Saxy S's Reviews

At the moment of writing this, I am sitting at my back window, staring out into the public park behind my home, enthralled by the sight of anywhere between 15-20 cm of snow, perfectly still, almost foreboding in a way. Suffice to say that I was in the perfect conditions to listen to the new Saor album. When I discovered Andy Marshall's Celtic/black metal band in 2016, it came at a wonderful time. I had just completed my undergrad and had spent the better part of two years not listening to any metal. That's when Guardians arrived and I was taken away to the plains of Caledonia and its atmospheric beauty, complimented by a monstrous album.

I understood many of the detractors on Saor's previous album, Origins. It was less so a black metal album and dug its feet in with its Celtic folk roots. And while I never saw that as a bad thing, the songwriting did take a noticeable downgrade. And the first thing I noticed when turning on "Amidst the Ruins" for the first time was how well the folk roots blended with the revived black metal framework; it's even better than before! The hook on the title track is not only vibrant, but also carries a lot of weight through the entire thirteen minutes. Carrying into "Echoes of the Ancient Land", the grandeur picks up with lots of countermelodies flowing through the track. The harsh/clean vocal combo sounds wonderful and not indulgent in the slightest.

The one true issue I have is the interlude "The Sylvan Embrace" although calling it an interlude might be a misnomer. This track is over eight minutes long and, while beautiful, does not need that much time to simmer. This is Andy Marshall's longest album since Guardians so I understand the need for a reprieve. But Saor have never been of the brutal style of black metal that you might expect from Watain or Spectral Wound. For something as melodic and pleasant as this, I don't really see the need for extended breaks like this one. By comparison, "Exile" on Forgotten Paths would have made for a more acceptable length of break here.

"Rebith" lives up to its title by channeling a similar energy to "Monadh" from Forgotten Paths as well. It's pretty much two songs in one and both halves are given love and care. The first half brings back the black metal weight that was missing following "The Sylvan Embrace" and might be the most intense song that Saor have ever produced. The second half is this simple melodic motif that gradually swells over time and transforms into an epic conclusion. I will say that I think "Rebirth" ends a bit abruptly? I know, it just feel like with Parasomnia, this album should release its epic conclusion onto us in those final five minutes, but it leaves a bit more modest than I would like. Saor should leave the listener with a sense of wonder instead of wondering. 

I will admit, like with Origins, I don't think this album is bad. In fact, I would say that Amidst the Ruins is the proper comeback that fans of Andy Marshall deserve; a more revived focus on the atmospheric black metal, with a newly invigorated take on Celtic folk music. And each song has its truly epic moments in them. But as a whole? Amidst the Ruins loses steam in its final two songs. I'm still gonna bite the bullet and buy this record on vinyl and give it a high score, claiming it as one of 2025's first essential listens, but if I'm in the mood for Saor, I might go back to older albums like Guardians and Aura first.

Best Songs: Amidst the Ruins, Echoes of the Ancient Land, Glen of Sorrow, Rebirth

For once, my Spotify algorithm doesn't dogpile with endless droves of AI generated music and the same three albums since 2015. Oubliette originate from Tennessee and are quite small in their reach, with only a couple thousand monthly listens. For the bands third album, Eternity Whispers, the atmospheric, melodic sound has been tampered with in favour of some more death metal tendencies. Even though I would consider them as primary touches to enhance the album, the black metal portions are exquisite. I really enjoy the melodies in the guitars and how they modulate from tremolo picking leads to arpeggiated post-metal breaks. They create an excellent change in timbre as the percussion acts much the same way. Some slower grooves, some heavy blast beats as well as passages where the drums aren't playing at all. The vocals sound good mostly, my one issue with Emily's singing is that it can be a mixed game where sometimes they sound pronounced and explicit, while others, such as on "Dreams of Nevermore" they can be pushed pretty far back in the hierarchy. The album has an instrumental ("Ember's Embrace") that features Ben Karas from Thank You Scientist, and the albums closer ("Vanish") has quite a progressive flare, leaving room for growth in the future. It also shows growth as an album, which is far more progressive than the Berklee jazz slop that Dream Theater releases these days. The record surely isn't without fault, but for a short, pleasant piece of melodic black metal, it's a great listen.

Best Songs: Primordial Echo, Consumed by the Void, Desolate Path, Ember's Embrace, Vanish

Regressive Metal

I have not cared for Dream Theater for a very long time. I think the last good Dream Theater album was Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and that album is over twenty years old at this point. The progressive metal giants have spent the better part of two decades regurgitating the same trends that album portrayed, albeit without any of the passion that made that album great. The hooks became sparser, the grooves were more sporadic, and band solos became way too prominent. Mike Mangini’s arrival as the band’s new drummer on A Dramatic Turn of Events was supposed to be a turning point for the band; they had just wrapped up their “twelve stages of grief” epic that spanned five albums and a change of roster could be just what they needed.

However, Dream Theater gave Mangini only passing status in the band as the rest of the ensemble carried on status quo. My breaking point came in 2016 with The Astonishing, because of how astonishingly boring it was. If you wanted to make an Ayreon album, why didn’t you just call on Arjen Lucassen to make one for you? Despite my trepidation, I did enjoy Distance Over Time with its return to writing memorable songs and not just an instrumental wank for twenty minutes. And you know what else? Mike Mangini got involved in the songwriting! I shouldn’t have been so hopeful that this band would stay in that lane.

After another completely boring experience with A View From the Top of the World, I find myself at the end of the rope. Dream Theater has one chance to surprise me: starting with the return of longtime drummer Mike Portnoy back on the skins. Is Dream Theater back, or is Parasomnia just another Dream Theater album?

The name Parasomnia ]already sets bad expectations; the portmanteau album title has already run its course and yet, both Portnoy’s former employer, Whom Gods Destroy, and Dream Theater are keeping this unwanted tradition alive almost fifteen years too late. The album kicks off with “In the Arms of Morpheus” and my fears are all but confirmed. This five-and-a-half-minute track in entirely instrumental as the members of Dream Theater pass the solo baton around over a handful of entirely unmemorable riffs. No melody is ever presented to the listener and it all just sounds so performative. I mean, of course it does, it’s Dream Theater! But the lack of a returning motif just makes this song feel empty. Leading into “Night Terror” we still wait patiently for a true melodic motif to show up and only after about three minutes, we finally get some semblance of melody. You might wonder how is this any different from the introductions to “Pull Me Under” or Metropolis Pt. II: Scenes From a Memory. Those instances are melodically sound; they stay in their lane until the vocal melody arrives. Beyond that, those grooves return later, representing connectivity, something that Parasomnia does not have.

“Dead Asleep” is a perfect example of a track that could have worked. There is a solid enough repetitive groove here to keep it connected, it has an okay chorus and is produced well. But the introduction is over three minutes of the runtime, it has a solo break that is way too self indulgent for how slow the main groove is and ends on an entirely new groove not shown anywhere else in the song! The only option to keep this groove around is add another chorus, but the song is already over eleven minutes long and I was already dead tired when the final notes faded away [pun intended].

“Bend the Clock” had a chance to be the albums saving grace. It starts off calming enough, LaBrie’s vocals enter over a piano and acoustic guitar groove, and early on too. The song grows into its chorus, which sounds great (reminds me a little bit of “The Glass Prison”), there is a short solo after the second chorus and proceeds immediately into chorus number three. It’s a very typical pop song formula, but it works, which is why it has stuck around for so damn long. But then I realized something that maybe I wasn’t supposed to; during the third chorus I looked down at my song tracker and it showed me that “Bend the Clock” still had another three minutes of runtime. I thought to myself “the song is over; what could Dream Theater possibly do to fuck this up?” Then the key change happened. Petrucci goes into a wank solo that is completely isolated from the rest of the track and the groove modulates into something different as well. It’s unwarranted, it’s uncalled for and it turns something good into something really bad.

“The Shadow Man Incident” ends the album after almost twenty minutes of what I can only describe as a “musical grab bag”. Almost every Dream Theater trope from the last thirty years has been dug up and put into this smorgasbord of a track. You have soft, clean guitar intros, a triplet infused bridge, lyrics that are way too disjointed and disconnected, and an interlude solo break that takes up more than half of the song. The band takes turns at getting a solo chance, and it’s fine, I guess? The showmanship of the band is impressive and basically turns into a lost Liquid Tension Experiment song, but given the band has already shown us this earlier on in the record, it does not hit. This is supposed to be the albums climax and the pinnacle of Parasomnia, but it loses its grandeur because Dream Theater already blew their load about seven songs too early. The album concept? Would be great if The Human Equation didn’t do this same theme twenty years ago.

What happens now? Do I have to revoke my prog snob card because I think the Parasomnia is bad? No. Because to be progressive, you must be willing to push boundaries and go beyond. I have said before that Meshuggah bores me; they are immensely talented, but the music is so bog standard and unmemorable because it lacks focus. Dream Theater are comfortably in the same boat here. You cannot deny the impressive virtuosity of all of the players on display here, but their execution has become so incredibly lousy and uninspired. Nothing about Parasomnia is progressive; this is the same Dream Theater album that they've released for the last twenty-five years. Parasomnia is the epitome of Berklee jazz, and I hate it. But like clockwork, they’ll be back in another two/three years with more of the same goyslop. “Are We Dreaming?” no my friend, this is reality; a true, unending nightmare.

