Sonny's Reviews

I have only really been interested in drone metal for about a decade now and only started exploring it in earnest two or three years ago, but it has become one of my favourite genres and a lot of my highest scores of recent times have gone to drone metal releases. I guess that because I am quite an anxious person by nature, I find the monolithic droning of this style of metal to be inherently calming. Bong are a new name to me, despite them having been around for close to twenty years now and hailing from these British Isles I call home. They are prolific releasers of material with nine studio albums, a plethora of splits and EPs and thirty-plus live albums.

Mana-Yood-Sushai is the four-piece's third album, released in 2012, and is a sublime mix of drone metal and psychedelia that gives it a heavy eastern, mystical flavour, a sound I really love to hear brought into the sphere of metal. The album consists of only two tracks with the 27 minutes of the first track, Dreams of Mana-Yood-Sushai, being the one that really hooked me in. One of the members of Bong is sitar player, Benjamin Freeth, and his jangling strings combine perfectly with the droning chords of guitarist Mike Vest on Dreams... that seems to conjures up vistas of setting suns over mystical eastern temples that I found to be an inordinately meditative and restful piece. The track also features bassist/vocalist Dave Terry with some really nice throat singing that further enhances the eastern flavour with its ritualistic chanting style favoured by eastern mystics.

Second track, Trees, Grass and Stone, is just shy of twenty minutes in length and is an instrumental, making it a bit more jam-like than the opener with the percussion of drummer Mike Smith driving the track and taking a more prominent role. It is also a heavier-sounding track than Dreams... the droning chords carrying increased weight and settling over the listener like a heavy blanket. As is true of an awful lot of drone metal, it is most effective when listened to at higher volumes, at the point when the experience can become almost physical and its simple structure can fully infiltrate the listener's senses and become a transcendental sensation.

So once more a new drone metal discovery has me reaching for my higher scores and takes its place in my list of metal favourites.

I enjoyed Jag Panzer's debut, Ample Destruction, but it's follow-up, Dissident Alliance, seems to have been universally panned, so I went into The Fourth Judgement unsure what to expect. What I got was a fairly mundane USPM album. There are some decent riffs on here, hell a couple are even genuinely killer and the solos aren't too shoddy either, but everything else screams mediocrity. I don't like the vocals much. Sure, there are plenty of power metal singers I dislike more, but Harry Conklin's style, whilst not grating as much as some, does very little for me either. The production robs the rhythm section of any authority and contributes heavily to the mundanity of the release as a whole.

The Fourth Judgement is a release that feels like it lacks any passion, aggression or exhilharation that is the cornerstone of heavy and power metal. There isn't even very much pomp and circumstance, that I'm not personally a big fan of, but which would at least lend it some fist-pumping energy. A damp squib for me overall, to be honest, but the guitar work, particularly a few of the riffs, is good enough to allow me to bump it up to a more respectable score.

Primeval Onslaught is an unpretentious old-school death metal assault. Whilst not implying that Torture Rack operate on the same level as previous death metal titans, the album summons up the foetid rankness of Autopsy, combining it with the vitality and intensity of prime Morbid Angel and the brutality of Suffocation to produce a release I found to be both exhilharating and supremely satisfying. I would be the first to admit that, when it comes to extreme metal, be it death, black or even thrash, my tastes are quite conservative and I would much prefer an album of uncomplicated, old-school, brutal beastliness to the more modern focus on experimentation and diversification that has flooded the extreme scene over the last twenty-odd years. Luckily (for me anyway) that is exactly what Torture Rack deliver - and they deliver it in spades. Primeval Onslaught is a glorious celebration of old-school death metal that is well and truly up my particular death metal alley.

The riffs are thick and muscular, hitting like a jackhammer to the temple, with the rank production seeming to hang everything with strips of torn flesh, making the album sound like a veritable bloodstorm. The soloing, such as it is, consists of short, sharp shocks that are thrust at the listener like a stiletto between the ribs. Bass and drums thunder and batter away, driving the quicker material along whilst imbuing the slower sections with a dark ominousness that looms over the listener like gathering thunderheads. The vocals are suitably deep and gutteral growls guaranteed to set the hairs on your neck on end as they vomit out their gross-out lyrics of death, torture and cannibalism, the very creed upon which death metal lyricism was built. There is sufficient variation in the tracks with some mightily memorable riffs, "Impalement Storm" and "Forced From the Pit" being cases in point, to guard against accusations of saminess.

So, what I'm trying to say is that Primeval Onslaught is built on the solid foundations of old-school death metal brutality, to a tried and tested blueprint, that won't surprise anyone with more than a passing interest in death metal, yet is of very high quality. If the purpose is to reproduce the peak nineties death metal sound, then Torture Rack are to be commended for a job well done and to bemoan it's lack of experimentation and criticise it for what it isn't would be more than a little disingenuous and unfair to a band that, to my ears at least, deserve better.

Ebony Pendant is a solo project of S.C. (Simon Coseboom) and this self-titled release is his sophomore full-length, following 2020's "Incantation of Eschatological Mysticism" debut, a couple of splits and an EP, 2021's "The Garden of Strangling Roots". He plays a version of melodic black metal, but with quite a raw production which gives it a bit more of an edge (and air of underground authenticity) than your usual melo-black outfit. It doesn't exactly possess the thin sound you would usually associate with the rawest black metal, with enough bass presence to boost the muscularity of the riffs, but the production somehow gives the impression that it is a lot rawer and thinner-sounding than it actually is. Vocally, S.C. has a nice line in evil, demonic croaking, similar to Immortal's Abbath, which suits the material really well. Surprisingly, for a guy who is a drummer himself with both Seattle death metallers Degraved and black metal act Griefspell, S.C. has recruited his pal K.M. as skinsman for this album from the death doom band Cavurn of which they are both members (S.C. on guitar in that mob). K.M.'s drumming is decent, being pretty frantic, yet well-controlled and helps drive the riffs and maintain the breakneck pacing.

A couple of nice, gentle acoustic passages aside, S.C. makes no attempt to court the black metal intelligentsia who want black metal to constantly be pushing boundaries with experimentation, dissonance and genre-splicing. No, despite the melodicism of some of the riffs, this is pure black metal - adrenaline-fuelled, old-school, ripping with icy claws at the listener's sensibilities. The raw production gives Ebony Pendant's melodicism a cold and frigid edge that is the cornerstone of all truly awesome black metal and this frostiness gives tracks such as the more melancholic-sounding "Whispers of a Nameless Fear" or "Sentiment for a Time Long Forgotten" a cutting edge that it may have lacked with a fuller production. Ebony Pendant are new to me, but despite the fact that they will probably never raise their heads over the parapets of the USBM underground, they deserve much praise for flying a flag for unashamed old-school black metal blasting and have the potential to become firm favourites of mine.

A year on from the release of the wonderful Part I, Mournful Congregation unveil the second part of The Exuviae of Gods EPs. Of course both EPs are album length for most bands, each weighing in at almost forty minutes, but that is short for this particular band. In common with Part I, Part II contains a re-recording of a track from their 1995 An Epic Dream of Desire cassette demo, this time around opener Heads Bowed being the track getting a makeover.

Whilst Mournful Congregation are absolutely practitioners of that most sorrowful of all doom metal sub-genres, funeral doom, what they do better than virtually every other band is imbue their funereal dirges with a sliver of light and hope. They definitely conjure up a sorrowful, mournful atmosphere with their music, but they always seem to be able to add a wistfulness that says, yes, death has come, but fear not, death is not the end. I am not at all a religious or even a particularly spiritual person, but there is something about Mournful Congregation's music that always makes me feel less oppressed by the thought of life's inevitable ending. Fortunately the band are also able to deliver this ray of hopefulness without ever compromising on sheer crushing weight, the reworking of Heads Bowed being a prime example, it's heaving weight being countered by the lightness of the acoustic guitar intro and outro that bookend the track.

The second and shortest track, the sub-nine minutes, The Forbidden Abysm, has more of a death doom vibe about it, being the "fastest" and heaviest track on display here and is pretty decent, although the least interesting of the three. Closer, The Paling Crest, weighing in at eighteen minutes, is the real heart of the album and the EP's standout piece. Beginning with an acoustic guitar and harmonised clean, choral-type vocal intro complete with a soaring electric lead solo, it segues into the track proper with Ben Petch's abyssal growls being accompanied by leaden chords and more of those soaring guitars, backed by a subtle application of keyboards. Around mid-point this subsides and is replaced by a light and airy, picked acoustic melody that is itself swept away as the heaviness returns, albeit with a more hopeful atmosphere permeating the hulking chords. Lyrically the band seem to back this up, with Petch intoning that "Fear of death is fear of wisdom" and "Fear of natural order is fear of nature itself, For death is merely the consequence of birth", the implication being, "So what are you worrying for?"

I am a massive fan of the sorrowful and heart-wrenching heaviness of funeral doom, but there is something very appealing about Mournful Congregation's wistful acceptance of the inevitability of death and the absolute conviction that it is nothing to be feared, which comes across not only lyrically, but also in the atmospheres they create with gorgeous, airy melodies being woven into their heavier backdrops of mournful sorrow to lend their music a positivity lacking in so much doom metal. I slightly prefer last year's Part 1 of the Exuviae of Gods EPs over this, but it is still a fine release and one I would have no reservations about recommending.

The Abbey are a Finnish five-piece who play doomy gothic metal with some progressive tendencies. Probably the most well-known member is female vocalist Natalie Koskinen who is, of course, vocalist with funeral doom merchants Shape of Despair. The Abbey employ dual male/female vocals, but shy away from the "beauty and the beast" style of male growls and ethereal female wails, focussing on a harmonised and layered clean delivery. Formed in 2021, Word of Sin is the band's debut full-length release.

At their doomiest a comparison with Draconian Times-era Paradise Lost is justified, but that isn't the only card they play. They throw in a couple of quicker tracks, A Thousand Dead Witches and Temple of Pain, that have galloping, heavy metal-style riffs that energise the album and contrast quite nicely with the slower, more laconic material. In truth, though, for me there isn't enough weight to the majority of the album and it sits quite firmly on the lighter side of the gothic doom fence, concentrating on producing beautiful melodies rather than playing to the melancholy, sorrowful nature that the best of the genre has to offer. Admittedly, what they do, they do very well and Word of Sin has some very nice melodies indeed which may stay with you well after the album has finished playing.

