Saxy S's Reviews

I am no expert when it comes to war metal. It's a style of music whose defining feature is not found within its instrumentation and performance, but rather the vocal themes. In that way, war metal has more in common with gothic and emo music than its similar North clan genre partners. Typically, I really enjoy these types of records, but I have reviewed a grand total of *checks notes* zero war metal albums before Antichrist Siege Machine's Vengeance of Eternal Fire. Not even Teitanblood has crossed my radar before this.

And according to other reviewers, Vengeance of Eternal Fire is not anywhere close to Teitanblood. This is much closer to the original War metal album experience. Short songs, unrelenting tremolo guitar and blast beats, and theme's of nihilism, death and the occult. You could be very well excused if you thought that Vengeance of Eternal Fire was a grindcore album.

Like with a lot of grindcore (which I also have not listened to very much of), the pure cacophony of the soundscape is very important and has the ability to rile up anybody's adrenaline. And Antichrist Siege Machine are fortunately able to do so with some decent production. The percussion is a little bit overwhelming, especially the snare drum, but overall, the blast beat formula is prominent, but not the focal point at any given time. 

The compositions, like with grindcore, are increasingly sporadic and unfiltered. The way in which songs can quickly swing between slow, almost doom riffs and percussion to ferocious black metal without so much as a warning is isolating. The record can barely finish what it has to say before carrying on to the next point of contention without ever giving listeners a definitive answer to the last statement/question. And with the album moving at such a frantic pace, none of the themes are allowed to really say anything. Either that or the sheer sound of the music is so overwhelming because everyone is shouting in your face at the same time demanding your attention. 

And I kind of get it: it's war metal. "It isn't supposed to be super in depth or philosophical. It's about fucking war! War is bad, it leaves nothing but death and destruction in its wake. What more needs to be said?" A valid point, but I kind of expect, even for as meat and potatoes of an album as Vengeance of Eternal Fire may be, that it has a little bit more to say than "Unga-Bunga caveman beat Oogle-Boogle caveman with stick."

Best Songs: Sisera, Prey Upon Them, Scalding Enmity

I've likely mentioned this in a previous album review, but as I get older, my tolerance for progressive metal becomes more thin. I still listen to a lot of progressive music or progressive adjacent music, but a lot of it goes by the wayside as not only becomes less distinguishable, but also loses out on many of the key factors that make music memorable in the first place; primarily the use of melodic motifs and growth throughout both a song, and albums runtime.

Dvne were a band I caught onto relatively late. When I initially heard their 2017 album Asheran, I thought it was okay, but played too heavy into the sludgier aspects of the genre were good, but found them too derivative of other bands like the Ocean and ISIS. Voidkind by comparison is still fairly derivative, but I can tell through influences that Dvne are carving more of their own path and I'm all here for it.

Initially, I noticed that this album sounded less booming as previous releases. That might seem strange given how "Summa Blasphemia" starts, but it's more relaxed aggression than before. The moment it clicked for me was on "Reaching for Telos" and how the soaring post-metal passages sounded eerily familiar to Alcest. That, paired with the sludgy, riff heavy "Reliquary" creates a huge dichotomy of sounds that still somehow connect together through motivic development. 

Voidkind has some great sound engineering on display. I already how much more this record sounds like traditional post-metal as opposed to sludge metal, so the guitar work is robust, but it never feels like the main attraction of the album. Both clean and harsh vocals can be heard with utmost clarity, the percussion retains the doom-y grooves; the snare and bass drums are not obtrusive, and not only is the bass prominent in the performance, but it also receives a fair share of independent moments as well. 

The reason I cannot rate the album any higher than this score has to do with connectivity of the whole thing. Now, usually this would not be a bad thing, but in Dvne's case, Voidkind feels a little bit too comfortable. There is some good variety on display as already mentioned, but my general feeling of the record is one of familiarity. The album starts off remarkably well, but around the time of the first interlude, "Path of Dust" Voidkind just meanders to its conclusion. This could be caused by a number of things, but the most obvious one is the lack of tonal shifts. Every song is either in the same key center, or a closely related key center from track one to track ten and it does make for a tiring full listen, even after multiple playthroughs. Add on top of this the almost one hour runtime and it leaves me wanting something more.

But I still cannot see myself not recommending Voidkind to post-metal and sludge metal fans alike. This will definitely be one of those albums that will be carried by the quality of its individual moments rather than its cohesivness as a full record. If you like the melodic, dense side of sludge metal, then there is no way this should not be essential listening in 2024.

Best Songs: Summa Blasphemia, Eleonora, Reliquary, Sarmatæ, Plērōma

High on Fire is the louder, more fun cousin of stoner metal giants Sleep and even features the same guitar player in both groups. Since the turn of the century, High on Fire have been releasing consistent, high quality sludge metal that does not really need to be innovative or breaking boundaries, since a lot of modern sludge metal takes far more influence from doom.

This time around on Cometh the Storm, you can expect much the same. The record contains plenty of thrash inspired riffage from the title track, “Burning Down” and “The Beating.” Although the record does feel a little bit more restrained than previous releases. High on Fire are no young guns anymore and will not be maintaining these burning grooves going for very long. The record contains more tracks exceeding five (5) minutes, plus a nearly ten (10) minute closer. “Hunting Shadows” for example, is a well constructed song despite its runtime; it has a solid enough melodic motif that feels developed during its runtime, while still having room for thrash/sludge instrumental breaks and solos.

The more subdued tempos do cause Cometh the Storm to be a tad bit simple and I found parts of this album to have a fair share of comparisons to music by Mastodon and/or Baroness. But for High on Fire themselves, I think it has the potential to be a great look. Matt Pike’s vocals are brash, but still have melodic sense to them and sets a nice dichotomy against the riff heavy instrumentals. Overall, it’s yet another great addition to the High on Fire discography and likely the bands best output since De vermis mysteriis.

Best Songs: Burning Down, Cometh The Storm, The Beating, Lightning Beard

I really wanted to enjoy the newest album from Eidola, since it has a lot of the new metalcore trends that I typically enjoy: great beauty/beast vocal dichotomy, production that does not sound like a brick, progressive focus on the instrumentals, and breakdowns that are anything other than fruitless.

It's too bad that Eviscerate suffers in much the same way as all previous Eidola albums. While the album starts off very solid and executes all of these elements mention previously very well, Eidola run out of steam around "Fistful of Hornets" and start making some very safe, unoriginal metalcore. I feel like I was supposed to be impressed by "Golgotha Compendium: Fifth Temple" with it's extended runtime and dynamic usage, but they forgot to include the ear infecting hook to push it over the edge into a progressive metalcore masterpiece.

That said, I do not think this records back half is bad from a structure standpoint. I think the mixing is great and highlights all of the important elements that make the first half as good as it was. I would imagine those looking for a more straightforward or transition point into the world of progressive metalcore would not mind this drop off in quality as much. But for me, Eviscerate kind of transforms into a big letdown.

It's always difficult for me to review drone type albums. For one, I find them to be mostly boring as this style of music is not really known for all-encompassing songwriting or dynamic growth. The other reason has to do with a sheer lack of effort. Drone music is notorious for having some of the least talented musicians of any genre, throw on some guitar feedback and match it with a barely salvageable bass line. It's the kind of subversive behaviour in music that really makes me question whether or not my diploma was ever worth it at all.

But every once in a while, someone comes along and provides life into a lifeless genre. A Chaos of Flowers by Big|Brave is Montreal's attempts making drone metal while giving the listener a slight bit of unease. I don't know what's going on with the echo effect in the guitar here, but it gives the instrumentals just a jolt of uncomforting grit and I think that it plays off quite well with the more gothic vocal stylings of Robin Wattie. Wattie's delivery can be monotonous, but performs them with just enough power to liken them to some of Chelsea Wolfe's most powerful moments in their discography.

I think that the percussion plays a big role in providing this record with the emotion that it has. The guitars can become quite loud and almost excessive throughout the recording, so for the percussion to stay back with these deliberately slow grooves, and likely played with brush sticks is nice. Having recently come out of a technical death metal backup, I was fully expecting A Chaos of Flowers to explode into this epic doom metal breakdown at any second, and yet the percussion never allowed it to get there. It helped me appreciate the space where nothing was happening and I was further able to appreciate the sporadic moments more.

