minutes, Amon Amarth try to pack out their song writing with story telling being the main provision being utilised.  With the theatrics of the sound of a battle echoing around the middle section of the track Amon Amarth, the band make no bones about the grandiosity of their ideas and at least try to throw something different in there away from their familiar musical style.

The problem with all this ambition is that both the musicianship and the production job are of such a poor standard that the delivery of the promise is just a football field away from the planned intent.  Former Opeth drummer, Martin Lopez was part of Amon Amarth at this point in their career and considering the stature he attained with Opeth over seven albums, none of that promise is even hinted at here in 1998.  His timing is terrible and on more than one occasion he is behind the rest of the instruments and appears to be more than a tad over-eager on the hi-hats and cymbals as well.  The twin guitar attack of Hansson and Mikkonen sounds exactly the same as it does today in fairness and the only real drawback to this (aside from the fact that I hate the tone) is that they are drowned out in the main by Johan Hegg's vocals.  In fact Hegg gets by far the best treatment by the production and mixing job and his vocals really standout on here (how could they not) and for the first time I thought how more befitting they would be in a black metal act than in a melodic death metal band, but still, they are far too dominant here even if they do at times serve to hide Lopez's misgivings behind the drumkit.

In all OSFtGH is a triumph of design over content and is the final nail in the coffin for me and Amon Amarth as I doubt I will ever take any other opportunity to explore anymore of their releases since their debut just confirms that like the rest of their discography that I have experienced, Amon Amarth are simply not for me. 

The British death metal scene is littered with ugly as fuck underground acts that never seem to find the cold light of day in terms of getting picked up by any of the bigger music labels.  On a recent dm splurge I picked up on Vacuous and their brand of "caverndeath" which instantly reminded me of Grave Miasma minus some of the obvious experience that GM possesses within their ranks.  Katabasis is a riff infested beast for fans of walls of chopping and bruising death metal riffing and to be honest that is just about the extent of the offering over the twenty minutes that the band give us on this debut EP release.  

You are not going to find much in the way of variation here folks.  This is just a straight up, head off and shit down neck affair that fills the depths that it creates with a lot of the same stuff.  Sure there are slower sections that creep into existence to provide some respite from the monstrous riffing and there is argument to say that over a short format such as this, any more atmospherics would certainly suck momentum out of the Incantation-like fury that dominates the release in the main.  However, it is hard work to try and separate out individual tracks here as it stands, such is the level of consistency on show.

Although I probably will not revisit Katabasis beyond the three listens I have given it to formulate enough of an opinion to write this review, I am intrigued enough to hear what the debut full length from last month sounds like with a slightly longer run time to play with.  Although not a bad release by any means, Vacuous' debut EP feels just like a tick-box affair and as such gets appreciative nods without straying anywhere near the realm of excitement for me to give it much more than a cursory glance.

Notwithstanding that it is a non-metal release (and complete commercial sellout material to boot), Dr Feelgood was one the first vinyl records I owned.  A shopping trip with my grandparents wound up with me returning home with this and a copy of Hot in the Shade by Kiss under my arm.  How times have changed!  To pour further cold water on my extreme metal head credentials, this record still stands up to this day, some 30 years after it’s release, as being one the best examples of cock-rock that ever saw the light of day.

Dr Feelgood was brash, bold and unashamed in 1989 and it has carried that weight all the way through to 2022 as far as I am concerned.  I can recite the album track by track in my head, such was it’s infectious nature and also in no small part due to how much I have played this record over the years.  Nothing else from Vince and co has ever stuck with me and as the eighties fell into history it was this album that acted as my one time gateway album into a band whose discography has otherwise remained alien to me.  From the grandiose opening and title track, through to the catchy tropes of Kickstart My Heart and the cheesy as fuck Without You, this album just had mass appeal madness written all over it.

Sounding every bit as sleazy as that artwork suggests, Dr Feelgood delivers exactly what it says it will from the very off and rarely slips away into anything any less captivating.  Whether you view it as guilty pleasure or not (no guilt here folks) the pure nostalgia this album evokes in me is enough to get it 3 stars as a minimum, but there really is so much more than that on offer here and I continue to play this with a smile on my face some three decades after I first heard it.

Portugal has never been a country with whom I would associate having a vibrant black metal scene. A quick Google of “Portuguese black metal bands” turns up a multitude of bands who I must confess to never having heard of before. Gaerea have carved themselves a fond place in my heart over the past couple of releases, not only topping the chart of “most listened to Portuguese black metal artist” but also being my favourite modern black metal band. Whereas I have listened to and soon got tired of Mgla and Uada, Gaerea have managed to grow stronger and more intriguing over subsequent releases without having to undertake any major directional shifts.

What appeals most about these guys is their focus on intensity. Mirage is a taut affair from start to finish given its microscopic scrutiny of human emotions it has a value to it that can only be counted in hearts and minds won as it is a record that deserves more than just to be listened to. Given the great leap forwards that Gaerea undertook from Unsettling Whispers to Limbo it is refreshing to see the same happen again some two years later. Creatively, the quintet is unstoppable it seems, their prowess for appealing and contemporary black metal delivery seemingly knowing no bounds.

Limbo was an assured and consistent record; nobody can undermine the importance of a good sophomore release and Gaerea certainly were aware of this also. However, where their second album fell short of outright success (largely due to its meandering length at times) the four stars I awarded it in my review reflected the undeniable promise that it captured, promise that has come to full fruition on Mirage.

As the post metal vibes of album opener Memoir get dispersed by the shunt of cold and abrasive black metal that heralds the true arrival of the album, there is little doubt that this album brings an impact that is based entirely on its ability to immerse you in the torrid depths of its candour. As mentioned earlier, Gaerea need not rely on directional changes to make their mark on their third – and strongest – album. The best way to describe Gaerea is as being like a stab wound being repeatedly deal in the same area. There is no widening of the wound, no expansion to the length of the incision. Instead, each stab goes deeper and deeper, reaching for the vital organs, exposing more and more lifeblood.

Mirage is thus far the best thing I have heard this year and easily the best bm release of the year, but its success transcends mere personalised list rankings. Mirage is the output of a band at the top of their game. A band maturing faster than anyone who has followed them from the start really expected. Where they go next is the exciting part though.

I am going to come right out and say it. It is criminal that I have been unaware of this record for the last eight years. Given I already went in for a vinyl purchase within two weeks of hearing it for the first time, this should be evidence enough of my desire to rectify this wrong. First off, although I get the Mayhem, Abigor, Dissection and even Deathspell Omega vibes, I do think this is one of the most refreshing and unique black metal albums I have ever heard.

It flirts with the progressive elements throughout the experience without ever showing full on commitment to them in the long term. The always audible bass casts some aspersions about the progressive tendencies of the record in that I do not think that it always intends to sound progressive. Unlike with Onirik (another one of my unique favourite finds from recent years) this bass is not always climbing or expanding the ether of the music intentionally. In short, it is just well played and well placed in the arrangements and overall mix.

Of course, there is a lot more to Lvcifer Liber… than just the bass. The guitars fill the very air around them with their (again) progressive melodicism and warm Hellenic style. When combined with the passages of chant and mantras they work well together to build a lush and uncomfortable cosiness to the two short instrumental tracks that open sides A and B of the record. Early in the record it becomes clear that Thy Darkened Shade can be rhythmic machine when the tendency takes them. With an almost black ‘n roll catchiness they can move from occult driven atmospheres to infectiously memorable passages with adhesive-like qualities.

Drummer Hannes Grossman (credited only in a “guest” capacity) gives a great performance, varying between blastbeats and more measured elements he shows a real array of skills over an hour and near twenty minutes. This is not a rampant display by any means – his impact is much more subtle and considered in comparison to the rest of the instrumentation. With Semjaza handling everything else barring vocals, it is left to the mysterious The A to add a very Mayhemesque influence to the construct. I did find the vocals to be the weaker part of the machine initially, largely because they were so predictable, but they are well balanced with the cleaner mantras from Semjaza that I soon concluded that overall, they work without them necessarily needing to be on a par with everything else that is going on.