The album ends with the Lovecraftian-themed two-parter of Old Ones Prequel and the almost thirteen minutes of Old Ones itself and sees The Abbey indulge a more progressive side of their sound. Old Ones Prequel is an acoustic guitar and male-voiced piece with singer Jesse Heikkinen sounding very much like Wayne Hussey of UK gothic rockers The Mission and serves as an intro to the album's main event. Old Ones proper begins with an ominous doomy atmosphere that possesses one of the albums most memorable melodies combined with some very nice, soaring lead work. Around mid-point the melody fades and we are treated to an organ-led instrumental passage that evokes a high-ceilinged and expansive volume of space set aside for the worship of the unseen Old Ones, eventually giving way to a ponderous riff, more soaring lead work and a harmonised choral vocal that combine as one to a rather satisfying crescendo. This closing two-parter is by far my highlight of the album and the band's unleashing of this more progressive side is a path I hope they continue down with further releases.

The production on  Word of Sin is decent, but again emphasises the lighter over the darker and heavier. The vocals and guitar leads are given particular prominence with the riffs lacking the density that I prefer in any doom-related enterprise and with the rhythm section taking a back seat for the most part. The production, however, does perfectly suit the Old Ones and it's more progressive tendencies and serves to emphasise just how superior this closing section of the album is.

Threads of Unknowing's smothering of it's tech-death aspirations with the filth-ridden atmospherics of old-school death metal results in a classic case of an album falling between two stools and failing to satisfy the occupiers of either of them. I can't imagine for one minute that any adherent of the more expansive side of technical death metal, which VoidCeremony seemingly wish to align themselves with, are at all appreciative of the muddiness that the production has bestowed upon the album's sound. It seems to detract from the efficacy of the technical elements, elements which are surely better served by the clarity of a cleaner production. On the other hand, acolytes of the Morbid Angel / Autopsy cavernous approach are unlikely to be overly impressed by the album's technicalities.

I am becoming increasingly self-conscious about my aversion to the more technical forms of metal and I really wish I could "get it" so that I didn't appear to be such a glaring ignoramus, but I just don't I'm afraid. I guess my relationship with music and metal in particular is more based on either the buzz metal creates with it's energy as personified in memorable killer riffs and searing solos or in all-encompassing atmospheres, be it the expansiveness of atmospheric black metal's nature-based themes or the oppressive darkness of funeral and death doom, sludge or drone metal. To me, technical-based metal of the type that VoidCeremony deal in, is just too counter to what I look for and is probably better suited to people who are more interested in the intricacies of music production itself. I understand the compulsion to be challenged by art and to venture outside one's comfort zone, but I've played that game and have no further wish to expend a huge amount of time and mental energy on something I derive little enjoyment from. This somewhat rambling explanantion is by way of an apology as to why I am unable to get on board with what a band like VoidCeremony are trying to achieve, a problem have encountered previously with the likes of Gorguts' Obscura album.

Now, it isn't all bad news for me with Threads of Unknowing, because suddenly, in the album's latter stages, things take a turn for the better as the band turn a corner onto a more progressive road. At the Periphery of Human Realms (The Immaterial Grave) is a rather lengthy title for what feels like an instrumental intro into the progressive epic that closes out the album, Forlorn Portrait: Ruins of an Ageless Slumber. I wouldn't say they abandon their technical approach completely here, but they do dial it back a bit and lean much more towards a progressive style, a move that I am much more in support of. The last track in particular sounds much more like something King Crimson may have laid down around their Red era, had they been even remotely interested in death metal. This track just flows so much better than the earlier techy tracks and the changes in tempo and timbre are much less jarring and feel much more organic.

 I agree with other reviewers that the deeply growled vocals are distracting and sound completely out of place for the majority of the album, a harsher vocal with a bit of a higher register feels like it would be much more appropriate, but I guess the band knew what they were aiming for. So, in summary I would have to say that Threads of Unknowing feels like a worthy misfire to me. Whilst I applaud the band's unconventional approach to technical DM, the production is just too anomalous and does the band no favours at all. I enjoyed their efforts significantly more on the two closing tracks which took a more progressive approach than the earlier tracks' technicalities which, frankly, left me cold.

I have often been heard extolling the virtues of Chilean thrash metal and I believe it to be the only thrash metal scene that still retains any real relevancy. In the vanguard and on point of the Chilean assault on the world's thrash fans is the excellent Demoniac, whose previous album, 2020's So It Goes, only lost out in the race to be my AOTY for that year to MSW's superb Obliviosus. Well, it has been three years already since they dropped that beauty and they are back with a new album, Nube negra (Black Cloud) and it is no black cloud on my horizon, I can tell you.

There have been a change or two in the Demoniac camp since the release of So It Goes, with guitarist Nicolás Young leaving to be replaced by his Asedio band mate Javier Cisternas and drummer Rodrigo Poblete vacating the stool with mainman Javier Ortiz taking up the sticks in addition to providing vocals, guitar, keyboards, clarinet and accordion - oh, and all the lyrics and songwriting! Still, it is Ortiz' vision on show here and as such Nube negra doesn't miss a beat in continuing where So It Goes left off, despite the personnel changes.

After a short intro of storm effects and a quite reflective-sounding acoustic guitar piece, Nube negra leaps up and goes straight for the throat with a proper pummelling slice of high-octane blackened thrash that hits like a hammer blow. It seems that this time around the black metal influence to the band's thrashing is more pronounced, even so, the riffs still retain that memorable melodicism that marked So It Goes so well, whilst managing to sound even more aggressive than before. The short instrumental Marchageddon and third track Ácaro continue this blistering assault and everyone is on fine form, Ortiz' drumming is lethally potent and drives the track forwards at breakneck speed whilst his blackened vocals spit venom at all and sundry. La Caida continues in the same vicious vein, with Vicente Pereira's pronounced bass work that is so characterisric of Chilean thrash, combining with Ortiz' drumming to provide a precise and powerful framework upon which the guitarists can go to work as they unleash some lethal-sounding and expansive soloing with keyboard support also boosting the depth of the sound. At this point we have reached the final track on side one and Demoniac throw us their first curveball. As La Caida ends with a lone piano outro, we are led into an accordion-fronted piece, Synthèse d'accords that swirls along like something you may hear at some weird, nightmare circus showground.

Side two then kicks off with the seven-minute Granada which begins with an intro featuring Ortiz' haunting signature clarinet, that was used to great effect on their previous outing, however the track soon takes a darker turn as the traditional metal instruments enter the fray before finally erupting into a full-on head-charge with more soaring and savage-sounding lead work howling to the heavens as the guitarists let rip with gusto. Veneno continues in similar vein, with the guitars howling ever more frantically, like a duel between Randy Rhoads and Steve Vai, until at midpoint the track draws a huge breath and takes on a reflective and almost drone-like tone ending the tape slowing and the track grinding slowly to a halt with, for my money, the only misstep on the album. El Final closes out the album with a whirling dervish of a riff that burns a blistering trail to a dizzying album's end.

So, is Nube negra as good as So It Goes? Well, I'm still undecided. It's a close-run thing with the former still just about holding the lead, but I think Nube negra has a very real chance of toppling it as my favourite Demoniac album. It feels less progressive and other than the mid-point breather of Synthèse d'accords and the first part of Granada, it is a fiery and aggressive affair, guitar solos performed with an incendiary, almost neoclassical fervour, a brutally exacting rhythm section, high velocity melodic and memorable riffs and Ortiz' blackened vocals spitting out the lyrics with venomous spite. Everything taken into account, this makes for a 2023 thrash metal album that you absolutely must hear.

The debut EP from a Norwegian BM crew who, I think it is fair to say, never really lived up to their early promise. At this point in their existence Carpathian Forest were a duo comprising Nattefrost on vocals, guitar and keyboards and Nordavind on guitar and keyboards, with session musicians providing the rhythm section of bass and drums. The five tracks here were recorded in '93 and '94, three of them are punky, lo-fi black metal of a style familiar to any fan of early 90s black metal. The first of the remaining two tracks sits at the midpoint of the EP and is titled The Eclipse / The Raven which is a quite reflective, acoustic guitar-led piece with restrained synths and a croaking, whispered vocal from Nattefrost that is actually very effective. The other anomalous track is the closer and longest track on the EP, Journey Through the Cold Moors of Svarttjern, which is a viking-like folky acoustic piece, again with subtle keyboards and Nattefrost's shrieking vocals recorded as if heard from a great distance in the ice-laden, northern woodlands. Both of these tracks make this an interesting release in CF's catalogue as it is an aspect they didn't really explore further going forward, sticking more to the formula laid down by the other three tracks here. This is a great pity, because I think both of these tracks are effective in execution and provide a nice contrast to the punky, crusty sound of their more usual black metal fare and could have been well-suited as counterpoints in their later full-lengths.

Unfortunately Carpathian Forest never reached these heights again, mainly because they didn't sound like they took it all seriously enough. Their crusty, thrashy, punky version of black metal, their lack of urgency in getting material issued and their attempt to inject a degree of humour into their music all fell a bit flat after this and although I do enjoy some of their later output, it feels to me that after the strength of this initial release they have become Norwegian black metal's great underachievers.

I really like Undeath's modern take on an old favourite, that being the cavernous OSDM style of the late 80s and early 90s as practiced by the likes of Autopsy and Incantation. Their debut, Lesions of a Different Kind, takes the filthiness and looseness of sound typical of the OSDM style and ever-so-slightly clean and tighten it up. The production isn't as cavernous-sounding and gritty as the originals and the playing is tighter, with a small degree of technicality added that the likes of Autopsy never seemed interested in. That said, though, they still retain plenty of the fundamentals of the style and this is no super-crisp technical death metal exercise by any means, but rather a modern upgrade, OSDM v2.0 if you like.