While an improvement from last years Nature Morte, in terms of atmospherics and length, the album does seem a little bit lazy during "Chanson pour mon ombre" and "A Song for Marie Part III." I can see why this might be the case, but it cuts down on the albums length tremendously and almost makes it feel like less than a completed project. But if you enjoy the gothic sounds of Chelsea Wolfe, and the unsettling environment of a Lingua Ignota record, then I recommend giving A Chaos of Flowers a chance.

Best Songs: Not Speaking of the Ways, Canon : In Canon, Moonset

If I had a nickel for every time a reviewed an emo post-metal album in 2024, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's kind of weird that it's happened twice so far.

Artificial Bouquet is the second full length release from Illinois based post-metal band Frail Body. It's been getting a lot of critical attention and given the nature of the style of music that is on display, I can understand why. This is the sort of blow out your speakers, unintelligible post-metal that music critics love to eat up in the 21st century. However I find it mostly above average at best. If we were to compare this to the other emo post-metal album I've reviewed in 2024 (Infant Island Obsidian Wreath), Frail Body are doing more with the sound and creating some haunting atmosphere. Something about the just off tempo, slightly out-of-tune nature of "Runaway" has my engineering ears screaming at the speakers, but that song manages to find some kind of resolution that Infant Island could not approach.

The album uses intensity and bends it to the breaking point. Throughout Artificial Bouquet, Frail Body are testing the blackgaze waters of Deafheaven and White Ward, and have the compositional awareness (like those bands mentioned previously) to give their audience a break. The calming post-rock interludes at the beginning of "Critique Programme" and all of "Another Year Removed" compliment the punk and black metal assault that exists throughout the rest of the record and they are pulled off quite beautifully.

The issue is, like with Infant Island, the vocals are painfully lacking, but by no fault of the vocalist. Shaffer's vocals are piercing as if the pent up frustration they have is being fed to us without so much as a second draft. They sound like Shaffer's vocal chords would be ripped to shreds when the recording was over. But good luck trying to decipher anything that's being said without a lyric sheet! The artist that I kept being reminded of while listening to this was La Dispute (again). I kept thinking "wouldn't the absolute evisceration of the vocal chords here be so much more impactful if they had the cleaner production of Jordan Dreyer?" And it would fit alongside the instrumental production, as a few passages sound thin; another point in this records favour of sounding D.I.Y. with only one guitar tone instead of multitracking.

So while Artificial Bouquet is good, it's far from great. Frail Body created an album that had aspirations of an in house recording, and mostly succeeded. But when it comes to emotional type lyricism, it kind of defeats the purpose when you hide it in the back behind all of the other instrumentals. Once again, I refer to Unreqvited, who do not have conventional vocals and instead use them as another instrument. And this has worked wonders for them recently. I would love for bands like Infant Island and Frail Body to learn this and either give their vocalists space to express, or do away with lyrics altogether. 

Best Songs: Devotion, Refrain, Runaway, Horizon Line

Surprisingly good and catchy mathcore from a band that I had no expectations for going in. It is very much derived from the Frontierer and Car Bomb school of mathcore with insanely loud soundscapes and very little room for the listener to breathe. However, Weston Super Maim do give their listeners just that little bit more space compared to their contemporaries. The album manages to sneak in some very subtle yet catchy melodic hooks throughout the record and they help to exemplify the heavy, bone shaking breakdowns.

Best Songs: Slow Hell, Johnny Menomic, Kryptonite Renegade 

Whom Gods Destroy come right out of the Dream Theater school of progressive metal. So much so that their original drummer was Mike Portnoy (while they were still under the name Sons of Apollo). And without Portnoy's compositional contributions to Insanium, this record sounds even less like progressive metal and more like straightforward groove metal with the occasional time signature variation. And yet it's still more enjoyable than recent Dream Theater output. What is wrong with me?

Best Songs: In the Name of War, Crawl, Keeper of the Gate

P.S. We can stop with these types of album titles any time now. They are honestly quite cringe at this point. They ran their course about fifteen years ago with Nightwish's Imaginaerium. 

In my never ending journey to find extreme metal that resonates with me, I recently discovered locals in the band Apogean and their debut, full length LP, Cyberstrictive. After hearing the bands EP, Into Madness, I was surprised by the quality of the musicianship and production for such a fresh face in this sphere. So after finally getting to this new record, I was even more surprised to hear how much this band has already grown in such a short period of time, with very little preemptive material to compare it to.

This is technical death metal with a melodic intent. Don't get the intentions of this album confused with one another; the sheer intensity of the death metal on "Thousand-Yard Glare" and "Polybius" are magnificent and give the album the sort of malicious intent that such a genre tag would imply. But these aspects are complimentary to the melodic leads, which are provided by some great guitar leads and the occasional repeated vocal motif. And what makes Cyberstrictive stand out amongst its peers is how well these two sides coexist together. I never felt like the melodic/progressive elements were getting in the way of the pummeling guitar riffing and blast beat percussion, or vice-versa.

The album has such a clean sound to it as well. It reminds me quite a bit of the prim and proper production of a recent Dying Fetus album in that regard. The album is filled with guitar solos that sound great, especially since they are not always of the face melting variety. The vocals are also not an afterthought. The low gutturals of Mac Smith are intense and match the ferocity of the music. The screeching highs however are a more hit-and-miss. They can sound good, but on occasion, they suffer from the Will Ramos effect of recent Lorna Shore albums where the highs are condensed so hard into the back of the mix. If these vocals were just embellishment (like on an Unreqvited album), this would not bother me as much, but since these vocals also have lyrics associated with them (i.e. "With Which Ear You'll Listen"), it does dampen their effect.

Beyond some minor nitpicks, I really enjoyed the debut album from Apogean. It shows a lot of potential for a debut and takes technical death metal to spaces that I rarely come across. It's brutal, but also melodic. It has straightforward and infectious riffage, but also isn't afraid to spread its progressive wings. A very solid recommendation from me, and certainly if you're into the tech-death stylings of Wormhole and Tomb Mold.

Best Songs: Thousand-Yard Glare, With Which Ear You'll Listen, Hueman (The Pleasure of Burn), Polybius

Judas Priest: what even left is there to say? The name alone strikes a sense of fear among the metal community. The albums titles are iconic: Sad Wings of Destiny, British Steel, Screaming For Vengeance, Painkiller. Some may be considered the greatest metal albums of all time. They are revered for their contributions to early heavy metal and continue even to this day, although to less of an influential status.

Last year I had the “privilege” of reviewing Metallica’s newest album, 72 Seasons, and I blasted it for being safe and uninspired, and spoke about the moment that Metallica “sold out” between the releases of St. Anger and Death Magnetic. Judas Priest should likely fall under the same scrutiny, considering the symphonic concept album, Nostradamus from 2008, felt conceptually similar to St. Anger. Since then, the band has released three studio albums (including this one) that are essentially return-to-form projects and were good. The issue is whether Judas Priest need to reinvent the wheel.

Well, when the formula is this precise and accurate, one can’t argue with the results. All things considered, Invincible Shield is an awesome piece of old school heavy metal that knows its history and is well indebted to the past, but also is not ashamed to make subtle changes to keep it from sounding derivative or uninspired. Granted, many of those subtle changes are surface level, as has been the case with many old-time heavy metal bands (i.e. Saxon), but the cleaner production does give a sound much closer to modern day progressive metal. I cannot say that I’m a huge fan of the production though. It doesn’t really fit the Judas Priest aesthetic and the lack of overabundant reverb that is present on previous albums, including Firepower, seems unnatural.

Invincible Shield understands the band performing it are from a time once past, and that does come through in the lyrical content. It isn’t much to dissect; lots of themes of religion and death, but the main theme of “Panic Attack” is bizarre. The phrase “disconnecting from the World Wide Web” during the bridge is quite the reminder that Rob Halford is in his seventies and likely views the world much differently than us thirty-somethings reviewing the music. Fortunately, it’s the only track like this and they get it out of the way right from the start, instead of awkwardly adding it to the middle of the record.

Like with a lot of legacy acts, to expect anything more than this will leave you dissatisfied. If you take Invincible Shield at face value, you’ll find a well crafted, well performed late-stage Judas Priest album. It’s a far cry from their best (hell I would say it isn’t even as good as Firepower), but I’m still amazed that they can release this type of quality after this much time.