This is an album that rewards with repeated visits, subtly pushing your experience of the boundary expansion with each return listen. For me at first it just sounded like a melodic bm record with some clever parts but it is a lot more calculated than that and it has taken me seven or eight listens to truly get my head around what I have now proudly adorning the shelves of my vinyl collection.

Review Draft for The Horde this month sees me taking on Spanish death metallers Graveyard and their debut EP Into the Mausoleum which is actually just their first demo from 12 months earlier as far as I can make out.  I am genuinely unsure if this is re-recorded or even remixed in all honesty as the production job is far from top notch.  From the start there is a very Swedish vibe to the tempos on this record.  Not that it sounds particularly Swedish in terms of the crunch of that guitar as such, but you will still get those Dismember and Entombed tropes from the off with a healthy dose of Bolt Thrower for good measure also.  Certainly at this early stage in their career there is an Autopsy-like clumsiness to proceedings, suggesting that some accomplishment to the playing was yet to be realised.

At a shade under 24 minutes it is hard to come to much of a conclusion on Graveyard based on this one release.  They certainly make all the right noises for any fan of death metal to be endeared to them but with two tracks being  instrumentals and another being a cover of Death's Zombie Ritual , I would suggest this is not a fair representation of what the band no doubt have become in the fifteen years that have passed since this was released.  When they are in full flow on the four tracks that have lyrics and their own content they are capable of delivering some pretty decent if not cluttered arrangements.  The immaturity does hold them back though and that production job is not kind to the drums in particular which sound like a mere afterthought in the mix.

They have a fair crack at that Death cover but do little justice to it whilst managing to avoid massacring it overall.  Looking at their scores on future albums they notch up some decent praise over the years so it may be worth me taking a punt on a later album to see how good these guys turned out in later years but for now I shall just note Into the Mausoleum as being a solid if unremarkable start for them.

The Review Draft feature this month served its purpose well. Needless are a completely new offering to me and one that probably need a hall of judgement submission (no, I am not) as they offer an intriguing if not altogether functional slant to thrash/death/progressive metal. To start with, the band are Hungarian and although noted as being active since 2004, it was not until 2019 that they released their debut full length.

Heresy is an energetic if not jerky affair in the main. It flits from idea to idea as though alluding to a level of progression that the band are not quite capable of achieving. Time changes are not always the smoothest of transitions (and I get that they are not always supposed to be) with the sense being that things are just piled on top of one another as opposed to being arranged in a clever and challenging way.

Although it lacks finesse, the album is by no means unpleasant to listen to. I will not pretend to like all the eight tracks on here, the level of progressive influence makes the album too jarring an experience overall for me to be able to highlight individual tracks as being standout moments. That having been said the technical prowess aligns on enough occasion for sections of songs to shine (Sky Burial, for example has some memorable sections). Vocalist Ádám Forczek is consistent throughout and has an aggressive yet ultimately predictable style that does not entirely do justice to the more accomplished guitar work of Fogl Botond and Tamás Bárány by way of comparison.

I would describe this as "grown up" technical/progressive - melodic - death/thrash metal that is being done by teenagers not yet at a level of maturity that matches the ambition of the group. Album number two just dropped in 2022 I noticed during my research for this review and I would not be averse to checking that out to hear if they have polished the edges of their song writing prowess enough to really be able to shine.

I must confess to not having heard the debut album by Cirith Gorgor for a good while. A brief look at my spreadsheet where I log all my collection showed me that I had this album as a five out of five rating. SPOILER ALERT – it isn’t. This record had a bit of a cult following back on the old Terrorizer forums and I can sort of see why. The blazing Battles in the North intensity of Immortal, the relentless attack of Gorgoroth and the misanthropic attitude of Marduk all shine through on this record. Similarly, the crude sense of melody deployed by the likes of Sargeist rings around my head for most of Onwards to the Spectral Defile.

That cult status does not strike me as all that valid – certainly in 2022 anyways. Released in 1999, this album dropped long after the heyday of the bm scene and so I hear nothing that I had not heard already from any of the above-mentioned bands. Gorgoroth had peaked long before this record, Marduk lead the way in the intensity stakes as Immortal embraced the more epic aspect of bm in the very same year Cirith Gorgor released this, their debut album. The thought occurs to me that CG just arrived late to the party and wondered where everyone else had gone.

History lesson aside, is OttSD any good? Well, yes, it is. If you like a dose of 90’s scathing black metal with some melody (clumsily) applied, then this is for you. Does the scope of the ambition outweigh the ability to deliver it? Yes, it does. Is the production job a little too high value for the aesthetic they try to portray? Probably. It is still a decent enough an effort for a debut album though and I am being more than a little unkind to it by berating it in terms of historical reference alone. Enjoy this album for what it is and not when it should have been released.

I am not averse to experimentation. Indeed, some of my favourite artists enjoy such status because they can push boundaries and invent new angles and perspectives on classic sounds that I have been familiar with from as far back as my formative years in metal in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Taking a relevant geographical reference for this review Blut Aus Nord are a successful French bm band who have continually incorporated more ambient yet also industrial sounds into their once very conventional atmo-bm sound. I actively seek vinyl copies of BAN records; such is the value I attribute to them.

Spektr are just mental by way of comparison. They appear to be billed as a bm band with industrial and ambient influence when the reality is that they are a confusing mishmash of all the above that gets jazz, down-tempo and a multitude of spoken word clips and samples thrown in to boot. They constantly use this bizarre, warped guitar riff (the same one, for nine tracks – barring the intro tracks) and use a stop/start arrangement to the album structure allowing shorter transitional pieces to introduce longer tracks. This gets disorientating, even without the “piled-on” nature of the track content that runs for anything up to 11 minutes in some instances.

They have drums on here apparently. I say “apparently” because I cannot hear them half the time. They struggle to successfully find purchase in most tracks and sound completely drowned in the mix and lost altogether on many occasions. This may well have been a conscious decision; I am not suggesting that this is due to accidental production quirks. The duo who recorded this want the guitar and horrific atmospheres to take centre stage, I get that. However, unlike with MoRT from the French icons BAN, there is no dissonance for me to track throughout Cypher. Granted that riff I mentioned makes a play for the benchmark element, but it does not quite carry the same hold as the haunting dissonance that BAN conjure.

The industrial vibes are also not that strong to my ears. I mean they are there most definitely, but I am not left feeling I have endured a punishing or all that taxing journey through the usual assorted clangs, clashes, and mining detail of an outright industrial-influenced record. I think this is due to the strong bass presence that seems to mute these harsher edges somewhat. The bass seems to be the most chilled element of proceedings following a more relaxed jazz vibe, again which maybe an intentional thing but it just creates too much of an opposite for the combination to work for me.

Now, note that at no point in this review have I called out Cypher as being a bad album. In fact, if I wanted some background music it works brilliantly; this most certainly is not an album to sit and listen to with nothing else going on at the time. It is a flawed album that lacks the maturity to balance conflicting elements correctly. In order to blend elements like this successfully you would need to be much more extreme than this and as such Cypher feels like an album that is pulling me in more than one direction as a result of it not being able to define its own direction.

Reaching for YouTube to complete an album review is a sign either that the album is old or bad that nobody ever sought means to re-release it at any point. Land of Mystery falls under the old category most definitely to the point where it sounds older than it is. Whether this was a conscious effort or more because the budget was non-existent and so they had to make do with whatever they could get will probably never be known. One thing that I can state with a high level of confidence is that Black Hole could not play their instruments (I mean they can’t even keep time) and it is painful to listen to the record at certain points.

It is so painful an experience that I am breaking my rule of listening to something three times as a minimum before reviewing it because I am not sitting through this shit again. Singer Robert Measles cannot sing. Somehow still there are occasions when his vocals work, and the haunting drone of his voice compliments the aesthetic that they are trying to deliver. The rest of the time they are just awful noises that hold no real direction or structure.

Without any strong musicianship to rescue his vocals there is not much in the way of space to hide but I do still find myself looking up from what I am doing captured in some occasional moment of ethereal atmosphere that is usually instantly ruined by the band trying to play something a little too complex for their capabilities. The drums cannot be played on a real drumkit and still sound that light and ineffective, I am sure. The stringed instrument playing is all over the place and the concept of arrangements in general is shocking.