Alexander Jones' vocals (no, not the Infowars idiot) are the typically low-pitched growls of Reifert and co. that have that "gurgling demon" quality that is my favourite incarnation of extreme metal vocalisation as he intones the gore- and horror-filled lyrics of tracks like "Suitably Hacked to Gore" and "Chained to a Reeking Rotted Body", with Black Dahlia Murder vocalist, the late Trevor Strnad, lending a counterpoint to Jones' growling with his harsher shrieks during the title track. The riffs pour out like molten lead and have some nice hooks guaranteed to set heads nodding with enough tempo variations to keep the listener interested. The lead work is concise and efficient with Sanguisugabogg drummer Cody Davidson supplying a more expansive solo on the opener, "Suitably Hacked to Gore". Bass and drums combine well to drive the riffs, with drummer Matt Browning doing some cool stuff without becoming too showy.

Look, Undeath are not going to satisfy those who crave innovation and constant envelope-pushing from their extreme metal, their's is very much a retreading of old tropes that have been with us for three decades or more now, but if you can't ever get your fill of this particular style of OSDM (like me) then they will supply you with a fresh, modernised version of that which you crave.

Well, The Ending Quest must be a specially kept secret of the death metal cognoscenti, because this sole full-length from Sweden's Gorement is an absolute classic of nineties death doom and it's various ingredients are like sonic vitamins that ensure the listener's mind and ears will grow strong enough to withstand the onslaught of extreme metal, yet I have never even heard of it before which is a shame because this is most definitely up my particular strasse and I am super-stoked to finally have made it's acquaintance, so thanks Daniel for nominating it. On reflection it is unfortunate that I dropped out of metal circles in the nineties because there was no end of underground-ish shit coming out that I would have lapped up if life had been a little kinder and this is absolutely one of those. It is an absolutely filthy-sounding record with some authentic sloppiness to the playing that reminds us we are listening to human beings and not machines which I always find far more endearing than absolute precision.

I agree that this feels more like a genuine death doom hybrid rather than a "death metal album with slow bits" from the likes of Autopsy and early Asphyx, rather it is more of a "death doom album with fast bits". They successfully combine the brutality of that Autopsy-like death metal with some really quite catchy doom-like melodies, but the primitive production never makes it actually feel that catchy, until you find yourself humming along to it that is!

Vocalist Jimmy Karlsson has a great line in sounding like an extremely irritated abyssal demon and the riffs are absolutely dripping with effluvium which is precisely the flavour I love in death doom metal and I will take it over that poncy, gothic-flavoured stuff any day. I joke of course and, in fact, there are times when this feels heavily influenced by Paradise Lost, such as on the excellent (but possibly too short) Silent Hymn (For the Dead). I know I am no death metal (or musical) expert and the genre has thrown out loads of precision-driven and technical masterpieces and I enjoy many of them, but this filthier, more primitive-sounding version of death metal is where I feel most comfortable and which fulfills something inside me that the more modern stuff doesn't touch.

I paid a mint for an original CD copy of Morbid's seminal December Moon demo a few years back, but it is also available here on this comp of Morbid's demos and a couple of live sets. Whether you enjoy this is dependent, I suppose, on how you feel about listening to demo and bootleg quality material. Personally I don't have a problem with it, but I understand if people do. Unfortunately Morbid, who featured legendary Mayhem frontman Dead before he joined the black metal legends, never released any official studio stuff, so this is pretty much the sum total of the band's output. The sound on the four opening tracks, which comprise the December Moon demo, is pretty good and give an indication of what great potential the Swedes had, especially considering this was recorded in 1987. The sound quality of the rest of the tracks is not so great, but if you are conversant with 80s demos and bootlegs you will have heard far worse! The remaining six tracks on CD1 are rehearsal recordings of December Moon's four plus a short instrumental, Citythrasher, and the track Deathexecution which  was the opener on an earlier cassette only demo, Rehearsal 07/08/1987. All these tracks are great examples of the melting pot that was underground metal of the mid-to-late 1980's with thrash metal mutating into the bastard twins death and black metal and bands being unafraid to explore new realms of extremity.

The live material is taken from two shows, the first from a show at Stockholm's Birkagarden recorded in late October '87 (this show is available as the 2000 album Live in Stockholm) and the second was recorded earlier in the year, in April, at the Ultrahuset also in Stockholm. The sound isn't great and the crowd noise is obtrusive, but these two shows give an insight into the early Scandinavian extreme metal scene and it is always great to hear a Dead live show (if you know what I mean)!

So, as a record of an important underground band that was influential in the very early years before the explosion of Scandinavian extreme metal, this is interesting stuff and, despite any qualms about the quality, these six or seven songs are fucking awesome. To be honest, I kind of love this dodgy-sounding crap to hell so I'm like a pig in shit with this sort of thing.

I think it is fair to say that most people see black metal as a cold genre. It isn't just it's fascination with the northern realms of forests, mountains, ice and snow, but also a coldness of emotion and a steely, frigid and spiteful attitude to everything from death to religion. War metal, however, I would suggest, is a very hot genre, it's atmosphere and aesthetic feeling very much like a flaming blast of furnace-heat as if issuing from the very gates of Hell itself. This is an atmosphere that Profane Order have replicated on One Nightmare Unto Another exceedingly successfully. The tracks here are blistering and fiery affairs that seethe with a hot-blooded rage and visceral savagery so typical of the war metal aesthetic.

What it doesn't have, however, is the muddy and messy production that can sometimes render war metal releases into barely discernible blurs of chaos. This isn't by any means a precise production job as you may hear on a tech-death album for example, but it also doesn't neuter the visceral power of the tracks under a cloying layer of muddiness, rather striking a decent balance between chaos and legibility. The sound is thick and chaotic, exhibiting the looseness I associate with war metal that says "these guys are barely hanging on by their teeth" as they pummel and pulverise their way through the album's twenty-five minutes. Not always typical for war metal, though, the riffs are perfectly audible and show a bit more variation than may sometimes be on offer, such as during the slower, more brooding moments of closer Of Bile and Malice.

I surely love me some Blasphemy and Beherit, but I am not such a "trve" war metal purist that I believe you should barely be able to discern any sort of riff or melody to experience that authentic death metal experience, so I am perfectly good with this kind of production job, because behind it Profane Order still have that unquenchable war metal fire in their bellies as they spit out savage and brutally blistering salvos of incendiary hatred and blasphemy.

I have been listening to this over the last couple of days in conjunction with At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul. Both bands being instrumental in the development of what became known as "The Gothenburg Sound", the two albums were released a mere fortnight apart. I must admit that, of the two, I prefer this as there is just a bit more to interest me than with Slaughter of the Soul. A big plus for me is Mikael Stanne's vocals which I much prefer over Tomas Lindberg's. His singing style is still very aggressive, but sounds to me like it has more of a black metal flavour than a hardcore one. The riffs may be less memorable than At the Gates' best, but the guitars don't sound quite as swamped in distortion and as such pack a greater punch to my way of thinking.

The most striking thing about The Gallery, though, is the production which is a revelation. Each of the instruments can be heard distinctly and clearly, the biggest benefactor of this being bassist Martin Henriksson whose bass lines are perfectly audible and as a consequence it is easy to hear what a terrific job he does weaving his lines in with Anders Jivarp's pummelling drum patterns. It also allows us to easily distinguish between the lead work of the two guitarists and generally gives the whole album a crisper sound than is often the case with Swedish death metal. I also feel that The Gallery scores over Slaughter... in that it has more variety, with the inclusion of slower sections, acoustic parts and even female vocals to provide some contrast to the pulverising riffs. The Gallery also sees Dark Tranquility dabble a bit more with technicality than AtG, although I don't wish to overegg it, this certainly isn't tech-death, but the rhythms and leads sound more complex and technically specific than those on Slaughter of the Souls.

I don't wish to set this review up as a competition between the two albums, it has just come out like that as a consequence of my listening to them that way, comparisons between two pioneering albums of the same genre, released days apart becoming inevitable. Anyway, I'm giving it to The Gallery on a TKO. This is an album I am likely to return to again in the future for sure.

At the risk of becoming increasingly repetitive, At the Gates are yet another band I have encountered on my journey through death metal's beginnings, about whom I know very little, despite previously having seen their name all over the place. This time, though, after actually listening to them, I am not filled with the feeling that I have been missing out. It's not that this is terrible or anything like that, in fact it is extremely tight and aggressive. It's just that, to my untrained ears, it sounds like an awful lot of the metalcore that I have encountered whenever I have ventured into Revolution territory and as such it doesn't really float my boat that  much. From what I gather, this was enormously influential and a pivotal release in the development of melodeath and the "Gothenburg Sound", neither of which I am much of a fan of, so it was always going to be a bit of a reach for me.

On the plus side, the riffs come thick and fast and, at times, are fairly memorable, even though the guitar sound is of the Entombed / Dismember, heavily distorted Swedish style of which I am not the world's biggest fan. The rhythm section of bassist Jonas Björler and drummer Adrian Erlandsson work really well together and sound like a very tight unit, providing a lot of muscle to back up the frantic riffing. I don't really go for the hardcore-derived vocal style of singer Tomas Lindberg, I much prefer my death metal with the gutteral growls of Reifert, Vincent and Chuck to this "shouty" style which very often rubs me up the wrong way wherever I encounter it and is probably the most offputting aspect of the album for me.

I can definitely hear how influential this album has been upon not only no end of melodeath wannabees, but also on the development of metalcore, the earliest practitioners of which must have been well acquainted with this. I would have to say that this is a very good example of a style of metal that I am not the biggest fan of and, a bit like my attitude towards Trivium's In Waves, it is an album I would probably only return to when I was in a mood for something different from my usual fare, acknowleding it as important in the development of metal and being enjoyable enough in it's own right, without it really resonating with me on a personal level.

I am finally on a bit more familiar territory with an album I have known for quite a while. Tales From the Thousand Lakes is actually one of the first albums I got into when, after a hiatus of several years, I ventured back into metal in the late nineties and it was one of those I got a dodgy copy of using that new-fangled Napster thingy, so beloved by Lars Ulrich & co.