Best Songs: Invincible Shield, Gates of Hell, As God is my Witness, Giants in the Sky

Borknagar continue to produce solid quality progressive metal after a nearly three decade career. Their brand of folk/melodic black metal has a very comforting warmness to it, despite the obvious winter themes over the bands last couple of records. For some reason, I feel like Fall is a heavier record than True North with more of Lars A. Nedland and ISC Vortex's harsh black metal screeches and black metal blast beats from Bjørn. Production is still very good; it has a distinct Century Media sound as the melodic passages, both in the instrumentals and the clean singing, have more of a gothic texture to them. The light touches of a warm synth/string arrangement beneath the bands metal sound is executed well and it never feels like these tones are taking over the mixing.

It all comes together in what should be a knock-out-of-the-park home run for Borknagar, but given the bands long history, it's hard to view Fall as anything more than decent. You certainly cannot go wrong with starting off with Fall as your first Borknagar album, but this is a well oiled machine at this point just going through the motions. It still feels like its being written with passion though, so I'm willing to continue giving them a free pass.

Best Songs: Summits, Moon, Unraveling, The Wind Lingers

The career trajectory of Job For A Cowboy has certainly been a fascinating one to follow. Arguably considered one of the first bands to popularize deathcore during the mid 2000s and helped to spawn the debate as to whether deathcore is even death metal at all with its patchy structure and metalcore breakdowns. Of course, by the time this conversation began going mainstream, Job had already moved on to more straightforward death metal anyway!

Now I did find some of JFAC’s (Job For A Cowboy) later records as decent (i.e. Ruination & Demonocracy), but given my progressive metal wormhole during post-secondary, they were a band that I never paid that much attention to. Now it’s been just over ten years since Sun Eater and JFAC are back with a new record that is more progressive than ever before.

And there are certain elements that are worth the price of admission. The independent bass lines are gorgeous and help the band distinguish differing timbres or textures at any given time. When the bass is near its low end, songs are crushing, when those bass lines are soaring, the intensity is unrelenting. Guitars are less noodly with more open power chords, and Jonny Davy’s vocals are intense. Compositionally, Moon Healer is more a progressive album than a technical one. I think it is important to distinguish between them because those expecting a Dying Fetus-esque assault from top-to-bottom might leave feeling disappointed. What this album reminds me of more is if what if Gojira made death metal. As for JFAC themselves, the more progressive shift means structurally, Moon Healer is more focused on melodic/harmonic repetition for memorization and enjoyability.

The record is produced very well. All you must do is listen to those bass lines on “Etched in Oblivion” and “Into the Crystalline Crypts” to hear this. It isn’t as clean as a recent Dying Fetus album, but this has more life put into it. JFAC are also aware of their past as well as a deathcore band and occasionally you’ll hear passages on “A Sorrow-Filled Moon” that break the immersion and feels like a subtle wink to the audience instead of a well incorporated idea.

Despite the positivity, I feel the same way about Moon Healer as I did with Tomb Mold’s The Enduring Spirit last year. It’s a good album, and I would recommend it to progressive metal fans trying to get into the more technical side. But it feels lacking in some way; as if the technical death metal aspects were not fully realized and took a backseat to the progressive techniques. If JFAC took the concepts of progressive metal and laid them on top of some punishing technical death metal, I think Moon Healer would have been great.

Best Songs: Etched in Oblivion, Grinding Wheel of Ophanim, Into the Crystalline Crypts, The Forever Rot

When Charcoal Grace is at its best, Caligula's Hose are playing into their very best elements and turning them up to eleven. This band has always been great at writing the long, ten minute epic that I always cry about whenever I see them on an album. They have also redeveloped a knack for melodic songwriting, which make for some of their most memorable tunes since Bloom. The decreased focus on djent inspired instrumentals is very nice as well. However, I can still detect that Caligula's Horse aren't really reinventing the wheel all that much. Not like they need to of course; but the album cannot maintain that 8/10 pace for an entire playthrough. This becomes especially apparent during the "Charcoal Grace" saga, which starts and ends very well, but is marred by two clunkers during the middle. I also felt less than impressed by the second ten minute epic "Mute" as well. 

Best Songs: The World Breathes with Me, Charcoal Grace (pts. I & IV only), Sails, The Stormchaser

This is the best version of Ihsahn I've heard in a long time. The old symphonic elements of Emperor have returned with a feverous intent and craft this new collection of songs into some remarkable ways. It feels like more than ever that Ihsahn is comfortable with his own voice and the occasional clean vocal passage is really well done. I've never had a problem with the number of guest vocalists that have appeared on these albums in the past, but something about this one just feels more complete. The record does an even better job than 2010's After of being a well crafted story and passing it on to the listener without too much down time or wasted space. The record can get a little derivative during the second half and its extended runtimes, but the quasi-black metal hits with grit and emotion. Not since After have I been so high on an Ihsahn album and quite comfortably fills a symphonic void that has been missing in Ihsahn's music since the final Emperor album.

Best Songs: THE PROMETHEAN SPARK, PILGRIMAGE TO OBLIVION, A TAST OF THE AMBROSIA, BLOOD TRAILS TO LOVE, AT THE HEART OF ALL THINGS BROKEN

The novelty of this project is not lost on me.

Slower is a supergroup of sorts, consisting of many members of well established stoner/sludge metal bands through the 2000s, including Monolord, Fu Manchu and Year of the Cobra. Together they come together and ask the question that was surely on every metalheads mind: what would Slayer sound like if they were doom metal?

The answer is fascinating, but not without flaws. Given that the early Slayer albums (the most popular records) are very sloppy/muddy in their execution, it makes perfect sense to give them some sludge. However, the debut from Slower presents one major flaw: four of the five tracks are from post-Reign in Blood era Slayer. These albums were far cleaner and the idea of muddying them up seems a little out of left field in my honest opinion. The title track from South of Heaven does sound good, especially the iconic opening riff. While the three Seasons in the Abyss covers ("War Ensemble", "Blood Red" and "Dead Skin Mask") highlight just how groovy those songs really were before. And that just leaves "The Antichrist", which might serve as the albums outlier, but the production shows it indebtedness to those early Slayer albums.

It's rather difficult to review these since they aren't the bands ideas and are instead just covering songs that are staples within the metal community. I don't think it's bad per se, but the song selection is grossly mishandled. Slower should have given its listener something that felt closer to the "Slayer aesthetic" of messy production and shredding guitars. Instead, this record feels much closer to those classic, post-Reign in Blood albums that I really like, but likely don't represent the Slayer experience. And the songs do lose their charm because of that.

Best Songs: South of Heaven, The Antichrist

I often find myself being too harsh towards releases under the "technical" banner due to a number of structural issues that keep me from enjoying them subjectively. Now I know that this is part of the point since no one has the exact same tastes in music styles, but I'd like to be more open towards technical music going forward and rate them based on what they are, rather than what I want them to be. 

And so Dissimulator have come along to glowing praise and I feel like most of it is well deserved. As the thorough, audible assault that Lower Form Resistance is, I have to commend this albums songwriting prowess. It has been a really long time since I heard stylistic whips and tempo jolts pulled off as smoothly as these ones before. Technical music has a sporadic feel to it (like mathcore) most of the time, which makes it nearly impossible to latch on to the main theme or idea that a song is constructing itself around. And while Lower Form Resistance still does have enough of that, something about these interjections feel well thought out and connected with integrity. 

The compositions themselves are mostly adequate. To be honest, I found parts of this debut to be quite pedestrian in the way they were presented. Such as "Cybermorphism/Mainframe" starting off with a clean guitar intro, before inevitably resorting back to the same technical death/thrash timbre and performance that we've heard countless times throughout the record. It does not really give the record a lot of time for breathing or regeneration following a long stretch of continuous moshing. However, because the structures of these tunes are so well enforced, I tend to forget that there hasn't been a calmer interlude, which tells me that I'm having a lot of fun being chased down by these riffs relentlessly for over forty (40) minutes.

