Vinny's Reviews

Allegedly written in four hours by a drunk Peter Steele after a relationship break up, Slow, Deep and Hard sounds exactly as you would expect it to under such circumstance.  I have often marvelled at the praise that Type O Negative get in all honesty and this album has done little to change my opinion of them.  There are moments during this record where I not only want to hit the skip button, I simply want to turn the record off and forget it ever darkened my speakers.  I mean to talk about this being a collection of songs as opposed to an outright album is an injustice.  This is a horrible mish-mash of ideas, poorly thought out and even more poorly delivered on what sounds like four guys just fucking around in the studio for an hour.

Even the atmospheric/ambient piece sounds accidental and uninspired.  As for the minute or so of silence - well don't get me started.  I get the irony, sarcasm and disdain that drips from the album but it is so wastefully applied that I do not feel like Steel has shared anything with me, more that this is a dump of random, drunken thoughts that he simply needed to offload regardless of how it sounded.  When we do get form and structure to the record it goes on and on in the same mindless direction and regurgitates the same ideas over and over again performed by sloppy musicians who clearly had no fucks to give.

There's not a lot here that I find worthy of taking the time to rate so a one star is the most accurate rating I can give.  Not for me folks.

The frenetic release output of Elegiac is the first thing that caught my eye when researching this review.  This one man bm outfit (Zane Young) has released 4 EPs, 15 splits and 9 full lengths since 2014.  That is pretty prolific output who has eight other "active" projects on the go on top of Elegiac.  The New York based artist deploys a good mix of conventional black metal fodder with a heavy dose of black 'n roll added for good measure on his seventh release, Vampiric Odinism from 2019.  Looking at the artwork that adorns the release and pictures of Zane online I had expected a more shamanic or ritualistic offering than is actually the case.  Although there are some distinct parts where this is the case the more catchy moments are actually the better ones.

I would loosely assign Behexen and maybe Sargeist as influences I hear in the sound although they lack the scathing attack of Behexen and are lacking some of the primitive elements of early Sargeist to say the least.  There are occasions were the vocals take more of a front seat and sound like the breathy incantations of any credible atmo-black artist but in the main it is the tremolo that rules the roost here with Zane's vocals a rasping accompaniment with a background setting of very basic and sometimes barely audible drums.

Overall, Elegiac offer very little in the way of impressing more than any other USBM artist.  The deep voice that Zane adopts on occasion to (I assume) add some threat or menace to proceedings is laughable in all honesty and the whole release just bubbles instead of reaching boiling point all that much.  The shamanic/ritualistic parts sound lazy and disinterested and when some sense of momentum or energy does start to form it gets killed by them on a consistent basis.  Left to power on through the tracks with their heavy metal-esque drive (Sacrifice) then things take on a much more impressive shape and sound and it is a shame there is less of this to enjoy overall.

I had forgotten just what an unsettling experience Scar Sighted truly is until revisiting it for this month’s feature release. From the off it is undulating and unnerving experience. It begins in an uncomfortable space and stays within those claustrophobic confines for over an hour. This tormented state is one of the albums key strengths in that it never once gets drawn into safer structures or any sense of conformist principles of song writing. Cleverly it balances atmospheric horror, (whether that is spoken word passages or palpitation-inducing cries of dementia, take your pick it is all on here) with actual instrumentation. As such it is not a constant wall of noise that lacks form.

Full of mocking tremolo and bent string mischief, Scar Sighted wastes no time in making its disdain for humanity known. It would be too easy to constantly plunge the listener into the very depths of despair track after track but during the depressive misanthropy are some real entertaining moments. Whether that is a stripped back, bare-naked riff or string, a nefariously awkward melody or just incoherent howls, Wrest keeps things up his sleeve nicely (the keys in Wicked Fields of Calm, the horrid singing that greets the opening of Within Thrall) and produces them with his own macabre version of “ta da!”.

More impressive is that Wrest does all of this himself, only relinquishing responsibility for production and mastering to Billy Anderson and Bradleigh Boatright respectively. The production job is good enough, but I am not sure if the drums are supposed to be that far back in the mix as they are the one element that does feel lost in the swarming terror here.

My only criticism (other than the drum mix) is that Scar Sighted is shade too long at just over an hour. It is hard to call out tracks to cut though as all feel like they contribute to the overall aesthetic of the record well. Tracks that clock in at over ten, eight and seven and a half minutes to close the record out are a struggle in all honesty and maybe a couple could have been held back for an EP? There is however a real sense of conviction behind Scar Sighted that spurs it on and makes it virtually impossible to put down or turn off, once you are in that tight and cloyingly dank space, you are in it for the duration.

Following on from my mediocre response to Celeste's 2017 offering, Infidèle(s) I was approached their offering from some five years later with a degree of trepidation.  Although there was nothing wrong with Infidèle(s) it failed to leave any lasting scars and was just a rudimentary record containing some sludge, hardcore and blackened elements.  I think it is safe to say that after a couple of listens to Assassine(s) that Celeste have matured well enough and are now in the business of writing some memorable yet still distinctly menacing tunes.  Combining the above mentioned elements with some post-metal dissonance makes the majority of album number six really shine.  This album is full of tracks that cut with an adult aggression, no signs of any juvenile stabs here, just tracks that come straight for the jugular.

The vocalist sounds a lot more blackened on this release and this serves for a much more pleasing affair for me when I take this into account with the rest of the component parts.  This album still retains that modern sound that combines these hardcore and sludge elements well but the maturity is just so much more obvious in the song writing on this outing and I can see why this made some EOTY album lists.  I am not blown away, but then again I detect that this is not really the point of the album.  This is an assured album from start to finish that exerts control of itself without resorting to suppression at any point.  I hope the improvement continues.

This is a devious little release (although given the length of it I am not sure that "little" quite covers it).  I have read the other reviews from my esteemed academites (?) and I do not really have anything different to add in all honesty.  I am less inclined to agree that this does not have a place in The Pit - I would equally argue that it has some argument for addition into The Infinite clan as well as The North.  What this all means in real world terms, for the uneducated reader of this review is that Autonoesis cover a lot of ground on this record.  This in itself is impressive based on the effort alone and that is one of the main takeaways from this record, the work ethic and amount of stuff that is in here is really commendable.  Does it all work within the confines of one single release?  Well yes and no.