Albums like this really annoy me. They exist on little if any merit of the musicians involved and achieve some cult status from being quirky or by some fluke sounding like a much more highly regarded band from years ago. Terrible album.

Finally, I get around to Tiamat after several decades of somehow missing (or simply not remembering) them. Picking them up when firmly in their death/doom phase on Clouds I find an album that should – on paper at least – appeal to me. Hearing those gloomy riffs and b-movie horror synthesisers on opening track In A Dream certainly seems to indicate that I will enjoy this and…WAIT, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?? That voice, is that Stephen Hawking saying, “in a dream”? That can’t be planned right? The tape has gotten mixed up with an audiobook somewhere on the production line surely.

Joking aside, after a few listens at least, the odd vocal delivery of the chorus line on the opening track retains some quirky value at least. If I am honest, the whole of Clouds has some vocal challenges for me in the sense that I find Johan Edlund to be a lazy sounding vocalist. I get that he is supposed to sound full of despair and hopelessness, but I find that he just sounds like he cannot be bothered in all honesty. His vocals appear to be an afterthought on most tracks, like they somehow forgot to record them with everything else and then had to track them at the last minute.

Luckily, there are some merits to the instrumentation to note that manage to detract away from Edlund’s half-hearted efforts. The guitars have a suitably mournful tone to them, and the use of keyboards is applied well to tracks to give a real depth to that gloomy atmosphere. It is not difficult upon hearing Clouds to understand how Tiamat moved onto their more gothic climes in latter years. The melancholic elements on the record lack any grandiosity overall but certainly hark to a more emotional performance than a mere death/doom vibe.

A Caress of Stars might be the better of the tracks on offer here with its patient and enveloping growth, torturing the listener by offering no real crescendo in the end albeit that the promise of such is hinted at in the song structure. If you can cope with Edlunds vocals, then Clouds is an album that rewards you for sticking with it as it continually delivers on a dank level of comforting consistency as it slopes its way over eight tracks. The drums are really striking throughout the album and have a chunky edge to them that gives them a real strong presence in proceedings. There isn’t anything particularly standout about them in terms of technicality, they just hit the spot consistently well.

The mood of the album is its ultimate triumph. To be able to provide something – anything – to distract from those vocals is a tall order to deliver, and Tiamat thankfully could rely on their musicianship to save what would otherwise have been a real struggle for this pair of ears to get through.

For some reason I thought Liege Lord had been around for ages and churned out multiple releases. Instead, I can see they managed just three full lengths in approx. 4 years. Having started as a Judas Priest covers band (under the name Deceiver) in the early 80’s, they evolved into a speed metal (of sorts) act around 1984.

Straight out of the traps on their third and (to date) final album the six string antics of Paul Nelson and Tony Truglio are the standout section for me. They are both listed as lead guitarists which might explain the high level of energy that comes across from the off. The riffs are urgent yet varied enough to incorporate some of the more traditional heavy metal familiarity which is also obvious in the voice of Joseph Comeau who avoids the diluted sounding vocals that plagues this sub-genre so often and instead has a kind of hoarse and gruff heavy metal/more aggressive Sammy Hagar style throat.

Frank Cortese sounds like he is having an absolute blast on the drums, but I feel he is at the mercy of the mix in some regards and is a little too far back in proceedings. As a unit, there is a sense of cohesion here that makes for an entertaining album that never really gets up into the realms of being exceptional. At times they do go a bit Van Halen (Feel the Blade) with more catchy and diluted structures taking precedent. As such I do not class this as a speed metal record end to end. In fact, from pretty much the halfway point there is a real change of direction on the record. A change for the worse in my book.

This is disappointing given how well the album starts through the first four tracks. When we get snippets of this early promise returning (Rapture) it is surpassed by some below par song writing and cluttered arrangements in track. The loose references to some NWOBHM plod do nothing concrete enough to cement this release as being one that is consciously trying to show variety and it just seems to show the limitations of the band’s influences. Closing track, Fallout starts like some power ballad with the heavy blues influence on the lead work giving way to a more aggressive format which seems still to be more about being showy as opposed to exerting any real quality control.

Symphonic death-metallers Septicflesh are a hit and miss band for me across the various parts of their discography that I have heard. They occupy that space on the very outskirts of my radar whereby if they release something it will largely go unnoticed with the occasional track appearing on playlists at some point, briefly causing me to pause to listen, usually decide it is nothing new in terms of their standard grandiose arrangements that I find go nowhere in the end. All mouth and no trousers is a phrase that springs to mind whenever I am faced with a Septicflesh release.

Everybody must start somewhere of course and back in the mid-nineties the Greeks had a much more death/doom trajectory about their direction. Their second full-length Έσοπτρον (translated to Epsotron meaning “inner view/mirror”) is full of mournful melodies on the guitar with the support of melancholic keys for good measure. Both these elements drive the record forwards in a mix that leaves the drums firmly at the back of the studio and the vocals being hoarsely uttered somewhere just in front of them.

Upon first listen, Έσοπτρον sounds like virtually the same track played in the same order around nine times with the only real variance being the intro (Breaking the Inner Seal) and the medieval tropes of instrumental track, Celebration. Repeated listens – albeit slowly – dispel this notion as you come to understand that whilst subtle in nature, the nuances between tracks are there, you just must be patient in discovering them. I soon got to finding the album possessing an ethereal beauty after a handful of listens, despite there being some sections that step away from death metal (Ice Castle, which plays like some bastardised epic heavy metal track) for large portions of their run time. On their sophomore album, Septicflesh had a keen sense of dark harmony amongst their lead elements, and it is not hard to understand when listening to Έσοπτρον how this band elevated themselves into the symphonic powerhouse that we all recognise them to be nowadays.

As with Greek bm, I find the death/doom on display here to be warmer than usual, or certainly a lot softer than contemporaries of the time. Overall, despite the albums positive growth on me, the piercing tones of the lead guitar are overused and (taking into account that it is death/doom) the album lacks enough variety to make this album a standout for the sub-genre or the band overall. Those dungeon-synth moments that haunt the song structures in places are a welcome addition that add depth and atmosphere to proceedings and there is some stellar arrangements on the lead guitar front (So Clean, So Empty) to keep me focused for the whole album. An important if not outstanding release for Septicflesh.

Drama and more specifically theatrics need not always come in the form of sweeping symphonic structures or other such over-the-top gestures of majesty and grandiosity. It is possible to express the raw emotion of your art form with a fair old amount of restraint. In fact, if you get your timings correct and the flow of your music perfected then your messaging kind of takes care of itself.

Polish black metal trio (at the time of this release anyways) are not entirely living up to the literal translation of their name (means “war machine” in German) in terms of their style of black metal. This is no Marduk clone, for example. Parallels instead can be drawn with Mgla (with whom they share a drummer and a guitarist/vocalist) or Aosoth as the six songs on this album cover a fair old bit of ground from the more melodic stylings of the former couple with the more aggressive tendencies of the latter. Despite not living up to the literal meaning of their name in terms of all out velocity of the music they do bring with them the horror of war with their largely grim and relentlessly repetitive salvos of tremolos that constantly pepper the skies around them as if in mid-firefight across the darkest of no-man’s lands.

A decidedly more modern take on black metal as opposed to being more second wave focused, Enemy of Man captures that ringing use of melody span into an ever-present dissonance that heightens the senses of the listener into near perpetual anxiety. Farewell to Grace is a real marauding track in this regard, constantly molesting the ears with its serpentine-like form. The drum patterns of Asceticism and Passion are tribal and ritualistic providing a great sense of drama all by themselves.

All this ever-growing darkness makes for a great listening experience with the summoning of theatre that I referenced at the start of my review sounding largely effortless. I cannot recall many modern black metal albums that I have taken to so quickly after my initial listens. This reminds me of Behemoth without all the bullshit ceremony (and a lot less death metal of course) and just allowed the intensity of the delivery drive everything. For an album full of seven and eight minutes plus tracks, Enemy of Man never gets dull or boring as you can revel in the repetition given that its importance is so integral to the success of the record.