By association, the instrumentals are not very diverse, but they don't have to be. The bass is not the most upfront, but it can be heard providing some foundation behind the guitar riffing, which is fierce. The percussion is extremely well performed and frankly carry this albums intensity. The first time Lower Form Resistance brought in the modulated vocals a la Cynic's Focus was really cool and matched the literal technical nature of this album. These guys are clearly influenced by fellow Quebec tech-thrashers Voivod, and these vocals interjections felt like something that should have always been there. However, I felt them becoming less impactful the more they were used, which is a little bit disappointing. But they are not nearly as bad as the unfiltered clean singing during "Automoil & Robotoil"; the monotone delivery does not help with keeping the albums intensity up and do not highlight the bands strengths. Otherwise, the harsh vocals are a  little choppy, but impactful.

Overall I enjoyed Lower Form Resistance a lot actually. The technical aspect is both figurative and literal; where the album production sounds almost synthetic with its pin-point precision. The performances, while certainly not innovative, are backed up by some of the best compositions I've heard on a technical album in a very long time. The album is produced like gold, and the only aspects that really bugged me were the vocals, which are already sparse as it is on this record. A solid find if I do say so myself, and would be a great recommendation if you frequent bands like Voivod, Revocation or Cryptic Shift.

Best Songs: Warped, Outer Phase, Hyperline Underflow

Avant-garde music is not a style that I actively seek out. I want to like it, but more often than not I find myself trapped in a endless display of loud noises for their own sake. I have experimented in the past and there are of course exceptions, but music written for its own sake it not really something that resonates well with me.

I discovered Hoplites [Ὁπλίτης] due to a featured release recommendation last year and found myself very perplexed by the outcome. Trothisomeni (Τρωθησομένη) is an album that combined elements of black metal, death metal, technical thrash and brutal metalcore/mathcore. It came together in a full formed mess that somehow still had foundations that could have made it work if the songwriting was not so herky-jerky in its execution. Well, much like with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Ὁπλίτης work at an uncomfortably fast pace. Τρωθησομένη was the first of three albums this solo act released last year and 2024 has another release not even two (2) full weeks into the year.

And yet, Paramainomeni (Παραμαινομένη) is somehow the best version of Ὁπλίτης that I've heard. This time Ὁπλίτης are only presenting six (6) new tracks to engage with, but this time we can see some huge girth. The longest record in the discography so far contains three (3) tracks that exceed ten minutes in length. While the remainder hover between six-and-a-half and nine minutes. And I could tell before listening that my bias towards avant-garde music and Ὁπλίτης as a whole was peaking out. But as I listened to Παραμαινομένη I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. With these extended runtimes, the songs on this album have a bit more of a minimalistic flare to them, so individual ideas are given time to marinate and resonate with the listener, presenting a strange sense of familiarity and comfort. This is until the next drastic change of style takes place and the cycle repeats itself. But the reason they work so much better here than anywhere else has to do with the connectivity of these phrases together to form a whole.

It is not perfect mind you; the metalcore/mathcore influence that persists throughout the albums runtime is quite insufferable given the thick chunk of the bass drum and guitar chugging. It becomes extremely unsettling when they take on djent inspiration on "Ἡ τῶν λυσσημάτων ἄγγελος". And, as I previously mentioned, the production can be quite lousy at times. The compositions may be solid, but the guitar timbre is mechanical and overstated. The dissonance of the scraping and saxophone solos feels like a executive choice to alienate this style of music from the general public, and my estimation is that it will work.

Which is a shame because when it comes to how I wish more avant-garde acts would create harmonic dissonance, Παραμαινομένη is the way I would have imagined it. It might be a longer album than most familiar with Ὁπλίτης will be comfortable with, but it shows that they have what it takes to make gripping music, regardless of style. 

Best Songs: Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ παραμαινομένη ἐμοῦ..., Παραδειγματιζομένη μουσική, Συμμιαινόμεναι Διονύσῳ Ἐλευθέριῳ

This is an album with a concept that is not doomed from the start. I am a sucker for music that takes inspiration from oriental folk music and even if the music does not work out, I tend to be more favourable to those records. Take my review of 2022's Bloodywood album for reference. Ryujin are a Hokkaido based power metal/melodic death metal band who are quite liberal in their usage of native Japanese instruments beyond the standard heavy metal instrumental timbre of guitars, bass, and percussion. And this self titled debut is pretty solid; I really enjoy the additional percussion that is added to drive these songs forward from time to time. I would have liked to possibly hear some acoustic passages throughout the record to accent some of the softer sounding string instruments that are present. But the constant sheathing of a katana is a sound I could have used without; it was okay the first couple of times, but after a while it just felt like Ryujin were adding it to remind listeners that they are a Japanese power metal band and it loses its grandeur.

I feel like Ryujin took full advantage of their partnership with Matt Heafy because these songs are well constructed with solid forms, great memorability and just enough metal wankery to keep the elitists in check. However, the production of the record feels very thin as parts of this record do not pop with authority as you might expect. It does allow for some very good bass presence, but it does not feel like this epic tale of mythology and folklore without some chunky low end. It would have been beneficial to recruit some of the Trivium producers to assist with that, or even just copy that powerful sound of a band such as Avantasia. I did enjoy this record and would recommend to someone looking for a different, heavier take on power metal with some obvious oriental flare, but a little refinement, especially in the production keep this from being an unconditional recommendation.

Best Songs: Dragon, Fly Free, Kunnecup, Scream of the Dragon, Saigo No Hoshi

This is a debut record of a very traditional progressive metal slab and takes a lot of its influence from giants like Dream Theater and more recently Haken. And Nospūn are really good at paying homage to their idols within progressive metal. The album is incredibly well performed, the song compositions/structures are given a lot of detail as to not make any of the tracks here (including the fifteen minute "Within the Realm of Possibility") feel extended for their own sake, and the production is top notch. I can hear each instrument with the utmost clarity, including the bass, and some of the tracks even have a decent melodic hook to anchor them down, including "The Death of Simpson" and "Back, Yet Forward".

But the record is marred by two major faults. The first is quite obvious: Nospūn do not really have much of an identity of their own at the moment. I am willing to be a little bit more forgiving in this regard since this is the bands debut album, and it's disingenuous of me to expect the band to rock the progressive metal world, in the same way that Black Sabbath did back in the 1970s. However, the other big issue has to do with this god awful synthesizer that persists throughout the entire record. When it isn't there, or not at the forefront of the track, Opus can sound really good, but "Dance With Me!" and "4D Printing" sound brutal as the keyboards rival even the most nasally pop-punk vocalists with their irritation. 

It's a solid debut, but I hope that Nospūn will take notes for a follow-up and carve their own identity within the world of progressive metal. Otherwise, they are likely to flounder just like so many others before them.

Best Songs: The Death of Simpson, Earwyrm, ...And Then There Was One, Back, Yet Forward

Infant Island are a band that have been tracking well within the screamo world for a number of years now, but in early 2024, the band released their third studio album, Obsidian Wreath and I get to experience this band first hand and what they might have to offer.

And I do appreciate the effort that Infant island are presenting here on this album. This album is certainly post-metal in its instrumental palette as song structures and compositions are very minimalistic in nature. The record does not contain that much development through the individual tracks in regards to motivic development, but that doesn't really need to happen, since the melodic leads are so compact that they start to become infectious. This is especially so for the albums heavier songs, like "Unrelenting" and "Clawing, Still".

Obsidian Wreath had the potential to be a gorgeous album, but was thwarted by an early 2000s Converge production quality. This record sounds ridiculously muddy during its louder portions, with the kick drum actively disorienting the mix, and given the amount of double kick pedal that's on display here, it turns into a big problem. Some of the softer, post-rock sections during the records second half sound pretty and give the listener a nice reprieve before the next blackgaze assault commences. Overall, I think that I could forgive some of the production choices since it does have some of that grindcore and black metal influence interspersed sheepishly throughout the project. 

What I cannot forgive are these vocals. For a record that is supposedly very dense and filled with heavy socio-political commentary on "[the] climate catastrophe, the acceleration of capitalist extractive exploitation, the apathy towards social health which has emerged from recent mass death, and an endless stream of other ongoing crises too numerable to be named," (quoted from the albums Bandcamp page), Obsidian Wreath seems quite contempt with hiding these words in the very back of the mix. By comparison, Spanish Love Songs manage to invoke the same themes and influences over a pop-punk/heartland rock sound during their last two albums, and those vocals were not only more direct, but also right at the forefront; you could not escape them even if you wanted to. Perhaps a more fitting example for Metal Academy, Ashenspire's 2022 record Hostile Architecture was far more moving with its up front and center vocal performance. Once I accepted this, I found Obsidian Wreath to be more enjoyable when the vocals served as a instrumental embellishment, rather than them saying anything of value.