Give me tracks like Raise the Dead all day and I am a happy enough bunny.  This high-intensity track is arguably were Autonoesis are at their least stretched in terms of technical ability but it shows their heart better than most other tracks on here, largely because it is one of the shorter and more direct tracks that bleeds pure thrash from start to finish.  Where things start to come unstuck a little for me are on the longer tracks and there are far too many of them.  With three tracks over or around nine-minutes in length (plus an eleven-minute plus closing track) I do find myself a bit lost in Moon of Foul Magics at times.  There is a sense of frustration in hearing a track go through multiple sub-genres and influences over a protracted runtime.  Often when listening to one of the more lengthy tracks on here I cannot help but think that some of these ideas could be more succinctly deployed as individual tracks.  There would be nothing wrong with letting a thrash track just thrash and chop its way through three or four-minutes and parking that progressive interlude or epic black metal passage into a track all of their own.

This is not to say that they do not blend elements well as a group or individual artist (I have no idea how many people are in Autonoesis but I suspect it is a one-man project with contributors), the musicianship on here is superb and the lead work in particular is sublime.  I just cannot help but feel that there is more going on here than can be comfortably digested by many listeners.  Even with dedicated, alone time with this record the lack of distractions does not necessarily make the focus on everything anymore acute.

I still think this is an ambitious and highly recommendable record, not in the least because I am actively looking to expand the range of offerings in The Pit playlists each month and this is a refreshing "take" on a few sub-genres that still has the riffs to pull enough punches in the thrash metal realm.

Sigh.  I kind of feel like Exmortus exist in the wrong era.  The old-school album artwork should really be clue enough but those retro heavy/speed metal  vibes are not just isolated to the album cover alone.  Within the ten tracks here there is enough 1990's neoclassical references as you could ever hope to find (if "hope" is the right word for you - it is not for me, "misfortune" is a much more accurate word).  All this guitar wankery is played at breakneck speed to try and impress further upon the listener how talented the artist is.  Problem is it is all the energy of Vektor, rehashed into some dull attempt to sound vaguely as interesting as they were; I mean this kind of album is one of the main reasons that I left The Guardians clan behind last year.

Literally no opportunity to show-off is missed on here.  However long the intro to a song is, rest assured that some lead or over the top melodies are right around the corner.  They even have the nerve to park an instrumental track in the middle of the album and call it A Minor Instrumental.  If only they would have confined all the showboating to this one track!  When not widdling their way to eternity the band try and get the chops going but it lacks any edge to make this anything like a thrash release with any concrete credentials.  This is just an exhausting record and I do not not what tired me out soonest, the content or the continued reaching for the mouse to skip the album along.

Utterly pointless and instantly forgettable, The Sound of Steel is all filler and no killer. Yes the guitarists can play and the sub-genre (Neoclassical thrash??) demands more of this stuff but it is just so dull and presents zero appeal to me.

One of metal's real niche bands, Summoning occupy an awkward slot in black metal given that although they have recognisable bm elements they by no means conform to the conventional sound overall.  If I am honest, I have never really had a problem getting in to Summoning.  That is not say that I am ignorant of the challenges they present to most metal fans but they still hold much appeal to me, albeit this appeal needs to be drip fed in small and irregular doses.  I was unaware of the "classic" status allocated to this particular release from the Austrians and whilst I can acknowledge the quality here I would not go as far as to give it such a heady status (I am not even sure "classic" releases of this sub-genre even exist as a concept).

There is lots of repetition here and that is sort of the point.  I do not seek a Summoning record when I want to be challenged by vast and expansive soundscapes.  I come in search of familiarity and safety here and I find it in bundles.  This comfort zone is an odd one I concede.  It is nerdy and lacks any sense of climax or overall completion.  However, all this posturing works because it maintains the exact intention of what Summoning set out to do - their own thing.  It is like music for some bizarre and grandiose medieval military parade.  Beneath the armour and capes and weapons, the soldiers are probably all a bit portly and rotund but just love getting dressed up and acting the part.  No need for an big build ups to announce the commencement of some battle, let us just use that repetition to boost the pomp and circumstance to a ridiculous yet consistent level.

I think that whilst they are certainly obvious throughout, the synths are not the dominant performance.  I can clearly hear the guitars and vocals at all times and I don't even mind the programmed drums.  Yes, there is an air of the amateur in places but it all adds to the nerdy, haphazard nature of the atmospheres.  The closing track is far and away the standout one of the eight on offer.  That big chorus being the only crescendo we get and rightly so!

There are some records that you simply feel daunted at the prospect of having to review.  Some records are so diverse and eclectic, so bristling with organic energy and vigour that committing some paragraphs to state the success of their content seems an almost injustice of near epic proportions.  I mean, I can be impressed by some albums I hear and easily transpose my thoughts on the highlights to word format, but the albums that constantly challenge and surprise you are the tricky ones to truly interpret in a review.  Close is one such record.  Looking back at the year as a whole it is hard to understand how this release initially passed me by back in March and only really fell onto my radar at all in the final three months (breaking my end of year list to boot).  My exploration of The Fallen clan certainly helped bring this to my attention but there is so much more here than the simple doom aesthetics of this record.

In simple terms, this is a cool record.  Not cool as in being representative of some mainstream avenue of music but more just cool in how it sounds.  There are enough instruments in use over this album to make it easy to understand just how well this record embraces influences form doom, psychedelia and world music.  Crossing continents and exploring cultural boundaries along the way, Close is a celebration of all the influences that this band have been subjected to over their various pathways into Messa.  Even on the grindcore track towards the end, none of this feels forced (vocalist Sara, formerly being a member of death metal/grindcore crew Restos Humanos makes the grindcore inclusion a little less surprising perhaps).

With this variety comes the potential for me to get lost in the record and find myself struggling to balance the complexity of such a mixed palate of sounds (the album being over an hour long doesn't initially bode well either) but everything is done so effortlessly it just sounds so authentic throughout.  Somehow, Messa manage to sound modern and relevant yet capture the very essence of the retro vibes that ooze through those fuzzy guitar tones, ably assisted by the amazing vocal talent of Sara Bianchin.  Although it is obvious where her limitations lie she still compliments each track on here perfectly and is easily one of the standout contributors to the record. 

I bought this album on vinyl yesterday, such was my urgency to add this to my library in some kind of physical format and it has worked its way into my top three albums of the year, despite its late arrival on my radar.  There is so much that can be said about this record that I could go on for days about it and never still get all my reflections down about it.  As I said, in simple terms, this is really cool.

Having found myself on a miniature tech-death jaunt this past couple of weeks I noticed that the highly acclaimed sophomore form Blood Incantation sat at a lowly two out of five rating in my spreadsheet where I catalogue all my albums.  This seemed harsh, even by my grumpy standards, I mean normally if I rate something so low then I don't keep it in all honesty and I also am usually clear on why it was so offensive to me.  With this one though I had no instant recollection of why I could have hated it so much so I decided to get a few more spins in over the past week to try and clear the fog somewhat.