Tales... is the band's sophomore full-length, following 1992's The Karelian Isthmus and is a concept album based around the Finnish national epic poem known as The Kalevala. The first half of the nineties found most death metal bands pushing the boundaries of extremity, whether through increasing technicality, plumbing greater depths of cavernous doominess or just sheer bloody-minded brutality, becoming more and more extreme seemed to be the order of the day. Amorphis, however, pursued another route entirely, whereby the story was the key and the music to express it needed to be more accessible and expansive than mere technicality or brutality would allow. Tales From the Thousand Lakes is absolutely rooted in death metal, but it also has much more going on. The darkness of violence, blasphemy and evil which were the staples of death metal's ethos and aesthetic up to this point are entirely absent and TFtTL has a far lighter and airier feel that any death metal I have heard that was produced prior to this. It displays an epic nature that borrows from classic heavy metal and even Candlemass' style of epic doom metal with an expansive style that suits the material beautifully and breaks the mould for death metal, the songs incorporating a previously unknown level of melodicism into the genre. As a consequence every track has it's own atmosphere, yet they all flow together magically, to produce a coherent and consistent album that is accessible, aesthetically pleasing and incredibly memorable. Into a death metal-based foundation is woven folk metal and progressive elements with a variety of vocal styles from DM's usual deep growls to soaring cleans and a creative use of keyboards at key points without overdoing this side of things. This is a point that needs emphasising, I think, despite using potentially cheesy and overblown styles like folk and progressive metal, the album itself never descends to cartoonishness and is incredibly restrained and tasteful throughout it's runtime.

Undoubtedly Thousand Lakes was incredibly influential and I wouldn't be at all surprised if fellow Finns and symphonic metal flag-bearers Nightwish weren't heavily influenced by it, along with any number of more obvious melodic death metal outfits. This is assuredly a lightning-in-a-bottle, one-of-a-kind album that any number of bands (including Amorphis themselves) have attempted and failed to replicate anything like as successfully and it is a testament to original songwriting and strong storytelling emerging from the extreme metal scene of the 1990s. A classic of melodic and atmospheric extreme metal.

Gorguts released their debut, the meat and potatoes death metal album Considered Dead, in 1991. Seven years later and about three hundred light years removed from the debut they released the much-lauded, technical, avant-garde death metal album Obscura, an album, my own struggles with which I have documented elsewhere. Despite my problems with Obscura, even I can hear that these sound like two completely different bands, yet somehow they travelled from one to the other and the journey they were taking, during a pitstop in 1993, produced The Erosion of Sanity.

I wouldn't say that The Erosion of Sanity sits midway between Considered Dead and Obscura, it still retains too many of the fundaments of death metal for that, but it does drop massive hints as to the direction of travel that Gorguts were taking as they developed their sound from, frankly, the Death copyists that were represented on the debut to the out-there boundary-pushers that they were to become. For me personally Erosion of Sanity hits a bit of a sweet spot between the solid, but unoriginal death metal of their earlier days and the indigestible technicalities of their infinitely more challenging and complex later work. This is an extremely tight-sounding album with the band hitting all their marks superbly. The riffs are tight and brutal-sounding and are supported by the rhythm section that pounds out dynamic and original-sounding patterns, with the bass sitting high enough in the mix to have a higher than usual impact upon the overall sound to great effect. Luc Lemay's harsh, throaty bark sounds vicious, yet the lyrics are still perfectly understandable, despite this invective-filled, spitting delivery. Where I feel that Erosion of Sanity scores over a lot of technical death metal in the same way that Death's Human does, is that the displays of technical prowess in both execution and songwriting don't interrupt the flow of the tracks and what we still have at the root of it all is a slab of heavy as hell and brutal death metal with killer riffs and exhilarating lead work.

There is far more going on here than was presented on Considered Dead and the band's evolution in a mere couple of years was quite remarkable, but there were wholesale changes to Gorguts' lineup after Erosion of Sanity, with guitarist/vocalist Luc Lemay being the only member appearing on both Erosion and Obscura. I am guessing this meant that Lemay was the instigator of Gorguts' move in a more avant-garde direction and his judgement was that his fellow band members either weren't on board with that direction of travel or weren't technically gifted enough to pull off his vision of where he wanted the band to go. For me, however, this is an excellent example of technical death metal that still retains what makes death metal exciting without becoming too "cerebral" and losing me. Whilst Obscura and their later complex works seem to be what Gorguts are best known for, they aren't for me and I will stick with this and hold it up as an example of what I personally look for in tech-death circles.

Demilich's sole release Nespithe is an album whose name I have seen dropped all over the place. However, it being tagged as technical death metal has always found me looking the other way and filing it under the heading "nothing to do with me". And now, after finally listening to it, I have got to say, "Fuckin' wow!!" I genuinely don't think I have ever heard an album so out there that I have actually enjoyed as much as this. With it's bizarre, seemingly nature-defying, technicalities and the inhuman sub-sonic growls that pass for vocals this is like the very personification of H.P. Lovecraft's stories of impossible realms and sanity-destroying astral horrors. I can see why Demilich never released another album as I cannot even conceive of how you would follow this up. In fact, it seems like three of the four members fell out of the metal scene altogether after Demilich split following it's release - and I understand why. This is the death metal equivalent of Lovecraft's legendary tome, The Necronomicon, a book so horrifying it causes any who read it to go completely insane.

All hyperbole aside, I don't possess the technical musical knowledge to even begin to explain what is going on here with Nespithe, other than to say that it is quite unlike anything I have ever heard in it's seemingly chaotic grooves and it needs to be heard to be believed. It seems on the surface to be exactly the sort of technical exercise I would normally hate, but for some reason it's constantly shifting sounds overlaid by that smothering inhuman growling just appeals to something inside me. I have seen any number of complaints about those vocals, but I think they are some of the most fascinating I have ever heard, the sheer depth of the croaking growl genuinely sounding like the proclamations of some extra-dimesional deity. The lyrics too are suitably eldritch and hint at multi-dimensional horrors whose only reason is to destroy the minds and souls of the human race, to which Antti Boman's voice gives perfect expression.

Where Nespithe scores high over most other technical death metal for me, is because it is so dripping with atmosphere and that is something I think is ignored by most technical DM bands, Nile perhaps being the only other technical outfit I know of who put any store in atmosphere... but Demilich take it to a whole new level that even leaves the Egypt-obsessed Nile floundering. The four band members are evidently supremely talented musicians to pull off such intricate instrumentation and that combined with such a singular, horror-invoking atmosphere gives this a real one-of-a-kind feel. One thing is absolutely certain, once you have heard it, this is not an album you are ever likely to forget. For me, this is a classic.

Brutality were unknown to me prior to listening to this (surprise, surprise), but are another product of the Nineties' Florida death metal scene that spawned so many DM classics and one listen to Screams of Anguish and it is obvious that it originated in Tampa. While it does possess the brutality of the classic Tampa sound, it also has a slight technical bent to it that, presumably, differentiated it from the Morbid Angels and Deicides of the time. It isn't excessively technical and Brutality are as capable of being wilfully bludgeoning as any other of Tampa's death metal denizens, but there is enough there to set it apart. The lead work in particular is something that caught my ear, with the howling solos being one of my favourite aspects of the album as their scalpel-like sharpness provides a perfect counterpoint to the blunt force trauma of the bludgeoning rhythm work. Vocalist Scott Reigel has a classic death metal style of ascerbic growling that sounds like it could strip paint and the rhythm section provides the perfect heavy-boned skeleton on which guitarists Don Gates and Jay Fernandez can hang their muscular riffs.

One point of contention for me was the two interludes, Sympathy and Spirit World, which I think sucked the velocity out of the album. During each of these breaks in the sonic battery I was champing at the bit for them to launch back into the attack and felt these acted like speed bumps on a racetrack, being superfluous and disruptive of the flow. I understand the inclusion and maybe the band wanted to give the listener a respite and a chance to regroup before setting about them once more, but without them in the tracklisting I think we would have had a perfect blistering and belligerent sub-forty minute album.

Anyway, minor tracklisting niggle aside, this is an album I enjoyed massively with it sitting somewhere between early Deicide and mid-era Death to my ears with those searing solos being the big take away for me. On the strength of this debut, I really can't believe that these guys aren't as big a name in the Florida scene as Death, Deicide or Morbid Angel.

Necrophobic are yet another band I have been ignorant of up until listening to this, the Swedes' debut album, for the Horde's death metal the first decade clan challenge. I guess I was expecting something akin to Entombed's first couple of albums, but instead Necrophobic have thrown me a bit of a curveball by including black metal elements within their death metal assault and, I've got to say, I'm quite impressed. I don't want to try and oversell the black metal elements because this is definitely a death metal album, but they are noticeable and the inclusion of those elements does make for something a bit different compared to the other death metal releases I have been listening to from this period in time. Blackened death metal is a well-established sub-genre nowadays, of course, and there are a legion of releases under the umbrella, but I guess this is one of the earlier examples.

They do have that overdriven Swedish guitar sound as employed by the likes of Entombed, but it is tempered by the blackened elements with the extra treble giving it a bit more clarity. That said, it does provide the listener with a damn good bludgeoning in true death metal style and doesn't lack for heaviness in any way, even when guitarist David Parland introduces a bit more melody into the riffs the brutal guitar tone still delivers a damn good beating to the listener's eardrums. The slight downside to this and an issue I have with a number of Swedish death metal releases, is that the guitar is so all-pervasive that I feel the rhythm section takes too much of a back seat and at times the bass in particular is swamped by that overpowering guitar tone.

Vocalist Anders Strokirk singing voice sits somewhere between a shrieking, barking black metal style and the more gutteral, growling vocals of death metal derivation, leaning a bit more to the black side. Lyrically and thematically they also embrace the anti-Christian path so beloved by black metal bands of the time with their blasphemous and satanic lyrical exhortations. The songwriting is strong, the tracks seem to strike a great balance between the brutal and the melodic, being both detructively heavy and memorable at the same time. A track such as Sacrificial Rites even hints at a heavy Slayer influence and at times sounds like it wouldn't be out of place on Reign In Blood. The death and black metal elements combine well to provide something that sets Necrophobic apart from the early-90's Scandinavian pack. The Swedish sound is not my favourite iteration of death metal, but with the addition of aspects of black metal Necrophobic seem to have found the formula to making it more interesting, to my ears at least.