But that defeats the purpose of Infant Island writing these lyrics in the first place. Unreqvited present the exact same type of post-metal/blackgaze as Infant Island does, but with better production, and vocals that act as an instrument. And on that presumption alone, it's clear to see why I don't like this record as much as I want to. The melodic ideas are fine and I can forgive the bad production, but hiding vocals like this kneecaps this records emotional weight and leaves it feeling like either missed potential, or cocky, pretentious prog kids who want to deconstruct what makes a good song, and leaving an empty shell behind.

Best Songs: Clawing, Still, Amaranthine, Unrelenting

"Hi, kids! Do you like violence? Wanna see me stick nine-inch nails through each one of my eyelids?" Oh, sorry about that, I just got confused by some Eminem lyrics. I could have sworn they were the opening words of Cancer Christ's debut album God Is Violence.

Anyways, my initial thoughts on this debut record were certainly of lowered expectations. When I found it on another music reviewing website, its genres were listed as crossover thrash and grindcore. I was speculative that these two styles had no business being included simultaneously on the same album, since one implies accessibility, while the other does the exact opposite. Overall, the record feels a lot closer to your crossover thrash record from bands like Enforced or Power Trip, but the grindcore comes through in the songwriting being abortive at best, and care free at worst. 

Over time, I came to accept that this kind of album is not meant to be taken seriously. There is a lot of vulgarity here and plenty of gruesome violent imagery, and it does not feel like it contains any deeper socio-political messaging. And I think part of that comes from the frankly absurd rumours I've heard about this bands live shows and the wacky antics that are played on stage. If you compare this to bands such as Suicide Silence and their last album, SS are meant to be taken dead seriously and the humor found was unintentional. Whereas Cancer Christ are clearly laughing at themselves the whole time.

Although I've never accepted the argument of "it goes harder in a live setting" as a legitimate one. If the music of God Is Violence is so slapdash and unfinished, then why the hell would I ever want to see it performed in a live setting? Because I might get a rained on by a balloon full of piss, blood or other bodily fluids during the show? It is an interesting concept; one that I'm not fully opposed to, but the execution needs to be far more pronounced and cared for if it is to have any lasting effect.

Best Songs: God Hates Cops, Bring Back the Guillotine, Satan is a Bitch, Make Them All Dead

This debut album from Columbus' Rejoice is the kind of crossover punk that metalcore was founded upon. Nothing found within All of Heaven's Luck sounds like it would fit within today's modern definition of the term "metalcore", but it still has that aggression and beatdown aesthetic to it that calling it anything other than metalcore may be a disservice. There are a lot of influences from early hardcore punk bands here, most notably Black Flag and Hüsker Dü, while the truly metalcore sound comes from the half time breakdowns and its blunt, knuckle sandwich to the face lyrics.

While the album does have some good melodic leads throughout, it struggles to find a foothold during the first few tracks. The record get slightly better following "Crawling Through Agony", just in time for the record to end! That's another thing this record borrows from punk: the song/album length. This record doesn't even eclipse twenty (20) minutes, which unfortunately leaves the strong second half feeling unfinished. Nevertheless, on an individual song perspective, the albums second half is really good and shoes off a side of punk/metalcore that I wish was explored more in the 2020s.

Best Songs: Malevolent Deities, Burnt By Dusk, Temple Of The Worm

Objects Without Pain is an album that I appreciate more than I outright love. For starters, I did go into this record with some pretty lowered expectations after hearing the first couple of tracks. Something about the timbre of this record was sending my neurons into a frenzy as they reminded me of a Chat Pile album God's Country from a couple of years ago. The vocals of Demian Johnston had this cold, almost alienating flavour to them that would have been difficult to stomach, like that Chat Pile album, but ended up salvaging itself thanks in part to this records atmosphere.

A lot of sludge metal is supposed to be concaving in nature and Objects Without Pain does so with some really good production. A lot of newer sludge bands like the sound of layering upon layering the record with recordings and doubled recordings to emphasize the thrashier side that sludge metal is built from. But here, the guitars are actually quite small, which highlights some very intense percussion. The slower pace sections are intense and highlight some of this bands hardcore/metalcore influences like Knocked Loose.

But the vocals are still the tick in the back of my noggin' so there is no use in hiding it. Thankfully, the production on the vocals is far better than that of Chat Pile, but I still find them less than favourable. The delivery of almost sounding like out protagonist is about to break down and cry at any moment is a sound that I find gets tiring the longer it goes on for. And sure, I've mentioned names in the past that can do it well (Jordan Dreyer, Dylan Slocum, Kristin Hayter), but on this? I think the intensity of the instrumentals really does a disservice to the vocals. If this was, say, a progressive metal/post-metal album, I might have considered it an expressive decision, but with this, I consider it another one of those artsy "subverting expectations', by combining two styles that don't fit well together.

Fortunately for Objects Without Pain, this is not a full blown sludge metal album. The hardcore punk/thrash influence does give the album some much needed variety and these vocals do fare better as the record changes styles. Some of the songs do run on for too long, especially that closer, "Thrown Against The Waves", but even they never felt like boring doom metal songs that refuse to develop or progress. I still enjoy the record and would recommend it to sludge metal enthusiasts, but just be prepared for a uncomfortable listening experience.

Best Songs: Trap Feeding, Spill Into The Aisle, Old Words Worn Thin

2023 was a bit of a change when it came to the music that I listened to. Following my exit out of some of the more toxic review circles in 2022, I found that in 2023, I was going to pay more attention to the mainstream and what got popular there as opposed to what some bald man in plaid on the internet thinks, and then have all of those viewers dogplie it to the top (or bottom) of the RateYourMusic charts. As a result, 2023 saw a considerable jump in terms of albums in the Revolution clan. My favourite of the bunch (Dying Wish's Symptoms of Survival) played right into my tastes as it combined mid 2000s metalcore with a slight modern twist.

The key is that Dying Wish are playing to a certain audience that is in on the nostalgia. xNOMADx on the other hand, are making a very different style of melodic metalcore. If you can think of the emo-hardcore/sasscore of recent bands like So Hideous and SeeYouSpaceCowboy and throw in what I can only describe as La Dispute poetic vocal delivery, you'll likely have a good idea as to the kind of metalcore you're getting here. And it actually works really well. Most melo-hardcore bands of the past think that in order to fit into the "melodic" tag requires clean singing, but xNOMADx prove that is not the case. Most, if not all, of the melodic leads on this record are provided by a lead guitar while the harsh vocals are quite moving in their delivery. 

The compositions of these five (well, only four I guess since "12.29 (Ahiarmiut)" is more of an intro) are top notch in terms of quality of performance and production. Bass is thorough and the percussion does not feel trigger happy during the breakdowns. If there is one thing to criticize here, it would have to be the breakdowns themselves. They feel very simplistic and on a couple of instances, I knew that I had heard these exact same rhythm of notes somewhere else before in the past.

Like I said, melodic metalcore takes two forms; the nostalgic style of the mid 2000s, and the modern, progressive style. xNOMADx are comfortably playing into the latter and I think it sounds great. Can't wait to hear what this band has to offer in 2024 and beyond.

Best Songs: On Skylines of Embers, The Punishment, Hand That Hold Me Hold Nothing

I find myself in a bit of an unusual position when it comes to this Australian brutal death metal band. Neuropath are absolutely a band that I would typically never give much attention to given its genre style. But this album is special as it is a collection of 1990s demos from Metal Academy's own Daniel. And I feel like I owe it to myself, Daniel, and the rest of the Metal Academy faithful to express, in some regards, my thoughts on a handful of the recordings that would eventually become the forum that we have here today.

One can immediately tell that At Damnation's Core is heavily inspired by the brutal death of the early 1990s, including Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse. And that shines through almost instantly with the sporadic tempo changes. This is certainly a personal issue for me, but seems to run rampant (even today) within this subgenre of death metal so I'll let it slide. The other major issue that I have with this is the Cookie Monster vocals. Again, this type of death metal is littered with it (i.e. Cryptopsy's None So Vile), but it really diminishes the value of the words that are being said, no matter how inconsequential they might be.