Best Song: Midnight Messiah

Aborted have been around for a long time; since the late 1990s, but they play a style of music that has never resonated with me. Brutal death metal and grindcore are genres that I frequently avoid, but was asked by some of my more mainstream adjacent metal friends to listen to the newest record from the band, Vault of Horrors. This was perplexing to me given the bands track record, and scene kids love their chugging breakdowns. The track listing made it all make sense. This isn't a typical Aborted album, but rather an Ayreon album where every track has guest feature vocalist from varying popularity of deathcore bands. From Shadow of Intent to Signs of the Swarm, Archspire to Ingested. If you spend any amount of time in deathcore circles, you will know at least one of these guest features bands.

Right out of the gate you might pick up on the issue here. Aborted are making brutal death metal, almost to the point of deathgrind, and then they bring in a whose who of deathcore vocalists? Suffice to say, the style of music on display here is the farthest it has ever been from grindcore. I think the record has its moments: some decent melodies on "Dreadbringer" and "The Golgothan", but more often than not they kind of blend into the background. The intensity of this album is pummeling from start to finish and leaves very little room for development/growth. Individual tracks just flounder and as a whole, Vault of Horrors gets derivative quite quickly.

The production is not great; never would have guessed that from a record published by Nuclear Blast. Because it's deathcore, the main objective in the mixing is to have everything played at maximum volume at every moment. It turns into a cacophony of sound where everyone is trying to be the focal point of the song, and it just turns into every instrument shouting at one another. The worst moment occurred pretty early on, but the penultimate moments of "Brotherhood of Sleep", just before the breakdown sounds atrocious. 

Aborted are an old band so they do have some freedom play the safe "legacy" game for the remainder of their careers. But they decided not to do that. I can give them credit for stepping outside of the comfort zone, but the execution is pretty subpar.

Best Songs: Dreadbringer, Death Cult, The Golgothan

All That Remains are one of those mid 2000s metalcore bands that is either loved or hated. If you love this band, it's probably because they were just a heavier Killswitch Engage. If you didn't like All That Remains, it's probably because they were just a heavier Killswitch Engage.

Albums like The Fall of Ideals and Overcome were pretty solid albums back in the day; a good blend of melodic hardcore with some visceral heavy portions, complete with some really good guitar shredding. Now it's been seven years since the ATR (All That Remains) album and it kicks off with a bang. The double kick drum and Phil Labonte's scream on "Divine" are reminiscent to "This Calling" on The Fall of Ideals. And that intensity stays pretty consistent throughout the record. There is a nice blend of huge down tuned, almost death metal riffage, combined with some of the more mainstream accessible power chords, soaring melodies and guitar solos. Labonte's harsh vocals are just as impactful as they were the first time I heard "This Calling" and they do not change throughout the record. His singing though is much more restrained and held back like it has been on the last couple of albums. When paired with the harsh screams, the singing comes across as neutered. It's almost as if ATR is trying to stay true to their past, even though they cannot physically be that band anymore.

AntiFragile leaves me with a feeling of confusion. On one hand, I appreciate the album for its generally longer runtime since it feels like a complete project. Too many modern metalcore acts cut corners and release albums that are so safe and unchallenging; riff, harsh verse, sung chorus and done. This album has all of this, but not always in the same order. This album has connecting bridges giving them more character. From thrash and death metal, every song has a guitar solo break where a lot of metalcore has ditched this practice entirely. This should all be in ATR's favour, but then I remember what band I'm talking about. These are all tropes and trends that ATR have already largely employed during their golden run. Sure, they might be trends that metalcore has abandoned, but they aren't trends that can be easily forgotten. And as someone who lived through the hayday of melodic metalcore, I can hear this nostalgia farming from miles away. As a result, most of this album just...happens. It has a few standout moments, but they are few and far between.

I will not deny that you can have a pretty good time with AntiFragile if you just turn your brain off and reminisce on a previous era of metalcore. And newcomers might even like this album more because they never experienced the mid 2000s. But by ATR standards, you have heard this record before and would break under the pressure of previous ATR albums.

Best Songs: The Piper, Poison It, Let You Go

Someone once told me that melodic death metal was a dying genre. Perplexed, I asked how can that be because I was listening to plenty of melodic death metal bands at the time, but then that friend told me to look at the names of those bands again; how many of then were "true" melodic death metal and not a hybrid into metalcore or progressive metal? And they were right! Melodic death metal as a unique entity in the 2020s has lost so much of its identity since its Scandinavian infancy. It's time for someone to bring the genre back to the way it once was.

Enter Upon Stone, a fairly new L.A. band that looks to put the "death" back in melodic death metal. The sound of their debut, Dead Mother Moon is very inspired by Children of Bodom. The riffing quite memorable and has a strong presence of clarity. Because the record does not bend and runs a complete runtime with harsh vocals, the clear guitar leads are essential as they carry this records main drive and it sounds pretty good. And the record does not borrow too heavy from thrash by transforming into a guitar soloist wank fest, although the leads and solos sound technically impressive. 

All of that being said however, the albums bonus track is a cover of a Misfits song, "Dig Up Her Bones". I think this track can give us some deeper insight into Upon Stone's influences: one is that they are really nostalgic for old school, classic punk/metal sounds. The Misfits are pretty self explanatory, and the melodic death metal sound through the rest of the album is right out of the Scandinavian school of Children of Bodom, At the Gates and perhaps even early Amorphis. The other insight is that, despite their love of European melo death, they are still an American band and they should take advantage of this when releasing new material in the future. I'm not quite sure how they would do this, since the American melo death sound is just melodic hardcore at this point, but maybe Upon Stone can carve their own path in the future.

If that is the case, then I would like for them to do it with a better producer. The intentional reverb throughout the record does sound nice and nostalgic, but we could easily do away with that mix piercing snare drum. There were several instances; I first noticed them on "Onyx Through the Heart" as well as "The Lantern", where the percussion is really busy and keeping a fast pace, and the snare drum is just constantly going and it was actively distracting me the rest of the way. There were times in which I would get completely lost and would not have been able to hear anything else. Perhaps this is just a personal issue, but if these songs were great and my review poorly represents those tracks, I wouldn't know because all I can hear is SNARE SNARE SNARE SNARE SNARE!!!

As of this moment, I can see where Dead Mother Moon works well; it sounds like a well oiled machine that has spent a long time listening to its influences, and is now attempting to bring them into the modern age, without resorting to tired metalcore trends crossing over into death metal. The counterpoint is that Dead Mother Moon may represent another band whose philosophy is "mEtAl wAs SO mUcH bEtTeR 20 yEaRs aGo" and would rather retread the path of giants instead of creating a new one. 

Best Songs: Dead Mother Moon, My Destiny; a Weapon, To Seek and Follow the Call of Lions

What would happen if you took the brutality of early death metal giants like Cannibal Corpse and Cryptopsy, and proceeded to spice them up with Imperial Triumphant's technicality and progression? Well you'll likely end up with something similar to Noxis. This band was a recent discovery And I was quite impressed by the result.

I do have to stress that this kind of death metal is not my strong suit; I do like progressive music, but Noxis are a little bit too far off the technical side then I'm comfortable with. That being said, the songwriting capability on Violence Inherent in the System is very memorable. Even though this album does have some wild tempo and style changes throughout the individual songs, something about them feels interconnected. Riffs are not as quickly discarded as they are introduced to the audience, instead these riffs are mutated almost to the point of unrecognizable as the song progresses, as the songs main motifs are blended together into something new and exciting, creating a cacophony of sound at the end of tracks and really embracing the brutality of its early influences like Cannimbal Corpse and Dying Fetus.

Whereas the Imperial Triumphant comparisons come through in the albums engineering and production. It is alarming (nay, I say unheard of) where a bass can receive so much prominence on a death metal record. Metal music as a whole has a terrible habit of leaving a true fundamental part of the band hanging out to dry while the down tuned guitars try to mask this deficiency. More often than not, these projects, whose main objective is to sound heavier, end up becoming quite the opposite. With Violence Inherent in the System, no such issues exits. Paired with a bass drum that is not overcooked where it sounds like my ears are popping every time a kick is played, and suddenly, the records more ethereal moments, like the bridge on "Tense and Forlorn" do not emit a sense of deflecting. Despite the style change, it still feels heavy and creates a feeling of belonging, even if it may only serve as an interlude before more technical death riffage.

The album certainly starts to become more progressive as it chugs on, with the most direct change happening after the interlude "Excursion". "Horns Echo over Chorazim", "Violence Inherent in the System" and "Emanations of the Sick" begin to include more instrumental solo breaks, which is not only a nice change of pace from the relentless riffage of the first half of the album, but their appearance is not so forceful and demanding that it distracts from everything else, like it would with thrash records. But that begs the question: what do I think of the solo on "Horns Echo over Chorazim"? For the first real solo break on the album, it does feel a little out of place. The drastic timbre change and instrumentation is a little alienating... but you notice it. Just when you think Violence Inherent in the System is beginning to slow down, out of nowhere comes a clarinet solo to slap you across the face and bring your attention back solely to this record. You might be disappointed that it is the only appearance of such a solo on the album, but its introduction to part 2 is emphatic and sets the pace for the rest of the album as well.