Firstly, this is music made by talented individuals and the musicianship on display here is top notch.  Is it a little too much for me at times?  Yes.  Yes, it is.  The eighteen minute closing track (which shall not be named for conscious effort to keep the review succinct) is exhausting to say the least, notwithstanding that it does give some rewards as it moves through ambient and progressive passages, it still does not feel all that remarkable to me.  I would compare it to a multiple course dinner menu, too much in there for no obvious benefit.  And just as with aforementioned menu I can choose to leave whatever I don't find appealing and after a few minutes of that closing track I am doing other things or looking to put something else on.

Secondly, the production job on here is terrible for the large part.  I feel for the first half of the record I am fighting with it as I alter the volume, tone and balance on my speakers to try and get some sense of what is actually going on and in all honesty the production is a massive blocker to my enjoyment of this record.  Ironically I think it serves the sound best on the final track when I lose the record to its touch of excess content.  Thirdly (and finally) I just feel the hype is never quite lived up to.  As much as I acknowledge the skill of the delivery, there is nothing particularly scintillating here and the vocals lag behind the rest of the performances (albeit not well assisted by that production job).  On the plus side I have increased the rating from a two to a three.  Every cloud... 

Atmospheric black metal, when done well enough, is increasingly my preferred bm sub-genre as I get older.  I have long been advocates of Drudkh and early BAN records but I would have never consciously sought out specific atmo-black artists or records until recent years.  One of my key finds in this process has been the work of Canadian one-man bm outfit, Yves Allaire (or Evillair, or even Nordicwinter if we want to stick with the artist name).  I have waxed lyrically about his work on MA previosuly in my review of last years Le dernier adieu release which was a triumph of despondency and hopelessness done with a trauma-soaked beauty.  Whereas last year, Yves released two albums, he has toned down the frequency of his output in 2022 and has managed to deliver the goods yet again with his sixth full length Beneath the Fleeting Light.

Now, I recently sat through one of the dullest atmo-black album I have ever heard.  Oathbearer's debut release was a horribly bloated affair with a meandering sense of direction that soon saw my attention waning within a few minutes.  By way of comparison, Beneath the Fleeting Light is textbook atmo-black methodology.  It is stocked full of rich and inviting atmospheres that work perfectly with the harsher vocal and instrumentation as opposed to just adding unnecessary changes of pace to create some sense of variety.  Everything works in tandem on this record.  Everything is placed in perfect unison, just as it was on his Sorrow release (also from 2021).  This plays to some degree like laid back black metal as it all just seems to flow so well together in this fathomless sea of despondency.

One thing that I hate on atmo-black releases is the tendency to overuse clean vocals, as if the atmospheres cannot hold their own with harsh, conventional bm vocals.  Nordicwinter have no issue with needing to make things cleaner on the vocal front to incorporate them with everything else.  There are no clean vocal passages here and the vocals do not even come across as being juxtaposed with anything else.  At just under thirty-nine minutes, Beneath the Fleeting Light balances a layered approach to the track structures without you felling like you need hours of repeat listens to unpick them.  The message is very clear from the off.  Here be the depths of despair, now simply sit back and listen.

Somewhere in the darkest depths of my black metal collection lurks the 2019 self-titled album by New Zealanders (now moved to Edinburgh, United Kingdom) Barshasketh.  In all honesty, despite having had this album in the virtual library for three years and having listened to it numerous times in that period, I came back to this revisit unable to remember anything at all about it.  Being in the middle of a music cull this made it prime recycle bin fodder, but I noticed I had still never actually settled on a rating for this record which suggested there may be more to learn.  Good news is, the album stays out of the recycle bin and although not the most immediate record I have ever heard it does still manage to retain lots of props along its duration.

Played in the melodic and rich vein of Mgla with the swarming chaos of Sargeist added for good measure, this album is certainly a fluid event.  The success of any good bm record can be measured how far they can cast the shroud of darkness over the duration of any release.  The ones that fall short, perhaps due to running out of ideas or simply being a bit too experimental usually end up in the aforementioned virtual rubbish receptacle.  Barshasketh cast their shroud over the entire track listing here and the album has a constant tension to it where the frantic pace and dank melodies meet creating a near constant sense of inner conflict within the eight tracks on offer.  As a listener I feel that darkness, can taste that conflict and can hear the weight of that tension in the tremolo riffs and earthy thump of the drums.

This is mature and modern bm played by established artists (Ben Brown of Falloch fame does bass, for example) who can truly expand the affects of the record beyond the confines of the digital or physical format.  This record pollutes the air around the speakers with a melancholy that breeds some sense of fondness in me that lasts long after I finish listening.  And that is the key here.  This record needs 100% of your attention and it is not just some cursory background music or casual listen whilst doing anything else.  Put own the mobile phone, switch off the tablet/pc monitor and sit with this record, let it wash over you  Embrace it.

Germany's Atrocity have a long and varied career under their belts as I write this review at the death knell of 2022.  About to drop a new opus sometime in the near future, the band will have released 12 full lengths by the time 2023 rolls around and although they have strayed from the death metal path over the years (hardcore, goth rock and even folk have seeped into their sound at various points) their sophomore release, Todessehnsucht (the version named here is one which the label changed the name on, against the bands wishes) is a joy of technical and biting death metal.

Without surprise there is a strong Morbid Angel vibe to the vocals here and this is particularly obvious on first track proper Godless Years which reminds me in places of The Ancient Ones from MA's sophomore album from the year prior to Atrocity's second album.  Although relevant, the technical aspects of the bands sound is not that obvious at all times and nor is utilised at the expense of any brutality.  Riffs are complex and pacing of them varies quite quickly at times but the sound overall is still beefy enough and they actually do a more than respectable cover of Death's Archangel here and they stay true the format of the original whilst still making their own mark on things.

I like how the bass plods in isolation during the moments of paired back intensity, just rumbling along as though threatening to go off into some Atheist-like level of progression without actually ever getting there.  Although a death metal record through and through it is clear from this early release to catch hints of a band who would not be afraid to experiment in the future.  That is not to say that Atrocity are guilty of any wankery here either.  Although it does not follow a necessarily linear path on each track there is a defined earthiness to the sound here,  it reminds me of a Suffocation record with a less rich production job that on occasion leaves things coming off as a little diluted but overall this is solid work that is captured well on tape.  Those sonics are fired at the listener as opposed to being introduced by obvious breaks or pace/time changes.  The use of lead guitar work to expand the boundaries of the core structure of a song is key in death metal from this area and is something that the aforementioned Morbid Angel were doing effortlessly and it is good to see one of the European dm cohort matching these traits in their own sound.