But beyond these structural issues that persist throughout this style of music, turns out that At Damnation's Core has some solid fundamentals. This album has some deceptively tuneful songs on here and does not feel like those main melodic hooks/motifs are getting rushed out the door as quickly as possible in favour of a completely new motif. I thought that some of the solo inclusions were well thought out and were not simply tossed in to every single song on the record to show off the guitar players virtuosity. Many of the solos also sounded like they were meant to say something and compliment the rest of the instrumental and vocal parts, especially near the end of the album.

Overall, I thought that At Damnation's Core was a pretty solid album, even if I am not the target audience for this style of death metal. I have been playing around with brutal death metal recently and having picked up on some common trends throughout the music, I can comfortably say where I think this record does good things and where it doesn't. I believe that the runtime plays very well to its advantage since some of the more herky-jerky compositions do not get as long to marinate outside of the individual track's runtime. 

Best Songs: My Bleeding Mortality, Masticated Cadaver, Rectal Pulpation

Look, I've enjoyed Panopticon for a long time now. Austin Lunn is a master songwriter when it comes to combining folk/americana with the ethereal sounds of atmospheric black metal, while purposefully giving them a hard left political tilt, almost as a gigantic middle finger to the political right who run rampant in the black metal spheres, especially in regards to Nazi Socialist black metal.

So I was happy to see a new Panopticon album come across my review desk this year. I was very happy with the last album ...And Again Into The Light and could not wait to hear what was coming next. But I felt confused and even a little isolated from The Rime of Memory. This record was, to be completely honest, an absolute bore at times to get through. The record has just six (6) songs, but each has a runtime that comfortably exceeds ten minutes. And if you know anything about atmospheric black metal, it likes to take its time. And Panopticon are taking their time here; an excruciatingly long amount of time. The Rime of Memory is an album that takes influence from drone metal by having a stylistic idea that goes underdeveloped for nearly ten minutes on the opening track. It takes the opening track almost half of its runtime before you even hear the sound of an electric guitar.

This is not a bad thing on its own; I like when bands take their time and let their songs naturally grow and I like how Austin makes the listener wait for that huge black metal release of sound. But Panopticon have proven before that this style of songwriting works a lot better when the compositions have something to say. Panopticon know how to say a lot in a short amount of time, but here, it seems like they are contempt with saying very little and then meandering the rest of the way.

My first thought after finishing The Rime of Memory and discovering this revelation was; "how is this any different than Fen's 2017 album Winter?" And since I don't need an excuse to listen to that record again, I went back and realized that the songwriting on that record was a lot more dense; songs flowed in and out of motifs and ideas regularly, and when Fen were meandering on a single motif for an extended period of time, they kept them interesting through dynamic swelling, harmonic variety and a great concept. The Rime of Memory has only one of those three.

The thing is, Panopticon have done the environmentalist theme before, so hearing it done again, under less precise circumstances is troubling. This will be one of those records that will be adored by the critics, but on a personal level, I have next to no use for it. It still has the charm of a Panopticon record sonically and conceptually, but from a populist perspective, this falls flat in many different ways.

I don't know what it is about Earthside, but I have not been able to fully get into them despite many attempts at the 2015 album A Dream In Static. They are certainly well versed in their craft and know damn well how to make long songs that sound epic and all sorts of similar descriptors. But on Let the Truth Speak, Earthside are just going full balls to the wall with their pretentious progressive tendencies. It's impossible to call Let the Truth Speak a bad album, but something about it just does not sit well with me. Perhaps its the songwriting, which sits somewhere between technical progressive metal and atmospheric post-metal. Maybe it's the compositions, which are too self-indulgent for their own sake, and far too frequently.

Even still, the complexity of the forms and the way in which the album modulates between styles is impressive. It calls upon a very diverse cast of feature artists to play large roles. Most notably, Larry Braggs on "The Lesser Evil", which can be best described as a progressive jazz/funk rock opus with a heavy incorporation of strings and horn instruments. It may be the most unique song you hear all year, and I respect the hell out of that. But the album is way too long and does not do nearly enough to warrant it, and so much of this records "payoffs" feel less like a euphoric release and rather a "thank god they finally did something!" There is genuine quality here, no doubt about it. However, I won't deny that I was sonically exhausted when Let the Truth Speak was over. 

Best Songs: We Who Lament, The Lesser Evil, Let The Truth Speak 

This is very impressive technical death/thrash metal that isn't ashamed to share a thoughtful melodic side. It reminds me compositionally of what you might expect out of a band like Allegaeon, but with the heavier technical elements that make it sound more sonically like Vektor or Revocation. The albums individual songs are relatively short for this type of metal, which is beneficial for its replayable factor. I will say that that the vocals are likely the least developed part of the record as they don't really reach the same potential. I'm not asking for Xoth to have clean singing in their music, but a little bit more variety in the delivery would have been nice, and no I don't mean the half spoken/half screamed vocals that sporadically appear because they don't fit the intensity at all; almost makes it feel closer to pretentious art rock, which I've been blissfully ignoring these last two years. If you can forgive the sonic discrepancies, then Exogalactic is a very interesting and close to great technical metal album whose greatest asset is the melodic songwriting. If technical metal sounded more like this, I would likely enjoy it more.

Best Songs: Manuscripts of Madness, The Parasitic Orchestra, Sporecraft Zero, Battlesphere 

I haven't listened to In This Moment in years and if the bands recent outing, Godmode is any indicator, it does not seem like I have missed much in the years since The Dream. The band have migrated out of the melodic metalcore sphere and fully embraced their mainstream rock/metal stripes. Maria Brink is far more expressive on this album than on the last album Mother, however, despite this more drastic change in timbre toward industrial, Maria is not able to fully embrace that wilder side of her delivery because the songs themselves are pretty lazily put together.

Speaking of lazy, this production is horrible! The albums main promo single "The Purge" feels like it should explode into a massive chorus or breakdown, but instead, Maria's timbre flip-flops from hushed whispers to harsh screaming, only for the flaccid electronic percussion and weak synths to return as if this huge buildup didn't just happen. The guitars sound really tinny and compressed, while any bass presence is thoroughly gutted throughout the album. The kicker for me was the Spencer Charnas feature on "Damaged" where the two vocalist build up to this huge climax and where you would expect a release, the guitar re-entry is muted and any sense of payoff is thwarted within seconds.

Which is kind of a shame because the record does have some okay melodic ideas. They aren't as flushed out as The Dream was, but "Army of Me", "Everything Starts and Ends With You" and "I Would Die For You" can be deceptively tuneful. On the other hand, the constant vocal swapping during the verses on "The Purge" sound really stupid and neuter the actual buildup/breakdown of that songs chorus even more so than the production on its own.

I don't think that the industrial and electronic elements sound bad, but their incorporation feels muted because In This Moment has laid a very weak foundation for this newer sound. Something tells me that if Godmode was remastered with less compression, it would be a lot better. This bands attempts at going mainstream is a bit of a Beautiful Tragedy because it relinquishes the bands personality and leaves them as a empty shell. All they have left is Maria's vocals and this production is not emphasizing her strengths.

Best Songs: Army of Me, Everything Starts and Ends With You

The atmosphere on À l'aube will be the true selling point as to whether or not you enjoy this. Something about its slow, brooding tempo reminds me a lot of doom or sludge metal, but the dynamics feel painstakingly reserved which I do not hear very often in the more direct styles of those two genres. This record uses space very well, since most of its most intense moments only appear for a short while before returning back to its very comfortable, whimsical post-rock/metal style. The record does feel like it's saying a lot over just five songs (5) and just under forty minutes (40), but it was difficult for me to remember what it was trying to say afterward. Something about the timbre of this album feels almost too comfortable. Nothing surrounding À l'aube really snaps me out of the sway that I found myself in while listening to it. As a result, the record turns into background noise after a while. Perhaps the vocals might be your spark, but when they are introduced on the opening track, their sporadic usage throughout the rest of the record was less surprising. All things considered, this album is pleasant enough and a welcome detour from the pummeling death and black metal that I have been going through recently, but compared to other post-metal bands like Holy Fawn or Dreadnought, it's lacking in something, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Best Songs: Il sera déjà trop tard, Prêchant la mauvaise nouvelle, Nous sommes disparus

It took me the entire albums release weekend before I could muster how I felt about the newest album from Portland metalcore band Dying Wish. And it's because I found the record more conflicting than I did at first. I really enjoyed my initial playthrough of Symptoms of Survival, thanks in large part to a very well done mastering job. Nothing on the record becomes overwhelming and it pushes some excellent hardcore vocals from Emma Boster to the front. The clean singing could have been incorporated a little bit more frequently in my opinion, but the sparseness makes them feel that much more comforting when they do arrive.