I do enjoy Violence Inherent in the System. For the type of influence that it takes, it has never been a style that enthralled me. Technical death metal is far outside my comfort zone of normal listening although I have opened my eyes to such sounds in recent years. And while this record does have its moments that make me sigh and murmur "here we go again..." I also think it has enough new trends to stand out among the contemporaries, rather than just copying the greats, as most 20 Buck Spin death metal bands do these days. A sure recommendation from me, even for those who are hesitant about technical/progressive death metal.

Best Songs: Blasphemous Mausoleum for the Wicked, Abstemious, Pious Writ of Life, Torpid Consumption, Horns Echo over Chorazim, Tense and Forlorn

Despondency Chord Progressions is quite a tough album to dissect. I went into this album expecting it to more dissonant, as the opening track "La encarnación de todos los miedos" suggested. Afterwards, this album became far more of a progressive affair and the dissonance served more as a embellishment to stronger songwriting than I expected. Unfortunately for Selbst, nothing within this record feels like a true songwriting gem; rather the album has some strong grooves that are very enjoyable while I am listening to them, but not sticky enough to remain in the listeners memory for very long, or even the musicians ears. Any semblance of a true motif is hiding behind the wall of black metal reverb and effects, limiting the potential of both the guitar leads and the harsh vocals.

When these sounds are present, they sound great; it really feels like a well constructed blending of both melodic and dissonant tendencies, to go alongside a strong balance of pummeling black metal and restrained post-metal. But, my issue is that these two contrary ideas are just that: contrary. They are kept separated instead of blending the two together into a cohesive juggernaut of a metal album. Instead we are left with an album that is more disjointed and lost than I think Selbst would have liked.

I'm not saying that it's a bad record; far from it. As it comes to quasi post-black metal, there are a lot of ideas that work. But bringing them together is a real challenge and I'm not quite sure Selbst pull it off quite fully yet. I have a feeling this album will get better with a few more listens.

Best Songs: Chant of Self Confrontation, The Stench of a Dead Spirit, When True Loneliness is Experienced

A completely unremarkable djent/metalcore album from a band that has been quite unremarkable since I started listening to them (which granted is not that long ago).

If you've listened to any mainstream metalcore album over the last five years, you are already well aware of what the next forty minutes have in store. Are there eight string guitar riffs which are used as a shield to hide the existence of a true bass? Yes of course. How about formulaic pop song structures, complete with harsh verses and sung choruses? In droves. Monotone chorus deliveries by the vocalist? Check. Uninspired atmospheric instrumentals before whipping the listener into a djent fit of rage? You bet. And don't forget about those soft synthesized interludes!

I really wonder how much of this has to do with the bands roots as a symphonic deathcore band. That is not to say that I think Make Them Suffer should not change their sound, but the song themselves feel far less inspired and do a lot less to drive the listeners forward. Each song has the exact same tempo and follow the same verse-chorus formula. The alternating male/female vocals only help the record so much; credit where it is due, either vocal timbre is not limited to just doing the harsh or clean vocals. But when the band cannot do anything to compliment the vocals, it creates a massive problem for the rest of the recording, which just feels like an afterthought.

Make Them Suffer absolutely fall into the category of a singles band, similar to that of Lamb of God. Unlike Lamb of God however, Make Them Suffer supplementary material is significantly worse than their singles. If you checked out this album simple off the promotional singles, it doesn't get much better than that.

Best Songs: Epitaph, No Hard Feelings, Ghost of Me

Before I started listening to music on a critical level, I begrudgingly enjoyed a couple of Megadeth's early records because all of my friends hated Metallica. I knew about Dave Mustaine's history with Metallica and, of course, the drastic style changes of thrash metal between the two bands. I think most people who enjoy the early Megadeth records (Killing is My Business through Rust in Peace) like how uptempo they are, the riffage and the solos. No one in their right mind is listening to a Megadeth record for the lyrical themes.

Now that I am older and have listened to a lot more music, I find Megadeth are just plain boring. When I listen to thrash in 2025, my go to classic names are Metallica, Testament, and Kreator, while bands like Slayer and Megadeth lose me every time. As for Rust in Peace in particular, I can provide credit where it is due, for a late 1980s thrash album, this is produced wonderfully (amendment: I am listening to the 2004 remix version of the album). Besides the messy guitar solos, every instrumental part is articulate and David Ellefson's bass lines are given a lot of presence to give the songs on this record huge momentum. And even though I've never really enjoyed Dave Mustaine's vocals, this early 19990s era of Megadeth, including albums like Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction are some of my favourite vocals timbre's of his.

But now we get to the juicy parts. I know my opinions on thrash metal are far from conventional, considering I have gone on record multiple times and said that Reign in Blood is the weakest of the big four 1980s thrash albums. Like with that album, Rust in Peace represents a tired trend in thrash that does not resonate with me. That trend being a complete disregard for writing memorable hooks and instead making a rif-fest and hoping for the good favour of the neoclassical fans with endless guitar solo wanking. I'm no pop apologist who thinks that guitar solos don't belong in music, but they have to be tasteful and Megadeth filling each song to the brim with blistering solos is the antithesis of tasteful.

The compositions are also very patchy. Both of the albums bookends "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" and "Rust in Peace... Polaris" are divided into two distinct passages that do not belong together. I hated the constant increase of intensity on "Hangar 18" as well. The sequencing does stable out during the albums middle portion with "Take No Prisoners" and "Lucretia" having a decent form, strong groove and less intrusive soloing. And I cannot deny that the first half of "Rust in Peace... Polaris" is really great. But when it comes to sequencing, because Megadeth don't modulate any of their songs to different key centers, after a brief period of time, even the records more infectious riffs become a chore since we've already heard them earlier in the album. "Poison Was the Cure" borrows heavily from the first section of "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" while the finale of "Rust In Peace... Polaris" sounds really cool, it can't help but but use a similar tempo and key as "Take No Prisoners".

I cannot state it enough times for risk of getting crucified that thrash is a hard sell for me. I don't hate the genre, but I am disappointed in what it has become. As thrash moved further and further away from its speed metal roots with Slayer's Show No Mercy, early Helloween and Venom, melody becomes an afterthought in the genre. And no thrash band of the 1980s suffers from this more than Megadeth. Metallica seemed to do just fine during their legendary run, which is likely why Mustaine left the group in the first place. Rust in Peace is an album that should have been put to bed a long time ago.

Best Songs: Take No Prisoners, Lucretia, Tornado of Souls

Another 2024 catchup album and this one comes from the Portuguese black metal band Gaerea. Although calling Coma black metal might be of a false flag, since the album has more in common with the progressive side of death metal. At best, Coma might be one of those progressive death/black metal hybrid albums that are rare, but are becoming more common in circles I visit.

Nevertheless, Coma does have it strong suit moments. I really enjoy the production on this project; the dynamic shifts between the clean post-rock and the ferocious extreme metal passages is pulled off exceptionally well throughout the albums runtime. And despite the harsh vocals requiring some getting used to, I really enjoyed their texture. The vocals are pronounced (which is rare for black metal) and not over-compressed in a cavern of reverb. 

Unfortunately, this is an album that suffers from diminishing returns the longer it goes on. When the album begins, it's good; an elongated post-rock opening before "The Poet's Ballet" opens up into the aforementioned death/black metal hybrid that will become commonplace through the rest of the record. "Hope Shatters" is great and "World Ablaze" has a cheeky post-hardcore feel to it and reminded me of a Svalbard tune in the best way possible. But after the title track, "Coma", the album seems to revert to a very familiar sound and doesn't feel engaging with the audience; songs become formulaic and become interchangeable with the others, the main melodic motifs in the vocals and guitar become less emphatic and more post-metal texture rather than something memorable. The experimentation of song progression through "The Poet's Ballet" and "Suspended" is forgotten as shorter, more intense tracks become the regular.

Coma is a record that has aspirations that are pulled off mostly well. True black/death metal crossovers are much less frequent than you may think, so hearing one that is as blatant as this makes it a decent jumping on point. Although the album does fall into familiarity after a while, it still does leave some echo of uniqueness to it. 

Best Songs: Hope Shatters, World Ablaze, Unknown

2024 may have been a really good year for me personally, but musically, the past year has been an enigma. I listened to a ton of new music in the alternative and progressive metal plains, including progressive death metal. As such, I found more than ever that metalcore was always being pushed forward to the top of my listening schedules. And while I doubt 2025 will be any different, my ventures into other genres of metal have become incredibly stale in recent years. So 2025 is going to be different; I am making an effort to explore more Fallen, Pit and North albums. These might not necessarily be new releases (such as today's album), but it would really help to boost up my review numbers in each of these clans. It will also serve as a great opportunity for me to declutter my back catalog!

2025 kicks off with Pittsburgh's Deathwhite. The bands 2022 album, Grey Everlasting, Deathwhite start showing signs that they are developing their own identity instead of just copying early Katatonia. It isn't a complete deviation from the sound, so fans of that 2000s gothic sound will surely find a place at home with this. But these compositions turn out to be rather forgettable. To their credit, Deathwhite does an adequate job of masking the lack of motivic development in their music through alternating sound palettes (i.e. acoustic versus electric guitar phrases). But the progressions of these songs run really flat as the vocals run monotonous, which is to be expected since the instrumentals don't modulate or grow that much at all. A key change or a modulation would have been great for the albums variety.