The combination of Darkside’s varied and consistent drumming alongside M’s marauding guitar work is a lesson in vibrant component parts being able to be played side by side without one being at the expense of the other. The vocal contributions of M. and Destroyer round off an excellent overall experience making this 2014 release one of the real overlooked gems for me.

Do not be fooled by that album artwork fellow academics.  It may look like Tribal Gaze should be classified in The Infinite clan but let me assure you that no Hall of Judgement submission is required here folks.  Tribal Gaze are death metal through and through and any thoughts of progression can get to fuck as far as The Nine Choirs is concerned.  These five Texans make catchy as shit death metal on their debut full-length which I discovered via (yep, you guessed it) Maggot Stomp records, a label that continues to churn out savage, arcane and also memorable and accessible death metal on a consistent basis.

Think of an old school reference such as Morbid Angel then add a blend of more modern reference such as Frozen Soul and you are some way to understanding the kind of death metal that Tribal Gaze play.  The riffs are infectious and cutting without ever quite catching 100% of that Swede crunch or being afraid in the albums slower moments to scrape at those sludgier riffs to boot.  Vocally they deploy a cavernous death metal gurn that reminds me of Vastum/Acephalix, all sat on a concrete foundation of percussion and a chunky yet subtly mixed bass rumble to underpin it all.

You'll soon pick up their ability to mix it up and change tempo on the head of a pin, unafraid to accentuate the groove in those riffs at the sacrifice of a bit of blasting.  Dropping in spoken word snippets and old radio music broadcast excerpts every now and again to emphasise the sarcasm behind their message, Tribal Gaze can let props do their work when they decide to do so.  Over thirty-five minutes I just do not stop moving, whether it is exercising my face with a multitude of mindlessly ugly expressions or throwing my arms, head, legs...whatever the fuck can be swung or banged.  A triumph for the simple format of death metal song writing, The Nine Choirs needs no frills and dwells not upon the fact that this most certainly been done before.  It just does what it does best and I love it.

It is not news to anyone that I loves me some nasty, blackened death metal.  I lap that fetid shit up, chomping on the meatier parts with a vigour rivalled only by my cat when she is annihilating the random fish head treats that she gorges upon each morning.  Whilst she is in the kitchen having her daily treat I am up in my lair blasting the fuck out of California's Abhorrency.  Yet another Maggot Stomp label discovery, this three piece celebrate three-years of existence with a debut full-length that is riddled with all manner of vile impurities, from sickening blastbeats to perverse, slobbering vocal exchanges that sound like the caverns of Hades themselves being expunged of their hellish phlegm, Climax of Disgusting Impurities lives up to its name for all thirty-two minutes of its run time.

Do not think it all just mindless bludgeoning here.  Abhorrency mix up the tempo and pace here to truly emphasise the horror of their existence.  Whilst that wall of noise continues to present itself in all its terrifying glory there are slower passages here that seem to prolong the torture for us all, to highlight that there is some thought and calculation behind all of this.  The palate cleanser that is track six that sounds like a palate cleanser done with Ebola is proof of the measuring of the nasty intent behind this record. Yes it is Archgoat-ugly and Portal-chaotic but there is more here to expand the impact of Climax of Disgusting Impurities.  In short, this climax keeps on going for a whole half hour.  

Austrian (largely) one-man black metal project, Anomalie incorporate a varying spectrum of atmospheric and post-black metal stylings into their sound.  With a heavy focus on dreams, spirituality, nature, urban life, emotions and social criticism you can predict that it is no Immortal clone.  Instead it has an almost gothic undertone to the modern bm take that dominates the 6 tracks (including one NiN/Jonny Cash cover - which is awful) and manages to hit some rich veins of ethereal melody along the way.  My main issue is with the vocals, they are too clean for my liking given the rather naïve and cringey lyrical skills that where on show for this debut release.  It feels like too overt an expression of emotion that is dramatic for drama's sake and I found myself hitting the skip button at least twice during the listen throughs of this.

Well Age of Taurus are early evidence that doom metal might just be for me after all.  Desperate Souls of Tortured Times is a hefty slab of epic doom metal that stretches its legs in terms of varying pace over seven tracks of lengthy yet never arduous duration.  At their best they are a psychedelic-edged doom behemoth and the standout track by far for me is the mournful and dank Walk With Me My Queen which is superbly situated in the middle of the album.  At the same time they are guilty of the odd meander as well with penultimate track Embrace the Stone not really bringing any value during its eight minute runtime despite a really promising start.

The racy Desperate Souls is an example of where the band can comfortably ditch the traditional doom metal tag and go a little more up tempo without sacrificing that looming menace that those twin guitars bring to the table.  The vocals are actually a great fit for me and I like how the bass is just as audible as everything else here.  It is albums like this that cast my recent history with heavy metal in a new light.  I have a feeling that if I had pursued this path sooner with the more epic doom metal sound then I could have tied together the two sub-genres better without now having to explore one at the expense of the other.  There is a rumbling coolness to DSoTT that sacrifices none of the youthful vigour of true heavy metal yet in fact manages to add a great level of esotericism to proceedings and although it is early on in my exploration of The Fallen clan this realisation of where my path has perhaps come to a premature end with heavy metal is certainly causing much reflection of my listening habits over the years when doom has gone largely neglected as a listening option.

There are lots of Master of Reality style structures here and this can only be a good thing in my book.  That slumbering groove to the guitars scratches a real itch for me and when in full flow this is a razor sharp unit.  I can see they underwent something of a line-up change for album number two (which is on my radar) so will be interesting to see how consistent these guys are, but with Leo Smee of Cathedral fame in the band there is an element of real promise ahead of me checking out their sophomore release, built from this solid foundation stone also.

If you hold any hope for thrash metal in 2022 then stay away from The Sick, The Dying …and The Dead. Do not take the time to listen to its half-hearted, lazily written and largely flat compositions. Pay no attention to Dave Mustaine’s lacklustre vocal delivery (seriously – I know the guy has been ill and is getting on, but the vocals here are not good, it comes to something when the best performance he puts in is on the bonus track cover of a Dead Kennedy’s song). Dedicate no effort to listen to a band that wrote proficient music such as Hangar 18 at one time but now can barely string together any level of technical prowess beyond the occasional half decent solo.

Even during their less thrashy releases such as Youthanasia they still managed to breed an energy level that took their heavy metal musings to a reasonable level of intensity to be entertaining. In returning to their thrash roots in recent years at least, Megadeth had managed to bring some of that catchiness and memorability with them. However, on album number sixteen they somehow manage to lose both catchiness and ability in absolute droves. Structures all seem to morph into messy and directionless efforts at speed metal having started every now and again with the hope of some true thrashing fury that dissipates as the band try unsuccessfully to express the range of their skills.

Look, Mustaine and Loureiro can play – we know that. However, all the widdly wankery in the world will not save this album and boy do they try. DiGiorgio might as well not be here, as with most Megadeth releases, I can barely hear the bass anyways. Verbeuren just seems to quietly sit in the corner tapping his way through the album, not making any real splash in the pool barring an occasional burst on the skins. On the extended (pain) version I had the misfortune of sitting through there is a terrible cover of a Sammy Hagar song (fucking Sammy Hagar??) that features Sammy Hagar for some reason. And this is what Megadeth have become after nearly forty years of existence? Gone are the reputable sneers at society, politics, and culture. Replaced instead by laughable cabaret turns from special guest “star” performers who should have long since given up the ghost (although the inclusion of Ice T on a track adds a little bit of credibility to an otherwise reputational disaster of a record).

Dystopia was not perfect by any means, but after Super Collider and Thirteen it offered hope for the Megadeth machine in the sense that it had a fair old selection of decent chops and felt like it was put together with some meaning. By comparison TSTDaTD is a giant step backwards that fails to capture the vitality of its predecessor let alone capitalise on it.

I feel enough has probably been said already about Electric Wizard on most internet review sites in terms of the (deserved) adulation they received for the likes of Dopethrone or Come My Fanatics. For a period, Electric Wizard seemed to be everywhere, occupying endless “What are you listening to?” or “Recent Purchases” threads on the various internet forums I frequented some ten years ago. There was a sense that they were a band who could do no wrong (although the same collective conscience on the internet all seemed to simultaneously recognise the failure that was Wizard Bloody Wizard), a group who had hit their sweet spot in the realm of occult-ridden stoner/doom metal and consistently churned out the cursed vibes to the baying masses.