The album starts off very strong with its very clear influences to the great melo-hardcore bands of the mid 2000s, but eventually it transforms and the compositions become more sporadic and not as well implemented, almost as if it was starting to take influence from another 2000s metalcore band: Converge. But that's not even the best part! Halfway through the album, "Paved in Sorrow" takes on this post-hardcore ballad that would not feel out of place on a Svalbard album!

And yet, the album still flows remarkably well. Even if I'm not the biggest fan of the herky-jerky performance styles of early Converge, Symptoms of Survival is an album that maintains an identity and shows that they can keep that identity intact even through the albums emotional roller coaster. A pleasant surprise for sure and one that should be considered by anyone familiar with 2000s metalcore.

Best Songs: Symptoms of Survival, Starved, Path To Your Grave, Hell's Final Blessing, Lost In The Fall

I was quite surprised to say the very least when I saw the glorious amounts of praise that reviewers were giving to the newest Suffocation album; their first in nearly six (6) years. This New York based tech-death outlet are considered one of the finest in the circle and helped to brutalize death metal far beyond its earliest iterations. But this new record, Hymns From the Apocrypha is the first to not feature longtime vocalist Frank Mullen. That honor now belongs to Ricky Myers and upon first listen I was not impressed. The new vocal timbre is incredibly overplayed and emotionally dull. The guttural howls are instantly forgettable and would fare more positively if they actually grew into something instead of being played in a safe, monotonous tone.

Okay, so the vocals on a tech-death album don't sound great, so what? No one is listening to Suffocation for their nuanced political positions. How does the music compare? Well honestly, not much better. Suffocation have always had top notch performances and pin point production on their previous records and even though I've never liked this side of death metal, I could always respect Suffocation for that. But, on Hymns From the Apocrypha, we have gotten to the point where this band could release anything and they would expect listeners to eat it up based on namesake alone. This record is littered from top to bottom with levelling issues and peaking in the mix. Anytime the guitars drop out for a brief period of time, and all that's left is a held guttural or on rare occasions, a bass break, the return with the percussion always sounds bloated and the mix blows up. I seriously wonder how many times this had to go through post-production and no one thought to question these atrocious transitions. And this happens several times! And on an album that is as brutal as this, with so much cacophonous noise happening continuously for over forty (40) minutes, the breaks become that much more noticeable, with the release afterwards becoming more painful each time.

When Suffocation are playing at that high octane level, Hymns From the Apocrypha sounds fine I guess. The guitar solos are a nice divergence away from the constant tremolo guitar picking and allows for some harmony to exist between the rhythm guitar and bass. Otherwise, the bass is only a formality as it just doubles the rhythm guitar with the amplifier at the lowest possible volume. And, despite the mixing, Suffocation are still keen performers and the heaviness is performed with a lot of detail and precision. But polishing a turd does not make it less of a turd. I wanted to give the new Suffocation album a chance because I've never clicked with this group before and a new album with lots of critical acclaim seemed like a good a place as any. But, even with my limited knowledge of brutal death metal, I can tell that this record is not great. Perhaps this is more solidification that Suffocation are not a band for me since they are now firmly in the "legacy band" territory. But even by those standards, I'm not sure they are deserving of that title.

Best Songs: Perpetual Deception, Seraphim Enslavement 

Spiritbox wax never going to be iwrestledabearonce. Hell, even IWABO wasn't IWABO by the time Courtney LaPlante and Mike Stringer joined the group for 2015's Hail Mary. So in a way, watching Spiritbox go from progressive metal from the debut EP with songs like "The Mara Effect" and transform into this more pop centric sound isn't surprising.

When I listened to Eternal Blue, I did enjoy the direction the band was taking, but also felt far too much like a grab bag of modern metalcore trends rather than sounding like Spiritbox. And on this new album, I can confidently say that nothing has changed.

This little EP comes packaged with three decent made for radio alternative metalcore songs with "The Void", "Ultraviolet" and "Too Close / Too Late", two heavy bangers that will please the breakdown reaction video makers with "Cellar Door" and "Angel Eyes". And then there is "Jaded", which is the kind of hybrid that "Circle With Me" wishes it could be; a very solid track and likely the best on the EP.

As individual songs, I do think that The Fear of Fear is pretty good. Every song feels like a completed idea and Spiritbox know their sound and creative limits so as to not detract from the EP's strengths. As a whole however, Spiritbox are still stuck in creative limbo trying to appeal to as wide a audience as possible with as many differing timbres and styles that honestly don't fit as well together as I would have liked.

This can be extremely dangerous for a band since it can spread their audience quite thin. I think that on an EP like The Fear of Fear is one of the best places to play around with this because of the length, as opposed to a full length LP. But, since Spiritbox are doing this again following the debut full length, maybe this is the residual mist being left behind from the IWABO days that Spiritbox wants to maintain. And I'm not sure it's going to work the best for them in the future.

Best Songs: Jaded, Cellar Door, Ultraviolet

With The Surface being my first exploration of Beartooth's music, I can't say that I was very excited about he thought. I had heard the name Beartooth thrown around in popular hardcore/metalcore circles, but they never really interested me all that much, likely due to the fact that I was head, neck and probably arms deep in a progressive wormhole at the time, and the thought of some very barebones, mosh-y hardcore music was not near the top of mind.

Well it's 2023 and Beartooth are still relatively popular. So much so that the band has cleaned up their sound and gone full radio friendly with their hardcore sound. The mixing of this record contains almost no reverb effects, which does come with its own drawbacks. Primarily, the whiplash dynamic change during the pre-chorus of "What's Killing You". On the positive, the promotional singles "Sunshine!" and "Riptide" are mostly solid and I did enjoy the title track as well.

Unfortunately this album is remarkably stale. Despite the more accessible nature of it, The Surface still feels like a very barebones and sanitized record. This is one of the more egregious examples of a metalcore band not willing to develop their sound beyond what made them popular many years ago. I cannot even say that it feels transitory because the slower, emotional tracks near this albums end are familiar to metalcore fans, as both Sleep Token and Bad Omens have tried this before to more positive results. The album claims to be more optimistic, but there is still a considerable amount of vocal whining and complaining, which at this point in metalcore, has not just become boring, but annoying.

The Surface exists. If you like Beartooth, then there is no reason why you would not enjoy this assortment of meat and potatoes metalcore. But even the metalcore circles I frequent hold this album out at a distance for its more pop tendencies. We're just hoping this band will dig a little deeper.

Best Songs: Sunshine!, What Are You Waiting For

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Rock music was at a turning point during the 1970s thanks in large part to the massive contributions to the genre by a quartet of blokes from Liverpool. Most people remember the Beatles in one of two ways; either as the pop rock group selling out arenas around the world to a swathe of young people, or as the psychedelic band responsible for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a record consider by music historians/critics as one of the most important albums of all time. For the purpose of this review, we are going to focus on that psychedelic side of The Beatles, specifically, the song "Helter Skelter" from the 1968 self-titled album (or the White Album). It is a marvel to hear the band responsible for such radio friendly pop rock songs as "A Hard Day's Night" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" would make a tune as ruckus as this and have it be received as well as it did. 

It is sometimes considered one of the first examples of a hard rock song, alongside the Kinks "You Really Got Me". Beyond 1968, their came into prominence a lot of artists looking to replicate the more aggressive side of The Beatles late work instead of the more radio friendly soft rock. And one of those bands was Deep Purple. In Rock is the bands third studio record and a real proto-metal album. The heavily distorted guitars and driving percussion are nearly unmistakable from the heavy metal formula that developed with Black Sabbath around the same time as this album. However, unlike Black Sabbath, Deep Purple have an obvious affection to the jam band style with lots of extended guitar and organ solos while not being super dark or oppressive; it is much closer to that of Led Zeppelin's sound that would come later. You could even make the claim that Deep Purple were digging deeper into the wormhole of psychedelic music than even the Beatles themselves.