As for the production, I can't say that it was all for the best. Previous Deathwhite albums have many more faster passages to break up the doom-and-gloom gothic overtones. But on Grey Everlasting, they live up to that title by making that emotional reaction the mainstay. I think I heard only two blast beat grooves in the percussion on this entire forty-eight minute album, and those tracks turned into the albums highlights. Overall, this songwriting decision hurts the albums back half because it becomes very repetitive and songs like "Asunder" pay for it.

Perhaps the progressive nerd in me expected something else, even though the songwriting techniques are drastically different. I would guess that Katatonia fans will find this acceptable, especially since it is much closer to traditional doom metal than Katatonia. But I just found the album tired and frusturating.

Best Songs: Earthtomb, Quietly, Suddenly, Grey Everlasting, Formless

Imminence return less than a year after The Black with what I would have assumed were the demos or B sides for that record. But, it turns out that this record is, in fact, the re-release and ten year anniversary of the bands debut record from 2014. 

Unfortunately, The Reclamation of I takes two steps forward, then takes one step back. Imminence returned to form on this album when it came to writing infectious hooks and choruses. The way in which the band is able to gracefully pass melody between guitar and vocals is excellent. The choruses are also much more expressive than The Black and Heaven in Hiding.

Notice that I only mentioned the guitar and vocals when it came to melody. The big step back that this record contains is how little of the violin melody is incorporated. Given that this is the bands debut, I can accept that they wanted to stay true to the original article, but this would have been a amazing opportunity to make that record even better. I caught onto Imminence late, but I always thought of Imminence as being a simpler, more accessible version of Ne Obliviscaris; sonically at least. These two bands couldn't be anything else alike, since Imminence play very traditional melody/harmony metalcore, while Ne Oblivscaris are known for intricate contrapuntal performances. But now, with this neglection of this very crucial, and definitive part of the bands sound, Imminence would seem to have become just as formulaic and generic as any other modern metalcore band in 2024. 

In short, the album is fine. The compositions are solid and the vocals are its true selling point. However, if you were expecting this as anything other than a by-the-book replaying of the bands 2014 debut album, you are going to be severely let down, as I was.

Best Songs: Proclaim, Salt of the Earth, Those Who Seek

Times are not good for the Greek black metal outlet, Rotting Christ. After the bands change of style in the late 2010s began incorporating more symphonic elements into the music, many fans of the group stopped watching this band from a distance and began to turn away from them entirely. I, on the other hand, saw it as a nice change of pace for the group that felt like they were turning a new leaf on their career instead of staying the course with some pretty forgetful melodic black metal.

Unfortunately, Rotting Christ have not seemed to do anything with this sound beyond the initial attempt. I think that Pro Xristou has a diverse sound palette, but it sounds remarkably tedious and boring. The album is less black metal than ever before and much closer to a gothic doom metal, but Rotting Christ have only picked up on the most basic traits of that style of music. In short, Pro Xristou has no personality of its own. The vocals are performed even more dramatically artsy than even the last album, The Heretics as it transforms almost into ritualistic hymns. The melodic leads on this album are non-existent and it quickly turns into background noise after just a few tracks. This Christ has been fully composted.

Best Songs: La Lettera Del Diavolo, Pretty World, Pretty Dies

From St. Louis, Summoning the Lich are making death metal for scene kids. Now that might sound like a humongous insult, but The Black Dahlia Murder have been around and always managed to stay hip with those hardcore kids. So it's only natural that someone would come along and double down on this audience.

Many other metal forums say that Summoning the Lich are just Black Dahlia Murder worship, but I'm not sure I get that impression from Under the Reviled Throne. There are a lot of fast moving, technical passages here; plenty of high intensity riffage, blast beats and alternating between death metal howls and deathcore screeching. What Summoning the Lich does well with this album is not making these songs just sound like technical wanking and have some well composed songs on display. They might not be the most memorable in hindsight, but in the moment they sound well composed with some detail given to melodic dominance. It almost gives me a hint of Allegaeon in its presentation, which I was certainly not expecting. The breakdowns are not as intimidating as the modern deathcore breakdown; they act more as momentary reprieve's before the heavier death metal returns, which is how breakdowns should be incorporated into death metal anyways. 

Under the Reviled Throne is an album that shows a lot of promise on the outset, but in execution, the album seems to have run out of tricks in the bag about half way through. I was getting tired of the triplet feel transition on every song, I was getting frustrated that almost ever track followed the same structural format, and I really wasn't a fan of how Summoning the Lich disguised this lack of variety through key shifting. The bass lines are also severely lacking and makes the mix of this record feel less heavy as a result. It's a decent album with some good moments, but not worth the full runtime given how repetitive it becomes.

Best Songs: Reviled Crystal Wielders, The Carrion Fleet, The Void Gate

From Chicago, Huntsmen's brand of sludgy post-metal can be interesting at times, but I feel like this band lets the more progressive compositional techniques get in the way of decent song structure more than they would like. While the band has some really good ideas on The Dry Land, it has a tendency to sound like these motifs haven't been fully realized before the tracks move into a completely new pattern, while leaving the first motif to rot. It leaves me with a bad first impression as "This, Our Gospel" is ruined by a floundering theme. The album does objectively get better as it progresses, but they still do peak through the poor songwriting throughout the record.

The biggest thing I think is the drastic dynamic sways on The Dry Land. Songs like "Lean Times" and "In Time, All Things" have solid crescendo's and work wonders for individual song pacing, but as a full album, the intensity of the percussion and chordal guitars, mixed with doom-y post-metal interludes creates a bit of a whiplash effect. Add to that a very hit-or-miss production where the bass is alarmingly absent for many of the records most important moments (i.e. the intro of "In Time, All Things") and we find ourselves feeling quite underwhelmed.

What we are left with is a band and album that shows plenty of potential; earworm/progressive songwriting, dual vocals, and phenomenal sense of dynamic control, while still being held back by some tired progressive trends, spotty production and meandering. 

Best Songs: Cruelly Dawns, In Time, All Things, Rain

From Germany, I was surprised when I was going through my year end lists for 2024 and noticed that I had not reviewed the Future Palace album, Distortion. I found this very surprising because one of this albums promotion singles, "Malphas" did cross my desk last year and I figured that would be enough to at least have this record come to light. Better late than never I suppose.

However, I'm not sure that is a net positive for Future Palace since I've now spent half of the year with Reliqa and it leaves Distortion feeling hollow. If it isn't the production sounding super thin and tinny in the guitars, or the predictable song structures, it's the album structure slowing the album to a crawl by its conclusion. They are able to save it with "Amethyst," if only barely. I don't like how this album thinks it's more epic than it actually is. The inclusion of synth strings on a number of tracks (i.e. "The Echoes of Disparity" and "They Take What They Want") feel forced and unnecessary for an album whose main guitar contributions are wall of sound trance grooves. I do like the vocals from Maria Lessing and the variety that is on display here, as she alternates from warmer singing style to harsh metalcore belting. The rap vocals aren't bad per se, but compared to Monique Pym of Reliqa they act like they've been given forced intensity and it loses some grandeur. And I can admit that Future Palace do know how to write a good chorus once in a while. But once in a while doesn't cut it when the rest of the album is cookie cutter octanecore. Beyond a couple of early album singles, Future Palace turned out to be much more forgettable than I would have hoped.

Best Songs: Malphas, Dreamstate, Amethyst

From Finland, Counting Hours are making some of the best gothic doom metal I've heard this decade. Each song on The Wishing Tomb has a superb atmosphere and melancholy. The vocals are very engaging and very memorable, and the harsh death vocals serve as accentuation instead of being the records focal point. Compositions manage to remain tuneful throughout the project as they modulate between the guitar and vocal leads. The Wishing Tomb does not meander either; this is still doom metal, but even then, Counting Hours keep songs concise and on topic, even the longer tunes like "The Wishing Tomb" and "This Well Of Failures." Production is pristine with a fruitful bass with its own independence from the power chords of the guitar. And the synths act as accents to an already solid foundation instead of overwhelming the entire mixing of the album. I know there isn't that much to say about The Wishing Tomb, but it encompasses nearly everything that I love about gothic doom metal and I can't believe it took me this long to hear it.

Best Songs: Timeless Ones, All That Blooms (Needs To Die), The Wishing Tomb, No Closure, This Well Of Failures

From New York, Grey Skies Fallen have been around for a while and have stayed relatively obsolete in the greater doom metal scene. But seeing a positive review from Sonny gave me confidence that a smaller act could make a dent in my Fallen year-end-list for 2024. So what did we end up getting with Molded by Broken Hands? Well, a lot actually.

Molded by Broken Hands is death doom, epic doom, gothic metal and perhaps a little funeral doom with its compositional techniques. Grey Skies Fallen have a wide soundscape in their music and makes this record oddly progressive in a way. And the album is very well put together all the same. Just listen to those wild tempo/style changes during the bridge of "No Place For Sorrow." Normally I wouldn't be the biggest fan of such wild changes (especially on a doom metal album), but despite the lack of preparation, their incessant nature makes them super endearing. 