After a brief break from metal back in the late noughties I returned to the scene and decided it was time to bring Electric Wizard into my world. Never having really explored any stoner/doom metal before, Black Masses was the record that almost tipped me into the world we all know here as The Fallen. I played the shit out of this record, mostly because I was flat broke and my listening choices were limited (at least until I discovered Bandcamp anyways), but also because for the first time the hazy darkness and fuzz that emanated from this record soaked me up and I simply ‘got it’. Black Masses was one of those records that just clicked with me, better then anything else that I have listened to by the band – even the mighty Dopethrone.

To this day I still find desultory comfort in the arms of Venus in Furs, still feel a nerdy coolness to the b-movie atmospherics that imbue the whole hour run time of the record; Black Masses more than makes me want to shut all my curtains in the middle of the day and watch endless Hammer Horror! Rarely moving beyond a death march plod throughout eight tracks, Electric Wizard still manage to provide consistent entertainment without breaking that much of a sweat. What sounds lacklustre or half-hearted to some is in fact evidence that EW did what they did so naturally back then that they could afford themselves a little bit of arrogance in their playing.

Who cares that Patterns of Evil is more than a tad cumbersome in its arrangement, the multitude of component parts clashing with each other at various points, when it all sounds so disturbingly relaxing at the same time? A lot of the success here for me is down to Jus Osborn’s vocals. Dialled perfectly into the mix without getting lost in the density of the instruments they act as a creepy and pained accompaniment to the music. The combination of his and his wife Liz Osborn’s leaden riffs are imperative to the sullen and hopeless aspects of Satyr IX, seeped in psychedelia and gloriously comforting in their enshrouding nature.

If finding peace in darkness and dankly lit places is your bag, then there is plenty to go at on Black Masses. It is sombre without being draining, evil without being overtly nefarious and enriching without the need for ‘nice-to-haves’ such as variety and progression to unlock it rewards.

If the album artwork was not clue enough, Abraded play butt-fuck ugly death metal in the vein of pretty much all of Maggot Stomp’s roster. Not content with the bludgeoning best of what death metal has to offer, the Cleveland based trio throw lots of grinding goodness into the mix as well. Things somehow sound clean as a whistle in some places though, despite a filthy production job that gives the requisite levels of grime you would expect, the d-beats that thump away at you brain might as well be in the same room as you when you are listening.

Grisly and vile vocals rasp over mining riffs and rumbling bass lines to give the whole experience a complete feel. At only twenty-minutes long it is over all too quickly and you feel too fetid to put it back on without showering first. Put your scruffs on, this one’s a real platter of splatter guys!  Ugly, extreme and straight to the fucking point!  Fuck yeah!

As I have commenced my exploration of The Fallen clan it seemed sensible to pass comment on this month’s feature release, especially given the high praise it has received to date. The caveat I must add here is that I have sampled Solitude Aeturnus before now and found them not entirely to my liking. I saw these guys come up as a recommendation when searching for bands like Candlemass (who remain my benchmark in doom whom I usually chart my forays from). Stylistically the comparisons are usually spot on I must admit but considering the first four Candlemass albums are my genre-defining releases, Solitude Aeturnus have a lot to live up to.

On Alone I must comment on how nu-metal I find Rob Lowe’s vocals. Not to say that this is alternative or nu-metal in anyway, but I get flashbacks to listening to the likes of Life of Agony back in the 90s. That low vocal tone looms through in the slower moments and I cannot help but think of the sound of that very different sub-genre of metal music. Whilst we are on about the vocals, I do also find them incredibly whiny on here. Now, I know that is sort of the point and they are done deliberately like this to emphasise the melancholy of the music. However, whilst I can acknowledge the fine set of pipes that Mr Lowe possesses, I do find the vocals to be a real bug bear of mine.

It is not even as if the riffs rescue proceedings entirely. Huge though they are (and with a decidedly eastern/oriental theme to them for the initial few tracks here) I find that they are too melodic for most of the record, and I do find myself longing for the more heavy and bruising style of riffs I normally associate with this type of music. Rarely during the hour-long runtime of Alone do I feel like I encounter anything monolithic in terms of a crushing wall of doom, in fact for most of the time it plays like a heavy metal record with a heavy doom metal influence. Moments such as the opening of Is There and the Black Sabbath riff that opens Tomorrows Dead do fill me with hope but are mostly just empty promises.

Although it is all done well enough, I just do not fell that the band ever get beyond a jog here and that they should be capable of more given their obvious stature in the field of doom.  Maybe with my recent departure from The Guardian clan, Alone is too near to that sound for my comfort nowadays and it would have perhaps sat better had I discovered it some years ago.  Epic though it is, this record is somehow not captivating enough overall and I almost want to like it more than I actually do.

Some albums most definitely fit into a sub-genre yet at the same time manage to express an alienation to the core sound that seems to make them seem like they do not really fit at all. I cannot think of a better example of this than Dream Death’s debut release. It most certainly has thrash elements but at the same time has a real slant on doom metal. Often listening to it like you are listening to two different bands or a band that is so torn with its influences that half want to do thrash and the other half want to do doom.

It makes for an interesting album in some regards but overall, you cannot get away from the fact that Journey Into Mystery suffers from a lack of direction. The songwriting is not particularly stellar either to boot and so there is a real sense of conflicting purposes over the eight tracks. It is not that any one element is particularly awful, more that no singular piece gets chance at a full exploration or development to its full potential. Personally (even with my fledgling doom metal ears) these guys are a better doom band than they are a thrash band. In fact, on certain tracks (The Elder Race for example) there are no thrash metal elements to my ears. Indeed, post this record saw the departure of bassist Ted Williams and the remainder of the band elected to change their name to Penance and become a doom band.

As far as I can hear, their hearts were never really into thrash at all and all Journey Into Mystery did was prove this lack of conviction made the music suffer. I hear a lot of Trouble in those riffs and at times I struggle with the vocals as I do with Trouble’s debut. The vocals here are so clumsy at times that I find myself cringing. Lines get rushed through often leaving the odd word iterated in isolation and completely out of context. Accepting that this is a debut album, the vocalist is far too forward in the mix and sounds like he is deliberately shouting over everything else which just comes off as amateurish and juvenile.

Whether it simply their own version of uptempo doom or genuine attempts into thrash metal, Dream Death are all over the place here and it really does destroy any sense of flow. The best track on here is the heavily Celtic Frost influenced Hear My Screams, it deploys a consistency (barring that awful, snatchy solo) that the rest of the album is sadly lacking. Maybe back in 1987 this would have more props but come 2022 it certainly has not aged well.

The poorly named Panzerchrist (really guys) have been stalwarts of the Danish death metal scene the mid-nineties.  Their brand of blackened death, although not unique, is really well done and Regiment Ragnarok has soon grown on me with repeated listens.  This, the bands sixth release, is stacked full of mining riffs, blasting drums and ghastly vocals and I can only assume this blueprint has served them well over the years as they sound tight throughout all twelve tracks which is no mean feat as only two of the band that performed on their previous album (some five years earlier) actually remained come their 2011 release.

In all honesty I found Regiment Ragnarok to be an unexpected joy.  I mean, it certainly does not reinvent any wheels at all and it is very one dimensional in its themes and approach, yet it is sill entertaining.  Their sound is reminiscent of Belphegor and Behemoth although it is Vader whom I find to be the best reference point for the Panzerchrist sound.  At twelve tracks in length though the rinse and repeat cycle does get tiresome towards the end of the record and the album perhaps would have benefitted from a trim to make the whole thing easier to digest.  However, Panzerchrist achieve a consistency to proceedings that none many others can hold a candle too and they are clearly accomplished enough musicians.  Drummer Mads Lauridsen only stayed around for this one album but he is monstrous behind the kit and the twin guitar attack of Rasmus Henriksen and former Illdisposed man Lasse Bak is a tour de force at the same time.  Vocalist Magnus Jorgensen (who was also only around for this album alone) spits a venomous performance on the microphone that underlines the blackened virtues of the band perfectly.  With a more stable line-up I could imagine Panzerchrist could have ben more of a death metal household name (I had never heard of them before picking up this review), but with so much change seeming to occur from record to record it is hard to see how they could ever break out of this predictable cycle of songwriting.