Fvnerals produce metal that is more about texture and atmosphere, rather than having any interest in traditional songwriting. As such their music has more in common with drone, ambient and post-rock, but it is nevertheless still rooted in metal and drone metal in particular. I have also seen it labelled as funeral doom but, personally, I don't think so. Musically, the bulk of the album consists of hulking, ritualistic drones laid down by songwriter Syd Scarlet's huge guitar chords and feedback, reinforced and fortified by Tiffany Ström's bowel-loosening bass and Thomas Vaccargiu's sparse drumwork. Ström's haunting vocals soar over these sonic monoliths like a super-heavy Cocteau Twins, her style of vocals being quite reminiscent of some of Chelsea Wolfe's recent work.

The tracks on display here seem to be quite simple, but everything is beautifully structured and the atmospheres and textures produced are gorgeous. Being of a somewhat fanciful nature, I find the album acting as a catalyst and back drop to flights of imagination through ancient, crumbling, cyclopean cityscapes or strange, alien, deep-sea vistas, places where sheer size and strangeness evoke a sense of wonder and awe, because that is exactly what I get from the music. FVNERALS have produced an album that gives me exactly what I seek from drone metal - something on which to hang imagination and fancy whilst still managing to crush the life out of me with huge, devastating chords.

A point where the drone metal sceptic may feel more at home regarding Let the Earth Be Silent is that the album's seven tracks only have a combined runtime of a shade over forty minutes, so this is no seemingly endless slog, with the longest track weighing in at a slight eight minutes and change. I myself tend to regard the seven tracks as movements within a single piece of music as I think they work superbly well in this regard. I think this could well have an audience outside of traditional metal circles with fans of ritual and dark ambient, darkwave, or even ethereal wave, who can shelve any prejudice against it's metal roots.

A favourite of mine to which Let the Earth Be Silent can be compared is Bismuth's The Dying of the Great Barrier Reef, so anyone who feels positively towards that should feel well at home here as it displays the same dichotomy between awe-inspiring majesty and a distinct uneasiness.

I really enjoyed Smoulder's 2019 debut, Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring, their female-fronted epic doom metal was quite a revelation at the time, so much so that I bought myself a vinyl copy from their Bandcamp page. They followed the debut, scarcely a year later, with a six-track EP featuring three new numbers and the three tracks that constituted their 2018 demo EP, two of which, The Sword Woman and Voyage of the Sunchaser, ended up on that debut. Coming hot on the heels of Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring, the EP solidified their position as a purveyor of epic doom to be taken seriously.

So now, after a gap of three, plague-ridden years they return with their sophomore, Violent Creed of Vengeance. Vocalist Sarah Ann and husband, guitarist Shon Vincent, have since moved from their native Canada to Finland and have put together a live band featuring Finnish musicians, but still record remotely with the original band, drummer Kevin Hester, bassist Adam Blake and guitarist Collin Wolf completing the lineup.

The first difference from the earlier recordings is that the production sounds much denser and has a noticeable "Scandinavian" feel to it. The second major departure is that this focusses less on the doom aspects, generally being of a higher tempo and feels like it references US power metal much more than epic doom metal acts like Candlemass or Solstice. They haven't abandoned the epic doom of their earlier material completely, tracks like Midnight in the Mirror World and the nine-minute closer Dragonslayer's Doom still bring the doom sufficiently to feed my doom addiction. That said though, tracks like The Talisman and the Blade and Spellforger fair hurtle by and are definitely more USPM than doom metal. Either way they cut it, the riffs are massive and the sound is huge, Adam Blake's bass sitting fairly prominently and driving things along superbly, although Kevin Hester's drums sound a bit subdued and could do with a bit more crispness to be honest. Sarah Ann's vocals are terrific, really powerful and clear and soar over the thunderous riffs to wondrous effect. The soloing is perfectly fine, even though it isn't especially exhilharating, but I don't really think that is what Smoulder want to emphasise here, the riffs and vocals being the main event.

Unsurprisingly, I guess, the final, doom-ridden epic Dragonslayer's Doom is my favourite of the seven cuts Smoulder have laid out for us here, although the faster stuff is great too and I think the album displays a nice balance between USPM heavy metal and epic doom that should appeal to devotees of either persuasion. The drum sound and lack of truly inspiring soloing prevent a top-tier score, but this is still a record I enjoyed massively.

Me and MDB have a bit of a chequered past. When I was returning to metal in the early 2000s I got hold of mp3 rips of the band's complete discography up to that point (which was up to and including The Dreadful Hours, I think) and I was pretty keen on the Yorkshiremen's sound back then. However, I was playing catch up on the best part of a decade's metal development, during one of it's most evolutionary periods and I found myself exploring alleys and byways that took me further and further from the gothic musings of bands like My Dying Bride and into pastures new. My taste has mutated to such a degree that I am decidedly antipathetical towards what I often now view as the pantomime antics of a lot of gothic and gothic-tinged metal and, unfortunately, MDB singer Aaron Stainthorpe often makes me shake my head at his, what seem to me to be, OTT gothic tendencies, sounding sometimes like he has eaten a full set of Anne Rice novels and washed them down with a collection of Byron's poetry! Contrary to appearances otherwise, I don't hate My Dying Bride, far from it, but I just wish they would rein it in a bit sometimes.

So I decided to go back to MDB's debut full-length in the hopes of rekindling some of that affection I had for them a couple of decades ago now.  I welcome the fact that the album lacks a lot of the overt gothicness (gothicicity?) of a lot of their later material and has quite a raw production. I think it safe to file this under death doom rather than gothic death doom and it even dallies with out and out death metal in places, The Forever People, for example. The more epic tracks such as Sear Me and The Return of the Beautiful, whilst bearing a similar structure to later epics, don't become bogged down by excess gothic window dressing and so retain a vitality and immediacy that a lot of MDB's more grandiose stuff just doesn't possess. They sound like a much more interesting prospect with this stripped-back production style and despite the sparseness of the production they still manage to sound gloriously melancholic. It is as if without all the technical shenanigans and enhanced studio techniques they have to rely more heavily on good, old-fashioned musical ability and songwriting. Generally Stainthorpe sticks to a gruff death metal growl and thankfully we don't get much of the laconic, world-weary vocal style he resorts to in later works that is always guaranteed to wind me up. The guitar riffs are thick and heavy and carry most of the album with their melancholy melodicism and intermittent bursts of aggression. The violin is employed on much rarer occasions than during your average, later MDB album and so is more effective when it does make it's presence felt.

Overall I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I might and this rawer side of My Dying Bride is something I would have loved to have heard more of. I guess this is not a popular opinion, but this is right up there as one of my favourite MDB albums.

I am currently endeavouring to fill some glaring gaps in my Fallen knowledge and Crowbar are one such omission. I have heard several tracks whilst compiling playlists for the Fallen, but album-wise I have only listened to their latest offering, 2022's Zero and Below, in it's entirety. Whenever I have encountered the band I have enjoyed their breed of sludge metal very much, so I figured it was high time I came to grips with arguably their best received album, Sonic Excess in Its Purest Form.

Well, by kicking off with an absolute beauty of a slab of sludgy awesomeness in opener, The Lasting Dose, they gave themselves a hard act to follow and an uphill struggle to maintain such a high level of quality for the entire three-quarters of an hour runtime. This track is a perfect balance between crushing heaviness and a pathos-infused, melancholy air, which is a tricky balancing act to carry off successfully, but they pull it off to devastating effect here, to the point where it reminds me a little of Patrick Walker's Warning - yes it's that good! So, after such an impressive opener you could he forgiven in thinking that the rest of the album may struggle to maintain the quality and while it is true that, at least for me, the other ten tracks fall a little short in comparison, this is still an impressive album.

My biggest issue with sludge is often in the vocal department and a lot of bands walk a bit of a tightrope, often tipping over into unlistenability for me, but Kirk Windstein has a gruffness to his delivery that ensures he never becomes "shouty", which is the point at which a band will lose me. The riffs are titanic and the production on the guitars is devastating, giving them a planet-crushing weight that suits those sludge-laden riffs perfectly, especially on the slower material. The riffing itself as well as being ridiculously heavy, is also tinged with that edge of melancholic introspection that is the real heart of top-drawer doom metal. Tony Costanza's drumming is simple and effective and, along with Jeff Okoneski's rumbling bass is the rock-solid foundation from which Windstein and Sammy Duet can launch those withering riff-barrages. The lyrics are perfectly legible despite the instrumental heft and with such memorable riffs, this is the kind of album you can suddenly find yourself singing along to.

There is a variation in tempo of the tracks to a certain extent but, personally, I find that it is the slower stuff that is most devastating, particularly Lasting Dose and Repulsive in Its Splendid Beauty. This is not only an album I will be returning to, but it is also one I will be seeking a physical copy of, such has it impressed me.

I am no hater of drone metal. Earth 2 is in my top ten metal albums of all time and I love Khanate, Sunn O))) and most of what Steven O'Malley and Greg Anderson put their name to. Hell, I even have The Body's 2016 album, No One Deserves Happiness scored as an eight out of ten. But I've Seen All I Need to See did very little for me, at least in a positive sense.

The majority of this album sounds like a recording of some demented maniac getting off in his garage on his comprehensive collection of power tools. The "vocals" consist of distant howls that often sound like an old-fashioned steam train whistle heard from several miles away. I must admit, it does pique my interest in one or two places, the track The City Is Shelled being the "standout" for me, but also the ending of opener, A Lament, when the thin keys come in and a couple of the drum patterns, such as early in The Handle / The Blade and during the latter half of Eschatological Imperative, are pretty decent. For the majority of the album, though, I just don't get it I'm afraid and a going-nowhere track like A Pain of Knowing just seems utterly futile. I've now done what I consider my due diligence and having listened through it three times in it's entirety, I can't see myself ever walking this particular path again. So, to paraphrase the album's title, I've Heard All I Need to Hear and let's leave it at that.