The flow of the album suffers a bit (there is weirdly placed, choral track titled Introduction in the middle of the record for some reason that looks like it was supposed to be some kind of interlude) which reminds me of a poor attempt at later Gorguts releases when they went a lot more experimental.  Here they just lack cohesion with everything else that is going on in the track listing and genuinely become interruptions as opposed to tolls to keep the the album varied.  I still cannot fault what goes on in terms of the musicianship though and that is more than enough to keep Todessehnsucht in the high scores. 

Song writing is a fine art form. A skill that only very few excel at. You can admire well-structured and cleverly built songs all you like, however for me the real praise needs to be reserved for those that elevate their song writing to truly deranged levels of morbid grandiosity. That ability to truly detach from the expected, to actively seek to shy away from the conventional is where my eyes go all glossy with adulation. To that end, my discovery of Monotheist today for the first time has been nothing short of a revelation.

To be honest, I rarely listen to Celtic Frost and had most certainly not thought to connect them with doom metal. Of course, now I sit down and acknowledge that this last offering from CF sets the scene perfectly for the very similar sounding Triptykon, it all falls into place nicely. That having been said part of my stunned and slightly quizzical look on my face cannot hide that sense of being caught genuinely off-guard by a record for the first time in absolutely years. Although relevant, comparisons with Tom’s latter day output are not altogether an accurate reflection of just how good Monotheist is.

Which ever release I listen to from Triptykon, it exudes some sense of measure and control. It feels like some of the rampant emotions of Monotheist have been brought to heel in the intervening years that have passed since CF ducked out (on a high). That is not to say that Monotheist is bat shit crazy either, whilst it most certainly lacks some of the dark composure of Triptykon it is still a deviously calculated record to listen to. Whilst it starts off perfectly normal with heavy opener Progeny providing an above average welcome to proceedings, this is a record that slowly unravels and unhinges itself the further you get into it.

As well as Tom’s increasingly demented vocals there is a growing sense of groove and bend to those riffs also. As songs start to crash into feedback-soaked endings it is with a degree of wonder that you must ask yourself if the four years of recording was the route the band should have stuck with for their entire careers, such is the level of accomplishment prevalent over these eleven tracks.

Clear album highlight is the penultimate track (proper), Totengott. Its blend of harsh black metal vocals and noise-like atmospherics are a stunningly macabre glorification of evil music and Tom sounds rabid on his performance on here. The fourteen minutes plus offering, Synagoga Satanae is a wonderful exploration of doom metal, full of big and memorable riffs. For me, they could end the record right there and do away with the instrumental track that closes proceedings but this still acts as a great palette cleanser to end on.

I had high hopes for this record.  I had only heard good things about Witchfinder General and had often wondered if they deserved their cult underground status in doom metal circles.  Truth is (to my ears at least), this is a NWOBHM record done by a band who also happened to like listening to Black Sabbath.  I cannot see that this was intentionally recorded to be anything remotely doom metal related, I would go so far as to say that it just got into the club via the fire escape or the open window in the gents toilet as the doormen wouldn't let it in the club door and somehow it got on the main bill.

In all honesty, I do not even think that this even makes the grade as a half decent NWOBHM record.  They are most certainly not a Diamond Head by any means and there are aspects to the playing that are quite amateurish, albeit of course this was their debut record.  I understand that this was the "peak" of their career as well which is a real burning irony that will never be lost on me.  It could be that my disillusionment with The Guardians clan is still too acute for me to tolerate much influence from it in my doom metal (especially when that influence is so obvious as it is here) but this marriage of the two elements just does not sit right with me I am afraid.  

*The debut from Pentagram is most widely available under the re-released version “Relentless” that has a different track order. I found the original on YouTube though coz I keepz itz realz!

I have been meaning to catch up on my exploration of The Fallen clan with Pentagram’s opening offering to the world being on my challenge list. Last night I was flicking through a magazine and an interview with Mirai from the band Sigh referenced Pentagram’s debut record as “Heavy, simple and evil” and so my task for today was set. Mirai listed it as one of his five most influential albums, citing the simplicity of the riffs as being one of the key successes of the record. I would agree with this to some extent as the riffs here chart no complicated or technical patterns. Equally, the drums and bass do nothing extraordinary in the main part, but then Joe Hasselvander suddenly pulls amazing runs and fills out of thin air (Run My Course) or Martin Swaney steps in from nowhere with his charging bass line (Dying World) and suddenly this is not such a simplistic album anymore.

What works well on this record is the restraint that is showed to showcase individual performances. Whilst the riffs stick that effective level of basic ability during verses, for example, Bobby’s vocals really get to shine. His dulcet croons are given centre stage in these scenarios but then when it comes to the lead work, Victor Griffin gets the spotlight delivering brief but enchanting solos. This sharing of the limelight gives the album a real sense of cohesion and camaraderie; no individual element rides roughshod over another here folks.

There is no doubting the doom credentials on display here, the production job is light touch and the whole sound has an authentic and organically dark feel. The fuzzy edge to things gives a cruel comfort against the backdrop of Bobby’s marauding vocals. Listening to this album some near forty years after its release, it is not difficult to see why Pentagram have remained such a revered name in the doom metal scene. Simple, without being boring and clever without being complex.

Finally getting to grips with Through Silver In Blood and me literally focusing only on that one Neurosis release, revisiting it intermittently over several months if not years overall, was a rewarding experience in the long run.  However, it set the bar high for my expectations of the rest of the discography that I was destined to sample thereafter.  Enemy of the Sun found itself in my sights earlier on in 2022 and as with its successor, I have taken several months to listen to it.  Sometimes in one sitting and more often than not over two halves - both methods being rewarding in some way, shape or form.  Of course, I came at EoS from a different angle altogether than I did TSiB, having gotten over my challenges with the sound of the band I could focus instead on the immediate content in front of me.

This time around, tracks started to resonate with me much more easily, both in terms of memorability and an overall appreciation of the complex and convoluted structures that jarred their way into my head from the off.  The middle-eastern warble on Raze the Stray, for example, instantly struck a chord in me as it reflected perfectly the overall experimental direction of the album.  I find the colliding structure of Lexicon as abrasive as you would expect, but at the same time cannot fail to acknowledge the emotional turmoil that holds the chaos together so cohesively.  The horns and strings of penultimate track The Time of the Beasts show a balance of ambition, of musical exploration that still embraces the raw and now familiar to me elements of the bands core sound.  The samples that lie interspersed throughout the record are a part of the narrative that serve to elevate the turgid trajectory of the songwriting perfectly.