I won't lie, first impressions of this album were not great with the opener "A Twisted Place in Time" for the reasons that were mentioned previously. But as I already mentioned, Grey Skies Fallen have a way of making these seemingly unrelated phrases work together through songwriting and repetition. And through that songwriting, the album stays engaging up to its final notes. A few of the doom metal albums I've reviewed recently all have the same problem; where the record does not do nearly enough in the soundscapes/compositions and leaves the album staggering to its conclusion. Grey Skies Fallen, fade out ending withstanding, end Molded by Broken Hands with the same level of commitment to the work as they did at the start. "Knowing That You're There" has the same heart and soul as the opener because it hasn't been bogged down by seven similar sounding doom dirges previously.

The production can be a little shaky at times, but it's mostly good. I like how the synthesized strings are not present throughout the entire album and only appear occasionally for additional weight. The bass presence is felt tremendously helping the albums thematic arc. If anything, it's probably the harsh vocals that sound the most out of place. They aren't horrible, but they tend to sound too fry and hushed, while the booming, gothic cleans tower over the instrumental. At least the record has a decent mix of harsh-to-clean vocals so it isn't as upfront of an issue.

The albums ending on a slightly optimistic tone only exemplifies this albums variety and why I enjoy this album as much as I did. Grey Skies Fallen are making high quality doom metal under almost everyone's noses and yet no one bothers to stop and smell the roses. 

Best Songs: Molded by Broken Hands, I Can Hear Your Voice, Cracks in Time, Knowing That You're There

From Spain, gothic doom metallers Helevorn's fifth studio album is decent, if a little formulaic. Everything that you could expect out of this kind of a record is here, with very little in the way of growth. The instrumentation stays standard with its guitars, bass and vocals most of the way, with only a handful of synthesizer passages for variety. Even the vocals have a lifeless, bass-y delivery like Type-O-Negative. I would not disparage anyone who stopped listening midway though.

I think Espectres' biggest issue is that the opening three songs all seem very predictable and all have similar traits. However, the album makes modest changes to the formula during the second half and reignite my interest. The fact that it takes that long to get going is the real issue here however. So structure takes what may have been a okay album, into one that feels even more forgettable.

Best Songs: The Defiant God, Unbreakable Silence, The Lost Futures

From Colorado, The Flight of Sleipnir's brand of doom metal is listed on RateYourMusic as "Pagan Black Metal." Does it have melodic leads in the guitar constructed by tremolo picking patterns? Yep. Does it contain the patented harsh, shrieking vocals? Absolutely, although not as frequent as previous records. But that alone does not make Nature's Cadence a black metal album. Just because it borrows from a band like Panopticon when incorporating dark folk/country techniques, does not make it black metal by comparison. 

The music itself though is brilliant. I am a big fan of the country interludes on "Madness" and how they help that song change themes before building the song back up in intensity. Of course those themes are closely related so it never feels like the band has just shoehorned two separate ideas together. In addition, the album flows very well between each track; never leaving the impression that these songs weren't meant to be played collectively. Even "The Woodsman," which can barely be classified as metal, is a great track because of how well it is prepared by its predecessors.

That being said, even though the albums structure is superb, I can't really stay engaged with it because just as it starts getting good, the album ends. I think a lot of this has to do with the ten-plus minute "North" to open the album. It almost gives me the impression that the band were planning on giving "North" all of their love, while the remaining four songs were just to fill out the runtime, when that really did not need to be the case. Songs on this album are warm and lively; they don't need to be bogged down by almost twelve minutes of droning.

Nature's Cadence is a solid piece of doom metal that should be right up my alley with its folk-y roots and pristine production. But the album seems to contain too many small things and not enough time to rectify them. Maybe I'm just too pessimistic and this album will grow on me with more listens.

Best Songs: Madness, The Woodsman, Wanderer

In a futile attempt to clean up my metal listening in 2024, December (and likely into January) is the month I will be bolstering the more extreme clans here at Metal Academy that I frequent the least (i.e. Fallen, Horde and North), so there are going to be a lot of short little blurbs about a handful of records I heard in 2024. Hopefully, I'll be able to do something a little bit more timely come 2025.

From Sweden, Kvaen is a one man melodic black metal project with pagan tendencies. This is the third album and the first to be released under publishers Metal Blade. Being one of heavy metal's most prominent record labels left me cause for some concern at first, and then I heard "Tornets sång" and it all made sense.

Sure, this might be a black metal album at its core, but you cannot listen to "Tornets sång" and tell me it does not sound like In Flames. I think that song in particular brings to light many of this records technical deficiencies. When the album has the black metal aesthetic on singles like "The Formless Fires" and "The Ancient Gods," the record sounds fantastic. When Kvaen starts to delve too heavy into those In Flames-esque melodic death tendencies, the guitar becomes too intrusive in the mix and become far too centric.

What may come as a surprise to newcomers is the thrash/speed callbacks on "Traverse the Nether" and "Basilisk" as they did with me. I know that these genres form the basis for the original black metal sounds, and I think the intensity is warranted and well executed, but on they can feel a little too spaced out as part of a full listen. Even then, calling The Formless Fires spaced out is a great misrepresentation of the album since most of the songs here feel cut short or missing a final chorus or something. Most of the album consists of fadeout endings on "The Wings of Death" and "The Formless Fires," but they never feel like they've reached the end of their statement. It makes an album that is already quite short feel even shorter.

Within The Formless Fires is a decent framework of a melodic black metal album. Good variety, strong melodic form and a mostly decent production. Compositionally, this album is desperately lacking; give a couple of these songs one final refrain and you have an excellent release. As it is, The Formless Fires has potential, but just like a fire, it loses its form after all the firewood has burnt up.

Best Songs: Traverse the Nether, The Ancient Gods, Basilisk

In a futile attempt to clean up my metal listening in 2024, December (and likely into January) is the month I will be bolstering the more extreme clans here at Metal Academy that I frequent the least (i.e. Fallen, Horde and North), so there are going to be a lot of short little blurbs about a handful of records I heard in 2024. Hopefully, I'll be able to do something a little bit more timely come 2025.

From Germany, the fifth release from the atmospheric blackgaze group Ellende starts off broodingly slow and melancholic through the intro in order to prepare the listener for the depressive state of the rest of the music. When the black metal instrumentation enters on "Ballade Auf Den Tod," you can feel the hauntingly sad beauty behind this dance. And that emotion comes through in the production which is full in its scope; a fully functioning bass line to give this album some weight in its lower half. Songwriting is kind of lackluster, but for this style of black metal, where texture rules the day, the repetitive, droning nature of the tremolo guitar leads allows for these emotions to remain stagnant, which I assume was the bands intention.

Unfortunately for Ellende, I feel like they have this emotional technique down a little too well. With the depressive lyrical themes and tempos that only seem to get progressively slower as the album continues, Todbringerin is dangerously close to transforming into a doom metal album. This album would certainly benefit from having more tracks like "Verachtung" in the middle of the tracklisting to compliment the brooding of "Scherben" and "Versprochen..." And perhaps this is a personal anecdote, but I'm listening to this album on the first major snowfall of the season, which comes with its own emotional weight, so perhaps a record this emotional was not the best choice for a end-of-the-year cleanup.

Anyways, if doom metal is up your alley, but you wish it could have more tremolo picking guitars and shrieking black metal vocals, then you'll likely find a home inside the cold embrace of Todbringerin. Otherwise, I can tell that this is a good album, but something about it just doesn't sit right with me.

Best Songs: Ballade Auf Den Tod, Scherben Teil I, Verachtung, Am Ende Stribst Du Allein

In a futile attempt to clean up my metal listening in 2024, December (and likely into January) is the month I will be bolstering the more extreme clans here at Metal Academy that I frequent the least (i.e. Fallen, Horde and North), so there are going to be a lot of short little blurbs about a handful of records I heard in 2024. Hopefully, I'll be able to do something a little bit more timely come 2025.

From the budding Montreal black metal scene, Spectral Wound return following 2021's A Diabolical Thirst with another audible assault of classically influenced black metal. Songs of Blood and Mire hits you right out of the gate with a cacophony of sound from the blast beat percussion, tremolo guitars, an actual bass line, and barely audible screeching vocals. And in this case, it actually works to Spectral Wound's benefit since it directs most of melodic focus on the guitar, which does sound quite fruitful in its presentation, execution and development. The punk aesthetic that shows up on "At Wine-Dark Midnight in the Mouldering Halls" is a stylistic choice for the band and leaves the listener with a different style of intensity than experienced before. What's more is that these punk grooves do appear sporadically throughout the rest of the album for some nice reprieve. "Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal" is the, relatively speaking, cooler song on the album where melody reigns supreme and rage takes a backseat. It likely would have been a better track if it had been saved maybe a song or two later.

I will say that Songs of Blood and Mire is a better record than A Diabolical Thirst and that will likely be enough for most. However, like with the last album, I found the record to get a little stale during its second half as many of the variations to the sound became less prominent as the record dipped back into a very comfortable melodic black metal approach. The first four track of the album are worth the price of admission alone, but the record goes on for too long with not enough variety to warrant the extended runtime. 