I have only really had a passing relationship with Oakland's High On Fire to date. I don't know why particularly as I have enjoyed the couple of albums I have heard previously, Blessed Black Wings and Death Is This Communion. Both of those were from the mid-2000's and so I have jumped forward a few years to 2012's De vermis mysteriis. There is no great divergence from the earlier albums and it consists once more of HOF's sludgy take on stoner metal. Most of the tracks fall into one of two camps, either pretty fast-paced, almost thrashy, stoner metal with a hard edge or a more doomy, slower take where the sludginess is more to the fore. The production of the album was handled by Converge's Kurt Ballou and he has done a bang-up job as the sound is super thick whilst still maintaining a superb clarity where every nuance of the instrumentation can be heard clearly, the drums and bass are beefy-sounding and certainly provide a solid foundation for the guitar work, whether it be the fast, intense riffing of tracks like Bloody Knuckles and the title track, or the more considered and heavier-sounding, slower riffs of Madness of an Architect or Romulus and Remus. It is unsurprisingly this slower material that I prefer, it sounding more intense and crushing than the thrashier stuff.

Overall this is a pretty solid album that does have a superb production job and while the tracks all possess the requisite heaviness and there are no duds, I'm not convinced that any of them are super-standout either.

Armagedda are a Swedish three-piece comprising guitarist/bassist A (Andreas Petterson), who is also vocalist with Stilla, vocalist/guitarist Graav who is also known as solo artist LIK and drummer Phycon whose other gig is drummer with Swedish death metallers Feral. Originally splitting in 2004 after the release of their Ond Spiritism album, A and Graav started off again as folk metal band Lönndom until 2014 when that band too split-up. They then reformed Armagedda in 2020, despite saying back in '04 that the band was gone forever.

The Final War Approaching was released in 2001 and is a minimal production-values effort that has a blasphemous, icy edge to it, taking their cue from Darkthrone's classic era in it's minimalist execution. The point needs to be made that although the production is raw, it achieves perfectly the desired effect and it isn't messy in a demo-quality kind of way, as everything is quite distinct in the mix and this is certainly no unlistenable, muddy mess. Despite the vocals and riffing taking precedence, the bass and drums aren't short -changed and both are perfectly audible without becoming intrusive, which is always a danger, particularly with drumming. Graav has a nice line in cracked shrieking that sounds great in the context of this kind of raw production and produces the kind of infected, evil-sounding vocal performance that so suits the rawer style of black metal. The guitars have that thin, stripped back sound with a slight echo that the second wave was built upon and the riffs are great and with a pretty high memorability factor.

This is exactly the kind of album that perfectly sums up what I want from my black metal, you can virtually smell the blood and brimstone emanating from the record's grooves. Sure, all the experimentation, dissonance and avant-garde stylings are great in their place, but seem to have become the be all and end all among the black metal cognoscenti and they don't encapsulate what I look to black metal for. Being a dyed-in-the-wool, stuck-in-his-ways old bastard I will stick with the stuff that makes me happiest and that is exactly this kind of raw, unholy, blasphemous-sounding shit.

Bolt Thrower were probably the very first death metal band I got into. During the very early 1990s I had pretty much left the metal world behind, but I often still listened to good old John Peel's (RIP) late night radio show (usually on my drive home from work after a 2-10 shift) and Bolt Thrower were a band he championed (along with Carcass and Napalm Death), so they often featured on his show. To be honest they really stood out to my ears because, at this time, I wasn't even remotely familiar with bands this brutal-sounding, Reign In Blood being the most brutal record I had heard up to then, so this was a whole new level of aggression and brutality which really made an impression. Admittedly I didn't seek out their records or anything at this point, as I said I wasn't really listening to metal a this point in my life, but the name Bolt Thrower stuck in my head along with the impression of something so unbelievably brutal-sounding that it was hard to believe they dared play it on the radio.

Now all these many years later I have got myself much more familar with the band and their material and whilst it is true that they were never a band that have tried to push the envelope, they managed to maintain an impressive level of consistency over their almost thirty year career and never produced anything other than high quality, no frills death metal. The IVth Crusade was their fourth full-length and this time around they turned their conflict-obsessed attentions towards the Fourth Crusade, which was called by Pope Innocent III in the early thirteenth century and was intended to overthrow the Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate before retaking Jerusalem, but which ended up with Constantinople being sacked by the Western Catholic Church and deepening the schism between Eastern and Western Catholic Empires, hence the lyric of the title track, "Vanquished in the name of your god, One of the same to whom we once prayed".

Bloodstained lyricism apart, Bolt Thrower have a distinct sound, with a depth and bassiness that doesn't descend into the realm of the cavernous, but retains a solidity and heft that bludgeons like a sledgehammer to the temple. No, they don't paint outside the lines, but they pack such a punch with their tight riffing and bone-crushing rhythms that the appeal of their sound is impossible to withstand for any fan of extreme metal. Karl Willetts vocal delivery is all growling menace and barely-contained violence that roars it's blood-drenched words of human destruction, hurling them into the listeners face like an accusation of complicity. He is also one of the very few extreme metal vocalists that I can hear virtually every word he utters. The lead guitar work can best be described as functional with the Midlanders never going in for overt showiness, but letting the driving rhythms and muscular riffing define their sound with the soloing only acting as muted decoration rather than their raison d'être. In this way their music has an almost military functionality and lethality which, given their aesthetic, I wouldn't be surprised if it was completely by design.

By the time of The IVth Crusade all traces of their earlier grind sound had been left behind and the album is pure and unfiltered death metal from start to finish. Although my personal favourite BT album is Realm of Chaos, which marks the ideal balance between death metal and their earlier grind affiliation, this isn't really very far behind in my affections. Despite it's monstrous solidity the riffs are often quite melodic, sticking in the memory pretty well and are absolutely guaranteed to get the old noggin' nodding. The band often get painted with the accusation of being "samey" and while it is true that they have never felt the need to experiment with their sound, there is sufficient variation in tempo to maintain interest over the length of an album. All in all, if you want an album of unashamed death metal with solid songwriting performed to the highest level then you could do much worse than break open a copy of The IVth Crusade.

Now Dutchmen Asphyx are a death metal band I have been familiar with for quite a while now, their brand of OSDM coming to my attention via recommendations for bands similar to Autopsy and the fact that former Pestilence bassist/vocalist, Martin van Drunen, performed vocals on this and their debut album, The Rack, (as well as their later albums after rejoining the band in 2007). In common with many of the early practitioners of death doom, Asphyx like to vary their pacing throughout the albums runtime, not just sticking rigidly to the death doom template with their take on this style of death metal being less cavernous and abyssal-sounding than the likes of Autopsy. The production of Last One On Earth has rendered their sound crisper and less filthy than a lot of their contemporaries, which makes the album more desperate and hopeless-sounding than demonic and threatening, as if the band are victims of evil rather than the perpetrators of it.

One of the main reasons for this desperation is van Drunen's unique, shredded higher register which is a long way from the rumbling growls of Chris Reifert and co. and which gives the doom-laden sections a more human connection, reflecting a hopeless and bleak atmosphere. Of course, slow, doom-laden passages are far from the only game in town and Asphyx have no fear of letting rip, Serenade in Lead being a particular exercise in high-velocity riffing. The quicker material benefits greatly from the better-defined guitar tone and the issue of muddiness that often plagues the perpetrators of the more cavernous style doesn't rear it's head here. The songwriting is impeccable with killer riffs, variations in pacing with smooth transitions, interesting lyrical content and, most importantly, a crushing heaviness that any extreme metalhead can readily appreciate.

A couple of niggling issues are the lack of any appreciable bass presence in the mix which does seem to prevent the album from sounding as crushing as it may otherwise have done and I would have liked to hear a bit more lead work as the soloing that is present is pretty damn good. Minor gripes aside, Last One On Earth is a definite step up from the already well-received debut The Rack and, for me, is the high watermark of Asphyx's career to date.

Finns Demigod and their album Slumber of Sullen Eyes must be one of death metal's best-kept secrets, being a band I have never even heard of prior to this. The reason for this may have been that it was released on a little-known and short-lived Spanish label, Drowned Productions, rather than a big-hitter like Earache or Roadrunner, because it certainly isn't down to a lack of quality. Their sound seems to be based upon the Swedish sound of neighbours Entombed, yet I found it more palatable than the Swedes' sound, mainly due to it having a deeper and more bassy timbre to it which sits a bit better with me personally. I still think this type of overdriven sound works best on the slower, more death doomy sections, as it tends to lose definition somewhat as the tempo gets quicker and can just become an aural blur on the absolute fastest sections.

There are some great death metal riffs contained within Slumber of Sullen Eyes and they come thick and fast, not just thrown together, but forged into songs that are dynamic and coherent. As I hinted at earlier there is plenty of variation in pacing with some death doom adjacent sections interspersing the more usual and quicker death metal tempos. The leadwork is decent and effective without exactly setting the world on fire, but that said, it is suits the material perfectly well. Vocalist and guitarist Esa Lindén has a nice line in deathly growls that are deep enough to provide a fairly intimidating roar when required. Rhythm section-wise things are solid enough, although the drums could have done with a bit more oomph as they often sound a bit too dull to properly drive the tracks forward. There are also a couple of occasions where they bring in some reedy-sounding keyboards which is always a nice touch on these early death metal albums and provides a bit of aesthetic variation.

Overall, this is a hidden gem of early underground European death metal and I think these Finns actually sound better than their more celebrated Scandinavian cousins such as Entombed. It's a pity it all kind of went tits up for them after this because they sound like they could have been a big noise in Euro-Death Metal circles.

I have seen Bloodbath's name bandied about all over the place and assumed them to be some kind of death metal supergroup - a concept I have always hated (Shrinebuilder anyone) due to it being more about who is in the band than what they play and the compromises to enormous egos (Travelling Wilburys)? Well, they are a supergroup I suppose, with Mikael Åkerfeldt and Martin Axenrot from Opeth, Katatonia's Anders Nyström and Jonas Renkse along with ex-Katatonia and Ghost guitarist Per Eriksson they couldn't really be considered as anything else. That is all quite simply irrelevant as far as this four-track ep is concerned because it is an absolutely brilliant fifteen minutes of super-tight death metal.