I think the main success of Neurosis is that they play music that appeals to me on a personal level.  That is not to say that I share (or that I can even accurately interpret) every experience they share with me on EoS or any other releases for that matter, but that the music sounds authentic and organic, from the heart.  Aside from the fact that it is well played, this music is simply an ugly truth that is shared without being forced - notwithstanding that it is not necessarily comfortable to perform.  Closing track Cleanse is probably one of my favourite tracks from the whole release.  Stripped back to a tribal but not primitive or simplistic structure this just feels so earthy and I can smell fresh air, sense humidity in the atmosphere and threat in the aether also.  It is a bold way to close an album most certainly, but it is done with a confidence that grows over the entire fifteen minutes and fifty-three seconds of its runtime.

Between 1980 and 2003, Overkill delivered twelve full lengths, three EPs and numerous splits and videos.  In a little under 25 years the band had been knocking out albums at a rate of approximately one every two years.  That is a pretty consistent level of output by any measure and one that saw the band survive the lull following the eighties heyday of thrash metal by branching out into groove metal to keep the New Jersey/New York machine rolling on.  Taking a wider view of the whole discography and it is even more remarkable that I can still find releases in there that I have never listened to and so being able to drop any release in by Overkill as a monthly clan feature is hopefully a voyage of discovery for all once we move away from the more infamous releases.

In my thread for this feature release I billed Kill Box 13 as a "post-groove metal" era album from Overkill.  This is only half true since although thrash metal plays a part here I get much more groove metal on Kill Box 13 than I do conventional thrash metal.  In fairness to Overkill, retaining that groove metal element was inevitable really.  It had seen them through three or so releases and so was obviously an embedded part of their sound by this point.  As I reflect on the last run through of the record I did, it is the groove metal that sticks in my mind even though the better parts for me are the actual thrash moments.

However, there are a couple of challenges with Kill Box 13 for me that consign the album to the "unlikely to revisit" pile.  Firstly, it is too long at ten tracks and fifty minutes in length overall.  This coupled with my second major criticism that the album is massively top heavy and almost everything after track six should have been left for a future bonus offering of previously unreleased tracks makes this album something of a damp squib for me.  Accepting that the health issues in the band may play more than a part in this release being less than optimal, I still think the content lacks that consistent quality to justify a full length release and although I have not seen anything to suggest it was rushed to meet contractual requirements or the bands simple need to start touring something again, I would not be surprised if something other than artistic integrity drove some of the choices here.

There are some truly punishing listening experiences around in the plethora of extreme metal releases that populate the blackened death metal sub-genre in particular.  Here be the home of Portal, Teitanblood and Antediluvian amongst many others, all of whom showcase an unrelenting style of music that defies structure and form and goes for the jugular track-after-track.  To be honest, even after 30+ years of listening to metal I am still not sure of the difference between the term "war metal" and the sound emitted by the likes of Diocletian and we all know how much I hate genre pedantry so feel free to shake your head in silent disgust as I refer to this primitive style of music minus any correct "it" terms.  

New Zealanders Diocletian are a tricky concept for some.  Not in the least due to the fact that the vocalist at the time of Doom Cult (V. Kusabs) has since been convicted of possession and distribution of child pornography.  Sometimes our exploration of the extreme side of music takes us to even darker places than we thought possible unfortunately.  Focussing on the music though, Doom Cult is truly an exploration of unbridled terror done with drums, bass, guitars and some ghastly vocals thrown in for good measure.  If you are looking for any semblance of production values then you are in the wrong place altogether as this has been left outside the door along with discernible vocals, structured riffs and any hope of variation.

This in fact, is probably one of the few occasions all tracks merging into one in a chaotic blur works well.  Everything does get thrown at the wall here and the fetid, gloopy mess that sticks is here for the duration, all thirty-three minutes of it.  There are some more memorable moments when the band adopt a more military style approach to their rhythms here and there but overall, to truly enjoy this record you have to be willing to let it assault you.  There might not be a lot of mastery about the attack but it does not make it any less effective.

Hailing from Texas and containing the talented Mr Israel Gaza (of Gatecreeper fame) in guitar, Judiciary fell onto my radar when I was researching crossover artists for a future playlist for The Pit.  The crossover tag can become a little bit of a dreaded gap to fill on the playlist each month and so Judiciary's brand of core focussed crossover offered something new in terms of the band having some elements of metalcore infused with the more conventional aspects of their sound.  Whilst this is not so heavy an influence to make the band lose sight of their crossover credentials, the breakdowns are incorporated well alongside the traditional catchy, bouncy rhythms that crossover can offer.

Vocalists collaborate galore on this record with Bryan Garris from Knocked Loose and Jess Nyx from Mortality Rate contributing on a couple of tracks, as well as wrestler  (and God's Hate vocalist) Nate Blauvelt making an appearance also.  I will not pretend to be familiar with any of those bands, or indeed metalcore in general, but the variation is welcome on an album that is only a shade over twenty-five minutes long.  Main band vocalist Jake Collinson is the standout performer overall with his style matching the intense riffing and motor-like rhythms perfectly.  As you would expect, the guitar work is superb also and the drums are allowed to flow in the mix with overriding the rest of the performances.

For a quick blast of something a little different, Judiciary are a neat find.  They are niche most certainly and therefore not perhaps for every Pit member's taste but I found them refreshing and rewarding in equal parts without having my world set on fire.

An internet acquaintance of mine often referred to Dark Funeral with ill-disguised disgust. He often referred to their sound as being “blasting for, blasting’s sake”. Dark Funeral have been a missing part of my black metal education for virtually the whole time I have listened to extreme metal – and that has nothing to do with my online friend’s less than positive experience of them. What little I have heard has never served to separate them as being standout from say Marduk or 1349 and so they have never been given a full listen through before the Review Draft picks this month.

Upon first listen to Where Shadows Forever Reign, I can understand the “blasting” reference described above, although I do not entirely agree with the sentiment that this is overdone in anyway. Where Shadows Forever Reign is as conventional as you could hope to hear in the black metal stratosphere. It pulls no punches and sticks to a tried and tested formula without falling into the trap of just being the same the whole way through. This is not to say that there is not a large amount of repetition on here, but the nuances are subtle enough to make this an album that rewards with each listen. I would still tout that a bit more variation would not go amiss (or at least a trim on the track listing to bring this under 40 mins overall) but what is on display here is of sound enough quality that it almost works over the album duration.

It has taken me four or five listens to fully get my head around this record, but my enjoyment has increased with each listen. The loose sense of atmospherics and dissonance, coupled with the crude melodicism makes for an interesting listen as it is not like any of these elements get fully explored or developed too far beyond those more traditional black metal elements. It is more likely they are continually flirted with and teased at. The twin guitar attack to my ears should beef things up more but this record is a real machine when it gets going still and the vocals of Erik Andreas Vingbäck are of note.