Anyone who likes the war soaked themes of Bolt Thrower coupled with the mining sounds of God Dethroned would find Panzerchrist right up their street I am sure and Regiment Ragnarok is not a bad place to start with their discogrpahy to boot.  You might not revisit it very often but each time you do the entertainment value will always be there at least.

For their twelfth album in a career spanning over 30 years, Blind Guardian have finally delivered the album that probably should have followed At The Edge Of Time.  That was the last album from the German power metalllers that I truly enjoyed and The God Machine succeeds in capturing the more simplistic elements of what came in 2015.  The unnecessary pomp and circumstance of the last two albums appears to now have been ditched in favour of a more straightforward approach to some anthemic and memorable power metal and this is a decision that pays dividends for virtually the whole of the album.  Now, there is no match here for Sacred Worlds, Road of No Release or Wheel of Time from the aforementioned 2010 release.  Although there are anthems here, they lack the edge of what came before and the longer-standing fan will acknowledge that The God Machine does not challenge the imperial majesty of Imaginations From The Other Side but this is most certainly the return to form we have all been waiting for.

Structures here are uncomplicated and are not afraid to dip back into the earlier reference points of the bands sound (check out the speed metal riffing of Violent Shadows for instance) to breed a great sense of familiarity across the whole of the 9 tracks on show.  Clocking in at 50 minutes, the album feels lean without being lacking in any area - indeed this is a beefy record for a sub-genre I usually find much to grumble about for usually lacking meat on its bones.  Hansi sounds vibrant and strong throughout the record and seems to have found new life in his vocal chords as he approaches his late 50s.  Like the guitars carry real presence whilst remaining at a tone that allows the more regal atmospherics to shine also.  Frederik's drums do sound a tad stifled if I am honest but this does have the advantage of letting the riffs and leads take centre stage behind the vocals.  Indeed the lead work saves Secrets of the American Gods which otherwise feels like the weakest link in an otherwise excellent release.

Listen to Architects of Doom if you have any doubts that Blind Guardian aren't back and your cynicism will soon be dismissed.  For a band who I had feared lost to the annals of power metal history for good following their last two releases, The God Machine re-establishes a brand.  I am even buoyed by the sentiment of ballad Let It Be No More - a track which showcases the strength of Hansi's voice perfectly.  I don't care if Blind Guardian called time on their career right now as they would be going out on a record that does real justice to their illustrious contributions over the last three decades.  Likewise, if this is the shape of things to come then more please.

The taster-track I heard on The North playlist this past month turned out to be more of curved ball when I sat and listened to the whole record.  My levels of intrigue soon dropped after the frankly boring opening track.  I don't mind drone metal in all honesty if it sets up something interesting, however here it just seems to set up the scene for a Jute Gyte record.  In all seriousness, the Jute Gyte reference is probably the most relevant one I can apply here.  The problem with Scarcity is that they flirt with extremity as opposed to settling upon pursuing it.  Yes, there is a wall of noise and scathing vocals that essentially sticks in the head for all the wrong reasons but the more droning passages are actually much better structured than the "kitchen sink" style musings of II (for example).

I cannot knock them for the effort behind the album as its introduction of psychedelic elements is novel if not all that intriguing for me.  The softer use of tremolos feels a gimmick as well though, like we are teeing up a post-metal record that never comes and so we just drop into form references to black metal for the sake of it.  I would actually admire the album more if it further distanced itself from black metal as it would feel like it was a more honest representation of what it was trying to do.

Aveilut is not challenging to my ears, it is just boring and bloated and constantly suffers from a lack of identity.  Push away at the boundaries of extreme metal all you like but sometimes a bit of reflection wouldn't go amiss to ensure you at least maintain some sense of direction.

My recent feature nomination of Machine Head's comeback album The Blackening, alerted me to the fact that Rob Flynn and friends had a new release out.  Following the terrible Catharsis was always going to go one of two ways, with Flynn either again raising his middle finger to the metal world and doing another nu-metal soaked release or instead choosing to drop some more familiar sounding MH material from their more groove metal days.  Hearing that Of Kingdom and Crown was a concept album immediately peaked some intrigue with me as (Burn My Eyes aside) the releases that I enjoy more from the band over the last twenty years or so have been the ones with the longer, better structured tracks (Imperium, Locust, Halo etc), so the prospect of a concept album should increase the opportunity of such structures, right?

Nope, it does not.  Aside from album opener Slaughter the Martyr which clocks in at over ten minutes and is bloated to say the least, the majority of OKaC lacks anything in the way of expansion.  What it does do - in order to answer the question above of which way has Flynn gone this time - is pick up right where The Blackening left off, adding requisite amounts of Unto the Locust and Bloodstone & Diamonds into the mix along the way.  I do not know whether the phrase "a return to form" is valid though.  A more accurate description feels to be that Machine Head have not failed twice in a row and whether you deem the album to be a success or not depends largely on if you agree that avoiding failure is a success.

Sound wise this is like the old MH line-up is back in place, which considering this is just Rob Flynn and some new members seems a little odd.  Ex-Decpaitated and Vader (live) shredder, Vogg does not strike me as being given much in the way of room to stretch his legs and it might just as well be Demmel there alongside Flynn on guitar.  Similarly, Alston behind the kit might as well be McClain, such is the familiarity of the sound here.  This is not to say that all nu-metal influence has been dropped altogether from OKaC.  Still bits seep through the core, stylistic groove metal that now dominates proceedings again, however there are a few surprises along the way.  The blackened, melodic death metal riff of Become the Firestorm for example caught me off guard, unfortunately so did the awful clean singing that briefly punctuates an otherwise perfectly acceptable song with some unnecessary elements of cringe before we get a decidedly nu-metal sounding melodic section to set up the ferocious lead work.

The album also has three interludes which do nothing for me.  If you are balls deep in the storyline (which it will surprise nobody to hear that I am not) then I guess they add value for you, otherwise they are just distractions and detractions from the flow of the record.  There is also too much of a reflective element to the record also.  Chanting intros and clean singing are a skill to place in any metal record and here they just do not work.  I would be far happier to just enjoy the intensity of the tempo and get my fill of groove metal riffs as opposed to hearing Flynn explore his vocal range.  In short more of the riffs on Unhallowed as opposed to the hazy singing please.

And so to the scores on the doors.  In all honesty I struggle to give OKaC a low score. Based on the step up from Catharsis and the odd nostalgic pillow I always seem to rest my head on when I revisit any of the bands past releases, OKaC hits enough references from the groove metal days to satisfy me.  The obvious cries out for mainstream accessibility (such as the aforementioned Unhallowed) still annoy the hell out of me though and nostalgia is not usually something that I allow to excuse mediocrity.  Three stars seems reasonable under the circumstance as whilst I acknowledge the improvements made from the previous release there is still some way to go.

Australia's Gospel of the Horns are no longer an active band since 2018 having been around in blackened thrash circles since 1994.  They are basically of the same sound as fellow countrymen Destroyer 666 or for a more further geographical reference, Desaster are also a good citation.  Unlike either of the two aforementioned bands though, this is not as vicious in its delivery, almost like the low production values actually rob it of some power and presence.  Now, don't get me wrong, this tries to be as grim and rough as the best of them.  Howitzer's vocals are superb with their rasping (ravishing) grimness and Marauder's riffs are equally as cold and.....marauding.  My only real criticism (aside from him calling himself Hellcunt) is the drummer sounds a bit lost in the background, and overall there is just a sense of there being a lack of sharpness to their bite.

As an EP, this works on a quick "smash 'n grab" level of entertainment.  Just as GOTH get their hobnail boots and fist-band and chains to the bar, they sup up and are off to lay waste to some other drinking establishment.  The synthy, atmospheric outro with its weird alien/subliminal devil speak is unnecessary as they do not strike me as a band who rely on pomp or circumstance to get their point across.  At the same time the band certainly do not reinvent any wheels and as a result (having heard more than my fair share of this sub-genre by now) large parts of this EP just pass me by.  It falls all too easily into the "Hells Headbangers" atypical trve/kvlt blackened thrash brigade - which in itself is a great place to be, but one that is well-trodden already for me.