I haven't heard anything else from Bloodbath, but gather that they (unsurprisingly I suppose, given the fact that they are Swedish) lean more towards the Swedish sound of death metal, which isn't completely my cup of tea I must admit. This seems far more rooted in conventional death metal and in particular it sounds a lot like the Polish death metal of Behemoth and Vader which is a sound I have been a fan of for quite some time now. These four tracks exhibit a much tighter sound than I have become used to from the Swedish bands and which always seems to be a feature of Polish death metal. Mikael Åkerfeldt's vocals in particular sound a lot like Vader frontman Piotr Wiwczarek. It may be brief, but it certainly is effective - a case of it came, it saw and it kicked everyone's ass! Now, where's my copy of Black to the Blind?

Blood Tsunami were formed in 2004 and when it became apparent that their original drummer wasn't up to the task, they recruited the infamous former Emperor skinsman, Bård Eithun, aka Faust, who had recently been released from prison. They started playing thrash metal at a time when the genre was in the doldrums, but by the time of the release of the sophomore, Grand Feast for Vultures, the somewhat half-hearted thrash revival was underway with bands like Gama Bomb and Municipal Waste dominating things. One bright spark though, was the resurgence of Kreator whose Enemy of God and Hordes of Chaos albums had re-established the Germans' reputation somewhat. Blood Tsunami took this aggressive approach of the "new" Kreator and married it with some good old-fashioned Iron Maiden worship and produced an interesting hybrid of blackened thrash and traditional metal that I personally found quite intoxicating and irresistible.

Opening up with a one-two thrash combo, Castle of Skulls and Nothing but Contempt get us off to a breakneck start, with the early seconds of the opener grabbing our attention by channelling Slayer's Angel of Death. These two and the title track which close out the first side are where the Kreator-influenced thrash component is at it's most prominent and all three are real rip-snorters (as we say round these parts) Grand Feast for Vultures itself being an absolute face melter! The other four tracks aren't strictly thrash metal and whilst containing elements thereof, to greater or lesser effect, there is a more pronounced heavy metal presence. This is most obvious in the Maiden-esque lead work with some solos that may have just dropped in from Piece of Mind or Powerslave. Whatever persuasion they are derived from, this album is chock full of riffs with the guitar work of Pete Evil and Dor Amazon dominating almost everything.

Pete Evil (sadly, not his real name, that being Peter Michael Kolstad Vegem) has a shrieking black metal delivery which is bolstered at times by the more death metal-sounding backing of Amazon and bassist Pete "Bosse" Boström. This combination of shrieks and barks works very well and gives the vocals a very muscular tone. Pete Evil is obviously the main man here and the production does enhance and highlight his contributions with Bosse and Faust losing out in the mix it seems. This is a great shame because if you take the time to concentrate on Faust's drumming then you will hear that it really is impressive and, no matter what else he may or may not be, the guy is one hell of a fantastic skinsman, his power and precision making me think of an extreme metal John Bonham.

Side two features two epic tracks, first of which is the twelve-minute instrumental Horsehead Nebula, which could be in danger of coming over as self-indulgent, but in fact it is a very well constructed and epic instrumental track that leads us hither and thither and successfully throws in plenty of memorable moments and is the track where Blood Tsunami are at their most Maiden-esque. I've always been partial to thrash instrumentals and this is a fine example of the discipline, sitting as one of my favourites alongside Orion and The Ultra-Violence. Closing things out is my favourite track, One Step Closer to the Grave, another ten-minute plus track and with it's slower pacing it almost verges on epic doom metal in it's execution. It begins with a real lurking menace before exploding into another instrumental extravaganza with the guitarists trading solos as it storms headlong to it's maelstrom of a climax.

OK, so Grand Feast for Vultures isn't a perfect record and at times it threatens to tip over into being overblown, but the performances are excellent, the songs are great and it's suggestion of sonic excess is a plus, not a minus in my book.

This debut album from Oslo black metallers, Tilintetgjort, was an interesting listen to be sure and, in the main, it was one which I enjoyed. There is a great deal of variety within it's six tracks and the band seem determined not to plough a singular and uniform black metal furrow throughout it's runtime, but rather to explore a wider swathe of BM subgenres and not paint themselves into a metaphorical musical corner, with an almost punk-like, irreverent approach to black metal convention. In Death I Shall Arise feels like a shot in the arm for a genre which increasingly goes around like it's got a stick up it's arse with it's intense, experimental dissonance bullshit or the dreamy navel-gazing of modern blackgaze, where the single-minded "artistic vision" of bm protagonists is paramount over everything, including actually being enjoyable to listen to. Inevitably, this does comes with a degree of inconsistency as regards the songwriting, although the performances throughout are very good, but it is an approach I applaud. Apparently the bulk of the album was recorded live in the studio over a three day period in February of 2022, with a few overdubs added later, and I think this adds a looseness and a vibrancy to the sound that a more meticulous approach may have crushed out if it and it does feel like an actual band playing music rather than a bunch of technicians wielding the arsenal of recording tools now available to almost anyone with a laptop.

In Death I Shall Arise kicks off with an absolute belter, Kvikksølvdrømmer, the swirling guitar riffing and thunderous drum battery that define the track get the album off to a high-octane start then towards the latter part of the track displaying a punkish devilry when they drop into a Ramones-like riff that almost has you yelling "Gabba Gabba Hey" (in a cracked and devilish shriek, obviously). The second track, Sannhetens søyler, continues with a similar, latter-day Darkthrone, punkish vibe and a really catchy guitar melody which at times threatens to fall apart into dissonance, but never actually does, the overall effect kind of keeps you guessing as to where we are going here.

By the time third track, Mercurial, comes around, it is becoming clear that drummer, Englishman Tybalt (Daniel Theobald), is absolutely central to the material as he is all over it and is a veritable hurricane, blowing away all that stands before him in a flurry of blastbeats and fills that mark him as an incredible talent (to my untrained ear anyway). The basslines of four-string-wielder, Sturt (Jens B. Johansen) are also quite prominent at times, in a way similar to that which a number of the modern Chilean thrashers employ.

Vinter og høst is a track where Tilintetgjort employ a dissonant style that reminds me of tracks on early Ihsahn solo albums and this is followed by another short blaster, Hex, that comes over like a hybrid of Darkthrone and Deathspell Omega. Closing out the album is the twenty-minute epic, Dommedagsmonument (Doomsday Monument). This is quite an ambitious track with a three-part progressive structure that's really nice to hear, regaling us with a tale of cosmic mysticism and power. It's opening evil blasts give way to a Wardruna-like nordic folk section with clean vocals and acoustic guitar, that itself is overtaken by a more bombastic section with earnest-sounding cleans and impactful tremolo guitar work. Part three is a Darkthrone-esque section that I think sounds fantastic as the band really let loose with a black'n'roll riff from hell that illustrates the titular doomsday as Svik's demonic vocal reveals the cosmic visions of destruction. He has got a great line in evil, cracked shrieking that sounds demonically evil and his occasional cleans aren't too bad either.

Overall this is an album that I enjoyed immensely and, in truth, I keep getting more out of it the more I listen to it. The drumming is amazing, the guitar work is busy and propulsive and the vocals are classic-sounding, not dissimilar to Nocturno Culto's. I like the attempt at an ambitious approach that doesn't turn it's back on what makes black metal so great to begin with, but that uses the best of it within a progressive song structure. All-in-all I found this massively entertaining and look forward to where these guys go from here.

The Japanese, serial-killer obsessed stoners are back with their first new release in seven years and the band have undergone wholesale lineup changes since 2016's And Then There Were None, in fact bassist and songwriter Tatsu Mikami is the only original member and CoM seems to have latterly become him and a crew of hired hands. For Born Under a Mad Sign Mikami has recruited original Church of Misery vocalist Kazuhiro Asaeda who has seemingly had an on/off relationship with the band and last appeared on 2007's Vol I. The drummer is ex-Eternal Elysium bassist Toshiaki Umemura and EE's main man, Yukito Okazaki handles guitar duties as a guest.

This time around Mikami focusses his attention on the likes of the Beltway Sniper, John Allen Muhammed, Alaskan murderer Robert Hansen and the infamous messiah of Waco, David Koresh. Uncomfortable sometimes though the subject matter is, Church of Misery have made a career out of utilising it in their lyrics and, I suppose, tap into that part of the human psyche that is fascinated by the worst that the human race has to offer. Let's face it, they are hardly alone in that regard as the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for it is also served by an endless stream of true crime movies, TV shows and books.

Anyway, questionable subject matter aside, Church of Misery have knocked out a really great slab of stoner metal this time - and I deliberately use the word "slab" because this is slab-heavy with a great depth of tone to Okazaki's distorted stoner riffs that, despite their groove-laden catchiness, have enough weight to crush a small elephant. The riffs have a bluesy groove that reaches back to metal's earliest days, but that still sound fairly modern due to their sheer weight and his soloing is psych-flavoured, but in a bad trip, Altamont, Charles Manson kind of way. Kazuhiro Asaeda's vocals really suit the band's aesthetic and I think he is probably my favourite CoM vocalist. His singing has a rasping, ragged desperation that sounds like a man with shredded nerves and who is at the end of his tether, pretty much how you imagine several of the lyrics' protaganists may have been feeling. Toshiaki Umemura puts in a fine shift behind the kit with some great fills and impeccable time-keeping, the drums being pushed far enough forward to make their presence felt without swamping anyone else. Apart from his songwriting chops being on display with as good a set of songs as I have heard from the band, Tatsu Mikami's bass growls away in the background like a disgruntled grizzly bear as it underpins the riffs and provides the propulsive force for the tracks. The production bestows a satisfying layer of grime over proceedings and allows the album to reach an extra level of filthiness that works well in it's favour.

I know that it is early days yet, but I keep sneaking back to this one ans I am thinking that this may well end up as my favourite Church of Misery album to date.

Tlazcaltiliztli is an album of thick as molasses death doom riffs and awesome bellowing growls for vocals that sound like a wounded bison and remind me somewhat of Japanese death doomers Coffins. Whilst the bulk of the album consists of this crushingly brutal assault on the listener's sensibilities there are also some really cool indiginous Mexican folk interludes that make for something a bit different and are undeniably an interesting diversion. The death doom side of things isn't the most earth-shatteringly awesome or original metal you are ever likely to hear, but it is authentic and it's chugging riffs are heavy as fuck and if you are a fan of extreme doom metal then that, along with the more interesting indiginous music interjections, should at least merit you checking it out (just don't try spelling it!) Me, I'm always a sucker for anything that sounds like it was derived from the early Autopsy sound, which this assuredly is, so for me this is a big thumbs up. Sadly, it is very short at 32 minutes, but it's probably better to leave the listener wanting more than boring them with overlong LPs so I have no complaints about that either.