Listening to this record has piqued my interest in the band enough for me to explore more of their discography but I still think they will end up outside of my core bm listening – just as 1349 are in all honesty.

Souls of Black was (according to Chuck Billy) written and recorded in a rush to get the band on the European leg of The Clash of the Titans tour with Slayer, Megadeth and Suicidal Tendencies. It sounds like it in all honesty. From the off you cannot fail to hear the scratchy sound to the guitars and the overall compression on all the production, with tinny drums and too much echo on Chuck’s vocals. Given the experience of Michael Rosen in the production chair and the late Tom Coyne covering mixing duties this is a surprising outcome but one that somehow does not entirely ruin Souls of Black.

Over repeated listens, the album has grown on me. It will never be a regular play though because (production issues aside) it is so inconsistent. This must be down to the hectic nature of the album being put together as Chuck describes, even though this is clearly a thrash metal record, it sounds rushed and that cannot be hidden by the sheer intensity of the rhythms that the band deploys. When the band are on point (Absence of Light, One Man’s Fate, Malpractice and the title track) they truly do motor at a huge rate of knots. However, the rest of the album is just filler with a smattering of promise of greater things littered largely throughout the lead work of Alex and Eric.

By comparison, Louie Clemente seems lost in the mix, occasionally bobbing his head above the squall to remind us he is there pounding away. Despite being audible he somehow lacks presence on the record. Greg’s bass is also able to be heard – if not in a muffled sense – but overall, no instrument escapes the poor production job. The most obvious element is still Chuck’s booming vocals that get enough restraint from the production to the benefit of the album overall, but they sound detached from the rest of the band’s performances, like they were over-layered as an afterthought somehow.

Not the best Testament record they have ever done but still has some enjoyable elements to remember even if they are not enough to bring me back for repeat visits.

To describe French one-man bm outfit Esoctrilihum as being industrious is quite an understatement. Since 2017, Asthâghul has released eight albums and three EPs. This level of prolific activity is hardly unheard of but is certainly not the norm. Reading a few interviews with him around the web this morning Asthâghul has a very specific mindset he exists within to allow his creative juices to flow and based on the frequency of his output he does not find it very difficult to get into the zone.

Released a little under a couple of months ago (at the time of writing this review at least), Saopth’s continues Asthâghul’s journey into the symphonic, the avant-garde and the lo-fi black metal elements of his music. I will go on record early on in this review in noting that there is a lot to take in here. As someone who is not really that interested in avant-garde metal this maybe more of an individual struggle as opposed to a more widespread challenge for any fan of the sub-genre. Fortunately, there is enough variety within Esoctrilihum’s music to retain enough of the more extreme elements that are more attractive to my palate.

I am not even going to attempt to talk about individual tracks here as that is firstly an impossible task (for me at least) and secondly would be an injustice to the whole release when viewed as a singular piece of art. I can only focus on the whole album as the consistency of the performance breeds the familiarity I need to connect with it superbly. One of the major strengths of Saopth’s forty-three plus minutes its clever use of keyboards and synthesisers. They draw an ethereal and eerie picture that is equal part dungeon synth and symphonic black metal also. They are like an icy cold hand to hold throughout the album, caressing your palm during the albums more bizarre moments whilst all the while guiding you through the maelstrom that is all the component parts of the album.

Vocally, Asthâghul adopts a rasping kind of lunacy in his style that is the perfect accompaniment to the music. Sat in the mix, well layered behind the keys and the guitars and drums they embody a real sense of struggle. There are times however when it all does get too much, where no amount of mixing and mastering prowess can balance all the elements in any sense of equilibrium and as a result sections of some tracks sound like they are damaged parts of the tape to my ears which is not a pleasant experience in all honesty. I cannot deny however that Saopth’s entertained me and although I am unlikely to have much desire to revisit this for further unpicking, there is no denying the effort and talent involved in this release.

Following my Review Draft discovery of Departure Chandelier's sophomore release, I have soon found myself venturing back through their entire discography.  Their one (and to date only) full length release holds up well both in comparison to their demo that followed this and also as a standalone release in its own right.  The familiar dungeon synth sound is strong here again, giving that sense of the tracks where it appears are being expanded and pushed to new heights of elevation.  That having been said, they also convey a more grandiose majesty than was present on the follow up release.  Dripping Papal Blood was of course a demo and so would not necessarily possess the same production values as a full length release and there is nothing polished about Antichrist Rise to Power as such, however it is a richer sounding record overall.

Again, instrumental, dungeon synth tracks, bookend the release as the open and close the album.  The funereal keys on the outro seem particularly fitting given the title of Outro (Exile on the Jagged Cliffs of Saint Helena) and what sits in between these two tracks is a selection of quite basic structures with rudimentary riffing and uncomplicated rhythms that touch on black 'n roll consistency at times.  This simple approach works really well with the minimalist dungeon synth that I already mentioned and by the end the album leaves me with a sense of ethereal calm, as if the outro track has acted as some palate cleanser.

It is hard to say to say if this ever truly could be classed as atmospheric bm (the dungeon synth certainly adds to the atmosphere) or just really well done minimalist bm that deploys a crude sense of symphonia by unconventional means.  Regardless of this, Antichrist Rise to Power is triumph nonetheless and one that scratches the conventional black metal itch whilst offering something extra at the same time.

When I first got into death metal the major appeal was that I had found something that had broken music. Not in a nonsensical kind of a way, as in I deemed it to be little more than silly noises. No, this was the loss of all traditional norms that I had grown to know about music, and I genuinely felt like I had found a new home. Morbid Angel’s debut record is probably the best example I can use to evidence the above. There is a quote in the booklet/liner notes of the of one of versions of it that I own that says, “One man’s insanity is another man’s genius and from these altars of madness the heretic rejoices in things unseen”, and I cannot thing of a better way to sum up death metal for me.

As the years have flown by, that original distortion that death metal provided me has continued to grow to the point where some albums that are tagged as being death metal sound very much to me like death metal itself has been broken now (the irony). I will not pretend to love every diversion, off-shoot, and infusion that death metal takes but provided it retains some elements of conventional death metal that I usually can cope well with most albums I come across.

Altarage are one of the few modern death metal bands that I would buy anything they release cold (I have discussed this elsewhere on here before). Whilst they do not possess a flawless discography, they represent a whole new level of horror in death metal that few can rival. Inevitably, comparisons with Portal instantly crop up which I absolutely get and have no issue with. However, in keeping with the theme of things evolving and developing, Altarage in their current guise are way ahead of Portal in terms of their ability to retain such a robust sense of structure to their brand of chaotic and squally death metal.