Best Songs: Fevers and Suffering, At Wine-Dark Midnight in the Mouldering Halls, Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal, A Coin Upon the Tongue

Amazing to think that this album even exists considering how important former vocalist Trevor Strnad was to the Black Dahlia Murder's songwriting process. However, that is not to say that the rest of band were not able to capture Trevor's essence inside Servitude and release a very solid album. This album still feels very comfortable in the melodic death metal ways, but the band isn't afraid to step outside of that steamy comfort and pull the string back for some slower, pummeling riffage on "Mammoth's Hand." The new vocal styling's of Brian Eschbach have a familiarity to them, while still sounding providing some original personality to the band in Trevor's stead. I wouldn't go so far as to call it essential listening since it is still the Black Dahlia Murder and finding variety in their music (and melodic death metal in general) can be a losing game. Compared to albums like Nocturnal and Ritual, even with a new vocalist, Servitude feels like status quo Black Dahlia Murder. Not that this is a bad thing; this band are still making quality, meat-and-potatoes melodic death metal in 2024 and I'm still giving this as good of a recommendation as I can. Think of this band's discography as comparable to Lamb of God; nothing new or innovative, but a top quality refinement of a niche.

Best Songs: Cursed Creator, Evening Ephemeral, Transcosmic Blueprint, Utopia Black

This is undoubtedly Poppy's most consistent album since leaving the world of pop behind. A large portion of that must come from how the album feels like a large culmination of sounds of the past; the songwriting of Poppy Computer, the heaviness of I Disagree, and the cleaner sounding metal production of Flux. Negative Spaces also has the distinction of having a handful of synth heavy tracks interspersed throughout the tracks. To go along with the calmer interludes tracks, they pair well and help with building the album up instead of feeling like an all out romp. Poppy's vocals are without a doubt, the albums biggest fault as her screams are... lacking to put it lightly. I think that the variety of timbre on this album however saves the vocals from becoming grating as they do on an album by say... Knocked Loose. I'm not expecting many to appreciate this sound the way I do, but as a full album experience, this space is more positive than expected.

Best Songs: They're All Around Us, Vital, Crystallized, The Center's Falling Out, New Way Out

The second full length album from Ukrainian black metal outfit, Labyrinthus Stellarum, is one of these projects that shows a lot of potential anchored by a unique sound. Vortex of the Worlds is the kind of pleasant sounding black metal album that traditionalists might scowl at. It reminds me of a more concise version of a Mare Cognitum album with great soundscapes and a keen ear for melodic storytelling. It does remind me in a way of the tendencies of bands like Burzum and Summoning with its synthesized tones and interludes rather than the relentless impulses of Vorga. But these sounds have been modernized and now carry with them a vastness of reverberation that sound gorgeous behind the vocals, and the wall of sound compositions. The one true weakness found within is the structure of the album; while I won't deny that "Transcendence" and "Downfall" are both pleasant sounding tracks, the real jewel's of Vortex of the Worlds are found in its second half, with "From the Nothingness" and "Vortex of the Worlds" being the obvious standouts with how wonderful the melodies are. Luckily, you won't have to wait very long for those songs since this albums runtime is almost criminally short. If the albums structure was more balanced (even without the inclusion of one additional track), this could have been one of 2024's best albums. But as it stands, it is still really great and would be a great addition to those craving another atmo-black band with dungeon synth incorporation.

Best Songs: Transcendence, From the Nothingness, The Light of Dying Worlds, Vortex of the Worlds

It seems like the longer VOLA sticks around in the progressive metal sphere, the further away from their identity they get. Now this comes with its own sets of residual effects, but for progressive metal, it can sometimes turn into a net positive. But VOLA were never one of these bands that threw away the concept of melody, harmony and motivic development in their music for the sake of elongated song structures, with face melting guitar solos. 

And, wouldn't you know it, the newest VOLA album, Friend of a Phantom, will likely not have the same gradual effect as the band may have intended. If anything, there are more similarities between this and Soen's 2023 record Memorial, as the truly progressive aspects of the songwriting are gone. Now, VOLA sits as a singles band with the occasional djent breakdown to quell the crowd. And that might surprise you, since the first track, "Cannibal" is one of the heaviest that VOLA have ever made. Thanks in large part to the harsh vocals of In Flames' Anders Friden, you would be forgiven thinking that "Cannibal" was going to be an accurate representation of Friend of a Phantom, but that could not be further from the case.

The grimier sound quality continues into "Break My Lying Tongue", but it kneecapped by a distracting synth lead that is persistent throughout the songs choruses. But following that, this album goes into the status quo of VOLA alternative metal. And the hooks are not even as good as an album such as Witness to back it up. It has good moments sure (i.e. "We Will Not Disband" and "Hollow Kid") but they seem more spaced out than ever before.

At least the production is solid. This record has a great sound to it; all of the records most important parts are given center stage during their respective tracks. Whether that be the dogshit synth on "Break My Lying Tongue," or the vocoder harmonies of "Glass Mannequin." Even the albums djent-ier breakdowns are presented with polish and precision and also contain a semblance of motivic growth through them. The structure of the album however is not a strong suit. The album starts heavy, but becomes progressively slower and mellow as it persists and leaves me feeling like it runs too long for its own sake.

I will admit, Friend of a Phantom left me feeling underwhelmed. I'm not quite sure what I expected from VOLA with this album given their track record, but this felt lazy and uninspired. It almost feels like they want out of the progressive metal sphere and would rather take a place in the spotlight as an above average alternative metalcore band. The result however is losing a piece of what made VOLA so popular in progressive forums in the first place. The individual songs might be decent, but it's hard to separate them from the full artwork.

Best Songs: We Will Not Disband, Bleed Out, Hollow Kid

It takes Better Lovers just fifteen minutes to bring the rush of memories back to Every Time I Die's popular brand of southern metalcore. And the result is something that sounds really cool, but I feel like it could have done a little bit more.

Part of this is how similar this EP sounds to the aforementioned band and the inclusion of Greg Puciato on vocals does not change much. Perhaps I was kind of expecting a little bit of a pivot that would differentiate Better Lovers from Every Time I Die, but perhaps it was also a compositional decision in order to quickly bring in old fans who could easily pick out that sound and style.

As for the compositions themselves, they aren't too bad. "Become So Small" and "30 Under 13" certainly have some wallop to them, while the cleaner "Sacrificial Participant" and title track have a nice alternative feel and show off the bands melodic side. The instrumentals are punchy and gritty, while Greg's vocals are decent as well, but likely at their worst on the opener "Sacrificial Participant", if only for their lack of dynamic growth.

Overall this is a decent debut EP for Better Lovers that, once again, will fill in the missing hole in your heart left by Dillinger Escape Plan and Every Time I Die. However if this band wants to be more than a simple nostalgia act, they need to modernize and improve the formula in some way or another, otherwise this animal will go extinct before its had a chance to reproduce.

Best Songs: 30 Under 13, Become So Small, God Made Me an Animal

I can say with utmost certainty that Every Time I Die was not apart of my go-to metalcore bands during the 2000s. I never disliked them, but in comparison to the festival metalcore that was popular late in the decade and even into the 2010s, they never crossed my mind. That said, I was surprised by the “mainstream” pivot with records such as Ex Lives and Low Teens late into their career, with some of Low Teens still serving as regular playlist fodder for me.

When ETID (Every Time I Die) broke up, it left a noticeable hole in the metalcore scene, since their brand of southern metal was one-of-a-kind. And it became a huge deal when three of ETID’s members were heard in studio with ex Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist, Gerg Puciato. And thus, Better Lovers came to be. The bands debut EP (God Made Me an Animal) was a wallop of southern metalcore that was certainly fun, but also felt too like the other band.

Highly Irresponsible by contrast is a record that has the distinct sound of ETID, but with a little extra flavour. The album is grimy and lacks polish, but the instrumentals have a bit more flare than one might expect from a classic ETID album. It should be all the makings of a disaster record, yet somehow the southern rock influence remains constant throughout. Highly Irresponsible sounds ferocious.

Greg Puciato might have something to do with that. The vocal delivery of Puciato is very different from Keith Buckley. And if I’m being completely honest, Puciato’s vocals fit the intensity and style better than Buckley. These vocals are distinct and lack the clean polish that were present on previous Dillinger records. But the vocals are not perfect; I do not remember Puciato’s clean singing being this hit-or-miss, however some of the cleaner songs like “A White Horse Covered in Blood” have this eerily out-of-tune vocal presentation that does not sit well with me.

The compositions are varied, which is nice, but lack consistency. You can hear sporadic mathcore influence from Dillinger Escape Plan, some straightforward bangers from classic ETID, as well as the more melodic side of that band that was present on Low Teens. Some songs are catchy, like “Future Myopia”, but other like “Superman Died Paralyzed” just scream album filler. Meanwhile, the ending is odd. “At All Times” has the classic sound of resolution on a metalcore album, only for “Love as an Act of Rebellion” to show up and rip the band-aid off for one more assault; it felt like a classic bonus track on a physical album, but without the secret.

This record might turn out to be a grower for me. While I do like Better Lovers for their blending of styles from their previous endeavours, it almost feels like too much of a good thing. Highly Irresponsible shows the love for Every Time I Die and that these mates still have plenty left in the tank to offer us. However, in doing so, Better Lovers created an album that is missing polish. I am willing to let it slide for now, but it would be irresponsible of me to give them the benefit of the doubt in the future.