And the results are phenomenal. I have always enjoyed the mixing and the execution on In Rock and listening to it again was no exception. The use of complimentary song styles and song lengths works wonders for this record as "Speed King" and "Into the Fire" are gigantic soundscapes with great choruses and hooks, while the longer tracks, especially "Child in Time", are calm and wind the listener back up into a frenzy; the joint guitar/organ solo halfway through "Child in Time" is so well implemented, before the band drops the tempo and dynamics right back down to where they were at the beginning of the track and then do it all over again! It's a literal clinic in long song structure and it's gone over the heads of way too many later progressive rock/metal bands who would much rather follow the Dream Theater approach of being quirky for its own sake and that's never worked for me.

Actually, parroting off of the point, it's amazing how much more recent metal music does take influence from Deep Purple In Rock. For starters (and likely the most direct influence) is the drum fill that concludes "Flight of the Rat", which is just the exact same outro solo on Judas Priest's "Painkiller". Or the slower, almost doom metal riff on "Into the Fire" that you might have misinterpreted if it wasn't for Ian Gillian's higher vocal timbre and wails. Deep Purple In Rock is an experimental album that keeps itself grounded and proves to be a remarkably influential album as well. It understands the rules of 1960s hard rock and then mutates them in ways beyond comprehension at the time. And that mutation would lead the band further on down the road to Machine Head, which is one of my favourite albums of all time. I wish more bands understood this today.

Best Songs: Speed King, Child in Time, Flight of the Rat, Into the Fire, Hard Lovin' Man

I'm in a weird place when it comes to industrial music. I was recently introduced to the world of electronic body music [EBM] and while I could (and probably should) enjoy the heavier side of that genre present in aggrotech, I find myself more at comfort with the futurepop and alternative pop sounds instead. As a result, my explorations of the metal side of industrial music has been a complete blind spot (once again) in 2023.

So when I received my copy of EndEx by industrial band 3TEETH, I had to hinder my expectations since it was in a style that I have been struggling with for quite some time. So what did we get out of EndEx?

While the tracks featuring Mick Gordon are certainly produced much better than the solo tracks "Xenogenesis" and "Plutonomicon", they are also the songs with the least happening in them. The guitar has a lot more punch and gravitas when Mick is present, and typically also have more memorable melodic ideas and phrases. Tracks like "Higher Than Death" on the other hand sound like made for radio industrial metal, as the glitchy production is swamped in favour of power chords and Breaking Benjamin vocal hook.

EndEx is quite a diverse listen in its timbre. The record certainly has its fair share of aggressive moments like "Paralyze" and "ALI3N", but the record ends with the slower "Drift", which has more of a futurepop sound with less guitars and distorted vocals. And regardless of the quality of the bands cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears, I was impressed by how 3TEETH were able to take fundamental chord progression, turn it minor without changing the main vocal motif and make the song their own, rather than a straight cover with no thought or unique traits.

When it was over, I respected 3TEETH, but I did not love EndEx. Some of the songs here are just catchy enough to bring me back for more, but the disconnect between the solo tracks and those featuring Mick Gordon make for a divisive full playthrough. Still, some of these tracks will make for a nice detour from my typical industrial listening.

Best Songs: Acme Death Machine, Merchant of the Void, ALI3N, Paralyze (feat. Ho99o9)

A new album from Thy Art Is Murder and, perhaps surprisingly, another album that does not include CJ McMahon. That statement may contain more layers than anticipated because the replacement (Tyler Miller or Aversions Crown) was revealed as this albums principal vocalist a single day before the albums release. CJ's vocals were recorded and was promptly kicked out for making controversial statements.

The other reason why it might be surprising has to do with Miller filling in admirably with a vocal timbre that very similar to the former vocalist. At first, you might not even notice that this isn't CJ McMahon's vocals at all. I would go so far as to say that Miller's vocals are superior to that of CJ's with an increased focus on dynamic range. Already we're off to a great start. Until you actually listen to Godlike and realize that it's yet another Thy Art Is Murder album. Nothing about this record demands the attention of the listener as it comfortably falls into a groove without much semblance of growth. The lead in to the breakdowns on "Lesson In Pain" sound identical to "Reign of Darkness" from ten years ago and the breakdowns themselves don't fair much better. Sure, The Aggression Sessions that TAIM did earlier this year alongside Fit For An Autopsy may have given the band a little bit of a rub as "Destroyer of Dreams" and "Corrosion" have elements similar to Fit For An Autopsy, minus the more progressive songwriting, but it's hard to differentiate this from the bands other LPs. Their is only so much that these "melodic deathcore" bands can do before their sound becomes stale without going full-on progressive metal; hell the same thing can be said for its parent genre, melodic death metal. I'll give Godlike a pass for not being a complete technical abomination. When it comes to modern deathcore, you could always do a hell of a lot worse than Thy Art Is Murder.

Best Songs: Join Me In Armageddon, Destroyer Of Dreams, Lesson In Pain, Corrosion

Nu metal gets a bad reputation from a lot of people and you know what....those people are probably right. I often feel like one of those "born in the wrong generation" kids who grew up with nu metal throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, but into my adult years find myself staying far away from nu metal with very few instances to the contrary.

So I was quite worried upon hearing Code Orange's new album The Above for the first time. Gone are many of the bands more traditional metalcore traits of Forever and Underneath as they continue to embrace more industrial techniques. And the result is a mixed bag. I will not go so far as to call The Above bad, but Code Orange sound like they are in a creative rut and are trying anything possible in hopes of reclaiming that "it" factor.

This album turned out to be a frustrating listen as it ping-pong'd between a heavier sound (closer to Tallah), and industrial metal circa Static-X. The Billy Corgan featured track, "Take Shape" even has a few ambient passages that reminded me of an early Nine Inch Nails. And as I found myself initially not feeling comfortable with the more pop friendly tunes, they actually turned out to be a lot better than the heavier rumps of "Never Fall Apart" and "The Game". Maybe it was the vocal timbre, perhaps it was the smoother incorporation of the glitchy percussion.

When the album's at its best, it has some pretty good choruses, while Eric and Reba's dual vocals provide songs with a sense of dialogue. When The Above is at its weakest, the glitchy percussion takes over and the harsh vocals are delivered with a childish flare. Overall, this new direction for Code Orange is not what I expected when I listened to Underneath, and the result leaves me feeling confused more often than not.

Best Songs: Take Shape (feat. Billy Corgan), Mirror, I Fly, Splinter the Soul, Snapshot

The first two tracks off of Almost Human left me with a false sense of security as they certainly felt closer to a melodically driven form of death metal that I really did enjoy. That security was thwarted with "Spine Shatter High-Velocity Impact" as the slamming, brutal death metal that Wormhole really are and while it did leave a negative impression at first, as the album continued, I came to realize just how solid these songs were. Good ideas with some semblance of connectivity between the different sections. The pummeling death metal was intense and mixed very well. The vocals are the biggest turn off for me as they are performed with Cookie Monster aesthetic and leave me with a typical feeling of "well these clearly did not need to be here!". The album ends with a phenomenal return to the more melodic side with "The Grand Oscillation" and saves the record from feeling like a relentless assault of noise. The album runs remarkably short as well to its benefit. A great find and a welcome addition to my very small brutal death metal collection.

Best Songs: System Erase, Elysiism, Almost Human, The Grand Oscillation

Another piece of Canadian thrash metal to indulge in and this time we are diving back into the world of Megadeth wannabes. Right out of the gate, I'm less than impressed. Trample the Weak, Devour the Dead is a full on thrash metal assault with very little room to breathe or any sort of direction. Pretty much the entire record falls into a very simple formula of ideas whose order of appearance is fully dependent on the corresponding tracks. These motifs are performed relatively well, but without any sense of direction, these eight (8) songs can get pretty repetitive quickly. I for one, was excited when I heard the softer guitars begin "Grinding the Blade" as I was expecting something closer to "A Tout le Monde", however once the intro had run its course, the track reverts back to the same tired thrash beat that we've already heard plenty of times before. In addition, the strong opening "Trial by Combat" is not matched again in its punchiness and memorability for the rest of the album, instead opting for more of the riffage for maximum adrenaline. As a whole, this album feels like wasted potential and can comfortably go into the bin of nostalgic thrash bands that I have no interest in exploring further.

Best Songs: Trial by Combat, Bones of the Slain, Death and Decay