Endinghent is full of big riffs that go beyond the busy, stabbing style that they share with the Australian maestros. If anything, Altarage exemplify here a dialled back version of this chaos. This is an album where disorder is given structure and boundaries, still allowing it to do its work perfectly well enough but unafraid to put it on the back burner when the need for some crushing riffs is identified to firmly put the death metal stamp on things. The blackened element that I hear described around Altarage does not really ring true for me and although the odour of black is in the air it never settles at any point. Listening to this record for the first time in a while it is closer to the atmospheric death metal of Ulcerate (minus swathes of technical prowess).

Although not a release that I would consider to be their magnum opus, Endinghent is an interesting listen and an important step in the evolution of the band as they take the opportunity to apply some control to the frenzied attack that was their debut and give themselves a little breathing space before becoming an absolute tour de force on subsequent releases.

Following the feature in The North clan that featured their 2004 offering (Glory and Perdition), I picked up on Sear Bliss' follow up release after a track got featured on a clan playlist in the last couple of months.  As with their previous offering, The Arcane Odyssey immediately sang to me as a furthering of the refreshing take on melodic black metal that Sear Bliss have.  This release makes solid and consistent use of horns again - in fact I suspect there is more of them this time around - again never allowing them to dominate proceedings, still letting them swell in the space behind the rest of the instrumentation and never once leaving any hint of a doubt that you are listening to a black metal record in the first instance.

I do not often find myself enjoying back to back releases from artists and so Sear Bliss already find themselves in an elite club in my standings after just two albums.  The balance they achieve in their songs is astonishing, retaining an aggressive edge but the main takeaway are the rich and illustrious melodies that fill every track with a subtle grandiosity that shows a band in control of their own destiny, set on a path of their own choosing and revelling in the glory that they create as a tight and cohesive unit.  Tracks do not always follow a conventional format and even when you think they have ended they can continue down a different and unexpected path.

The same vibes jump out at me on this record as I got with their previous release.  The borderline cosmic elements of Darkspace, the whooshing melodicism of Drudkh and the atmospheric elements of latter day Negura Bunget.  There is also a retention of that brooding Mayhem mood sitting here as well.  It is as if Sear Bliss possess a lot more threat than you may take in upon first listen and they are happy to leave that teaser in the background to keep the listener on their toes.  Second track A Deathly Illusion deploys this near black 'n roll rhythm alongside those ever familiar horns to the point where the riffs began to hint at being just a bit seedy and dirty, giving a sense that the sleeves can get rolled up when needed in Sear Bliss.

This time around there are no interludes (an aspect that I had no issue with - for once - on Glory and Perdition) and this is a definite positive for the album.  This record flows really well, taking little risks along the way and simply working with their established sound.  It is not a safe record by any means though and still is unrepentant in its use of brass instrumentation and cleaner musical passages to cast ethereal atmospheres.  The lead work here would not be out of place on a traditional doom metal record and there are times when the record takes on such a pace to match as well.  Overall though, The Arcane Odyssey is a triumph of consistent song writing and textured layering of the elements contained therein.  This band are one of my favourite Metal Academy discoveries of 2022.

My flirtation with The Gateway clan has waned over the past year or so.  However, that having been said I think Bad Omen's latest release might just be my most played album of the year and I do still spin Niratias by Chevelle on a regular basis following its release last year.  Still, I do not now engage with much of this clan even though for a period in the late 90s and early noughties I was listening to the likes of Korn, Linkin Park and grunge acts such as AiC and Soundgarden on a daily basis.

In Sevendust I found a happy medium I guess between a record that is not shying away from being alternative but at the same time lacks any real sense of panache when it comes to song writing overall.  But let us start with a huge positive in the vocals of Lajon Witherspoon.  His cool and tuneful voice is the standout item on Animosity.  The irony being that his voice hardly evokes any sense of animosity given that it possesses a smoothness that sounds like he could roll icing out from between his vocal chords at times.  The more aggressive tracks leave me to think that he most certainly has depth in his abilities (if not necessarily able enough for me to describe that depth as range of any sort).  In keeping with the vocal performance, I find the riffs here of equal aptitude.  When they put their mind to it, Sevendust can let rip with the old six-strings whilst also weave some of those hazy nu-metal notes in there also from time to time.  These two elements alone make for some memorability without ever managing to convey much in the way of excitement or intrigue in what I am hearing.

Animosity is very much an album that I would not come back to.  After giving it more than a few listens ahead of this review I cannot say there is anything remarkable here and it really just sounds like an awful lot of other music that was floating around at the time.  The song writing can actually sound quite lazy at times with clunky structures such as Xmas Day really bringing nothing positive to the table.  As a result the album lacks completeness and suffers from the dreaded sense that this is a collection of songs as opposed to an album.

Dirty, squalid, crushing, rotten and ugly death metal here from the county of Yorkshire in the UK.  This is a celebration of old school death metal and as such brings nothing new to the table, which is fine as 15 minutes of 90's death metal is a welcome blast for any tea and biscuit break in my book.  Hailed in one article I read as being one of the "young upstarts of British death metal" it is clear that Mortuary Spawn have a healthy respect for the founding fathers of the genre and there is plenty here for the avid fan to sink their teeth into. 

Showing a keen ear for pacing and a deftness in being able to vary between sonic as well as all out riffing assaults along the way, this self-titled debut release shows a repertoire of ability that bodes well for future releases from the five piece.  Successfully generating atmosphere throughout the EP the band almost create a false visage of death/doom but possess a much more potent vibrancy to their riffs to ever stay low enough to not warrant tags beyond conventional death metal.  A solid if not remarkable debut offering but I sense there is a lot better to come here folks.

Meliah Rage are a noisy bunch.  In fact Idol Hands comes straight out of the traps in a riffing frenzy and maintains this trajectory over the eight tracks on offer.  Having somehow missed this band over their 30 year plus career I wondered initially how I had never picked up on any releases previously as at first glance they seemed to have some promise for my tastes.  Then two things became immediately apparent very quickly with Idol Hands that made me see more or less instantly why my foray into their discography will probably be limited to this one release.  Meliah Rage are to me like a poor persons version of Metal Church.  That combination of power, heavy and thrash metal that Metal Church managed to nail for at least a few releases is not as well moulded here within the ranks of Meliah Rage and as a result their blend of metal is too power metal orientated for my liking.

The vocals of Paul Souza are by far the most power metal laden element to the bands sound here.  For all the riffing that Jim Koury and Anthony Nichols manage to muster from the twin guitar attack (complete with some standard yet perfectly well-done lead work also) it is Souza's vocals that blunt the attack with their overly expressive gruffness that at times are quite comedic.  Although he can hold tone, he lacks range and his style soon becomes predictable.  Equally, drummer Stuart Dowie appears uninterested (or unable) in stretching his legs beyond some very rudimentary efforts - I mean where are the fills fella?  He just sits there following the same pattern, track after track.  I am not sure he has more than one stick in all honesty.