I have listened through this release some three or four times now and I am still at the same level of understanding of it as I was after one listen. Aylwin play acceptable but unremarkable atmospheric bm, yet for some reason feel that showcasing this in one thirty-minute track is necessary to capture their sound. I am almost sure though that this track has three individual parts, so I am unclear as to why this all got put into one track.

Starting and ending with the sounds of waves hitting a shoreline (a sound which is revisited during the track also) simply pans out two-minutes of play time before they ever get to the opening riff. Although this start seems representative of the artwork that depicts some monolith-rock formation in the middle of a vast expanse of water it doesn’t really marry up with anything else. The brighter light of the artwork is carried through into the music I suppose as this is not particularly grim bm really.

It lacks quality that justifies the constant play of one track though. It never successfully combines the instrumentation and atmospherics into any triumphant pinnacle or peak. The nearest we get is a lull in the middle of the track when some melodic strings compliment the atmospheric ocean theme before we crash back into a soaring bm tremolo riff. Even as individual parts the instruments lack anything outstanding in the way that they are performed and so there is no real sense of cohesion, and these guys are not the tightest of players when it comes to being a collective. I find it hard to take The Arch Holder seriously as a release as it sounds like a rehearsal with some atmospherics thrown in for the hell of it.

There is no richness to the riffs, no subtlety to the transitions and the cavernous and gruff vocals just get lost in the maelstrom as opposed to underlining the emotion behind what is being performed. I sense that if I had four, thirty-minute slots of my life to dedicate to this in one sitting each then I might be more enamoured with it. However, without anything tangible to grasp as a high-point I struggle to see the need for such a lengthy release in all honesty. Just breakout the tracks guys.

French metallers Celeste offer a consistent and uncomplicated brand of sludge driven, post-hardcore with just enough blackened edges to keep them in The North clan on album number five. Full of nihilistic and despondent tones, the tremolos on Infidèle(s) have a bleak warbling effect alongside the more prominent percussion and intense sludge vocals. As such the consistency adds to this bleak element in the sense that it offers no real variation of sound. This does make the album a bit of a slog to get through in all honesty, yet it still helps retain the pervading sense of darkness end to end on which the album thrives upon.

Singing in his native tongue, vocalist Johan deploys a hardcore-like ethos to his sludge-styled vocals that works well given how far forward in the mix they sit without dominating the sound overall. Guitarists Sébastien and Guillaume do a great job of creating a wall of riffs when needed (check out the Russian Circles’ elements of (I), a purely instrumental track of monumental proportions). The solid drum work of Royer underlines the sound of this tight unit who pay with a passion that does not require any exuberance to get their message across.

Infidèle(s) is solid record that lights a few fires along the way. However, they do not burn very bright or for very long in terms of leaving a lasting impression. As soon as the record is over, I forget about it and move onto something else, which is not to say that it lacks merit more that it just does the same thing well far too often and leaves no real standouts for me to grasp onto.

Instrumental music has a short shelf life for me usually.  I find it really does grate on me a lot of the time especially when it is done during an album that is predominantly showcased by lyrical tracks.  I am not talking about 00:58 duration interludes, intros or outros here though.  I am referring to lengthy tracks of usually repetitive and unimaginative passages that just do not seem to fit.  Bizarrely, when done well enough, I have no problems with whole albums of instrumental only tracks.  Russian Circles of course being pioneers of this style over many releases, yet somehow I had missed them altogether until 2019's Blood Year found its way into my world.

I bought Gnosis on vinyl based on the track Conduit as the only teaser I had heard, having enjoyed the amazing video that accompanies the track.  Whist I accept that for some, this is just an instrumental album and in fact I do agree that any instrumental album can only go so far, at the same time Gnosis goes more than far enough for me.  It strikes me that it manages to speak to me a lot better than many lyrics do in all honesty because Gnosis for me is a very big, very loud and very interesting safety blanket.  My anxiety is off the chart this evening and the warm and welcoming structures of this album have more than proven their value in this thirty-nine-minute window of precious time sat alone trying to rationalise my racing brain.  There is a soothing balm to the fuzzy edges of those guitars and those dissonant chimes that ride over the waves of huge riffs are like the stardust in the rings of Saturn itself.

Mental health assistance aside, Gnosis is a success because it is not only so easy to connect with emotionally but also because it is so intelligently put together.  This sounds like a band in control of their influences and who are able to sustain a tight level of playing with what ever style they throw up.  Whether it is indie vibes, sludgey onslaughts or near death metal-paced riffing, Russian Circles have it all under control and have a knowledge of pace that is fundamental to the triumph of the record.  A psychedelic haziness hugs the edges of most tracks with a grasp that allows the progressive and post-metal structures to really build and thrive.  One of my favourite releases of 2022 so far.

The more I hear from bands that formed a significant portion of my listening habits over the years the less impressed I become. Kreator’s first five albums, although not flawless, are one of the most consistently developing paths in my thrash metal journey. Granted after this, things waned on the success front (for me at least) and so catching up with them now in 2022 and hearing the bag of parts that constitutes Hate über Alles  brings with it the realisation that Kreator are best left confined to those 80s and early 90s pinnacles.

Kreator in 2022 have lost a fair old amount of their thrash and large parts of this album are meandering heavy metal tracks that sound like they have been written by a band with far less experience than the 40 years of activity amassed in the German’s ranks. Whilst there are most definitely tracks here that hark back to their thrashing heyday like the title track, there are deceiving tracks such Conquer and Destroy that starts promisingly but is cursed with a meandering middle section that it never recovers from. There are also absolute turkeys such as Become Immortal and Midnight Sun.

Reading an interview earlier with Mille, he mentions that he has written over 170 songs in his lifetime and there is not much more in the tank. He’s right based on the majority of the eleven tracks on display here. I would estimate there are eight tracks here that are absolute skip-fodder with some of them holding little if any appeal for even the more modern thrash metal fan. Even if fist-pumping anthems are your thing, I am not sure the effort involved to get to these fleeting moments of memorability are worth it in all honesty.

Containing members of Bethlehem and Purgatory, the grandly named Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult host a plethora of experience amongst their ranks, and this shines nicely on Mardom, the bands sixth full-length release. Think the chaotic and ritualistic vocals of Mayhem and Bethlehem, combine this with the blasting fury of Gorgoroth and the relentless execution of Marduk and you are close to the sound of DNS.

After being diagnosed with breast cancer and subsequently overcoming the illness in 2021, DNS vocalist Yvonne Wilczynska (Onielar) shows why she is so deft at fronting Bethlehem with her grim and ghastly vocals shrieked over the wall of tremolos and blastbeats that make up Mardom’s ten tracks. Unafraid to drop the tempo down a few gears every now and again, tracks like A Beseechment Twofold really show how the band can grow a track into a nefarious number. Onielar’s clumsy vocals sitting perfectly atop the varied soundscape on this track showing the accessibility of the unclean vocals should you take the time to listen to them.

This, the longest and best track on the album is a great centrepiece to the record and sets up the final half superbly. The strong bass presence on The Boundless Beast help accentuate a hint of progression in the middle section of the track before we land back in that much more familiar blasting territory. The atmospheric palate-cleanser, Widma tempers the final third of the album nicely with a simple yet effective use of cavernous drone and vague, dissonant flurries.

Comparisons with Bethlehem seem almost inevitable, but DNS come across as being in control of their art as opposed to just blasting by with devout insanity to lead the way. They are almost certainly a conventional black metal band, yet they are an artist with one eye firmly on composition and the strength that can be released from adding variety here and there also.

Although I have seen various covers for Mantar releases over the years I only joined the dots to their music this past week or so.  The world of sludge, whilst far from unfamiliar to me is also not a regularly trodden path for me either.  Having no past experience of the band made listening to Pain Is Forever and This Is The End quite an organic experience and what started out as a cursory listen off the back of an interview I read, soon become a regular play most days.  It is not often that an unplanned listen breaches my (albeit lose) code of using Trello to map out my listening but Mantar have a sort of ugly catchiness to them that appeals to my dark heart I guess.