Best Songs: Your Misplaced Self, Future Myopia, Deliver Us From Life, Love as an Act of Rebellion

I've come to expect nothing from a new Devin Townsend album. Devin's discography is eclectic from industrial, avant-garde, alternative, country and even broadway musical. So I entered PowerNerd completely blind, which was the right call. And my impressions of it are good, if not a little disappointed. The more accessible stylings of the instrumentation and compositions are solid enough, but lack focus during the albums middle. Melodic development has always been a calling card of Devy and PowerNered is no exception. Instrumentals can be quite dull as the wall of sound production leaves portions without vocals or melodic instrument flat. And the album is bookended in a dumbfounded way. "Ruby Quaker" might be my favourite metal song of the year and no I am not sorry, and "Falling Apart" is great as well, but why are they the first and last songs of the album? Where was this melodic punch through the remaining ten tracks? 

Perhaps it is the persona behind the act, but I expected a little bit more from PowerNerd. There are great moments at this albums beginning and conclusion, but not a lot else in the middle. Maybe Townsend just wanted to play it cool for an album, which is why this sounds so much closer to Addicted than anything else. And I think that is fine for him, but I could use a lot more of that punchy songwriting that I know Devy is capable of.

Best Songs: Ruby Quaker, Falling Apart, Gratitude, Younger Lover, Glacier

I watch a lot of baseball in my spare time. And I always find it unusual when a rookie gets the call who is the son of a former major leaguer. In that moment I can feel the wrinkles on my forehead becoming more dense as it means my youth is getting further away from me. It's even weirder when that father was a really good player; perhaps even a hall of famer. How can your son possibly live up to the enormous standards that you set nearly twenty years ago?

Vended is the musical equivalent of this. Founded by Griffin Taylor, this nu metal act has the insurmountable task of bringing nu metal to a new generation...while also having familial ties to one of its greatest figures: Corey Taylor.

And yes, just like those sons of major leaguers, Griffin Taylor does have many mannerisms that are very similar to his father. Vended sounds like if you combined the aggressive, misanthropic lyricism of early Slipknot and merged it together with the heavier groove aspects of a band like Lamb of God, with just a tiny sprinkling of death metal techniques as well. The percussion of this album is closer to that of later Slipknot records like All Hope Is Gone and We Are Not Your Kind, with a more poppier sound instead of sounding like trash (literally).

Besides these deviations, you already know what to expect once you hear about the relationship between Griffin and Corey Taylor. The album has some solid hooks, but they feel disjointed from one another with plenty of filler. The instrumentals are performed/produced well and the vocals are very indebted to Corey, but they also have some death metal grit that even early Slipknot records could not replicate. The albums short runtime is a bonus, but it still feels like a lack of development is taking place, and is not helped at all by a final three tracks that feel like fragmentary ideas.

A lot of my criticisms can boil down simply to "if you like Slipknot, you'll like this." And as someone who has made their criticisms of Slipknot well known in the past, it should not surprise anyone that this really isn't my cup of tea. I can hear interjections within Vended's music that make me believe that they could have a profitable future, but they first need to step out of the shadow of their idols before that can happen.

Best Songs: Am I The Only One, Nihilism, Serenity

Hey kids, do you like the 1980s? Do you want to go back?

Most people will likely not even give this new Motley Crue EP a chance because of its title. Cancelled: most will assume that it is a shitty attempt at being edgy and controversial, but in all likelihood, is just a drawn out project where the protagonist calls himself a "bad man" for an uncomfortable amount of time. And, having listened to it I can tell you that this assertion is not entirely the case.

Their are basically only two songs here (three if you count the "Fight for Your Right" cover), but they really do not sound that bad. They sound right out of the 1980s with albums like Shout at the Devil and Dr. Feelgood. The issue comes through in the compositions as neither of these two tracks sound like they were given the same love for their choruses as "Kickstart My Heart" once was. "Dogs of War" is fun albeit generic, while "Cancelled" may well as not have had a hook at all.

Which brings us back, once again, to the lyrics. Now, I avoid tabloids like Loudwire and Metalsucks like the plague. They (like many others) have been revealed to be corrupt shills who jerk each other off and promote "their boys," regardless of quality, while talented, independent musicians get shafted. If an attempt to get Motley Crue cancelled was orchestrated, why should Motley Crue care? Wouldn't "their boys" help them out? Or maybe they are terrified of what might happen next?

Motley Crue should not be in hot water for something that was not considered taboo during their prime. But perhaps they should be in hot water from their bath at the retirement home.

I hate when any project is announced as "the finale" and everyone gives their passionate goodbyes, only for that projects corpse to be lifted out of the coffin like its still 1989. This reunion of Motley Crue is just that and Cancelled represents everything that is wrong with remake culture. And, like with Velma, Motley Crue will inevitably be cancelled after just one season as well.

Best Song: Dogs of War

It appears to me that the metalcore kids are beginning to take control over a sizeable portion of the progressive metal community. The kicker is that they don't call it "metalcore" so as to draw the unimpressed Eyre of the progressive metal snob. Instead they call it "Djent" with a silent "D" to prove their sophistication. Allt are a generally new band out of Sweden who made strides throughout the early 2020s and released From the New World just the past week as their first full length LP. And let me just say: nothing about From the New World is remotely prog. It contains thall tuned guitars, atomic drop breakdowns, glitchy production and the occasionally catchy vocal hook. And yet I still really enjoyed it.

I know this album is not without its faults. The production can become excruciatingly frail at times; when guitars are tuned this low with this much feedback, it only makes sense that their would be some peaking in the mix.  In addition, the overall texture of this album does cause some of the vocal lines to become condensed and resorted to backgrounds. But even with all of that, From the New World is actually very concise, has more than its fair share of catchy grooves and licks, and the production issues are more sporadic than I might have made them sound earlier; it's probably a better produced record than the recent albums from Humanity's Last Breath or Currents.

Best Songs: Remnant, Echoes, Emanate, Ephemeral

Oceans of Slumber have transformed into the metal band who have exhumed the most wasted potential of the 2020s so far. I never thought of them as being a bad ensemble, but a debut album in 2013 that showed promise has fallen on deaf ears since 2018's The Banished Heart. Two follow up releases that improved barely anything and continuing further into 2024 with Where Gods Fear to Speak.

This album is all over the place in its texture/style. I'm not opposed to bands altering their sound to adapt another genre, like how Oceans of Slumber isolate their melodic death roots in favour of doom/gothic metal here, but the execution of these sounds in harmony sounds more like a trainwreck. As a result, the album feels remarkably disjointed; none of these smaller ideas were given any semblance of connectivity and progression throughout the runtime. the record will non-chalant transform from a slow, melodically pleasant doom section into black metal blast beats and death metal howls at the snap of a finger without any preparation. And this, sadly, is further explored in Cammie Gilbert's vocals as well. There are a lot of metal bands that are perfectly fine writing music without harsh vocals (i.e. Katatonia, Within Temptation, late Opeth), but Oceans of Slumber still imagine heavy music not truly being "heavy" without it. So vocal lines become disjointed with a hybrid vocal delivery, which when paired with the poor songwriting, makes the vocals feel even more obtuse.

I thought a lot about the band Epica while listening to Where Gods Fear to Speak and all of the places that Oceans of Slumber should have focused on to make this record better than it is. Unfortunately, many of the best elements of those Epica albums like Omega and The Quantum Enigma is painfully absent here. What we are left with is a band trying to replicate one of the 2010s most consistent power/symphonic metal bands, but adding the worst possible aspects of progressive metal songwriting to the table for an overall lackluster experience. Oceans of Slumber are the modern day victims of this commonplace issue within the genre, but will likely get a free pass because of the progressive metal tag. It's really a shame and leaves this review feeling empty.

Best Songs: Wish, Wicked Game, I Will Break the Pride of Your Will

Anciients are a band that were very popular among the more djent-y side of prog and metalcore during the 2010s and I could never get into them at the time. Just about a full decade later, Anciients release Beyond the Reach of the Sun, their third studio album and it shows a lot of growth as well as future potential.

First thing I noticed was how different of a sound scape this is. Instead of the djent and metalcore of previous albums, Anciients have gone closer to melodic death metal, and more specifically, mid 2000s Opeth melo-death. That should be enough of a seller for most on its own, but in the interest of specifics, compositions have a knack for bending dynamics and making crescendos that sound rewarding. Kenny Cook has a very nice vocal range and still employs some of his signature death metal screams as before, but now in reserve as the clean singing is not only impactful, but memorable. 

I was a little hesitant on the albums length going into it, but the more I listened to Beyond the Reach of the Sun, the less bloated it became. The album has some longer moments (i.e. "Forbidden Sanctuary" and "Melt the Crown") but the songs are well constructed and compliment each other remarkably well. There is enough variety in the sound structure that it never feels bloated, but not too vast in its scope that it starts becoming overzealous. 

If you like your mid 2000s Opeth mixed with some Mastodon or The Ocean sludge, this is a great return for Anciients and an excellent place to catch on. I hope that they continue down this path in their future projects.

Best Songs: Forbidden Sanctuary, Melt The Crown, Cloak Of The Bast And Black, Beyond Our Minds, In The Absence Of Wisdom

I'm not sure who Ronnie Radke hates more on Popular Monster, you, the listener, or himself.