As I said, when I threw Idol Hands on at first it was instantly obvious they were noisy enough, unfortunately what they have to say is boring and predictable.  Lyrically they hold a level of naivety that belies their years together as the below excerpt for the terrible Sentenced to Life clearly shows:

Trapped inside your body

Locked inside your head

Dying to be someone else

Wishing you were dead

This is poor heavy metal, badly written and actively suppressing the two bits of talent that the band holds (the guitarists) within limiting and restraining structures that challenge nobody in terms of skill set.

As I further my listening in The Fallen clan I inevitably find myself with my first MDB album.  I cannot articulate why I have never ventured into MDB over the last three decades.  It is not that I recall any poor experience of one song that turned me off them although I predict that if I had heard Turn Loose the Swans back in 1993 I would not have gotten past album opener Sear Me MCMXCIII as my Pantera-adled brain would not have tolerated such a dreary number.  In so many ways TLtS is a gift that I can only appreciate with age, as it is an album that transcends a mere death/doom tag over its seven tracks and is in fact a lot to take in.

This is an album that manages to felt as well as heard.  It has tangible form and edges as well as an interesting interior to explore also.  Whether it is the destitute crooning of Aaron Stainthorpe that you feel in the very pit of your stomach or the melancholic stabbing riffs of Andrew Craighan and Calvin Robertshaw that fill your head with heaviest of dark thoughts, there is always an experience to be had with any part of TLtS.  Rick Miah more than deserves a mention also with his drumming providing a consistent and solid backdrop to whole despondent atmosphere of the album.  The drum patterns manage to sit in the space between simple percussion and expansive detail.  Never lost and never overpowering, this is one of the most balanced drum performances I have heard for some time.

Props also for the subtle use of the violin and keyboards.  Martin Powell manages to make his presence felt without turning the album into a wishy-washy, gothic affair.  The guitars, drums and vocals are genuinely allowed to shine with the keys and classical strings seeping in to support them or compliment perfectly the more down tempo moments.  The Snow in My Hand is a great example of how they violin is effectively used to introduce the song, set the tone and then hand it over to the doomier aspects of the sound.  In terms of the true death/doom content, I would argue that this is quite sparse overall and only comes into play from around the halfway point of the album.  Indeed, I would go as far as to suggest that TLtS is a real grower of an album overall in terms of staying true to its overall genre classification.  The elements of gothic and doom metal certainly dominate the first part of the album, yet when the death/doom content is displayed it does not push any of these other elements aside.  The band merely combine them as new component parts to the sound and as a result the album has a real sense of development to it.  At the same time all tracks seem somehow interconnected.  Listening to the aforementioned The Snow in My Hand you cannot help but think of album opener Sear Me MCMXCIII.  I am not aware that the album is a concept album and so I can only put this down to sheer consistency.

Building as it goes along, the release hits its peak shortly before the end of the record as the two lengthier tracks, Crown of Sympathy and the title track, truly showcase the song writing prowess of the band.  Dramatic, grandiose (trumpet fanfare) and utterly desperate, both tracks encompass the overall experience of TLtS perfectly.  I cannot pretend to have hit it off with this record from the outset and I have in fact been listening to it on and off for weeks now just to get to the point of being able to gather my thoughts for a review.  At first (as with Anathema) I did find it a little bleating at times but this issue soon dispersed over repeated listens.  Despite the experimentation, the record maintains a real death/doom ethos at its core and is one of the best records I have heard to date in my exploration of The Fallen clan.

Let’s be honest. Out of all the genres of metal, thrash metal is the one that sees little in the way of output that constitutes much excitement in the modern era. Nowadays even the progressive and or super technical offerings that stray over in to our beloved The Infinite clan here at The Metal Academy rarely raise enough furore to warrant a rating pretty much a review. As someone who spends a lot of time with The Pit clan when programming the playlists each month, it is easy to become embroiled in a battle with the algorithms of streaming services to find something that offers enough of a core representation of thrash or speed metal whilst adding something new and interesting to boot.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with a band doing an established and recognisable sound well and giving a true representation of the genre in the process. However, at the end of the day there is a lot of thrash metal out there and it is easy to overlook true exceptions to the rule in such a packed and well-established genre. Enter Critical Defiance, another jolt of energy into the thrash metal corpse from the seemingly endless stream of Chilean metal bands who are unafraid to wear their 80’s influences on their sleeves and revive the sounds of old.

Take a flick through any review on MA of any of these South American revivalist acts and you will soon find high praise aplenty. This praise is not unjustified either given that in Critical Defiance’s case at least, they give an energetic and memorable performance throughout No Life Forms. Clocking in at just under half an hour, their sophomore release both sounds and feels like a thrash metal record from the heydays of the genre. With two guitarists in the ranks (a change from the debut release as I understand it – see Sonny’s review) the band present a full and complete sound that crackles with fire and energy throughout. As soon as the opening track starts, we get sight of the superb lead work within mere seconds and as such No Life Forms sets it’s stall out early.

The album flicks between all out, maniacal riffing with frenetic tempos and frantic pace swarming all over the listener and straight up memorable riffing and classic thrashing chops. The infectious nature of CD’s passion for their music is obvious on all ten tracks on offer here and they deliver that passion with the album never managing to become a draining experience for the listener. When they tone things down for some chopping punishment on our ears of a more classic variety, they reference Kreator, Morbid Saint, Sodom, and Demolition Hammer in their playing style to show some grounding in the genre’s history.

As a unit you will struggle to find many bands tighter than CD. The drummer is an absolute machine, and the audible bass is a real powerhouse in driving the band forwards also. As already referenced, the guitar work is nothing short of exceptional here and the instrumental track, Elephant (one of two instrumentals) showcases this perfectly with its climbing melodies and charging riffage. Likewise, the vocal work of Felipe Alvarado is a perfect fit for the music.  It reminds me of a more crossover style than the rest of the bands sound indicates as we are spared the high pitched shrieks as seems to be the norm on all retro-thrash records nowadays.

Despite all the positives noted above, I am not blown away by this record. Going back to my opening paragraphs, this has all been done before and although this is done well, I have plenty of this stuff already littered through out my physical and virtual library. In all honesty, even with a short run time, large parts of No Life Forms just pass me by each time I listen and that is not really the fault of anyone in the band, more a reflection of how overloaded my brain is on this stuff nowadays. Five stars for effort but not enough here still to keep this in the higher ratings overall.

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.