Incantation have been one of my big discoveries since joining Metal Academy and their 1998 album, Diabolical Conquest, is one of my top five death metal albums of all time. So, rewinding six years to May of 1992 and the deathly New Jersey crew unleashed their debut, Onward to Golgotha. Incantation were originally formed by John McEntee and Paul Ledney, both of death thrashers Revenant, in 1986 and by the time of the debut's release the band had already gone through several line-up changes, which seems to have been an issue that has dogged the band throughout their almost 35 year history.

When Incantation released Onward to Golgotha it must have become apparent to everyone that the thunderous and cavernous abyssal death metal vibe pioneered by the likes of Autopsy had just been lifted to another level. Onward to Golgotha is the soundtrack to a subterranean hellscape that had only been hinted at before, but which now was revealed in all it's deathly and fiery glory, an album that exuded a demonic evilness that sought to corrupt and defile anyone caught in it's aural embrace. This is an album that should have the subtitle "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

There is a foul gritiness to the sound of the guitar riffing that is so overwhelmingly hellish that I swear I could detect a noxious, sulphurous odour emanating from my speakers whilst listening to it. Then, as if that wasn't enough, Craig Pillard's deep death-growls intoning their blasphemous diatribes push things well beyond all that had gone before and it was apparent that a new king ruled in hell. Onward to Golgotha's forty-five minutes is unrelentingly bruising and brutal-sounding, with even the slower doom death sections seemingly serving only to torturously draw the riffs out and enhance the menace and when the band really let rip, like they do on Immortal Cessation, it feels like you are being physically battered, such is the brutality on show. The solos are fast and furious dagger-slashes that serve only to rub salt into the wounds caused by the flying debris from the maelstrom of the breakneck riffing.

This is real primal music, music that is completely shorn of all sophistication and pretension and doesn't try to be anything other than what it is. It is so neanderthal-sounding that I swear drummer Jim Roe is banging on a mastodon skull with a pair of human femurs. I think Incantation may well be usurping Autopsy as my favourite death metal band because this is exactly the kind of stuff I lose my shit over. For me, this is undiluted essence of death metal and is one of my favourite releases ever.

I am no expert on Katatonia by any means, I really like Brave Murder Day and really dislike Last Fair Deal Gone Down, so my opinion on them is "variable" at best. Still, approaching Sky Void of Stars with no strong expectation either way, I was quite pleasantly surprised by what I found within it's fifty minutes runtime. 

This is a really tuneful and melodic album that references the progressive sounds of bands like Porcupine Tree and Riverside. Unsurprisingly, as he wrote all the material on Sky Void of Stars, the vocal performance of Jonas Renkse is absolutely central to the album. It is fortunate, then, that his performance is top-notch with a strong presence and impressive consistency. I don't wish to demean the contributions of the other band members as they too are of the highest quality, but they are more restrained and are used as the foundation and support of the vocals. This feels similar to the way that the E-Street Band back Springsteen's singing, they are all superb musicians in their own right, but The Boss is the main event. Personally, I would have liked to have heard the band as a whole let off the leash and the album lean more towards a progressive sound with some lengthier instrumental sections. There were a couple of times where it seemed about to happen, but it never really materialised. That said, that is obviously not what was intended here, the focus being less on progressive instrumental explorations and more on precise melodies and memorable musical phrases, with the lyrics and vocals being placed front and centre. To that end Sky Void of Stars is inordinately successful and I got plenty of enjoyment out if it. No doubt I will return to it at some future point, the scales of judgment on Katatonia now weighted more towards the positive as far as I am concerned.

Darkmoon Blade are a heavy metal three-piece from South Carolina, all three members are also in the black metal outfit, Molag and a couple of them are in melodic death/black crew Somat, all of which have released albums in the last year or so, so they have been busy bees indeed. DB seem to be striving to reproduce the lightning-in-a-bottle of early Venom, but almost seem to be trying too hard. Whereas Venom produced their classic material seemingly effortlessly and so consequently authentically, Darkmoon Blade sound forced, never more than in the vocal department where singer Velda seems so intent on reproducing Cronos' rasping delivery that he sounds uncomfortable and staid, never coming anywhere near the Geordies' natural-sounding likeability but rather producing more of a tight-throated croak.

It isn't all bad news, some of the riffing and lead work is quite fun and although the band are really only producing very basic heavy metal, when they hit their stride they provide some passable headbanging material. Of course it has to be brought up, but the more ambitious My Darling in the Fire is really bad. The vocals are at their nadir on this track and the songwriting seems to be trying to take a leaf out of King Diamond's mini-opera-like style, but is so all over the place that it is actually cringeworthy.

I really don't like doing down metal albums but this isn't anything I could, in all honesty, say I would ever return to as the bad significantly outweighs the good and it is hard to forgive such a poor vocal performance.

For context: despite not being a massive fan of death metal for the longest time and getting into the genre fairly late in the day, there is a small number of bands that I do have some history with, Carcass being one of them, Napalm Death and Bolt Thrower being the others. This is mainly due to all three being championed by the much-missed John Peel on his late night radio shows and the fact that they were from my neck of the woods, as I am from a shithole roughly at the midpoint between Merseyside and The Midlands and so they did get some promotion in local specialist record shops. This exposure was mainly focussed on their early grindcore material as by the time of Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious' release, I was on my self-imposed hiatus from the metal scene.

Anyway, personal history aside, Carcass' sophomore and predecessor to Necroticism, Symphonies of Sickness, saw Carcass evolve from the brutal grindcore of the debut in a more conventional death metal direction. Necroticism itself continues this evolution, further moving the band's sound away from their grindcore roots and introducing much more by way of melody into their writing with the grind elements being merely vestigial by this point. I am probably in the minority here, but I actually think that SoS marks the sweet spot between the grind and Death metal elements of Carcass' sound. That does not in any way mean I don't like Necroticism, quite the contrary in fact but, for me, SoS is the high water mark for Carcass, at least from a personal preference point-of-view. That said, there is loads to enjoy here, with memorable riffs thrown out like confetti, Bill Steer's growls competing with Jeff Walker's shrieks for vocal supremacy, a thunderous rhythm section and viscerally aggressive guitar solos.

The tracks on Necroticism are, in the main, even longer than those on Symphonies and, in addition to the increasing emphasis on melody there is also a more noticeable technicality about the songwriting. Necroticism also marks Michael Amott's recorded debut with the band and the interplay between him and Steer, particularly the solos, marks a major evolution for Carcass' sound with a more Maiden-esque approach, similar in effect to that of James Murphy's contributions with Death on Spiritual Healing. The emphasis on the solos is such that each even has a name: opener Inpropagation (a song about using cremated human remains as fertiliser), for example, has solos named "dust in the mausoleum", "compost humous horticulture" and "humanure". Elsewhere there are solos named "a heaving organic puzzle", "viscous residue snorting" and "administration of toxic compounds", continuing the gore-laden verbosity of their track and album naming convention.

The production is excellent and lies at the perfect point between the roughness of the earlier work and the slickness of their later releases, providing a thick and meaty quality to the riffing that still allows a flowing clarity to the leads during the solos and enables the rhythm section to be clearly discerned rather than them sinking into the mire of a muddier production. Drummer Ken Owen must receive kudos for turning in an understated, yet absolutely integral performance that lays a particularly solid foundation upon which the sterling guitar work could be built. The forensic gore aesthetic was something of a feature for the band and set them apart, seeming even more disturbing than the slasher gore of other early DM outfits like Cannibal Corpse, due to it's feet being placed more in the real world than the movie world and this provided inspiration to any number of later gorehounds. The samples that introduce a number of the tracks are suitably unpleasant and, I suppose, in a way they force us to face up to a certain distasteful aspect of life that most normal-minded people don't really dwell on much.

Overall, this is an important record in the evolution of a branch of death metal from it's earliest grindcore roots towards a more universally acceptable sound, whilst still retaining a brutally uncompromising aesthetic that was sufficient to prevent the band "selling-out" to mainstream acceptance.

Initially this did not grab my attention as much as I hoped it would. The first couple of tracks just sort of washed over me with the liturgical singing of the opener sounding merely gimmicky rather than fundamental to the track. Now I don't know if this was because I went into it in the wrong frame of mind, but as the album proceeded I found myself getting more and more into it and on subsequent listens those earlier tracks chime a lot better with me. One thing that is absolutely certain, however, is that these guys have a real ear for a good melody. Most of the six tracks feature at least one hooky melody that endows each of them with a degree of memorability. Less-skilled atmo-black practitioners may release albums where the tracks all merge into one and which are largely forgettable, or rather just don't have much onto which the listener can grab and find a way in, but these melodic hooks offer an easy way into all the six tracks present on Andacht.

Whilst being in the main blisteringly fast and pummelling black metal, there is more than enough going on around it to provide plenty of variety and depth. Taking the opener, Glück, as an example, the tremolo riffing is light-speed fast and the drums are programmed for maximum blasting, but those chanting vocals and a nice acoustic guitar melody during a section of relative calm make such an impact that they stick with you and pull you into the blasting maelstrom that surrounds them. Most of the tracks are well-constructed and display some development during their runtime, but it is the melodies that ultimately keep calling me back to this as they add a soaring beauty to what may otherwise have been a fairly ordinary atmospheric black metal album.

The vocals are decent enough black metal shrieks and growls, with those chanted cleans interjecting occasionally. As I mentioned, the drums are programmed and they don't sound too bad, although it is fairly obvious that they aren't a live drummer. The production is crisp and clear, so the subtleties of the album are easy to pick up on throughout. All in all I would say that this is a creditable effort that maintains the vicious savagery of black metal, whilst tempering it with a melodicism that makes it more accessible than is often the case and which adds a different dynamic to the whole.

I must admit, I was kinda struggling between awarding a 3.5 or a 4, but those mournful-sounding keys on Dunkler Mann that sound like a violin have won me over and swayed my score upwards.