Now, I have made it no surprise through my track record that my tolerance for modern metalcore is thin. This is not to say that there cannot be some gems in this cesspool, but more often then not, they are utterly disposable and interchangeable. As a result, I am completely and utterly indifferent to Ronnie Radke. I found the music in both Escape the Fate and Falling in Reverse to be milquetoast and beyond boring. This trend carries into Popular Monster as it does not appear to have an original bone in its body.

When the album started, "Prequel" had this gradual swell in the instrumentals and Radke's rapping vocals, which then explode into the albums metal breakdown. But it didn't take me very long to start making comparisons to Hardy's Quit!! from just last month. And that album wasn't very original either. Calling on Jelly Roll to perform guest vocals on "All My Life" was just the ultimate sign of incompetence; "This album is nothing like Hardy," so then why did you even bother adding a country singer for one of your promotional singles you dipshit?

The production on the album is certainly not doing FiR (Falling in Reverse) any favors. Metal music published through Epitaph records have always had a severe hit-or-miss quality to them, but this is the furthest thing from good. Most recently, it has been bands like Architects that have taken the heavy brunt of these production gaffes, and FiR take it to a new level; drum peaking, guitar mush, and disgusting synth lines. That just leaves Radke...who is probably the most impactful part of this album. The vocals are delivered with authority and gravitas and speaks bluntly through his lyrics.

Which is about as generous as I can be with lyrics this vapid. Y'know what this album is about? I'll let ya guess....if you said "anti-woke gibberish, cancel culture and gun wielding America", congratulations! You don't have to listen to Popular Monster (your ears will thank you). I know there won't be many who agree with me on this, but when you have a song called "Trigger Warning," maybe include some content that's actually triggering rather than just saying "I'm a bad man" for the eighteenth time. It's all performative and it looks embarrassing. If Radke was looking to win new fans with Popular Monster, he failed spectacularly.

Popular Monster is an album made for people who believe Radke has done nothing wrong; that all of his legal issues were conspiratorial and everyone trying to cancel him are just mad that he is an asshole. And at this point, you don't really need to cancel Ronnie Radke or Falling in Reverse. They will do it all by themselves.

Best Songs: Watch The World Burn

Many of you will know that my palette in relation to doom metal is quite niche. I'm not super into the droning, unchanging albums that simply wallow away in a single tone for an hour runtime. I much prefer the more melodic side of the genre that is shown in death doom. And yet somehow I find sludge metal to be far more entertaining. It's usually far heavier from a sonic perspective and borrows from Pit clan genres like thrash and groove metal, which I know I'm been vocal about the past five years.

Thou is a band that I was never familiar with until Umbilical was requested for reviewing purposes. They have an extensive discography that dates back almost two decades and have a similar release formula to Full of Hell as they bring in collaborators such as The Body, Mizmor and Ragana. And with Umbilical, you can tell that Thou are playing to a very specific type of sludge metal; one that might take some getting used to for the more traditionalist doom/sludge fan, but that helps it in the long run.

There is a good share of metalcore influence on Umbilical. The riffage is precise and the unison bridge's carry a lot of this records drive and momentum. And the riffs, while nothing super innovative or ear catching, songs like "I Feel Nothing When You Cry," "The Promise" and especially "Panic Stricken, I Flee" feel like fully developed songs. I was super impressed by this albums longer tracks "Narcissist's Prayer" and "House of Ideas," which are very cohesive and tell a full story throughout the runtime. Some of the albums early, shorter tracks feel as if they were missing something from the piece; almost like they needed one final chorus to bring everything back together.

Production is very solid. For as sludgy as an album Umbilical can be, it lives up to that title with some heavy, dank guitar tones and a cavernous low end. The percussion is robust, but never feels like it is overtaking the guitar or vocals as the main attention seeker. The vocals are harsh and delivered with a "sludgy" pretense which matches beautifully with the instrumentals, but something about them being so shredded and pushed back in the mix just does not feel right to me in this style of music. I understand the album has lyrical themes of isolation and grief, which is a nice touch of detail, but it can make things harder to digest.

While I did praise the album for its condensed runtime earlier, I do have concerns with the lack of diversity in the soundscape. Yes, it's doom/sludge metal. It's hateful, aggressive, loathing, but nowhere within Umbilical does Thou give its listeners an opportunity to mentally recover from the cacophony of sound. This band is incredibly lucky that Umbilical is produced well because I'm not sure if I could have tolerated this meshy timbre with a less than pristine mix. I do really like this album and Thou did an excellent job of taking influence from other bands outside of their genre to create something that is uniquely theirs, but also indebted to the past. 

Best Songs: Narcissist's Prayer, House of Ideas, I Feel Nothing When You Cry, The Promise

Powerwolf are back with their seventh studio album in seven years and they are ready to power metal your face off until you cannot power your power metal anymore. This new album has so much great power going on it that it's honestly impossible to keep up with all the power. With new standards like "Power Metal Song #1" and "Power Metal Song #3," this record will be the most power metal album you hear in all of the year Power-Twenty-Power.

Okay, joking aside, I don' think that Wake Up the Wicked is that bad. The production is tight, the band still have some solid melodic leads on "We Don't Wanna Be No Saints" and "Kyrie Kiltorem," and the record clocks in at a brisk thirty-seven minutes; the song lengths do not overstay their welcome and feel like fully fleshed out ideas, and the album as a whole is high octane energy that never feels like it needs an interlude.

In the grand scheme of things however, Powerwolf are getting on my nerves when it comes to new releases. As mentioned previously, over the past seven years, Powerwolf have released a new album on an annual basis and there has not been any attempts to deviate from their established formula in that time. For as much as I despise modern Alestrom albums, at least they don't assault you with the same, drawn out pirate/folk metal at this rapid of a pace.

I wanted Interludium to be a turning point for the band; a metaphorical interlude that would lead into a second act that was more introspective and thought provoking. It didn't have to be progressive or conceptual like the most recent albums by Angra or Unleash the Archers, but something...unique. I can get a kick out of Wake Up the Wicked for sure, but I'll have a really hard time remembering any of this by years end.

Best Songs: Kyrie Kiltorem, Joan of Arc, Thunderpriest

Discovery is a wonderful thing. Ætheria Conscientia are a black metal band that I have seen pop in to my recommended feed (if only briefly) back in 2021 for Corrupted Pillars of Vanity and became a group that I would keep tabs on, even if I found the music to be far too patchy. And this came along solely based on the name of the group. Like with Ne Obliviscaris over ten years ago, Ætheria Conscientia was a name that would be impossible to forget and would be in eager anticipation of their next move.

Now this is coming from the assumption that their foundational progressive/avant-garde metal roots would result in growth and development of a very unique atmospheric black metal sound. And with The Blossoming, I can see the huge strides taking place from the inside to create a more streamlined, accessible, and overall more enjoyable album.

Corrupted Pillars of Vanity is a daunting listen with just five tracks, but a runtime that approaches one hour. The Blossoming by comparison is six tracks and runs at a relatively brisk forty-five minutes. While that might seem like a minor issue, what stands out is that Ætheria Conscientia never sound like they are still performing after all the concert goers have left. Each song (most notably the longer tracks like "Astral Choir" and "Endless Cycle") are cohesive and tell a fully developed story through the instrumentals and lyrical themes. I enjoy how this band is able to sound as dense as they do, while still caring for the listeners time and money; it's a record that gives its listeners all of its necessary information and then lets you decide what it all means, all while not rambling.

And that's important because the compositions are carrying a lot of weight. For a black metal album, The Blossoming is pretty light when it comes to traditional black metal motifs. Tremolo picking guitars are frequently substituted for open power chords, percussion rarely sticks to a rhythmic blast beat foundation, and the vocals are extremely varied in their delivery. And that's even before you add the clean guest vocals of Lisieux on this albums bookend tracks and the ALWAYS sultry saxophone leads that regularly appear throughout the project. This horn in particular is performed with a very similar timbre as those found on Rivers of Nihil's Where Owls Know My Name, which just so happened to be one of the only consistently good pieces of that record!

For a record that is as progressive/avant-garde as The Blossoming sounds, it's quite a shame that it did not axe out many of the black metal production tropes, such as a lackluster bass line, and filtered down vocals. The bass lines are inexcusable at this point; while the guitars are quite pleasant and the open power chords give The Blossoming a sense of wideness, it would me more beneficial for the bass to be closer to the front and allow for the guitars a little bit more breathing room to be experimental instead of playing foundations. As for the vocals, I don't think that hiding the vocalist in the back of the room like this was the most viable solution. After all, The Blossoming is not you're run-of-the-mill black metal album in its lyrical content and themes. This space opera is very surreal and could use a more present narrator to show the listener its folklore and mythology.

Ætheria Conscientia reinvented themselves on The Blossoming and they succeeded in many different ways. Besides the obvious, this record has a feeling of humanity in it that has not been felt in a lot of extreme metal recently. It pulls from Ihsahn, Rivers of Nihil, and Kayo Dot in its ambitiousness and pulls of the best in all of them. Best of all, the record never feels like its meandering or runs out of things to say before its conclusion. I kind of expected the album to end a bit more emphatically, but I think that's part of its appeal and avant-garde texture. 

Best Songs: Haesperadh, Daimu Kadasdra Ko Antall, Endless Cycle