Whilst I would not say that music like Mantar's is the reason that I got into metal, it most certainly is an example of why I have continued to listen to this form of music for over thirty years.  PIFaTITE is a dirty record.  It is full of middle finger in the air, raised to the entire world, calling out all the bullshit of life from the highest rooftop.  The irreverence it has is mature in form and is not simply angry grown men shouting about how unfair or unjust things are.  It is a record that pricks at your skin as opposed to slicing or slashing it, like a cat kneading your flesh for attention, its claws just catching the very surface of your skin without needing to penetrate too far to get the result it craves.

The infectious nature of tracks like Hang 'Em Low (So the Rats Can Get 'Em) and Grim Reaping draw their hooks across you as opposed to just burying them in and in a way this is the flaw of the record.  Once I have been infected by these hooks, I want more.  By way of comparison, there are other tracks on here that I still cannot hear as I look at the tracklisting despite me having played this album for a week at least twice a day.  Of Frost and Decay and Horder just have no memorability and this creates a sense of imbalance on the record.

Still, I cannot get away from the fact that I thoroughly enjoy this in the main and it will probably be on my rotation list for a few more weeks to come.  They are on my Trello board now at least.

On paper there is a fair old bit for me not to like on this record. A heavy instrumental stake in proceedings, all manner of influences from progressive through to black metal incorporated into tracks that rarely drop below six and a half minutes in length and a not always very tidy performance either. Most of these things in isolation can kill an album for me. Give me consistently long tracks and you must keep them interesting, but at the same time do not just throw shit everywhere that comes as influences from multiple sources just to mix it up especially if you do not have the necessary ability with your instruments to carry it off.

Fact is though, that for the most part at least, I enjoy Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm a fair old bit. There is an undeniable charm to the rough edges that are so obviously on show. Whether this is a conscious effort or not I would not be able to even guess but they give the album a feel of a band showing true heart in trying to expand their horizons beyond their current prowess as musicians. Admirable though this is, I can see how this is a curse to the ears of some listeners as it is a gift to mine.

Although not normally my bag the instrumentals here do bristle with energy and create a tangible sense of texture. They do not stray into the realm of being simply “showy” or grandiose (the limits to the artistry sorts that) they feel more robust and vaguely mechanical. This description probably does not do them sufficient justice as they are most definitely not boring, they are too charged with spirit for that, but they are almost like captures from a rehearsal or jam session thus giving them organic appeal.

As such I do not see the album as a regular release. It plays more like a compilation with some similarly themed tracks slotted besides each other that did not make the cut on previous releases. Not being the biggest fan of compilations, this again is a risk that somehow pays off here as I can comfortably sit through the album in one sitting. It is an album that carelessly arrives at success despite a few stumbles along the way (what the fuck is that title track about?) and the shifts of tempo on occasion sounding more like lurches. Structure of the Séance, ironically, lack’s structure and just feels like a relentless gallop with several time-changes thrown in. They might not have been the most capable musicians at this stage in their career but the gusto with which they approached this album is worth at least a nod of recognition, even if the overall product has more than obvious flaws.

Icelandic black metal. The sound of dissonant fury and endless, bone-shattering winter lit up by the insomnia-inducing midnight sun. The maddening gait of Misþyrming (meaning “abuse” or “mistreatment”) that borders somewhere between melodic black metal, and some not-quite post elements is a pleasure to behold in the right mood. Seemingly endless in those rolling, repetitive and luxuriously grim riffs, Algleymi offers a stark listening experience that constructs a minimalist aesthetic with a light sheen of polish to provide some real defined edges.

The drums on here are really understated and this works well. Although most certainly there, I find I feel them more than I hear them and in doing so I can focus on the guitar and vocal work more easily. Comparisons with Furia are inevitable if you listen to those vocals when coupled with that chaotic maelstrom of guitars that break into almost catchy rhythms or melodic passages to temper the albums busier tempos.

Unafraid to experiment, Misþyrming drop in some random death/proto-surf rock instrumental in the middle of the album which manages to create its own little reflective atmosphere in the running order. However, for the most part this is an album of diving and driving guitars that swoop like birds of prey on the listener as the bass hums along in its insect-like expressions. Like the drums, the bass is understated yet at the same time remains a key contributor, an element that you somehow do not have to hear clearly in the mix to understand that it still carries a presence.

There is certainly more here than just tremolos and blast beats to contend with. Atmospheres and the production job overall allude to some muted grandiosity that is constantly being measured and kept in check so as to not ruin what is a consistent and addictive eight track release.  Worth mentioning that this has taken a few listens for it to eventually land with me and there have been periods of months often between listens in all honesty but the determination has paid off.

My second outing with !T.O.O.H.! and I am still not sure exactly what the fuck is going on. Part of me wonders if I am just getting less tolerant of experimentation in my old age but then (perhaps the same) part of me thinks !T.O.O.H.! are just taking the piss. Dwelling beyond plain old deathgrind, the duo deploys some avant-garde and experimental elements into an album that I swear apes some well-known mainstream melodies but I cannot quite place them.

The progressive/technical elements are not that good in all honesty and when coupled with this continued penchant for experimentation they really do detract from the more appealing grind elements of the album. If they could tone down the odd ball direction and focus more on the more solid and consistent approach that I find myself preferring from them then I could probably give more time to this.

As it stands I have no idea how this album is rated so highly here on MA as it just feels like a jam session incorporating disparate styles and ideas and would probably be better left in the rehearsal room or recorded for the duos own personal attention only.

Ah Greece.  The home of Hellenic black metal and oddly enough the latterly red-trousered thrash metallers known as Chronosphere.  For some reason on their band photos all of the band are in red pants - I assume to do with the release that follows this one, Red n' Roll.  Anyway, back in 2014, Chronosphere were not wearing red leg attire and managed to churn out a blistering album of decent quality thrash metal in Embracing Oblivion.  Capturing a real sense of flow, these guys certainly know their thrash metal credentials and come blazing out of the blocks early on with Killing My Sins which isn't anywhere near as clunky as the name might suggest.

Although not anything new, Chronosphere take the classic elements of Testament and apply flashes of modern influences such as Havok and Warbringer to good effect.  Vocalist Spyros Lafias is very reminiscent of Chuck Billy in his style and the rest of the band deploy gang chant backing vocals a la Exodus to support his fine pipes along the way.  Lead guitarist Panos Tsampras certainly can play, filling the album with an array of classy leads alongside his chopping duties with Spyros.  The drums are a bit too far back in the mix for my personal taste but they are audible still, I sense that Thanos Krommidas is more than competent though, I just struggle to hear his whole performance in the mix.  As a unit though, the four piece sound tight on this their second full-length.  I understand that Panos is gone now favouring a more heavy metal/rock style in his new band which on first instinct would be a big loss for Chronosphere based on his performance here.

Overall though this is exciting and intense thrash metal, well-executed and delivered by capable musicians.  The odd track slips up and shows elements of annoyance along the way (that irritating riff on Brutal Decay) but in comparison to Tumourboy who I also listened to today, these boys are light years ahead of them.  Shreds galore here folks.

China is not known for having a thriving thrash metal scene, and Tumourboy may very well be the only entrant in the Beijing thrash metal stakes for all I know, however it is still refreshing to hear vibrant (if not predictable) thrash metal coming from a new corner of the globe.  Heavily themed on the subjects of nuclear threat, the danger of technology and straight up murder, Tumourboy do not stray too far away from the traditional elements of thrash metal that we see deployed in most of the international scene.  Similarly, their song structures are very familiar and if you are looking for some variety to spice up your life then here is not the place for you I am afraid.

Stupid band name aside, this four-piece clearly wear their influences on their sleeves and for the most part present a very thorough exploration of the rampant speeds of modern day thrash.  Elements of crossover fall into tracks every now and then as the punky vibe takes my precedent than on other tracks, however for the large part we just have a very predictable thrash metal album with little to separate one track from the next.  Despite a relatively mature sounding intro track the band just rely on a foot to the floor tempo for the rest of the album and it gets really tiresome very quickly.